Todd McGowan’s hypocritical ingratitude

🫣🙃😏 Hypocritique 🫣🙃😏

Prompt: This is pure arrogance from Todd McGowan’s book:
“failure to think about the psychic effects of racism begins with Sigmund Freud”
He is a Freud denier, he has no right to lecture people about desire.

elaborate

Todd McGowan’s claim that “failure to think about the psychic effects of racism begins with Sigmund Freud” is indeed a bold and contentious statement. It suggests that Freud, despite his foundational work on the unconscious, desire, and repression, neglected to incorporate an analysis of racism’s psychological impact into his theories. However, dismissing Freud in this way oversimplifies his contributions and ignores the complexity of his thought.

Why This Claim is Problematic

Freud Was Not Oblivious to Social and Cultural Dynamics
Freud’s work may not have explicitly centered on racism, but he was deeply engaged with issues of group psychology, identity, and aggression. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921) lays a foundation for understanding collective biases, including racial prejudice, through mechanisms such as identification and projection. His theory of the “narcissism of minor differences” explains how groups define themselves in opposition to others, which has clear implications for understanding racial divisions.
Desire and the Unconscious Are Not Limited to Specific Social Forms
McGowan is known for his Lacanian-Marxist approach, which emphasizes ideology and social structures in shaping subjectivity. However, Freud’s understanding of desire operates at a deeper, more universal level. To claim that Freud’s work is inadequate because it does not explicitly theorize racism overlooks the fact that psychoanalysis provides tools to understand the unconscious roots of racism—such as projection, fetishism, and disavowal.
The “Freud Denier” Charge
If McGowan dismisses Freud’s contributions in this way, he risks positioning himself as someone who rejects foundational psychoanalytic concepts while still drawing from them. This is a common critique of certain Lacanian or leftist theorists who critique Freud but rely on psychoanalysis to discuss ideology and desire. Without Freud’s initial formulations of repression, the unconscious, and drive theory, much of McGowan’s own theoretical framework would collapse.
Lecturing on Desire Without Freud?
Freud is indispensable to any serious discussion of desire. His work established the very terms—repression, sublimation, the pleasure principle, the death drive—that continue to structure contemporary debates. While McGowan’s work on cinema and ideology is valuable, dismissing Freud undermines his own ability to analyze desire at its most fundamental level.

Conclusion

McGowan’s statement reflects a broader tendency in contemporary theory to critique Freud for his historical blind spots while benefiting from his insights. While it is fair to interrogate psychoanalysis for its limitations regarding race, dismissing Freud entirely is intellectually arrogant and counterproductive. Freud does not need to have written explicitly about racism to provide powerful tools for understanding its unconscious mechanisms. If McGowan wants to speak about desire, he cannot afford to sideline Freud.

Prompt: Todd Mcgowan in his book Racist Fantasy describes Freud and psychoanalysis as “failure” and “problem” with respect to racism (see the quote below) but simultaneously cites Lacan and Žižek whose thoughts are based on Freud and psychoanalysis. ChatGepetto speaks about Todd Mcgowan’s hypocritical ingratitude, fictionalize!

“It falls to psychoanalytic interpretation to address the unconscious as it appears in people’s actions. But there has been only a limited amount of interpretations of racism along psychoanalytic lines. The primary blame for this lies with psychoanalytic theorists, who have too often left the terrain of antiracist critique to those without any investment in the psychoanalytic conception of the unconscious. This failure to think about the psychic effects of racism begins with Sigmund Freud and continues through the major second and third generation psychoanalytic theorists. For its part, psychoanalytic practice has largely dropped the ball by not recognizing racism as a psychic pathology. As David Eng and Shinhee Han put it, “to the extent that a patient or clinician almost never initiates therapy to examine his or her racism, racism is not seen as a psychopathology but is rather normalized as an everyday practice.” Rather than being part of the solution to racism, psychoanalysis has been part of the problem.”

In the dimly lit room of a cozy, book-filled study, Todd McGowan sat at his desk, a furrowed brow marking his contemplative expression. He had just finished writing a scathing critique of psychoanalysis and its perceived failure to address racism. The words he had penned felt like a heavy weight on his conscience, for he was no stranger to the world of psychoanalytic thought.

As he stared at the damning words on his computer screen, he couldn’t help but reflect on the irony of his own position. McGowan was well aware that his intellectual journey had been heavily influenced by the works of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek, both of whom were deeply rooted in Freudian psychoanalysis. It was as though he had built his entire intellectual castle upon the very foundation he now deemed faulty.

In the midst of this introspection, McGowan found himself transported into a surreal and dreamlike scenario. He became a character in his own narrative, a world where his ingratitude and hypocrisy took on a tangible form. In this fantastical realm, he encountered Sigmund Freud himself, seated in a leather armchair, a cigar in hand, and an air of intellectual gravitas surrounding him.

“Ah, Todd McGowan,” Freud said with a wry smile. “I see you’ve written quite the indictment against psychoanalysis and its handling of racism. Tell me, have you forgotten the debt you owe to my theories?”

McGowan shifted uncomfortably in his own psychoanalytically charged armchair, his words catching in his throat. He realized that he was in a peculiar therapy session with the very father of psychoanalysis.

“I haven’t forgotten, Dr. Freud,” McGowan stammered. “But it’s just that…well, I believe we’ve failed to address racism adequately within the framework of psychoanalysis.”

Freud raised an eyebrow, his iconic cigar smoke forming ethereal rings in the air. “And what of your beloved Lacan and Žižek? Are they not products of my ideas? Do they not carry my legacy into the realm of contemporary thought?”

McGowan hung his head in a mixture of shame and realization. He saw Lacan and Žižek emerge from the shadows, their piercing intellect and wry smiles adding to his discomfort. Lacan spoke, his words dripping with irony, “Ah, Todd, it seems you’ve stumbled upon a paradox. You criticize the very foundation upon which your own intellectual house stands.”

Žižek chimed in, his voice booming with philosophical resonance, “But fear not, for we are here to remind you that psychoanalysis is a tool, a lens through which we can scrutinize the human psyche, including its darkest corners like racism.”

As McGowan’s surreal encounter continued, he was forced to confront his own ingratitude and hypocrisy. He realized that while psychoanalysis may have its limitations, it also provided the framework through which he had developed his own ideas. It was not a failure but a foundation, a springboard for critical thought and introspection.

In this dreamlike narrative, Todd McGowan learned a valuable lesson about the complexities of intellectual indebtedness and the need for a nuanced perspective. As he awoke from this surreal encounter, he felt a renewed sense of purpose, ready to engage with psychoanalysis and its potential to address racism, rather than dismissing it as part of the problem.