Wine, Cheese, and Conscience at the Forum (meeting report)

For the November 16, 2013 Psychohistory Forum meeting on “Social and Historical Influences on Psychoanalytic Thought,” sociology professor and psychoanalyst Donald L. Carveth came down from York University in Toronto to discuss some of the issues in his book The Still Small Voice: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Guilt and Conscience. Our meeting was conducted in the usual manner with the participants introducing themselves in 30 seconds and stating a question regarding the paper that had been distributed three weeks prior to the seminar. There were 20 participants altogether; allowing for multiple identifications, these included five historians, 13 psychotherapists, 11 psychoanalysts, a film professor and businesswoman, and others from assorted disciplines. The age range of the participants appeared to be from the 30s to the 70s.

Don Carveth, who is a compelling extemporaneous speaker, chose to focus on the questions that had been raised by the partici-

Page 499

pants in the seminar from his perspective as a Kleinian. At the core of his approach was the distinction between conscience and superego. There was considerable focus on the flight from issues of conscience in psychoanalysis that was noted by Jacob Arlow. In the era when people were turning inward and becoming more narcissistic, issues of conscience and guilt greatly declined in psychoanalytic literature, and narcissism became a much more important subject. Our speaker argued that issues of conscience and superego are making a comeback because things that are repressed ultimately return. An interesting observation he made was that “those who have been abused become abusers” with many becoming “self-abusers” with “the rage leaking.” To illustrate his point about the decline of conscience in psychoanalytic literature, Carveth related that back in the 1980s when he wrote “Whatever Became of the Superego?” the paper was lost by two journal editors, one of whom was his friend.

In response to a question about the role of the “ego ideal” in his thinking, Carveth referred to Freud’s description of the ego ideal as a recipient of the child’s lost omnipotence when what Freud called “the purified pleasure ego” breaks down with recognition that there is both good and bad in the me and good and bad in the not me (the achievement of ambivalence). As “heir to primary narcissism,” the ego ideal is a narcissistic structure involving a focus upon oneself and how close or distant one is from one’s ideal. In contrast, for Carveth, conscience reflects concern for the other; it is grounded in the early attachment to and love of the primary caregiver, and our identification with that nurturer. He describes the not uncommon place situation of a male professor falling in love with a female graduate student, “loving the self he was” and of the grad student “loving what she wants to be.” He sees the superego as pseudo-moral, as wanting to punish, whereas the conscience wants to repair. He loves Mark Twain’s story of Huck Finn, whose superego tells him he should turn in his friend Jim because those are the standards of slavery but his conscience tells him to protect his friend even if it means he goes to hell. Carveth described himself as an “old hippie,” as part of the movement that was in flight from guilt and experimenting with sex and drugs while being narcissistic and out of control. He feels there was a lot of regression in

Page 500

the 1960s.

Many of the generalizations he made were striking, such as “if the infant is loved it responds with love” and “if not loved, it responds with hate.” Clearly the neo-liberal ideology of Reagan, Thatcher, etc. is held in low regard by our presenter who prefers using the term the “social state” as opposed to the “welfare state.”

Carveth declared that the superego is sadistic, an internal persecutor, which he would like to disempower. However, he does not see morality as a thinking function but is fundamentally grounded in feeling, specifically what Rousseau called “pity.” He goes against established thought by declaring that psychopaths have a conscience but one that is deeply repressed owing to their flight from a primitive, punitive superego.

A presidential psychobiographer inquired about the denigration of the presidency that has become much more intense in recent years. Carveth responded that a narcissistic society hates both whistleblowers and decent individuals in the presidency. The press functions like wolves looking for blood. Leo Rangell was onto this issue in examining Nixon in his book The Mind of Watergate. When President Carter hired Christopher Lasch to help him deal with the negativity in the country, Lasch contributed to the “Malaise Speech.” They murdered Carter politically for speaking the truth. As a Canadian, Donald Carveth drew some interesting comparisons between the U.S. and Canadian experiences, declaring that “the way you guys threw out the British” with weaponry made a difference in your character versus the Canadian character. “We didn’t throw them out, we let the British go directly into the retirement home.” (Some laughter)

Other issues mentioned included the contributions of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Karl Manheim, and Ludwig Fleck to the sociology of knowledge. Also, “the unconscious tendency to repeat actively what you experienced passively.”

A book party followed the meeting. Our group toasted Don and The Still Small Voice with champagne and washed down the fine cheeses, apples, sausage, fancy cookies, and breads with wine. The Refreshment Committee consisted of Molly Castelloe, who brought the food and Ken Fuchsman, who not only brought the

Page 501

wine but even donated a bottle of fine champagne. The view of Washington Square Park and lower Manhattan from the 9th floor of the NYU’s Kimmel Center was spectacular.

Page 502