From: "Marcus Strom" <MSTROM-AT-nswtf.org.au>
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Date:          Tue, 19 Mar 1996 17:01:10 GMT+10
Subject:       Re: Abuse of children


This debate, which I haven't been following is interesting in the 
current political climate in the Australian state of New South Wales. 
The front page of the Sydney Morning Herald today is "Pedophiles: 
Police Admit Defeat".

There has been a royal commission into police corruption in NSW for 
months now coming out of the investigations of the Independent 
Commission Against Corruption. Most of the Royal Commission has 
looked at organised crime in the police force around the question of 
drugs and sex workers. Police have been rolling over like whatever 
role over easily saying they are corrupt, it is amazing how calmly 
the 'community  reaction' is over it all. But this is changing over 
allegations of police protection of pedarist rings.

The Commission has just started hearing (and seeing) evidence of 
police involvement in pedarist rings. From my own contacts in 
Wollongong, an industrial city south of Sydney, there is well known 
involvement of leading former politicians in pedarist circles 
protected and encouraged by the police.

For communists, this raises difficult questions - the twisting of 
human sexuality by the alienation of our society is rife.

What we must ensure is that this investigation does not turn into a 
witch hunt against gay men. Also, it raises the whole issue of 
consent and how this relates to not only sexual abuse of children, 
but of women as well.

I oppose any 'age of consent' laws very strongly. The question is of 
consent, not of a predetermined age by the state. this is more to do 
with the state controlling sexuality.

But I am uncomfortable with say the Spartacists position in support 
of NAMBLA - the North American Man Boy Love Association. yet I also 
strongly oppose any oppression against NAMBLA.

There must be people with a better understanding of these issues than 
me on the list.

What do you all think?

> Date:          Tue, 19 Mar 1996 00:09:33 -0500 (EST)
> From:          Santiago Colas <scolas-AT-umich.edu>
> To:            marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Cc:            marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Subject:       Re: Abuse of children (was: Cockburn?)
> Reply-to:      marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU

> Here here Doug!  To your concise defense of the rebelliousness of Freud's 
> theory of infant sexuality, I would add that the recognition of fantasies 
> and desires, as well as Freud's elaboration of a theory of their 
> interpretation, not to mention numerous brilliant individual analyses 
> (e.g. Jensen's Gradiva) offers a rich vein to mine for interpreters of 
> culture.  Let me also note that Fredric Jameson, in _The Political 
> Unconscious_, has offered a very provocative account of Freud and 
> psychoanalysis (pp. 61-68), of which I'll happy to offer snippets/summary 
> if anyone's interested.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Santiago Colas					e-mail:	scolas-AT-umich.edu
> Asst. Professor					phone:	(313) 763-4352
> Latin American and Comparative Literature	fax:	(313) 764-8163
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1275
> USA
> 
> On Mon, 18 Mar 1996, Doug Henwood wrote:
>  (a propos of Hans Ehrbar on Alice Miller's critique of Freud)
> 
> > Explaining Naziism through recourse to Hitler's childhood is a parody of
> > psychoanalysis. Links between psyche and culture - or, as the rebel
> > bourgeois Freud put it, how one comes to an ego ideal appropriate to one's
> > family, class, and nation - are an insufficently explored area. But lots
> > more work needs to be done than what Miller did, at least in the passages
> > of hers I read.
> > 
> > To say that Freud turned away from his initial belief in the stories of
> > incest to a "blaming the victim" approach is to banalize psychoanalysis
> > completely. What people turn away from is Freud's discovery of infantile
> > sexuality, the plasticity of the human psyche, and the powerful role of
> > fantasy. Children have wild desires and fantasies, though we (especially
> > Americans) love to pretend they're pure & innocent. The revival of literal
> > incest theories, thanks in part to Jeff Masson and his current squeeze,
> > Catherine MacKinnon, has had disastrous consquences of persecution; a whole
> > industry of abuse professionals, who coach children into giving
> > preposterous accounts of torment at their hands of teachers and child care
> > providers, has led to the indictment and jailing of scores of innocent
> > people.
> > 
> > Freud's separation of psychoanalysis from biology and literal biography is
> > intellectually important and full of liberatory potential. His Three Essays
> > on Sex show that there's no "normal" human personality, no inevitable
> > heterosexuality, and that we're all quite kinked under our often placid
> > exteriors. Someone more ambitious than I might want to join this to Engels'
> > analysis of the family to produce a radical Freudo-Marxist critique of both
> > property and propriety.
> > 
> > 
> > Doug
> > 
> > --
> > 
> > Doug Henwood
> > Left Business Observer
> > 250 W 85 St
> > New York NY 10024-3217
> > USA
> > +1-212-874-4020 voice
> > +1-212-874-3137 fax
> > email: <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
> > web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> > 
> 
> 
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> 


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