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Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of psychologist Sigmund Freud. Articles marking the event have appeared in all the major imperialist outlets.
The New York Times took the typical liberal stand in favor of Freud in an article with a title that aptly sums up the liberal spin on Freud for the moment, "Freud and the Fundamentalist Urge."(1) Here the New York Times links together religious fundamentalism, Hitler, Stalin and Mao by expanding on subjects MIM has already touched on in discussion.
The radical Muslim interpretation of Freud has been that Freud represents the dualism allowed by Christianity. Dualism says there is a separate spiritual world apart from the earth.
In particular, all Western Christians can be seen as Freudians, despite the disavowals of some Christians. This notion appears not just in academic discussion in Islam but apparently the Palestinian organization Hamas commented as well.(2) Hamas said that it was Freud who destroyed morality.
Hamas and other Muslims are wrong that there is one god in each of us, but they are correct that Freudianism and Christianity are twin expressions of the same underlying dualism. In Amerika this is clearest with the oscillation between Democrats and Republicans breaking down along lines of Freudians vs. Christians, sexual liberals of one stripe versus sexual liberals of another.
Freud attempted to put sexual liberalism on a scientific basis. He linked a series of maladies to improper balances between sexual urges and social discipline. Too much discipline and too little could both result in problems. In his typical female patient, he might say that her root problem accounting for her bizarre behaviors was that she was in love with someone but could not acknowledge it for social reasons--a marriage in the way for example. Such a problem could even be very deep and unconscious so that a patient would not know it; therefore, luckily there is Freud to tell the patient.
Although what Freud said about id, ego and superego meant to apply to all people, Freud's solution was on the individual level. He practiced psycho- therapy. By itself, this method endeared Freud to the liberal bourgeoisie and guaranteed him his current level of fame--the more fame the higher proportion of petty-bourgeoisie in the society. Freud could talk about concrete problems without taking on their social origins. Thus people who noticed a concrete problem could go to Freud's psychiatric couch without rocking the boat. As long as people believe their problems are individual or at most involve relations to individual oppressors, the system of class, gender and nation rule is untouched. We can weed out 95% of the New Agers, activists of the left-wing of parasitism, Christian activists and pseudo-feminists just on this point. They share much more in common than they will admit.
In Mao's China, psychology as a subject disappeared in academia. Sociology and anthropology continued to exist and links to political economy gained stress. In what we would call philosophy in the West, students studied a subject called dialectical materialism. In Stalin's Soviet Union, they replaced psychology with behaviorism. Pavlov's dog was in and Freud was out.
While Freud certainly allowed that people could become out-of-balance by adopting social norms in wrong combinations, he never challenged any group-level rulers--not class, gender or even nation. Like many intellectuals, Freud was critical of religion and the excesses of national chauvinism. Yet by design, his work leaves religion and national chauvinism untouched at a general level.
What Freud wrote on social or political approaches to his subject matter was all negative. His exchanges with Einstein on war and discussion of the origins of patriarchal leadership and political leadership pointed toward the society-wide possibilities of manipulating the unconscious for no good ends. Rejection of communist leadership by intellectuals of the West has Freud as conscious or unconscious crutch.
Later came Freudians Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich with more of a Marxist background to say that sexual drives can be unleashed for progressive purposes. Gurus such as Charles Reich arose in the 1960s and it was not till the early 1980s and the appearance of Catharine MacKinnon and similarly educated wimmin in politics that a challenge to Freudian dominance of the left-wing of the parasite movements came about. Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich said there was a sexual urge in all people to be liberated, while MacKinnon enabled MIM to bring Marxism back to its roots in conflict between oppressor and oppressed. The sexual Liberals tend to believe religion is holding back the people, while real Marxists believe hierarchy is power-related. For real Marxists, the church is only one institution of pornography, not a particular crux of sexual repression. We must think of the interests of the very bottom of the gender hierarchy--children--for this to become clear. As if to prove MIM right, the Catholic Church has had a huge pedophile problem among its priesthood. By painting the Catholic Church as an institution of sexual repression, our imperialist country sexual liberals give it too much credit and fail to acknowledge reality as it is.
Freudianism is like anything else in that it can be evaluated statistically. While the production of Freudian concepts is scientific, it is the lesser half of science. Most of the discussion of Freud is to back an ideology of sexual liberalism--not a science. Although the practice of psycho-therapy is Freud's fault, we cannot blame him entirely for the popular use of his work. Like anything else, it has been consumerized to hell and therefore eternal life: "'Many patients don't know which method the therapist uses. They know only, 'it speaks to me'. And that is enough,'" said World Council for Psychotherapy President Alfred Pritz in Vienna.(3) Whether there is any scientific evidence or conceptual coherence behind a psychiatrist's work does not matter to petty-bourgeois patients/consumers, and some of the proletarian patients exploited by psychotherapy. That's what makes Freud seem immortal despite the content of his work.(4)
Echoing the Muslims but in a way supporting Freud is Dr. Peter Kramer, favorably referenced by MSNBC. "He made psychology popular.' Freud, he said, made it easier for people to talk about sex and aggression, and his ideas spurred a surge of public interest in personal and sexual fulfillment around the time of World War I."(5)
In contrast, MIM does not really care to deny that the bourgeoisie gains fulfillment from trade and that there are books on trade for the bourgeoisie. Likewise, on sex, MIM does not really deny that the adult oppressor groups really find life fulfilling with sex and that there is a Freudian book and other culture that goes along with refining that. It's just that Freudianism including so-called radical Freudianism interests us about as much as a manual of laws on international trade--only to understand the oppressor better in capitalist society. The most we can say for Freud is that in a society of arranged marriage, in societies of much of Asia to this day, reading some Freud might be a good thing. Seeking selfish and individual persynal fulfillment is a good bourgeois idea in contexts that are more backward than capitalism.
The vast majority of Freudians do not attempt or allow of a measurement of their success. When it has been attempted, results have been negative. MIM has drawn special attention to the statistical results for "anger management" or aggression management stemming from Freud. Studies reviewed in MIM Theory 2/3 show that these programs so much believed in by domestic violence circles across the united $tates are actually counterproductive--result in more domestic violence. Yet it is impossible to make headway because of the career funding sources and ideological dogmas in the way. Freudianism has resilient roots in class oppression.
Notes:
1. Mark Edmundson, New York Times Magazine 30April06. Along the same
lines that history did not end with Liberal capitalism, because the id can be
manipulated for religious fundamentalism, communism or fascism, see Newsweek:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11904222/site/newsweek/page/3/
2. http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20060506/cm_huffpost/020484
3. http://www.newkerala.com/news2.php?action=fullnews&id=53845
4. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-2164886,00.html wonders why Freud
lives on despite all the critics.
5. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12600402/