Soviet Psychology

[Milk Sheikh]

Is psychology a good field to study at all for a Marxist - or is it essentially bourgeois? If not, is there anything like Marxist/Soviet psychology? Any suggestions?

[ed miliband]

Not Soviet (far from it), but Wilhelm Reich had some worthy insights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich

I recommend Maurice Brinton's introduction to Reich, The Irrational in Politics: http://www.uncarved.org/pol/irat.html

And Listen, Little Man!: http://www.listenlittleman.com/

[Kléber]

Bourgeois thinkers may dominate the field today but that doesn't mean we should relegate the task of researching and understanding the human mind to the class enemy. As for the Soviet Union, there were plenty of renowned psychologists there, who often worked under restrictive political conditions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkov_School_of_Psychology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Nikolaevich_Leont%27ev

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bekhterev

[Apoi_Viitor]

is there anything like Soviet psychology? Any suggestions?

unfortunately there is...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sluggishly_progressing_schizophrenia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union

[Apoi_Viitor]

Although if you're interested in 'leftist psychology', the Frankfurt School was fairly notable for their attempts in combining Psycho-Analysis with Marxism. Herbert Marcuse was probably the most prominent Freudo-Marxist.

Michel Foucault would be another interesting person to look into, along with Lacan, Deleuze, and Christopher Lasch.

EDIT: The book "The Freudian Left" is quite interesting (which talks about the ideas of Reich Roheim, and Marcuse). Furthermore, Herbert Marcuse's "Eros and Civilization" is an essential read (I believe it's the book that spawned the Freudo-Marxist "Repressive Hypothesis"). I'd also recommend any of Michel Foucault's books, specifically from The History of Sexuality Trilogy. Finally, Christopher Lasch's Culture of Narcissism is fairly easy to find, and an excellent read.

I forget to add, "Century of the Self" is a very good documentary on Capitalism and Psychology.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Uh... I have problem with the terminology being used here: are we talking about psychology, or psychoanalysis? Because Reich was not a psychologist. Nor was Freud, or Fromm (in his Marxist phase at the Frankfurt School). The folks who founded and ran the free Paul Lafarge clinic in Harlem (named after Marx's son-in-law) were psychoanalysts. So was Edith Jacobson, a follower of Freud who was active in the German underground and got busted by the Gestapo. So were the participants in the Rundbriefe, the chain-letter of Marxist shrinks that circulated in the 'forties.

Or are we talking of psychologists, that is, people whose working assumption is that human beings and rats are no more than the sum of their external stimuli, like, say, the operators at Abu Ghraib?

[Kléber]

I have problem with the terminology being used here: are we talking about psychology, or psychoanalysis?
As documented in Freud and the Bolsheviks by Martin Miller, there were also Soviet psychoanalysts in the 1920's, until Freud's works and theories were banned as "harmful to Marxism-Leninism." Some Bolsheviks, like Trotsky, defended the Freudians from this witch-hunt, which got them accused of "capitulating to bourgeois ideology." The state suppression of his movement in the USSR influenced Freud to write negatively of Bolshevism from 1927.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Small wonder that some of the left reject Freud, since his a priori psychology was based on lies, systematic fabrication and blatant charlatanry:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1339862&postcount=55

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

[QUOTE=Rosa Lichtenstein;1940561]Small wonder that some of the left reject Freud, since his a priori psychology was based on lies, systematic fabrication and blatant charlatanry:

Since this kind of rejection comes as much from the right as from the left it usually tells me more about the position of the rejector than the rejectee. Freud himself was a social-democrat, most of his associates of the "second generation" were social-democrats or Marxists; a handful were Communists. One of them headed the Association of German Socialist Physicians. Freud himself had some contempt for the CP and definitely feared the association after it was banned in Austria. On the other hand he came to a perceptive understanding of Marxism itself late in life. I happen to have seen Wilhelm Reich's annotated copy of a Freud discussion of Marxism: Reich himself started out trying to blend the two, then joined the CP and managed to get himself thrown out of the CP and the International Psa Association. One of Freud's students (and Jung's), Sabina Spielrein, left for Russia in 1923 and managed to practice psychoanalysis under the radar. She was killed by the Nazis at Rostov.

There are two currents in Freud-bashing. One is the old Soviet one, based on the observation that psychoanalysis is not behaviorism (duh!); the other is the so-called "feminist" one (not shared by most feminists, actually) that argues that Freud was a "sexist." (duh! again.) The "feminist" argument got a lot of traction from Jeffrey Masson's misinterpretation (not to mention out-and-out fabrications) about Freud's early patients. Unlike the Soviet argument, which is based on a theoretical difference in approaches (whatever one might think of either approach), the Masson-Millett approach (out of Kate Millett) turns out to be based on near-complete ignorance, and often deliberate falsification, of Freud's writings and works. How do I know? Because I've actually checked some of his sources in the archives.

Ironically, those proud leftists who are so eager to condemn Freud rarely have anything negative to say about Jung, who was the Fuhrer's favorite psychologist and who collaborated with the Nazis in purging the German Psa Association of Jews.

Cordially,

[Kotze]

@Hoipolloi Cassidy: Why don't you pull your head out of your arse and look at this link (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/mikkel-borch-jacobsen/how-a-fabrication-differs-from-a-lie) RL provided? Freud fabricated his research. Do you think that treating morphine addiction with coke is a good idea (and also prescribing that for treating asthma, digestive problems, seasickness...)? That's just one of Freud's great discoveries. :rolleyes:

I could also tell you what I think of Reich's Orgone "research" — but I guess it's pointless since you aren't yet past being obsessed with shit.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

[QUOTE=Kotze;1941077]@Hoipolloi Cassidy: Why don't you pull your head out of your arse Do you think that treating morphine addiction with coke is a good idea (and also prescribing that for treating asthma, digestive problems, seasickness...)? That's just one of Freud's great discoveries. :rolleyes:

Sounds like your great discovery is using coke to treat your own ignorance...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

HC:


Since this kind of rejection comes as much from the right as from the left it usually tells me more about the position of the rejector than the rejectee. Freud himself was a social-democrat, most of his associates of the "second generation" were social-democrats or Marxists; a handful were Communists. One of them headed the Association of German Socialist Physicians. Freud himself had some contempt for the CP and definitely feared the association after it was banned in Austria. On the other hand he came to a perceptive understanding of Marxism itself late in life. I happen to have seen Wilhelm Reich's annotated copy of a Freud discussion of Marxism: Reich himself started out trying to blend the two, then joined the CP and managed to get himself thrown out of the CP and the International Psa Association. One of Freud's students (and Jung's), Sabina Spielrein, left for Russia in 1923 and managed to practice psychoanalysis under the radar. She was killed by the Nazis at Rostov.

There are two currents in Freud-bashing. One is the old Soviet one, based on the observation that psychoanalysis is not behaviorism (duh!); the other is the so-called "feminist" one (not shared by most feminists, actually) that argues that Freud was a "sexist." (duh! again.) The "feminist" argument got a lot of traction from Jeffrey Masson's misinterpretation (not to mention out-and-out fabrications) about Freud's early patients. Unlike the Soviet argument, which is based on a theoretical difference in approaches (whatever one might think of either approach), the Masson-Millett approach (out of Kate Millett) turns out to be based on near-complete ignorance, and often deliberate falsification, of Freud's writings and works. How do I know? Because I've actually checked some of his sources in the archives.

Ironically, those proud leftists who are so eager to condemn Freud rarely have anything negative to say about Jung, who was the Fuhrer's favorite psychologist and who collaborated with the Nazis in purging the German Psa Association of Jews.

1) In fact, since Jung was just as guilty of producing a priori psychology, mixed in with no little mysticism, I am quite happy to say much the same of his work, too.

2) Whether or not Freud came to an understanding of Marxism is irrelevent to whether he fabricated his 'evidence'.

3) You will note I do not base my objections to Freud on feminist sources or on Masson's work.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

HC:



1) In fact, since Jung was just equally guilty of producing a priori psychology, mixed in with no little mysticism, I am quite happy to say much the same of his work, too.

2) Whether or not Freud came to an understanding of Marxism is irrelevent to whether he fabricated his 'evidence'.

3) You will note I do not base my objections to Freud on feminist sources or on Masson's work.
Am I missing something? You've told me what evidence you don't have, but not what evidence you do. I'm not sure how that strengthens your argument.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Check out the link I posted.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And the following:

Crews, F., et al. (1995), The Memory Wars (Granta Books).

--------, (1998) (ed.), Unauthorized Freud (Viking).

Decker, H. (1991), Freud, Dora, And Vienna 1900 (Free Press).

Dufresne, T. (2003), Killing Freud. Twentieth Century Culture And The Death of Psychoanalysis (Continuum).

Ellenberger, H. (1970), The Discovery Of The Unconscious (Harper Collins); reprinted in 1994 (Fontana).

Grünbaum, A. (1985), The Foundations Of Psychoanalysis (University of California Press).

Thornton, E. (1986), The Freudian Fallacy (Paladin).

Webster, R. (1995), Why Freud Was Wrong (Harper Collins).

Welsh, A. (1994), Freud's Wishful Dream Book (Princeton University Press).

Wilcocks, R. (1994), Maelzel's Chess Player. Sigmund Freud And The Rhetoric Of Deceit (Rowman and Littlefield).

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Secondary sources. Most of them talk-show hacks, with the exception of Ellenberger who doesn't support your argument anyhow. Crewes, the best-known of the lot, is a professor of English Lit. So that makes him an expert on scientific methodology in your book?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

HC:


Secondary sources

So?

Ellenberger was referenced since he demonstrated conclusively that Freud did not discover the 'Unconscious'.

The others aren't 'talk show' hacks, either -- and I defy you to show otherwise.

And, so what if Crews is a professor of Eng Lit?

Darwin and Mendel weren't qualified scientists, and Marx was not a trained economist. Should we ignore what they had to say in their fields, too? Perhaps we should if we followed your example.

Moreover, who said Crews was an "expert on scientific methodology"? Certainly not me. But, since Freud invented the 'evidence' he claimed supported his 'theory', he wasn't much of an expert in that regard either, was he?

Finally, Grunbaum is a leading expert in the philosophy of science. Care to show where he goes wrong?

[∞]

Freudo-Marxism is pretty cool...I have many parallels between Marx and Freud.
Also Freud never used the term subconscious for it being too vague.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1375162/

[∞]

Ironically, those proud leftists who are so eager to condemn Freud rarely have anything negative to say about Jung, who was the Fuhrer's favorite psychologist and who collaborated with the Nazis in purging the German Psa Association of Jews.

Jung and professional organizations in Germany, 1933 to 1939
In 1933, after the Nazis gained power in Germany, Jung took part in restructuring of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy (Allgemeine Ärztliche Gesellschaft für Psychotherapie), a German-based professional body with an international membership. The society was reorganized into two distinct bodies:
A strictly German body, the Deutsche Allgemeine Ärztliche Gesellschaft für Psychotherapie, led by Matthias Heinrich Göring, an Adlerian psychotherapist[48] and a cousin of the prominent Nazi Hermann Göring;
International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, led by Jung. The German body was to be affiliated to the international society, as were new national societies being set up in Switzerland and elsewhere.[49]




Wikipedia


C. G. Jung Institute, Küsnacht, Switzerland
The International Society's constitution permitted individual doctors to join it directly, rather than through one of the national affiliated societies, a provision to which Jung drew attention in a circular in 1934.[50] This implied that German Jewish doctors could maintain their professional status as individual members of the international body, even though they were excluded from the German affiliate, as well as from other German medical societies operating under the Nazis.[51]
As leader of the international body, Jung assumed overall responsibility for its publication, the Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie. In 1933, this journal published a statement endorsing Nazi positions[52] and Hitler's book Mein Kampf.[53] In 1934, Jung wrote in a Swiss publication, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, that he experienced "great surprise and disappointment"[54] when the Zentralblatt associated his name with the pro-Nazi statement.
Jung went on to say "the main point is to get a young and insecure science into a place of safety during an earthquake".[55] He did not end his relationship with the Zentralblatt at this time, but he did arrange the appointment of a new managing editor, Carl Alfred Meier of Switzerland. For the next few years, the Zentralblatt under Jung and Meier maintained a position distinct from that of the Nazis, in that it continued to acknowledge contributions of Jewish doctors to psychotherapy.[56]
In the face of energetic German attempts to Nazify the international body, Jung resigned from its presidency in 1939,[56] the year the Second World War started.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Actually, I'm still having a hard time figuring out what your beef is. If you feel Freud was a hack or a charlatan, well, that's your opinion, can't prove or disprove it either way. If you claim he falsified evidence, then I think you have to do better than to quote "experts" who in fact are simply passing on the evidence provided by Masson, whom you yourself admit you've never read.

As to Ellenberger - that has nothing to do with your original assertions anyhow.

Bottom line - and I'm going to leave it there. I have a friend who's a Freudian shrink - actually a Lacanian. For a while now she's been doing psychoanalysis with homeless women. That's right, ladies who wander the street with a shopping cart, and for whom the weekly talk session is the thing that still has them holding onto whatever shreds of dignity they may have.

To me that's all that really matters. The rest is just posturing.

[∞]

Yes, she used the term "subconscious" though he himself hadn't.

My mother being a neurologist, said Freudian concepts were the ones they primarily read up on.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BM:


Freudo-Marxism is pretty cool...I have many parallels between Marx and Freud.
Also Freud never used the term subconscious for it being too vague.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1375162/

Yes, I corrected that typo.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

HC:


Actually, I'm still having a hard time figuring out what your beef is. If you feel Freud was a hack or a charlatan, well, that's your opinion, can't prove or disprove it either way. If you claim he falsified evidence, then I think you have to do better than to quote "experts" who in fact are simply passing on the evidence provided by Masson, whom you yourself admit you've never read.

I think I made my objections pretty clear: the man was a liar, intellectual bully, cheat and cocaine soaked charlatan -- fond of writing a priori psychology while gripped with the odd idea that he was doing science.

And it is certainly capable of being proved he was a charlatan -- if you think otherwise, then you no doubt will find it easy to show where those authors I referenced (who also maintain this) go wrong.

And they are not passing on evidence from Masson. In fact they disagree with him. Care to show otherwise?

And where did I admit I had never read Masson?


Bottom line - and I'm going to leave it there. I have a friend who's a Freudian shrink - actually a Lacanian. For a while now she's been doing psychoanalysis with homeless women. That's right, ladies who wander the street with a shopping cart, and for whom the weekly talk session is the thing that still has them holding onto whatever shreds of dignity they may have.

It's plainly the talking not the Lacanian gobbledegook that is helping those poor sods.

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


To me that's all that really matters. The rest is just posturing.

I think psychologists call that denial...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BM:


My mother being a neurologist, said Freudian concepts were the ones they primarily read up on.

Yes, and astronomers used to have to read up on Ptolemy...

[Milk Sheikh]

Small wonder that some of the left reject Freud, since his a priori psychology was based on lies, systematic fabrication and blatant charlatanry:


Could you explain in simple and concise terms as to how he was a charlatan? Perhaps, a point-by-point analysis? It's not easy to slog through many pages on the computer; it's a terrible strain on the eye.

Thanks in advance.

[Dimentio]

Although if you're interested in 'leftist psychology', the Frankfurt School was fairly notable for their attempts in combining Psycho-Analysis with Marxism. Herbert Marcuse was probably the most prominent Freudo-Marxist.

Michel Foucault would be another interesting person to look into, along with Lacan, Deleuze, and Christopher Lasch.

EDIT: The book "The Freudian Left" is quite interesting (which talks about the ideas of Reich Roheim, and Marcuse). Furthermore, Herbert Marcuse's "Eros and Civilization" is an essential read (I believe it's the book that spawned the Freudo-Marxist "Repressive Hypothesis"). I'd also recommend any of Michel Foucault's books, specifically from The History of Sexuality Trilogy. Finally, Christopher Lasch's Culture of Narcissism is fairly easy to find, and an excellent read.

I forget to add, "Century of the Self" is a very good documentary on Capitalism and Psychology.

Isn't freudianism largely debunked?

[mosfeld]

Look up Frantz Fanon, a French revolutionary and psychiatrist born in Martinique.

http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/index.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Milk:


Could you explain in simple and concise terms as to how he was a charlatan? Perhaps, a point-by-point analysis? It's not easy to slog through many pages on the computer; it's a terrible strain on the eye.

He was a charlatan since he simply invented the 'evidence' he claimed supported his ideas.

Apologies if you can't wade through the material I referenced -- I merely posted it for the benefit of those who can.

If you read some of the essays I linked to here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1339862&postcount=55

you will find some of this material summarised for you.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dimentio:


Isn't freudianism largely debunked?

More than 'largely' -- completely.

See my posts above.

A recent article in the New Scientist by Mario Bunge underlines this:


WE SHOULD congratulate the Science Museum for setting up an exhibition on psychoanalysis. Exposure to pseudoscience greatly helps understand genuine science, just as learning about tyranny helps in understanding democracy.

Over the past 30 years, psychoanalysis has quietly been displaced in academia by scientific psychology. But it persists in popular culture as well as being a lucrative profession. It is the psychology of those who have not bothered to learn psychology, and the psychotherapy of choice for those who believe in the power of immaterial mind over body.

Psychoanalysis is a bogus science because its practitioners do not do scientific research. When the field turned 100, a group of psychoanalysts admitted this gap and endeavoured to fill it. They claimed to have performed the first experiment showing that patients benefited from their treatment. Regrettably, they did not include a control group and did not entertain the possibility of placebo effects. Hence, their claim remains untested (The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol 81, p 513).

More recently, a meta-analysis published in American Psychologist (vol 65, p 98) purported to support the claim that a form of psychoanalysis called psychodynamic therapy is effective. However, once again, the original studies did not involve control groups.

In 110 years, psychoanalysts have not set up a single lab. They do not participate in scientific congresses, do not submit their papers to scientific journals and are foreign to the scientific community - a marginality typical of pseudoscience.

This does not mean their hypotheses have never been put to the test. True, they are so vague that they are hard to test and some of them are, by Freud's own admission, irrefutable. Still, most of the testable ones have been soundly refuted.

For example, most dreams have no sexual content. The Oedipus complex is a myth; boys do not hate their fathers because they would like to have sex with their mothers. The list goes on.

As for therapeutic efficacy, little is known because psychoanalysts do not perform double-blind clinical trials or follow-up studies.

Psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience. Its concepts are woolly and untestable yet are regarded as unassailable axioms. As a result of such dogmatism, psychoanalysis has remained basically stagnant for more than a century, in contrast with scientific psychology, which is thriving.

New Scientist 5th October, 2010.

[Milk Sheikh]

In 110 years, psychoanalysts have not set up a single lab. They do not participate in scientific congresses, do not submit their papers to scientific journals and are foreign to the scientific community - a marginality typical of pseudoscience.



Doesn't this accusation only prove that psychoanalysis isn't exactly a science? But why should it be? A scientific method alone should suffice, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a science. Since a solid understanding of various reactions in the human mind elude even the reach of science (including neurology), I am not sure that the accusations are all that convincing.

I guess what I am saying is, something doesn't have to be a science in order to make sense. Music is not a science, but it gives many people peace and happiness. So if psychoanalysis has therapeutic value and helps patients, does it really matter if it's a science?

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

HC:

I think psychologists call that denial...

Shame on you, using a concept developed by that charlatan, cocaine addict, etc....OOOPS!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Milk:


Doesn't this accusation only prove that psychoanalysis isn't exactly a science? But why should it be? A scientific method alone should suffice, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a science. Since a solid understanding of various reactions in the human mind elude even the reach of science (including neurology), I am not sure that the accusations are all that convincing.

Then its no better than astrology for 'understanding' ourselves.


I guess what I am saying is, something doesn't have to be a science in order to make sense. Music is not a science, but it gives many people peace and happiness. So if psychoanalysis has therapeutic value and helps patients, does it really matter if it's a science?

Sure, but so does religion. Are you going to defend that too?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

HC:


Shame on you, using a concept developed by that charlatan, cocaine addict, etc....OOOPS!

Indeed, and it's no less bogus for all that.

That's why I used it.

So, if you accept Freud's fraud, then it applies to you.

If you do not, then it doesn't...

[danyboy27]

i am not extremely educated on the subject, but freud cant possibly be completely wrong, after all its the main structure on what the advertisement industry is built on, and last time i checked, those guy made a killing in profit beccause of it.

someone here have to explain me why its revelant that freud was consuming drug at the time, i simply dont see the point here.

and one last thing, why is everyone jumping at the guy like that beccause he had incorrect views on many aspect of psychology.

Psychology was a verry unknown realm back then, why would it be so surprising that he held incorrect views?

Nothing is completely black or white, Freud made some mistakes, so what? even Marx and Lenin made mistakes, nobody is immune to error or stupidity.

[devoration1]

Even though the Bolsheviks were by no means monolithic in their approach to this question, a number of leading Bolsheviks, including Lunarcharsky, Bukharin and Trotsky himself, were sympathetic to the aims and methods of psychoanalysis; as a result, the Russian branch of the International Psychoanalytical Association was the first in the world to obtain backing and funding from a state. During this period, one of the main focuses of the branch was the setting up of an "Orphans' School" devoted to bringing up and treating children who had been traumatised by the loss of parents in the civil war. Freud himself took a lively interest in these experiments: he was particularly curious about how the various efforts to bring up children on a communal basis, rather than within the tyrannical confines of the nuclear family, would impact on the Oedipus complex, which he had identified as a central issue in the individual's psychological history. Meanwhile, Bolsheviks like Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria, Tatiana Rosenthal and M A Reisner made contributions to psychoanalytical theory and explored its relationship with historical materialism

-a portion of the article "Science And The Marxist Movement: The Legacy Of Freud" from International Review #140.

The earlier relationship between Marxism, Bolshevism and Freud is far more interesting, in my opinion, than the large body of material produced by the Frankfurt School and 'Freudo-Marxists'- which receives far more attention than the former (as shown by this thread as well).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DannyBoy:


i am not extremely educated on the subject, but freud cant possibly be completely wrong, after all its the main structure on what the advertisement industry is built on, and last time i checked, those guy made a killing in profit beccause of it.

I'm not convinced they do, but even if you are right, success is no guide to truth.

Incorrect theories often make successful (practical and theoretical) predictions -- as, for example, Ptolemy's system did for many centuries. In fact, the allegedly superior Copernican system was no more accurate than the older, geocentric theory had been. Indeed, Ptolemy's system was refined progressively in line with observation for over a thousand years, and it became more accurate as a result. Despite that, who now regards it as the 'truth'?

There are many other examples of this phenomenon in the history of science.


someone here have to explain me why its revelant that freud was consuming drug at the time, i simply dont see the point here.

The drug he was using induces in the addict a quasi-religious sense of one's own superiority, that one's ideas are unassailably correct (despite there being no evidence in their support) and that one has an almost 'god'-given mandate to 'spread the word'. It also induces in the addict an unhealthy and prurient attitude toward sex -- the addict ends up seeing it everywhere (in dreams, for example).

You can find the (pharmocological) details in Thornton's book, referenced on the previous page.


and one last thing, why is everyone jumping at the guy like that beccause he had incorrect views on many aspect of psychology.

Psychology was a verry unknown realm back then, why would it be so surprising that he held incorrect views?

Nothing is completely black or white, Freud made some mistakes, so what? even Marx and Lenin made mistakes, nobody is immune to error or stupidity.

Well, I'm certainly not 'jumping' on him because he got things wrong -- as you say, there is nothing untoward in that. The point is that he fabricated his evidence, bullied his patients and lied pathologically.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Devoration1, thanks for that, but it's no surprise that leading Bolsheviks were attracted to Freud's a priori pseudo-science, since they were addicts of their own a priori, pseudo-scientific 'theory' -- dialectical materialism.

I have explained more fully why this is so here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1716221&postcount=1

[devoration1]

The drug he was using induces in the addict a quasi-religious sense of one's own superiority, that one's ideas are unassailably correct (despite there being no evidence in their support) and that one has an almost 'god'-given mandate to 'spread the word'. It also induces in the addict an unhealthy and prurient attitude toward sex -- the addict ends up seeing it everywhere (in dreams, for example).


I disagree with this assessment wholeheartedly. I also take issue with your earlier description of Cocaine- it ignores its physiological-medicinal properties, but more than that, ignores the context of the medical establishment in the early 20th century and the state of medicine at that time.

Regarding diamat, I haven't made up my mind. I do think historical materialism is at the core of Marxism, and extremely valuable.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Devoration1:


I disagree with this assessment wholeheartedly. I also take issue with your earlier description of Cocaine- it ignores its physiological-medicinal properties, but more than that, ignores the context of the medical establishment in the early 20th century and the state of medicine at that time.

Where did I say cocaine had no medicinal properties? But the stuff Freud was taking, in huge doses, was pure, and it has those side-effects. As I said, you will find the pharmocological details in Thornton's book.


Regarding diamat, I haven't made up my mind. I do think historical materialism is at the core of Marxism, and extremely valuable.

I agree with you about HM, and I have made my my mind up about DM.

[danyboy27]

DannyBoy:
I'm not convinced they do, but even if you are right, success is no guide to truth.

Incorrect theories often make successful (practical and theoretical) predictions -- as, for example, Ptolemy's system did for many centuries. In fact, the allegedly superior Copernican system was no more accurate than the older, geocentric theory had been. Indeed, Ptolemy's system was refined progressively in line with observation for over a thousand years, and it became more accurate as a result. Despite that, who now regards it as the 'truth'?
.
apple and grape. this exemple dosnt quite match with the success some of the tenets freud established.

Regarding the solar system model, it was all theory, open to speculation, but regarding psychology, there are verry real live exemple that some of his stuff was right, has i mentionned earlier, if all what he said was bullshit, then how come advertisement is making a killing?

In the case of psychology, unlike other field like astronomy, you can have half of the answer and still getting result, just like in medecine, you can barely know a disease and somehow restrain it.

Freud wouldnt be the only person who falsified his result to get a better score in order to be able to push its discoveries, get more financing or become well known, that dosnt mean he was completely wrong.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DannyBoy:


apple and grape.

Eh?


this exemple dosnt quite match with the success some of the tenets freud established.

Regarding the solar system model, it was all theory, open to speculation, but regarding psychology, there are verry real live exemple that some of his stuff was right, has i mentionned earlier, if all what he said was bullshit, then how come advertisement is making a killing?

And yet there was over a thousand years of evidence and observation that Ptolemy's system was correct, too.


In the case of psychology, unlike other field like astronomy, you can have half of the answer and still getting result, just like in medecine, you can barely know a disease and somehow restrain it.

I'm sorry, but I do not see the relevance of that comment.

This is quite apart from the fact that Freud's 'evidence' was all fabricated.


Freud wouldnt be the only person who falsified his result to get a better score in order to be able to push its discoveries, get more financing or become well known, that dosnt mean he was completely wrong.

He didn't falsify his 'evidence', he just made it up. And, as Mario Bunge pointed out (see the New Scientist article I posted earlier), there is precious little evidence now that he was right, and much to suggest he was woefully mis-guided.

So, no wonder he found had to invent his 'evidence'.

[Kenco Smooth]

I really don't see why a Marxist or Soviet psychology is necessary? In fact it seems to go against the basic principle of science of not approaching an issue without removing your own preconceptions as best you can.

I will cover myself by saying now that this is different from simply working with a typically Marxist framework (Vygotsky is a great example of a hugely influential psychologist who spoke favourably of the role Marx's materialist and dialectical ideas could have in the study of development).

[∞]

Rosa L.
The drug he was using induces in the addict a quasi-religious sense of one's own superiority, that one's ideas are unassailably correct (despite there being no evidence in their support) and that one has an almost 'god'-given mandate to 'spread the word'. It also induces in the addict an unhealthy and prurient attitude toward sex -- the addict ends up seeing it everywhere (in dreams, for example).


He apologized and regretted the fact that he experimented with cocaine both on his patients and himself.

Lets look at some of his accomplishments.

1. Provided new depth in physiological convulsions
2. Dispelled rumors of hypnosis, but eventually denied it as illegitimate.
3. Studied spinal reactions uncovered by hypnosis.
4. Primal therapy
5. Interpreting dreams; also, Id, Superego and ego.
6.. Karen Horney had actually developed psychoanalysis into introspection.

Jacques Lacan and Jung also improved Freud's psychoanalysis into a legitimate theory.

[FreeFocus]

Or are we talking of psychologists, that is, people whose working assumption is that human beings and rats are no more than the sum of their external stimuli, like, say, the operators at Abu Ghraib?

What a ludicrous statement. Not all psychologists are behaviorists, and while I disagree deeply with behaviorism, the movement made psychology a science that follows more scientific methods of inquiry and discovery - an important development, to be sure.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BM:


He apologized and regretted the fact that he experimented with cocaine both on his patients and himself.

So?


Let's look at some of his accomplishments.

1. Provided new depth in physiological convulsions
2. Dispelled rumors of hypnosis, but eventually denied it as illegitimate.
3. Studied spinal reactions uncovered by hypnosis.
4. Primal therapy
5. Interpreting dreams; also, Id, Superego and ego.
6.. Karen Horney had actually developed psychoanalysis into introspection.

Jacques Lacan and Jung also improved Freud's psychoanalysis into a legitimate theory.

1. Eh? What does that mean?

2. What do you mean 'dispelled'?

3. Again, what do you mean by this?

4. Eh?

5. A priori psychology, supported only by invented 'evidence'.

6. Introspection is not a science, and is incapable of being verified. So, it is little different from self-delusion or make-believe.

And Lacan was an even greater charlatan:

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

Not much to show for a lifetime's invention...er, work, is it?

As Philosopher of Science, Mario Bunge recently concluded (I'm re-posting this since you seem to have missed it):


WE SHOULD congratulate the Science Museum for setting up an exhibition on psychoanalysis. Exposure to pseudoscience greatly helps understand genuine science, just as learning about tyranny helps in understanding democracy.

Over the past 30 years, psychoanalysis has quietly been displaced in academia by scientific psychology. But it persists in popular culture as well as being a lucrative profession. It is the psychology of those who have not bothered to learn psychology, and the psychotherapy of choice for those who believe in the power of immaterial mind over body.

Psychoanalysis is a bogus science because its practitioners do not do scientific research. When the field turned 100, a group of psychoanalysts admitted this gap and endeavoured to fill it. They claimed to have performed the first experiment showing that patients benefited from their treatment. Regrettably, they did not include a control group and did not entertain the possibility of placebo effects. Hence, their claim remains untested (The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol 81, p 513).

More recently, a meta-analysis published in American Psychologist (vol 65, p 98) purported to support the claim that a form of psychoanalysis called psychodynamic therapy is effective. However, once again, the original studies did not involve control groups.

In 110 years, psychoanalysts have not set up a single lab. They do not participate in scientific congresses, do not submit their papers to scientific journals and are foreign to the scientific community - a marginality typical of pseudoscience.

This does not mean their hypotheses have never been put to the test. True, they are so vague that they are hard to test and some of them are, by Freud's own admission, irrefutable. Still, most of the testable ones have been soundly refuted.

For example, most dreams have no sexual content. The Oedipus complex is a myth; boys do not hate their fathers because they would like to have sex with their mothers. The list goes on.

As for therapeutic efficacy, little is known because psychoanalysts do not perform double-blind clinical trials or follow-up studies.

Psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience. Its concepts are woolly and untestable yet are regarded as unassailable axioms. As a result of such dogmatism, psychoanalysis has remained basically stagnant for more than a century, in contrast with scientific psychology, which is thriving.

[∞]

1. Eh? What does that mean?

2. What do you mean 'dispelled'?

3. Again, what do you mean by this?

4. Eh?

Things psychiatrists and neurologists read about today.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

They also read novels. So what?

[∞]

What they study...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I'm sure they study the weather reports too.

[∞]

What they primarily study.

Do it again, and I'll have to assume you have asperger syndrome.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

GM:


What they primarily study.

I suspect that this is their tax forms.


Do it again, and I'll have to assume you have asperger syndrome.

Yet more a priori, and now armchair, psychiatry.:lol:

[∞]

You love ad-hominems, don't you?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

They aren't ad hominems:

http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Actually, there is a very small division of the American Psychological Association (Division 39) that includes clinical workers - you know, therapists of one kind or another. Since, for some strange reason, this thread includes the term "Psychology" in its title, I simply wanted to draw the distinction between Freudian analysis and psychology as an experimental science - a distinction some of us seem incapable of making.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

HC:


Actually, there is a very small division of the American Psychological Association (Division 39) that includes clinical workers - you know, therapists of one kind or another. Since, for some strange reason, this thread includes the term "Psychology" in its title, I simply wanted to draw the distinction between Freudian analysis and psychology as an experimental science - a distinction some of us seem incapable of making.

Still in denial, I see...

[~Spectre]

"Freud's fanciful pseudo-explanations (precisely because they are brilliant) perform a disservice.
(Now any ass has these pictures available to use in "explaining" symptoms of an illness."

[Apoi_Viitor]

From the great Wikipedia: ...The philosopher Paul Ricoeur argued that psychoanalysis can be considered a type of textual interpretation or hermeneutics. Like cultural critics and literary scholars, Ricoeur contended, psychoanalysts spend their time interpreting the nuances of language — the language of their patients. Ricoeur claimed that psychoanalysis emphasizes the polyvocal or many-voiced qualities of language, focusing on utterances that mean more than one thing. Ricoeur classified psychoanalysis as a hermeneutics of suspicion. By this he meant that psychoanalysis searches for deception in language, and thereby destabilizes our usual reliance on clear, obvious meanings...

Also to Rosa: although you haven't explicitly said so, I assume one of your objections to Freud's method, is it's lack of testability - a lot of his concepts were proposed in a way in which they couldn't be validated or negated... Or at least, this was Karl Popper's criticism of Freud... but my actual question is sort of off topic, what is your opinion on his philosophy of science?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

AV:


From the great Wikipedia: ...The philosopher Paul Ricoeur argued that psychoanalysis can be considered a type of textual interpretation or hermeneutics. Like cultural critics and literary scholars, Ricoeur contended, psychoanalysts spend their time interpreting the nuances of language — the language of their patients. Ricoeur claimed that psychoanalysis emphasizes the polyvocal or many-voiced qualities of language, focusing on utterances that mean more than one thing. Ricoeur classified psychoanalysis as a hermeneutics of suspicion. By this he meant that psychoanalysis searches for deception in language, and thereby destabilizes our usual reliance on clear, obvious meanings...

Christianity can be used in this way too. Does that make it acceptable?


Also to Rosa: although you haven't explicitly said so, I assume one of your objections to Freud's method, is it's lack of testability - a lot of his concepts were proposed in a way in which they couldn't be validated or negated... Or at least, this was Karl Popper's criticism of Freud... but my actual question is sort of off topic, what is your opinion on his philosophy of science?

My objection to Freud is that his theory is a priori and dogmatic, not that it can't be tested.

However, the fact that it can't be tested is a corollary of that objection.

I also have no respect for a man who systematically lied about his work, and invented evidence that allegedly supported his conclusions.

Finally, I reject Popper's falsification criterion, but we can discuss that in another thread.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

HC:



Still in denial, I see...
I wasn't talking to you. Moreover, since every post I've seen from you has the coherence, the logic and the sophistication of a monkey throwing her shit at the wall in the hopes it'll stick, I'd appreciate if you'd haul your purple butt somewhere else, you're interesting to nobody but your masturbatory little self.

[Kotze]

The little problem with Freud is that he fabricated stuff.

The problem with Freud is that he FABRICATED stuff. He F A B R I C A T E D it. Do you get that? He frequently told stories about how things developed with his patients that were MADE UP. It's simple as that. This is very different from giving a speculative answer to a question where there is little data. Saying everybody commits some errors and he was a pioneer blahblahblah doesn't cut it. He fabricated his research. Saying that you can't criticise him if you aren't an expert in the field is ridiculous given the not exactly subtle way he was DOING IT WRONG, you know, like the part were he fabricated research.

You got fucking told in the fucking link (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/mikkel-borch-jacobsen/how-a-fabrication-differs-from-a-lie) that fucking Freud fucking fabricated his fucking research. He fabricated it. Oh, you are only negative towards him because you must be of this or that other competing school of obscurantist bourgie bullshit philosophy. -What the FUCK is wrong with you? What the fuck. Jesus Fucking Christ you guys are dense.

Fabricated.

[∞]

Saying everybody commits some errors and he was a pioneer blahblahblah doesn't cut it.

He has made some very, very, important contributions. I never liked his lying though.

[Apoi_Viitor]

AV:
Christianity can be used in this way too. Does that make it acceptable?

For 'scientific' purposes, no. I never argued psychoanalysis was a legitimate scientific field - because it's far from it... Like most revlefters, I note that Freud made some very important contributions to the psychiatric field, but practice has proven his major theories to be 'false'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

AV:


For 'scientific' purposes, no. I never argued psychoanalysis was a legitimate scientific field - because it's far from it... Like most revlefters, I note that Freud made some very important contributions to the psychiatric field, but practice has proven his major theories to be 'false'.

If psychoanalysis isn't a "legitimate scientific field" then how could Freud possibly have made "important contributions"?

That's a bit like saying the Book of Revelation has added to our knowledge of heavenly creatures...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

HC:


I wasn't talking to you.

Just yourself.

You need help...


Moreover, since every post I've seen from you has the coherence, the logic and the sophistication of a monkey throwing her shit at the wall in the hopes it'll stick,

That's a lie. I have never even so much as attempted to copy you and your endearing toliet habits.


I'd appreciate if you'd haul your purple butt somewhere else,

It is in fact pink.


you're interesting to nobody but your masturbatory little self.

Projection now, I see..:lol:.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kotzeeee:


The little problem with Freud is that he fabricated stuff.

The problem with Freud is that he FABRICATED stuff. He F A B R I C A T E D it. Do you get that? He frequently told stories about how things developed with his patients that were MADE UP. It's simple as that. This is very different from giving a speculative answer to a question where there is little data. Saying everybody commits some errors and he was a pioneer blahblahblah doesn't cut it. He fabricated his research. Saying that you can't criticise him if you aren't an expert in the field is ridiculous given the not exactly subtle way he was DOING IT WRONG, you know, like the part were he fabricated research.

You got fucking told in the fucking link that fucking Freud fucking fabricated his fucking research. He fabricated it. Oh, you are only negative towards him because you must be of this or that other competing school of obscurantist bourgie bullshit philosophy. -What the FUCK is wrong with you? What the fuck. Jesus Fucking Christ you guys are dense.

Fabricated.

You know; you are right.

Now why didn't I think of that?:(

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BM:


He has made some very, very, important contributions.

Even though no one seems to know what these are...:(

[danyboy27]

BM:



Even though no one seems to know what these are...:(

he claimed that Human where emotion driven individuals, that you could somehow control people if you knew how to apply the right appeal to emotion on a particular individual or a group of people.

Even if he F.A.B.R.I.C.A.T.E.D and made up many things, he got some stuff right, edward bernays proved that verry clearly when he established the basis of what we know today has the advertisement industry.

something fabricated is not necessarly something that is false.
psychics and medium have a success rate of 50% most of the time, i dont see why somebody who lie about his work would not have the same odd of being right about something.

[∞]

His discovery of unconscious is important, cognitive psychologists still use it.

I'm not a believer in psychoanalysis...I am also very upset about all the fabricated stuff he put out. All in all the BS isn't important, in this case its the good that outweighs the bad. We can't reject Freud completely, yet we cannot revere him as a total genius.

I don't think I made my point of view very clear.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BM:


His discovery of unconscious is important, cognitive psychologists still use it.

He didn't discover it, even though he and his followers claim he did.

That is why I listed Ellenberger's book on page one.


All in all the BS isn't important, in this case its the good that outweighs the bad. We can't reject Freud completely, yet we cannot revere him as a total genius.

And what 'good' is that, then?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dannyboy:


he claimed that Human where emotion driven individuals, that you could somehow control people if you knew how to apply the right appeal to emotion on a particular individual or a group of people.

Aristotle had maintained that 2300 years earlier. So had many others. It's even in the Bible!


Even if he F.A.B.R.I.C.A.T.E.D and made up many things, he got some stuff right, edward bernays proved that verry clearly when he established the basis of what we know today has the advertisement industry.

So you have already asserted, but wildy inaccurate theories have many practical applications, as I argued earlier. Obsolete Caloric Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caloric_theory), for example, was used by Laplace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace) 200 years ago to derive a highly accurate theory of sound, which was only superceded 100 years later:


Quite a number of successful explanations can be, and were, made from these hypotheses alone. We can understand why a cup of tea cools at room temperature: caloric is self-repelling, and thus slowly flows from regions dense in caloric (the hot water) to regions less dense in caloric (the cooler air in the room).

We can explain the expansion of air under heat: caloric is absorbed into the molecules of air, which increases its volume. If we say a little more about what happens to caloric during this absorption phenomenon, we can explain the radiation of heat, the state changes of matter under various temperatures, and deduce nearly all of the gas laws.

Sadi Carnot developed his principle of the Carnot cycle, which still forms the basis of heat engine theory, solely from the caloric viewpoint.

However, one of the greatest confirmations of the caloric theory was Pierre-Simon Laplace's theoretical correction of Sir Isaac Newton’s pulse equation. Laplace, a calorist, added a constant to Newton’s equation, which we refer to today as the adiabatic index of a gas. This addition not only substantially corrected the theoretical prediction of the speed of sound, but also continued to make even more accurate predictions for almost a century afterward, even as measurements of the index became more precise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caloric_theory#Successes

At least there was some evidence for the existence of Caloric. None at all exists for Freud's frauds, other than that which that charlatan had invented.


something fabricated is not necessarly something that is false.

Is that the best you can do to defend this systematic liar?

The problem here is that Freud not only ruined several patient's lives with his whacko theories (Emma Eckstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Eckstein), for example), he ripped them off into the bargain -- as have countless thousands of analysts since.


psychics and medium have a success rate of 50% most of the time, i dont see why somebody who lie about his work would not have the same odd of being right about something.

In that case, any randomly selected individual would be just as good as Freud at treating those with mental health problems. We can all make stuff up.

Are you prepared to argue in favour of this radically new innovation in how we treat the afflicted?

What next? Witch Doctors and Shamans?

[danyboy27]

hey rosa, stop attacking me, i dont defend freud, i barely know the guy, calm down a bit.

i am trying to come up with an explanation about why some of the stuff he said, especially concerning human emotions MIGHT be correct, that all.

But, back to the main topic, what was it? haa yes, psychology!

Freud dosnt ''own'' this field, so why are we debating about him while there are plenty of other psychologist who have made plenty of discovery about the human mind?

the OP only wanted to know if it was a good field for a leftist, and i personally think the answer is yes, understanding the human mind shopuld be one of the top priority for the left.

please rosa, now that you made your point, can we move on and you know, develop about something else than freud?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DannyBoy:


hey rosa, stop attacking me, i dont defend freud, i barely know the guy, calm down a bit.

I'm not attacking you. You'll certainly know it if I do.


I am trying to come up with an explanation about why some of the stuff he said, especially concerning human emotions MIGHT be correct, that all.

Just like a room full of monkeys might randomly type out a few lines of Shakespeare?

Come to think of it, the latter is far more likely...:)


But, back to the main topic, what was it? haa yes, psychology!

Freud dosnt ''own'' this field, so why are we debating about him while there are plenty of other psychologist who have made plenty of discovery about the human mind?

Maybe so, but others here mentioned Freud, so it's quite legitimate of me to point out that he was a complete fraud.


the OP only wanted to know if it was a good field for a leftist, and i personally think the answer is yes, understanding the human mind shopuld be one of the top priority for the left.

Maybe so, but I have yet to find a left-leaning psychologist/psychiatrist who is worth reading.


please rosa, now that you made your point, can we move on and you know, develop about something else than freud?

You must think me powerful indeed if you imagine for one second that I can prevent you, and others, discussing whatever you like.

But, any more attempts to defend Freud here are fair game, as far as I'm concerned.

[scarletghoul]

As Mosfeld said, you should totally look up Fanon. The Wretched of the Earth is a book every communist should read.

Also Freud is one of the most important thinkers in history so dont be hatin
just cuz Rosa can't get his head round anything other than bourgeois metaphysics and historical materialism

[danyboy27]

i really dont know why psychology should be left leaning or right leaning, its science, its up to the people who understand it to use it for a rightist or a leftist purpose.

I think Rosa that you see stuff from a point of view that is too manichean, there is no ''leftist'' or ''bourgeois'' science, there is no ''good'' or ''bad'' science, just like there is no ''bad'' or ''good'' shovel, its a shovel for christ sake, you can use it for gardening or kill people, but it still a shovel.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Scarlet:


Also Freud is one of the most important thinkers in history so dont be hatin

No surprise then that a fan of a priori dogmatics like you should favour the ideas of a dogmatist and serial fabulist like Freud.


just cuz Rosa can't get his head round anything other than bourgeois metaphysics and historical materialism

1) "His"?

2) What example 'bourgeois metaphysics' had you in mind then?

3) Brave words coming from someone who can't follow a simple demolition of the dialectical 'theory' of change.:lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

danyboy:


I think Rosa that you see stuff from a point of view that is too manichean,

In fact, I agree with Marx that the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class. That's partly why psychology and psychiatry (both left and right) struggle to understand our psychological make-up.


there is no ''leftist'' or ''bourgeois'' science, there is no ''good'' or ''bad'' science,

Where did I say there was?


just like there is no ''bad'' or ''good'' shovel, its a shovel for christ sake, you can use it for gardening or kill people, but it still a shovel.

You clearly think that science is practiced by robots, unaffected by those pesky 'ruling ideas'.

[danyboy27]

danyboy:



In fact, I agree with Marx that the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class. That's partly why psychology and psychiatry (both left and right) struggle to understand our psychological make-up.

.
that dosnt mean that all of those idea are bad, do you think plastic surgery is bad beccause its a practice encouraged by the rulling class? Its just science, can be used for both good and bad purpose.




Where did I say there was?
.
Well, the first post you made in this thread clearly say that you think psuychology is bourgeois.






You clearly think that science is practiced by robots, unaffected by those pesky 'ruling ideas'.
hoo for chirst sake, is that really necessary to be a dick about something that simple? Science is not practiced by robots, that basicly my point.

its how you use science or a tool for that matter that make the difference, science is just science.

Now, can you please stop mocking me, is it really that hard to be respectful?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

dannyboy:


that dosnt mean that all of those idea are bad, do you think plastic surgery is bad beccause its a practice encouraged by the rulling class? Its just science, can be used for both good and bad purpose.

Did I say they were? The point is that science can no more escape ruling-class ideology than anything else. You seem to think it can.


Well, the first post you made in this thread clearly say that you think psuychology is bourgeois.

Here's that post:


Small wonder that some of the left reject Freud, since his a priori psychology was based on lies, systematic fabrication and blatant charlatanry:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1339862&postcount=55
I don't see the word "bourgeois" in there, do you?


hoo for chirst sake, is that really necessary to be a dick about something that simple? Science is not practiced by robots, that basicly my point.

its how you use science or a tool for that matter that make the difference, science is just science.

Once more, you seem to think that science is an autonomous practice, unaffected by ruling-class ideology.


Now, can you please stop mocking me, is it really that hard to be respectful?

I'm not mocking you.

[danyboy27]

dannyboy:



Did I say they were? The point is that science can no more escape ruling-class ideology than anything else. You seem to think it can.
.
I am not saying that. Science can be used by a rulling class at their advantage, that for sure, and the rulling class may be interested by certain field beccause it suit them, but that dosnt change nothing from the fact that this knowledge can be used by the people of the opposite class for their own advantages has well eventually.

science is still science, and no matter how much influence a class might have on it, sooner or latter anything that is false or untrue in it will be blown up by further studies and the scientifical method.

I got the feeling that you where mocking me beccause you affirmed something that was ridiculous and absurd about my opinion, basicly attempting to make me look like a fool.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DannyBoy:


I am not saying that. Science can be used by a ruling class at their advantage, that for sure, and the ruling class may be interested by certain field because it suits them, but that doesn't change nothing from the fact that this knowledge can be used by the people of the opposite class for their own advantages has well eventually.

science is still science, and no matter how much influence a class might have on it, sooner or latter anything that is false or untrue in it will be blown up by further studies and the scientific method.

'Science is science' -- as you put it -- only in a vacuum. In the real world, science is just as susceptible to ruling-class ideology as is anything else.

Consider an example -- Engels's analysis of Darwinism:


"1) Of the Darwinian doctrine I accept the theory of evolution, but Darwin's method of proof (struggle for life, natural selection) I consider only a first, provisional, imperfect expression of a newly discovered fact. Until Darwin's time the very people who now see everywhere only struggle for existence (Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, etc.) emphasized precisely cooperation in organic nature, the fact that the vegetable kingdom supplies oxygen and nutriment to the animal kingdom and conversely the animal kingdom supplies plants with carbonic acid and manure, which was particularly stressed by Liebig. Both conceptions are justified within certain limits, but the one is as one-sided and narrow-minded as the other. The interaction of bodies in nature -- inanimate as well as animate -- includes both harmony and collision, struggle and cooperation. When therefore a self-styled natural scientist takes the liberty of reducing the whole of historical development with all its wealth and variety to the one-sided and meagre phrase 'struggle for existence,' a phrase which even in the sphere of nature can be accepted only cum grano salis [with a grain of salt -- RL], such a procedure really contains its own condemnation.

"...I should therefore attack -- and perhaps will when the time comes -- these bourgeois Darwinists in about the following manner:

"The whole Darwinists teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes's doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes [from Hobbes's De Cive and Leviathan, chapter 13-14 -- the 'war of all against all' -- RL] and of the bourgeois-economic doctrine of competition together with Malthus's theory of population. When this conjurer's trick has been performed (and I questioned its absolute permissibility, as I have indicated in point 1, particularly as far as the Malthusian theory is concerned), the same theories are transferred back again from organic nature into history and it is now claimed that their validity as eternal laws of human society has been proved. The puerility of this procedure is so obvious that not a word need be said about it. But if I wanted to go into the matter more thoroughly I should do so by depicting them in the first place as bad economists and only in the second place as bad naturalists and philosophers.

"4) The essential difference between human and animal society consists in the fact that animals at most collect while men produce. This sole but cardinal difference alone makes it impossible simply to transfer laws of animal societies to human societies....

"At a certain stage the production of man attains such a high-level that not only necessaries but also luxuries, at first, true enough, only for a minority, are produced. The struggle for existence -- if we permit this category for the moment to be valid -- is thus transformed into a struggle for pleasures, no longer for mere means of subsistence but for means of development, socially produced means of development, and to this stage the categories derived from the animal kingdom are no longer applicable. But if, as has now happened, production in its capitalist form produces a far greater quantity of means of subsistence and development than capitalist society can consume because it keeps the great mass of real producers artificially away from these means of subsistence and development; if this society is forced by its own law of life constantly to increase this output which is already too big for it and therefore periodically, every 10 years, reaches the point where it destroys not only a mass of products but even productive forces -- what sense is their left in all this talk of 'struggle for existence'? The struggle for existence can then consist only in this: that the producing class takes over the management of production and distribution from the class that was hitherto entrusted with it but has now become incompetent to handle it, and there you have the socialist revolution.

"...Even the mere contemplation of previous history as a series of class struggles suffices to make clear the utter shallowness of the conception of this history as a feeble variety of the 'struggle for existence.' I would therefore never do this favour to these false naturalists....

"6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the 'bellum omnium contra omnes' was the first phase of human development. In my opinion, the social instinct was one of the most essential levers of the evolution of man from the ape. The first man must have lived in bands and as far as we can peer into the past we find that this was the case...." [Engels to Lavrov, 17/11/1875. Spelling altered to agree with UK English. Bold emphases added.]

It's quite clear from this that one of the most important scientific theories of all time came into the world swaddled in ruling-class ideology.

Of course, the ruling-class do not have to do this directly -- in many cases they do not need to. Scientists are in general socialised in bourgeois education systems, and accept the basic ethos and aims of capitalist society (whatever individual criticisms they might have of it). So are the vast majority of 'opinion formers', 'intellectuals', administrators, editors, publishers, and philosophers. As Marx noted:


"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.'" [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, pp.64-65. Bold added.]

You will find another example of this sort of thing in the following thread over in Science (in relation to the ideologically-compromised ideas of Richard Dawkins, a man who is a leftist of sorts, but who also spouts right-wing biology):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-left-hostile-t132454/index.html

[All being well, I will reply to the responses to me later next week.]

The propensity of all such theorists (including Freud) to spout a priori dogmatic 'theories' is explained here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1349779&postcount=2


I got the feeling that you where mocking me because you affirmed something that was ridiculous and absurd about my opinion, basically attempting to make me look like a fool.

I'm sorry, but there was no such intention on my part.:)

[danyboy27]

DannyBoy:



'Science is science' -- as you put it -- only in a vacuum. In the real world, science is just as susceptible to ruling-class ideology as is anything else.

Consider an example -- Engels's analysis of Darwinism:



It's quite clear from this that one of the most important scientific theories of all time came into the world swaddled in ruling-class ideology.

Of course, the ruling-class do not have to do this directly -- in many cases they do not need to. Scientists are in general socialised in bourgeois education systems, and accept the basic ethos and aims of capitalist society (whatever individual criticisms they might have of it). So are the vast majority of 'opinion formers', 'intellectuals', administrators, editors, publishers, and philosophers. As Marx noted:



You will find another example of this sort of thing in the following thread over in Science (in relation to the ideologically-compromised ideas of Richard Dawkins, a man who is a leftist of sorts, but who also spouts right-wing biology):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-left-hostile-t132454/index.html

[All being well, I will reply to the responses to me later next week.]

The propensity of all such theorists (including Freud) to spout a priori dogmatic 'theories' is explained here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1349779&postcount=2



I'm sorry, but there was no such intention on my part.:)
I know what you trying to explain, i perfectly get that, but i fail to see why this is incompatible with what i just said earlier.

Those who have the mean and control over the ressource control where science is going, if the working class would take over all that, then science would take a slightly different dirrection.

that dosnt mean that the scientifical progress made by a conflicting class is useless to ours.

Psychology for exemple, a science that you seem to dislike beccause of its bourgeois bias has helped a shitload of people to feel better over the year, the progress made in that field are simply amazing. We would be fool to ignore those fields beccause of the tremendous benefit we could get from further research.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dannyboy:


I know what you trying to explain, i perfectly get that, but i fail to see why this is incompatible with what i just said earlier.

Well, you seem to have an abstract idea of science.


that dosnt mean that the scientifical progress made by a conflicting class is useless to ours.

I agree, but then we mustn't uncritically accept something just because some scientist comes out with it -- especially if he/she makes stuff up, like Freud.


Psychology for exemple, a science that you seem to dislike beccause of its bourgeois bias has helped a shitload of people to feel better over the year, the progress made in that field are simply amazing. We would be fool to ignore those fields beccause of the tremendous benefit we could get from further research.

You keep inserting the word "bourgeois" in here. I have never criticised psychology on that basis.

I tend to agree with Wittgenstein:


The confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a “young science”; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginnings. (Rather with that of certain branches of mathematics. Set theory.) For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion. (As in the other case conceptual confusion and methods of proof.)

More on that here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/88252/Wittgenstein-on-Psychology

These "conceptual confusions" are plain to see in Freud's work, and more recently in other areas of cognitive science.

I have outlined many of those here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13_03.htm