Bijou Drains
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“Wez, have you looked at some of Stanley Milgram’s work. Not a perfect explanation to be sure, but a little more credible than penis envy.”
twc, please note I didn’t say I agreed with it, just that it was more credible than penis envy!
If anyone is interested in similar ideas, Zimbardo’s Stamford Prison Experiment and the similar studies done later in the UK and in Germany give food for thought about authoritarianism. Don’t personally agree with Zimbardo’s take on his findings and the alternative interpretation by Erich Fromm is quite interesting, pointing out that the majority of the prison officer students did not join in the abusive processes, although they did not intervene. The holocaust was perpetrated by a small minority of the population, however the majority and especially those who knew, did not intervene.
It’s a bit like the scandals in the Police, TV, showbiz recently. Other officers have known that some of the other police have been sexual predators, but didn’t do anything about it.
On a personal level I do think there is an important issue about the self selection of those who end up in authoritarian positions, whether that is being a concentration camp guard, a police officer or perhaps even leader of a Trotskyist/Leninist splinter party. It is similar to sexual abusers. As well as grooming the children/vulnerable adults, these people are very good at grooming organisations and intimidating those who have any chance to do something about it.
Going back to my earlier postings, there are clear links between psychopathy and insecure attachment and early years trauma.
Here’s a couple of studies:
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/55765296.pdf
Interestingly both Stalin and Hitler had very abuse early years experiences, looking through the biographies of some of the well known names from the holocaust, many also experienced disrupted and abusive relationships. This kind of mirrors Bowlby’s original study “44 thieves”.
I’m not saying it is an explanation, but it offers some insight.
Another author I have always found quite interesting is Erving Goffman, especially his concepts of Total Institutions.
Wez, have you looked at some of Stanley Milgram’s work. Not a perfect explanation to be sure, but a little more credible than penis envy.
So I’ve answered your question can you answer my question, do you believe that all of that semi mystical guff about Oedipus complexes, castration anxiety, boys being sexually possessive of their mothers and that infants are sexually excited and develop libidinous drives about passing a turd?
Straight yes or no would suffice
L Bird “They’re all politically, philosophically, ideologically and methodologically, opposed to democracy!”
You might say that, but has there been a vote to confirm your theory?
Wez Stated “There are no grounds for dismissing a theory because its originators were Victorian gents“. I have never said that there were grounds for dismissing Feud’s work because he was a Victorian Gent at any point. So your point is irrelevant
“indeed in terms of the origins of the holocaust Freud’s work with Austrian petite bourgeois patients can be very helpful”
That is just a statement of opinion, to justify that you need to provide some evidence to show this. To date you have provided none.
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
No I didn’t, I praised the scope and breadth of their investigations. As opposed to the extremely narrow study material that Freud used (a small group of bourgeois children some of whom were very possible victims of child sexual abuse). My criticism is not of universalist theories, but the wild and wacky universalist conclusions Freud made from such a small and clearly culturally and economically biased sample group.
So in the vain hope that you would actually provide a straight answer to a straight question, do you believe that all male children fear emasculation in their early childhoods, do all female children experience penis envy, do all male children fall in love with their mother and wish to kill their father to gain sexual experiences with their mother, and that do all female children experience a similar “libidinal” experience with their fathers? Indeed do you think that through the mouth all infants makes contact with the first object of libido (sexual energy), the mother’s breast?
This is important because you go on to say that:
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).
Which interestingly makes use of pure assertion again (I think it is self evident) and interestingly makes you move your ground from the universalist idea that all childhood relationships are paradoxical to them being often a battleground.
Whilst agreeing that parenting can be difficult and being a child can be difficult and sometimes boundaries are hard to maintain or accept, I find it baffling that a grown up would still consider any theory which uses Greek Mythology to explain this in terms of an ongoing libidinal struggle between children and their parents. As far as I can see you would be just as well served as constructing a theory about child development based on the Lord of the Rings, at least it is a bit more realistic than the guff Freud dreamed up.
Hi Wez,
So you have observed one mother shout at one child and have developed a conclusion that covers the nature of relationships between children and their parents, especially during their summer school holidays. Further deciding that there is universality in the dysfunctional nuclear family, an “unending power struggle between parent and child” and that parents see their children as their ‘property’ which gives them the right to enforce their values on them.
Well, no one could say you’re not a sincere Freudian, you’ve certainly taken his methodology, of creating meta theories from tiny anecdotes to your bosom! Or could it be just the sound of straws being clutched?
I would compare the universalist approach you suggest, i.e. that all children and their parents are in a paradoxical and conflicted relationship with their parents, (I’ll ignore at this time the idea that this is predicated by the crazy idea that this is driven by the sexual fantasies of the child!!!) and that this will lead to a predictable series of staged conflicts, including that boy children all worry that they will be emasculated, all children will find the passing of faeces erogenous, etc., etc. with the basic proposition of Attachment Theory.
This theory puts forward that the styles of parenting vary and that the more cooperative, nurturing and available the parent is, the more likely that the child will develop a trusting, secure and enduring attachment and that that children who experience a lack of nurture, support and consistent care, will develop less secure attachments and are more likely to develop issues such as Mental Health problems, etc.
You may have noted that I have used the terms more likely, rather than will develop, as this theoretical approach is much more nuanced and less deterministic than the Freudian approach.
This theory has predicted that differences in terms of cognition, vocabulary, physical growth, emotional regulation, planning, interpersonal relationships, etc. based on attachment theory. The rigorous testing of these predictions over many years has provided huge support for these predictions.
This theory has also been supported by over 60 years of substantial data collected across many Parts of the world. Not only that, more recent developments involving CT scans, MRI scans, analysis of neuro transmitters such as serotonin and cortisol also provide support for Attachment Theory.
Perhaps reading Jeremy Holmes excellent introductory book “Holmes J (1993). John Bowlby and Attachment Theory. Makers of modern psychotherapy. London; New York: Routledge” might help you make an informed decision about which theory makes sense to you.
Who knows, L Bird might even arrange a vote about it.
7 Labour MPs lose the whip for voting against the continuation of the two children limit on welfare payments. It hasn’t taken long for move from the new Attlee to the new Ramsey MacDonald.
Will there be a left wing rump to feel brave enough to split from Labour?
Interesting that “fire brand” MP Ian Lavery, (who put his best left face at the Durham Miners’ Gala) and Kate Osborne (who did the same at the Jarrow Rebel Town Festival) are not amongst the seven.
Say Candy Man and up the fucker pops. Good to see you my old mate, and for once we are on the same side. I’m having a couple of ales at the moment, so my contributions would be quesiotnable, but it is nice to see that my feathered guardian angel/serpent is watching over me.
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.
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.
Had 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’tI’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.
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
I do apologise for the very late reply to questions about the article by Cde Fleischman in the World Socialism Journal by TM.
It has been a while, and I had started my writing my responses to the article, however life has been very busy for me. I have had a chance to compelete my thoughts on the article, so here goes:
Although there are many parts of it I don’t disagree with, to me it is far too deterministic and filled with universal statements about people’s lives. This then leads to, what appears to me to be rather over the top and simplistic descriptions of parts of society but which leave out many other aspects of the lives we live, including many of the positive aspects of human relationships which also characterise our interactions with each other. For example statements such as “There is an enormous amount of shame, self-loathing and guilt.” “Distance and aloneness are typical of life today.” and “It’s man against woman and man against man and each of them resentful of everyone else.”, although this is the case for some people at some points, it is clearly not the case for all people.
There is a tendency to look at the current situation, the way that capitalism operates and how the working class will react which to me is far too mechanistic and far too universalistic.
Yes capitalism invades into our lives, but despite the difficulties this produces, despite the ideology that capitalism promotes, we are still a social creature and for lots of us we gain a great deal from the genuine social interactions that makes. The joy of helping one another, the feelings of connectedness we have when we share laughter with friends, the feelings of closeness at times of difficulty, etc.
Another example is the section which states “A repressive milieu affects you from the moment you are born. The child is subjected to many forms of denial and repression. In fact, childhood is the prototype of all later oppression and coercion. The child’s spirit is deformed by constant restrictions.” I can only report my own childhood in great detail, but I have worked with families for many years and for some of us that is not the experience they had.I lived in the same economic system as the one described by the article, but the way it is described is not what it was for me, from what what I can remember. My childhood was a really happy one, I lived in what would nowadays be described as a typical working class neighbourhood, and I was surrounded by acceptance, care and warmth. Not just the females, but a lot of the males as well. There was my next door neighbour who was like a grandfather figure to me who ran a little shoe repair shop, I spent hours in his wooden hut watching him work as he retold stories of his childhood in rural Northumberland, George who lived at the top of the street who had racing pigeons and showed us how to care for the pigeons and helped us make little wooden go carts, as well as many other examples. My family were supportive and nurturing, and not just my Mam but my Da as well.
As we grew up we formed a football team all from kids from the same street and we watched as we married, sometimes to sisters and brothers from the same street. Their kids came along and for a lot of their children; they have made friendships and bonds with each other. We had a street get together recently, which we do once or twice a year, and there were nearly 30 of us, all lads and lasses that lived together and played together and cared and protected each other. I always say I never worried when I went out as a kid ‘cos I had 15 big brothers and 10 big sisters!
I’m not saying that this means that what happened to me is typical, but I have lots of examples (my partner and her friends included) who can describe these types of experiences. So the description given in the article is certainly not universal and I would question if it is even typical.
Capitalism is brutal, vicious and cut throat, however, from my observations, humanity, cooperation, nurture, caring for each other, or at least tolerating each other, always comes to the fore.
For example thinking about the sacrifices that took place during the miners’ strike, as one example, still make me reflect on all of the good that humans can do. The collection centre for food parcels was overwhelmed at times, and despite all that could be thrown at people by the system, when people were starved back to work, they went back with their heads held high and with the support of their community. Over the road from where I live there is now a food bank collection centre held on Mondays and there are people dropping food off all day.
Another example, I have worked for many years with foster carers, hundreds of families who have sacrificed so much of their lives to have the opportunity to care and nurture children who came to them as complete strangers. Not doing this for money (the fostering allowances given are generally pitiful) but to give some stranger’s child a chance to live a better life.
The examples I am giving are not to detract from other people’s experiences, but to make the point that lots of people appear to have a generally happy life, have reasonably friendships, with some close ties with family and often experience warmth and love in several aspects of their lives, despite the depredations of capitalism.
This fits in with one of the several issues I have with the approach that Freud and Reich take, to me it relies very much on the assumptions that everyone has the same experiences and that we all react to these experiences in the same way. We don’t have the same experiences, we all have different experiences and as a result of those differences we create slightly different understandings of the world around us.
For example the early Freudian idea of the Oedipus complex would be laughable if it hadn’t been taken so seriously. That male children fall in love with their mothers and want to eliminate their fathers is so prescriptive and fantastic. What happens if you are brought up by your father on your own because your mother died in childbirth.
Take the idea of penis envy, what about little girls who only have sisters and don’t encounter a brother’s “little friend” to be envious about? We all make different conclusions depending up on our experiences and also to an extent because of our genetics, but also happenstance plays a part. My older brother genuinely had a phobia of giraffes when he was a toddler, the reason for this only became apparent when he was about 3 years old, my mother asked him to close the back door in the kitchen and he said back to her, “yes and keep the giraffes out”, my mother had a stock phrase, shut the door and keep the drafts out, he had misheard what she had said. Although this is funny, it was also the cause of a small amount of trauma for him at the time, and it demonstrates that individual perception is exactly that, individual.
People often say that two children are brought up in the same way and end up with different personalities, but this is not the case. No two people have exactly the same upbringing. Take the example of me and my brother. He is five years older than me and although we had the same genetic parents, we had different experiences of the same people. Just for starters my brother’s parents were five years younger than the parents I had. I shared their love with two siblings from the start of my life, whereas he started life as an only child until the birth of my sister.
Even mono zygotic twins (identical) have a different experience even from the moment the egg splits into two. The two eggs will implant in different parts of the womb, the levels of nutrients will be different, the way they attach through the umbilical cord will be slightly different, the level of hormones shared by their mother’s blood will be different. That’s even before they are born.
That is why the whole idea that we will all react in exactly the same to the same social stimuli is a fallacy. We can also say that generally there is a tendency in most people to respond in certain ways to certain situations, but there will always be some that react differently.
Again I’ll give an example of how genetic difference can make a difference to how we comprehend the world. Back in the 80’s I was involved in the care of a young man who had severe autism, learning difficulties and who was abandoned into the hospital system at the age of 6 months old. Understandably growing up in this strange and uncaring world he developed very challenging ways to protect himself. As he had no language and because he was scared, he responded by biting people if he was scared or if he was threatened. In the early 70’s one of the “therapists” came up with what was described as a “behaviour modification programme”. The programme was that if this lad bit someone the nursing staff would put Tabasco sauce into his mouth. Apart from the fact that this was cruel, abusive and despicable, the “programme” also had another difficulty. People who have autism often have hyposensitivity to taste, to him all tastes were quite bland. So, to him having a splash of Tabasco sauce was an absolute treat. Instead of discouraging him from biting people, they were actually rewarding him!
Returning to the article in question the author quotes Reich as saying “The father represents and teaches authority . . .The family in capitalist society . . . protects the woman and the children, but its cardinal function is … to produce a bourgeois outlook and a conservative personality”, again I can only speak of the men in my family, this was certainly not their role.
They taught me to challenge the system, cooperate with each other for the good of others, to love and be loved. This, I suppose, is the real problem, reducing the experiences as billions of millions of individual people to form of psychological determinism.
Eric Berne, who developed the concept of personal script, told the story of two brothers, the two brothers had been told by their mother for many years that they would both end up in a lunatic asylum. When he met them it was in an asylum, they had both followed the message given by their mother, however one was a patient and the other was a psychiatrist.
I suppose what I am saying is that the world is full of difference and different people, with different experiences may also lead them to similar conclusions. For example, no doubt, the oppressive nature of society and of some family and family relationships may lead some people to seek out a freer and more humane way of living, this may also lead them to understand the constraints which capitalism places on them and may make the idea of a Socialist transformation of society an urgent necessity (and good on them for it).
Others may see the cooperative and caring family they were brought up in and the nurturing and supportive community they experienced as a model which demonstrates practically the way in which a sane society could operate, if only the constraints of the capitalist system were over thrown.
There may also be other individuals who see things from a very logical and methodical way who see the irrationality of the current system, the waste, the futility of reform, etc. and as a result develop a Socialist consciousness.
The one dimensional approach to the human mind of people like Freud, Reich, Jung, and others is based not on scientific study but is based purely on personal conjecture and the unsupported claims of these theorists. Have some of them developed useful insights, undoubtedly. However if their supporters wish to celebrate these insights, they must also accept the damage and destruction their work has gone on to cause. With Freud’s theories (with all of their difficulties and useful contributions) there is also Freud’s approach, the great psychiatrist who cannot be questioned, whose word is law. To gain an insight into the trauma the great man/woman approach to psychiatry, psychology and therapy, have caused you only need to read about the life and times of Bruno Bettleheim.
This is not to say that Freudian approaches haven’t been part of the development of current understandings of the human mind, you couls say probably in the same way that Hippocrates laid the foundation of modern medicine. However I wouldn’t expect my GP to base their treatment of me by following the ideas of Hippocrates, and neither would I expect to any serious student of the human psyche to base their outdated and unscientific ideas of Freud.
As I have said several times on this forum, far more interesting and scientifically tested approaches exist. For example attachment theory, which began from an early attempt to empirically examine object relations theory, and has played a pivotal role in linking psychoanalytic theory with its social and neurobiological correlates. It re-focused attention onto the primacy of actual relational trauma and the importance of the interpersonal dimension of human relatedness as opposed to fantasy and the intrapsychic environment. I would recommend reading up about it.
This leads me on to Wez’s question “what have all of your establishment experts got to say about the relationship between political ideology and psychological development/character?”.
Interestingly to the Socialist point of view, Attachment Theory is based upon the idea that early infant experiences of care and nurture, or the lack of it and also puts forward the idea that the more cooperative, connected and available the care giver is to the child, the more likely the child will develop a secure attachment and also be able to develop cooperative interdependent behaviours and personalities themselves. As most studies state that between 55-65% of children develop a secure relationship. It would seem that the nature or our attachments would predict a higher number of the population held postive viewpoints about the imporance of cooperation and interdependent activity. This has been indicated by several studies in America that generally those with secure attachments were far more likely to have “liberal” rather than Conservative views. People with insecure avoidant attachments (usually rated as between 25-20% of the population) held a mix of liberal and conservative views and that insecure ambivalent attachments (usually rated as between 20-15% of the population) were more likely to have conservative views.
Although that is not in any way an exact science, it is certainly a solid answer to the age old “human nature” argument, i.e. attachment makes the point that human nature is actually hard wired in to us to be cooperative and interdependent, and that anti social behaviour is the exception, rather than the rule, usually occuring where there has been early years trauma and neglect (that is not to say that all people who experiecned trauma and neglect will become anti social).
I have had that happen to me when my reply has been the first post of a new page of posts. I would just repost it again .
