Americans' concerns about moral decline

Mr P.A. Van Heusden pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk
Mon Jun 28 04:44:53 PDT 1999


On Sun, 27 Jun 1999, Adam Souzis wrote:

I'd add,
> among others, Frantz Fanon, the black revolutionary psychoanalyst.

Since Fanon, a psychoanalyst, has been mentioned, I'll drop in a plug for 'Psychology and Society' ed. Ian Parker and Russell Spears. This compilation (essentially on Marxism and Psychology, but the editor wouldn't let them call it that) has some very good essays which address the subject from a Marxist point of view. My favourites were:

1) The Challenge of Historical Materialist Epistemology by Edward S. Reed 2) Marxism, The Frankfurt School, and Working-class Psychology by Martin

Roiser and Carla Willig - a useful sum up of the strengths and

weaknesses of the Frankfurt School, imo. 3) Critical Psychology as Subject-Science by Wolfgang Maiers and

Charles W. Tolman 4) V. N. Volosinov and Social Psychology by Liam Greenslade 5) (with reservations) Newman's Practice of Method Completes Vygotsky

by Lois Holzman 6) Emotion and Politics by Paul Hogett 7) The Reactionary Practice of Radical Psychology by Stephen Reicher

The other field which I find has been quite productive in theorising the 'reproduction of revolutionaries' is adult education - in South Africa major figures in the liberation struggle (e.g. Walter Sisulu) learnt to read in CP-organised literacy classes. This is not to say I consider the work of the SACP (or CPSA as it was known before 1950) as much of a model, but the importance of 'general education' as instrumental in building revolutionary consciousness should not be underestimated. I would suggest that Gramsci's theories also offer a very valuable insight into how 'everyday life' is a necessary focus for Marxists.

Peter -- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk 'The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions.' - Karl Marx



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