Subject: HAB: RE: On Intersubjectivity
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 12:25:13 -0600


I liked Gary's application of Husserlian phenomenology in response to my
last post and some of the things going on on this list recently.  One
problem with this whole line of approach is that too many people,
including Habermas, take psychoanalysis too seriously as a way of trying
to understand the world.  The continual obsession by social theorists
with probing into the inner workings of the mind is reflective of the
modernist/Enlightenment assumption of the power of instrumental
rationality and the project of rationality to go forth into the world
and use concepts-such as Freud's schema of the tripartite division of
the psyche and the channeling of libido energy-to "freeze" or "tame"
such understandings about fundamental realities of the social, subject,
and objective worlds.  But I would contend that psychoanalysis and other
"sciences" of this ilk are merely flights of fancy.  In fact, Freud
"invented" rather than discovered the unconscious.  Why?  Because Freud
had an interest in setting himself and others following his methods and
ideas as an "expert" who could now sell himself (themselves) off to
folks suffering the rigors of daily living as being able to dig out from
that unconscious the "real" reasons why persons are (were_ suffering.
Freud almost single-handedly create a new class of "experts" through the
creation of this simple yet elegant "talking cure," which is actually
little more than a so-called "expert" sitting down with folks and
talking to them about their lives.  (Granted, MD-trained psychiatrists
can do more, such as prescribe drugs, but notice that even Freud
suggested that medical training was irrelevant to the work of
psychotherapy, thus paving the way for the "democratization" of
counseling and therapy as more and more persons come out of the woodwork
via a variety of so-called "helping" professions desperately attempting
to pass themselves off as therapists in order to tap into the largess of
the therapeutic welfare state.)  Although phenomenology has taken a more
sober approach to questions of the mind and intersubjectivity, it too
has made some serious errors, such as assuming that understandings of
life can be "bracketed," thereby being able to get at social phenomena
as the things-in-themselves rather than interpreting them through the
distortions of the everyday life world and the natural attitude.

One of the serious side effects of the acceptance of the assumptions of
the philosophy of consciousness, psychoanalysis, etc. is that people
seem less and less reluctant to challenge these versions of social
reality.  Let me give you an example.  I am working on an intellectual
biography of sociologist Alvin W. Gouldner (1920-1980).  Several early
chapters of the manuscript were sent out to anonymous reviewers for
consideration.  One anonymous reviewer, obviously taking to heart the
assumption of psychoanalysis, said something to the effect that "In this
day and age, no serious scholarship on the life of the mind, on the
interplay between ideas and the social phenomena and conditions
associated with the rise of those ideas, can afford not to employ
insights from psychoanalysis."  Indeed, nowhere in my manuscript do
employ or utilize psychoanalytic concepts.  Even further, in a recent
issue of Partisan Review (Fall 1997), psychiatrist Robert Michels said
"It is impossible to talk about human behavior, about motivation, about
development in 1997 without using psychoanalytic concepts.  We don't
have any other language" (p. 533).  Oh really?  How about the social
theory of Emile Durkheim?  Erving Goffman?  Harold Garfinkel?  Kurt
Lewin? Jeffrey Alexander?  Jack Gibbs?  And even Talcott Parsons and
Jurgen Habermas can be "deFreudianized" without much loss.

Perhaps the most interesting pathology of modernity we are now faced
with is the increasing emphasis which is being placed on self-esteem and
feeling good about yourself as an end in itself.  Vapid
psychologizations of everyday life continue to proliferate in a dizzying
spiral as more and more self-proclaimed "experts" continue to
pathologize more and more aspects of everyday life-parenting,
adolescence, not paying attention in school, problems in relationships,
divorce, difficulties making decisions, etc., thereby feeding into the
culture of the self-esteem/self-help guru who tends to invoke trendy
psychobabble while convincing everyone that everybody is screwed up.
Granted, clinical social workers and others are finally understanding
the self-limitations of this sort of "deficiencies" model of human
social life, and are now busily scrabbling together a so-called "new"
paradigm known as "strengths" theory, namely, the business of
emphasizing your client's strengths rather than their deficiencies or
weaknesses.  This is all being done of course to bring more more-or-less
"normal" patients (now known as "clients") into the fold to get away
from having to be associated with having to attend always to the needs
of wards of the state through public welfare programs.  With the
successful dissemination of the ideology of "seeking professional help,"
more and more people are being convinced that they must seek the help of
"licensed" or "certified" therapists for even minor disturbances in
their lives.  This of course supports exceedingly well the economic
interests of psychiatrists and others in the helping professions.


James J. Chriss
Kansas Newman College
Sociology Department


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