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Within the wide range of [[cultural ]] and [[social ]] interests that led to Sigmund [[Freud]]'s "The Claims of PsychoAnalysis to [[Scientific ]] Interest" (1913j), [[politics ]] appears as the poor relative.
However, contrary to the rumor that claims Freud was "apolitical," or "politically inert," it can be shown that there are extremely close [[links ]] between all of Freud's work—analyseswork—[[analyses]], investigations, [[concepts]], projects—and the sources and resources that constitute truly [[political ]] [[thought]].
Together with the American ambassador William C.
Bullitt, Freud put his [[name ]] to a book of political [[psychoanalysis ]] in the strict [[sense]], <i>Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Twenty-Eighth President of the [[United States]]: A [[Psychological ]] Study</i>, (1966 [1938]), that has received little comment.
Freud's anthropological [[work ]] is considerable.
He questioned the origin and [[structure ]] of [[society ]] in <i>[[Totem ]] and [[Taboo]]</i> (1912-1913a), unmasked illusions and dogmas in <i>The [[Future ]] of an Illusion</i> (1927c) and <i>[[Civilization ]] and its Discontents</i> (1930a), denounced Bolshevism in one of the <i>New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis</i>—"On a [[Weltanschauung]]" (1933a), and described the foundation of a [[religion]], a [[culture]], and a people—the Jews—in <i>[[Moses ]] and [[Monotheism]]</i> (1939a).
In 1908 he strongly criticized "[[civilized ]] [[sexual ]] [[morality]]" (1908d), the source of "the nervous [[illness ]] of modern [[times]]."
His 1921 essay, <i>Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego</i> (1921c), which dismantles the concepts of leader, crowd, and power, can be seen as the foundation of all political psychoanalysis.
In <i>The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams]]</i> (1900a), politics saturates the imagery of the "[[dream ]] of Count Thun," the prime minister of the emperor.
Quoting Beaumarchais, Zola, Panizza, and mobilizing the [[revolution ]] of 1848, social-[[democracy]], and [[anti-Semitism]], Freud denounces the "nothingness" represented by Count "Nichtsthun" and celebrates his own "revolutionary [[humor]]."
Although he is not committed to political action like his friend Heinrich Braun, at least he sees his foundational work, <i>The Interpretation of Dreams</i>, as a form of Promethean subversion: "Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo"—"If I am unable to influence the Gods, I will shake up Hell."
Aside from these lines of force of political thought, all Freud's psychological system is rich with political implications.
Following [[Copernicus ]] and [[Darwin]], he lays [[claim ]] to a [[true ]] and grandiose [[ideological ]] "revolution."
In the unconscious the ego is no longer master in its own house and humanity must therefore drive it out.
In the [[agency ]] of the [[superego]], Freud ascribed values, ideals, and imperatives associated with morality and society to the [[psyche]].
No socio-political [[theory ]] or [[practice ]] can simply neglect the sovereign preeminence of [[drives ]] and the [[unconscious]], which various [[ideologies]], especially totalitarian, have been able to exploit.
The triptych of the sexual [[drive]], the [[death ]] drive, and the [[instinct ]] for [[mastery ]] exercises an implacable [[determinism ]] throughout [[existence]], social and political, [[individual ]] and psychological.
It is significant that the most heightened forms of political thought—Machiavellithought—[[Machiavelli]], [[Hobbes]], La Boétie, [[Marx]], Weber, and others—intersect with and illustrate many of Freud's psychological [[ideas]].
The radical [[rejection ]] of all forms of illusion, the will to lucidity based on a flexible [[rationality]], the [[dismantling ]] of connections within communities, the emphasis on the [[autonomy ]] and [[responsibility ]] of the individual subject—Freud's political thought remains an inexhaustible resource, even when contested or misused, for original [[psycho]]-political constructs.
Some of these include the research and bold assumptions of Wilhelm [[Reich]], often summarily categorized as "[[Freudian]]-[[Marxism]]," the "social-democratic" [[psychology ]] of Alfred Adler, the anarchism of Otto Gross, the "Trotskyite" element in Otto Fenichel, the democratic and eclectic [[humanism ]] of Erich [[Fromm]], Herbert [[Marcuse]]'s Orphic leftism, [[Deleuze ]] and [[Guattari]]'s libertarian schizoanalysis, and so on.
