The social psychology of critical theory

Lauren Langman

pp. 443-462

in: The Palgrave handbook of critical theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

This chapter suggests that, while not easily discerned and indeed denied, Marx did have an implicit notion of "human nature" and elements of an implied social psychology of (thwarted) desire that informed the 1844 manuscripts. Why was alienation onerous? People felt pain! More specifically, the class relationships of market society, based on private property, depended on alienated wage labor to produce surplus value, which, together with the dominant ideologies that sustained capitalism, frustrated the basic fundamental human. One of the fundamental innovations of the Frankfurt School (FS) following this was the incorporation of the newly emerging psychoanalytic depth psychology into a critical, emancipatory social psychology of domination. As this chapter explains, not only were such concerns absolutely central for the early FS, but also their perspectives continue to provide major insights into the contemporary world fraught with the dangers from unprecedented inequality fostering resurgent fascism and nihilistic terror.

Cited authors

Marx Karl