Rewei’s Neither Marx Nor Jesus and JeannMarie Benoist’s Marx is Dead, remainnthe intellectual avant-garde. The FrenchnMinister of Culture’s widely publicizednFebruary conference on French culture,nwhich took an abusive anti-Americanntone, became an object of ridicule amongnthe men and women of ideas. In GreatnBritain, philosopher Roger Scrutonnnoted that it was no longer socially necessarynfor a university scholar to callnhimself a Marxist.nWill the Alliance survive? Perhaps.nThe ability of governments to muddlenthrough should not be underestimated.nAlthough the midget politicians feudnover mayonnaise, pipelines, and theneschatological meaning of importednAmerican TV shows, they fear the unknownnof renewed internecine nationalismnfar more. Yet unless the culturalnoflspring of Europe rediscover an ethicalnframework for their ideological strugglenagainst the East, recharge the moral richnessnof their societies, and reaffirm theirnbond of common civilization, the AtlanticnAlliance will be no more than an antiquatednfacade; a shell with all the contemporaryndiplomatic relevance of thenHoly Alliance. DnPOLEMICS & Ext IIAN(;I:SnOn Freud.. . from New Yorknby John CMonnI much enjoyed Dr. Richard Peters’snattempt to reconcile conservatism vwthnpsychoanalysis, as I likewise enjoy mostnof what you publish in the ChroniclesnYet the conclusion reached—^that thenpopular linkage between liberal culturenand psychoanalysis “requires reevaluation”—^Infind mostly unjustified. It seemsnto me the connection was reinforced,nnot lessened, by Peters’s letter.nTwo statements (actually asides) innthe early part of his “comment” revealnthe problem: “I am a practicing psychoanalystnand think that I am reasonablynentitied to speak with some authoritynon this particular subject” and “ThenFreudian man is always in a struggle tonexpand his conscious ego and come tonterms with his instinctual urges” (emphasisnadded). There you have it. Thenunderpinnings of “individualist” psychoanalysis,nno less than collectivism, turnnon the eternal secularist principle ofngnosticism.nA Marxist is a gnostic optimist, while anFreudian is a gnostic pessimist; the onenMr Clifton is a tvriter and illustrator.n44inChronicles of Culturenseeks human plasticity in totalist praxis,nwhile the other personally examinesnhuman limits so as to subdue them. Butnboth are committed to the core conceptnof equating expanded awareness, or infinitenexploring, with manipulativenpower over the object explored. Thenformer will collectivize the community;nthe latter will amass and allocate collectivenknowledge about man, turningnhuman nature into another “subject”nabout which one can become an expertn”authority.” But both, to repeat, arengnostic expansionists. In fact, psychoanalysisnis not even pessimistic in the ultimatensense, precisely because it sharesnthe optimistic collectivist premise thatnconsciousness, an ever-studious “savior”nknowledge, conquers all. The Utopiannwants immediate and easy revolt, thendiagnosed man an earned triumph. ThusnMessrs. Marx and Freud are actuallynquite comfortable with each other innthe kitchen of modernity; they are differentnmerely in velocity and temperature,nas well as in the degree of residualntraditionalism. They differ the way anfreezer and an oven do: although theynserve opposite functions, they belong innthe same room.nnnThus it is irrelevant for Peters to observenthat liberals “do not like psychoanalysis,”nfor the truth is that even thenmost disparaging secular view of humanitynis preferable to a transcendental ornnonsecular one. A socialist can “notnlike,” yet tolerate the notion that “a badntree can produce good finiit once it acceptsnthe reality that it’s a bad tree”n(which is what psychoanalysis teaches,nin brief), simply because psychoanalysisnstill allows him to face his constitutionalndrives and gifts on a mechanistic andnmaterialistic basis.nMr. Voegelin has pointed out that,nsince time out of mind, gnosticism hasnbeen a natural impulse of secular man,none that is always leading him either towardnthe deification of the state (socialism),nor into self-deification (of whichnpsychoanalysis is one mechanism).nWherever man ceases to meditate onnthe transcendent he spontaneouslynmoves toward increasing human consciousness,nidolatrizing it in its variousnforms: education, reason, psychology,nself-knowledge, scholarship, activism,ntravel, progressivism, hedonism, careerism,nescapism, even “new consciousness”noccultism, and finally societal collectivism.nIs there any doubt that psychoanalysisnbelongs to this group, whilenconservatism decidedly does not?nConservative belief, as I see it, isnrooted in transcendental traditions,nJudeo-Christian and Classical, that arenantithetical to the animalist and Utopiannreductionisms of Freud and Marx. Traditionalistnman, even traditional humanists,nwould never put the word love among anlist of carnalities such as “rage, lust,ngreed,” as Dr. Peters does, let alonenattribute virtues to instinct The traditionalistnwould rather share Goethe’snbelief that “everything is conducted bynspirits” and therefore credit all nobilitynto transcendence or disciplined submissionnto divine authority. In my view, thenconservative would not believe thatnman is in any way self-rectifying, or thatnhe possesses somehow “higher” instinctsn(like reason) with which to control hisn