Date: Mon, 27 Nov 95 15:06:16 EST
From: "Matt D." <afn02065-AT-afn.org>
Subject: Joel Kovel says, "Stop me before I cure again!"


Louis Proyect  wrote:

>On Mon, 27 Nov 1995, Donna Murch wrote:
>
>> 5. Against Psychonalysis: Good Marxist critiques of forms of
>> psychoanlalytic criticism which erase social relations through positing the
>> individual as focus of analysis.  Oedipus Complex as tool to undermine
>> material causes of social rebellion, for example... 
>> 
>
>Louis: Check out Joel Kovel's work. He is the author of "Age of Desire" 
>and other books. He was a psychiatrist for decades but came to the 
>conclusion that this was an exercise in futility in capitalist society. 
>He is a Marxist and also an a ecologist.

I had the opportunity to read some of Joel's work in Z magazine back in
my naive "can't we all just get along" period (say, 1986-90), before my
current descent into rabid sectarianism and ultraleftist illusions.

My memory of Kovel is as a rather facile "stop the evil doctors" type
of anti-psychiatry critic -- reminding me really of the adage that the most
vehement anti-smoker is one who's themself quit.  He seems to have
a view of psychiatry as some sort of mind-control technique that
is used to "fool" people into conforming -- an idea similar to that held
by many high-school students, but by very few people with any
actual experience w/ psychiatry, either as practitioners or patients.

Of course, this is not to defend any specific psychotherapeutic technique.
It's quite possible that whatever practice Kovel was engaged in was
indeed an "excercise in futility" -- perhaps in any society, and not just
under conditions of capitalism.

I have a copy of "Age of Desire" on my bookshelf, but haven't yet got
around to reading it.  Perhaps Louis could enlighten us further as to
its theses.

Despite my slavish devotion to Messr. Dumain, I am actually a big fan
of Althusser.  He obviously thought there was something profound going
on in Freud.  I'm inclined, for that reason among others, to be skeptical
of anti-psychiatric stances, especially those, like Mr. Kovel's, which seem
to be analogs of broader anti-science moralising B.S. reflecting a sort
of bastardized Habermasianism (critique of the extension of instrumental
rationality) incongruously blended w/ a retro-Nietzschean fascination
w/ the "freedom" of the "self-overcoming" individual.

-- Matt D.



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