The Censor

 The problem with the reverence regarding the Freudian
Censor.
Amnesia is regulated from our innermost realm, or more

precisely, for Freudian analysts, from the Censor. Never-
theless, our inmost inner is never such that it asserts that

amnesia ought to be permanent. It is planned to be tem-
porary. Our inner world does not have absolute censor-
ship by the type: ”Such thing must not happen!” Thus it

ought to be erased from the protocol!” No, our inner has –
and we do not know why – kind of an absolute demand

for truth. Curiously enough, it has an insight in that eve-
rything A: has a value of its own, an innate value, a value

per se ( in sich ), AS OCCURRED. Moreover, B.) it also
has a mediating – instrumental – value, insofar as all
events can contribute to creating the most honourable
possible human being, for every possible length of any
life, where this inner subject is serving.
It is thus possible to imagine that the Censor always has
Death in view. Because the innermost inner spot, IS not
the individual, is not identical with the individual, but the
Censor is an essential and mysterious part of the scarry
and intricate system that composes Man. Furthermore,
the Censor is omniscient. He knows almost everything.
Certain phenomena, within this picture of Man, makes
everything quite uncertain. What? Well, we do not know
the exact agenda of the Censor? Who is THE MASTER
of the Censor? It most certainly is primarily not me ( in
my case ). The answer is: we do not know.
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The Censor seems to have unlimited memory. Further-
more, the Censor seems to be extraordinarily bright.

Even in service with the dumbest person on earth, the
Censor has a clear head. The Censor seems to possess
almost supernatural wisdom.
We do not.
How does the Censor know that A.: We cannot stand to
remember the first day in school when we tripped on a
threshold and hit a tooth so bad that we lost the tooth.
Moreover, how does the Censor, or the Censor ́s cousin
know, that it is any method in that we always get nausea
when seeing an amissing tooth or spotting a first-grader?
Alternatively, has the censor nothing to do with nausea.
Do the Censor and those who are responsible for nausea
have responsibility for two different departments?
Before we continue, we should let ourselves remember
that the Censor is not an instance with any knowledge of

anything else than our person's history and the experi-
ences that we have made.

OR HAS HE?
Maybe he has been much more observant than I have.
When I have been busy looking only at beautiful girls,
HE might have taken time to observe all kinds of things,
like furniture, clothing, weather, manner of speech, yes,
God only knows! Maybe our Censor and we do not have
very much in common. Maybe our Censor has LEARNT
things that we have not?Maybe the Censor was the one
who picked up things from the books we read when we

just were having the trouble of figuring out what mean-
ings of the words were that we thought we

knew.....Maybe the Censor and we have not at all the

same background? Maybe he is the wise guy that we al-
ways dreamt of being? The Censor also knows what is

best for us. Of course, if he is that clever. Maybe our Cen-
sor is like Einstein?

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BUT! And THIS is the important thing. Even if the
Censor is the most competent person in the world, he
STILL only is human. He does not have anything to do

with universal, absolute truth. This is important. Freudi-
an or other psychoanalysts claim that it is as if the mes-
sages from the dream and the Censor, which sometimes

are referred to in art and literature, these symbols, in
conjunction to events, CARRY UNIVERSAL TRUTH.
Art might rightly refer to our amnesia and point at the
truth of, but seldom the limitation of, the Censor. As
Freud put him forth, a Romanticist, who does not know a
thing about the Censor, might believe that there inside
every person is truth. The Romanticist, who is eager to
create a myth out of a person's kernel, sometimes thinks
he has the truth. Furthermore, when Schlegel wants to
create a myth based upon Man's inner kernel, it is this
dedicated inner area he is referring to. This inner kernel
might make us come to think of the Censor. Or not.

Schlegel ́s vision is, in short, built upon a vision of uni-
versal knowledge of the soul.

Now, back to the tooth and the schoolboy. We might
scrutinize how on earth the Censor can know about what
the boy can stand to remember.
The actual case with the tooth. The Tooth. The Censor
does notice from his central spot that we are hurt and
losing the tooth. The Censor knows that we are a small
child and that we are getting terrified and shameful. The
Censor concludes in a matter of seconds, that it is not the

case, that such a small boy can stand this amount of scar-
iness and shame. The Censor realizes that SOME chil-
dren, who are brave and tough, might stand it, but not

this very child, as a person.

It seems like the Censor might think that if the boy for-
gets this, he might be a better adult. But of course, the

Censor thinks, or have thought long ago, that erasing of
every unpleasantness might not be a proper thing to do.
After all, one never knows if this child NEEDS this

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memory in the future. It is no way of knowing that. Per-
haps it would be a solution if we did it like this: we hide

the memory behind a riddle. IF the child is very eager to
know what happened on the first day in school, IF HE IS
DEAD EAGER, let him know. He must solve a puzzle,
however. Thus the Censor is letting the memory of the
tooth remain and does not erase it. Not at all. The Censor
also constructs a series of LEADS to the precarious
memory of the tooth. For the emergency rescue.
By any connection to something white, and at the same
time a little edgy, the Censor lets the individual, who now
grows up to a man, experience discontent. So the Censor
is exceptionally smart in his plan, based upon fairness,
justice, and thoughtfulness. The Censor lets the adult
experience this uneasiness, and then somebody says it is a
riddle in it. He is looking at some mountains with snow
on. Rocky mountains. What makes him so uneasy?
Suppose the adult man, who as a boy tripped and hurt
himself, now remembers and can come to grips with the
old event. Moreover, free himself from the terror and
shame? Because to realize all this by experiencing Rocky
Mountain was a good thing.
Now, let us ask the Censor what he thinks of why the
memory was kept! Well, it is not easy to say.

“I am not an innocent bystander exactly.” says the Cen-
sor, watching, ogling, looking sly... “Maybe,” continues

the Censor, ”I have not much of choice. Maybe the sys-
tem could not be arranged – for TECHNIVSAL REA-
SONS - so that some memories are set to delete. An erase

system would be tricky to construct. “Somebody proba-
bly arranged beforehand so that I, the Censor, HAD TO

exist and had to HIDE the unpleasant memories.” The
Censor remarks. “I had to be. I am, as a matter of fact, a
tragic hero.”; “Lots of intelligent people are trying to

outsmart me, all the time.”, the Censor complains. Amaz-
ingly no human being has ever asked himself ( or any

149

other person ) if possibly his Censor is lying! Neverthe-
less, maybe it would be too tricky a thought to think. We

cannot easily imagine a person who has got a Censor, that
is a liar.