Freud and Marxism

[Pyotr Tchaikovsky]

Comrades!:)

No one can doubt Freud's greatness...his 'revolutionary' concepts on sexuality (Oedipus complex), subconscious thought processes, dream analysis etc. All these form the bases of other schools. Put simply, everybody is a Freudian, including those who're not.;)

But I've also read somewhere that he criticized Marxism a lot, calling it an illusion (like a new religion to replace the old), and so forth. What then was his political orientation? I assumed that a person of his stature would be a Marxist owing to its humanistic nature, but...

Which school of psychology is then compatible with Marxism? Or, does Marxism reject these things because it believes that consciousness is only an epiphenomenon?

[Sasha]

No one can doubt Freud's greatness...



Yes i can, most overated pretentious drivel next to Hegel.
his writings on children development psychology are simply false and caused great suffering for decades.

[FreeFocus]

Most of Freudian theory lacks a solid scientific foundation, and a lot of it has proven to be incorrect (e.g. repression). That being said, there are some useful ideas.

What I find problematic is asking what school of psychology is "compatible" with Marxism. It's not about being compatible, it's about being correct, even when the facts discovered by science are "undesirable" for certain purposes. Take capitalists for instance. Social psychology has revealed that humans tend to operate on the basis of reciprocal altruism and are not inherently selfish (although things differ person to person). This isn't convenient for capitalists, so they tend to dismiss it offhand because it isn't compatible with their worldview. Adhering to things merely because they are compatible only undercuts one's logical foundation, particularly when things that are correct but incompatible are ignored or dismissed.

Social psychology is the most applicable for leftist purposes, which is just a plus for us, because what it has revealed tends to confirm and support our beliefs and goals.

[RED DAVE]

Instead of engaging in political cursing, much of which is based on ignorance, I suggest a more balanced view of Freud.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1956/marcuse.htm

RED DAVE

[x359594]

...I've also read somewhere that he criticized Marxism a lot, calling it an illusion (like a new religion to replace the old), and so forth. What then was his political orientation?

I've never come across any formal papers by Freud criticizing Marxism which is not to say that he didn't have objections, so perhaps they were expressed in letters.

His political orientation was early 20th century European liberal, particularly in social matters, but he also recognized the right of the working man (sic) to organize and claim a fair share of the general wealth that he had a hand in producing. See Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time for a biography that touches on Freud's social beliefs.


...Which school of psychology is then compatible with Marxism? Or, does Marxism reject these things because it believes that consciousness is only an epiphenomenon?

The idea that consciousness is only an epiphenomenon is more characteristic of Lenin's thought than Marx's. Marx asserts that "Thinking and being are certainly distinct, but at the same time are in unity with each other." In other words, they exist in a dialectical relationship. But according to Lenin (articulated in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, 1908) the process of human knowledge is merely reflective, ideas are merely reflective of an objective material reality.

There were Marxist psychoanalysts such as Wilhelm Reich and Erich Fromm who attempted to reconcile the respective insights of Marx and Freud in such works as "Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis," in Lee Baxandall ed., Sex-Pol; Essays, 1929-1934 by Reich, while Fromm's social and political philosophy is articulated in his The Sane Society.

The Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse achived a brilliant synthesis (IMO) in his Eros and Civilization; Louis Althusser has drawn on Jacques Lacan's exploration of Freudian thought in his own attempt to bring Marx and Freud together.

[RED DAVE]

Just as a point, I once heard Eric Fromm say, in a public lecture, that at one time in his life Freud considered a poltical career and that had he entered politics, it would have been as a Social Democrat.

Comrades should be aware, per x359594's post above, that the relationship between Marxism and Freudianism is a long, complex, problematic and interesting one. It should not be dismissed by a couple of lines such as psycho tossed off.

RED DAVE

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Pyotr, what do you mean no one can doubt Frued's 'greatness'? The man was a complete charlatan. On that see here:

http://www.richardwebster.net/freudwrong.html

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/borc01_.html

http://www.human-nature.com/freud/fcrews.html

[el_chavista]

There is that term scientific continent, as used by Althusser in "Lenin and Philosophy": Marx has opened up to scientific knowledge a new, third scientific continent, the continent of History, by an epistemological break...
I think there are scholars that say that Freud's psychoanalysis opened up a new scientific continent too. And what about Wilhelm Reich's "Marxist-conciliated-psicoanalysis" -aside his charlatanry about the "orgon"?

[Dave B]

There were Marxist ‘Freudians’ eg Eric Fromm.


And there was or is a post or neo Freudian movement which accepts only the very basic tenets of Freud, which in a way weren’t original to Freud at all. And rejected most if not all of the penis envy and wanting to shag your mother kind of stuff.



This was led by somebody with the unfortunate name of Karen Horney in the 1930’s subsequently ostracised and outlawed by the orthodox Freudian movement.



She was not a Marxist but as at one time the partner and lover of Fromm you can see, perhaps, his influence in her work, particularly her early stuff.


She also actually had a proper medical degree and was a ‘proper doctor’ which was no small achievement for a woman in those days. The feminist movement took her on board to some extent for some reason I believe.

If you want a quick and comparatively easy crash course on Freud you can’t do much better than her first book were she made the break. She try’s to avoid intellectualising the subject with jargon etc and attempts to make the subject accessible.



As a practising psychoanalyst she was successful.

Her intervening books weren’t up to much but her last one is a really interesting read in my opinion.



To quote from a passage from her first;

New Ways in Psychoanalysis, Karen Horney MD, Chapter X, Culture and Neurosis, W. W Norton 1966 pg 173




"Among the factors in western civilisation which engender potential hostility, the fact that this culture is built on individual competitiveness probably ranks first. The economic principle of competition affects human relationships by causing one individual to fight another, by enticing one person to surpass another and by making the advantage of one the disadvantage of the other.

As we know, competitiveness not only dominates our relations in occupational groups, but also pervades our social relations, our friendships, our sexual relations and the relations within the family group, thus carrying the germs of destructive rivalry, disparagement, suspicion, begrudging envy into every human relationship. Existing gross inequalities, not only in possessions but in possibilities for education, recreation, maintaining and regaining health, constitute another group of factors replete with potential hostilities. A further factor is the possibility for one group or person to exploit another.

As to factors creating insecurity, our actual insecurity in the economic and social fields should be named first. Another powerful factor in creating personnel insecurity is certainly the fears created by the general potential hostile tensions: fear of envy in case of success, fear of contempt in case of failure, fear of being abused and, on the other hand,retaliation fears for wanting to shove others aside, to disparage and exploit them. Also the emotional isolation of the individual, resulting from disturbances in interpersonal relations and the accompanying lack of solidarity, is probably a powerful element engendering insecurity;"



And yes Freud was a charlatan in my opinion if that doesn’t understate it.

[Dave B]

the book was written circa 1938 I think

[x359594]

...Freud was a charlatan in my opinion...

It's one thing to declare Freud in error in his theories but another to accuse him of a deliberate hoax which is what the term charlatan implies to me.

From yet another Marxist view of Freud, this one from a feminist perspective as well, see Psychoanalysis and Feminism by Juliet Mitchell.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

x359594:


It's one thing to declare Freud in error in his theories but another to accuse him of a deliberate hoax which is what the term charlatan implies to me.

The historical evidence (some of which I linked to above) indeed shows he was a liar, a bully, and a cheat.

[el_chavista]

Freud and his psychoanalysis a fake! I'd like to see the face of the psychologist and the psychology teachers after this :p

[Pogue]

Yes i can, most overated pretentious drivel next to Hegel.
his writings on children development psychology are simply false and caused great suffering for decades.

Thats like arguing Marx's work is responsible for the suffering of people under Stalinist regimes.

I don't think you can link Freud to Marxism except maybe if you described how some aspects of pscyholohical behaviour are influenced by power relationships in society. I think in our analysis, we should keep marxism out of psychological sciences to avoid political bias. Not everything needs to be hammered into line with Marxist thought.

[Holden Caulfield]

I don't particularly like Freud, I don't think he was pleasant human being either and yes he did just talk shit to middle class women with more money and time than sense, but to say he that as an argument is shit.
To say he is a charlatan is like so 1800's. He might well be massively wrong but so was the likes of Galen, so I don't think we should discount the likes of Freud and Wundt so off handly.

read some of the Frankfurt Schoolers to see what we can take from Freud.
I think some of the major Frankfurters (lol) are in the wiki if you fancy a look.

[Ravachol]

Which school of psychology is then compatible with Marxism? Or, does Marxism reject these things because it believes that consciousness is only an epiphenomenon?

I think you're looking for this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudo-Marxism). Which is part of critical-theory so not really my cup of tea. Although I've read my share of works in the field of Critical Theory, i'm not a big fan of it (anymore). For criticism of this school i'd refer to Deleuze's Anti-Œdipus. It also presents an interesting episode of conflict with psychoanalysis, especially around the figure of Chasseguet-Smirgel (ex-CPF member who became a conservative, much like some trotties in the US who went on to form the bulk of the neo-conservative tendency) who famously claimed that the '68 insurrection was an "infantile revolt against the father-figure of the state and a desire to return to the maternal womb taking care of life (aka communism)". Even disregarding the inherent sexism in this 'analysis' it takes no genius to see that it's just plain nonsense without any scientific foundation. The fun part is that Smirgel never even bothered to look at the diffuse nature of the '68 revolt and smeared all of it with the term 'stalinism', which, in my book, is political infantilism. Supposedly her greatest contribution to psychoanalysis is some sort of 'critique of "totalitarianism"', another accusation flung at anarchists (yes, even against the anti-organisational types :rolleyes:) and marxists alike.
Only goes to show how unscientific a lot of psychoanalysis is. Yes i'm a proponent of 'hard science', no I'm not smug towards 'soft science'. I just detest presenting unscientific mumbling as intelligent analysis by disguising it with high-brow terms. That's called 'proof by intimidation'. The same goes for proto-leftist psychoanalysts like Lacan and his disciples as well. They serve the left no purpose.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

HC:


To say he is a charlatan is like so 1800's. He might well be massively wrong but so was the likes of Galen, so I don't think we should discount the likes of Freud and Wundt so off handly.

As we now know, Freud was a charlatan because he invented the 'evidence' he said supported his a priori psychology; in this he differs from the likes of Galen, and other genuine scientists.

[Glenn Beck]

Real Marxists intentionally mispronounce his name as "Frood", just to piss people off.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fraud, you mean...