Dennis Claxton wrote:
>
> At 07:39 PM 6/8/2010, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> > > So the assumption is anything psychological is always guesswork and
> > > political analysis can be some kind of hard science?
> >
> >When the analyst is not a trained psychologist and in direct relation
> >with a particular individual, yes! Pure guess work, and sloppy guesds
> >work at that.
I knew I should have taken the time to avoid terms that could be construed in a Freudian manner. I reject Freudian psychology as a pure myth. By "analysis" I merely meant studying or something like that.
The political organizer by definiton has no great direct contact with the bulk of those he/she tries to mobilize.
It's tautologivcal that any individual's actions and perceptions are grounded in his/her "psychology," though that is actually, given the present state of knowledge, a pretty vague term. But this tautology is of no interest to political analysis because it is not available to the political analyst.
We deal with a purely public world.
Carrol