FRIED FREUD

Thomas Laqueur is unable to review objectively a book (“Freudian Fraud,” July 19) that questions 50 years of liberal dogma because he sees any attack on liberalism as an attack on Jews. Considering the impact of liberalism on American society in the 20th Century, it is an association I should think he’d want to downplay.

E. Fuller Torrey’s book is a work of first-rate scholarship. Furthermore, it is one of many books published in recent years by former liberals repenting of the sins of their past (along the lines of David Horowitz’s “Second Thoughts”).

Liberal fundamentalism in the doctrines of Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin and Karl Marx has been considered unassailable for too long in the American academy. One good reason is people like Mr. Laqueur who somehow manage to see big bad antisemites behind every challenge to liberalism or defense of traditionalism.

TOM BLAIR, SAN PEDRO