ABSTRACT
COMMENTARY BY IRWIN HIRSCH I had the good fortune to begin psychoanalytic training at a time when both the theoretical and clinical winds were shiing-as Bob Dylan sang, “the times they are a-changin’”—and a 40-something Sabe Basescu was my rst teacher. It was 1970, and the United States and much of the Western world was in revolution, with challenges to tradition and to hierarchical structure at a level not evident for long years before and not since. Authorities in all realms of life were being questioned, from government to family structure, the military, the corporate world, academia, and the previously cherished value of age as reecting wisdom. is country was involved in a war that led to unprecedented mass protest, a movement that, amazingly, led eventually to the government’s recognition that the war could not be sustained. In tandem with this there existed an equally unprecedented mass movement to alter a horrendous tradition of white racism in America. More individuals than ever before began to link the authoritarian elements of government and big business that brought the country into an unwarranted war with the same power structure that perpetuated a racist underclass. In parallel with these social forces ourished what came to be known as the women’s movement. I am not at all equipped to be a chronicler or a historian of these times, though I can say that it was an electric time to be in sympathy with these developments and to witness the erosion (to a degree) of authoritarian leadership, racism, and sexism. Of course, in subsequent years other social forces brought our culture back to old
and familiar structures of power and hierarchy-the so-called revolution was only a small part of an evolution, particularly with respect to racism and sexism. Unfortunately, the will of the people over time preferred a return to a more authoritarian government and to military and civil liberties policies that have gone even further toward the abuse of power than before what at the time felt like a true social revolution.
