Psychoanalysis and the communist movement

Besides, Plain English is a dialect which maintains only the minimum functional criteria for task performance or ineffectual emotional display, so is itself neither expressive nor impressive. It is all that is necessary to maintain a certain (acceptable) mode of civil society which requires most of its functions to remain hidden. Fortunately or not, plain-speak is a dying form.

Full consciousness (a living form) is a matter of making or perceiving connections, witnessing or suspecting patterns, being impressed. To communicate this requires an expressive language which is figuratively translated or interpreted and leads to exploration beyond the rigid forms tolerable in plain-speak. Else-wise, the language is precise and mechanical and has the function of putting us back to sleep.

Figurative understanding makes use of symbolic material residing slip-shod in the traditionally suppressed regions of consciousness. It comes out in slips or in dreams. This is the material Freud wanted to expose with analysis. Psychoanalysis is a lengthy matter of consciousness raising or it is nothing. Consciousness raising is a matter of increasing connections between internal and external milieus. That is also called communication (Freud or his people coined the phrase, "talk-therapy").

Communism should have little tolerance for plain-speak; they are at cross purposes.

Freud thought we were all one step away from barbarism and had to be controlled and could never be trusted with true democracy. Anna Freud psychoanalyzed her best friends children [for decades] and held them up as an example of what Freudian psychoanalysis can achieve. The kids, as adults, both committed suicide. Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew, came to America and used Freud's work to create massive PR campaigns which created today's corporate capitalist atmosphere. So, empirically [not theoretically] Freud has done more to morph capitalism into an unstoppable force which is ingrained into each Americans ID- saturated like a sponge. Thanks to Freud we are most all materialistic shallow lemmings who have been fooled into thinking we have a democratic process.

I'll read your article in a minute, my brief criticism of Freud above most certainly has nothing to do with what you wrote but my point stands, Freud/Bernays have warped the American mind into total acceptance of capitalism and even went as far as creating an even more unstoppable capitalist system.

"The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest."

-Edward L. Bernays, "The Engineering of Consent", 1947

"Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the [U.S.] media."

-Noam Chomsky, "Manufacturing Consent , 1988

Looking at the historical context might be a bit more revealing. Darwin had successfully persuaded, by virtue of his position within high society, that god was inconsequential to the functioning of the British Empire Club. Publishers rallied round him and the colloquial body became informed of an ideology which reinforced the bourgeois revolution and its progress. Everything we did was now justified by nature and necessity. The church was relegated to cultural tradition and high art, no longer holding the monopoly on truth. The monarch was likewise reduced to a mere model of proper behaviour, now more subject to democratic influence than ever was the other way around. Heredity, property, class, progress. And let's not forget parliamentary procedure! One's behaviour as well as position in society was firmly set by predetermined laws of heredity. Prior to this, there was little room for an institutional conflict between nurture and nature. Darwin had developed a language with which one could posit a dead ancestor responsible for righteousness as well as transgression. What was old and morally questionable could, in fact should be suppressed, repressed, transcended to make way for the new. The chief illustration of impropriety was, for Darwin, the child, barbarian and savage -- all animals in human form. Our very kinship proved no divine spark exclusive to aristocratic lines. Prior to the theory of the gene, inherited faults were considered the blind retention of archaic habits passed on through the blood. They were unnecessary and could be educated away with appropriate attention to the intellect. Stiff upper lip. The more shit changes, the more it stays the same!

The modern condition owes much more to Darwin than to Freud, who merely stepped in to call bullshit on the rigidity of the new linguistic/theoretic system without bringing back mysticism. Franz Boas had questioned Darwin's (and not his alone) anthropology and use of missionaries and colonial administrators for gathering his ethnographic data. Freud called into question the use of statements from wardens of "lunatic asylums" and medical men who could not see the world but through the lenses of the British Empire Club. I exaggerate here somewhat, but not in that those very repressions and suppressions were considered responsible for much reported 'madness', and whatever "ancestors" are buried will return in the most shocking of guises. Freud was not as pessimistic as is usually presented, as he considered worldwide psychoanalytic clinics could relieve the world of much personal suffering. The nature-nurture conflict was in full bloom, as psychoanalysis was also seen as a source of intellectual progress. It was Boas' and Freud's successors [*] who spoke more loudly that how we treat our children might obviate the necessity of clinics and asylums altogether. Unfortunately, the idea that children aren't inherently naughty and in need of vigilant control and manipulation never went over well in any sector of society. It undermines the whole notion of authority.

As for Anna Freud, no body's perfect.

As for Eddy L. Bernays, co-discoverer of the public relations industry with Ivy L. Lee (no relation to Sigmund F. Lee nor his brother, Robert E.), I will repeat what Red Hughes asked in another context:

Have you not heard of recouperation?

To conclude with an insinuation from Freud's Civilisation and its Discontents, "With civilisation, contradiction becomes us!"

[*] For the anarchist branch of psychoanalysis, check out Otto Gross.

W.W.S.D.?

[What would scientologists do?]

Tom Cruise believes psychiatrists are aliens who are perverting humanity with psychosomatic tricks.

Just a funny factoid.

not a good way to escape from psychiatry I suppose

Nietzsche did this...how?

I think L. Ron Hubbard preemptively attacked psychiatry so when they, psychyatrists, started calling the scientologists crazy they, the scientologists, could simply on the whole "you're just an evil alien trying to dominate the world" thing.

You wouldn't believe how many 'famous" people are scientologists.
Gretta Van Sustrin, Will Smith and Jada Pinket Smith, the guy from Avatar- the manager guy....it goes on and on.

I thought about joining the other day, just to see what it's like to join a cult.....maybe convince them I'm their new leader....do all sorts of strange things with their wives.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3986506414855430309#

This is a 4 part series- each part is 1 hour long. This is the first of four. It talks about how Freud's nephew used Freudian techniques to create a super capitalism in collusion with both the state and corporations. They were also strongly against democracy and helped create the illusion of democracy in America.

If you understand what Freud thought of the masses you wouldn't be big on Freudian analysis.

Scientology is a cia front organisation!

Along those lines, everyone interested in the subject should watch the BBC documentary "A Century of the Self", which is on YouTube and whatnot.

Edit: Balls, CRUD beat me to it

You just won the thread

I think it also has to do with Hubbard wanting to eliminate the competition. Psychiatry and Scientology are basically competing modes of psychological domination, more similar than different.

Nietzsche advocated for the Eternal Recurrence which was an idea he borrowed from classical literature.

Ya I've said that to a shrink and she tried to have me 5150'd. The reality police.

jk , I don't go to a psychiatrist or psychologist or Freudian 'counselor' for analysis. Modern psychiatry is more based in Pharmacology in collusion with the multi billion dollar pharma business anyhow. They don't have the time to 'talk' anymore-They just want people to buy pills. Which may help a schizophrenic or severely deranged individual but I think people are unnecessarily medicated these days in the name of profits.

I also agree with you- Freud by no means has a monopoly on reality. I'm not a fan of his at all and this is from reading his works AND watching the entire 4 hours of the Century Of Self along with seeing the effects of Freudian analysis on my sister. It had the same effect that Anna Freud seemed to have on people.

Nietzsche wanted to free mankind by creating a new mind frame or reality centered around the new man, super man or ubermensch as he put it. Freud wanted to entrap us, control us and create a new reality but a false reality based on shallow quasi sexual gratification. There's more to life than our libido's. Nietzsche has more in common with Sartre than Freud.

An interesting book of Sartre's is Critique Of Dialectical Reason. Later in life Sartre said he regretted writing his early existentialist works and tried to reconcile his early views with socialism. He saw his early work manifesting as apathy and apathy cannot be the foundation of revolutionary socialism. We are NOT free in any situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Dialectical_Reason

Ya, he did flirt with Stalinism then condemned it then flirted with it again. Overall many people interpret his whole body of political work as being more libertarian than authoritarian. The confusion is probably born of the overly complicated rhetoric he used to describe his positions. Like Heidegger would do. I'm a fan of intellectuals who simply say what they want to say without grandiose posturing [but I guess that's what makes many hold the title of intellectual]. It took me two times reading "The Question Concerning Technology" to fully understand it.

I'm also not a fan of Sartre's class analysis. It was, lets say, bunkum.

i think its a bit harsh to say that Freud wanted to 'control us', i think its fair to say tat because he spent so long delving into the dark areas of the human mind and because he didn't have a revolutionary/proletarian outlook on society he fell back into pessimism and conservatism. Also this meant he at times seemed to lean too closely to the side f the controling/rational 'ego' as oppossed to the 'blind' instinct of the id. as a side note i think Norman O Brown and other 60's writers could a times go too far the other way into a glorfication of the unconscious as oppossed to the conscious. But Freud theory of repression is still at its core a revolutionary concept which shows the sickness of 'civilization' and capitalist civilization in particular.

Well, read about his views on democracy, human nature and the crowd and you will understand.

Alf and others,

What do you think on work's Fromm?

I have read 'to have or to be' and thought it was rad

This is not an intrinsically revolutionary position. In fact it is easy to interpret Freud's statements as a liberal-capitalist plea for civil society to better "satisfy" its "participants" to avoid such violent contradictions...with the same logical contortionism I could easily establish FDR's anarchist/communist pedigree.