Freud, Jung, Hidden Impulses, the Collective Unconscious, Hitler, Putin, Conspicuous Consumption and - Finally - Community

Freud's Couch Was Sort of a Bed

About a century ago two competing models for modern media emerged in the U.S. and Germany. Using what they were learning about psychology, the Nazis created state propaganda to sway the masses to serve the interests of the state and advertisers in the U.S. used those same insights to serve the interests of the corporation. (A fascinating documentary, the Century of the Self, makes this argument and can be found here.)

William James published what some argue was the first textbook on psychology - the Principles of Psychology - in 1890 and Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 and Civilization and its Discontents in 1930. If you visit the apartment in Vienna where Freud pioneered psychotherapy you don't just see that the Freudian couch was actually a bed. (Freud thought that a bed was a safe and  cozy place from which to free associate but perhaps the preponderance of sexual references would have given way to a preponderance of food references had he instead used a kitchen table.) What you get from the museum that once was his office is this very exciting sense of the mind as a new frontier. Rather than blame spirits or madness for weird thoughts and behavior, these early psychologists were taking a scientific approach to the mind, hoping to better understand the impulses that seemed to lay below the seemingly thin veneer of our civility. Jung's concept of the collective unconscious might be suspect but it gets to the reality that something binds us that is almost mystical and that these impulses could be tapped to sway large groups to do strange things - like drive to the mall on a sunny day or shout angry slogans at political rallies.

These insights were exploited with new and transformative technology of that time. The radio was the first technology to allow people across an entire nation to hear about the wonders of the Third Reich or nylons and electric razors and it was quickly followed by TV.

Obviously it made an enormous difference whether a community used these powerful new media technology to promote the interests of the state or the corporation. Someone once said that the book most likely to change minds in the Soviet Union would be the Sears Catalog. Magazines, newspapers, radio and TV shaped minds - and thus communities - as only churches and sacred texts had before. And it was no coincidence that the state and corporation undermined the dominance of the church last century.

This century's transformative media is the internet and the social media it has enabled. The shift in advertising revenue from newspapers to the internet has shattered old business models and forced a scramble to discover new audiences and sources of revenue for reporting and commentary.

And curiously, the choice about whether this model will be funded by the state or the corporation, by advertising for political interest and shared values or great values on products you'll love, is still in question. This week's senate hearings with the social media giants Facebook, Twitter, and Google gets to the question of how social media has been used to manipulate voters and thus American policy rather than merely focus on getting us to buy more goods.

It's worth noting that this is social media.

About the same time as the emergence of the radio and television, a third really powerful technology emerged: the telephone. This was intimate and personal and allowed two people to communicate and in the process strengthen relationships. I think it's telling that so much of the internet is experienced on a phone. Even though actual talking on the phone is not even in the top ten activities people do with their phones, what they're doing is closer to what was done on the phone last century than what was done with TV and radio. They're creating and feeling part of a community.

Community is a third goal, different from the goals of consumption and propaganda. I think one thing we're seeing in the success of Twitter and Facebook is the strong impulse to belong. You can dismiss this as tribalism but I think it speaks to communities of the mind and shared values, to what it means to be human and feel the part of something larger. It's worth noting that the strength and vulnerability of these brands is that they are platforms. Zuckerberg doesn't make editorial decisions about what posts your Aunt Leola or cousin Curt should make on Facebook. They do. Your friends are rarely selling goods or trying to win votes for the political party they are starting. (Although I admit I would be interested in seeing the posts of someone who was starting a new party; that sounds like an interesting person.) They are simply connecting, sharing what they are proud of, what impresses them, what they are worried about and what made them laugh. The third way beyond media as a tool for conspicuous consumption or political propaganda is media a tool for creating communities of the mind, of shared interests and simple friendships. It's not novel that people would do that; it is novel that people could do that across distances, with a tool more inclusive than the phone or the kitchen table.

From Marx to Freud: The Meaning of Post-Proletarian Populist Outrage

The populist outrage over the AIG bonuses seems to illustrate the confusion about what capitalism is now.

At one point, capitalism was a contest between the worker and the capitalist. And the capitalist was a rich and powerful INDIVIDUAL. Carnegie or Rockefeller, for example, had power to dictate wages and prices. Investment depended on capitalist elites; work depended on the alienated proletariat.

But people angry about the AIG bonuses are not angry at the rich and powerful individuals. They are angry at knowledge workers and professionals who they suspect have abused their positions.

In today's world, it is the pension funds that direct investments. Powerful individuals have very little power compared with what they had decades ago.

The populist outrage against AIG is, oddly, the outrage of workers against workers. The AIG bonuses were given to knowledge workers – management and analysts – who manage the investments of (and insure) knowledge workers.

This whole mess is no longer a matter of class warfare between Marx's capitalists and workers. Class warfare that might be described by Marx has been replaced by the split personality of schizophrenia that might better be predicted by Freud. What was once fought in the social arena has become a battle over identity. Are these investments made on behalf of capitalists or labor?

The real lesson of Keynesian economics is to subordinate the goals of capital markets to the goals of the broader economy. Returns to capital - for instance - are made lower in order to stimulate employment and consumption. Obama and his advisers are of this school.

But it could be that once pension funds realize that they are themselves the tools of workers, they would do this themselves. It is one thing to run a pension fund in order to maximize returns to capital. It is another to run a pension fund to maximize returns to the workers that depend on the investment of capital to keep jobs and to become more productive. Once pension funds operate from this insight, they may well begin to manage their investments differently.

The problem may not be economic. It may simply be a matter of identity. It seems time that pension funds realized who they were and whose interests they really ought to take seriously.

But What Did He Mean by That?

I ran across a batch of quotes from Freud and selected out of them this set. A century later, the man still knows how to make a person rub his chin and ponder.

Anatomy is destiny.

Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.

Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.

Love and work... work and love, that's all there is

One is very crazy when in love.

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.

Sadism is all right in its place, but it should be directed to proper ends.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?"

The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.

We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.

What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree.

Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism.

The Era of Freudian Economics

"I don't know why the economists haven't already figured out the cause of this economic downturn," Bernard said assuredly.

"What is it you know that they don't?" I asked.

"Well it's obvious," Bernard said. "We've given a whole generation no reason for libidinal repression. It is as if we gutted their desire for achievement."

"What?"

"We had a golden age of about a century when we still made people feel repressed about their sexuality but they no longer felt self conscious about consumption. We allowed indulgence, but only of a particular kind. It was a sweet spot for economic activity."

"Freudian economics?"

"Yeah. I guess," Bernard scratched his head. "See, everyone knows that people who are sexually repressed sublimate their sexuality into socially acceptable activities. Repression forces them to turn libidinous activity into productivity - or at least a skill like sports or music."

"So, repression is good for developing marketable skills?"

"Exactly! Without repression, they go right to sex - no intervening, forced development of skills that might make them more alluring as mates. Mating suddenly has nothing to do with economics and just has to do with mating. It's why guys increasingly fail to pursue good careers."

"So wages gradually erode as sex becomes less shameful?"

"Yes! But the shopping is still part of the culture of instant gratification. The consumption doesn't go away with the repression. If anything, it increases, all part of the general culture of indulgence."

"So, when people were repressed enough to develop skills but not so repressed as to stifle their shopping urges, the economy was a roaring success?" I paused. "Have I got that right?"

"Yes!" Bernard had a triumphant little smile. "Nothing could be more obvious."

"And now we're not making enough because our wages have fallen? And our wages have fallen because we're not repressed enough?"

"That's pretty much it, I figure."

"From repression to recession."

Bernard paused. "No. This is not just a recession. We've had those before. This is a drop in incomes, a delayed adjustment to a new lifestyle."

"A new lifestyle?"

"Sure. Incomes have not grown but spending has. Adjusting to that fact will require an adjustment in lifestyle."

"But at least the lifestyle will include sex," I noted.

"For whatever that's worth," Bernard said, speaking like a true octogenarian.

Justice League Battles the Buddha (And Other Celluloid Conflicts I'd Pay to See)

At various times, productions that pit great villains against each other emerge to suck money from the pockets of teenage boys. King Kong vs. Godzilla. Predator vs. Alien. Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. Bambi Meets Godzilla. Pink Floyd's Paul Rodgers tours with Queen.

Some of the most obvious (to me) and most promising of the pairings of villains or super heroes have yet to be made. This is my attempt to begin to address this egregious oversight on the part of Hollywood.

Calvin & Hobbes Sleepover at the Simpsons
Mayhem ensues as Calvin and Bart team up to battle insomnia. In a touching ending, Homer is left feeling incredibly fortunate that for all his shortcomings, Bart is not Calvin. Fortunate, that is, until Bart starts plotting wild schemes with a stuffed platypus.

Justice League Battles the Buddha
This clash of the corporeal and spiritual plays out until Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the rest of them grow frustrated by the Buddha's benign disinterest in them, their wicked cool costumes, and awesome super powers and doesn't just refuse to fight back but goes so far as to actually ignore them.

Freud vs. Bruce Wayne
Freud struggles to get Bruce Wayne to open up about his dark fears and delusions of grandeur, but Bruce continues to retreat to the Bat Cave, going so far as make Alfred phone Freud to cancel appointments. (As an interesting subplot, Freud is able to get Alfred to see that he is an enabler in Bruce Wayne's odd fantasy life.) This face off between super heroes perhaps ends most enigmatically, as we watch, in the last scene, Freud descend into the subway, his cape billowing behind him. We are left to wonder whether Bruce Wayne's fantasy life has become Freud's.

Nietzsche vs. Dr. Hannibal Lecter
Nihilism erupts in this powerful contest between two men playing a game of moral chicken - each upping the ante in a series of encounters designed to test the limits of a world beyond good and evil. Nietzsche steals from a collection plate. Lecter drives a Hummer in the car pool lane. Nietzsche seduces a nun. Lecter papers over solar panels in a university neighborhood. The tit for tat escalates until the attack on morality leaves viewers either floundering in an existential abyss of moral uncertainty or desperately clinging to their cultural mores.

Stephen Hawking vs. Jack LaLanne
LaLanne scoffs at Hawking's attempts to articulate the importance of intellectual development, annoyingly picking up furniture and cars and saying, "I'll bet you can't do this at 94!" as a rebuttal to every point Hawking tries to make. Hawking, in the end, is smart enough to realize that he'll never win over LaLanne and submits to coaching from LaLanne on how to improve his posture.

The possibilities seem endless. (Justice League vs. Victoria Secret's Supermodels in a struggle about how to best define underwear as outwear, for instance, or the Godfather of Soul James Brown vs. the great running back Jim Brown.) I plan to pitch these movie ideas to people in Hollywood. Now if only I can get someone to return my phone calls.

Bernard on Britney Spears, Mother Teresa, Gandhi & Freud

"There's only one thing we love more than making perfectly normal people into idols," said Bernard as he looked at the Entertainment section of his newspaper.

"What is that?" I asked, as I looked at the ocean, eating my breakfast muffin.

"Smashing idols."

"You're reading about Britney Spears again, are you?"

"Yes. Look at this poor girl. First they turn her into something she's not. Then they ping her for it - for being what's she not."

"She's a pretty woman," I said, watching an even prettier one jog by. I do enjoy the beach.

"She is that. But so? We have pretty women all over. People are desperately in need of other people and instead we give them idols, trying to pretend that these special people are different from anybody else. What utter nonsense is that?"

"Well, some idols are inspiring."

"Like who?"

"Well, Mother Teresa comes to mind. Gandhi."

"Pshaw! Mother Teresa's life was a crisis of faith and she is held up as an example of faith. She was a model of helping the poor, but she embraced policies that kept women in places of subjection and poverty."

"You don't like Mother Teresa?" I asked, incredulous, stopped mid-bite by this bit of sacrilege.

"No! I loved Mother Teresa. It's just that she was a person. She was flawed. She had fears. She was indifferent to the disastrous effects of medieval policies."

"Gandhi?"

"Another saint who was not a saint."

"Meaning?"

"Well, Freud obsessed about sex to the point that he offended people. Yet - particularly in the final decade or two of his life - he showed indifference to it. Didn't act on any sexual urges. Gandhi, by contrast, this toga-wearing saint, spent his final years sleeping nude with naked young women."

"He did?" At this point, I'm a little baffled. Confused. Perplexed. In other words, I'm back to my natural state when trying to understand people - Bernard in particular. "So you're saying that Gandhi and Mother Teresa shouldn't be role models?"

"No!" Bernard exploded. He's often upset but rarely angry. This time he is angry. He wagged his bagel at me. A small bit of cream cheese threatened to fly off and into my face. He was keeping my attention. "They are fabulous role models. But only if we tell people their whole story."

"So you think that young people should aspire to emulating Gandhi's sleeping habits?"

"No, you twit. Every one will have his own stupid, personal flaw. No need to adopt someone else's flaw, even if it's Gandhi's."

"I am really confused," I said, warily watching his bagel.

"Idols aren't role models," he said, flinging his hand back. The cream cheese flew in the opposite direction. I could now focus on what he said. "Idols don't have flaws. They just stand for things. Nobody can live a life like that. Idols are useless!"

"So?"

"So tell kids that as an old man, Gandhi liked to lie nude with young women. Mother Teresa doubted the existence of God and still had the effrontery to be dogmatic about her beliefs. These are not flaws in the abstract. These are ugly flaws. But Gandhi helped to transform India and even better, he offered a model of passive rather than violent resistance. He was a wonderful role model. Mother Teresa gave her life to helping the poor. She was a wonderful role model. Flawed, they are even better role models."

"Why better?"

"Why? Because flawed people need flawed role models. Otherwise they think that living a life that matters is for other people - perfect people who don't exist. Who can be that? This stupid search for perfection, for virtue, it just gets in the way of doing anything in life. We all do what we can in spite of who we are - not because we've somehow managed to become perfect and can now flutter about the planet waving wands. You do what you can. You don't waste all your effort on trying to be perfect, on trying to be an idol. That's utter nonsense. Go live a life. Do something honorable in spite of the fact that your life is riddled with dishonor, flaws, and the spiritual equivalent of farts."

"Are you supposed to be inspiring me? Talking about spiritual farts?"

"Life is too short. You don't have the time to become perfect first before you actually live it. There's a world to save out there."

"And idols can’t save it."

"The lesson of this little conversation?" Bernard leaned towards me, his large eyes actually bulging a bit. "There are no great people. There are only people who do great things."

"Wait. Last week you told me that nothing I do matters. Only people matter. Now this?"

"I never said that life would make sense. I just said that you should make sense of life."

At this point, I had officially lost track of what we were saying. Bernard is an old man, and has begun to have a little trouble with balance. As he was teetering on the thin line between utter nonsense and potential profundity, I decided it was best not to push him.