Freud and Marxism.
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Perhaps I didn’t make my points as well as I could.
I am not making the case for individualism per se, and I am certainly not saying that we don’t share common experiences, common class relationships, similar experiences of alienation, similar experiences of struggle to live a fulfilled life in a world that aims to mould us into a merely productive unit in the interests of capital accumulation.
What I do disagree with is an over mechanical response to how we develop personality.
I would also say that there are also divergent personalities and that the one size fits all view of personality development theorists such as Freud and Reich is not based on scientific examination or the reality of human life, and is also frankly laughable.
The development of personality is, in my view, far more nuanced than that. I am of the view that early year experiences of nurture and cooperative care have a huge impact on the development of personality, and there is a huge amount of imperical evidence to support that, in huge contrast to the semi mystical ravings of Freud, Jung and his like.
I would go so far as to say that cooperativeness and mutuality are more or less hard wired into us, a bit like a biological version of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid. I would say there is a “Human Nature argumen”t, but that it supports the socialist viewpoint, rather than the anti socialist viewpoint.
Also I should have explained that the point I was making regarding attachment and polictical viewpoints was based on US research which equates “Liberal” with progressive and more open mind approaches to society.
I was not saying that means that that in itself that this is a positive thing.
Also I was not saying that liberal and progressive views are going to make the world better in any way.What I was trying to say, in perhaps a cack handed way, is that this research indicates that there is likely to be a greater number of people who tend to view cooperativeness, interdependency, concepts of mutualism and affinity as positive and helpful activities for society, as opposed to having views that support self interest, rigidity of thought and individualism. This is despite all of the depridations of capitalism!
My view is that this gives us Socialists fertile ground to build on these attributes, that allows them to understand the class nature of society, and would allow them to see the possibility of creating a society that allows them to fully express their cooperativeness, mutuality and affinity for their fellow human being
BD – I admire your optimism and I would love to agree with you but then how do you explain the ongoing genocide in Gaza? Israeli soldiers are just ordinary people like you and me and yet they can do such an inhuman thing. Scratch a ‘liberal’ and you’ll find a conservative who will unquestioningly murder his fellow man in the name of some tribe or other. Unfortunately the ‘civilization’ that bourgeois culture would like us to believe in is a very thin veneer. I too believe that the default ‘human nature’ is one of mutuality and cooperation but you seem to severely underestimate the psychological damage done to us all by the sick culture we are forced to live in. I believe Freud’s theory of the death instinct perfectly captures the essence and nature of the despair that causes such hatred and fear which is really a projection of self loathing.
I would go so far as to say that cooperativeness and mutuality are more or less hard wired into us, a bit like a biological version of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid. I would say there is a “Human Nature argumen”t, but that it supports the socialist viewpoint, rather than the anti socialist viewpoint.
I like this quote, written by Malatesta, which is taken from his obituary of Kropotkin:
At bottom Kropotkin conceived nature as a kind of Providence, thanks to which there had to be harmony in all things, including human societies.
And this has led many anarchists to repeat that “Anarchy is Natural Order”, a phrase with an exquisite kropotkinian flavor.
If it is true that the law of Nature is Harmony, I suggest one would be entitled to ask why Nature has waited for anarchists to be born, and goes on waiting for them to triumph, in order to destroy the terrible and destructive conflicts from which mankind has already suffered.
Would one not be closer to the truth in saying that anarchy is the struggle, in human society, against the disharmonies of Nature?
In short, I don’t think arguments along the nature of “humans are naturally co-opertative / unco-operative” have much use.
Something else I have been toying with is with the Boehm’s idea of an ‘ambivalent’ conception of human nature. In short: Human beings have a tendency to both seek to dominate and to submit. But submission causes feelings of resentment, and these can lead to co-ordinated efforts to enforce more egalitarian forms of co-operation.
You get a similar idea in Machiavelli’s writings on Livy’s history of the Roman republic. When the powerless revolt it is not so much because they want to take power but because they resent being ruled.
What influence, if any, this kind of thinking had on Freud I don’t know.
I’m not arguing from a political or even a philosophical point of view, I am arguing from the current scientific understanding of human psychology, based on evolutionary science. Wez if you can show any evolutionary advantage for Freud’s Theory of Thanatos, I’m all ears, but until that point, to me, it is pseudo religious horse shit, how can killing yourself assist the species.
Human and animal behaviour is based on evolutionary principles. How do we first survive and then how do we reproduce. Fish, amphibians, insects, etc, solve the reproduction conundrum by producing high numbers of offspring. Frogs don’t nurture their offspring, they just produce thousands of offspring and if at least two, the species survives, if more than two survive the species increases in number.
Mammals evolved on the basis on a different basis. Because mammals produce milk to suckle their offspring, they start to nurture their infants. They do not need to produce high numbers of offspring and because of that more complex animals can evolve. As mammals became more complex the level of nurture is more involved. Look at sheep and lambs.
A day old lamb is able to walk, suckle and to an small extent exist independently. A lamb is able to live more or less without nurture independently, after about 8-10 weeks, possibly even earlier. In contrast, human babies might finally survive independently at about 5-6 years of age. This is because the level of development of new born to independence is higher and also because human babies are born at a far earlier stage of development.
This early birth is because human brains are much bigger than other mammals. Not only that, human brains increase in size from birth to full maturity by a far higher rate than other mammals. In part this difference is because of the sheer size of the human brain compared to other mammals (therefore it takes much longer to grow and mature) and also due to the fact that if human babies matured longer their brains would be too big to go through the birth canal, and they would (and their mother and their shared genetic inheritance) would die.
So, in terms of human nature, our own individual survival is based entirely on being able to cooperate, to look after each other and attach and bond with each other, to a far more part of our existence than other mammals and even more to non mammalian animals. We spend all of our formative years surviving and relying on the cooperation of other humans
However, also built into all animals, even more so in mammals and to an even greater extent in humans, is the ability to adapt to differing situations. This is also part of evolutionary development. The brains of infants that do not receive high levels of nurture and stimulation adapt to this situation and become more self reliant and separate from other humans as they grow and develop. In difficult conditions (capitalism) we can adapt and survive. We can become aggressive, self centred and destructive, but this is the exception, not the rule.
Going further into examining human personality and cognitive development it is clear that human development has also been predicate on within species specialisation. That is to say, in contrast to most other species, we have a high variation of skills and attributes, which actually assist us in the development of more and more complex societies (and more complex types means of production, a little nod to Marx).
My take on this is that human development, based on an evolutionary analysis of that development, leads humans to more and more complex ways of cooperating together in order to continue to meet their individual needs.
Through each epoch of society, higher levels of worldwide levels of cooperation and interdependency have developed, this increasing the scope of the means of production. To this point this development has been based on the needs and aspirations of various other powerful sections of those societies (classes).
Now our level of productive ability is such that the producers can now fully enjoy the fruits of their cooperation and productivity.
‘how can killing yourself assist the species.’
BD – if that is what you understand of the theory then clearly you haven’t grasped the nuanced and dialectical elements within it. Here’s my introduction: https://wezselecta.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-death-instinct.html#comment-formHad a brief squint through it Wez. I don’t want to come across as being antagonistic, but really I don’t think the article you have linked really provides any sufficient evidence to support the Freudian approach to either child development or the concept of Thanatos
I’ll start with the section where you write “The child’s relationship with its parents is paradoxical from the start. It needs the mother to satisfy the stimuli for feeding and safety. We know that it also has sensual (infantile sexual) needs as well. When this is expressed in inappropriate behaviour a conflict with the parent is created (because of the moral and educational values of the adult). The child then experiences contradictory needs and is unable to deal successfully with stimuli. The resulting frustration can lead to emotional tantrums and destructive behaviour.”
This is a classic example of a Freudian one size fits all explanation for children’s (and adult) behaviour which relies on the Freudian mumbo jumbo of psycho sexual states, none of which has any grounding in any empirical evidence. For example “The child’s relationship with its parents is paradoxical from the start.” How is the relationship of the child to their parents paradoxical? If you are going to assert that you need to explain what you mean and to show empirical evidence of its existence? Bowlby, Rutter, Van Ijzendoorn, Sagi, etc. have, in contrast, always emphasised the opposite, the nature of the nurturing relationships between parent and child. This has a basis in evolutionary and mammalian history, on science and on observable experimentation, not the mystical nonsense of Freud’s obsession with parent child conflict. The fact is that the majority of parents nurture and care for their children pretty well (see the Ainsworth Strange Situation test which has over 50 years of statistical data to back it up).
You then go on to state that “It needs the mother to satisfy the stimuli for feeding and safety” except the evidence shows that the need for love, care and psychological closeness is more important than the need for feeding (see Harlow and Harlow’s notorious experiments on rhesus monkeys, as just one example of this) .
Moving on you say “We know that it also has sensual (infantile sexual) needs”? This is yet another example of proof by assertion. Do we know that children have infantile sexual needs? Or is it that Freud observed a small number of children’s behaviours and interpreted them as sexual in nature. The whole psycho sexual, Greek tragedy bullshit of the psycho sexual stages is so full of holes; you could use it to strain spaghetti.
As an aside why don’t we use the “Old Master’s” methodology and turn it on him. Could we use an analysis of his work on the psycho sexual stages, based on Ego Defence Mechanisms, particularly sublimation? How about this as a Freudian examination of Freud’s development of psycho sexual stages? Perhaps Freud had an unhealthy sexual interest in children which gave him an Id driven intention (sexual activity with children), which was in conflict to his superego messages. By means of discussing child sexuality he could meet the requirements of his Id whilst at the same time turning into a socially acceptable activity. Effectively he could get his play out his disturbed fantasies without risking social opprobrium. I find that interesting, as at work I have come across several convicted paedophiles who blame the victims of their abuse for their offending, saying things that it was the child that seduced them and that the child asked for it, etc. The interpretation of children’s non sexual behaviour as sexual by predators is a very common phenomenon.
Anyway moving along, you say “When this is expressed in inappropriate behaviour a conflict with the parent is created (because of the moral and educational values of the adult). The child then experiences contradictory needs and is unable to deal successfully with stimuli.”
Again this assumes that all children have parents who have similar moral and educational values in terms of their children and their children’s behaviour. I have worked professionally with many, many parents who have anything but conventional moral and educational views of their children and their behaviour. Once again the Freudian explanation is as ever developed through the lens of Viennese Victorian Bourgeois society, not the real world that the rest of the 7 billion of us live in.
John Bowlby, who developed attachment theory, a trained Freudian psychodynamic psychiatrist in his early days, eventually came to the conclusion that psychoanalysis was never more wrong than in its theory of child development, and he regarded the theory of psychosexual stages as “total bunk”.
Interestingly another Attachment Theorist Michael Rutter wrote “What theory in psychology has tended to mean however is something that explains the whole of life; psychoanalysis did that, then behaviourism and in modern times genetic determinism. There should be a plague on all of those because they have held back understanding as a result of taking the role of religion………. I equate the role of psychoanalysis in relation to psychiatry as equivalent to creationism in relation to evolutionary theory.” I couldn’t put it better myself. The majority of Freud’s work is based on supposition and proof by assertion. And the narrator author of the pseudo religious,creationist creed of Psychoanalysis is Freud himself!
Moving on to your writings on Thanatos, you write “If we examine three human activities like eating, sex and work, is there a shared behavioural response that indicates success? After a good meal contentment is felt because the stimulus (hunger) is removed and a kind of ‘stasis’ is temporarily achieved.” Let’s have a little delve into this.
First off, a little technical point, you are starting to confuse behavioural responses and feelings. You say “is there a shared behavioural response” and you then say “after a good meal contentment is felt” felt, relates to a feeling not a behaviour. There might conceivably be a shared feeling of contentment, but this is not a shared “behavioural response”. How can you observe the feelings of others? This is important because feelings are based on introspection and report, not direct observation. Taking what may seem to be a trivial point a little further this demonstrates the generally unscientific assumptions of the Freudian, i.e. that if I feel in one way after an experience (having a meal), everyone will feel the same way. It is completely possible and indeed likely that a person who is training for sport, might feel guilt after the end of a good meal, another person might feel nostalgia, for good meals had before, another might feel grief as they reminisce about their late mother’s home cookery.
Let us continue “After orgasm there is a similar cessation of tension. When work has fulfilled its purpose and been received by others as appropriate and competent then the tiredness is pleasurable.” Again unsubstantiated conjecture, I would be extremely surprised if you have carried out long term interviews with large numbers of people about their post coital experiences. You may have experienced this at times, others may not, but your evidence of this phenomenon is at best an example of shallow anecdotal evidence.
Let’s go further “All of these states of mind share a contentment and emotional calm” (that may well be dependent on who you just had sex with, if it was the wife of a local psychopath, emotional calmness might not be the feeling you had). “If this condition were indeed defined by an absence of stimuli then logically death (or at least its psychological approximation) would seem to be the goal of life.” Again let us put that sentence through the lens of scrutiny, this sentence is merely a completely unsubstantiated statement, none of which rings true.
For a start, none of these experiences can be conditions that could possibly be defined as an absence of stimuli (one of your main claims). Having a good meal does not lead to the absence of stimuli, being full, finishing coitus and completing work, does not lead to the absence of stimuli. You don’t go deaf as soon as you complete having sex, you don’t lose your sense of smell when you finish up a piece of work, you don’t stop feeling the ground beneath you as soon as you finish a good meal. So we have demonstrated “this condition” does not equate to the absence of stimuli, although you claim that this is a psychological approximation. How can we make an approximation, when in fact none of us have actually died? Even if the experience of having a nice meal and feeling full was a approximation of death, how does this “logically” lead to the claim that death would be the aim of life? Any observation of practically all life forms is that the whole purpose of life is to try and stay alive as possible. What about measurable evidence to link the feeling of repleteness being a link to the “death wish” has there been hordes of people leaving fine dining establishments throwing themselves off cliffs. Or perhaps it’s people who have had sex who are charging off to top themselves, or maybe it’s the skilled workers who have satisfactorily completed a challenging piece of work who merrily trot off to slit their collective wrists?
And then you top it up with the pièce de résistance of Freudian supposition and unscientific baloney. “In some way might it be the longing of the animate entity to return to its inanimate origins?” Well, you have asked the question, and the very obvious answer to the question is no. “Perhaps sentience itself exists to continually recreate the illusion of death for the organism to thrive?” and perhaps it isn’tOh dear, so now you go in for ad hominem attacks on Freud himself. And as for that old chestnut of it being ‘unscientific’ that always reminds me of Christians shouting ‘heretic’ at anyone who dares to go against the establishment. There’s plenty of scientific ‘baloney’ around. I couldn’t find one credible statement in your diatribe which seemed, to me, merely concerned with what you consider a threat to your ‘scientific’ religion. Science has its uses (although many who rant on about it haven’t the slightest idea what ‘science’ is) but it has been of little help in theories of politics, history, economics or philosophy – and, it would seem, psychology as well. I’ll read it again and see if I can find anything politically useful but sometimes I get the feeling that, for you, it’s as if Auschwitz never happened. I’ll leave you with one of your own statements above:‘ What about measurable evidence to link the feeling of repleteness being a link to the “death wish” has there been hordes of people leaving fine dining establishments throwing themselves off cliffs. Or perhaps it’s people who have had sex who are charging off to top themselves, or maybe it’s the skilled workers who have satisfactorily completed a challenging piece of work who merrily trot off to slit their collective wrists?’ What utter nonsense. As far as I know ‘death wish’ was a cheesy Hollywood movie. Perhaps you are merely ‘extracting the urine’ but I find it hard to take you seriously.
So basically, you can’t answer my criticisms of your article and are left, Trump like to resort to insults. Although I don’t know you, I have read your previous contributions and I am genuinely a little disappointed in your response, I expected more.
As to attacks on Freud, Freud was more than happy to attack, using his own suspect methodology, others. Is it not acceptable to turn the method of analysis he has used on others to his own writings. I think it is a legitimate question to ask why Freud was so interested in childhood sexuality. Is questioning that off limits, just like it was for the Catholic Church, Jimmy Savill and his like?
As to science, I am surprised that a Marxist has the view that science has “been of little help in theories of politics, history, economics or philosophy” perhaps Mr Marx might not agree with that response!
So if you can explain to me in a logical and cohesive way, without responding to the usual evidence by assertion or the quasi mystical bollocks, that Freud’s work has any relevance to the Nazi death camps, I am all ears.
On the rest of my posting, I will keep it simple. All I ask you to show, through the use of the accepted forms of research within social sciences (quantative research, applied research, Pure Research, Descriptive Research, Analytical Research, Explanatory Research, Conceptual Research, empirical research, deductive research, inductive research or preductive research) which actually supports the initial statement “The child’s relationship with its parents is paradoxical from the start.”
Just to make it plain, what I am asking you to do, is to provide even the slightest credible piece of evidence that generally supports that statement, a statement that is the crux of the Freudian view of child development. If you can’t then you are aren’t making any valid points, then you (an effectively Freud) are just opening your gobs and letting the wind blowing your tongue around.
Oh, and by the way, when I was suggesting that there was a queue of people waiting to top themselves after having a meal. sec. completing their days work, yes I was taking the piss. It was utter nonsense, but let’s face it you started it with your Freudian horse shit.
It’s difficult to know where to begin as I disagree with you so profoundly – here are some points: Your assertion that Freud’s work can be discounted because of his historical and cultural context is absurd – are we to dismiss the work of Marx and Darwin because they were Victorian gents? And as to Marx’s relationship with science I think you’re confusing him with Engels. I can find no reference in Marx for supposing he thought that science provided some magical incantation or method that would lead to truth. He seemed mainly concerned with the ‘applied science’ of technology and how that affected economic production and therefore political ideology. Personally I don’t think the Marxian methodology is that scientific mainly because as Popper says you can’t create an experiment to disprove his theories. The same goes for Freud although, like Engels, he had a very naive view of what science is and hoped to elevate psychoanalytical theory to the level of ‘hard science’ like physics or chemistry. You still keep finding the need to insult anyone who disagrees with you so please desist and answer my points above which I think we need to settle before going on to your critique of the death instinct.
Wez, this all seems a bit half-baked.
You do know that Popper’s ideas about falsification have largely been found inadequate and rejected by philosophers of science?
Marx definitely saw his work as a ‘science’, look at the prefaces to Capital Volume One for example. But The German word is wider than the English. The German ‘Wissenschaft’ (which is often translated as ‘science’) directly translates as ‘knowledgeship’ – his critique of political economy is definitely an exercise in that, it’s a body of systematically organised knowledge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaft
Even if we do want to hold on to Popper, there are definitely plenty of things in Capital which can be subject to empirical verification.
You also claim that BD has said that “Freud’s work can be discounted because of his historical and cultural context”, where was such a claim made?
I think round these parts the general consensus is that most of Freud is pseudo-scientific and doesn’t stand up to rational criticism. You haven’t been doing a good job of convincing us otherwise.
EDIT: Just for interest I’m adding a link to this talk from the archives. I thought it was good when I listened to it.
Hi Wez,
I did not say that “Freud’s work can be discounted because of his historical and cultural context is absurd – are we to dismiss the work of Marx and Darwin because they were Victorian gents?” is clearly not what I was saying, which I suspect you know.
The point I was making, which I again suspect you know but do not want to acknowledge, is that Freud created his whole child development theory based on his observations of a tiny number of children all of whom lived in the same social and cultural setting, and even more importantly that social and cultural setting was but a fragment of the experience the vast majority of children in Vienna, let alone the children in the rest of the world at that time!
Marx and Darwin proposed theoretical models which were based on vast historical epochs, which covered whole swathes of the globe, not a few affluent families in Vienna. Freud created a meta theory of all childhood development based on this small sample, and to top it all he got his interpretation wrong. More likely than not the children he was analysing were actually not fantsising about having sexual interactions with their parents, they were actually disclosing abuse!
You then go on to say that you cannot create experiments that disprove Freud’s theories, however the fact is you can. I have named but a few experiments. Not only that neurological examinations using MRI, CT, etc. continue to substantially support the views of attachment theorists.
So again, I challenge you to provide a scintilla of credible evidence to support the universal basic contention that you and Freud make that ““The child’s relationship with its parents is paradoxical from the start.” As this is the crux of all of Freudian theory, it must be easy for you to provide supporting evidence.
Personally I don’t think the Marxian methodology is that scientific mainly because as Popper says you can’t create an experiment to disprove his theories.
Yes, I too thought that that was over the top and certainly cannot be said to apply to all Marx’s (and our) theories even if Popper’s definition is assumed to be valid.
Perhaps this could/should be the theme of a thread of its own?
“Perhaps this could/should be the theme of a thread of its own?”
Perhaps we’ve already been over this, when LBird used to visit?
DJP – I quite like the German definition of science that you quote: it’s a body of systematically organised knowledge. But that, of course, is not restricted to science as many philosophical theories would make that claim. As for Popper’s falsification theory being rejected by philosophers of science they are always rejecting then reclaiming theories – that’s what they do. All I can say is that after reading many definitions of the ‘scientific method’ I found his the most useful.
ALB – like BD I know you like to think of science as the royal road to truth and have deified it but I think the criticism of ‘but it isn’t scientific’ is no longer helpful and rather anachronistic – certainly the ‘scientific establishment’ can be very reactionary. So if one is to reject the Marxian/Freudian/Marcusian theory of the death instinct being an explanation for Auschwitz then what is the the alternative offered by the hoard of psychologists that BD mentions? I’m perfectly willing to give up the DI if there’s a better theory available. BD – do you have a work by your favoured psychologists on the this subject? I would be more than willing to consider it. DJP – Like the Candyman it’s not wise to mention our feathered friend.
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