kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca wrote:
> We've been through this before, several months ago. . . . .
>
> . . . . Language-use is, essentially, alienating from our
> needful state of being (prior to language).
No we haven't been through anything like this before. You had never before stated so clearly the way in which psychoanalytic theory was impossible except within the framework of capitalist individualism. More specifically, it flows from a frozen state of early marxism.
>From Fredy Perlman, Introduction to I.I. Rubin, Essays on Marx's Theory of Value:
Thus there is no doubt that in 1844, Marx spoke of a human society and a human essence which could be rehabilitated, returned, or restored. However, powerful and suggestive though these passages are, they cannot be viewed as the final formulation of Marx's social and econonic theory, nor can Marx's later works be treated as mere re-statements of the same ideas. Erich Fromm is aware of this when he writes: "In his earlier writings Marx still called 'human nature in general' the 'essence of man.' He later gave up this term because he wanted to make it clear that "theessence of man is no abstraction . . .Marx also wanted to avoid giving the impression that he thought of the essence of man as an unhistorical substance." . . .Fromm does not, however;, examine the stages which led from the concept of alienation to the theory of commodity fetishism, and in Fromm's own philosophical framework, the central problem is "to cease being asleep and to become human." For Fromm this involves primarily changing one's ideas and one's methods of thinking: I believe [my ellipsis] . . . Freedom and independence can be achieved only when the chains of illusion are broken." ********
In other words, like Marx in 1844, Ken and his masters conceive of an unchanging human essence from which one can be "alienated." Within a few years Marx had consciously rejected this perspective and gone on to form an understanding of humans as social (i.e. historical) beings, having no human existence (even in theory, even in abstraction) independently of that historical actuality. Ken on the other hand remains with his feet solidly planted in eternity, outside history.
The concept that "Language-use is, essentially, alienating" is too hilarious for words.
Carrol