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March 10 2007
We are often asked about Mao's attitude toward psychology and why MIM talks about abolishing the subject matter for the past 20 plus years. Here we have a few more notes on psychology and its derivatives psycho-analysis and psychiatry.
As we recently pointed out, psycho-analyst Julia Kristeva noticed that Mao had no room for discussion of psychology even in Mao's first written articles on the topic of suicide and arranged marriage.(1) In our articles discussing Kristeva, we took issue with her own conclusions in opposition to Mao's.
Most Western interest in psychology stems from the desire to believe that there is a science of the individual, which is impossible. Everyone from criminal investigators, to lawyers to educators wants to believe in the individual as the analytical focus, because the underlying economy of private property in the West pushes people in that unconscious direction.
The interest in psycho-analysis by Kristeva is an example of disempowerment of the intellectual. She originally had a greater interest in politics and revolution. Then she concluded that social struggle is "impossible" in the inadequate way that she conceived Marxism. So she ventured ever more deeply into Freud and religion.
We would point to what happened with Bush and Cheney on the question of lesbian Mary Cheney's pregnancy. Politically, it was not thought possible to acknowledge the pregnancy, because Republican party activists are so hateful of lesbians. The pregnancy was "unconscionable" and "immoral" according to a large swath of reactionary activists.(2) Kristeva's solution for this sort of homophobia is tiresome psycho-analysis for all the Republican party activists so driven by homophobia.
Yet, the miracle of politics made psycho-analysis of millions unnecessary. Mary Cheney bought the pablum that her pregnancy was not "political."(3) Yet Bush and her father knew better. Bush and Cheney themselves had to "acknowledge their feminine side" as some Freudian psycho-analysts would say. A spokespersyn for Dick Cheney said:
"'The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation' to the arrival of their sixth grandchild."(4)President Bush also welcomed the Mary Cheney pregnancy and said she would be a good mom and that he is "happy" for her.(5) So in a single swoop without psycho-analysis, the heroes of reaction in the united $tates who won in 2004 by gay-bashing pushed along the thinking of their supporters.
It was as we said in our September, 2006 second draft paper on Kristeva, when we addressed how Huey Newton dealt with COINTELPRO gay-baiting of him:
"Julia Kristeva did not put Huey Newton through psycho-analysis. Rather the enemy caused Huey Newton to acknowledge his feminine side or possibly the enemy simply punished him for recognizing it. This is a stunning example of what we mean: the enemy does our work for us. The enemy did our psycho-analysis for us, and in a much more massive fashion than we could hope with a small band of proletarian internationalists or post-structuralist libertarians like Kristeva."
The hard-core Maoists are dead-set against psychology. In practical effect, Maoists abolished most of what we think of as psychology and its derivative practices. There was respect for neuroscience and behaviorism, but Mao and the hard-core radicals of the Cultural Revolution tried to hold the line against individualism's pseudo-science.
Seymour S. Kety published an article in a CIA journal on his psychiatry-related travels in Mao's China. He attempts to say that the profession still existed and was willing to speak with him, but he admitted the following: 1) Psychiatric research had been shut down. 2) There were few hospital beds for the mentally ill. 3) What psychiatric practice there was consisted of showing patients Mao essays, especially "Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?"(6)
Consistent with many China-watching practices at the time, Kety refrained from drawing out the really controversial aspect of the Chinese approach; although he touched on the idea at the end of his article that psychological difficulties might be seen as stemming from society organization problems. This is true of much research in China in Mao's day: the researcher pushed the Anglo-Saxon agenda in a polite way for fear of not being able to go back to China or for fear of ruining the chances of other bourgeois researchers to go to China. As soon as we look at the actual practice reported by Kety, we see that Kety is polite, but basically the Maoists abolished psychology as we in the West would know it.
If we define psychology as discussing Mao's essay "Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?" of course, we have no objection to psychology. However, the real point is to be on the lookout for wishful types of people who impute psychology where it is not.
When the revisionists restored capitalism in China in 1976, even they did not have a single institute for psychology.(7) They did barely mention psychology in a journal and criticized the "Gang of Four" that MIM upholds for practically abolishing the social sciences. The "Gang of Four" had just completed a book on political economy when the capitalist-roaders overthrew them in 1976.
It appears the first subjects the revisionists allowed back were ethnology and sociology and of course politics and military affairs. There were also studies of religion started, but psychology received only one mention in the CIA journal article on the subject. The revisionists also originally retained an integrated view of the disciplines of study and contrasted "social science" with "natural science" with no room for "humanities."
According to the revisionists, it was not illegal to have social science in the Cultural Revolution, but ideological discussion of its nature blocked it. This means that intellectuals were having a hard time going beyond what Mao said on the subject. As far as MIM is concerned, we are not surprised. Once one understands the pre-scientific nature of bourgeois approaches to knowledge, once one abandons individualism as inherently unscientific, it is hard to go back to inferior scientific practices. It took a change of ruling classes for old ways of thinking to make a comeback in China. Practically-speaking, before that, the old-style psychiatrists were sent to the countryside to serve the rural poor as doctors. College students who would have studied psychology also went to the countryside to improve the country in practical aspects. The ideological function of psychology to atomize the proletariat was not tolerated.
Notes:
1. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/gender/kristevanotmaoist.html
2. See
for example, http://americansfortruth.com/news/mary-cheney-is-pregnant.html
3.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/washington/01cheney.html?ex=1327986000&en=c8f9
73fa3790f1db&ei=5090&partner=rss
4. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2006/12/05/AR2006120501712_pf.html
5.
http://news.netscape.com/story/2006/12/15/bush-happy-for-cheneys-gay-daughter-
pregnancy/
6. George Braybrooke, "Psychiatric Concepts and Treatment in China,"
China Quarterly, No. 66, June, 1976
7. "Recent Developments in Chinese Social
Science, 1977-79" China Quarterly, No. 79, September, 1979.