brinton's the irrational in politics

I claim 50 points if Lazy posts on this, 75 if he mentions Reich.

Plus a bonus 63 if he manages to reference the logic of collective action.

Edit: oops,no points for Reich, I'd forgotten how much of it was actually based on him.

what are you blabbering about?

Does one have to accept a load of outdated counter culture infected cod psychology to be a libertarian communist?

fight the power.

Same.

Maybe the "socialised to be submissive" angle needs to be rescued from the Marxism, if not from the "cod psychology."

condescending self-indulgent elitist shite. if only the drones could wake up and develop their true consciousness...

just finished it (skimmed the last few sections as it was making my eyes bleed.) typical debating tactic - set up some straw men by making charicature of the "sexually repressed" modern man, deconstruct it then use it to claim some vague pseudo-psychological liberatory bollocks.

the only bits I see having much value are fairly indistinguishable from one of the views laid out at the start - that ruling class ideas form the dominant ideology and therefore teach us to accept heirarchy/domination from a very early age. what that has to do with twelve year olds being scared to jack off I'm not really sure.

LimoWreck - what is it in this pamphlet you find interesting?

yep, no wonder that fuckwit LimOwreck loves it, if only the 'masses' could get over 'their fear'.

yeah but religious leaders aren't the cutting edge of modern capitalism are they?
capitalism can't afford moral conservatism.

I always thought 'Fear of Freedom' by Eric Fromm made a better general contibution to the understanding of how a 'capitalist' dominated psychology inhibits rebellion but it's ages since I read it. Reich in his early work and practice certainly opened up a healthy discussion of sexuality in that period but unfortunately went off the deep end with his Orgone Energy stuff, though it made an interesting basis for some science fiction stories!

Certainly Libertarian Communists do need to grasp some of the basic psychological dynamics of the way we relate in capitalist society if we are to have even a half decent chance of organising ourselves in the here and now. The best marxist theories can't make up for crappy human relations in and between 'pro-revolutionary' groups.

OK,

It has been a while but I remember The Irrational.. as being quite short and being most useful for the questions it raised. Ideology seems to exert an irrational power relative to a mechanist Marxist interpretation of material interests. Reich offered one answer to this problem. I would say that later, the Situationist International offered a wider, more nuanced answer. I would say Nietzsche also provides some clues to the puzzle and there are other, useful writers as well. But still, I think the merit of The Irrational.. is putting things simply. So I would ask:

1) Is "rational" human behavior significant for your political thinking? Why or why not?
2) What framework would you use to explain it? Reich? "Young Marx"?
Or is it just a matter of effective propaganda and mass action eliminating this irrational behavior without a need for explanation, once libertarian effectively communicate the working class' real interests, there will be no longer any need to analyze an individual's attachment to false ideas about their interests?

Red

I should have said "and many more..."

I like Joseph Gabel, who Debord quote in SoS. I also like Alfred Korzybski, Neurolinguistic Programming and Osho's version Tantra. One can cast a very wide net in researching these things. Still, the challenge is distilling the insights of the many interesting writers on irrational behavior (or the behavior of the "unconscious") as well as tossing out the nonsense (which naturally is what impels our more skeptical friends to toss out this entire line of inquiry).

Red

But discussing the unconscious without starting from Freud is like discussing capital without starting from Marx.

Freud isn't just 'one of many'.

I beg to differ. The concept of the unconscious was explored by "hypno-analysis" before Freudian psychoanalysis took off. Psychoanalysis has always been notoriously ineffective ("year of psychoanalysis" was always talked about). The hypnotic techniques which preceded Freud were relatively more effective (though they didn't have a learned proponent).

Freud introduced the concept of the unconscious to a certain level of "scientific" discourse in Europe and around the world but unlike the physics of that era, there wasn't any greater "scientificness" to Freudian discourse than to the religious beliefs that it might have replaced. Freud look dubious from many different angles given present day knowledge.

(I am being fairly flippant and if you can marshal evidence to show me wrong, I would be interested. )

Furthermore, East religious and medical traditions have had a concept of the unconscious for hundreds if not thousands of years. Again, since unlike Western physical sciences, Western psychology hasn't really had advantages in terms of either technology or methodology over Eastern psychology, it seems plausible the discoveries of Taoism, Buddhism, Tantra, Chinese Medicine and so-forth bare a look. The problem is separating wheat from chaff but this problem is limited to East perspectives.

The irrational in politics isn't an easy question to answer in a materialist way but I think that Brinton (as well as Reich) give compelling arguments why we should take on the challenge.

Red

Red. Freud himself didn't claim to have invented the concept of the unconscious -he cites Nietzsche and 'the poets' and he also became increasingly interested in what the various 'mystical' traditions (yoga etc) could contribute. In some areas, Buddhism for example made enormous advances into the exploration of the mind. But despite this Freud represents a fundamental advance, since it makes it possible to locate the problem in the framework of human evolution - the historical emergence of human nature from the rest of the animal kingdom - and in the conflict between society and the instinctual needs of the individual, which lies behind the phenomenon of repression. Hegel talks about scientific knowledge constituting the advance from the esoteric to the exoteric, and therefore something that is no longer 'hidden' but can be communicated and understood by all. Sorry to bring in the problem of progress here, but we had to go through capitalism for this shift to take place.