Psychology, barriers, and communism

[Dean]

This is a concept I came across in high school, I was just recently reintroduced to it. The concept is basically that human alienation creates (or exists as) barriers, and the breaking down of them is the alleviation of alienation.

This leads to some interesting questions. If you follow the freudian concept of human sexualtiy being the main productive drive in man, does communal sexuality necessarily exist in a communist (barrier-lacking) society? If this is the case, are people basically bisexual, and only by alienation do they focus their sexuality on a specific gender?

Do you think that the "barrier" specific categorization of human alienation is accurate?

[Chom]

What happens in societies that are blocking sexual knowledge and education, is that horrible psychical problems develope. You could take a look at Freud's society; the very strict and imperialistic civilization of the Austrian empire, had hysterics (woman AND men) walking around in the streets... so did psychotics and schizophrenics. If you study Freud's sexual theory closely, you'll see that he is very right about many assumptions. However, a too open society (Freud advised) would also be psychotical.

My opinion is that I would reduce Freuds theory (when it comes to a free, open and civilized society) only to a individual closest circles (family and friends), but I wouldn't dare to say, sexuality determines it's productive drive. Well, you could determine all of it to a sexual theory, but then again it get's to quite complex and entangled relations between humans.

I don't know if I understood the point you were trying to make here...

[Raúl Duke]

If you follow the freudian concept of human sexualtiy being the main productive drive in man, does communal sexuality necessarily exist in a communist (barrier-lacking) society? If this is the case, are people basically bisexual, and only by alienation do they
focus their sexuality on a specific gender?I don't think Freud's theory on this still has any credibility.
Although who knows? Maybe we'll find out once we have a "barrier-lacking" society.


Do you think that the "barrier" specific categorization of human alienation is accurate?

Maybe it depends on what kind of barrier...

The Freudian psychosexual one that you described I don't think it's accurate...

[Dean]

What happens in societies that are blocking sexual knowledge and education, is that horrible psychical problems develope. You could take a look at Freud's society; the very strict and imperialistic civilization of the Austrian empire, had hysterics (woman AND men) walking around in the streets... so did psychotics and schizophrenics. If you study Freud's sexual theory closely, you'll see that he is very right about many assumptions. However, a too open society (Freud advised) would also be psychotical.

My opinion is that I would reduce Freuds theory (when it comes to a free, open and civilized society) only to a individual closest circles (family and friends), but I wouldn't dare to say, sexuality determines it's productive drive. Well, you could determine all of it to a sexual theory, but then again it get's to quite complex and entangled relations between humans.

I don't know if I understood the point you were trying to make here...
I think the point was about the freedom of our own basic drives. The concept being that we encounter barriers to our drives in trying to actuate them, so we take different - often irrational - routes. Basically, our conditions cage us and make us insane.


Maybe it depends on what kind of barrier...

The Freudian psychosexual one that you described I don't think it's accurate...
I don't think he is fully accurate either. Like Chom said, his theories are probably applicable in a lot of instances, but in many others not. It was just an idea, really, to try to explain the barrier concept.

Come to think of it, its hard to really define this type of barrier without it becoming a moral issue - what should and should not be allowed. I was thinking as I wrote, "what is a barrier?" the first part of my post gives a crude answer to this question.

I think it is clear that psychosesxual theories cannot explain everything. I am more interested in the degree to which people here would attribute mental sickness and personality development to barriers in oru lives.

[sonicbluetm]

No self-respecting communist (or rather any anarcho-socialist or anyone who believes in democracy and the common people) should be taking Freud seriously.
Psychology since its inception (largely because of Freudian ideas having set its direction), has been used for exactly that: alienation and control of the herd mentality. Psychology and psychiatry as we know them today exist solely as a tool of the higher classes to disseminate pro-bourgeois ideas among the lower classes.
Soon they will develop a cure for socialism in pill form.

[ckaihatsu]

I am more interested in the degree to which people here would attribute mental sickness and personality development to barriers in oru lives.


This is really the point, and the question itself is a strong argument against religion / moralism / self-centric / psychological modes of thinking. All of these typify the Western / capitalistic reductionistic approach to science, even in the realm of the humanities. The person's mental state is commodified into a sole, solitary unit to be picked apart and faulted at length.

In reality we all live in groups, and in society as a whole. If one or two, or a few, people suffer broken limbs because of accidents then they could be said to have made mistakes on their own (possibly) -- but if hundreds or thousands out of a population are suffering from the same problem, in the same way, then it's a societal issue that *can't* simply be blamed on individuals, using a reductionist approach.

The mentality that capitalism breeds is at the heart of most of our problems today, because it is a very good mentality to have if we were all stranded individuals facing down harsh challenges in the wild, but nowhere else. In reality we live in complex modern societies, ones which continually go to war over territory and natural resources, thanks to the self-centered profit motive.

In a darkening world economy the adventurer-hero ideal is an absurd one for everyone to have. Even the nuclear family structure is very outmoded, but we haven't developed a liberatory culture and economy to break free of it. It's not surprising that people find themselves overextended and at a loss despite all of their best individualistic efforts.

My own contribution to this topic is at these links -- it's a materialist framework along the lines of social psychology....


Ideologies & Operations -- Dynamics
http://tinyurl.com/32qsdb

Ideologies & Operations -- Dynamics (Page 1 of 2)
http://tinyurl.com/275drt

Ideologies & Operations -- Dynamics (Page 2 of 2)
http://tinyurl.com/2vd8dg


Chris


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[Raúl Duke]

The concept is basically that human alienation creates (or exists as) barriers, and the breaking down of them is the alleviation of alienation.


Hmm, What if these barrier's are akin to (using Freudian terminology) defense mechanisms which have become maladaptive (served their purpose and now act as a hindrance)? In such framework it would make sense to "break them down" to alleviate the alienation.


In reality we all live in groups, and in society as a whole.

My own contribution to this topic is at these links -- it's a materialist framework along the lines of social psychology....


Ideologies & Operations -- Dynamics
http://tinyurl.com/32qsdb

Ideologies & Operations -- Dynamics (Page 1 of 2)
http://tinyurl.com/275drt

Ideologies & Operations -- Dynamics (Page 2 of 2)
http://tinyurl.com/2vd8dg

I'll take a look: I like social psychology and am considering on specializing on that.

Actually,the breaking down of these barriers might require a collective effort or at least reciprocal reactions to one's efforts (considering that in the first place these barriers were for social situations and alienation is a social/group concept-problem).