Why is it necessary to know the discoveries of psychoanalysis to better understand politics or geopolitics?

Introduction

Reading some interpretations of psychoanalysis in different cultures, it seems necessary to me to clarify what I mean by psychoanalysis. The object of psychoanalysis, in the sense that I define it, is to allow people to become aware of the forces that act in the unconscious to lead them to make decisions that do not correspond to their situation in the real world or even have no meaning in this real world and are in total contradiction with their interests. This awareness of the influence of unconscious anxieties makes it possible to act in better harmony with the real world. There is total opposition between psychology which consists in trying to reintegrate people into the existing social system and this approach of psychoanalysis which seeks to reveal the forces of the unconscious which in reality represent the "side effects" (desired or not) of the history of the social structure in place.

Analysis

What makes the world live? There are easy things to discover such as

• Nature
• Natural resources
• Tools, means of production
• The organization of the economy, that is, the production of goods and services, as well as the distribution of access to them by means of money, the financial system.

And then there are the people, the populations : According to Marx, the communists and other political currents, the populations react according to their economic interests. Already the concept of economic interests is not very well defined. Is it just about meeting survival needs? So how to explain the desire to own this or that brand of cars, clothes, perfumes... ? How to explain that people can make choices that lead to the destruction of their country, as in Ukraine or during the breakup of the USSR for example. A current example would be Greece, or even most European countries? How to explain that people want to blow themselves up in the middle of people they do not know and with whom they have not had a conflict, all this in a country where they have never been before ? How to explain that people constantly want to earn more money at the expense of their health, family, children when they already have enough to live, etc...

Describing these behaviors with a negative word does not explain anything. Rather, let's see if the discoveries of psychoanalysis can help us to improve our understanding of these problems.

Let's explain in a very simplified way the basics of these discoveries. .

The purpose of psychoanalysis is to analyze the mechanisms underlying people's motivations.

The first driver of motivations is obvious. Hunger, thirst, cold, etc...This is the set of motivations ensuring survival: we will call it the " survival principle ".

The second one is obvious too . It is about "sexuality" not only what is directly related to the reproduction of the human species but also what serves as a biological basis for relationships between people.

Then it becomes more complicated ... It is then that the discoveries of psychoanalysis allow us to go further. The baby is completely dependent on his surroundings. Anything that can endanger, real or imagined, his relationship with the entourage is a source of anxiety, especially when this entourage is very limited in the restricted family of the Western model. The relationship with the surrounding necessarily goes through the relationship with other humans. The type of relationship between these humans and the baby is already going to be at the origin of the creation of a model of behavior..

But things get even more complicated because the baby's first needs are basically related to survival. Needs related to sexuality develop later. In small children, they are incomparably weaker than the need for survival. However, there is a connection between affection, tenderness and needs related to sexuality. What happens if sexual repression exists, if only in the form of lack of affection, tenderness ? Repression means "negative action" in terms of needs related to survival. Suppressing a need that is closely or distantly related to sexuality is tantamount to putting survival-related needs in opposition to sexuality-related needs. The consequences that result from this conflict are one of the essential discoveries of psychoanalysis. Without going too far into the details, it is necessary to know that since the needs related to sexuality have a biological source, repression does not make them disappear really, it creates a mechanism that only makes them disappear from the field of consciousness, it is the creation of the unconscious. One of the consequences discovered by psychoanalysis is the shift from the expression of these biological needs to the expression of desires compatible with the social environment (for example owning such a type of car, or such a type of clothing...). This phenomenon is amplified and accompanied by the creation of an increasingly strong anxiety whose origin is unconscious. b>These mechanisms are very different in men and women, psychoanalysis explains why.

While the needs related to survival are more or less the same for men and women, it is absolutely not the same for the needs related to sexuality. In this context, the enormous efforts of the ruling classes to erase the differences between the two sexes result in separating individuals from their biology, for what purpose ??

A first indication : this separation of individuals from their biology associated with the non-consideration of the unconscious was the basis on which Western services relied for the realization of revolutions in communist countries, but also "color revolutions" in general. The non-acceptance of the discoveries of psychoanalysis by the communists cost them very dearly. A simple reminder: as a result of the anti-communist revolution in the USSR, production there fell by at least 50 or 60%, tens of thousands of large factories closed. The resulting economic crisis has directly or indirectly caused the death of tens of millions of people, not to mention that today the survival of Russia and the countries formerly part of the USSR is threatened by Western interventions, not to mention the dislocation of the social fabric, the effects of which are already clearly visible in Ukraine, effects that are likely to appear in other countries ...

To function effectively, the adult needs to be able to look at the world around him without interfering with unconscious anxieties that would distort his vision of the world and relationships with others. The constraints of material reality (the material outer world in all its forms) form the principle of reality. The pleasure obtained during the satisfaction of a need related to survival or sexuality forms the principle of pleasure. However, calming an anxiety that originates in the unconscious also provides pleasure, at least momentary... This is the main source of the possibility of behavior disconnected from reality.

In the context of this very simplified presentation, we can represent the mechanisms in play as follows :

For humans, there is the principle of pleasure to meet the biological needs related to survival or sexuality (which goes beyond the scope of reproduction ), the unconscious anxieties related to the conflict between sexuality and survival. We must add to it the" conditioned reflexes " created by the relationships between the baby, the child and his entourage. This is at the origin of the motivations of the human.

However, this human faces the world around him, whether it is the "social world (people)" or the material world (the principle of reality). The possible conflict between motivations and the outside world will continue to shape human behavior. If the baby, the child, the young adult is essentially confronted with "social" constraints, it is the emotions shaped by these constraints that will be at the origin of his behavior. In the case where the constraints related to relations with others are weak while the main constraints are associated with material problems (in the sense of matter, nature, techniques...) it is then the knowledge of these constraints that will be essentially at the base of the motivations and not the emotions. The reality is a little more complex, because there can be, for example, extremely strong social constraints associated with relatively strong material constraints and vice versa, limited social constraints but associated with almost non-existent material constraints. In both cases, emotions will dominate behavior rather than the search for knowledge of the material, natural world. All variants are possible.

All this, you will tell me, does not explain why knowing the basic mechanisms discovered by psychoanalysis would be so important at the level of the management of a community, of a country?

You read in the above the word "unconscious". Now imagine that understanding the basic mechanisms of psychoanalysis allows people working in the service of the ruling classes to know the unconscious anxieties of a significant part of the population. This would make it possible to create means that would give the impression to this part of the population that this or that action would soothe these anxieties. This would simply allow people to be manipulated. However, these means exist and are widely used by advertising, marketing, political manipulation through the media... If you want to know more about it look for information about Edward Bernays.

Then imagine that it is possible to put children from third world countries in a highly controlled environment to turn them into biological robots that will destroy the infrastructure of an "enemy" country, because opposed to the Western system, including by blowing themselves up in the middle of the population of this country. Well, that also exists...

Viewed from this angle, the color revolutions, including during the fall of the USSR, the Ukrainian Maidan, the wars against the USSR in Afghanistan, against Libya, Syria, "terrorism" etc... take on another meaning.

You will tell me then that the Western secret services are extremely effective in their ability to act. Yes and no, they are effective in terms of the destruction caused but certainly have not analyzed the long-term consequences of their actions or possess in-depth knowledge of psychoanalysis. Otherwise they would have understood that the relatively short-term gains achieved will result in heavy losses in the medium and long term and that, in addition, these actions will lead to the complete and irreversible destruction of their own society.

Why?

Because to the elements analyzed so far it is necessary to add other knowledge.

Let's start by summarizing the elements already studied.

• The principle of pleasure (biological needs and unconscious anxieties)
• The principle of reality (the material world, nature)
• "Programmed" behaviors during childhood

This is missing an extremely important element !

Even a moderately developed society can exist in the medium or long term only if there is an infrastructure consisting of the means of production, communication channels, health services, a training system, management means, natural resources, etc... This vast complex infrastructure depends above all on the knowledge distributed among the population and the ability of people to have a view of the outside world without emotional disturbance, their ability to collaborate and therefore communicate. The existence of a country is not only linked to the presence of a greater or lesser number of people but above all to the presence of the infrastructures described above. These infrastructures form what we will call a superstructure whose existence far exceeds individuals. Society can survive if an individual disappears, but individual survival would not be long without the existence of this superstructure. The existence of this new social body formed by this superstructure is totally obscured by Western individualistic culture.

Based on the findings of psychoanalysis, the manipulations of "public relations", the media, politicians, financial leaders turned the vast majority of Western populations into "biological robots programmed by their emotions". Language is no longer a way to share knowledge. Words have become a means of expressing emotions that are eventually totally disconnected from the reality that these words are theoretically supposed to represent. Very effective to prevent any revolution, any questioning of the system and to get the populations to react as the dominant classes want. On the other hand, the quality of relations between individuals has deteriorated terribly and therefore the exchange of information, the ability to act together to develop complex and long-term projects, not to mention the interest in the material world that has been replaced by an emotional virtual world. Separating individuals from their biology has absolutely disastrous consequences as much in terms of the degradation of male-female relations and therefore the birth rate as in terms of the decomposition of the social fabric, of social cohesion but the latter consequence is certainly the goal sought, dividing to reign is the objective.

Obviously, the consequences are the loss of interest in the development of technologies, deindustrialization, the struggle of all against all, the fall of the birth rate, the explosion of families, the extension of the consumption of alcohol, tranquilizers, drugs, money become the new god, in short the deep decomposition of Western society from within, almost irreversibly and the complete loss of credibility of Western societies. The superstructure of western societies is disintegrating. Beautiful result !

That is why knowing the basic elements of psychoanalysis is important. First to avoid being manipulated or to free oneself from behaviors programmed by society. But also to avoid drawing false conclusions about a given economic or political situation and thus engage in actions that can not give the expected results or, on the contrary, lead to serious problems such as, for example, the "revolt" of the Maidan in Ukraine (population in free fall, standard of living lower than that of many African countries and, despite this, the fall is not over...). This knowledge is also necessary to properly analyze the actions of leaders. Basing a geopolitical analysis solely on" objective analysis", i.e. an analysis of economic and material conditions, may lead to completely false conclusions in the medium or long term. The leaders of a country can act on a set of emotions, unconscious anxieties that lead them to the search for domination, power rather than on the basis of any economic interests. An example of this is Stalin's completely false analysis of the intentions of the German leadership and the motivations of the German population before the second World War. Another example: errors in the analysis of the motivations of the populations that led to the fall of the USSR. It is quite possible that this kind of mistake will again be made by Chinese leaders in the face of US actions.

The problems presented in this article are studied in detail in my book "What future for humankind". That is to say essentially the study of the economy in all its aspects, the study of the motivations of populations and the impact on the evolution of societies by mixing economy, psychoanalysis and superstructure. One could characterize the method used as an approach to the"psychoanalytic economy". Relatively simplified geopolitical analyses are presented in the last chapter. Some of these analyses are presented in some articles on this site.

CIESINT   Published on 2018-01-29   Read by 2381  Translated on 2021-04-25

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