Relate to Baruch Spinoza

Reading Thomas Mann on Freud which ends up being a great deal about Nietzsche and German romantacism, he, Freud seems to think the Psyche is unconscious of itself, and upon this thought he based his theory of neurosis for it asserted and proved the phenomenon of suppression, the preventing an impulse from reaching the consciousness and its transformation into a neurotic symptom...

Now; I do have a volume around here on Spinoza's theory of knowledge... I cannot say a lot on either person's drive to action... I do know that in Freud's theory the death wish was behind human progress as weird as that may sound... Freud, like many of his age, including Nietzsche was anti rationalistic... Clearly, and according to him, reason has a voice in our affairs, but to me, our behavior is seldom other than irrational for which reason is used only to achieve irrational goals.. Good luck with what ever is going on, and happy new year.