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OML Archives-
Subject: Re: Reich and Marx - Thu, 14 Mar 1996 00:20:22 -0500
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 00:20:22 -0500
From: "Shawn P. Wilbur" <swilbur@bgsuvax.bgsu.edu>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.07.9603132342.A2772-d100000@bgsuvax.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Reich and Marx
To: orgonomy@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Sender: owner-orgonomy@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
I came to Reich several times, via several different routes, before the
bells really rang. I read parts of _Function of the Orgasm_, out of
curiousity as much as anything, the way i read the _Communist Manifesto_
the first time, or Freud's _Introductory Lectures..._. My education had
prepared me particularly well to appreciate Reich, Marx or Freud, all of
whom were first presented to me in rather cartoonish form, with Reich
being of course dismissed as 'crazy,' Marx and Freud as wrong and vaguely
anti-american. A "liberal" arts education can get you a pretty
conservative knowledge base. Imagine my surprise to find that none of
these folks were particularly evil or insane.
Actually, i suspect many of you can relate to the experience of finding
Reich not as mad as advertised. His thought is perhaps "unaccustomed" for
us, and certainly complex (and unfinished), but what body of thought of
any consequence isn't? Certainly, the work of Marx and Freud require as
much care in handling as Reich's, and understanding them is of particular
importance for those of us interested in Reich because of their profound
influences on him. In fact, of the two, perhaps Marx's influences is
clearer, since the influence of Freud always seems to have been played
against an interest in the psychologies of Bergson, Semon, etc. That is,
perhaps the line of influence from Marx (and Engels, who was engaged in
work on natural science at the end of his life) is most direct - however
much Reich distanced himself from various currents of Marxism (a group of
ideologies, more or less faithful to the principles to be found in the
writings of Marx and Engels), and particularly from what he called Red
Fascism, the degenerate remains of Bolshevism (which was derailed almost
at the first by intervention, both military and economic, by the
capitalist West. Forced to resort to "war communism" there was never any
opportunity for Soviet Communism to actually attempt true government by
the soviets.
If you don't understand Marx - and the differences between what Marx
advocated and "Red Fascism" as it happened - then i can't imagine that
either Reich's sex-economic and social thought or his approach to crucial
questions of science are going to be clear.
Right now, we seem to be laboring under the weight of misunderstanding,
about Marx and about what other OMLers are saying.
For example...
C. T. Phillips said:
[...]
> Unfortunately there was only one freely-elected Marxist that I
> know of, perhaps I am mistaken, but I beleive it was Presedent Allende
> of Chile. Unfortunately it appears that the U.S. Government assisted
> military dictators to overthrow and murder Allende. Not an unfamiliar
> theme, I'm afraid.
You open a difficult can of worms - or several - here. I suppose that
"freely-elected" government is meant to be related in some way to
capitalism and/or democracy. But i don't know how Allende could be the
"only" one in any event, since European parliamentary governments often
have "marxist" or "communist" members. Of course, Marx's thought is
explicitly revolutionary, and based in a notion of class conflict which
suggest that no total change in a society will come about without
revolution. Reich discusses the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in
_Mass Psychology of Fascism_ in surprisingly positive terms. In any event,
"free elections" are almost never the source of radical social change.
Certainly, the history of the US is an example of revolutionary change,
with the attendent "transition." The transition in the US was certainly
marked by violence against loyalists, continued violence against first
peoples, and the "democracy" which we ended up with was based in large
part on mistrust of the people and strong central authority. Not so
different a tale really from that of the Bolsheviks. Jefferson and Lenin
are the great flawed geniuses of peoples' revolution.
The capitalist revolution, which is perhaps still ongoing, was based in
the same sorts of constitutive violence.
> I simply disagree with the Marxist dogma which villifies
> person or persons that organise people so they can be be steadily
> employed, and depicting them as being little more than exploiters
> of labor, deseving to be prosecuted for wrongdoing. This is, in
> my opinion, seriously flawed.
Recall that the concentration of labor power necessary for the takeoff of
industrial capitalism required the forcible redirection of labor,
relocation of workers, appropriation and enclosure of land. It was
necessary to recreate laborors as mass workers, and this process has a
long and bloody history. Nobody freely elected the first capitalists, any
more than we elect them now (except to the extent our politicians stand
for them.)
No doubt there are forms of marxist and anarchist critique that are as blind
to the substance of Marx's critique of exploitation as those who have
never read Marx (and often because the 'marxists' haven't read Marx
either.) However, the 'dogma' decried here sounds like a Cold War
charicature. In any event, isn't there some difference between "organizing
people" and people organizing themselves? Isn't there an immense
difference?
> That's really all I have to say about it. I am not critiquing
> Reich <at the moment>, after all, he was a product of his time just
> as we are of ours. But I do not feel compelled to blindly accept every
> statement Reich ever made as gospel either. He had his shortcomings
> too. <gasp!> After all, he was born human into a superstitious soceity
> just as we are.
Precisely because we are products of our time and character, it is
necessary to open ourselves to explanations that are unforeseen (recall
that Reich related that capacity to democracy). If there were no other
value to Reich's work, it would still be of immense use in providing
doorways to seeing important strains of thought in provacative
juxtaposition (Marx with Freud, with Bergson, with Semon, with Engels,
etc...) What is called for is not blind faith in a "gospel," but a serious
engagement with the details of the works in question. Online forums are
not the greatest arenas for communicating subtleties, but we can try to at
least help one another see where there are unexplored possibilities.
-shawn
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