Perversion and Utopia

Perversion and Utopia
Author: Joel Whitebook
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 372
Release: 1996-10-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780262731171


Download Perversion and Utopia Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In this sweeping challenge to the postmodern critiques of psychoanalysis, Joel Whitebook argues for a reintegration of Freud's uncompromising investigation of the unconscious with the political and philosophical insights of critical theory. Perversion and Utopia follows in the tradition of Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilization and Paul Ricoeur's Freud and Philosophy. It expands on these books, however, because of the author's remarkable grasp not only of psychoanalytic studies but also of the contemporary critical climate; Whitebook, a philosopher and a psychoanalyst, writes with equal facility on both Habermas and Freud. A central thesis of Perversion and Utopia is that there is an essential affinity between the utopian impulse and the perverse impulse, in that both reflect a desire to bypass the reality principle that Freud claimed to define the human condition. The book explores the positive and negative aspects of the relationship between these impulses, which are ubiquitous features of human life, and the requirements of civilized social existence. Whitebook steers a course between orthodox psychoanalytic conservatism, which seeks simply to repress the perverse-utopian impulse in the name of social continuity and cohesion, and those forms of Freudo-Marxism, postmodernism, and psychoanalytic feminism that advocate its direct and full expression in the name of emancipation. While he demonstrates the limitations of the current textual approaches to Freud, especially those influenced by Lacan, Whitebook also enlists the lessons of psychoanalysis to counteract the excessive rationalism of the Habermasian brand of critical theory, thus making a substantial contribution to current discussions within critical theory itself. His analysis and interpretation of perversion, narcissism, sublimation, and ego bring new insight to these central and thorny issues in Freud, and his discussions of Adorno, Marcuse, Castoriadis, Habermas, Ricoeur, Lacan, and others are equally penetrating.


Perversion and Utopia
Language: en
Pages: 372
Authors: Joel Whitebook
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 1996-10-31 - Publisher: MIT Press

GET EBOOK

In this sweeping challenge to the postmodern critiques of psychoanalysis, Joel Whitebook argues for a reintegration of Freud's uncompromising investigation of t
Perversion and Utopia: Studies in Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Joel Whitebook
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 1996 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK

Annotation. In this sweeping challenge to the postmodern critiques of psychoanalysis, Joel Whitebook argues for a reintegration of Freud's uncompromising invest
The World of Perversion
Language: en
Pages: 266
Authors: James Penney
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-02-01 - Publisher: State University of New York Press

GET EBOOK

In The World of Perversion, James Penney argues that antihomophobic criticism has nothing to lose—and indeed everything to gain—by reclaiming the psychoanal
The Last Utopia
Language: en
Pages: 346
Authors: Samuel Moyn
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-03-05 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

GET EBOOK

Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became fa
Love in the Ruins
Language: en
Pages: 350
Authors: Walker Percy
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-03-29 - Publisher: Open Road Media

GET EBOOK

DIVDIV“A great adventure . . . So outrageous and so real, one is left speechless.” —Chicago Sun Times/divDIV/divDIVIn Walker Percy’s future America, the