Psychoanalysis and Democracy

The exhibition Freud: Conflict and Culture opened at the Library of Congress last October after several years of highly publicized controversy and one postponement. Not since King Tut came to New York’s Metropolitan Museum in the early seventies has an exhibition caused so much commotion. But given the subject matter, the cast of characters, and our sensation-hungry press, this couldn’t have been otherwise.

Here are the facts. In June 1994, the Library of Congress, which has...