The realization of class consciousness by the proletariat (such as how Gramsci recognizes the exi... more The realization of class consciousness by the proletariat (such as how Gramsci recognizes the existence of a “collective consciousness” under the sway of cultural hegemony), what results in the advent of a communist revolution, and the reason that Marxism can be defined (as by Gramsci) as a “philosophy of praxis” or the “science of class struggle”, is the process of social action by which an individual or a collective can actively change the political and economic conditions of the culture in which they live. Just as Marx wrote, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”, and Weber spoke of a theory of social action, the Marxist interpretation of history and class consciousness asserts the primacy of praxis over theory in Marx’s social ontology. Marx argues that there is a reciprocal relationship between the base and the superstructure, however the base is the determinant of the superstructure in the “last instance” for the reason that praxis is aligned with the base, rather than the false consciousness of the dominant ideas of society (i.e. the superstructure). Therefore even if the nature of everyday practice is conditioned by the dominant ideology, the proletarian ideology acts as a material force where praxis is the active changing of the base material relations through class struggle, while the dominant ideology acts to reproduce the mode of production of capitalist society, therefore constituting the dialectic of political discourse as the resolution of the contradiction of private property. Raymond Williams writes, “So, we have to say that when we talk of ‘the base’, we are talking of a process, and not a state.” Marx asserted the dominance of the base over the superstructure in ’A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’ (1859), where he writes, “In the social production of their existence, humans inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” However Marx also wrote in the ‘Thesis on Fauerbach’ (1845), “The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated…The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity and self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.”
Acid communism. Psychedelic socialism. The freak Left. What do these terms mean? The Youth Intern... more Acid communism. Psychedelic socialism. The freak Left. What do these terms mean? The Youth International Party, with a red star and a marijuana leaf on its flag, formed in 1967, a youth-oriented countercultural revolutionary party, who ran a pig, Pigasus the Immortal as its presidential candidate, and the campaign of Hunter S. Thompson for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970, on the “Freak Power” ticket, whose logo for Gonzo journalism and his Sheriff campaign was the “Gonzo fist” which interestingly has 6-fingers and is holding a peyote button; these examples better embody than any others the fusion of revolutionary libertarian socialist politics with the counterculture of the 1960s.
Mark Fisher, forefather of the “Acid Communism” project, committed suicide in 2017. In ‘Capitalist Realism’ he included a discussion of mental health in terms of the dominating hegemony of capitalism, his personal mental health struggles, and the effects of capitalism on individuality. He argued that the revitalization of democratic socialism and libertarian communism as alternatives to contemporary neoliberal capitalism had to move beyond the politics of anti-capitalism to a politics of post-capitalism that would recognize that the destruction of the organized left was predicated on the failure of this movement to come to terms with the cultural divergence of 1960s counterculture from the political mainstream. Furthermore, he warned of the transition from anti-statism to anti-politics in postmodernity. His argument, however, was that even in the midst of a total economic and ecological catastrophe, that the very functioning of the neoliberal ideology as hegemonic negates the forms of class struggle that challenge capitalist realism. In ‘Capitalist Realism’, the second chapter is called “What if you held a protest and everyone came?”. He goes on to argue that neoliberalism since the 1960s has maintained its system of dominance but in our contemporary era of technological acceleration, it has changed form: into a “more desperate, even faux-melancholic edge”. His main thesis is that the “strategy” of neoliberalism is not to condemn anti-capitalist protest, but instead present the idea that there is no viable alternative to capitalism - i.e. capitalist realism.
The 1960s was defined by the emergence of the New Left, the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, environmentalism, the anti-nuclear movement, second-wave feminism, the gay rights movement; as well as the rise of middle class drug culture, beats, mods, hippies, and of course psychedelia. The focus of this analysis, based on the basic idea of Mark Fisher’s posthumous introduction to his unfinished ‘Acid Communism’, we see through the lens of Derrida’s concept of hauntology (e.g. the idolization of Ché Guevara during Occupy Wall Street) of the “slow cancelation of the future”, and the persistence of cultural elements that return like a ghost from the past, and Fisher’s unpublished book attempted to advance a solution to the earlier outline of ‘Capitalist Realism’ through the excavation of Marxism and 1960s culture to return to the cultural revolution of the 60s in the vein of the reality of hauntology such that we see both Derrida’s original idea of the atemporal historicity of Marxism to haunt Western culture, such as how Marx’s critique of political economy can be viewed as an objective science that is always applicable in discourse to criticize capitalism as a monolith of political economy that seems to always only get more advanced as history progresses; so how can we speak of progress? Marx’s historical materialism is the very essence of progress; we cannot concede to the fashionable concept of “accelerationism” because Marx himself thought that the capitalism of the 19th century was almost at its point of implosion; we have heard this same refrain all throughout history, so though accelerationism is here rejected, Derrida’s hauntology is relevant in the sense that Walter Benjamin conceptualized revolution as the awakening of the dead of past revolutions; will the ghost of the 1960s return?
The mental health system is exactly where the ruling class wants it. A neoliberal political syste... more The mental health system is exactly where the ruling class wants it. A neoliberal political system needed a neoliberal form of therapy for the elites of capitalist society to continue their ideological subjection of the lowest strata of the working class, unemployed and lumpenproletariat. This imposed behaviorist worldview takes the form of an intra-personal therapeutics rather than a social, political, or historical analysis of the conditions which lead to the alienation of the individual in their unique social context. The institutionalization of cognitive-behavioral therapy within psychotherapy is directly opposed to any sort of political program for the liberation of the mentally ill, has no political basis whatsoever, and can hardly be called a “social science” by any stretch of the imagination.
Freud's Metapsychology Freud's metapsychology attests to the epistemology behind the concepts he ... more Freud's Metapsychology Freud's metapsychology attests to the epistemology behind the concepts he developed. Freud develops a psychology 'als ob' or 'as if', a holistic model that merges unconscious processes with those of consciousness. Freud originally called this metapsychology a "speculative superstructure". Freud was initially faced with the challenge of combining his conceptions about the psychological with those of the organic or biological. Freud's metapsychology consists of five "points of view" (referring to the structure of the concepts themselves) which are the topographical point of view, the dynamic point of view, the economic point of view, the structural point of view, and the genetic point of view. Heinz Hartmann added a sixth dimension to Freud's metapsychology, that is, the adaptational point of view.
The general process of “making the unconscious conscious” applies to psychoanalysis to the extent that Sigmund Freud identified the problem and initially made it his task in analysis, but in the work of Wilhelm Reich, and formalized by Anna Freud, it became clear that the ego must be the principal focus of analysis, the domain of preconscious, for the specific reason that Reich explained that it is in the dynamic conflicts and resistances of the ego that provide reference points in resistance analysis or character analysis. In other words, it is the resistances which the client engages in or “puts up against” the unconscious that determines his or her character structure. Reich calls these resistances of the ego “character armor”. The first point of making the unconscious conscious is identified by Reich as the topographical point of view in analysis, while the resistances are identified as the dynamic point of view. Also, “flows” are part of the economic point of view, while “strata” are considered part of the structure.
Lacan’s conception of the end of analysis is different from Freud’s original conception of the en... more Lacan’s conception of the end of analysis is different from Freud’s original conception of the end of analysis, which has different goals or aims, which were as follows: (1) when the unconscious “conveys” itself into the preconscious; (2) the overcoming of internal resistances; (3) the replacement of repression with condemnation; (4) the advance from the pleasure principle to the reality principle; (5) saving mental energy to make the best of one’s inherited capacities to become as capable of enjoyment as possible; and (6) partial or complete sublimation. There is debate about whether Jacques Lacan is to be considered a post-structuralist, but there is no doubt that he professed a unique school of psychoanalysis. According to Lacan there are six goals or aims of psychoanalysis that mark the end of analysis: (1) to articulate the truth about one’s desire; (2) the advent of true speech and the realization by the subject of their history; (3) to traverse the radical fantasy; (4) identification with the sinthome; (5) when the analyst becomes the object-cause of the analysand’s desire and falls from position of subject-supposed-to-know; and (6) if the analysand passes to become an analyst themself.
In formulating a theory of ideology that moves beyond an analysis rooted in individual psychology... more In formulating a theory of ideology that moves beyond an analysis rooted in individual psychology, we must think of ideology in terms of social structures that are determinant of concrete material relations in production. It is not to be said that the individual “has” an ideology, but rather that the individual corresponds with a given set of circumstances and material relations that allow ideology to be interpellated from the individual. Ideology then is a collective social force (as a false consciousness) that subjugates the proletariat to the demands of a ruling class. Francis Fukuyama famously declared “the end of history” as capitalist production, that socialism was a transient ideal that perished after the fall of the Berlin Wall, yet with the modern neoliberal State increasingly concentrating wealth in the hands of the capitalist class, we see increasing forms of protest and grassroots organizing. Although Marx thought that the material conditions under capitalism would become so unbearable for the working class that they would have no choice but to rise up in revolution, reformism and the neoliberal ideology intends exactly to keep these proletarians “at bay” with nominal wage increases, social reforms, etc. Advanced capitalism becomes so rooted in the culture of a society that revolution eventually becomes impossible and there exists a very complex set of mechanisms for controlling the ideological discourse of a society.
The realization of class consciousness by the proletariat (such as how Gramsci recognizes the exi... more The realization of class consciousness by the proletariat (such as how Gramsci recognizes the existence of a “collective consciousness” under the sway of cultural hegemony), what results in the advent of a communist revolution, and the reason that Marxism can be defined (as by Gramsci) as a “philosophy of praxis” or the “science of class struggle”, is the process of social action by which an individual or a collective can actively change the political and economic conditions of the culture in which they live. Just as Marx wrote, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”, and Weber spoke of a theory of social action, the Marxist interpretation of history and class consciousness asserts the primacy of praxis over theory in Marx’s social ontology. Marx argues that there is a reciprocal relationship between the base and the superstructure, however the base is the determinant of the superstructure in the “last instance” for the reason that praxis is aligned with the base, rather than the false consciousness of the dominant ideas of society (i.e. the superstructure). Therefore even if the nature of everyday practice is conditioned by the dominant ideology, the proletarian ideology acts as a material force where praxis is the active changing of the base material relations through class struggle, while the dominant ideology acts to reproduce the mode of production of capitalist society, therefore constituting the dialectic of political discourse as the resolution of the contradiction of private property. Raymond Williams writes, “So, we have to say that when we talk of ‘the base’, we are talking of a process, and not a state.” Marx asserted the dominance of the base over the superstructure in ’A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’ (1859), where he writes, “In the social production of their existence, humans inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” However Marx also wrote in the ‘Thesis on Fauerbach’ (1845), “The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated…The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity and self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.”
Acid communism. Psychedelic socialism. The freak Left. What do these terms mean? The Youth Intern... more Acid communism. Psychedelic socialism. The freak Left. What do these terms mean? The Youth International Party, with a red star and a marijuana leaf on its flag, formed in 1967, a youth-oriented countercultural revolutionary party, who ran a pig, Pigasus the Immortal as its presidential candidate, and the campaign of Hunter S. Thompson for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado in 1970, on the “Freak Power” ticket, whose logo for Gonzo journalism and his Sheriff campaign was the “Gonzo fist” which interestingly has 6-fingers and is holding a peyote button; these examples better embody than any others the fusion of revolutionary libertarian socialist politics with the counterculture of the 1960s.
Mark Fisher, forefather of the “Acid Communism” project, committed suicide in 2017. In ‘Capitalist Realism’ he included a discussion of mental health in terms of the dominating hegemony of capitalism, his personal mental health struggles, and the effects of capitalism on individuality. He argued that the revitalization of democratic socialism and libertarian communism as alternatives to contemporary neoliberal capitalism had to move beyond the politics of anti-capitalism to a politics of post-capitalism that would recognize that the destruction of the organized left was predicated on the failure of this movement to come to terms with the cultural divergence of 1960s counterculture from the political mainstream. Furthermore, he warned of the transition from anti-statism to anti-politics in postmodernity. His argument, however, was that even in the midst of a total economic and ecological catastrophe, that the very functioning of the neoliberal ideology as hegemonic negates the forms of class struggle that challenge capitalist realism. In ‘Capitalist Realism’, the second chapter is called “What if you held a protest and everyone came?”. He goes on to argue that neoliberalism since the 1960s has maintained its system of dominance but in our contemporary era of technological acceleration, it has changed form: into a “more desperate, even faux-melancholic edge”. His main thesis is that the “strategy” of neoliberalism is not to condemn anti-capitalist protest, but instead present the idea that there is no viable alternative to capitalism - i.e. capitalist realism.
The 1960s was defined by the emergence of the New Left, the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, environmentalism, the anti-nuclear movement, second-wave feminism, the gay rights movement; as well as the rise of middle class drug culture, beats, mods, hippies, and of course psychedelia. The focus of this analysis, based on the basic idea of Mark Fisher’s posthumous introduction to his unfinished ‘Acid Communism’, we see through the lens of Derrida’s concept of hauntology (e.g. the idolization of Ché Guevara during Occupy Wall Street) of the “slow cancelation of the future”, and the persistence of cultural elements that return like a ghost from the past, and Fisher’s unpublished book attempted to advance a solution to the earlier outline of ‘Capitalist Realism’ through the excavation of Marxism and 1960s culture to return to the cultural revolution of the 60s in the vein of the reality of hauntology such that we see both Derrida’s original idea of the atemporal historicity of Marxism to haunt Western culture, such as how Marx’s critique of political economy can be viewed as an objective science that is always applicable in discourse to criticize capitalism as a monolith of political economy that seems to always only get more advanced as history progresses; so how can we speak of progress? Marx’s historical materialism is the very essence of progress; we cannot concede to the fashionable concept of “accelerationism” because Marx himself thought that the capitalism of the 19th century was almost at its point of implosion; we have heard this same refrain all throughout history, so though accelerationism is here rejected, Derrida’s hauntology is relevant in the sense that Walter Benjamin conceptualized revolution as the awakening of the dead of past revolutions; will the ghost of the 1960s return?
The mental health system is exactly where the ruling class wants it. A neoliberal political syste... more The mental health system is exactly where the ruling class wants it. A neoliberal political system needed a neoliberal form of therapy for the elites of capitalist society to continue their ideological subjection of the lowest strata of the working class, unemployed and lumpenproletariat. This imposed behaviorist worldview takes the form of an intra-personal therapeutics rather than a social, political, or historical analysis of the conditions which lead to the alienation of the individual in their unique social context. The institutionalization of cognitive-behavioral therapy within psychotherapy is directly opposed to any sort of political program for the liberation of the mentally ill, has no political basis whatsoever, and can hardly be called a “social science” by any stretch of the imagination.
Freud's Metapsychology Freud's metapsychology attests to the epistemology behind the concepts he ... more Freud's Metapsychology Freud's metapsychology attests to the epistemology behind the concepts he developed. Freud develops a psychology 'als ob' or 'as if', a holistic model that merges unconscious processes with those of consciousness. Freud originally called this metapsychology a "speculative superstructure". Freud was initially faced with the challenge of combining his conceptions about the psychological with those of the organic or biological. Freud's metapsychology consists of five "points of view" (referring to the structure of the concepts themselves) which are the topographical point of view, the dynamic point of view, the economic point of view, the structural point of view, and the genetic point of view. Heinz Hartmann added a sixth dimension to Freud's metapsychology, that is, the adaptational point of view.
The general process of “making the unconscious conscious” applies to psychoanalysis to the extent that Sigmund Freud identified the problem and initially made it his task in analysis, but in the work of Wilhelm Reich, and formalized by Anna Freud, it became clear that the ego must be the principal focus of analysis, the domain of preconscious, for the specific reason that Reich explained that it is in the dynamic conflicts and resistances of the ego that provide reference points in resistance analysis or character analysis. In other words, it is the resistances which the client engages in or “puts up against” the unconscious that determines his or her character structure. Reich calls these resistances of the ego “character armor”. The first point of making the unconscious conscious is identified by Reich as the topographical point of view in analysis, while the resistances are identified as the dynamic point of view. Also, “flows” are part of the economic point of view, while “strata” are considered part of the structure.
Lacan’s conception of the end of analysis is different from Freud’s original conception of the en... more Lacan’s conception of the end of analysis is different from Freud’s original conception of the end of analysis, which has different goals or aims, which were as follows: (1) when the unconscious “conveys” itself into the preconscious; (2) the overcoming of internal resistances; (3) the replacement of repression with condemnation; (4) the advance from the pleasure principle to the reality principle; (5) saving mental energy to make the best of one’s inherited capacities to become as capable of enjoyment as possible; and (6) partial or complete sublimation. There is debate about whether Jacques Lacan is to be considered a post-structuralist, but there is no doubt that he professed a unique school of psychoanalysis. According to Lacan there are six goals or aims of psychoanalysis that mark the end of analysis: (1) to articulate the truth about one’s desire; (2) the advent of true speech and the realization by the subject of their history; (3) to traverse the radical fantasy; (4) identification with the sinthome; (5) when the analyst becomes the object-cause of the analysand’s desire and falls from position of subject-supposed-to-know; and (6) if the analysand passes to become an analyst themself.
In formulating a theory of ideology that moves beyond an analysis rooted in individual psychology... more In formulating a theory of ideology that moves beyond an analysis rooted in individual psychology, we must think of ideology in terms of social structures that are determinant of concrete material relations in production. It is not to be said that the individual “has” an ideology, but rather that the individual corresponds with a given set of circumstances and material relations that allow ideology to be interpellated from the individual. Ideology then is a collective social force (as a false consciousness) that subjugates the proletariat to the demands of a ruling class. Francis Fukuyama famously declared “the end of history” as capitalist production, that socialism was a transient ideal that perished after the fall of the Berlin Wall, yet with the modern neoliberal State increasingly concentrating wealth in the hands of the capitalist class, we see increasing forms of protest and grassroots organizing. Although Marx thought that the material conditions under capitalism would become so unbearable for the working class that they would have no choice but to rise up in revolution, reformism and the neoliberal ideology intends exactly to keep these proletarians “at bay” with nominal wage increases, social reforms, etc. Advanced capitalism becomes so rooted in the culture of a society that revolution eventually becomes impossible and there exists a very complex set of mechanisms for controlling the ideological discourse of a society.
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Papers by Anders Maybeck
Mark Fisher, forefather of the “Acid Communism” project, committed suicide in 2017. In ‘Capitalist Realism’ he included a discussion of mental health in terms of the dominating hegemony of capitalism, his personal mental health struggles, and the effects of capitalism on individuality. He argued that the revitalization of democratic socialism and libertarian communism as alternatives to contemporary neoliberal capitalism had to move beyond the politics of anti-capitalism to a politics of post-capitalism that would recognize that the destruction of the organized left was predicated on the failure of this movement to come to terms with the cultural divergence of 1960s counterculture from the political mainstream. Furthermore, he warned of the transition from anti-statism to anti-politics in postmodernity. His argument, however, was that even in the midst of a total economic and ecological catastrophe, that the very functioning of the neoliberal ideology as hegemonic negates the forms of class struggle that challenge capitalist realism. In ‘Capitalist Realism’, the second chapter is called “What if you held a protest and everyone came?”. He goes on to argue that neoliberalism since the 1960s has maintained its system of dominance but in our contemporary era of technological acceleration, it has changed form: into a “more desperate, even faux-melancholic edge”. His main thesis is that the “strategy” of neoliberalism is not to condemn anti-capitalist protest, but instead present the idea that there is no viable alternative to capitalism - i.e. capitalist realism.
The 1960s was defined by the emergence of the New Left, the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, environmentalism, the anti-nuclear movement, second-wave feminism, the gay rights movement; as well as the rise of middle class drug culture, beats, mods, hippies, and of course psychedelia. The focus of this analysis, based on the basic idea of Mark Fisher’s posthumous introduction to his unfinished ‘Acid Communism’, we see through the lens of Derrida’s concept of hauntology (e.g. the idolization of Ché Guevara during Occupy Wall Street) of the “slow cancelation of the future”, and the persistence of cultural elements that return like a ghost from the past, and Fisher’s unpublished book attempted to advance a solution to the earlier outline of ‘Capitalist Realism’ through the excavation of Marxism and 1960s culture to return to the cultural revolution of the 60s in the vein of the reality of hauntology such that we see both Derrida’s original idea of the atemporal historicity of Marxism to haunt Western culture, such as how Marx’s critique of political economy can be viewed as an objective science that is always applicable in discourse to criticize capitalism as a monolith of political economy that seems to always only get more advanced as history progresses; so how can we speak of progress? Marx’s historical materialism is the very essence of progress; we cannot concede to the fashionable concept of “accelerationism” because Marx himself thought that the capitalism of the 19th century was almost at its point of implosion; we have heard this same refrain all throughout history, so though accelerationism is here rejected, Derrida’s hauntology is relevant in the sense that Walter Benjamin conceptualized revolution as the awakening of the dead of past revolutions; will the ghost of the 1960s return?
Drafts by Anders Maybeck
The general process of “making the unconscious conscious” applies to psychoanalysis to the extent that Sigmund Freud identified the problem and initially made it his task in analysis, but in the work of Wilhelm Reich, and formalized by Anna Freud, it became clear that the ego must be the principal focus of analysis, the domain of preconscious, for the specific reason that Reich explained that it is in the dynamic conflicts and resistances of the ego that provide reference points in resistance analysis or character analysis. In other words, it is the resistances which the client engages in or “puts up against” the unconscious that determines his or her character structure. Reich calls these resistances of the ego “character armor”. The first point of making the unconscious conscious is identified by Reich as the topographical point of view in analysis, while the resistances are identified as the dynamic point of view. Also, “flows” are part of the economic point of view, while “strata” are considered part of the structure.
Mark Fisher, forefather of the “Acid Communism” project, committed suicide in 2017. In ‘Capitalist Realism’ he included a discussion of mental health in terms of the dominating hegemony of capitalism, his personal mental health struggles, and the effects of capitalism on individuality. He argued that the revitalization of democratic socialism and libertarian communism as alternatives to contemporary neoliberal capitalism had to move beyond the politics of anti-capitalism to a politics of post-capitalism that would recognize that the destruction of the organized left was predicated on the failure of this movement to come to terms with the cultural divergence of 1960s counterculture from the political mainstream. Furthermore, he warned of the transition from anti-statism to anti-politics in postmodernity. His argument, however, was that even in the midst of a total economic and ecological catastrophe, that the very functioning of the neoliberal ideology as hegemonic negates the forms of class struggle that challenge capitalist realism. In ‘Capitalist Realism’, the second chapter is called “What if you held a protest and everyone came?”. He goes on to argue that neoliberalism since the 1960s has maintained its system of dominance but in our contemporary era of technological acceleration, it has changed form: into a “more desperate, even faux-melancholic edge”. His main thesis is that the “strategy” of neoliberalism is not to condemn anti-capitalist protest, but instead present the idea that there is no viable alternative to capitalism - i.e. capitalist realism.
The 1960s was defined by the emergence of the New Left, the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, environmentalism, the anti-nuclear movement, second-wave feminism, the gay rights movement; as well as the rise of middle class drug culture, beats, mods, hippies, and of course psychedelia. The focus of this analysis, based on the basic idea of Mark Fisher’s posthumous introduction to his unfinished ‘Acid Communism’, we see through the lens of Derrida’s concept of hauntology (e.g. the idolization of Ché Guevara during Occupy Wall Street) of the “slow cancelation of the future”, and the persistence of cultural elements that return like a ghost from the past, and Fisher’s unpublished book attempted to advance a solution to the earlier outline of ‘Capitalist Realism’ through the excavation of Marxism and 1960s culture to return to the cultural revolution of the 60s in the vein of the reality of hauntology such that we see both Derrida’s original idea of the atemporal historicity of Marxism to haunt Western culture, such as how Marx’s critique of political economy can be viewed as an objective science that is always applicable in discourse to criticize capitalism as a monolith of political economy that seems to always only get more advanced as history progresses; so how can we speak of progress? Marx’s historical materialism is the very essence of progress; we cannot concede to the fashionable concept of “accelerationism” because Marx himself thought that the capitalism of the 19th century was almost at its point of implosion; we have heard this same refrain all throughout history, so though accelerationism is here rejected, Derrida’s hauntology is relevant in the sense that Walter Benjamin conceptualized revolution as the awakening of the dead of past revolutions; will the ghost of the 1960s return?
The general process of “making the unconscious conscious” applies to psychoanalysis to the extent that Sigmund Freud identified the problem and initially made it his task in analysis, but in the work of Wilhelm Reich, and formalized by Anna Freud, it became clear that the ego must be the principal focus of analysis, the domain of preconscious, for the specific reason that Reich explained that it is in the dynamic conflicts and resistances of the ego that provide reference points in resistance analysis or character analysis. In other words, it is the resistances which the client engages in or “puts up against” the unconscious that determines his or her character structure. Reich calls these resistances of the ego “character armor”. The first point of making the unconscious conscious is identified by Reich as the topographical point of view in analysis, while the resistances are identified as the dynamic point of view. Also, “flows” are part of the economic point of view, while “strata” are considered part of the structure.