File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/marxism-general.9705, message 23


To: marxism-and-sciences-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Cc: marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU,
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 22:16:56 PST
Subject: M-G: Re: Freud and Marx
From: farmelantj-AT-juno.com (James Farmelant)


One reason that many people have taken to speaking of Freud 
and Marx together is that both Marxism and psychoanalysis share
a concern with unveiling the forces that determine our existence
without our being consciously aware of them.  Psychoanalysis
posits the existence of an unconscious which can exert a controlling
influence over our psyches without our being aware of it.  
Likewise Marxism posits the existence of economic and social
forces that condition our social existence without our being
aware of their existence.  This is exemplified for instance in Marx's
labor theory of value which attempts to show how exploitation
takes place "behind people's backs" when market exchanges
occur between parties that appear to be free and equal.

As E.H. Carr (one of Lou Godena's favorite historians) put it
in his little book *What is History?* "...What Freud did was to extend 
the range of our knowledge and understanding by opening
up the unconscious roots of human behavior to consciousness
and to rational inquiry...In this respect, Freud complements,
and does not contradict the work of Marx.  Freud belongs to
the contemporary in the sense that, though he himself did
not entirely escape from the conception of a fixed and
invariable human nature, he provided the tools for a
deeper understanding of the roots of human behavior and thus
for its conscious modification through rational processes."

One can go even further and note that both Marx and Freud 
seemed to share similar conceptions of human emancipation.
Both Marx and Freud held what were basically Spinozan
conceptions of freedom.  For Spinoza human bondage
consists in being moved by causes of which we are unaware
because our ideas are confused.  We are said to make the
transition to freedom solely by our ideas becoming adequate.
When our ideas have become adequate we are no longer
moved by forces external to us, instead our movement is
self-initiated and so we are free.  Marx and Freud likewise
held similar conceptions of human freedom.  For Freud
a prime goal of psychoanalytic therapy was to expand the 
freedom of patients by unveiling the unconscious roots of
their emotions.  When patients become aware of the causes
of their behaviors they need no longer fall victim to them.

Marx likewise held a similar view in that he placed much
emphasis on overcoming ideology and "false consciousness."
For Marx freedom is conceived of in terms of 
self-determination which he conceived of in collective
terms in the sense that what was required was  the
socially organized imposition of control over both nature
and the conditions of production.  As Marx put it in the
*Grundrisse*- "the full development of human mastery over
the forces of nature as well as of humanity's own nature."
Marx made it clear that the realization of this control required
the supersession of the capitalist mode of production.

Both Marx and Freud were like Spinoza determinists.  For
all these thinkers freedom was something attained within or 
on the basis of the realm of Necessity.  As Engels put it
in his *Anti-Duhring*: "Freedom does not consist in the 
dream of independence from natural laws , but in the 
knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this
gives of making them work towards definite ends."
The fact IMO that Marx and Freud shared similar
conceptions of emancipation is another important reason
why people often group these two thinkers together.

Switching the subject just a bit.  Lou Godena in replying to
an earlier post I wrote on Adolf Grunbaum cited the
writings of Frederick Crews a literary critic and militant
anti-Freudian.  It is certainly not unreasonable to treat
Grunbaum and Crews as allies.  Crews after all in his
writing has drawn heavily upon Grunbaum's critiques of
the epistemological basis of psychoanalysis.  In turn Crews
has done much to popularize and promote Grunbaum's
work.  Nevertheless, I do perceive some differences between
these two writers in terms of nuances and emphasis.  Crews
seems to be much more militantly anti-Freudian than
Grunbaum.  While Grunbaum finds serious problems
with the psychoanalytic enterprise he does not seem in 
principle to be opposed to it.  He is open to the possibility
that psychoanalysts more sophisticated in the ways of
scientific methodology might in the future be able to
re-energize psychoanalysis as a scientific enterprise.

                                          James F.




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