Wez
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Presumably it will advocate numerous and impossible reforms to capitalism like so many of its kind have done before.
ALB – I think you were one of the editors who rejected my summary of the theory for publication in the Standard many years ago – I’m surprised that you forgot. Here’s the link: https://wezselecta.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-death-instinct.html#comment-form
ALB – My main influences in this area were ‘The Authoritarian Personality’ by Adorno and several others and Marcuse’s ‘Eros and Civilisation’. I am fascinated by the dialectical relationship between life and death that the theory of the ‘Death Instinct’ postulates.
BD – Thanks with providing me with some material to study but you seem to be distancing yourself from a lot of it? You ask about some of Freud’s other theories and I would have to go back and read the context of your assertions/quotes as it has been a long time since I read old Sigi. Of course Freud himself did junk a lot of his early ‘libido theory’ in favour of the Id, Ego and Super Ego hypothesis together with, of course, the Eros/Thanatos construction. I don’t know if many have found psychoanalysis helpful as patients as my main interest was its implications for political theory as expounded by members of the Frankfurt School (my answer to ALB’S inquiry above).
DJP – ‘Regardless of if you want to call something ‘scientific’ or not, I still think it makes sense to subject our cherished views to some kind of logical and empirical standards.’
Of course that’s true, I’m just pointing out that such standards are not the exclusive domain of ‘science’.
BD – I keep trying to answer all of your requests but you never attempt to answer mine. Give me something to work with such as a name of a psychologist you recommend who has produced a psychological analysis of the Holocaust – pretty please.BD – I think we are making some progress. There are no grounds for dismissing a theory because its originators were Victorian gents and indeed in terms of the origins of the holocaust Freuds work with Austrian petite bourgeois patients can be very helpful. It is also notable that you praise the work of Marx and Darwin for their universality thus admitting that sometimes one size does, in fact, fit all. I think it self evident, especially to parents, that the child/parent relationship can often be a battle ground (especially in a capitalist cultural context). Thanks to LBird (and I don’t often get to say that) I have revisited the debate concerning the nature of science and in the absence of any agreed definition I think we can dispense with the criticism of a theory being ‘unscientific’ thus barring it from any serious consideration. Marx is often accused of this heresy but as a dialectical philosophy of cultural evolution its success far eclipses any of the contemporary ‘scientific’ theories that specifically try to refute the class struggle. I notice you still haven’t provided me with any examples of an alternative psychological explanation for the Holocaust and Auschwitz. Perhaps we can turn to Freud’s theory of the unconscious and its role in irrational behaviour?
BD – You asked me for evidence to support my statement that: “The child’s relationship with its parents is paradoxical from the start.”
I’ve just encountered a mother shouting at her child to ‘behave himself’ and I suspect this scenario is repeated millions of times up and down the country during the summer school holidays. The dysfunctional nuclear family is an arena for this unending power struggle between parent and child. This doesn’t exclude the presence of love but many parents seem to see their children as their ‘property’ which gives them the right to enforce their values on them. Indeed many will do this in the name of ‘love’ hence my description of the relationship being paradoxical and contradictory.DJP – What exactly do you mean by that? History is created by historians and many of their narratives can be considered wholly or partly fictitious. One of the joys of history is the continual evolution (revision) of narratives about the past which are mainly due to the ideology/class of the historians.
LBird – I’m a big fan of Feyerabend so I would be interested in what he has to say about Popper’s Falsifiability theory.
BD – It has just occurred to me that your contention that the very narrow class and cultural basis for Freud’s theories, in terms of his patients, were the very class of Austrian culture who were such rabid supporters of Hitler.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.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.
Oh 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.
‘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-formBD – 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.
BD – Thanks for that considered addition to the debate. I will read it again but, to me, the most obvious mistake you make is to emphasize ‘individualism’ and ‘difference’ in human personalities. What has always struck me, in terms of political debate, is how similar and conditioned people are. The ‘human nature’ argument against socialism seems almost universal in my experience, usually made by those who consider themselves as supreme examples of ‘individuality’. Surely a Marxian class analysis demands that we should emphasize the ‘sameness’ of ideological and behavioral social phenomena? Your distinction between ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ views is surely irrelevant to socialists as both lead, and have led, inevitably to hell on earth. As I said I will read it again but these points above surprised me coming from a socialist and/or sympathizer.
