The Swing and the Pendulum

Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that everything Rich Lowry is reporting in this piece for NRO is accurate, and let us accept the possibility that therapy is not all its cracked up to be. Many will oppose such out-of-hand as right-wing hack work, but let's work from it.

If it is true, than the argument of Signmund Freud--that all civilization is based upon repression--gets an corollary added to it: not only civilization but, to a degree, human happiness, is based upon repression. To pick our scabs and wallow in our pathologies slow our progress. Stoicism is necessary for survival.

But let us not damn in defending. If stoicism were to be universal, we would not have mouths. And let us not forget that it was the repressed Protestant persona that fathered the touchy-feely jargon-spewing therapy culture that thrives today.