Western Psychology Marxist Orientation, New Progress In Research

The rise of a Marxist orientation among schools of contemporary Western psychology proves once again the strong vitality of Marxist thought.Today with the prevalence of Marxist schools of all kinds in western psychological research, new trends are emerging, such as positivist psychological Marxism, feminist psychological Marxism, critical psychological Marxism, which differ from traditional Marxism, like psychoanalytic psychological Marxism, human psychological Marxism, and dialectical psychology.Since the emergence and development of a Marxist orientation in psychology, by its own scientific depth, and the logic of power, Marxism plays an extremely important role in launching a siries of attacks on the empiricism, positivism, mechanism, reductionism of Western mainstream psychology, not only for overcoming the poverty of contemporary psychological theory, but also for offering much useful enlightenment for the future of psychology.Despite the lack of a unified school of these newly formed Marxist research orientations and the many differences and conflicts among various branches, they share common characteristics on some basic issues:first, criticalness becomes the mainstream of a Marxist orientation in Western psychology; from macro critique to micro critique, from the reality critique of post-industrial social systems in developed capitalist countries to the critique of science, technology, ethics, arts, and psychoanalysis; second, they all attach importance to the social relations and cultural historical background of the subjects of psychological study. They unanimously call attention to the social attributes of psychology; they generally emphasize development in a "more social" direction rather than a more "natural science" direction; they believe that psychology cannot be divorced from the social and cultural impact for value-neutral research; they believe that the generation of psychological knowledge, either by scientific procedures or through other means, cannot be seperated from culture, as psychology is a part of culture, and social-historical-cultural patterns should be the basic connotation and framework of psychological research; third, these studies concern the emergence of lower level elements and concepts:in order to bring Marxist concepts closer to the psychological discourse system, they no longer study macro-narrative problems only, but pay more specific attention to the micro level. The new development orientation in Western Marxist psychological research has brought new ideas to theory construction in psychology:the current basic concepts and functional analysis from Western Marxist psychology add new content to psychological development in-depth; the earnest concern for social reality and a strong spirit of participation in social change shown in the orientation indicate a wide potential for the future development of psychology; the second flourishing of Western Marxist psychology enriches and expands the content and domain of Marxist studies, and makesa brilliant contribution to our understanding of the psychological-cultural content of the human condition.The new international Marxist orientation in psychology makes a return to a Marxism which provides new ideas and methodologies of psychological research, and reflects the new vitality of Marxism and scientific innovation. It has made a great contribution to the development of research on Western Marxist psychology. Therefore, to study and summarize the latest progress and achievements of the Marxist orientation of Western psychology will be of self-evident importance as terms of both its academic significance and its practical value, for the purpose of meeting the challenges of contemporary social trends and enriching the study of psychology under the guidance of tradition dialectical materialism.