I've just finished reading "Marxism and Psychoanalysis" by Reuben Osborn (apparently a fake name, as I can't find an obituary for him even though he should be 100 by now) and I've read a good amount of Freud's introductory lectures and a bit of Lacan (who I don't find as compelling as Freud) and I have to say, it is very interesting and easily reconcilable with Marxist theory.
movement is necessarily a movement of protest. It denounces vigorously the existing system of society, and all the possessors of disgruntled souls, with their own private little grievances and indignations arising from some particular feature only of modern society, find, in the general revolutionary protest, some solace. That is why we find so many" Marxists" who really are not interested in Marxism, who have never troubled to get beyond a few well-worn formulre: who delight to rant and rave, and, indeed, because of their excessive noise, impress their fellow members with their extreme "sincerity," build a reputation of being good fighters in the class struggle, and become, even, leading figures.
From the same book above: It seems to me like capitalism as it has developed in America is extremely good at manufacturing desires which are perfectly in harmony with itself, valuing flexibility, high levels of production and consumption, obedience, and the feeling of independence while also submitting to higher powers (moral, religious, familial, whatever rational stand-in for market forces a person could want.) American media really does dominate the world and definitely helps in helping this mindset reach every corner of the globe. Even though Iran is blocked from a lot of global trade by the US, American media continues to dominate. (Not that media is the only engine for this sort of conditioning, of course.)
Blake Hill
Thoughts on revisionism:
Carson Cooper
I've been getting into a lot of basic psychoanalysis lately and doesn't Freud specifically state that he thinks a communist society wouldn't work due to the natural aggressiveness in man wanting private property? How do Marxist-Freudians differ on this? Forgive if I just misinterpreted him though Also if anyone has an epub of Écrits then I'd be more than happy if you shared
Alexander Jenkins
As History of mankind from the dawn of civilisation is Class struggle, then the Subject of (civilised) History must be social Classes. I'm not agree with saying the Party could become collective Subject of History. The Party is only a manifest of particular side of the Subject, it isn't the totality of Subject. Where is the Party coming from? It's coming from the People! By saying the Party replacing the Proletariat, it hides the Petty-Bourgeois nature of Soviet revisionism.
Henry Roberts
Yes Freud did say something to that effect late in life. He does seem to make some assumptions about human nature, particularly concerning war. Lacan as well was rather conservative.
Luke Gomez
Pretty odd since Freud believed in primitive communism.
I ordered a book on reactionary psychology from the same author, which should be interesting. The thread about the authoritarian personality book was decent and this author references that book. He also refers to Erich Fromm who was a prominent Freudian Marxist, who was in the Frankfurt school along with Adorno who worked on the totalitarian personality book.
William Johnson
Anybody can fart out conjecture and substantiate their claims ex post facto.
How do you test such theory? It is not science.
Sebastian Sanders
History is allot more complex than simple “class struggle” you simpleton.
Zachary Wright
How do you test anything about consciousness? Psychoanalysis is about understanding the subjective aspects of human existence, obviously this is more difficult since it's less material. Which is the point of the book, how Marxism and psychoanalysis are complementary
Owen Moore
You cannot achieve understanding with subjective experience. Call it what it is - conjecture.
Jayden Gutierrez
Wow it's almost like the point of the book I uploaded was how psychoanalysis can help us understand the subjective experiences of people to understand why they are or are not class conscious, but this doesn't replace marxism as a tool for understanding objective situations? Thanks for contributing absolutely nothing
Brayden Ward
Psychoanalysis is a bullshit pseudoscience and a sign of the decline of bourgeois thought. I can really recommend Valentin Voloshinov's critique of Freudianism which builds on his Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. The guy was a bloody genius and prefigured (post-)structuralism 50 years ahead while already presenting a Marxist critique. Both his books are on libgen.
For one thing, Freud compares his work to that of history in "A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis". How do you explain people like the Frankfurt school, Herbert Marcuse, and Slavoj Zizek, among others, using psychoanalytic concepts to explain phenomena?
Even if it isn't a science, does this invalidate it? What about linguistics, or Leninism? Surely something can fail to reach the heights of scientific legitimacy and still be useful, no? Georg Lukacs and Erich Fromm were not scientists, but they have made important contributions as well. And the contribution of psychoanalysis, if the ideology can be sifted through, is to attempt to understand the formation of desires, choices, and all of the subjective elements of human life. This element is pretty important in bourgeois society, considering the commodity contains the contradiction between use-value and exchange-value (and Marx called this the foundation of capitalism in critique of political economy). In other words, one half of most exchanges is largely subjective, not totally rational.
Joshua Martin
From Volosinov's book: This is the same claim that Osborn is making, although he uses psychoanalytic concepts as the foundation for his Marxist study of the psyche. It seems like the Soviet reaction against "bourgeois" psychoanalysis was a reaction against its misapplication in Europe at the time, which is fair. This is also why I made the thread. You say psychoanalysis is pseudoscientific bullshit but your source is literally Lacan: Replace sign with lettre and this could have been written by Lacan. *sniff*
The point of the thread wasn't to defend Freud but to talk about the relationship between psychoanalysis and Marxism. Not going to disagree that Freud's writing was flawed in multiple ways, but that doesn't mean it is all useless.
Anthony Rodriguez
To explain how this is a strawman, also from Freud's introductory lecture: The ego (which is the personal identity, "I") forms to reconcile the contradictions between individual desires (the id) and the demands of the outside world, and one part of the ego forms the ideal ego, or the super-ego, which represents only the social element, and is the source of feelings like shame or guilt. In other words, Freud's conception of the psyche is one where the individual BEGINS with their biology, but enters into social relations which THEN leads to the development of social consciousness, as opposed to an animal which only hunts/has sex/sleeps according to its immediate feeling.
Hunter Williams
Everything you experience is a subjective experience.
Henry King
excellent post
Blake Adams
This is either meant as a truism or a statement bordering on solipsism. My subjective constitution is impossible without my objective biological one, and to the latter the former lacks full, undistorted access, the fact which opens up the ontological space that it occupies.
