Freud’s anecdote links Muslim Turks to death and sexuality

Evidence

Freud realized that he had neglected to pursue the lines of thought that brought him to the Turks and their resignation toward death, and he had therefore refrained from telling-though he wanted to do so-”a second anecdote which lay close to the first in my memory.” … In this anecdote, the main characters are not “turning Turk” so much as they could be said to be “turning ghost.” “These Turks place a higher value on sexual enjoyment than on anything else, and in the event of sexual disorders they are plunged in a despair which contrasts strangely with their resignation towards the threat of death” (3/G14-15). — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 659

Categorization

• XREF: Core of the Freud section of the antisemitism-Islamophobia genealogy — connects to the book’s central thesis pushed in other chapters.