> I'm not saying that at all. While (for me) it's good that Adorno moved on
> from his pre-war thinking on homosex, I think that a mix of Marx and Freud
> offered by the Frankfurt School (whether homophobic or homophile) is not
> compelling.
Part of the aim of the Adorno's incorporation of Freudian psychoanalysis was to avoid a kind of progressive amnesia regarding the social-critical kernel of Freud's analysis. The revisionists (Adler, Fromm, Horney) went after Freud for for being too much of a biological determinist. The revisionist account attempted to harness the creative potential of the ego by adjusting expectations, motivations and so on. In other words: society isn't the problem, you are, so we need to fix you. Adorno and Marucse (in particular) fought this approach. While the revisionists replace 'nature' with 'culture' Adorno and Marcuse maintained a strict historical materialist approach - so it is in 'nature' itself that the problem exists. Psychic nature is the result of a historical process which, on account of the alienated character of history, assumes the reified form of its opposite. The problem that Adorno and Marucse both note here is that it becomes impossible to distinguish between the repression of a drive and its sublimation - every attempt to draw a clear line here functions as an inapposite auxiliary. So there is a radical indecision which pertains to the fundamental intention of psychoanalytic theory and practice (liberation or conservatism). The revisions, then, equate therapeutic success with the normalization of the patient - normal FUNCTIONING in society (making one happy within the realm of social unfreedom). Adorno notes, in his essay, "Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda" that the emancipation of human beings from the heteronomous rule of their unconscious would be tantamount to the abolish of their psychology. While psychology always denotes some bondage of the individual, it also presupposes freedom in the sense of certain self-sufficiency and autonomy. Here - Adorno and Marcuse use the contradiction as a theoretical indication of truth.
> (snip) ....because psychoanalysis itself resists empirical
> corroborations and refutations.
In other words: because empirical corroboration's meet with the expectations of those who conduct such experiments using strict tautological formulations, they must be correct. Whereas a theory that confronts (unexpectedly) an investigator with their own limitations, contradictions, and subjectivity, is false. Using this logic - we'd have to say good-bye to quantum physics, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, higher mathematics, and evolutionary biology. The problem is, as Lacan notes, the frameworks of science cannot accommodate psychoanalysis because of their built in restrictions. And, as Adorno notes (in his Introduction to the Positivist Dispute), the objectivity of the scientific procedure has nothing to do with the truth of its findings and everything to do with the objectivity of its method (see also Horkheimer's essay, "Critical Theory").
> Now, two questions for the list:
> (1) What does a historical materialist analysis of sex, gender,
> 'sexuality,' etc. look like -- an analysis that is committed to (or fully
> caught up in) neither empiricism nor left-Hegelianism nor psychoanalysis?
A historical materialist analysis doesn't "look" like anything. That's the point. Reality isn't static. The moment a snapshot is taken, it becomes part of the historical dialectic, which is, in truth, a retroactive imposition of meaning based on the presuppositions posited by the viewer. Like when you go to a movie. You see the movie, hate it, but then, after it is explained to you, you remember the experience quite fondly (Kell hates this example but I'm using it anyway).
Psychoanalysis here belongs to the tradition of rationalism. Furthermore, with Hegel, in dialectics we find the strongest affirmation yet of difference and contingency whereby the absolute itself is nothing but a name for the acknowledgment of a certain radical loss (Adorno's preponderance of the object). Furthermore, psychoanalysis and Hegelian dialectics contribute to a theory of ideology - as a kind of 'quilting point' (Lacan) - a sublime object - a surplus-enjoyment (Zizek)... which assists to provide a vindication of a democratic impulse without falling into a false naiveté about progress.
ken