Research Article Summary Presentation - Essay Example

Whereas the article has successfully tackled some concepts as reflected from Freud’s thought, it has also failed to capture some of the main arguments. Therefore, an analytical response to the article is given. The article presents very interesting findings as they are reflected by Freud’s arguments. One of the best examples talks about patricide. Interestingly, patricide is still entrenched in other cultures apart from the Jewish culture even with passage of time. I quite agree that traditions such as patricide can be explicitly transferred from one generation to another through traditional values.

The second and more controversial mode of transmission entails passage of subconscious traditional values from one generation to another through collective unconscious transmission. It is also undeniable that the unwritten culture and historical facts may still filter into future generations since they are unaltered within the minds of the individuals. However, how these subconscious memories are passed from one individual to another seems to depend on many factors and not simply through what is referred to as phylogenic fragments.

I also agree to the idea that the collection of memory traits within individuals of a given culture make up the cultural identity of such a cultural group. Therefore, what would be passed on from one individual to another individual in the subsequent generation can also be mapped to the whole cultural group. If this were true, then Freud’s idea of transition of collective memory would be viable. Whereas the article presents facts that can be seen from different cultures across the world, it does not present the correct methodology in which collective memory could be passed from one generation to another.

Therefore, I would disagree with the argument that memory elements are preserved in the subconscious and passed on to other generations through processes such as phylogenies. First, the article argues that memory of experiences that make up a culture could be stored in the subconscious mind and passed on to other generations. However, a biological argument would render such an argument invalid. This is because the memory elements cannot be established in the genetic code of the body. Thus, it is not possible to pass on such memory elements through phylogenic or a similar process.

However, a more rational and realistic idea can be put forward. Ideally, people of the same cultural origin have many similarities both genetically, physiologically, and psychologically. Therefore, they are most likely to respond in a similar manner to a culturally demanding situation. Future, generations of a given culture would react or respond to a situation affecting their culture in a similar manner. Therefore, different individuals of the same cultural origin decipher historical and cultural elements in the same way.

Ultimately, this exhibits itself, as Freud would say, phylogenic transit of collective memory. The ideologies presented by this article are interesting but very open to questions and possible arguments. Perhaps anyone might be interested to know whether any practical experiment has ever been done to verify some of these claims. Would there be any relationship between the findings of Freud and other philosophical thinkers? More importantly, would there be any relationship between the claims made in this article with findings from other disciplines of thought?

Certainly, there are so many questions that anyone