"The most effective disturber of complacency in our time...”

This piece from the NYTimes gives a great description of Freud's ascendancy in the early 20th century. We should all aspire to be "disturbers of complancency!"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/health/11first.html?src=rechp

By the way, I mentioned earlier that another author had labeled Freud one of the three most influential thinkers in the world. That wasn't quite right. In her book The Moral of the Story, Nina Rosenstand writes:

"On occasion, philosophers talk about three major events that have occurred in the history of human self-awareness. Three times in Western cultural history, humanity has been shaken from its foundations, with irrevocable effects."

Those three events?

1. Copernicus discovers we revolve around the sun.

2. Darwin publishes The Origin of Species.

3. Freud claims we are not in total control of our minds, and, in fact, our subconscious is partly in control of us.

What pattern do you notice?

For an extra homework grade, write me a paragraph comparing these and other human events in history to Aristotelian tragedies. Does human history follow a tragic storyline? Why or why not?