We would all like to think of ourselves as freedom-loving, egalitarian and democratic. Yet Freud has taught us that everything we do and say is rich in ambiguity and ambivalence: we are riven by conflict and antagonism, within and without. But if it is true that our inner lives are one unflagging drama of desire and dependence, of greed, rivalry and abjection, then how can we ever presume to know what might be good for someone else? In these essays, the author of "Darwin's Worms", "The Beast in the Nursery" and "Houdini's Box" examines such topics as our fantasies of freedom, the nature of inhibition, and the social role of mockery. Throughout, he demonstrates how psychoanalysis allows people to speak and be heard.