Gordon Fellman

Sociology and psychoanalysis in the liberal arts

Abstract This paper posits that an infusion of psychoanalytic concepts into the teaching of sociology in undergraduate liberal arts curricula offers a route to expanding students’ understanding of how self and society are entwined in a condition of mutual crisis in contemporary society. We argue that the liberatory project at the core of the liberal arts is served well by linking the critical perspectives found in these two disciplines. We provide as specific examples from our own teaching: (1) a demonstration of how Freud’s concept of neurosis has an affinity with Marx’s concept of alienation; and (2) a discussion of how the torture sequence in Orwell’s 1984 presents an inversion of a psychoanalytic treatment through which the power of propaganda is illuminated. We conclude that teaching the two disciplines in tandem helps students grasp how the self is a socially constructed entity and how the orthodoxies of neurosis and social control are available for critique and change.

Enemy, Concept and Identity of

The intention of this article is to describe enemy relations in terms that suggest possibilities of moving beyond what we now experience as the all but universal phenomenon of enemy creation and perpetuation. It is not a comprehensive survey of theories of the nature and construction of the enemy. Depending on who one reads, enemy creation can result from: the evil nature of humans; an inborn destructive tendency that inevitably plagues our species; divine plans not fully fathomable by mortals; the structure of the state; the invention and perpetuation of private property; the peculiar nature of powerful and resilient collective phenomena like nationalism and religion; the tenacity of ethnic and national identities; a need for identification with a social-political unit larger than the self; tendencies to define the self in oppositional contrast with others; peculiar imperatives of the business of mass media; the need to avoid anarchy; the nature and dynamics of patriarchy; the historical social construction of masculinity across most societies; unconscious acting out of Oedipal and other universal inner conflicts; the fear of death and the consequent construction of society, ritual, and war to cope with that fear. And still others.

Freud and American Sociology

top-down model that blurs democratic consensus and manufactured consent. Left-leaning Eugene McCarraher argues that TAS exaggerated “post-industrial” capitalism’s progressive features and potentialities and, thus, contributed to emergent “post-Fordist” ideology, which justified expanded corporate power after evisceration of organized labor and of the post-World War II capital-labor accord. From the right, Dennis Hale argues that TAS legitimated technocratic rule by progressive liberal, “New Class,” planners. Etzioni disputes the top-down critiques in a concluding response. This volume has some significant gaps. The intellectual contexts of Etzioni’s work should have been probed more deeply. Several essays mention the affinity of his thought for American pragmatism, but they do not sustain analysis of the topic. Other pieces deploy recent sociology’s neoinstitutionalism, but none address the American institutionalist tradition in economics, which like pragmatism, has been revived and is quite pertinent to both phases of Etzioni’s work. Had contributors addressed these approaches, which emphasize equality and community, they might have probed the tensions between TAS’s aim of forging inclusive, wider communities and the communitarian stress on drawing moral boundaries (tensions central to current theory debates). However, the late Wilson Carey McWilliams has assembled a rich collection of essays that illuminate an important sociologist’s thought and related major theory and policy issues. The work also provokes reflection about normative argument and memory in sociology. Looking back at TAS raises the possibility of a normative theoretical practice that is fashioned to serve transparent ethical or political ends, yet employs critically and prudently sociological techniques and knowledge. Whatever the shortcomings, TAS was an earnest effort to systematically theorize blockages to active citizenship, discover resources to overcome them, and find ways to enliven democratic participation. Is such normative theory the province of sociologists? Or should it be left exclusively to political theorists, social philosophers, and other humanities scholars? Production of knowledge “worth knowing” depends on our work’s normative directions as well as on effective employment of proper methods. Drawing reflexively on the stock of past sociological knowledge provides critical distance that helps us detect the value-orientations embedded in disciplinary practices, grasp our normative bearings, and consider changes of course. It is precisely TAS’s “untimely” features (e.g., normative thrust and focus on needs, alienation, and mobilization) that make its reconsideration a worthwhile and possibly very productive task.

Ambivalence and social change

In teaching a new and experimental course on empowerment last year, I stumbled upon an apparent paradox. Although students enrolled in the class knew that doing a project was part of the course design, when we got to the point of potential action, most of them hesitated and appeared to be genuinely conflicted about proceeding. I saw a number of reasons for what appeared to be profound vacillation. First, the semester was nearly over, and to do the project in just three weeks, although quite possible, must have seemed daunting to some students. Second, the project had come more from the heads of myself and my teaching assistant than from the class as a whole, although we both thought we were responding to themes we had identified in the class. Third, I learned after the semester that my TA had antagonized some of the students by repeatedly urging them to try out a proselytizing movement he had recently joined. Fourth, a number of issues having to do with empowerment were not fully enough explored on the wa...