[lbo-talk] Post Marxist Era

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Mon Sep 24 20:24:40 PDT 2007


Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Sep 24, 2007, at 11:08 AM, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>> In everything he wrote after about 1896. According to Freud, each
>> of us
>> has an unconscious mind distinct from the conscious mind, and the
>> unconscious mind has a strong impact on conscious belief and action.
>> For instance, Freud's psychohistory of DaVinci posits that his great
>> works of art are a sublimation of the homosexual desires in his
>> unconscious mind.
>
> This is an incredibly mechanistic view of Freud's unconscious. And an
> incredibly reductive view of Freud's view of art. But I guess it's
> easier to argue with straw men than actual texts.

"Psychological considerations of a deeper kind justify the assertion that a man who has become a homosexual in this way remains unconsciously fixated to the mnemic image of his mother. By repressing his love for his mother he preserves it in his unconscious and from now on remains faithful to her."

Freud, Leonardo Da Vinci and a memory of his childhood, p. 55.

or this on the masculinity complex:

"From this point there branches off what has been named the masculinity complex of women, which may put great difficulties in the way of their regular development towards femininity, it cannot be got over soon enough. The hope of some day obtaining a penis in spite of everything and so of becoming like a man may persist to an incredibly late age and may become a motive for the strangest and otherwise unaccountable actions [later in this book, F. identifies feminism as one of these strange manifestations of the masculinity complex]. Or again, a process may set in which might be described as a "denial", a process which in the mental life of children seems neither uncommon nor very dangerous but which in an adult would mean the beginning of a psychosis. Thus a girl may refuse to accept the fact of being castrated, may harden herself in the conviction that she does possess a penis and may subsequently be compelled to behave as though she were a man." [F. later notes that this explains the curious tendency of some young women to display an interest in formal education and a profession rather than childrearing.] Freud, Sexuality and the psychology of love, p. 177-8.

I can produce myriad quotes like this from Freud's work, but I think I've illustrated my point: if you have complaints about the mechanistic view of Freud's unconscious, direct them at Freud, not me!

(Unless you consider Freud's own words--a straw man?)

Miles



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