42 Jan De Vos
Perhaps one could take recourse here to psychoanalysis as the latter
takes fantasies very seriously. Just consider the following quote, a joyful
description of the brain in the Feldman textbook?
It is not much to look at. Soft, spongy, mottled, and pinkish-gray in
color, it hardly can be said to possess much in the way of physical beauty.
Despite its physical appearance, however, it ranks as the greatest natural
marvel that we know and has a beauty and sophistication all its own.
(Feldman, 2015, p. 68)With a little formation in psychoanalysis one might be rapidly struck
with the similarity of this quote with typical utterances regarding the sex
organs: are these also not often been said to lack such physical beauty? Is
the brain worship of Feldman, hence, not similar to a worship of the sex
organs? Be that as it may, from where does this need to aestheticize the
brain, to even celebrate it come from? In Flanders we have “I-Brain”,^8 a
yearly celebration of the brain. In The Netherlands there is an equally
yearly “Breinfestijn” (Brain Festival),^9 Singapore has it annual “Brain
Fest”,^10 and worldwide there is the “Brain Awareness Week” “to increase
public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research.”^11 Is the
brain a new totem that needs its yearly carnival?^12
We should perhaps refrain from psychologizing this as this would lead
us to yet another false knotting of the social and the subjective. So let us
stick to the formal issues at play: of the human transcending itself, as if in a
“out of body” experience” to contemplate in marvel or in awe (fascinans et
tremendum) his own being, in the meantime, redoubling of course in the
person who marvels about him or herself. Perhaps to then multiply again:
to marvel about the fact that one can marvel about oneself. This is where I
claim psychoanalysis can offer some crucial theoretical tools: if we refrain
from turning it into yet another psychology, psychoanalysis can help us to
(^8) https://www.breinwijzer.be/i-brain/
(^9) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIBlqBHFdnY
(^10) https://www.littledayout.com/event/brain-fest-2018/
(^11) http://dana.org/BAW/
(^12) See, for a more elaborate analysis, De Vos (2016).