Pardon us for bothering to think seriously and in a sustained way about our society, and the cultural works that have gripped tens or hundreds of millions of people.

“…the role of Freud and his theories and the whole psychoanalytic tradition, with the great harm this has done to women, as well as overall, is something which needs to be dug into and criticized much more thoroughly. Some important criticism of this has been raised by various feminists and some others. But, again, there remains a need for a much more thorough and radical exposure, critique and refutation of this, particularly through the application of dialectical materialism/historical materialism and the consistently and systematically scientific outlook and approach this embodies.

“I recall myself that back in the 1960s, many of us were influenced, to varying degrees, by Freud’s theories, and there were many attempts by radical theorists—particularly male ones, but not only them—to somehow link and commingle the theories of Freud with the theories of Marx. In reality, these theories are in profound opposition to each other, and the influence of Freud not only has had a negative influence in society overall, but did so within the radical movements of that time. More thoroughly critiquing Freud’s theories and their influence can play an important part in the further development of the truly radical, and scientific, theory of communism, as applied to the oppression and the liberation of women, and overall.”

Freud write almost a century ago. He has been dissected, critiqued etc. by literally generations of theorists (including Marxists…) And yet Avakian announces that this is something that needs ”
“needs to be dug into and criticized much more thoroughly…”

Sure. Who can deny that? But is there no discussion of why (a century later) Avakian’s Marxism has said so little? Do any of his followers know what Althusser said on these matters, or Deleuse? Or Foucault? Is it possible to breeze past such things (and such theories) and pose as the synthesizer of world-historic proportions?

Avakian is not alone in all this (or else this would not be worth mentioning). He is merely a local and current (and particularly obvious) variant of a more general problem.

How long can we communists tolerate this approach — where we are asked to put on blinders, and then told to pretend that the world is just a narrow slice? This is not just a matter of a rather outrageous approach to psychology, but a crippled approach to theory in general.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yQsceZ9skQI

I would like your thoughts about Noam Chomskys crazyness that Lenin and Trotsky were right-wingers.