Posted on 09/10/2020 5:14:19 PM PDT by robowombat
I first read Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” in one of the mandatory philosophy classes (Phil 1 thru 4) in college between 1965-69. It is the only one of the books we read and discuss, including Aristotle and Plato, that I have re-read over the years since. And introduced it to my daughters when they were college age.
Thanks for posting.
Ah yes, critics who never achieved a fraction of their subject critiquing (tearing down) a person who endured much and inspired millions.
Still? Hmmm. Don’t Americans prefer Skinnerism?
It seems a fact of human nature that somebody will try to ascend in life by destroying the achievements and heroism of others, the cancellation of inspiring figures. I never dreamed Frankl would be the victim of such an attempt. I doubt VF was perfect, and I never got the impression he tried to portray himself as such.
Man’s Search for Meaning changed my life the first time I read it. I read it again every few years to remind myself that my ultimate freedom—to control the way I choose to respond to life’s setbacks—can never be denied me. That a sense of humor is indispensable in times of trial. That a will to live can overcome the worst despair. That a meaningful life is worth many times more than a mere existence.
If this author has something worthwhile to say about life, something that surpasses the lessons of Frankl, by all means say it. But to disparage the man while saying it? Don’t diminish yourself with the effort.
This seems more like a hit piece.
The author has trouble making a point.
Besides just slinging mud at Frankl’s character, he says that the horrors of the holocaust are not suitable for a book about finding meaning in a broken world - which is nonsense.
Fascinating and disturbing information on a figure who is one of the top authors studied in both psych and philosophy courses.
Knowing what we do now of history and it’s manipulation, these revelations put Frankel’s elevation into new perspectives.
I need some time to digest it.
There are events that make no sense, have no logical purpose other than destructionThis is harder for western man to confront than putting a positive spin on the Holocaust or the Purge Culture or the Khmer Rouge. Much of life is just brutal absurdity with no, repeat no, redeeming value.
Great
So you are saying this guy was really good at Virtue Signaling?
Shocking about his very brief stay in Auschwitz. Who would have thought anyone would pimp that?
We tend to, yes. Or at least I do.
CC
“Frankl had next to no experience with brain surgery, though he routinely performed lobotomies.”
SICK
Most readers of Man’s Search for Meaning assume that Frankl spent months at Auschwitz, not a few days.
Austrian Kurt Waldheim managed to hide the fact that he was a Nazi war criminal long enough to become head of the UN. During the time Waldheim was head of the UN, one third of the extensive UN archives of Holocaust records and interviews with Holocaust survivors disappeared.
Waldheim wrote two autobiographies in which he lied and said he spent WWII in Berlin because of a leg injury.
When it was exposed that that was a lie, Waldheim’s excuses were:
Book #1—He didn’t think anyone would be interested in what he did during the war.
Book #2—It was the fault of the person who wrote the book for him.
Waldheim was asked to explain photographs of him standing between two German officers [both of whom were executed for war crimes after the war] at a landing pad in Serbia during the war. He said he was just the translator and he didn’t listen to the sense of what they saying.
Then papers in Waldheim’s own handwriting and signed by him turned up listing those killed in Serbian villages:
“248 bandits executed. 95 men, 104 women, 49 children.”
and so on.
More such material turned up concerning an island off Greece where papers on similar massacres were written up and signed by Waldheim.
“Frankl downplayed the guilt of Austrian Nazis, even many decades after the war had ended. Stressing that there were good men among the SS, he absolved Austria of any responsibility for Nazi war crimes.
“In 1988 he accepted an award from Kurt Waldheim, who had been elected president of Austria in the face of a scandal: Waldheim had concealed his service in a Wehrmacht unit that massacred Serbian civilians. Along with Bruno Kreisky, Austria’s Jewish ex-chancellor, Frankl helped Waldheim rehabilitate his image.”
Is It OK to Criticize a Saint? On Humanizing Viktor Frankl
A Reply to My Critics
Posted Mar 31, 2017
Timothy Pytell Ph.D
Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/authoritarian-therapy/201703/is-it-ok-criticize-saint-humanizing-viktor-frankl
also:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ptsd
I contacted Holcomb Noble at the New York Times, who had written the obit for Frankl, to see if he was interested in correcting that error and a few others in his piece, but was rebuffed.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/authoritarian-therapy/201703/is-it-ok-criticize-saint-humanizing-viktor-frankl
The genesis of my critical approach to Viktor Frankl occurred when I found he had experimented on people during the war.
My discovery occurred in the summer 1994, when I spent a month researching the life of Frankl at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. As I reflected on the research, I kept replaying his 1981 interview with the Canadian filmmaker Tom Corrigan, where he hesitantly described the experimental brain surgery he performed on suicidal Jewish patients from 1940 to 1942. These activities were so out of character for the morally renowned Holocaust survivor.
Obviously something seemed strangely amiss. What was the context of these experiments? Why had there been no discussion of his efforts in the literature about him?
Was Frankl hiding something? It seemed that he was – since on the tape he told Corrigan he was describing details of his life “scarcely known to anyone.” Frankl also told Corrigan that these details were “only for you and Joseph Fabry” and “can’t be used without special permission,” and then added “even though these details can’t be of use … but might be of interest.”
At that moment a gap opened up between Frankl’s public persona and the reality of his activities as a man. The gap became a chasm as I pursued my research,.
That fall, when I questioned the curator of the Frankl archive Robert Leslie (also a disciple of Frankl) if he knew anything about the experiments he said “he never heard of them.”
The relationship between Frankl and his mentor Otto Pötzl is described as a “unique and enduring professional and personal association” in which “Viktor thought Pötzl an absolute genius, and the professor admired Viktor for his creativity and quickness.” Pötzl’s Nazi membership is passed off with the claim that “Pötzl was among many other decent people who had joined the National Socialists.”
I have argued that this dishonesty by Frankl opens him up to the criticism that he exploited his survival of Auschwitz.
At Auschwitz 1.3 million were killed, very few survived. Frankl survived because he quickly got out. .
[ Biographer ] Klingberg’s attempt to sustain Frankl’s saintly persona despite my factually based critical revision is a reflection of the quasi-religious intensity of his disciples and followers. Subsequently I do not expect my revelations and reflections will go very far in disabusing them of their idolatry. My hope is that they will at least recognize that Frankl was certainly a much more ambiguous figure than his public image belied.
What the rationalizations and justifications from followers suggest is that the institutional structure of logotherapy that depends on a lionized image of the founder.
The renowned Allan Janik in his review goes so far to claim Frankl was “internationally celebrated for suicide prevention.” Clearly Janik is a Frankl admirer but since the experiments were supported by the Nazis for possible wartime use I have to ask is this the international celebration Janik is referring to?
So yes you can criticize a saint but for those who need saints, once a saint always a saint.
Timothy Pytell Ph.D
Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/authoritarian-therapy/201703/is-it-ok-criticize-saint-humanizing-viktor-frankl
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