Thomas_More
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I’m sure there are doctrinaire freudians, but it’s the doctrinaire bolsheviks who dismiss psychotherapy out of hand.
Let us not be like them.We also know that everyone’s formation is different, and their reactions to things too, and that most of these have origins which are buried in one’s past. The formation of a personality is an ongoing chain of feelings and responses both socially and individually conditioned.
Two men are working class and have the same job and the same pay. One is a socialist and one is a nationalist. They went to the same school. One is a “ladies’ man” and the other a shy celibate. One is not fazed by news of an atrocity. The other is deeply depressed by it and cannot sleep. The “ladies’ man” is a sexist. The celibate is respectful of women. The one is frenziedly excited about an upcoming football match. The other is bored sick by it. The one reads books, the other ridicules him for it.
They both exist under capitalism and have been formed under it, but both are very different personalities.That’s right about nationalism.
Also religion.
Religion’s historical definition is community and performance (ritual).” The trouble with biological explanations as to which this is so (and Freud, Reich and Marcuse are offering biological explanations based on posited sexual energy) is that they prove too much — if workers have been biological manipulated to support capitalism how could they be changed to reject it? And how did we manage to escape this?”
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If a psychologist treats biology in isolation from society then s/he is of course wrong. And most are.
Thoughts, feelings, inhibitions etc. are both social and biological. Reich knew this, and so did Freud. They both knew that their work with patients was severely limited because of social realities and that any relief brought to any patient was at best a palliative and was temporary.
Reich especially gave free sessions to low-waged workers in the hope of helping them to alleviate some of their mental and sexual misery (which runs alongside and is caused by social misery).And in any case, the socialist, whilst rejecting fallacy in their work, should know how to take on board where they are valid, the same as we should do with any writer, scientist, philosopher and thinker.
We are not absolutists, who reject or accept 100% on the basis of some errors and some truths, surely?I refer you again to “Sex in a Free Society” by Cde. Fleischmann. Who would disagree with this?
I’ve opened a thread on Freud and am soon posting my reply on there so as not to divert this thread from its subject.
This was by a Reichian therapist and SPGB member:
https://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm/2021/03/08/sex-in-a-free-society/
Although rare, i’m afraid i have to agree here with Wez.
I also think the Standard’s two-parter on Freud and Marxism by Comrade Blewitt (?) years ago was superb.Signs point to Russia gearing up for ‘large-scale’ conflict with NATO, thinktank says – https://news.sky.com/story/russia-ukraine-war-latest-putin-election-live-updates-sky-news-blog-12541713?postid=7415155#liveblog-body
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/21/putin-now-openly-planning-for-war-against-nato/
I don’t think capitalism was ever seen as a utopian dream, except for the merchant class, themselves a minority.
The masses were never fully conscious of their role, or “destiny”, in any of the social upheavals, although they were aware of their poverty and immediate needs. It was always easy for opportunists to be carried by the majority and then divert social energy and rage so as to benefit their own, minority, interest.
As capitalist society has advanced, it has created psychological and emotional obstacles to its overthrow, even as it becomes more ravaging and rapacious.
The overwhelming power of the centralised state. Nationalism. The erosion, in fact, of class consciousness. Educational dumbing down of everything that is of no concern to profit. It creates the paradox of mass ignorance and mental deterioration alongside advanced technology and industry.Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism and Listen, Little Man! both address the propensity of the mass of the proletariat to idolize and to follow, and to actively hate those who do not join the majority in this.
The enlistment of not only social frustrations but also of sexual ones is also elucidated.
https://news.sky.com/story/george-stinneys-sister-says-he-was-innocent-10420411
Electrocuted at age 14.
