The Jew of Culture: Freud, Moses and Modernity

Sacred Order/Social Order #3

by Philip Rieff, Arnold M. Eisen (Editor), Kenneth S. Piver (Editor)

Philip Rieff earned recognition as one of the most profound social theorists of culture and authority of the twentieth century. Through such works as "Freud: The Mind of the Moralist" and "The Triumph of the Therapeutic, " he proved himself an incisive interpreter of Freud and his legacy. His work now culminates with the long-awaited trilogy "Sacred Order/Social Order, " a three-volume work on social theory and contemporary culture.

Arnold Eisen chose the selections for the final volume of the trilogy in consultation with Philip Rieff. All of the selections bear on the nature of the "Jew of culture." Rieff explicitly and consistently identified with this ideal-type, named for the first time in "Fellow Teachers, " and crucial in one form or another to everything he wrote. For the rest of Rieff's long career, "Jew of culture" would serve as foil, countertype, corrective, and adversary to the "therapeutics" who represented both Rieff's analysands and his antagonists. The purpose of this collection of Rieff's writings, undertaken at his suggestion, is to trace the evolution of the "Jew of culture" over the course of his work. In doing so we gain particular insight into his distinctive theory of society and the self; we also come to better understand the theorist.

Genres: Religion

264 pages, Hardcover

First published April 21, 2008

About the author

Philip Rieff was an American sociologist, cultural critic, and scholar best known for his influential analysis of modernity and the rise of psychological culture. Born in 1922 and educated at the University of Chicago, he taught at several institutions, most notably the University of Pennsylvania. His major works include Freud: The Mind of the Moralist and The Triumph of the Therapeutic , in which he argued that Western societies were shifting from moral worlds rooted in sacred authority to therapeutic cultures concerned with personal well-being. Rieff’s later writings developed his concept of the “sacred order” and explored the consequences of its decline in contemporary life. He died in 2006, leaving a body of work that continues to shape debates about culture, religion, and the moral foundations of modern society.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction and very last essay are the most valuable parts of this book (comprising mostly previously published work). It did follow a schematic, laid out in the intro, and the content is all well and good, but it didn't have the same force of argument as the two previous entries in this series. I look forward to reading the excerpted material in the original contexts.