By Prudence L. Gourguechon on 12/15/2008 7:06 PM
I'm grateful to APsaA member Paul Brinich, a reliable source of interesting and sometimes quirky information, for calling our attention to a wonderful article on the European edition of CNN's website. CNN's Mairi Mackay wrote the piece, which lays out the staff's list of the ten best ideas, ever. The first is farming, not to be argued with. But the second is the psychoanalytic concept of the unconscious.
CNN describes the impact of the idea like this:
When Freud, the father of psychoanalysis suggested that our behavior is not always ruled by our conscious thoughts, nor is it always in our best interests, he formed the basis of the idea that individuals can be curious about themselves and make a study of their own minds....His ideas have permeated pop culture to such an extent that much of what we understand about the sexes, relationships, films and books can be seen as reflected through a Freudian mirror.
Coming after farming and the unconscious are
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relativity
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vaccination
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human rights
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evolution
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world wide web
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soap
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zero
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gravity
Interesting company.
The complete article can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/613nag
I also poured through the New York times list of the 100 best ideas of 2008 from last Sunday's paper. The list includes such striking ideas as "eat kangaroos to fight global warming" and "moonvertising". Some of the 100 are interesting and quite serious. But alas, psychoanalytic ideas, being not brand new, didn't make it into the NY Times list. I'm happy we got into the top 10 of all time. I'd add "transference" and "development" as two other all time greats. |