[lbo-talk] Terrain of Struggle was O'Reilly vs Churchill

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Wed Feb 23 11:23:44 PST 2005


On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 uvj at vsnl.com asked Doug:


> How do you identify unconscious motive/motives, since you believe in
> their existence?
>
> Ulhas

People have mercilessly beat up Freudians for this: "How can you study something that is not even accessible to the conscious mind? How can you know your assessment of unconscious content is valid?" I guess Doug will be surprised, but I think this argument is pretty weak. Scientists posit the existence of many things that cannot be directly observed (e.g., gravity, dark matter, 10-dimensional space), and they test their ideas by looking for predicted effects of whatever force or entity they've posited.

Psychoanalysts do the same thing: look for the indirect effects of unconscious impulses in dreams, slips of the tongue, transference, resistance. My fav example (haven't I mentioned this before?): homophobic men are more sexually aroused by a film of men having sex than nonhomophobic men are. This may seem strange--why would men who say they're disgusted by gays in fact be sexually aroused by men having sex? Freudians contend that this is a common defense mechanism they call reaction formation: these homophobic men in fact have a strong unconscious desire to engage in same-sex sexual activity, and they cannot directly and honestly express this sexual desire, so it is manifested (in a twisted way) as conscious disgust and hatred of gays.

--In short: the Freudian concept of the unconscious can be rigorously studied by psychologists, just as the invisible force of gravity can be rigorously studied by physicists.

Miles



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