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The Secret History & Greek letter Ψ

I’m sure, many readers noticed that Julian, despite his outspoken prejudice against psychology, described the seduction of Dionysiac ritual in terms of psychoanalysis, like this:

Even more funny is that Julian’s method of teaching is probably based on psychological theory from the late 60s. I mean, the Pygmalion effect.

Source of image: steemit.com

According to Richard, Julian:

Meanwhile, Julian’s students represent the psychic structure of personality:

Henry is the Superego, the all-controlling perfectionistic intellect;

Bunny is the Id, the suppressed unconscious;

Francis is Libido, the sexual energy;

the twins are Anima and Animus, the masculine and feminine sides of human Self.

Richard must be the Ego, a poor neutral, influenced by everyone else.

Julian Morrow in this scheme plays the role of religious thinking in the human mind (the idea of god). In the novel it comes how it was interpreted by Søren Kierkegaard: religion serves as a mediator in Self’s relation to the Other. But also, the god here is an idea of absolute Other, which helps to shape human identity as opposed to something that is not human at all — consider how Henry identified Julian as a deity.

So, Julian and his students together construct an integral psychological model of personality. A personality in crisis, as one could assume.

[Psychology is relevant, because we have a foreshadowing for it: during the year Richard was working part-time for professor of psychology Dr Roland, assisting in his 'vague research'. And there was a dialogue with Richard (chpt. 1), when Julian said that ‘psychology is only another word for what the ancients called fate.’ He also told Richard that he always knew what his students were going to do, like an omniscient god.]

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I would love to hear your opinion (regarding tsh) on Henry and Richard's interaction in the garden towards the end!

The one where Henry admits to not feeling a great deal of empathy and accuses Richard of being of a similar nature. I am a bit ambivalent on it as Richard seems to have a hints of concern for others here and there but also (in my opinion) ignores many chances to actively help people.

henry romanticizes himself--he sees himself as wiser than everyone else (wiser than he really is, as we see when charles unveils how close they were to being found out). he's very arrogant. richard on the other hand romanticizes others. i think that richard isn't quite at henry's level but he's a very self-centered person and he often ignores the fact that the gang are real people with real emotions in favor of continuing to view them in his romanticized way; he likes having them as a way of cultivating his aesthetic/persona but he doesn't want to go any deeper. back to richard though--i think he's a pretty shallow person despite all his deep writings...i would actually argue that his 'tortured soul' thing is just another way of realizing his dark academia fantasies and manifesting himself as the kind of person he admires from far away. bc honestly a big reason that the rest of the greek gang are so mysterious to richard is that he doesn't try to get to know them; really, he doesn't <i>want</i> to know them, because then his illusions of them will be shattered. he only barely manages to hang on to his idealization of them because he's separated from them and is able to pick and choose from the past. i think that his morbid longing for the picturesque not only encourages but necessitates his removal of himself from others' emotions--he wants, at all costs, for things to be the way they appear on the surface, and the only way for that to be true is if he never looks underneath.

this is kind of a non-sequitur but i do think it's fascinating how donna tartt represented modern aesthetic culture so well through richard 30 years before it was a thing!! he would definitely buy into the whole 'turning the self into a bunch of consumable objects' thing...he'd call himself a kafka cigarettes brideshead revisited eyebags guy or something, for sure.

tl;dr henry romanticizes himself, richard romanticizes others and it's impossible for him to romanticize them if he sees them as living breathing people with problems and human emotions.

i think i went in a different direction than what you probably meant but i hope it still made for an interesting read and if you have any more specific questions please ask i'd love to talk more abt this!

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imo the best thing about Henry as a character is how the way he's written makes you the part of the group; he makes you listen, he makes you Richard, he makes you blindly admire him and not everyone snaps out of it do we. you WILL ignore him being much much worse than bunny because he can speak fluently in greek and writes his diary in latin, you will idolize him for being a genius while completely forgetting how he actually doesn't care about that brain of his, he would absolutely give it up for the sake of the obsessive idea of living without thinking. you won't even think about him making his friends follow him in such thing as Bacchanal which included drugs and all sorts of crazy things. you won't think about it because you will be as obsessed with Henry as Richard and as Henry is with some ideas that do not even make sense for a modern person. but you will believe him. you will follow him. you will listen to him. you will be in that damn greek class.

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trans women, i love you.

you were a woman yesterday. you're a woman today. you're a woman tomorrow. you're a woman forever.

trans women have existed long before those stuffy bigots sitting in a court room have. trans women will continue to exist long after they're dead and rotting in the earth.

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UK supreme court has ruled in law that trans women are not to be considered women

"The UK Supreme Court has unanimously decided that the definition of sex under the Equality Act 2010 refers solely to biological sex, and does not include people with a Gender Recognition Certificate." - Jess O'Thompson

Trans women are no longer protected under sex based protections against discrimination

GRCs are now functionally harmful

A post op trans woman with a GRC is now banned from "women only spaces" like a women's toilet.

I'm gonna build a bomb

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found tsh roleplayers on twitter from 2014 on a random night. i felt like discovering a treasure chest...

this is my favorite one so far. i still think about this tweet every day.

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Help, my dash is dead

If you post -

🍁 cottagecore

🍁 rangercore

🍁 Viking

🍁 Norse paganism

🍁 Slavic paganism

🍁 general Pagan/ Heathen content

🍁 Medieval/Viking reenactment

🍁 general Witchy content

I want to follow you!

Please like or reblog

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when mary oliver said “you must not ever stop being whimsical” .. yeah

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Baking bread and buying flowers and drinking tea while watching the sun set in the woods

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Me, A Witch, On Every Major Holiday: Oh hey yeah there’s a thing today

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