Review: [untitled] Author(s): William R. Caspary Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Mar.

, 1991), pp. 257-258 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1962895 . Accessed: 19/08/2011 08:16
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Book Reviews: Political Theory

detailingof the legisher carefulchronological lative history of Title VII; early Title VII cases in which the employmentdiscrimination under the court first defined "discrimination" title; and evaluationof the justices'efforts to delineatetheir position on affirmativeaction programs,whethermandatedor voluntary. Chapters2 and 4, particularly,reveal affirmative action political dynamics, such as motivationfor the 1972 amendcongressional ment to Title VII, the philosophyof Reagan's OpportunityCommission EqualEmployment underClarence Thomas,and the impactof the changing composition of the U.S. Supreme by the abCourt. Some may be disappointed breviatedcoverage of gender discrimination. Readers with pedagogical interests are rewarded with ample and easily obtained excourt cerpts from the case briefs and Justices' opinions to illustratethe competingpositions; lengthy quotationsfrom significantactors in all threebranchesof government; and a useful listingof court cases cited. Politicalscientists, legal philosophers and historians, and the generalpublicwill find material of valuein AffirmativeAction and the Principles of Justice, although Legal Realistsprobably will not be convincedby Greene's (p. 168)conclusionthat the justice's choice between two competing principles "is not dependent on a justice's ideology or personal values. The choice depends on which justificationprovides the 'more sensitive or sounder analysis of the underlying moralprinciples'."
DLANE E. WALL

MississippiState University

POLITICAL THEORY
MelanieKleinand CriticalSocial Theory:An Accountof Politics,Art, and ReasonBased on Her Psychoanalytic Theory. By C. Fred Alford. New Haven:YaleUniversityPress, 1989. 232p. $25.00. Alfordbeginsby recasting Marcuse's project in Eros and Civilization, replacingFreudian theorywith that of MelanieKlein.He goes on to constructa Kleiniantheory of society. One advantageof Klein, he asserts,is her view of love as other-regarding and caring. Freudian (and Platonic)eros, Alford argues, is fundamentally selfish. Klein's theory also offers specialresourcesfor critique:(1) her resolute with humanpassions (not Freudengagement ian "drives"),especially anger, and (2) her stress on the defense of splitting-polarizing images of other people into extremelygood ones and extremelybad destructive nurturing ones. Infantsare prone to intense rage, and this arousesgreatfearabout theirown destructiveness. Since self-other boundaries are quite vagueat this stage, they easilyprojectthisrage onto others to relieve their fear. But then the otherappearsas a terrifying threat. aggressive 257 The childreassures itselfwith the fantasyof an all-good nurturing protectingother. Thus, we have a split between the extremegood image and extremebad image. The intensity of its anger and fear prevents the child from integratingthese imagesand perceivingdegreesof good and bad in one person. This anger,fear, projecting, and (aboveall) splittingcontinueat an unconscious level throughoutlife, along with more differentiated and reality-oriented functioning. Manifestation of splitting in adults is neitherevidenceof psychopathology or regressionto infancy. It is an inescapable part of adult functioning. Fear, however, can abate enough-thanks to biologicalmaturation and a reasonably supportive environment-for childrento achieve a degreeof integration. Lovingand angryfeelings toward one person can come to coexist, and a perceptionof othersas both caringand One can thenaccept hostilecan be established. that person's otherness and experience an love. Becauseof that love one other-regarding can feel guilt at one's own destructiveimpulsive acts and can attemptto make restitution or reparation to the loved one. Largegroups like one's ethnicgroup or na-

AmericanPolitical Science Review Vol. 85

tion are the arenapar excellencefor splitting. Suchgroupsdo not recognizeand supportour unique individuality,helping us to integrate love and hate. Instead,they intensifyour fear, since we cannot know what the others are thinking about us. Paradoxically,the large group offers us a defense through splitting againstthe same fears that it exacerbates. The much-remarked in-group-versus-out-group antagonismhere gains specificexplanationin termsof (1)preexisting anxiety,(2) large-group intensificationof that anxiety, and (3) the defensemechanism of splitting,which offersa powerful predispositiontoward idealizedimages of one's own group and demonizedimages of the "enemy." For Alford, a great deal of social structureand interactioncan be accountedfor in these terms.He is aware, however, of straightforward task groups and of real conflictsof interest. The Frankfurt school stressedinstrumental reason-limiting thought to finding means towardpreestablished ends-as the core of the pathology of modern society. According to Alford, they saw instrumental reasonas based on literalism-understanding symbolsas identicalwith the thingsymbolized.Alfordaccepts this diagnosisand explainsit in Kleinianterms: intellectualcuriosity originatesin an infant's aggressive appropriative(hence destructive) approachto the world. This in itself is not the problem;it is the fear and defensivenessthat aggressivenessarouses in us. This leads to splitting between a rigid literal instrumental reasonand a fancifulutopianidealismunconnected to action in the world. The mitigation of anxiety and integration of split images, Alfordargues,can lead to a humanreasonthat is neitherrigidand literal,nor escapist. Alfordfindsan unresolved splitin Marcuse's theory of art between immanenceand transcendence.In its relationto human suffering, immanent artcan only immerse us in our tragic condition and lead to despair. Transcendent art envelops sufferingin the formalbeauty of its depictionand leadsus to escape.Lostin the to the evil beautyof art itselfwe arereconciled in the world instead of acting to change it. Alford traces this split to Marcuse'scommitment to Platoniceros. Erosis concerned above all with the self and pleasure.A Kleinianloving-caring response, however, permits an other-regardingabsorption in the object. Thus, the discovery and contemplation of truthbecomespart of the functionof art, not simplythe creationof beautifulformthattran258 scends reality. Alford writeslucidly, engagescentralissues for politicalphilosophy,and offersfresh,stimulatinginsights.The book is a must for those in criticaltheory and in the applicainterested tion of psychoanalyticideas. I recommendit with some hesitation to those new to these fields, not for any lack of clarity and accessibility but becauseit is one-sidedand dogmatic in its Kleinian orientation. Indeed, I found Alford'sinsistencethathis was theproper,correct, and trueinterpretation not only irritating but philosophically naive. Alford insists that love as understoodby Klein is unselfish,yet he roots love in an impulse to "repair" the other for fear one no longer will have access to her or his nurturance. He makes a rigid dichotomy between depth psychology and social psychology, the formermakingthe passionsthe core of personality and individuality,the latterflatteningthe passions and emphasizing the social construction of the self. Such a dichotomy scarcely does justice to reality. In addition, he does grave injusticeto the objectrelationstheoryof Winnicott, forcing it into the social psychology category. Alford accepts uncriticallythe Frankfurt School view that instrumental reason is equivalent to identity thinkingscarcelyan accurateaccountof even the twentieth-centurylogical empiricistview. He also that all rationalthoughtis assumesuncritically His analytical, hence aggressive-destructive. view of both people and society is highly schematic. Is this a powerful generative and schemethat does justiceto humanrichness individuality or a flattened, dehumanized He is so absorbedin his own set of reduction? questions, concepts, and answers that he shows scant understandingof other enterprises. His criticismsof other psychoanalytically orientedsocial theoristsexhibitthis tunnel vision, yet on particular points he is astute and deservesseriousattention.Likehis Frankfurt School mentors,Alford wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to judgepsychoanalytic tenets on the basis of his own philosophical postulates and principles. Yet he wishes to claimempirical groundingin clinical evidence for certain psychoanalyticpropositions. Methodologicallyand epistemologicalat best. ly, he is unreflective
R. CASPARY WILLIAM

WashingtonUniversity