[lbo-talk] Capitalism & Psychoanalysis

[C. G. Estabrook]

Freud in his famous encyclopedia article said that psychoanalysis was at
once a theory of mind, a therapy, and a heuristic.  All three turned on
the notion of behavioral influences of which the actor was not aware --
the dynamic unconscious. That the ucs. was social as well as individual
went without saying (so to speak) but was emphasized especially by the
Kleinians -- and in his own way by Lacan. But curiously, in spite of
various strains of Freudo-Marxism, there do not seem to have been many
thorough-going attempts to descry what might be called unconscious social
influences.  The poets have usually got there first.

Joanna's "Making people conscious of the multitude of ways they avoid
being in the present" is as Yoshie says "a decent summary of
psychoanalysis," but bringing one into the present is precisely a matter
of recognizing responsibility for the future.  By becoming aware of
hitherto unrecognized determinants on my behavior, I can (must) then
decide to act that way -- or not. (In another way, psychoanalysis says
with Sartre, "We were never so free as under the Occupation.") Freud and
Marx both counsel a "hermeneutics of suspicion" -- becoming aware that
what seems to be going on is not exactly what is going on -- and adjusting
one's behavior accordingly.  --CGE

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


> "Making people conscious of the multitude of ways they avoid being in
> the present" probably is a decent summary of psychoanalysis, but,
> then, psychoanalysis misses the most potent source of anxiety under
> capitalism: future.  Even in its simplest form, capitalism sacrifices
> the present for the future: capitalists make investments to make
> profits -- not now but later.  Since capitalism has developed to a
> more complex stage, expectations and obligations that mature in the
> future have come to poison the minds of not just the bourgeoisie but
> also the proletariat: mortgages, installment plans, credit cards, car
> payments, student loans, etc. -- Yoshie
> 
> * Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
> <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, 
> <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
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