caspary (1991) melanie klein and critical social theory

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  • 7/27/2019 Caspary (1991) Melanie Klein and Critical Social Theory

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    Review: [untitled]Author(s): William R. CasparySource: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Mar., 1991), pp. 257-258Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1962895 .Accessed: 19/08/2011 08:16

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    Book Reviews: Political Theory

    her careful chronological etailing of the legis-lative history of Title VII; early Title VIIemployment discrimination ases in which thecourt first defined "discrimination" nder thetitle; and evaluation of the justices' efforts todelineate their position on affirmative actionprograms, whether mandated or voluntary.

    Chapters 2 and 4, particularly, reveal af-firmative action political dynamics, such ascongressional motivation or the 1972 amend-ment to Title VII, the philosophy of Reagan'sEqual Employment Opportunity Commissionunder Clarence Thomas, and the impact of thechanging composition of the U.S. Supreme

    Court.Some

    maybe

    disappointedby the ab-

    breviated coverage of gender discrimination.Readers with pedagogical interests are re-warded with ample and easily obtained ex-cerpts from the case briefs and Justices' ourt

    opinions to illustrate he competing positions;lengthy quotations from significant actors inall three branches of government; nd a usefullisting of court cases cited. Political scientists,legal philosophers and historians, and thegeneral public will find material f value n Af-firmative Action and the Principles f Justice,although Legal Realists probably will not beconvinced by Greene's p. 168) conclusion hatthe justice's choice between two competingprinciples "is not dependent on a justice'sideology or personal values. The choicedepends on which justification provides the'more sensitive or sounder analysis of theunderlying moral principles'."

    DLANEE. WALL

    Mississippi State University

    POLITICALTHEORY

    Melanie Klein and Critical Social Theory: AnAccount of Politics, Art, and Reason Basedon Her Psychoanalytic Theory. By C. FredAlford. New Haven: Yale University Press,1989. 232p. $25.00.

    Alford begins by recasting Marcuse's rojectin Eros and Civilization, replacing Freudiantheory with that of Melanie Klein. He goes onto construct a Kleinian heory of society. One

    advantage of Klein, he asserts, s her view oflove as other-regarding nd caring. Freudian(and Platonic) eros, Alford argues, is funda-mentally selfish. Klein's theory also offersspecial resources or critique: 1) her resoluteengagement with human passions (not Freud-ian "drives"), especially anger, and (2) herstress on the defense of splitting-polarizingimages of other people into extremely goodnurturing nes and extremely bad destructiveones.

    Infants are prone to intense rage, and thisarouses great ear about their own destructive-ness. Since self-other boundaries are quitevague at this stage, they easily project his rageonto others to relieve their fear. But then theother appears as a terrifying ggressive hreat.

    The child reassures tselfwith the fantasy of anall-good nurturing rotecting other. Thus, wehave a split between the extreme good imageand extreme bad image. The intensity of itsanger and fear prevents the child from inte-grating hese images and perceiving degrees ofgood and bad in one person. This anger, fear,projecting, nd (above all) splitting ontinue atan unconscious level throughout ife, alongwith more differentiated nd reality-oriented

    functioning. Manifestation of splitting inadults is neither evidence of psychopathologyor regression o infancy. It is an inescapablepart of adult functioning.

    Fear, however, can abate enough-thanksto biological maturation nd a reasonably up-portive environment-for children o achievea degree of integration. Loving and angry eel-ings toward one person can come to coexist,and a perception of others as both caring andhostile can be established. One can then acceptthat person's otherness and experience another-regarding ove. Because of that love onecan feel guilt at one's own destructive mpul-sive acts and can attempt to make restitutionor reparation o the loved one.

    Large groups like one's ethnic group or na-

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    American Political Science Review Vol. 85

    tion are the arena par excellence or splitting.Such groups do not recognize and support ourunique individuality, helping us to integratelove and hate. Instead, hey intensify our fear,

    since we cannot know what the others arethinking about us. Paradoxically, the largegroup offers us a defense through splittingagainst he same fears that it exacerbates. Themuch-remarked in-group-versus-out-groupantagonism here gains specific explanation nterms of (1) preexisting nxiety, (2) large-groupintensification of that anxiety, and (3) thedefense mechanism f splitting, which offers apowerful predisposition oward idealized m-ages of one's own group and demonized m-ages of the "enemy." For Alford, a great dealof social structure and interaction can be ac-counted for in these terms. He is aware, how-ever, of straightforward ask groups and ofreal conflicts of interest.

    The Frankfurt chool stressed nstrumentalreason-limiting thought to finding meanstoward preestablished nds-as the core of thepathology of modern society. According toAlford, they saw instrumental eason as basedon literalism-understanding ymbols as iden-tical with the thing symbolized. Alford accepts

    this diagnosis and explains t in Kleinian erms:intellectual curiosity originates n an infant'saggressive appropriative (hence destructive)approach o the world. This in itself is not theproblem; t is the fear and defensiveness hataggressiveness arouses in us. This leads tosplitting between a rigid literal instrumentalreason and a fanciful utopian dealism uncon-nected to action in the world. The mitigationof anxiety and integration of split images,Alford argues, can lead to a human reason hatis neither rigid and literal, nor escapist.

    Alford finds an unresolved plit n Marcuse'stheory of art between immanence and tran-scendence. In its relation to human suffering,immanent rt can only immerse us in our tragiccondition and lead to despair. Transcendentart envelops suffering n the formal beauty ofits depiction and leads us to escape. Lost n thebeauty of art itself we are reconciled o the evilin the world instead of acting to change it.Alford traces this split to Marcuse's ommit-ment to Platonic eros. Eros s concerned bove

    all with the self and pleasure. A Kleinian ov-ing-caring response, however, permits another-regarding absorption in the object.Thus, the discovery and contemplation oftruth becomes part of the function of art, notsimply the creation of beautiful orm that tran-

    scends reality.Alford writes ucidly, engages central ssues

    for political philosophy, and offers resh, stim-ulating nsights. The book is a must for those

    interested n critical heory and in the applica-tion of psychoanalytic deas. I recommend twith some hesitation to those new to thesefields, not for any lack of clarity and accessi-bility but because t is one-sided and dogmaticin its Kleinian orientation. Indeed, I foundAlford's nsistence hat his was the proper, cor-rect, and true nterpretation ot only irritatingbut philosophically naive.

    Alford insists that love as understood byKlein is unselfish, yet he roots love in an im-pulse to "repair" he other for fear one nolonger will have access to her or his nurtur-ance. He makes a rigid dichotomy betweendepth psychology and social psychology, theformer making he passions he core of person-ality and individuality, he latter lattening hepassions and emphasizing he social construc-tion of the self. Such a dichotomy scarcelydoes justice to reality. In addition, he doesgrave injustice o the object relations heory ofWinnicott, forcing it into the social psychol-ogy category. Alford accepts uncritically he

    Frankfurt School view that instrumentalreason is equivalent to identity thinking-scarcely an accurate account of even the twen-tieth-century ogical empiricist view. He alsoassumes uncritically hat all rational hought sanalytical, hence aggressive-destructive. Hisview of both people and society is highlyschematic. Is this a powerful generativescheme hat does justice o human richness ndindividuality or a flattened, dehumanizedreduction? He is so absorbed n his own set ofquestions, concepts, and answers that heshows scant understanding of other enter-prises. His criticisms of other psychoanalyti-cally oriented social theorists exhibit this tun-nel vision, yet on particular oints he is astuteand deserves erious attention. Like his Frank-furt School mentors, Alford wants to have hiscake and eat it too. He wants to judge psycho-analytic tenets on the basis of his own philo-sophical postulates and principles. Yet hewishes to claim empirical rounding n clinicalevidence for certain psychoanalytic proposi-

    tions. Methodologically and epistemological-ly, he is unreflective t best.WILLIAM . CASPARY

    Washington University

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