Paul Rosenfels
Encyclopedia
Paul Rosenfels, M.D. was one of the first American social scientist
s to defend homosexuality
in print as a valid lifestyle. He is also known for having made a conscientious lifelong effort to develop the foundations of a "science of human nature
."
. Convinced that this tool could help him make an important contribution to the welfare of humanity, Rosenfels spent the next decade earning an M.D., becoming a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and studying with Freud's student Franz Alexander
at the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago.
His private practice was immediately successful, and he was especially effective in helping women. His lectures at the University of Chicago
on psychiatry and the law were well attended. It was only when he had time to wonder whether the plateau he had achieved was going to offer enough fulfillment for a lifetime that he realized that, somewhere along the way, he had abandoned the questions most important to him: How do creative individuals learn and develop? Is it possible to describe human nature
in general terms that apply to everyone? Could a formal science of human nature be helpful to ordinary men and women?
, he thought little of the problems his colleagues fretted about. He cared less about diagnostic minutiae and more about ordinary tangibles like human suffering. How can we end war, cure disease, eliminate hunger and poverty? How can we improve interpersonal cooperation and engender good will amongst men? He kept returning to the intellectual project that David Hume
had said was the most important task for moral philosophers: the founding of a science of human nature
. Why had modern students of the mind shied away from this goal, preferring to study the nervous system and even declaring dogmatically that concepts like love and power could not be studied by scientific methods?
As Rosenfels tried to become more honest with himself about his growing dissatisfaction he discovered two things. First, he could no longer classify his homosexuality as an illness to be simply denied expression. But more importantly, he had now exhausted his attempts to become a "real man" and wanted instead to accept what he could only call "something feminine" about himself. After all, Freud had admitted in a letter to his closest friend Wilhelm Fliess
that, "No one can replace the intercourse with a friend that a particular -- and perhaps feminine -- side of me demands." The importance of these two findings, and the certainty that his professional colleagues would never accept him again if he openly espoused them, made him drop everything, move to California, and earn his living as a cook.
Alone at last, he proceeded to rethink everything they had taught him out of their textbooks, using now the principle of polarity as a great sword by which to cut through the Gordian knots that had stymied psychology and philosophy both. Gradually he teased apart in his mind the dynamics of love
and power
, honesty
and courage
, wisdom
and strength
, depth and vigor, faith
and hope
-- as well as the more abstract categories of time
and space
, truth
and right
, tension and energy
. In his mature works, the entire canvas of human nature is described from a single viewpoint using this unified and self-consistent vocabulary, doing for psychology what Carl Linnaeus had once done for zoology.
quickly made the Ninth Street Center a mecca for young gay men. Gay Magazine called him "the Giant of the New Free Gay Culture." As the Center slowly outlived the ghetto climate in which it was founded, its members found themselves serving a growing community of lesbians as well as gay men, ambitious straight people as well as gay—anyone, in fact, who believed that human potential, in the words of one of their pamphlets, was "too important to leave to professionals."
Rosenfels felt acutely the tragic nature of the world, and his writings are informed by a compassion for humanity rare in the literature of the social sciences. Yet, for those who knew him, he was merely a teacher who knew more than anyone else around about human beings. As useful as his insights were, he always said he was "only one page ahead of the class." As an imperfect human being himself, Rosenfels was to his students a constant reminder of how much we still don't know about ourselves, and that science can only teach us what we are willing to learn.
Social Scientist
Social Scientist is a New Delhi based journal in social sciences and humanities published since 1972....
s to defend homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
in print as a valid lifestyle. He is also known for having made a conscientious lifelong effort to develop the foundations of a "science of human nature
Science of man
The science of man is a topic used in David Hume's 18th century experimental philosophy A Treatise of Human Nature...
."
Professional career
Rosenfels' first passion was history and in high school he drafted a book on the causes of war. In college he met Harold D. Lasswell, who told him that new insights into the psychology of war and the politicians who cause them would in the future be provided by the new science of psychoanalysisPsychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
. Convinced that this tool could help him make an important contribution to the welfare of humanity, Rosenfels spent the next decade earning an M.D., becoming a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and studying with Freud's student Franz Alexander
Franz Alexander
Franz Gabriel Alexander was a Hungarian-American psychoanalyst and physician, who is considered one of the founders of psychosomatic medicine and psychoanalytic criminology.- Life :...
at the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago.
His private practice was immediately successful, and he was especially effective in helping women. His lectures at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
on psychiatry and the law were well attended. It was only when he had time to wonder whether the plateau he had achieved was going to offer enough fulfillment for a lifetime that he realized that, somewhere along the way, he had abandoned the questions most important to him: How do creative individuals learn and develop? Is it possible to describe human nature
Human nature
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally....
in general terms that apply to everyone? Could a formal science of human nature be helpful to ordinary men and women?
A Science of Human Nature
The scope of these issues went far beyond the topics of the day talked up in professional circles. He felt he did not belong in the academic fraternity they were eager for him to join. Like Bertrand RussellBertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
, he thought little of the problems his colleagues fretted about. He cared less about diagnostic minutiae and more about ordinary tangibles like human suffering. How can we end war, cure disease, eliminate hunger and poverty? How can we improve interpersonal cooperation and engender good will amongst men? He kept returning to the intellectual project that David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
had said was the most important task for moral philosophers: the founding of a science of human nature
Science of man
The science of man is a topic used in David Hume's 18th century experimental philosophy A Treatise of Human Nature...
. Why had modern students of the mind shied away from this goal, preferring to study the nervous system and even declaring dogmatically that concepts like love and power could not be studied by scientific methods?
As Rosenfels tried to become more honest with himself about his growing dissatisfaction he discovered two things. First, he could no longer classify his homosexuality as an illness to be simply denied expression. But more importantly, he had now exhausted his attempts to become a "real man" and wanted instead to accept what he could only call "something feminine" about himself. After all, Freud had admitted in a letter to his closest friend Wilhelm Fliess
Wilhelm Fliess
Wilhelm Fliess was a German Jewish otolaryngologist who practised in Berlin. On Josef Breuer's suggestion, Fliess attended several "conferences" with Sigmund Freud beginning in 1887 in Vienna, and the two soon formed a strong friendship...
that, "No one can replace the intercourse with a friend that a particular -- and perhaps feminine -- side of me demands." The importance of these two findings, and the certainty that his professional colleagues would never accept him again if he openly espoused them, made him drop everything, move to California, and earn his living as a cook.
Alone at last, he proceeded to rethink everything they had taught him out of their textbooks, using now the principle of polarity as a great sword by which to cut through the Gordian knots that had stymied psychology and philosophy both. Gradually he teased apart in his mind the dynamics of love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
and power
Power (sociology)
Power is a measurement of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities. The term authority is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to...
, honesty
Honesty
Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and denotes positive, virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft....
and courage
Courage
Courage is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation...
, wisdom
Wisdom
Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions so that universal principles, reason and...
and strength
Virtue
Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....
, depth and vigor, faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
and hope
Hope
Hope is the emotional state which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. It is the "feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best" or the act of "look[ing] forward to with desire and reasonable confidence" or...
-- as well as the more abstract categories of time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
and space
Space
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
, truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
and right
Right
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
, tension and energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...
. In his mature works, the entire canvas of human nature is described from a single viewpoint using this unified and self-consistent vocabulary, doing for psychology what Carl Linnaeus had once done for zoology.
New York and the Ninth Street Center
In 1962 Rosenfels moved to New York City and established a private practice which drew large numbers of gay men. In 1973 his students opened the Ninth Street Center, an all-volunteer organization devoted to helping unconventional people live creatively in what they considered to be an ignorant and immoral world. Rosenfels' broad understanding of human nature, his warm friendships with his students, and his openness about homosexualityHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
quickly made the Ninth Street Center a mecca for young gay men. Gay Magazine called him "the Giant of the New Free Gay Culture." As the Center slowly outlived the ghetto climate in which it was founded, its members found themselves serving a growing community of lesbians as well as gay men, ambitious straight people as well as gay—anyone, in fact, who believed that human potential, in the words of one of their pamphlets, was "too important to leave to professionals."
Rosenfels felt acutely the tragic nature of the world, and his writings are informed by a compassion for humanity rare in the literature of the social sciences. Yet, for those who knew him, he was merely a teacher who knew more than anyone else around about human beings. As useful as his insights were, he always said he was "only one page ahead of the class." As an imperfect human being himself, Rosenfels was to his students a constant reminder of how much we still don't know about ourselves, and that science can only teach us what we are willing to learn.
External links
- The Ninth Street Center - more about Paul Rosenfels