>>18661369
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Freud's central claims
>In his 1913 book Totem and Taboo, Freud drew on reports from anthropologists like Sir James George Frazer to make broad generalizations about non-European cultures, including some in Africa. He argued:
>"Primitive" minds and children: Freud equated the thought patterns of "savage or primitive"—a term he used for African and Indigenous Australian peoples—with those of neurotic Europeans and children.
>Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: He adopted a discredited evolutionary theory that individual psychological development (ontogeny) mirrors the psychological development of the human species (phylogeny). According to this, so-called "primitive" societies represented an earlier, less developed stage of human history, while "civilized" Europeans represented a later stage.
>The "primal horde": Freud's theory of the origins of society was a fantasy of a "primal horde" ruled by a tyrannical father. He theorized that the sons killed and ate their father to gain power and then established a totem animal and taboos (including incest) to manage their guilt. He believed this theory could explain the psychological underpinnings of totemism and religion observed in African and Aboriginal cultures.
