Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson: Doing

“While working at Anna Freud's house, I found an unpublished letter in which he [Freud] told Fliess, less than two weeks after he gave the paper [The Aetiology of Hysteria], "I am as isolated as you could wish me to be: the word has been given out to abandon me, and a void is forming around me." Both the immediate response to the paper, and the subsequent response were ones that Freud had not anticipated: his colleagues thought he was crazy to believe his women patients. This was bound to have a disastrous impact on a young physician with a growing family, eager to open a neurological/psychiatric clinical practice. Where were his referrals to come from, if his colleagues thought he was completely daft? I made this point to Anna Freud.
"Do you believe", I said, "that this could have had anything to do with his later abandonment of the theory?"
"No." She was adamant.
"But tell me, Miss Freud, why did you omit this passage from your published edition of the letters?"”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

"Because it makes my father sound so paranoid," was her response.
"But if it was the truth, then he was not paranoid, he was simply perceptive."
Source: Final Analysis (1990), pp. 175-176

Women , Truth , Family , Housing

“Cats do not give us too many chances. Abuse a cat's trust twice and you could be history, for cats are much less forgiving than dogs and will often lose their trust in you should you behave badly. A dog gives you infinite slack; not so a cat.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Source: The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats (2002), Ch. 2

Dogs , History , Cats , Forgiveness

“Cats are contented with their lot, with or without our approval. They have less need of us than we would like. It would flatter us to think that cats cannot survive without us, that they need us emotionally as well as materially, whereas in fact they probably do not need us in either sphere. This wounds our vanity. We need cats to need us. It unnerves us that they do not. However, if they do not need us, they nonetheless seem to love us.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Source: The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats (2002), Ch. 1

Love , Cats , Thinking

“I do not find it surprising that the Jains, the Buddhists, and the Hindus have all taken seriously the lives of others. The ability to imagine ourselves into the minds and bodies of “others”—whether humans we term different from us (Down syndrome children; Alzheimer sufferers; the so-called mentally ill) or the animals we use for our food—is of central importance because the failure to do so is precisely what led to the horrors of Auschwitz. So, when people ask, Have you nothing more important to think about? the answer is: There is nothing more important to think about than the heart of empathy, which in the final analysis is nothing other than the ability to love. Becoming a vegan is simply one manifestation of that love.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Introduction, pp. 27-28
The Face on Your Plate (2009)

Love , Children , People , Food

“I called Anna Freud in London to tell her what was about to happen. It was a strange, honest conversation.
"Miss Freud, I am sure you have heard that Dr. Eissler is going to fire me from the Archives."
"Yes. And I disagree with him. I did not like that second article in the New York Times. And I think you are wrong in your views. But I do not see why you should be so severely punished for holding them. On one point, however, I feel that I was deceived by Dr. Eissler. He never told me that you were going to live in my house. My understanding was that you were to be in charge of the library and of the research, but not actually live in the house." I never did find out why Eissler never explained this to Anna Freud. Perhaps he was being discreet, not wanting to bring up the matter of her death, or perhaps he knew she would not like the idea of my living in the house. Of course, as things turned out, I never did live in the Freud house.
"Did the idea of my living in your house upset you?"
"Frankly, yes it did."
"Why?"
"Because my father would not have wanted it."
"You mean he would not have liked me?"
"I am not saying that. But he would not have wanted somebody like you living in the house. He would have wanted somebody quiet, modest, unobtrusive. You would have been everywhere, searching for everything, going through boxes, drawers, closets, bringing people in, opening things up. My father would not have wanted this." She was right.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Source: Final Analysis (1990), pp. 196-197

Death , People , Feeling , Search

“Many years ago, when I was merely a vegetarian, I met the great Cesar Chavez, and he said to me: "If you are interested in preventing animal suffering, the first thing you should give up is eggs and milk, because the animals who produce those foods lead the most unhappy lives. You would do better to eat meat and stop eating eggs and dairy products." I was shocked, since I had no intention of eating meat but had never thought of giving up eggs or dairy products. But when I looked into it I realized he was right, and now, years later, after I have studied the matter up close, I know for certain that he was completely correct about the cruel treatment of the animals raised for such products. The advantages of a vegan diet are enormous for our health, for the environment, for the animals themselves.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Conclusion, p. 226
The Pig Who Sang to the Moon (2003)

Health , Food , Study , Suffering

“There is rarely an exception: once a cat makes up her mind to do something, your pleadings matter not at all. A dog, in the same circumstances, no matter how urgently he needs to do something, will change his mind if you insist. He is made for compromise, for self-sacrifice, for thinking about how you feel. Not cats.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Source: The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats (2002), Ch. 2

Dogs , Feeling , Cats , Thinking

“No cow gives milk unless she gets pregnant and gives birth to a calf. (I remember one dairy farmer I visited insisting that the cow would be in pain unless she was milked; true, but only because she had just given birth to a calf who was no longer present.) The milk is meant for the calf. … But our greed is greater than any reasonable person could expect: we do not allow the calf even the small amount he or she would normally take in a day. We want it all. So the calf is separated from the cow immediately upon birth. The industry says this must happen instantaneously, for otherwise there is a risk—no, it is a certainty—that the two will bond. In fact, they have already bonded, just as much as would a human mother with her baby. The strong bond is inborn in all mammals. The terrible sound one hears on any dairy farm after a cow has given birth is the call of a lost calf, calling her mother, and the mother answering in desperation. If that is not suffering, I don't know the meaning of the word.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Source: The Face on Your Plate (2009), Ch. 2, pp. 79-80

Pain , Birth , Strong , Suffering

“It is often said that if slaughterhouses were made of glass, most people would be vegetarians. If the general public knew what went on inside animal experimentation laboratories, they would be abolished. However, the parallel is not exact. Slaughterhouses are invisible because the public wants them that way. Everyone knows what goes on inside them; they simply do not want to be confronted with it. Most people do not know what goes on with animal experimentation. Slaughterhouses allow visits. Laboratories where animal experiments are performed are secretive. Perhaps those who conduct the experiments know they would be stopped if what they do were known even by other scientists. Perhaps they are ashamed.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson book When Elephants Weep

Conclusion, pp. 216-217
When Elephants Weep (1994)

People , Secret , Way , Animals

“I didn't even know that chickens could fly, and suddenly one was landing on me. It happened when I was visiting a farm sanctuary. If I had been younger I would have asked my parents if I could take her home, please! After all, she chose me. Never mind that she chose everybody; she was a particularly friendly chicken. She made soft, strange cooing sounds and nestled into my arms like a happy kitten. … In fact she was an ordinary chicken, but simply one who had no reason to believe that people were after her. This is how chickens and humans would relate to one another if one was not exploited and the other doing the exploiting. Very much like cats and dogs. They just wait for the chance.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Source: The Pig Who Sang to the Moon (2003), Ch. 2, p. 57

People , Dogs , Home , Cats

“When the underlying reality is particularly unpleasant, we minimize—numbing ourselves to the actual extent of the real story. We say, “Things can't possibly be as bad as people tell us,” because we don't want them to be that bad. This is a form of magical thinking, a way of shutting our eyes. Surely if things were that bad, somebody would do something about it. Withdrawal can take the form of removing our interest (another horror story about furry pets, yawn, yawn); or our wandering attention (understandably, since we are besieged by other equally pressing images of horror). Of course this reaction can be genuine: not everyone need become an activist in the cause to end animal suffering. And becoming a vegetarian may seem like going too far. In fact, it is not such a difficult step and could be legitimately seen as the very best form of activism.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Source: The Face on Your Plate (2009), Ch. 4, p. 161

People , Way , Understanding , Thinking