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The Gaggle Book Club: "The Psychoanalytic Movement: Or the Cunning of Unreason" By Ernest Gellner

Each week, the Gaggle Book Club recommends a book for Gagglers to read and—most important—uploads a pdf version of it.

Our practice is that we do not vouch for the reliability or accuracy of any book we recommend. Still less, do we necessarily agree with a recommended book's central arguments. However, any book we recommend will be of undoubted interest and intellectual importance.

Today's book club selection is Ernest Gellner's "The Psychoanalytic Movement: Or the Cunning of Unreason." Published in 1985, Gellner's essay is one of the most incisive and controversial critiques of Freudian psychoanalysis ever published.

Ernest Gellner (1925–1995) was a Czech-born British philosopher, anthropologist and historian of ideas. He taught at the London School of Economics, Cambridge, and later at the Central European University in Prague. His work spanned a wide array of fields: the philosophy of social science, nationalism, Islam, modernity and epistemology. He shot to fame during the 1950s with "Words and Things," a scornful critique of Wittgenstein's philosophy.

Gellner’s book is not merely a criticism of Freud’s theories; it is a sociological and philosophical analysis of how and why psychoanalysis became a movement with profound cultural and institutional authority in the 20th century. According to Gellner, psychoanalysis was not a science but a pseudo-religion cloaked in scientific rhetoric—a modern secular faith, complete with a founding prophet (Freud), disciples, heretics, a doctrine of sin (neurosis), redemption (analysis) and an orthodoxy that resists empirical refutation.

Gellner argues that Freud created a closed, self-sufficient system—a way of interpreting human behavior—that is not falsifiable and is hence impervious to disproof. Every denial of an interpretation can be explained away as repression or resistance—thus making the theory immune to refutation. Psychoanalysis, in other words, belongs to the realm of ideology or theology, not empirical science. Gellner sees Freud as a charismatic religious leader rather than a scientist. He claims Freud’s authority was rooted in personal charisma and the power of narrative, rather than in data or replicable methods.

Psychoanalysis, according to Gellner, offered intellectuals a substitute religion at a time when traditional religion was in decline. It allowed for personal transformation without requiring belief in the supernatural. The process of analysis provided ritual, confession and redemption, analogous to religious practice.

The subtitle of Gellner's book refers to Hegel's famous dictum about the “cunning of reason,” according to which reason always triumphs, no matter how much historical actors may be driven by unreason. Psychoanalysis, according to Gellner, played a historical role the reverse of that of Hegel's Reason. Psychoanalysis appears rational but it in fact enables and institutionalizes irrationalism. Freud's doctrine appears to champion reason and enlightenment; instead, it replaces rational inquiry with a dogmatic system. Freud claimed to be fighting illusion and superstition; in reality, Freud simply repackaged religious ideas in pseudo-scientific language.

In writing this book, Gellner sought to challenge not only the intellectual legitimacy of Freud and his methods but also Freud's moral and cultural standing. Psychoanalysis damaged not only individuals; it damaged reason and science.

Gellner's book is not without its flaws. While Gellner's skepticism about the intellectual foundations of psychoanalysis is beyond reproach, he seems remarkably uncritical though about the intellectual foundations of the system of thought that he would have take the place of psychoanalysis. Gellner tends to rely heavily on the sociology of knowledge--a body of thought that reduces intellectual movements to social, psychological or will-to-power desires.

There is unquestionably a reductionist quality to Gellner's method. Any worldview is to be judged not by its truth claims but by what needs it serves in society. Taken to its logical conclusion, Gellner's method undercuts his own argument: If all belief systems are socially constructed, then isn't that also the case with Gellner’s own rationalism and commitment to science? In which case, why prefer them to the doctrines of the psychoanalysts? Indeed, some critics pointed out that Gellner doesn’t so much refute psychoanalysis as explain it away through sociology—and in doing so, he substitutes one explanatory totalism (Freud’s) for another (his own).

Criticisms aside, Ernest Gellner’s "The Psychoanalytic Movement" is a great read. It is witty, sarcastic, erudite and superbly written--a perfect exemplar of readable intellectual history. The book is not simply a critique of Freud’s theories—it is a devastating takedown of the shallow intellectualism that so uncritically embraced psychoanalysis in the 20th century.

The_Psychoanalytic_Movement_(Paladin_Movements_and_Ideas_--_Gellner,_Ernest_--_Paladin_movements_and_ideas,_London,_United_Kingdom,_1985_--_9780586084366_--_89dc8c02c9e9f5a866844d3e45fcddeb_--_Anna’s_Archive.pdf
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This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Aram Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto in D minor. Composed in 1940, the work is one of the major violin concertos of the 20th century and constitutes an important moment within Soviet musical history.

Aram Khachaturian (1903–1978) was a Soviet composer of Armenian ancestry who was one of the leading musical figures of the USSR. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, into an Armenian family, he initially studied science but switched to music in the 1920s when he moved to Moscow. There, he studied at the Gnessin Institute and later at the Moscow Conservatory.

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It's been a pleasure! Thanks for all the great shows. :)

Another exercise in futility at the forum of impotence and no consequence

World War Now:
🇮🇷❌🇺🇸🇮🇱 — Islamic Republic of Iran FM Araghchi at BRICS summit:

US and Israeli regime committed unprecedented breach of international peace

It is shameful the international community has been unable to do anything meaningful to end genocide of Palestinians

🇮🇷❌🇺🇸🇮🇱🇪🇺 — Iran's Islamic Republic's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claims that if Israel is not held accountable for its war on the Iranian ruling Regime, "the whole [Near East/West Asia] region and beyond will suffer." 

'Consequences of [Israel's] war of aggression will not be limited to this country

The whole region will suffer'

➡️ Araghchi also claims US and EU approved Israeli so-called 'impunity' 

January 21, 2023
More Leftie Than Thou
"Jacobin" Magazine Celebrates A Strike Against Ol' Blue Eyes

Here at "The Gaggle" we have very little time for the "more Leftie than thou" school of thought--that's the approach to life according to which the only thing that matters is whether you take the right position on every issue under the sun from Abortion to Zelensky. No one in the world meets the exacting standards of this school of thought; any Leftie leader anywhere is always selling out to the bankers and the capitalists. The perfect exemplar of this is the unreadable Jacobin magazine. 

The other day I came across this article from 2021. It's a celebration of trade union power. And not simply trade union power, but the use of trade union power to secure political goals. Of course (and this is always the case with the "more Leftie than thou" crowd), this glorious, never-to-be-forgotten moment on the history of organized labor took place many years ago--in the summer of 1974 to be exact. Yes, almost half a century has gone by since that thrilling moment when the working-class movement of Australia mobilized and prepared to seize the means of production, distribution and exchange. 

Well, not quite. Organized labor went into action against...Ol' Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board, the Voice; yes, Frank Sinatra. Why? What had Sinatra done? Sinatra was certainly very rich, and he owned a variety of properties and businesses. But if the Australian trade union movement were, understandably, searching for the bright, incandescent spark that would finally awaken the working class from its slumber there were surely richer, greedier, more dishonest, more decadent, above all more Australian individuals it could have discovered. Australia was never short of them. Rupert Murdoch immediately springs to mind. Why Sinatra?

 

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