Freud, Psychology, and the Historical explanation of Populism

christian a. gregory chrisgregory11 at email.msn.com
Sun Jan 2 17:30:38 PST 2000


Carrol wrote:

This is of course > intensified under capitalism by the division it establishes between an act > and its motive. I make this sandwich not to eat but for whatever purpose > I wish to use the wage I receive from Burger King. So appearances are > radically separated from reality under capitalism. Psychology > capitalizes > on this necessary socially determined unconscious to ground the > superstition > of unconscious thought, of "an Unconscious."

What you said about capital seems fine to me. But I think you're invoking a really bad version of psychoanalysis here--one that doesn't get invoked at all in the present. In fact, I think that imagining psychoanalysis as a kind of folklore or superstition is pretty helpful for getting the most out of it as a descriptive and analytic vocabulary. Same might be said for some kinds of economics, 'cept that econometrics is more popular (i.e. persuasive) in the present than Marxist political economy. Doesn't mean that you give up on psychoanalysis as a vocabulary, even if it has precious little to offer in the way of medical intervention. For better or worse.

All best Christian



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