Louis Proyect wrote: >If that was only the case. Psychoanalysis has very limited value in >explaining how people behave. For example, when psychoanalysts write about >fascism, they usually go off on the most ridiculous tangents about sexual >attitudes of the German masses, or Hitler's psychopathology in particular. >There is nothing at all abnormal about German society in the 1920s. If >anything, it was more open-minded and healthy than any other country in >Europe. What happened is that it was subjected to enormous strains due to >the collapse of world capitalism and a section of the population went nuts. Why people embrace politicians and parties against their own material self-interest is one of the great mysteries of politics. And there's no doubt that lots of people embraced fascism who later suffered from it. Why does anti-Semitism have the power it does, even in societies with few or no Jews? Why do so many working class Americans hate welfare moms with what looks like an irrational passion? It has more than a little to do with sex and race. There's many a slip between the material/social world that Marxists analyze and the world as people see and act on it. This isn't a matter of either/or - you have to analyze the "enormous strains" on German society that made "a section of the population [go] nuts" but you also have to understand how and why they went nuts, and why they acted the way they did. Thanks for using the term "went nuts"; it makes my point for me. >Perhaps Doug is referrring to the value of psychology rather than >psychoanalysis. I think psychology is very useful. Some of my favorite >psychologists are Shakespeare, Dostoievsky, Chekhov, Melville and Proust. "The poets were there before me." - Sigmund Freud Doug
