Changes

Jump to: navigation, search

Politics and psychoanalysis

384 bytes added, 21:11, 20 May 2019
The LinkTitles extension automatically added links to existing pages (<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://github.com/bovender/LinkTitles">https://github.com/bovender/LinkTitles</a>).
Within the wide range of [[cultural ]] and [[social ]] interests that led to Sigmund [[Freud]]'s "The Claims of PsychoAnalysis to [[Scientific ]] Interest" (1913j), [[politics ]] appears as the poor relative. However, contrary to the rumor that claims Freud was "apolitical," or "politically inert," it can be shown that there are extremely close [[links ]] between all of Freud's work—analyseswork—[[analyses]], investigations, [[concepts]], projects—and the sources and resources that constitute truly [[political ]] [[thought]]. Together with the American ambassador William C. Bullitt, Freud put his [[name ]] to a book of political [[psychoanalysis ]] in the strict [[sense]], <i>Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Twenty-Eighth President of the [[United States]]: A [[Psychological ]] Study</i>, (1966 [1938]), that has received little comment. Freud's anthropological [[work ]] is considerable. He questioned the origin and [[structure ]] of [[society ]] in <i>[[Totem ]] and [[Taboo]]</i> (1912-1913a), unmasked illusions and dogmas in <i>The [[Future ]] of an Illusion</i> (1927c) and <i>[[Civilization ]] and its Discontents</i> (1930a), denounced Bolshevism in one of the <i>New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis</i>—"On a [[Weltanschauung]]" (1933a), and described the foundation of a [[religion]], a [[culture]], and a people—the Jews—in <i>[[Moses ]] and [[Monotheism]]</i> (1939a). In 1908 he strongly criticized "[[civilized ]] [[sexual ]] [[morality]]" (1908d), the source of "the nervous [[illness ]] of modern [[times]]." His 1921 essay, <i>Mass [[Psychology ]] and the [[Analysis ]] of the Ego</i> (1921c), which dismantles the concepts of [[leader]], crowd, and [[power]], can be seen as the foundation of all political psychoanalysis.In <i>The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams]]</i> (1900a), politics saturates the imagery of the "[[dream ]] of Count Thun," the prime minister of the emperor. Quoting Beaumarchais, Zola, Panizza, and mobilizing the [[revolution ]] of 1848, social-[[democracy]], and [[anti-Semitism]], Freud denounces the "nothingness" represented by Count "Nichtsthun" and celebrates his own "revolutionary [[humor]]." Although he is not committed to political [[action ]] like his friend Heinrich Braun, at least he sees his foundational work, <i>The [[Interpretation of Dreams]]</i>, as a [[form ]] of Promethean [[subversion]]: "Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo"—"If I am unable to influence the Gods, I will shake up Hell." Aside from these lines of force of political thought, all Freud's psychological [[system ]] is rich with political implications. Following [[Copernicus ]] and [[Darwin]], he lays [[claim ]] to a [[true ]] and grandiose [[ideological ]] "revolution." In the [[unconscious ]] the ego is no longer [[master ]] in its own house and humanity must therefore [[drive ]] it out. In the [[agency ]] of the [[superego]], Freud ascribed values, ideals, and imperatives associated with morality and society to the [[psyche]].No socio-political [[theory ]] or [[practice ]] can simply neglect the sovereign preeminence of [[drives ]] and the unconscious, which various [[ideologies]], especially totalitarian, have been able to exploit. The triptych of the sexual drive, the [[death ]] drive, and the [[instinct ]] for [[mastery ]] exercises an implacable [[determinism ]] throughout [[existence]], social and political, [[individual ]] and psychological. It is significant that the most heightened forms of political thought—Machiavellithought—[[Machiavelli]], [[Hobbes]], La Boétie, [[Marx]], Weber, and others—intersect with and illustrate many of Freud's psychological [[ideas]]. The radical [[rejection ]] of all forms of illusion, the will to lucidity based on a flexible [[rationality]], the [[dismantling ]] of connections within communities, the emphasis on the [[autonomy ]] and [[responsibility ]] of the individual subject—Freud's political thought remains an inexhaustible resource, even when contested or misused, for original [[psycho]]-political constructs. Some of these include the research and bold assumptions of Wilhelm [[Reich]], often summarily categorized as "[[Freudian]]-[[Marxism]]," the "social-democratic" psychology of Alfred Adler, the anarchism of Otto Gross, the "Trotskyite" element in Otto Fenichel, the democratic and eclectic [[humanism ]] of Erich [[Fromm]], Herbert [[Marcuse]]'s Orphic leftism, [[Deleuze ]] and [[Guattari]]'s libertarian schizoanalysis, and so on.
More recently the field of "psychohistory" has attempted to combine psychoanalysis and politics, but has managed instead to obscure and weaken what was so powerfully revolutionary in Freudian thought.
==References==
<references/>
# Dadoun, Roger. (1987). [[Psychanalyse ]] et politique. In P. Ory (Ed.), Nouvelle histoire des idées politiques. [[Paris]]: Hachette.# ——. (1995). La psychanalyse politique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de [[France]].
# De Marchi, Luigi. (1981). Psycho-politique. Paris: Payot.
# [[Money]]-Kyrle, Roger. (1946). Psychoanalysis and politics, a contribution to the psychology of politics and morals. [[London]]: G. Duckworth.# Reich, Wilhelm. (1945). [[Character]]-analysis: Principles and [[technique ]] for [[psychoanalysts ]] in practice and in [[training]]. (Theodore P. Wolfe, Trans.) New York: Orgone Institute Press. (Original work published 1933)
[[Category:New]]
Anonymous user

Navigation menu