Re: Against Psychologism

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
I hadn't commented upon Ted Winslow's psychological remarks in part because
what is there to say after all?  But since Yoshie felt like putting up a
statement against psychologism I would add my own thoughts.

The core of Freud has to do with instincts in the mind.  Rule based views of
how the mind works are dominant within the U.S. culture.  See Steven Pinker
for example, or any of the Evolutionary Psychologists.  Of course one does
not want to lump them all together as having exactly the same views on the
working class and Marxism for example.  I am merely saying that rule based
views of the human brain are dominant within U.S. culture.

Beyond that, what else can we observe about this point of view that
psychologizes the content of economics or the political economy?  Well the
person feels free to make sweeping statements about the nature of human
feelings.  The paradox in that is in the traditions of Western European
Rationality, which is primarily an attempt to exclude emotions from human
judgement.  While accepting that human beings feel something, Freudians feel
compelled to think of that as rule based instincts.  Hence thinking or
rationality is free while feelings are not.  And thus talking therapy can
free one self from the instincts of emotions by talking over time with a
paid professional medical doctor.

The test of that of course from the point of view of capitalism is does it
work to make profit?  If one sits down with someone besides a neurotic (?
whatever that vague term is supposed to allude to in Freudian orthodoxy),
that is for example with someone who is chronically depressed, does talk
therapy make that depressed person available as a worker and productive of
profit?  Or does that sort of thing produce a drain upon profits by
providing very long and fruitless encounters over years with someone who has
a mental dysfunction (from the point of view of an able bodied culture
against disabled people).  Hence, while the theory of Freud does appeal to
Capitalist culture in the sense of positing instincts, the medical claims
have subsided about talking therapy in Freudian analysis.  That is because
even though drug therapies are hardly well understood, they produce results
in altering some peoples thoughts, and that person goes back to the job and
produces while talking therapies languish stuck in the same old issues back
and forth endlessly.

Back to rationality, the movement toward rationalism is centuries old now.
Primarily one could observe in our times that surgery shows that someone who
has had their mind lobotomized cannot make "rational" judgements without
their feelings.  So what are we to make of the common view that emotions
betray people from understanding, decency, humanity, civility, etc?  Well,
let us take these sentences I write here, the medium of writing does not
directly record my states of feelings.  I can report my states of feelings
(indirectly through words), but I can't use the sound mimicking aspects of
writing in an alphabet to record accurately how I feel.  Therefore writing
systems clumsily (at best) report feelings.

  Since writing obviously does not convey feelings well, then rationality is
obviously like writing.  So despite proof that in surgery feelings are
necessary to rational judgement, we linger with the old view that
rationality is to get away from feelings, trusting as it were that the
expertise that writing produces is the only way to understand what is
happening.

   Within that then finding rules to govern feelings is the game to tame
feelings.  They are instincts, not plastic parts of the thought process.
And that is an avenue from which psychologizing is useful upon the political
process.  That is the intense feelings stirred up in people because of
depravation, and deceit, and oppression are explained away as merely
instincts of the lower classes against the rational system of capitalism.

 Now Ted Winslow may not feel that way about Freudianism, but how are we to
know the difference from that and taking seriously that working people get
the shit kicked out of them over wealth in this polarized society?  Feelings
are the same, rich or poor?

 Part two, For PsychologizIng in other ways;

   Writing was invented a long time ago.  Egypt, and China, Sumeria all have
claims, valid claims on being original.  Writing, how much it has changed
since then also.  If you look at Noam Chomsky's work, he seems to view
grammatical speech and writing as a direct window into the mind, even though
otherwise Chomsky is a big believer in instincts.

   Writing succeeds to the degree it does because it seems so like the way
we think.  In that sense, the invention of writing is speculation about how
we think (a kind of folk psychology).  The difference of course is that
through practice over time, through development from experience writing has
come a long ways.  Where one believes that a rule reflects thought, such as
Freudian instincts, really the test is practice that shows something can
develop, elaborate and become practically useful.  Does it produce.  Writing
certainly produces a lot since it is absolutely necessary for capitalism to
have an educated working class.  So the ancient psychologizing about how
writing would seem thought like has been helpful, useful, and rewarding.

   Some sorts of realistic work concerning how we think is necessary.  But I
would say does it do what it says?  Can we use it?

   In these times computing communications through broad band systems will
increase basic levels of what is being communicated.  These e-mails lists
reflect that.  But I cannot see how to understand such things, by using
Freudian thinking.  That is a very serious criticism of psychological
theory.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor