Freudianism in the USA, and its Enduring Harm to Global Public Discourse

[Goldfinch]

I thought this was an interesting post on the nature of internet discourse by Americans. I've noticed many of the same things Charlton mentions such as......"the current (weird) 'manosphere' obsessions with the 'socio-sexual hierarchies' (alpha, beta, gamma men, and so forth); or the endless discussion of blue, red, black and white 'pills'... indeed much of the everyday discussion in this general corner of the internet, and among 'trad' Christians of several denominations and churches..."

Freudianism in the USA, and its enduring harm to global public discourse (including the Secular Right, 'manosphere' and 'Trad' Christians)

In Bruce Charlton's Notions

Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis was mainly adopted in the USA, where it soon permeated almost the entirety of social discourse - and did immense and lasting harm. Of course, few people have ever been-through anything like a full 'analysis' - i.e. an hour, three times a week for several or many years, done by an accredited analyst who had himself been analyzed. (Except for Freud himself. Founders of initiatory organizations, somehow, themselves never require the prolonged and systematic they require of their followers. Rudolf Steiner was the same in this regard. I suppose this exemplifies Weber's discussion of charisma and bureaucracy, and how the one invariably assimilates to the other.)

But a very high proportion of people in the USA, especially among the ruling and professional classes, have spent significant time in 'therapy' of one sort or another; and all these therapies are more-or-less-closely descended from Freud in terms of their broad assumptions, and effects.  (e.g. In a month at a medical school in Texas, I met only one person who had not experienced psychotherapy.)

All sorts of aspects of psychoanalysis became embedded in US life. For example, the idea of psychological 'traumas' being The cause of 'problems' later - this assumption forms the basis of most modern biographies.  Or, the 'confessional' way of interacting; whereby people 'spill the beans' about themselves, their history and their feelings, as a major mode of social interaction, even among strangers - and the assumption that Not to do this is unhealthy: storing-up problems for the future.

Extending from this, is the notion that 'repressing' any feeling does harm, whereby expressing it - doing it - is healthy and a sign of good adjustment. This, especially and above all, in the realm of sex and sexuality; where in fact the anti-Freudian idea is that desires need to be 'acted-out' rather than being purely articulated and discussed. ('Strict' Freudian analysis takes places entirely within the consultation room.)

The archetypical American extraversion and action-orientation thereby fused with Freud's abstract intellectualism, to produce a kind of public and explicit drama from the (all-but endless) speaking and listening, thinking and discussing of strict psychoanalysis. Consequently, psychoanalysis and 'therapy' of all kinds became, in the USA, heavily sexualized - with sexual relationships between therapists and clients almost normal, certainly unremarkable. More generally, psychoanalysis led to the idea that 'it's good to talk', to interact, to socialize, to have lots and lots of 'friends'; and that these friends are (primarily) 'supportive'  and 'encouraging' in terms of their comments.

And the flipside of this has been first to 'problematize' and then to punish the opposite: i.e. comments - or facial expressions - that make people 'feel bad'. Leading onto the ludicrous discourse of 'micro-aggressions' being developed, taken seriously; and then deployed as a core political weapon. Similarly, the culture of 'analysis' and 'therapy' created and sustained the discourse and legislation based on 'unconscious racism' (or sexism, or *phobias) - which is posited as the primary cause of any difference in outcomes that disfavour an officially-privileged (i.e. officially labelled 'oppressed') group. This represents Freud's 'unconscious'; literalized and weaponized for social control. 

Therefore, we can see that Freud was the origin of the New Left, with its psychological focus and (racial, sexual, etc.) 'victim groups'; which - from the middle 1960s - displaced the Old Left (which had been rooted in economics and class analysis). The US way of understanding was quickly (almost instantly) exported to the rest of the world, mainly by domination of mass media, but also by the US status of political hegemony. These and other themes were generated in the USA in the wake of the Freudian cultural-takeover back in the middle twentieth century. Freudian ideas (in culturally-adapted forms), in fact, became metaphysical assumptions: basic assumptions regarding the nature of reality - in particular the human condition.

Mainstream US life came to be rooted in the atheism, materialism, psychologism derived from Freud and therapy; combined with a hedonism (or utilitarianism) the Americans added to it. This means that the framework of modern mass media - from news stories to movies and TV drama, and the interactions of social media - substantially dictates the approved content, and the status hierarchies. (And these are sustained and manipulated - for Their own ends - by those with power, naturally.) This began the process we now see at an advanced and degenerate stage of evolved corruption. Psychologism 'infects' many areas of American discourse; even among those who regard themselves as on The Right or at least against The Left - even among Christians!

For example; the current (weird) 'manosphere' obsessions with the 'socio-sexual hierarchies' (alpha, beta, gamma men, and so forth); or the endless discussion of blue, red, black and white 'pills'... indeed much of the everyday discussion in this general corner of the internet, and among 'trad' Christians of several denominations and churches...Yet these discourses are derived from that same toxic set of attitudes and concepts that - broadly - evolved from Freudian psychoanalysis.

They are, indeed, instances of Residual Unresolved Positivism - and thus also of Residual Unresolved Leftism - and they work-against Christianity at a structural, metaphysical level. Serious Christians would, I believe, be well-advised to recognize the malign roots of these ultimately New Left discourses; and to identify, and repent, their own impulse to engage in such thinking and interaction.   

[Instaurare omnia]

Charlton's post is overall a very good warning to traditionalist Catholics. However, there are caveats to be added with regard to the danger of conflating the different sorts of psychotherapy as well as ignoring the animosity among them.

The old-line Freudians still adhere to a sort of Gnosis in which a psychotherapist's particular lineage is given as much weight as Catholics do the importance of apostolic succession. Where and with whom one trained matters a lot, as does the terminal degree -- PhD, MD, etc. The techniques involved are spoken of with awe as though these were a secret set of alchemical incantations. Back in my NYC days, I knew a clique of postgraduates who were enrolled at one of the more exclusive institutes, and oh, did the air hang thickly around them.

Yet the old-line Freudians get little respect at present apart from the ultra-wealthy and/or ultra-educated who see having gone through such analysis as an insider's status marker. And there is still another utilitarian faction that believes in the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy; they'll wave peer-reviewed clinical studies at you and urge that you follow the insurance-eligible science. (And truly pathetic are the Freudian-trained who offer CBT on the side mainly so as to be able to pay the office rent. Thanks, Obamacare.) Much more common are the anti-Freudian Humanists descended from Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, comparable in worldview to the most florid of Novus Ordo Jesuits. Rogers especially is notorious, as described by E. Michael Jones, for having corrupted the IHM nuns decades ago in Los Angeles.

The problem now in 2022 is that all of the older schools of psychotherapy, from Freudian to Humanist, have been thrown out in favor of an incoherent mash of sociologically-framed victimology "stacks" whereby any given person's worthiness is assessed, almost in board-game-like fashion, by how many chits of oppression one accumulates, i.e., one's depth of intersectionality. (There are now licensed therapists who, as if in a parallel universe of atheistic exorcism, advertise their skill in helping troubled individuals discover which particular oppressions plague them.) Years ago in those social circles, a diagnosis of autism carried clout, but then that was discarded as neurological determinism; hence many autist children grew up to be nonbinary young adults.

These stacks continue to morph, but I'd wager that few on this forum can perceive these permutations of pathology. To the typical SD reader, it just looks like one huge fetid and sordid mess. Why should we care? Because when these ideological rejects lose their status in the secular power struggle, they'll come looking for sympathy and allies wherever they can find it, even as we see now in the Catholic Church.