Lychgate:
Quote:Smith was anti-Psychology? That surprises me greatly, as I thought he would have been interested in the concept of exploring "inner space" and the human mind.
CAS was against reductionism in any of its forms, and psychology is the Great Reducer. To his immense credit, CAS also had very little interest in humanity, including the "human mind", whatever that is. Regarding the exploration of "inner space" (a shibboleth of arch-Freudian J.G. Ballard's, as I recall), here is a representative comment:
"A sense of the superhuman is to be conveyed; therefore one does not want the human--at least, not to an extent that would impair and detract from the proper focus of interest. For this reason, I fear that the weird tale, if written mainly as psychological analysis, would tend to forfeit some of its highest and rarest values. Modern literature has become so thoroughly subjective, so introverted in its tendencies, so preoccupied with the anthropocentric, that it seems desirable for one genre, at least, to maintain what one might call a centrifugal impetus, to make 'a gesture toward the infinite' rather than toward the human intestines".