Themselves posted:

i think that psychoanalysis is bourgeois if you have somebody else do it (its not SNLT)

i may be an "idiot" who doesn't "know anything" but I don't think thats what socially necessary labour time means. its not a value-judgment about the worth or merit of doing a thing, it's about quantifying the social factors such as technology that determine how much labour it takes to make a shit sandwich of normal quality. what the frick

Themselves posted:

social factors such as technology that determine how much labour it takes to make a shit sandwich of normal quality

i think 1 on 1 consultations are a social factor that isn't necessary to get the shit sandwich that is some educated inner reflection

the best way to resolve contradiction in the individual is to train them to understand it within themselves, as opposed to training them to rely on somebody else's labor.

im mostly making a claim about whether or not somebody can be helped without necessarily going to somebody else directly for their individual 50 minutes of time 5 days a week. like some kind of text.... that could bring about a change to their false consciousness....

Not really inclined to defend shrinks, Freudian or otherwise. But expecting people to just understand the contradictions within themselves, for themselves, by themselves, is itself a capitulation to bourgeois ideology. Its an attempt to leap out of the cul-de-sac of therapy which lands in a simple affirmation of individualism that leaves each person stranded in a monadic existence with only "some kind of text" for company (sound familiar?)

There can't be any self-knowledge without the mediation of others. Part of the problem here is that capitalism does not value time and labor spent building up mutual understanding (for many reasons, some obvious). And even if leisure time was increased, that would not ensure that caring for the psychic help of others would receive sufficient attention.The various bourgeois schools of therapists exist because of these issues, and will continue to proliferate until some combination of a change in the balance of work to leisure and institutional development is reached that will surpass the present dispensation.

We can certainly look for ways to care for ourselves outside of conventional forms of therapeutic treatment. But its important to remember that this is still a social activity that requires social labor,though not the type that passes through the cash nexus.

Edited by RedMaistre (Dec. 22, 2014 05:58:10)

Themselves posted:

i think 1 on 1 consultations are a social factor that isn't necessary to get the shit sandwich that is some educated inner reflection

goods or services do need to possess utility in order to qualify as expressions of socially necessary labour time but whether utility exists is just a question of whether it fulfils a social want or not. quantifying relative degrees or character of utility, assuming this is possible, is a question of human subjective preferences outside of the direct operations of material exchange. as long as social want can be demonstrated to exist (are people willing to pay for it?) any elaboration beyond that is functionally irrelevant to the investigation of political economy

like c_man mentioned, it's likely that psychoanalysis is distinct from these categories because it doesn't produce surplus value, but that's a different issue to what you're talking about

roseweird posted:

RedMaistre posted:

We can certainly look for ways to care for ourselves outside of conventional forms of therapeutic treatment. But its important to remember that this is still a social activity that requires social labor,though not the type that passes through the cash nexus.

some people are overwhelmingly socially toxic in ways that defy all certainty, measurement, and response, and are capable of corrupting and degrading social practices under any and all conditions, because their own psyches create a field of instability around them that resonates with the inherent instability of any social or economic situation. not that i would know anything about things like that, personally.

Misery will find away. Though you can't know a particular case is incurable till you try (and any improvement always takes at least two willing parties).

My dream for a better society is closer to a hospital than to what anyone would call a paradise, so the prospect that profound unhappiness will remain after capitalism does not perturb me. It only makes it all the more important that we take care of ourselves and of each other now, to the best of our abilities, instead of passing the buck down to whatever pack of poor devils is in charge of the clean up "after the Revolution."

Edited by RedMaistre (Dec. 22, 2014 06:54:00)

Themselves posted:

im not sure what you mean by utility here. by this, do you mean it is necessary to the reproduction of life itself? or just that it is making somebody happy?

the latter ethical standard seems like one could say that capitalism serves a "utility" as well - for some!

you're reading an ethical or value judgement where one doesn't exist. marxism, at least insofar as it pertains to critique of political economy, is scientific and value neutral. utility, use value, is a descriptive term referring to the fulfilment of social want. it's really not that much more complicated than a question of whether people would be willing to pay money for something or not

capitalist economies do, in fact, industriously produce use-values, this is one of their most defining characteristics

c_man posted:

this is sort of what i imagine would be a classic case of "we need socialism for this to be useful". if it doesn't produce surplus value, it exists as part of the surplus, so whoever controls the surplus controls and shapes its use. if the bourgeoisie controls the surplus then psychoanalysis will conform to bourgeois norms. if the surplus is controlled by the people producing the surplus psychoanalysis would be shaped to their needs. am i being too simplistic here?

i think this is basically true & broadly applicable to superstructural labour & reproduction in general

Petrol posted:

your posts have no use value

getfiscal posted:

oh shit is that what DBT is? my therapist is into that. ah fuck.

i don't think the concept is completely bankrupt. how's your dialectics these days? pretty sharp? you'll go far, kid.