>>In other words, the
>>"unconscious" was politically constructed by the anticommunist rhetoric in
>>such a way that any and every American would have to fear the accusation of
>>being an unwitting "dupe" of Communists, therefore having to police their
>>"psyche" and invent a "new more vigilant self."
>
>What does this have to do with the Freudian unconscious, a concept
>that predates the Cold War by about 50 years (and the PR industry by
>about 20, though Freud's relative Edward Bernays had a lot to do with
>its development)?
The point of Lutz's analysis is that the notion of the "unconscious" was shaped to suit the Cold War needs. So were many other ideological elements (e.g. religion, family, patriotism, etc.). The use of "psychology" to abnormalize the defiance of the social order has a long history; for instance, runaway slaves were said to suffer from "drapedomania" (a "mental disorder" that was said to make slaves attempt to escape from masters -- had slaves been "normal," they would have been "happy darkies").
The ruling class don't even credit you with consciously adopting an anathematized discourse like Marxism; nor do they allow you to argue that you just _happen_ to have ended up with the same political position as Communists. It is neither rational decision nor sheer chance. They say that your "unconscious" has been infiltrated by the Enemy. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)!
***** Dr. Kaufman: A strange neurosis, evidently contagious, an epidemic mass hysteria. In two weeks, it spread all over town.
Miles: What causes it?
Dr. Kaufman: Worry about what's going on in the world probably.
Miles (jokingly hoping they won't catch it, with the prophetic statement): I'd hate to wake up some morning and find out that you weren't you. <http://www.filmsite.org/inva.html> *****
That's Communism (or any other subversive ideology) seen from the point of view of the ruling class, and Americans were asked to adopt this point of view: to dissent is to be neurotic, losing your individuality to become the slave of a totalitarian ideology, all the while thinking that you are still "free."
Even after the end of the Cold War, the pathologization of dissent, revolt, etc. is all too common. The New Left was engaged in an "Oedipal struggle" against the Old Left and/or Cold-War Liberalism. Yale grad unionists are acting out their infantile frustrations narcissistically and historionically (see, for instance, Kathy M. Newman, "Poor, Hungry, and Desperate? Or Privileged, Historionic, and Demanding?: In Search of the True Meaning of 'Ph.D.'," _Social Text_ 49.4 [Winter 1996]). Ad infinitum.
Beware of your symptoms! Stay vigilant against metaphysics! Trust no one, least of all yourself. For you don't know what you are doing. Still and all, you _are_ responsible for any sin you commit in your ignorance. Just because it's impossible to know your true motive doesn't mean that you should cease to strive toward moral purity. Your duty is infinite, and you have no excuse for not accomplishing it.
As with any effective ideology, the Cold War catechism is paradoxical -- Kantian & psychoanalytic at the same time. And it is this very paradox of faith in the face of the impossibility to know -- a Pascalian wager -- that lures many intellectuals into the snare of ideology.
Yoshie