Psychoanalysis and Sociology
or, How To Do What You Want
Well, before you can do what you want, you have to know what you want to do. So, how do you figure that out?
Young children tend to have a very cemented sense of self. They’re sure of their favorite and least favorite foods, dances, or songs. This is what makes them so charming: they wear their awe as genuinely as they do their disgust. They still live in accordance with their nature.
At some point in the process of maturation, their nature is deemed insufficient by an external force. Perhaps the child is punished in a certain school subject, and therefore rejects learning altogether. Perhaps the child does not approve of their country’s values. Or, perhaps their mother reacts negatively when they punch their sibling.
Clearly, then, the child senses disappointment or tension from their surrounding environment, and desires to resolve this. Thus, at least in part, the child’s decision making process becomes melded and submissive to the social context, generation, and geographical context they were born into. From this, duality of consciousness is born: the capital S Self: that pre-existing, and innate, pre-consciousness, and the sense-of-self: the striving toward, the created, the melded.
I wish to clarify that the word “born” as in “the birth of a dual consciousness” was intentionally chosen, whereas some authors prefer to use “fracture”, “split”, or another word laden with violence. This creation of social consciousness can be used to reward traits that later harm or benefit the social group and the individual, but I place no value on the very acknowledgement of the existence of some mechanism by which children are educated, or their consciousnesses are created.
Every human society has their own method and ends in place for this means. One common goal is the effort to raise consciousness in the child that they are not the only individual in the world (see, the early emphasis placed on sharing and hygiene). Even in cases of feral children, the children adopt the “selected” traits by their animal companions / caretakers.
In other words, I chose the word “born” because I don’t mean to imply advocacy for a prolonged infantilization. I do not believe that externalities are inherently negative - certainly not. Wisely developed, the education of children with regards to their “aboriginal” selves ensures the alignment of the individual and the society, which creates prosperity for mankind. Seldom, perhaps never, has this alignment occurred.
In contemporary times, this misalignment can be explained in a variety of sociological forces. The first thing to note is that historically, this period of growth was rather fixed. You spent your childhood learning about nature, your social class, religion, and country, in other words, what is expected of you, and that could be expected to remain relatively fixed for the remainder of your life. Today, that is not the case.
In the American continent since the European Age of Expansion, thousands of years of organic cultural development of indigenous life and lineage has been erased or killed. The industrial revolution caused huge, insurmountably cascading effects on culture and an individual’s place in the world. Entire industries shifted and were destroyed overnight. Humans became the biggest source of impact on the Earth’s ecosystem. The rise of science post-Enlightenment has caused a re-examining of folk belief without satisfactory replacement. The winds of time have blown away the previously solid authority of religion. The rise of capitalism created an incentive for capitalists to create new values, and to wield science in order to convince and confuse people into subscribing to their values.
Around the 1840s, in an attempt to systemize these new happenings, Auguste Comte laid down the fundamentals of sociology. Sociology is often characterized as social theory, social science, or something akin to literature, but generally, it studies the effects of this great period of upheaval on social life, organization, and health. Thus, it has great overlap with fields like psychology, economics, and psychoanalysis.
Around 40 years later, in the 1880s, Freud published some works detailing the foundations of psychoanalysis. The basic foundations of psychoanalysis are that
There exists a subconscious in human beings, i.e. that we are not entirely in control of our desires and actions, that
The subconscious “speaks”, and is accessible through a variety of tools (notably, free-association and dream analysis), and
That the subconscious is powerful - with potential to even cause physical illness, among other things.
Alongside this, then, is the assertion that a well understood and cared for subconscious is a necessary requirement for the full development of a person. Like an organ, a healthy subconscious ought to be thought of as an unignorable component of the complete image of good health. Etymologically, Freud worked on the psyche, (Greek word for “Soul”) and called his field psychopathology (the expression of the suffering of the soul).
Psychoanalysis (Greek for, listening to the expression of the soul) is the tool that enables us to understand more poignantly the sociological and psychological context that influences our values, and therefore answer this article’s question: how to do what you want.
It is well known that Freud acted as a therapist. What is not very well known is that in Freud’s lifetime, he was offered many attractive, wealthy positions to act as a consultant in Hollywood. Directors and company heads wanted him to engineer and edit scripts to make depictions of human relationships more stimulating, thus begetting more viewers and greater advertisement exposure. He rejected their offers, finding them hollow, instead continuing with his writings and his private therapeutic practice in Vienna.
His nephew, Edward Bernays, however, took his uncle’s teachings from Vienna and spread them to the United States. He packaged his teachings on psychopathology and the power to influence humans for corporate use. He is known today as the “godfather of public relations” and for the disastrously successful role he played in the American Tobacco Company’s PR campaign in convincing the public of the health of cigarettes.
I mention this background to illustrate that: although psychoanalysis provides an opportunity for clarity, clarity alone does not absolve you of responsibility. Understanding your personal background and getting in touch with your subconscious mind simply gives you a reliable base to work from. It does not deny nor negate work, nor does it promise motivation to complete that work. It simply enables the possibility of its completion.
Just as a car is inanimate, and it is the driver who chooses the destination, tools in personal self-transformation simply offer a possible vehicle toward an end-goal, not the end-goal itself, nor the gasoline to power the journey.
I hope to have provided at least a dim vignette for which you might relate your present situation. To recap: the first “half” (and “half” is used here arbitrarily, in that it doesn’t refer specifically to an exact halfway point, but simply the first part of one’s life), is dedicated to understanding one’s place in the world, one’s expectations from others, and one’s social responsibilities. The second “half” begins when one begins recognizing the preconscious state, an innate, un-externally defined self with its own needs, wants, and goals.
This recognition, or transition into the second half can happen in a variety of ways. Perhaps a person sees an overwhelming buffet of values chosen before them and stumble their way into searching for their own. Perhaps one experiences the negative effects of repression, or, the conscious limiting of that aboriginal, capital S self. Perhaps a person realizes the consistent lack of clarity of what’s expected of them.
In the same way that physical energy cannot be created nor destroyed, said Freud, mental energy cannot either. Repressed psychic material does not disappear. Although the child, perhaps now the adult, is met with external reassurance of their actions, try as one may, their internal violations cannot be drowned out. It is certain that the contents of the repression will reappear in a mutated form.
Just as you do not need to remind your heart to continue beating, nor ask your kidneys to filter blood, your capital S Self does not need to be trained or coaxed into existing. It simply is. And, similarly to the body, if you neglect it, you will suffer. As the body has pain, tiredness, and hunger as rudimentary language to communicate its needs, the unconscious mind has a vocabulary as well. These are the words of emotions, dreams, and curiosities. Learning to first acknowledge that these sensations exist, then, to decode and understand them, will allow you a better life. It will allow you to know what you want to do, then to do it.
I cannot understate the fact that all children are born curious. It is through purely external means that this trait is lost. Once identified, I would argue that curiosity is the clearest signal from one’s subconscious. To cultivate the necessary psychological sense of safety that enables the exploration of a curiosity requires different things, but, as opposed to the potentially knotty complexities of emotions and dreams, curiosities are rather straightforward - you explore as you wish. You don’t need to approach your tongue in critical dialogue to understand its favorite foods. Similarly, you don’t need to intellectualize regarding your curiosities.
If you are unsure of your emotions, dreams, and curiosities, your first job is to become clear on them. This process is completed by subtraction rather than by addition. Limit external media sources, the opinions of well-meaning friends and family, or of maligned advertisements trying to get you what you want. Experiment with isolation as much as possible. The voices of emotions, dreams, and curiosities are rather soft, so silence and attention is necessary to hear them.
Admirable historical figures always have an unrelenting focus on manifesting these purely internal passions. Their chosen allegiance and manifestation of this drive does not promise them security from suffering or isolation. In fact, following their vision often cements their suffering. They’re only fed by satisfaction of the completion or effort of their task.
A prerequisite to any psychological theory is historic applicability. Now, as I exist in a current set of material conditions (namely, as an American living in late-stage-capitalism), it is not contradictory, nor unfocused for me to combat specific modern phenomena related to the powers that be. With that said, the idea of sustained comfort and happiness as a default life goal is a relatively new phenomenon in Western culture. Powerful individuals and institutions have an incentive to keep you lazy, unthinking, apolitical, tired, sick, and uneducated in order to raise their personal influence or financial power.
There is almost no public institution untouched by a corrupting force, a force that you need to be vigilant of if you want to 1) know what you want to do 2) do what you want to do.
A good example to illustrate my point is food - that basic, daily human need. As of 2017, 39.5 million Americans, almost 13% of the country’s population, live in a food desert, that is, they live in an area without easy access to healthy food. An unhealthy body creates rippling profits for the capitalist. A healthy body perhaps uses a bicycle, thus forgoing the costs of gasoline and car repair. A healthy body relies more on preventative care rather than surgical, or invasive treatment, thus sparing the medical industry a payment. A healthy body results in a healthier mind, thus leading to ineffectiveness of the propagandist, thus leading to fewer financial mistakes, etc.
In other words, an unhealthy person cannot do what they want to do.
To do what you want, you need to create a goal for yourself, otherwise you will be used either to serve the ends and identity crafted by others in your childhood, or as a tool for new powers that appear and attempt to distract you from yourself. Thus, you must 1) recognize the possibility, (fact) of this default, 2) use your human powers to counteract this process to the best of your abilities.
How could we possibly be strong enough to counteract this process?
The power is the use of the aforementioned psychoanalysis, (The listening to the expression of the soul). This doesn’t necessarily mean therapy in a traditional sense, but any experience in which your subconscious activity can be made conscious to yourself. For some, working in an artistic medium seems to be the best way to integrate their subconscious mind into their conscious life. For others, regular visits to nature and her resultant silence seem to provide the rich soil from which their subconscious fruits can grow. Writing works well for others, meditation for others, or, as always, traditional therapy. My list of suggestions will necessarily remain incomplete by definition, as I’m asking you to take note of the idiosyncrasies of your character.
If you’re confused where to start, I certainly recommend that you simply begin experimenting with some element of silence or isolation. The quickest way to find the cracks in a foundation is to hose it with water. In this way, we’ll find that it’s easier to act our way into a new way of thinking than to think our way into a new way of acting. Simply attempt to listen to your psyche, note what works for you or what is attractive, then try that. Forgo hopes; replace them with experiments and results.
I can imagine that it might sound a bit insensitive to offer “silence” as a solution to nearly 40 million Americans living with poor food, or to the 40% of Americans who are currently obese. Certainly, with statistics like these, personal intervention can only get one so far; there are incredibly powerful forces at place.
Still, I’d recommend the same thing. I don’t mean to say that psychoanalysis will provide a direct counter to structural problems, but rather that psychoanalysis provides the necessary clarity of direction one needs in order to manufacture change on a larger level.
We can learn to do what we want to do by first understanding the mechanism by which we became lost in the first place. We remind ourselves that children’s actions align completely with their desires, and that only through external influence do they begin to change. Thus, we understand that we need subtraction rather than addition in attempting to recall this part of ourselves. Like the continual filling of our lungs, our subconscious continues to function without our intervention. Learning the historical backdrop of psychoanalysis and sociology helps us contextualize the large-scale loss of internal direction, and the various sources of negativity and distraction we need to defend against. Finally, we learn that this journey is necessarily individual and idiosyncratic, such that any widely prescribed “cure” or “path” is sure to be rife with exceptions. Thus, a general attitude toward experimentation and self-accountability is recommended in hopes of allowing the greatest possible chance of self-knowledge: of knowing what you want to do, and doing it.
Every individual is a unique mosaic of thoughts, experiences, and genes. We are each bore of separate parents, into distinct epochs, into wildly different countries. By forgoing this expedition into ourselves, not only do we deprive the world of our unique treasures, but we also send the message of our complicity in the acceptance of externally created goals. We not only allow ourselves to be pawns in another’s game, but we communicate to others our despairing submission.
Fortunately, like the beating heart, this so-called psyche, Self, or soul does not have to be coaxed into existence. It continues to speak, only waiting for you to listen.
