Response to Fong and Henry

Abstract

The 1970s encounter between feminism and psychoanalysis was a turning point in the history of the left. On the surface, Freud, who until then had been increasingly drawn on for revolutionary purposes, was discredited as a proponent of male supremacy and innate aggression. Thereafter, feminism effectively replaced psychoanalysis as a “folk psychology,” that is, an everyday ethic and popular hermeneutic. At a deeper level, the encounter presaged a transformation in the character of the left—from a movement that aimed at a revolution in economic life to one that sought transformation of personal life and identity. In his 2015 Political Freud, Eli Zaretsky limned the outlines of this 50-year-old mutation, identifying both its costs and its benefits. In their CHS review essay (spring 2018), Benjamin Fong and Phillip Henry argued that Zaretsky had overstated the costs and undervalued the benefits. In this article, Zaretsky responds.