Thomas_More
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Ernst’s experience showed him Reich was wrong in thinking cured patients would become socialists. In fact, the opposite often occurred. Feeling better, they lost interest in politics. Unless they were already socialists, of course. Those remained so.
I have no interest in these later ideas of his.
Surely libido is just a name for the sexual feelings (nervous stimulation) which are aroused by certain external phenomena and certain thoughts, leading to “take off” if fortunate, and repression if not.
Likewise, any “forces” would be material and able to be studied and scrutinised.
Btw, has anyone bothered to read Blewitt’s article on Freud in The Socialist Standard?
“Freud had no political understanding whatsoever which is why his theories need the addition of a Marxian perspective. Marx’s theory of alienation has profound psychological implications which can be, and have been, explored by those using psychoanalytical techniques. We do not reject Darwin’s work because he was a Christian so let’s give Freud some slack for being a Viennese petty bourgeois. My contention, along with that of the Frankfurt school, is that Freud’s ‘death instinct’ has its roots in the alienation created by capitalism.”
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I agree absolutely, although i’ve never looked at his “death instinct” theory.Cde Fleischmann gave me Freud’s earliest essays to read, which don’t have any of that.
Ola Raknes.
Then you’ll admit Reich’s heart was in the right place. I’m no scientist either, and my understanding of both the world and the individual, and of my own problems, is philosophical, not scientific.
Freud here is being absurd, of course. Reich said he’d gone off the rails, even if Reich did too, in a different direction.Just tell me what you disagree with in this article, please.
https://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm/2021/03/08/sex-in-a-free-society/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68656853
The Moscow attack.I disagree. His conclusions came from his work with patients. Also he urged self-analysis and used a lot of physical exercises to help loosen inhibitions and rigidity.
If anything, it is psychiatry which is often bogus, rather than psychoanalysis, which is about helping people based on their individual histories, not putting them in compartments and drugging them, with the object of making them fit into the current society.On the continent, many, including Cde. Fleischmann, can still accept Reich’s early work, whilst they disapprove of his later meanderings. Similarly with Freud.
I should have said “being alone” is preferable to being with undesired, unpleasant others.
Christina of Sweden:
“Better a lifetime alone than ten minutes with you.”
Yes. Capitalism’s cut-throat nature permeates the whole of society. Reich said that by the age of ten in this society most children have at least one type of neurosis.
The competitive ferocity of the system trickles down into the working class and its children in the form of bullying. There is no proletarian solidarity in bullying.
Bullying spans all age-groups. Workers bully workers. Workers regiment workers on behalf of the capitalists. Workers intimidate each other every day. Rape each other. Abuse each other. The poorer the circle of one’s associates is, the worse the abuse.
Most days, most of us are going to receive a metaphorical punch in the face or else give one.
In practically all associations, including ones for leisure, there is spite and put-downs of a kind.
Loneliness can often appear or actually be preferable: certainly to the “contactless sociality” (a Reichian term) of present social existence.Dust Be My Destiny.
Not really.
When in thrall to the misery of unrequited love, for instance, one is conscious of it, but remains in thrall until it dies out of itself.
Similarly, one is conscious of an anxiety disorder, social discomfort, obsessions, etc., but remains victim to them.
Whilst agreeing with the SPGB that your problems are largely due to capitalism, you might still want to seek some relief by seeing a therapist.
