Why to Read Winnicott after the US Election, and How

Journal of Critical Realism

This paper develops a theory of how democratic governance is possible. It analyses democracy as a laminated system consisting of three interdependent levelsthe political/institutional, the social/interactional, and the psychological/intrapsychiceach of which is necessary for the others to exist. Each level is subject to a regulatory principle that is necessary for it to function appropriately. At the political/institutional level, competing political parties must be governed by the regulatory principle of 'loser's consent,' in which the losing party must agree to cede power to the winning party. At the social/interactional level individuals from opposing political parties must be governed by the regulatory principle of a superordinate identity as citizen, which allows them to transcend their partisan political identities. At the psychological/intrapsychic level individuals must be governed by the regulatory principle of mutuality/thirdness which allows the possibility of an alternative to the binary identities that result from the doer/done-to position.

2022

The Journal of Politics

Terry Nardin's The Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott is a generally sound and lucid exposition of the major Oakeshottian corpus. It is organized around the Oakeshottian themes that philosophy has little relevance for practical existence (including politics); that the activity of "theorizing" is capable of achieving conclusions solely for the sake of understanding; and that this achievement cannot be further reduced to any sort of practical or moral or psychological level of meaning: "It is his achievements as a philosopher committed to disengaging theorizing from practical concerns that will, I believe, ultimately distinguish Oakeshott from the political theorists of his time" (12). In other words, Nardin wants Oakeshott taken seriously as a philosopher, not as a "political theorist." Along the way of an exposition thematically organized around subjects such as "understanding," "doing," and "historical understanding," Nardin (in what for this reviewer was the most illuminating and useful aspect of the book) compares and contrasts Oakeshott with such twentieth-century thinkers as Collingwood, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Habermas, Gadamer, Rorty, Foucault, and the scientist, Arthur Eddington; and such nineteenth-century thinkers as Nietzsche, Mill, Dilthey, Droysen, and Windelband. Another of the book's virtues, especially for readers less familiar with the Oakeshottian corpus, is the lucid exposition of "human conduct" and "theorizing contingency," which links them to the earlier accounts of the modalities of practice and history, respectively. Nardin places Oakeshott in the hermeneutic tradition interpreting a world of meanings as its given, but goes on to show how Oakeshott's view of theorizing human conduct sets him off in different ways from now one and now another of the previously mentioned thinkers and also from mainstream social science. It is the informed contrast with these other thinkers that has the effect of putting Oakeshott's often elusive and apparently idiosyncratic themes in their intellectual context, and of distinguishing Nardin's book from being merely a competent and lucid summary of most of Oakeshott's major themes, thematically construed around the irrelevance of philosophical understanding for practical understanding. The introduction distinguishes Oakeshott's themes from various existentialist, pragmatist, and post-modernist views, while also showing where

This paper discusses a theme touched upon in Robert Innis's article on cultural psychology and philosophy, namely how we, within cultural psychology, seem to be undecided about how best to provide value on a societal level. It is discussed how psychology has provided us with several valuable tools for examining and understanding our own existence , despite the fact that it is also a field that has seemed to be in one crisis after another since its inception. It is argued that cultural psychology is an intellectual technology that allows us to peek under the hood of society, which is of utmost importance in today's society, where democratic ideals are under severe pressure. Corporations, industries, and privileged individuals exercise increased control over political processes, having created obscure systems by which they operate. It is concluded that cultural psychology needs to find its role as a scientific discipline that contributes to making transparent the political, social, and interpersonal relations that define how our lives are shaped, if we want a discipline that provides value beyond the scientific realm.

2007

T he collection of twelve essays contained in this monograph is meant to initiate and inform the 2007–2008 University Dialogue. " Democracy " is a complex concept in contemporary American culture for a variety of reasons. While it is a term used by citizens of all political persuasions, ethnic identities, social classes, and geographic locales, its meanings have varied over time and place, and interpretations of the ideals con-noted by " democracy " seem to be as much a function of the speaker as of a common, shared set of understand-ings. The authors of the essays offer several interesting and thought provoking insights into democracy, each of which deserves careful thought and reflection. In an effort to help structure some of your own interpretations and to provoke new insights, we offer a brief guide intended to stimulate not only personal reflection but also discussion with your peers, family, and faculty. With the upcoming presidential primary elections and...

2006

This dissertation examines some of the ways that mid-century American culture represented mental health and employed psychology to understand and describe America and Americans during and after World War II. I argue that Americans used psychology both to describe and define the ideal to which Americans should aspire. This ideal differed widely among authors, but almost always included an embrace of a "free" society, which among other things meant free of neuroses. Neurotic people were seen, in this literature, as not having rational free choice in their actions, and such unfree people created unfree forms of government. Psychological health was therefore not only

Contemp Polit Theory, 2007

The article revisits two basic questions of political theory posed by Jon Elster. First, should the political process be defined as private or public, and second, should its purpose be understood instrumentally or intrinsically? Having posed these questions, Elster arrives at three views of politics: social choice (private, instrumental), republican (public, intrinsic) and discourse theory (public, instrumental). I argue for a fourth view (private, intrinsic), and explain Elster's omission of this model by referring to his underlying paradigm of politics, that is, as will formation. The main thesis in Elster's article is about whether the process of will formation should be relegated to the market mechanism or dealt with via deliberative forums. I reject this paradigm and argue instead for politics as jurisdiction. This notion of politics is concerned with the question of how both market and forum processes of will formation should be institutionalized. Defining politics as jurisdiction strongly improves the plausibility of the missing fourth model of democratic will formation, as a depiction of democratic will formation as private in its process and intrinsic in its purpose illustrates the importance of distinguishing between two levels of democracy: namely, the civil level of will formation and the political level of jurisdiction.

The theme of this discourse is both timely and germane given our recent and ongoing experiences as a nation and as a democracy that one is tempted to refer to as either a non-developing democracy or a fraudulent democracy. The Nigerian political space since the immediate pre-independence period up till now has been characterized by violence, corruption, deceit, electoral manipulations and other ills. It is generally believed within and outside the country that the country has at different times missed golden opportunities to assert itself as a major global player economically, politically and otherwise. The potential for greatness and functional wholistic development have always been sacrificed on the altar of ethnic-political sentiments. Given the huge natural and human endowments, the nation from inception has been tagged the giant of Africa, however, 55 years after independence the "giant" appears to either be in a state of coma or does not know how to harness the potentials for greatness. History of nation states the world over has clearly shown that there exist a strong link among leadership, succession and functional development of nation states. The Nigerian experience has shown however, that there is a great disconnect among these variables. It is often the experience that transition from one government to the other almost always end in fiasco which often times takes the country backward and reverse whatever gains that might have earlier been achieved. However, the just concluded general elections and the outcomes seem to promise a new dispensation and thinking in our national life. The word change appears to be taking up a new meaning and a different societal response to national challenges. This obviously is the first presidential election in which candidates that lost conceded defeat without resorting to violence and protracted legal battle. If this is truly a change and a departure from the past, there is the need to examine mechanisms that can sustain this momentum and build an enduring national psyche which will enhance rapid socio-political development and position the country for the desired greatness. My desire in this paper is to consider the role that psychology as a discipline can play in deepening democratic values for national development. May I quickly say that Nigeria as a nation has neglected psychology and largely left out psychologists in national discourse. The discipline of psychology is one of the few (if not the only) discipline that is not backed up by legislation and consequently largely not patronized by government. The nation appears to be ignorant of the usefulness of psychology to national development and this to me is one of the major stumbling blocks in our quest to achieve greatness as a nation. My preoccupation in this paper is to highlight what psychology is, the relationship between psychology and democratic values and how psychology can facilitate national development. I do not claim that psychology has all the answers to our problem as a nation, but I make bold to say that psychology possess the tools to investigate and design interventions to bring about a change, sustain the change and influence change initiatives for wholistic development. In the words of Anderson and Christie (2001), psychologists have a long history of contributing to the development, implementation, advocacy, and evaluation of public policies. It goes without saying that these aforementioned variables are the bedrock of any developmental initiatives.

Political Studies, 1963

One of the most salutary results of this vast accumulation of data on politics (Charles Beard, 1908) has been to discredit the older speculative theorists and utopia-makers.

Psychoanalysis & History, 2018

s recent edited collection, D.W. Winnicott and Political Theory: Recentering the Subject, implicitly pulls together two very pertinent questions for current scholarship in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. First, when it comes to psychoanalysis, what critical resources might psychoanalytic theorists other than Jacques Lacan offer interdisciplinary scholars? And, second, how is a more widespread turn toward object relations psychoanalysis (as represented here by the mid-century British analyst, D.W. Winnicott) related to a critical exhaustion with the dominant intellectual discourses of anti-humanism, post-humanism, post-structuralism, and the like? These questions quietly subtend the larger interdisciplinary intervention that the collection stages and, like the editors,