Psychoanalytic explanations of racism are reductionist, non-falsifiable and anti-political

Given that racism works at an unconscious level, it follows, in Cohen's¶ view, that strategies to challenge it at a conscious level are doomed to¶ failure. They are bound to fail precisely because they are rational and¶ fail to appreciate that the power of racism lies in the fact that it is¶ unconscious. To deinstitutionalise racism `will not in itself abolish¶ the power of the racist imagination' which will continue to flourish¶ through the media of popular culture long after its state forms have¶ withered away.42 `All the evidence to date', Cohen writes elsewhere,¶ `shows that the racist imagination is not accessible to rationalist¶ pedagogies, and almost effortlessly resists their impact'. What is all¶ this evidence? Certainly it is neither presented nor cited.43 Rustin,¶ too, claims that classroom teaching can have the effect of `increasing¶ kinds of defensive organisation'. But he cites no evidence - other¶ than referring to Cohen's work - and seems to believe that all `antiracism'¶ in education is a matter of seeking to change attitudes, rather¶ than opening up new ways of looking at the world.44¶ In Cohen's schema, then, racism is taken out of society and material¶ reality and lodged very firmly in the minds, the unconscious minds, of¶ individual subjects. Although in his 1988 article, `The perversions of¶ inheritance', he distanced himself from a position that afforded¶ absolute autonomy to the ideological, and thus ran the risk, as he¶ acknowledged, of `substituting changes in personal attitude or societal¶ values for structural reforms', this is, in fact, where he has ended up.¶ As his work has developed, there is less and less sense of any¶ political project of anti-racism and an almost exclusive concentration¶ on dealing with the beliefs and attitudes of racists. Ideology has¶ become all.¶ In placing racism in the unconscious, Cohen is very much in line¶ with the most orthodox of psychoanalysis which claims to find¶ `inside' individuals (whatever that might mean - the notion of an `internal¶ world' is always taken for granted and never really put into question)¶ what actually belongs in society, in what psychoanalysis calls¶ `the external world'. Indeed, one of the earliest Marxist critiques of¶ Freud's theories made precisely this point, accusing Freud of rendering¶ individual what was irredeemably social.45 In the same vein, and particularly¶ germane to the present discussion, the refusal of psychoanalysis¶ to acknowledge social and political reality, to see what is in front of it, is¶ exemplified in the following story.¶ Like many analysts of her time, Melanie Klein, in whose tradition¶ Cohen writes, engaged in the quite unethical and inappropriate practice¶ of analysing her own children. She began her son Erich's analysis in¶ Budapest in 1920 when he was 5 and continued it when she separated¶ from her husband and moved to Berlin. There, Erich developed a¶ phobia about going outside. Klein `explained' to Erich that his anxiety¶ was due to his fantasies about having sexual intercourse with his¶ mother. Erich told his mother of a street that was particularly frightening¶ to him because it was filled with young `toughs' who tormented him.¶ Klein ignored this and, recalling that the street was filled with large¶ trees, interpreted these as phalluses and evidence of his continued¶ desire for his mother and of his fear of castration as a punishment.¶ Years later, Erich's elder brother Hans, also an analysand of his¶ mother, told Erich that the youths had, in fact, been an anti-Semitic¶ gang that routinely attacked Jewish children. Erich had never been¶ told by his mother that he was Jewish. As the historian of psychotherapy¶ Philip Cushman comments: `It is difficult to know what is¶ more remarkable in this incident with Erich: Klein's dismissal of, her¶ almost phobic denial of, the ``external'' social realm, or her remarkable¶ self-centredness.' 46 Klein, in other words, placed in the mind of her son¶ that which fully belonged in the material world. Objective reality¶ became a `state of mind'. Exactly the same criticism can be levelled¶ at Cohen's placing of racism inside the unconscious minds of individuals.¶ It is indeed ironic that, with postmodernists such as Cohen,¶ we should be witnessing a return to a past - albeit at a more sophisticated¶ level of `discourse' - when, according to the liberal race relations¶ paradigm, racism did not really exist, only racial prejudice, something¶ that was individual and psychological.¶ The question of method¶ Cohen's work unavoidably raises the question of the status of psychoanalysis¶ as a social or political theory, as distinct from a clinical one.¶ Can psychoanalysis, in other words, apply to the social world of groups, institutions, nations, states and cultures in the way that it does,¶ or at least may do, to individuals? Certainly there is now a considerable¶ body of literature and a plethora of academic courses, and so on, claiming¶ that psychoanalysis is a social theory. And, of course, in popular¶ discourse, it is now a commonplace to hear of nations and societies¶ spoken of in personalised ways. Thus `truth commissions' and the¶ like, which have become so common in the past decade in countries¶ which have undergone turbulent change, are seen as forms of national¶ therapy or catharsis, even if this is far from being their purpose. Nevertheless,¶ the question remains: does it make sense, as Michael Ignatieff¶ puts it, to speak of nations having psyches the way that individuals do?¶ `Can a nation's past make people ill as we know repressed memories¶ sometimes make individuals ill? . . . Can we speak of nations ``working¶ through'' a civil war or an atrocity as we speak of individuals working¶ through a traumatic memory or event?' 47¶ The problem with the application of psychoanalysis to social institutions¶ is that there can be no testing of the claims made. If someone says,¶ for instance, that nationalism is a form of looking for and seeking to¶ replace the body of the mother one has lost, or that the popular¶ appeal of a particular kind of story echoes the pattern of our earliest¶ relationship to the maternal breast, how can this be proved? The¶ pioneers of psychoanalysis, from Freud onwards, all derived their¶ ideas in the context of their work with individual patients and their¶ ideas can be examined in the everyday laboratory of the therapeutic¶ encounter where the validity of an interpretation, for example, is a¶ matter for dialogue between therapist and patient. Outside of the consulting¶ room, there can be no such verification process, and the further¶ one moves from the individual patient, the less purchase psychoanalytic¶ ideas can have. Outside the therapeutic encounter, anything¶ and everything can be true, psychoanalytically speaking. But if everything¶ is true, then nothing can be false and therefore nothing can be¶ true.¶ An example of Cohen's method is to be found in his 1993 working¶ paper, `Home rules', subtitled `Some reflections on racism and nationalism¶ in everyday life'. Here Cohen talks about taking a `particular line¶ of thought for a walk'. While there is nothing wrong with taking a line¶ of thought for a walk, such an exercise is not necessarily the same as¶ thinking. One of the problems with Cohen's approach is that a kind¶ of free association, mixed with deconstruction, leads not to analysis,¶ not even to psychoanalysis, but to... well, just more free association,¶ an endless, indeed one might say pointless, play on words. This¶ approach may well throw up some interesting associations along the¶ way, connections one had never thought of but it is not to be confused¶ with political analysis. In `Home rules', anything and everything to do¶ with `home' can and does find a place here and, as I indicated above, even the popular film Home Alone is pressed into service as a story¶ about `racial' invasion.¶ Cohen's method also relies to no little extent on various caricatures.¶ There is the parody of an undifferentiated anti-racism which is always¶ crude and simplistic in its explanations, always dogmatic and authoritarian¶ in its prescriptions. `It is no longer possible', Cohen claims at one¶ point, `to call a spade a spade . . . because the level of connotations,¶ which is always open to multiple associations, including racist ones,¶ has been shut down ``By Order''.' 48 No one would deny that much¶ that is called anti-racism has been ill-considered or counter-productive¶ or simple-minded, but to suggest that this is the whole story - and this is¶ the picture one gets from Cohen's account - appears simply bad faith.¶ Nor does one get any sense from his account that some forms of antiracism¶ have been subjected to the most rigorous critique - from other¶ anti-racists, notably in this journal. So, too, there is the distorted depiction¶ of teachers bearing the anti-racist message. In Cohen's world, they¶ are always middle class, relying on a `deficit model' of working-class¶ culture, and engaged in a `civilising mission', believing themselves to¶ be `the bringers of reason and tolerance to those gripped by unreason,¶ prejudice and ignorance'.49 Doubtless such attitudes exist, but Cohen's¶ depiction is so one-dimensional; it has no room for complexity or¶ difference. If it did, he could not take up the position that he does, of¶ the one who really knows. It is also a position that takes Cohen on¶ to dangerous ground in which, at times at least, it seems as though¶ all authority is bad (in the language of Foucault, it is tutelary and¶ constitutes surveillance) and all resistance to authority good, or at¶ least understandable.50¶ Racism without history¶ Not only is racism psychologised and individualised. It also becomes¶ something that is universal. Cohen's colleague Rustin makes this¶ clear in the article cited earlier,51 while Cohen himself states that¶ `Every language and culture, in so far as it is able, privileges its own¶ practices, using them to define its own origins, and defend its own¶ boundaries. Every form of ethnicity, if it has the means, is ethnocentric.¶ The key word is if.'52 (There is a dangerous slippage here in that¶ `ethnocentrism' is not the same as racism and, while it may turn into¶ it, it need not and frequently does not.) What is not explained by¶ either Cohen or Rustin is why some individuals or some groups are¶ `more' racist or less racist than others. Racism is thus completely¶ removed from history, but what is also not explained in this regard is¶ why it is more or less virulent at particular times and in particular¶ places. A psychoanalytic account like Cohen's simply cannot account¶ for such twentieth-century events as the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks in 1914 or the destruction of the Jews, or indeed anything¶ else. `To deny racism its history', Cohen had written in 1988, `is to¶ surrender to a kind of fatalism.'53 Yet that is precisely the position¶ he has come to occupy.¶ The question is not whether or not racism operates at an unconscious¶ level. There is clearly too much evidence to deny this. The question¶ is, rather, how important is this unconscious working? Should it¶ be, can it be, the focus of anti-racist strategy? For Cohen, however,¶ the unconscious has become all; nothing else really matters. Here we¶ have reached the site of a psychoanalytic determinism - a curious inversion¶ of the crude materialism that Cohen would rightly distance himself¶ from. It is a determinism which holds that we are not at all rational¶ thinking beings, but that we are driven all the time by forces beyond¶ our control. Our attachment to a belief or an ideal, our cultural preferences,¶ all these are to be explained by some supposed psychoanalytic¶ interpretation. There is no hope, then, except in the form of psychoanalytic¶ or psychotherapeutic treatment and it is this which Cohen¶ seeks to offer through his cultural studies approach.