[lbo-talk] Analysis of Tea Party

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Tue May 11 04:34:49 PDT 2010


Gail" The Century of the Self" ( http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0)

[WS:] Very interesting. Thanks for posting this link.

While we are at that, psychoanalysis itself was a very successful attempt to transform science (or rather pseudo-science) to pure marketing. As a scientific theory, psychoanalysis is a bunch of hogwash - storytelling that cannot be empirically tested. What is more, the story it tells is basically that from trashy novels (hidden desires? gimme a break!) wrapped up in psycho-babble, scientifically sounding mumbo-jumbo. However, both elements - the trashy novel plot and aura of respectability dispensed by pseudo-scientific jargon - proved to be excellent marketing gimmicks in the tail of the prudish Victorian era. The well-off middle class audience swallowed it raw, and psychoanalytic shysters made fortunes by telling these wealthy pricks about their "inner desires." What a ruse!

Wojtek

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Gail Brock <gbrock_dca at yahoo.com> wrote:


> Adam Curtis, in his 4-part BBC documentary, "The Century of the Self" (
> http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0) does a good
> job on tracing the rise of this self-congratulating individuality. Briefly,
> in the early years of the 20th c., Freud's nephew Edward Bernays adapted the
> techniques of psychoanalysis to consumerism, to create desires for
> purchasing. Eventually, people came to define themselves in terms of their
> desires. The left had problems because it continued to believe in people as
> rational beings with a sense of the common good. Reagan and Thatcher were
> the ones who capitalized on people's desires with concern only for
> themselves.
>
>
> _________________
> cb and WS:
>
> [WS:] That is not how I read the article. I do not think that he
> argues that people are "genuinely tired or angry." Au contraire. His
> argument is that people are delusionally over-confident in their own
> selves and what they can accomplish "on their own" - and as a result
> see the institutions and society as an impediment of their own will
> and capacity. Consequently, they tend to listen only to those who
> cater to their inflated sense of ego (mainly right wing demagogues)
> and ignore other messages and even common sense. Reaganism is a
> product of that mentality, not the cause.
> I also thing that this is something new - a product of consumerism on
> an unprecedented scale.
>
> Wojtek
>
> ^^^^^^^
>
> CB: OK. yes. Reaganism was and is the clever organizing and fomenting
> of this mentality into a political majority in the US for the last 30
> years as a counter-reform movement against the New Deal, Great
> Society, Civil Rights movement and "60's rebellion". Reaganism is
> substantially identical with the main ideas of the Tea Party.
> "Distrust in government" was a central theme of Reaganism at the
> start. Look at the "list" of the Tea Party's and fellow travellers'
> values that the author gives.. Straightup Reaganism.
>
> Of course, whacked out rugged individualism is as American as apple
> pie. Actually, it is as bourgeois as moneyloving.
>
> A main critique of this article would be its suggestion that the Tea
> Party's themes are new to American politics in the long or short run.
> It's not for nothing that they went back to the Boston Tea Party for
> their name - an unusually deep historical allusion for modern
> Americans.
>
> The good thing is that the Tea Partiers seem to be screaming because
> they seem to think they have suffered a setback; and some of what they
> are doing is turning on Republicans in a Republican party that is
> thoroughly rightwing; so it seems it could be a split of the
> rigthwing, of the Reaganite coaltion. A crisis for the rightwing
> would seem to be both danger and opportunity for the left. But it is a
> contest. Sure hope there is a relatively silent majority/ truly moral
> majority who will wake up and oppose this rightwing effort at
> resurgence.
>
> Also, what a bunch of phony ass complaints the Tea Partiers and
> associates have. It's like Reagan's pretense of running against
> government, and being against government while the head of the
> government. America is the greatest country in the world , but its
> messing over the Tea Partiers. What a totally bullshit line. This is
> just a little ways from the absurd KKK line that white people are now
> the most oppressed group in America.
>
> Taking your thought on American consumerism a step further, Wojtek,
> the US government has played an enormous role in making Tea Party-type
> Americans , Joe the Plumber , Sarah Palin and friends, the richest
> mass of people in the history of the world; and that "phatness" is not
> only because of Americans' productivity , but because of the booty
> gotten by American imperialism from the rest of the world. What a
> bunch of spoiled, fat brats.
>
> Take the health care thingy. These creeps should be mad primarily at
> the health care company "elites", not the Federal government ! What
> fake "populism"/anti-elitism". On taxes, they should be for "tax the
> rich'/tax Wall Street".
>
>
> ^^^^^^^
> Individualism
>
>
> >From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>
> Individualism
> Topics[show]
> Autonomy
> Capitalism
> Civil liberties
> Classical liberalism
> Democratic capitalism
> Do it yourself
> Eremitism
> Existentialism
> Ethical egoism
> Humanism
> Hedonism
> Individual
> Human rights
> Individualism
> Individual rights
> Individualist anarchism
> Laissez-faire
> Liberalism
> Left-libertarianism
> Individual reclamation
> Libertarianism
> Liberty
> Methodological individualism
> Negative liberty
> Objectivism
> Positive liberty
> Private property
> Self-actualization
> Self-interest
> Self-ownership
> Self reliance
> Subjectivity
> Thinkers[show]
> Antiphon
> Aristotle
> Aristippus
> Epicurus
> Ralph Waldo Emerson
> Friedrich von Hayek
> Thomas Jefferson
> Immanuel Kant
> Laozi
> François de La Rochefoucauld
> Michel de Montaigne
> John Locke
> William Godwin
> John Stuart Mill
> Friedrich Nietzsche
> Emile Armand
> Ayn Rand
>
> Robert Nozick
>
> Adam Smith
> Herbert Spencer
> Lysander Spooner
> Max Stirner
> Georges Palante
> Henry David Thoreau
>
> Oscar Wilde
> Renzo Novatore
> Han Ryner
> Ludwig von Mises
> Zeno
> Albert Camus
> Concerns[show]
> Collectivism
> Statism
> Social engineering
> Mass society
> Herd mentality
> v • d • e
> Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or
> social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual".[1]
> Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so
> independence and self-reliance[2] while opposing most external
> interference upon one's own interests, whether by society, or any
> other group or institution.[3]
>
> Individualism makes the individual its focus[4] and so it starts "with
> the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary
> importance in the struggle for liberation." Natural rights and freedom
> are the substance of these theories. Classical liberalism (including
> libertarianism), existentialism and individualist anarchism are
> examples of movements that take the human individual as a central unit
> of analysis.[5]
>
> It has also been used as a term denoting "The quality of being an
> individual; individuality"[6] related to possessing "An individual
> characteristic; a quirk."[7] Individualism is thus also associated
> with artistic and bohemian interests and lifestyles where there is a
> tendency towards self creation and experimentation as opposed to
> tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors[8][9] as so also with
> humanist philosophical positions and ethics.[10][11]
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism
>
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