Mephisto Waltz

I'm about 65% through Vienna Twilight. And, yes, we're delving into some Freudian sexual stuff.

While not denying for a moment that there can be some bizarre reasons for the things people do, I've never bought the Oedipus complex. It doesn't require a sexual explanation for why there is a natural competition between the husband and the children for the wife's attention. It comes with having children. Children take up a lot of time. Something has to give. Someone's needs are going to be less met, and that's usually the father's needs taking a hit.

One of the main reasons that men and women are delaying marriage (or not getting married at all) is to avoid infringements on their atomized state of personal autonomous liberty. Both marriage and children get in the way of the things people now say (or think) they value most.

But there is certainly the reality of fratricide, or at least sibling rivalry (mostly between brothers). It's related to the phenomenon of the big chick picking on the little chick...and maybe even throwing him out of the nest. Probably most parents understand innately that children need to be protected, and very often from each other.

But there is nothing sexual about this. Freud's universal theories seem to be complete nonsense. But if you look to specific cases then, yes, you will find sexual abuse to be a common element amongst serial killers, for example. And there are all kinds of other perversions or abnormalities. And we probably don't know if most of them were innate or learned...or some combination of the two. But the world is full of very weird people doing very weird stuff. And at the end of the day, I think most of these people are born weird and not made weird.