And due to the nature of the themes that are portrayed in the books, which aren’t typical of fantasy and don’t involve many of the elements that make it so popular, elfs, swordfights, magic, fantastical villains, I would also agree that they would attract people whose academic skills tend to be higher.

That being said, my best bet is that most of us, fans of the trilogy, do understand English. But there’s still a big difference, between understanding it and actually reading literature in English. I think I understand English pretty well, yet I bet that I would not enjoy reading the books in their original language.

“There is no doubt that Lacan found in the unconscious the structures he said he found there, since he had previously put them there.”

:-)

Jung didn’t consider it a non sequitur. It’s not just that the symbols are everywhere, it’s that the symbols are, in so many places and so many times, the same… Of course, the similarity of these symbols does come down to our common humanity – but it does seem to be clear that these symbols do not operate in the conscious mind – thus, they must operate elsewhere. There is much evidence to suggest that the conscious mind is only a portion of our mind. Everything from the experience – which no doubt you have had – of going to bed with a problem and waking up with the solution, to brain scans watching areas of the brain ‘lighting up’ when conscious is not present. As for the difference between Buddhism and hedonism: all kinds of dishes can be made with the same ingredients… As for your link: I’m not denying that we are partially formed by our external environment. I don’t see how this invalidates what rises up from within us…

But the universality of mythologies and the objectiveness of a specific configuration of conscience/subject is a total non sequitur. Yes, there are symbols everywhere, we’re symbolic as a species. But that universality speaks more about similar issues and problems to be solved (and all religion is an attempt at problem-solving) rather than a specific structure that is impossible to ascertain.

How to explain the difference between Buddhism and hedonism? How to explain the different conceptions of what it is to be human, to be a person, if we are structurally all the same?

Check out the first paragraph of page 188, right here.

I think Jung and, after him, Joseph Campbell, make a good case for the universality of mythology and thus a strong argument for the existence of the subconscious. I would argue that mythologies are all the same – at least on the level of symbols – and, perhaps more importantly, in that the level of symbols is universal. The differences seem to me to be window-dressing…

As for Freud’s taboos, I couldn’t give a hoot for those. There are parts of Freud that seem to me to make sense, and others that reflect his own obsessions and hangups. For example, I am not convinced at all about the primacy of sexuality. I claimed only that the subconscious exists, not some of the tottering towers of conjecture that some have built upon this. Besides, increasingly, experimental evidence is appearing that there are parts of our brains involved in executive functions that are not available to the conscious mind…

I’m afraid that I haven’t read enough Foucault to be able to comment on this issue of the creation of the individual…