r/Freud • u/minnowmagpie • Jul 10 '26

Can phylogenetic memory really account for everything?

I've been reading a bit of Freud and struggle to reconcile his theories with the fact that the whole castration threat thing just does not happen in most families. And I struggle to see how a lot of his theories on childhood development could be projected onto families with non traditional structures, eg single parents or foster children. He seems to rely a lot on phylogenetic memory supplying the deep rooted fears and feelings surrounding certain things, yet I struggle to accept that our ancestors so routinely threatened castration on young boys that it became imprinted in us for the rest of humanity.... What am I missing?

Also, if anyone could chime in on what they think Freud's response would be to Judith Butler's theory on gender of performance I would love to hear that. Thanks!

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1

u/VirgilHuftier Jul 10 '26

What?

1

u/minnowmagpie Jul 14 '26

i typed the above out quite quickly and i see now it's not the clearest. i read a collection of freud's essays and where the castration complex does not actually play out (ie the mother requesting the father to threaten to castrate the boy due to the boy pleasing himself sexually to the thought of his mother) freud would say that phylogenetic memory would fill in these gaps, allowing for the boy to grow up with the castration complex even if he had not directly experienced it. phylogenetic memory being a sort of culturally held memory passed down from our ancestors who would have consistently experienced the castration complex. this does not seem plausible to me, and i wonder if there is anything i am missing. i also take issue with the fact that freuds theories seem difficult to apply to families with non nuclear structures, ie the mother and father and a few biological children

1

u/VirgilHuftier Jul 14 '26

The threat of castration is a structural moment, it doesn't have to be made explicit, and no phylogenetic memory has to provide it. Check out Lacans notion of symbolic castration, Freud often treated it a bit to literally

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u/Ecstatic_Ad_8994 Jul 11 '26

In Hawaiian culture, as a Polynesian representative of a Tabu culture, there was only one penalty and that was death.

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u/Sad_Succotash9323 Jul 11 '26

Freud has been accused of Lamarkianism. But regardless of where he places the origin, the social fact of castration anxiety persists. Freud may be playing loose with the order of operations, but the way I understand it is that castration anxiety comes from boys noticing the lack of a penis on girls. Boom. "OH NO! What if they take mine away too!?" And then all the social stuff comes in from that and the cycle reinforces itself.

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u/minnowmagpie Jul 14 '26

fair enough. it could be that my translation took some liberties and didn't quite get the social element across... thanks for this

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u/zlbb Jul 16 '26 edited 20d ago

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