Freud remained morally neutral in the standoff between the inner self and the demands of society, recognizing that both had powerful claims; if anything, he was on the side of society. But he was part of an “unmasking trend,” in Lionel Trilling’s words, founded on the belief that “beneath the appearance of every human phenomenon there lies concealed a discrepant actuality and that intellectual, practical and (not least) moral advantage is to be gained by forcibly bringing it to light.”7 Many of Freud’s followers, such as Herbert Marcuse, and those in subsequent psychiatric traditions, were
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