PERVERSIONS AND UTOPIA: A STUDY IN PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIAL THEORY (FREUD, CRITICAL THEORY).
Item
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Title
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PERVERSIONS AND UTOPIA: A STUDY IN PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIAL THEORY (FREUD, CRITICAL THEORY).
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Identifier
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AAI8501184
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identifier
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8501184
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Creator
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WHITEBOOK, JOEL DAVID.
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Contributor
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I. H. Paul
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Date
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1984
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical
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Abstract
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This dissertation, which is an exercise in psychoanalysis and social theory, investigates the relationship between utopianism and the sexual perversions. It maintains that there is a basic affinity between the utopian and the sexual pervert in so far as both attempt to elude the reality principle. The study attempts to locate these larger theoretical reflections in the context of the current cultural scene, and raises questions concerning the sociology of knowledge and psychoanalysis and the normative presuppositions of psychoanalysis.;The author draws on the recent work of Joyce McDougall and Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel to demonstrate the origins of the perversions in the attempt to disavow the primal scene and the Oedipus complex and to show that this disavowal, in turn, has deleterious consequences for the individual's relationship to reality. This would mean that the perversions, rather than representing a more or less neurotic phenomenon as the early Freudians believed, or an emancipated form of expressing socially uncontaminated sexual wishes as the defenders of the perversions would maintain, represent a form of pathology which compromises the integrity of the ego.;Against the backdrop of these recent psychoanalytic theories, the author investigates Marcuse's utopian defense of the perversions. Marcuse agrees that the perversions do indeed represent an attempt to evade the reality principle. However, as he views it as a historically contingent, "repressive" reality principle which can and ought to be transcended, he views this as a positive feature. The author criticizes Marcuse's account of the perversions and thereby his utopianism on two counts. It is argued that Marcuse's theory of perversions is inadequate because, resting on early psychoanalytic drive psychology, it does not take ego psychology with its principle of multiple function and the late theory of aggression adequately into account.;The author concludes by raising the question that, even if it were possible for humanity to free itself from the renunciations imposed by civilization, would be desirable? He argues that the realization of Marcuse's "integral gratification" would represent the negation of everything that makes us human rather than our emancipation.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
