Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Mar 17, 2007, at 2:31 PM, Ted Winslow wrote:
>
>> There's also the little problem that slum conditions are inconsistent
>> with those required for the development of the "universal
>> individual."
>
> Well, so's working in a capitalist factory or office, no?
>
The idea of social conditions, including social relations, as "developmental" conditions more or less consistent with those required for the development of the "universally developed individual" is what's missing from Zizek's version of Marx and psychoanalysis.
Marx's own account of what's required for this development is mistaken. It's not consistent, for instance, with the insights about individual development available from psychoanalysis (in a form having logical space for the idea of individual development ending in the "universally developed individual").
Even Marx's account of the positive development of individuality facilitated by the capitalist labour process doesn't have it end, however, in the "universally developed individual." It ends in a penultimate form of subjectivity able through the additional development made possible by "revolutionary praxis" to imagine and actualize a labour process from which all barriers to the development of "true individuality" have been removed.
Revising this account in the light of psychoanalysis would significantly alter understanding of the ways in which the various historical and contemporary forms of the capitalist labour process facilitate and fetter individual development. It would, however, leave intact the conclusion that all such forms are incompatible with full development. I doubt, though, that they would be judged as or more incompatible as the conditions prevailing in the world's worst slums.
Ted