I liked this essay very much.

For me, the biggest question is the relation between individual psychology and social structure (or order or whatever you want to call it).

But there's a problem in relating psychological states due to childhood trauma and larger social movements. It tends to lead to absurdities--say, that Hitler's poor toilet training led to World War II.

It's a very tricky business.

And I will say something shameful--I think the best efforts at linking individual psychology with larger social structure are those associated with Classical Economics. Adam Smith, Militon Friedman at all. I'm not saying they aren't seriously flawed, but at least there is a logical method there that sometimes does get things right. And it ain't as if I weren't a left-winger.

But there are just serious problems relating psychology to politics, two phenomena of wildly different orders.

 

 

 

 

I agree with you, Justin, about the importance of Miller's work. Her many books offer a radical critique of existing society and mainstream psychology and psychiatry, and I've thought for a long time that the left hasn't given her the attention she deserves. In her book, The Truth Will Set You Free, for example, she subjects Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt's graphic description of the misery and troubles of his Irish childhood, to a critique that exposes even as he paints a picture of shocking childhood deprivation an underlying conservatism. The message of Angela's Ashes, says Miller: "My childhood was awful, but it had its moments, and the main thing is I survived it all and can write about it. It's the way of the world." To Miller, Angela's Ashes proclaims a kind of fatalistic acceptance of things as they are. Rather, we should rebel against this kind of childhood, she says, instead of using defeatist irony and humor to explain away pain. There are many other examples of Miller's observant challenge to "the way of the world." 

Interestingly, her study of the early years of Adolf Hitler highlighted the fact that the German dictator was routinely beaten and humiliated by his father. Allegedly, the adult Hitler, despite all the power he had acquired, still used to count out loud in his sleep, as years earlier his father had routinely made him do during his beatings. Of course, some critics say Miller's attention to such details of Hitler's psyche, reduces the entire spectacle of German fascism to the scarred, violent childhood and psyche of one troubled soul. Obviously, fascism was a product of a whole convergence of historical factors, not merely the product of one man's childhood. But Hitler wasn't born evil — he was made; and Miller rightly refuses to accept the idea that evil is unexplainable. In fact, Hitler was a product of the "normal" Germanic upbringing of his day, as was fascism and World War II a natural outgrowth of the historical workings and contradictions of the world economy. All of it can be explained, and none of it has to do with some inherent, violent flaw in our human nature. There is no original sin. Nor are there "evil" babies.

Miller acknowledges that she never intended to argue that only psychological factors were at work in the story of Hitler's rise to power. What she has done is simply point out how consistently the psychological kernel of all the social madness is ignored. She's an important thinker. 

Re-reading you post reminded me of a discussion I've had with my wife about this when we are frustrated with our daughter who has just called us some vile names and stomped away: the biggest difference between the way we bring up our daughter and the way both of our parents brought up us (especially our dads) is that we were raised with a constant threat of at least some possible violence (a bad spanking with a belt, maybe) or at least severe punishment. If my daughter tells me to fuck off (not as infrequently as I'd prefer) she just walks upstairs. If I ever told my dad to fuck off (once or twice) I sprinted out of the house at top speed and didn't return for several hours. I remember once my dad actually threatening to murder my brother and me with a hunting knife at a restaurant where we were goofing off and embarrassing him. Luckily we didn't take him seriously, even though he acted serious, so we didn't experience any trauma in the long term. I think by then we had blown him off as an asshole freak we had to put up with, mostly, so things that seemed outrageous blew past us quite easily. No matter what, no matter how you do things as a parent, the parent-child relationship will involve some friction, maybe even tons of it with varying personalities, just because it is a parent-child relationship and the parent at times will want to make sure the seatbelt is buckled, metaphorically speaking, and the child will raise hell about it. That's my guess.

I haven't read Miller but I do know that with Kohn his stuff is based on common sense if you hold the same humanistic values as people like Chomsky seem to. He backs up his ideas with loads of research on intrinsic motivation and rewards and punishment, much in the same way I've heard Chomsky and others have to cite every last detail since they are coming from outside the power structure, where those supporting power can just say what they want. Kohn's stuff tends to go against any type of authoritarian impulse people might have around children, so it can piss lots of people off, especially parents and educators who think they are doing pretty well with a system of rewards and milder punishments like time-outs. He doesn't have a formula, and in his parenting book he goes to lengths to try to explain why you can't have a formula but rather general guidelines (which should be common sense) for not treating children like dogs to train and that over time might help you develop a much better relationship with them -- but of course this is exactly what many people don't want to hear.

To continue the thought of your last paragraph... One thing that Chomsky reiterates constantly (usually in reply to specific political questions posed to him), is that there are no general principles or formulas one can apply to human affairs, beyond common sense or truisms. This seems true to me. Whatever the subject, you have to consider the specific circumstances and go from there (your "honest engagement"). We as human beings do not understand very much about ourselves in any way that would allow us to start applying formulas and principles to our development and behavior. I can imagine Chomsky saying something like: "Things in very specific domains, such as language development, one can start to unravel principles and the mind's machinations -- but that's a very narrow domain compared to 'human child development' as a whole concept. There are no general formulas to apply to human affairs." This seems very true to me. If this were false then humans would be something akin to robots with absolutely no value or essence at all.

I don't want to appear as writing-off "psychology" and these authors you mention as being of no value. The subject matters are very interesting and may be deep and useful in many ways. As for child development, I think we all know cases where bad people come from good environments, and vice versa. General formulas to nurture good child development, or create a more decent society maybe couldn't and probably shouldn't exist. In other words, besides our basic moral values (including what Chomsky calls the "principle of universality": applying to ourselves the same rules we apply to others), everything is basically contextual from that point on.