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Fascist Irrationalism

by Wilhelm Reich

from his book The Function of the Orgasm

The unsophisticated person will ask whether science upon its heights has nothing better to do than to ask such stupid questions as to whether the earthly happiness of human beings is ‘desirable’ or ‘practicable’. That, he might say, is a matter of course. Nevertheless, things are not as simple as they might appear to the buoyant, enthusiastic adolescent or the cheerful happy-go-lucky individual. In the centers that had a decisive influence upon public opinion in Europe around 1930, the demand of the masses of people for happiness was neither considered a matter of course, nor was its absence regarded as a matter for question. There was at that time literally no political organisation which would have considered it important enough to concern itself with such ‘banal’, ‘personal’, ‘unscientific’ or ‘unpolitical’ questions.

However, the social events around 1930 raised just this question in all its significance. It was the tide of Fascism which swept across Germany like a hurricane and made people ask in utter bewilderment how such a thing was possible. Economists, sociologists, cultural reformers, diplomats and statesmen alike, tried to find an answer in old books. The answer.could not be found in old books. There was not a single political pattern that would have fitted this eruption of irrational human emotions which Fascism represented. Never before had politics itself been questioned as an irrational thing.

In this volume, I shall discuss only those social events which threw into sharp focus the clash of opinions as it had taken place in Freud’s study. I have to neglect here the broad social-economic background.

Freud’s discovery of infantile sexuality and of the process of sexual repression was, sociologically speaking, the first beginning of an awareness of the denial of sex which had been existing for thousands of years. This awareness was still clothed in highly academic forms and did not trust its own ability to walk. Human sexuality claimed the right to be moved from the backstairs of social life, where for thousands of years it had been leading a filthy, unhealthy, purulent existence, to the front of the shiny edifice which was so grandly called ‘culture’ and ‘civilisation’. Sex murders, criminal abortions, sexual agony of adolescents, killing of the vital forces in children, perversions galore, pornography and the vice squad, exploitation of human longing for love by greedy and vulgar business enterprises and advertising, millions of diseases, psychic and somatic, loneliness and crippling everywhere, and on top of all this, the neurotic swash-buckling of the would-be saviors of humanityóall these things couldhardly be considered as ornaments of civilisation. The moral and social evaluation of the most important biological human function was in the hands of sexually frustrated ladies and vegetatively dead professors. There was, after all, no objection to the societies of sexually frustrated ladies and vegetative mummies; but one had to protest against the fact that it was exactly these mummies who not only tried to foist their attitudes upon healthy and flourishing organisms, but were actually able to do so. The disappointed and the mummies appealed to the general sexual guilt feeling and called to witness the sexual chaos and the ‘decline of civilisation and culture’. The masses of human beings knew, indeed, what was going on, but they kept silent because they were not quite sure whether their natural vital feelings might not be criminal after all. They had never heard anything different. Thus, the findings of Malinowski’s research in the South Sea islands had an extraordinarily fruitful effect. Their effect was not that of arousing the lascivious curiosity with which sexually disturbed traders reacted to the South Sea girls or raved about Hawaiian hula dances; it was serious.

As early as 1926, Malinowski, in one of his publications, rejected the concept of the biological nature of the sexual child-parent conflict discovered by Freud (i.e., the Oedipus conflict). He pointed out, correctly, that the child-parent relationship changes with social processes; that, in other words, it is of a sociological and not of a biological nature. Specifically, the family in which a child grows up is itself the result of sociological development. With the Trobriand islanders, for example, not the father, but the mother’s brother determines the upbringing of the children. This is an important characteristic of the matriarchate. The father plays only the role of a friend to his children. The Oedipus complex of the European does not exist among the Trobriand islanders. Of course, the child in the Trobriand islands also develops a family conflict with its taboos and precepts, but the laws governing behaviour are fundamentally different from those of the Europeans. Apart from an incest taboo for brother and sister, they contain no sexual restrictions. The English psychoanalyst Jones raised a sharp protest against this contention, with the counter assertion that the Oedipus complex, as found in the European, was the ‘foni et origo’ of all culture; and that, therefore, the family of today was an unalterable biological institution. In this controversy, it was simply a matter of the decisive question as to whether sexual repression is biologically determined and unalterable, or sociologically determined and alterable.

In 1929, Malinowski’s main work, ‘The Sexual Life of Savages’ appeared. It contains a wealth of material which confronted the world with the fact that sexual repression is of sociological and not of biological origin. Malinowski himself did not discuss this question in his book. All the more telling was the language of his material. In my book, ‘Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral’ I attempted to show the sociological origin of sex denial on the basis of the available ethnological material. I shall summarise the points which are relevant here:

‘Children in the Trobriand islands know no sex repression and no sexual secrecy. Their sex life is allowed to develop naturally, freely and unhampered through every stage of life, with full satisfaction. The children engage freely in the sexual activities which correspond to their age. Nonetheless, or rather, just for this reason, the society of the Trobrianders knew, in the third decade of our century, no sexual perversions, no functional psychoses, no psychoneuroses, no sex murder; they have no word for theft; homosexuality and masturbation, to them, mean nothing but an unnatural and imperfect means of sexual gratification, a sign of a disturbed capacity to reach normal satisfaction. To the children of the Trobrianders, the strict, obsessional training for excremental control which undermines the civilisation of the white race, is unknown. The Trobrianders, therefore, are spontaneously clean, orderly, social without compulsion, intelligent and industrious. The socially accepted form of sexual life is spontaneous monogamy without compulsion, a relationship which can be dissolved without difficulties; thus, there is no promiscuity.’

At the time when Malinowski made his studies of the Trobriand islanders, there was living a few miles away, on the Amphlett Islands, a tribe with patriarchal authoritarian family organisation. The people inhabiting these islands were already showing all the traits of the European neurotic, such as distrust, anxiety, neuroses, perversion, suicide, etc.

Our science, permeated by sex-negation as it is, has thus far succeeded in reducing the significance of decisive facts to zero by the simple method of presenting side by side the important and unimportant, the banal and the great, in neat coordination. The difference just mentioned, between the matriarchal, free organisation of the Trobriand islanders, and the patriarchal, authoritarian one on the Amphlett Islands, has more weight from a mental hygiene point of view than the most intricate and seemingly exact graphs of our academic world. This difference signifies: The determining factor of the mental health of a population is the condition of its natural love life.

Freud had contended that the sexual latency period of our children, between the ages of about six to twelve, was a biological phenomenon. My observations of adolescents from diverse strata of the population had shown that, given a natural development of sexuality, a latency period did not exist. Where a latency period occurs, it is an unnatural product of culture. For this statement I had been attacked by the psychoanalysts. Now it was confirmed by Malinowski: the sexual activities of the children in the Trobriand islands take place without interruption according to their respective age, without a latency period. Sexual intercourse is taken up when puberty demands it. The sexual life of the adolescents is monogamous; a change of partners takes place quietly and in an orderly manner, without violent jealousy. In strict contradistinction to our civilization, the society of the Trobrianders bestows care upon and facilitates adolescent sex life, particularly with regard to huts where they can be by themselves, and in other respects to the extent of their knowledge of natural processes.

There is only one group of children that is excluded from this natural course of events. These are the children who are predestined for a certain type of economically advantageous marriage. This kind of marriage brings economic advantages to the chief, and is the nucleus from which a patriarchal social order develops. This cross-cousin marriage is found wherever ethnological research has revealed actual or historical matriarchy (cf. e.g., Morgan, Bachofen, Engels). The children destined for this kind of marriage are, just like ours, brought up in sexual abstinence; they show neuroses and those character traits with which we are familiar in our character-neurotics. Their sexual abstinence has the function of making them submissive. Sexual suppression is an essential instrument in the production of economic enslavement.

Thus, sexual suppression in the infant and the adolescent is not, as psycho an alysis-in agreement with traditional and erroneous concepts of education-contends, the prerequisite of cultural development, sociality, diligence and cleanliness; it is the exact opposite. The Trobriand islanders, with full freedom of natural sexuality, have not only attained a high degree of agriculture, but, due to the absence of secondary drives, they have maintained a general state of affairs which to any European nation of 1930 or 1940 must appear like a dream.

Healthy children show a natural spontaneous sexuality. Sick children show an unnatural, that is, perverse sexuality. The alternative with which we are confronted in the matter of sexual education is thus not: sexuality or abstinence; but: natural and healthy, or perverse and neurotic sexual life.

Sexual repression is of social-economic and not of biological origin. Its function is that of laying the foundation for authoritarian patriarchal culture and economic slavery, as we see it most clearly in Japan, China, India, etc. In the early beginnings, human sex life followed natural laws which laid the basis for a natural sociality. Since then, the period of the authoritarian patriarchy of the last four to six thousand yeam has, with the energy of the suppressed natural sexuality, created the secondary, perverse sexuality of the human of today.

It would not be too much to say that the cultural revolutions of our century are determined by the struggle of humanity for a re-establishment of the natural laws of love life. This struggle for naturalness, for unity of nature and culture, reveals itself in the diverse forms of mystical longing, cosmic phantasies, ‘oceanic’ feelings, religious ecstasis, and particularly in the progressive development of sexual freedom; it is unconscious, full of neurotic conflicts and anxiety and is apt to take the forms which characterise the secondary, perverse drives. A humanity which has been forced for millennia to act contrary to its fundamental biological law and has, therefore, acquired a second nature which is actually a counter-nature, must needs get into an irrational frenzy when it tries to restore the fundamental biological function and at the same time is afraid of it.

The patriarchal, authoritarian era in human history has attempted to keep the secondary antisocial drives in cheek with the aid of compulsive moral restrictions. Thus, what is called the cultured human came to be a living structure composed of three layers. On the surface he carries the artificial mask of self-control, of compulsive, insincere politeness and of artificial sociality. With this layer, he covers up the second one, the Freudian ‘unconscious’, in which sadism, greediness, lasciviousness, envy, perversions of all kinds, etc., are kept in check, without however, having in the least lost any of their power. This second layer is the artifact of a sex-negating culture, consciously, it is mostly experienced only as a gaping inner emptiness. Behind it, in the depths, live and work natural sociality and sexuality, spontaneous enjoyment of work, capacity for love. This third and deepest layer, representing the biological nucleus of the human structure, is unconscious and dreaded. It is at variance with every aspect of authoritarian education and regime. It is, at the same time, manís only real hope of ever mastering social misery.

All discussions of the question whether man is good or bad, a social or antisocial being, are philosophical pastimes. Whether man is a social being or an irrationally reacting mass of protoplasm, depends on whether his fundamental biological needs are in harmony or in conflict with the institutions which he has created. For this reason, it is impossible to relieve the working individual from his responsibility for the order or disorder, that is, for the economy, individual and social, of the biological energy. Passing this responsibility enthusiastically from himself to some Fžhrer or politician has become one of his essential characteristics, since he is no longer able to understand either himself or his institutions, of which he is only afraid. Fundamentally, he is helpless, incapable of freedom, and craving for authority, for he cannot react spontaneously; he is armored and expects commands, for he is full of contradictions and cannot rely on himself.
The cultivated European bourgeoisie of the 19th and early 20th century had taken over the compulsive moral forms of behavior of feudalism and made them the ideal of human behavior. Since the age of rationalism, people had begun to search for the truth and to clamor for freedom. As long as the compulsive moral institutions were in forceóoutside the individual as compulsive law and public opinion, inside him a compulsive conscienceóthere was a kind of surface calm, with occasional eruptions from the volcanic underworld of the secondary drives. So long as that was so, the secondary drives remained nothing but curiosities, of interest only to the psychiatrist. They manifested themselves as symptom neuroses, neurotic criminal acts, or as perversions. But when the social upheavals began to arouse in the Europeans the longing for freedom, independence, equality and self-determination, they were naturally impelled towards liberation of the vital forces within them. Social enlightenment and legislation, pioneer work in the social sciences, and liberal organisations, they all attempted to put ‘freedom’ into this world. After the first world war had destroyed many of the compulsive authoritarian institutions, the European democracies tried to ìlead mankind toward freedom.

But this European world, in its striving for freedom, made a grave miscalculation. It overlooked what the destruction of the living function in the human over thousands of years had cultivated into a monstrosity; it overlooked the deep-seated, general defect of the character-neurosis. And then, the great catastrophe of the psychic plague, that is, the catastrophe of the irrational human character, broke out in the form of the victory of the dictatorships. The forces which had been kept in check for so long by the superficial veneer of good breeding and artificial self-control, now, borne by the very multitudes that were striving for freedom, broke through into action:

In the concentration camps; in the persecution of the Jews; in the destruction of all human decency; in the mowing down of civilian populations by sadistic monsters to whom machine-gunning civilians is a delightful sport and who get a feeling of life only when parading in goose-step; in the gigantic mass deceit in which the state claims to be representing the interest of the people; in the engulfment of tens of thousands of young people who, helplessly and loyally, believed that they were serving an idea; in the destruction of billions’ worth of human work, a fraction of which would suffice to do away with poverty all over the world; in brief, in a St. Vitus dance which will continue to recur as long as the bearers of knowledge and work do not succeed in eradicating, within themselves and outside of themselves, that mass neurosis which calls itself ‘politics’ and which thrives on the characterological helplessness of human beings.

Between 1928 and 1930, at the time of the controversies with Freud above described, I had little idea of Fascism, about as little as the average Norwegian in 1939 or the average American in 1940. Only between 1930 and 1933 did I become acquainted with it in Germany. I felt perplexed when I was confronted with it and when I recognized in it, bit by bit, the subject of the controversy with Freud. Gradually I began to understand the logic in this. The controversies had dealt with an evaluation of human structure, with the role played by the human longing for happiness, and with the irrationalism in social life. In Fascism, the psychic mass disease revealed itself in an undisguised form.

The enemies of Fascism, liberal democrats, socialists, communists, Marxist and non-Marxist economists, etc., looked for an answer to the problem either in the personality of Hitler or in formal political blunders on the part of Germany’s diverse democratic parties. The one as well as the other meant to trace the psychic plague back to individual shortsighted ness or to the brutality of one single man. In reality, Hitler was only the expression of a tragic conflict in the human masses, the conflict between longing for freedom and actual fear of freedom.

German Fascism said in so many words that it was operating not with the thinking and the knowledge of people, but with their infantile emotional reactions. Mat carried Fascism to power and subsequently secured its place, was neither its political program nor any of its innumerable and confused economic promises; it was essentially its appeal to an obscure mystical feeling, to an undefined, nebulous but nevertheless extremely powerful longing. Not to understand this, means not to understand Fascism, which is an international phenomenon.

The irrationality in the political strivings of the German masses can be illustrated in terms of the following contradictions.

The German masses wanted ‘freedom’. Hitler promised them absolute, authoritarian leadership with the explicit exclusion of any expression of opinion. Out of thirty-one million voters, seventeen million jubilantly carried Hitler to power in March, 1933. Those who looked at things with open eyes knew: The masses of people felt helpless and incapable of taking the responsibility for the solution of the chaotic social problems within the old political system and frame of thinking. The Fžhrer should and would do it for them.

Hitler promised the abolition of democratic discussion of opinion. The masses of people came running to him. They had long since grown tired of these discussions, because they had always evaded their personal everyday concerns, that is, that which was subjectively important. They did not want discussions of ‘the budget’ or of ‘high diplomacy’; they wanted actual, true knowledge about their own lives. When they did not get that, they gave themselves over to authoritarian leadership and the illusionary protection which was promised to them.

Hitler promised the abolition of the freedom of the individual and the establishment of the ‘freedom of the nation’. Enthusiastically, the masses of people exchanged their potentialities for individual freedom for illusionary freedom, that is, freedom through identification with an idea; they did so because this illusionarv freedom relieved them of any individual responsibility. They craved a ‘freedom’ which the Ahrer should conquer for them and guarantee to them: the freedom to howl, to escape from the truth into a fundamental falsehood, to be sadistic, to bragóthough one was in actuality a cipheróabout one’s superior race, to impress girls with uniforms instead of strong human qualities, to sacrifice oneself for imperialistic goals instead of the actual struggles of everyday life, etc., etc.

The previous education of the masses of people towards the recognition of a formal, political authority instead of an authority based on factual knowledge formed the soil in which the Fascist demand for authority could readily strike roots. Fascism, therefore, was not a new kind of philosophy, as its friends and many of its enemies wanted us to believe; much less even does it have anything to do with a rational revolution against intolerable social conditions; Fascism is nothing but the extreme reacttonary consequence of all undemocratic types of leadership of the past. Neither is the race theory anything new; it is nothing but the consistently and brutally applied continuation of the old theories of heredity and degeneration. It is for this reason that the psychiatrists of the hereditarian school and the eugenicists of the old school were particularly accessible to Fascism.

What is new in the Fascist movement is the fact that the extreme political reaction succeeded in making use of the deep longings of the masses of people for freedom. Intense longing for freedom plus fear of the responsibility of freedoin results in Fascist mentality, no matter whether it is found in a Fascist or a Democrat.

What is new in Fascism is that the masses of people themselves assented to their own subjugation and actively brought it about. The craving for authority proved stronger than the wish for independence.

Hitler promised the subjugation of woman to man, the abolition of her economic indenendence, her exclusion from the process of determining social life, and her relegation to the home and hearth. The women, whose individual freedom had been suppressed for centuries and who had developed the fear of an independent way of living in a particularly high degree, were the first to hail him.

Hitler promised the abolition of socialist and democratic organisations. The socialist and democratic masses hastened to him because their organisations, though they had done a great deal of talking about freedom, had not as much as mentioned the difficult problem of human craving for authority and their helplessness in matters of practical politics. The masses of people were disillusioned by the irresolute attitude of the old democratic institutions. Disillusionment in the liberal organisations plus economic crisis plus tremendous urge for freedom result in Fascist mentality, that is, in the willingness of the people to surrender to an authoritarian father figure.

Hitler promised the sharpest measures against contraception and the sexual reform movement. In the Germany ol 1932, there were about 500,000 people in organisations which struggled for a rational sex reform. Yet, these organizations never dared to touch upon the core of the problem, namely, the longing for sexual happiness. I know from many yearsí work among the masses that this is exactly what they were looking for. They were disappointed when one gave them learned talks about eugenics, instead of telling them how they could bring up their children to be lively and uninhibited, how adolescents could cope with their sexual and economic problems, and how married people could deal with their typical conflicts. The masses of people seemed to feel that the advice about the ‘technique of love-making’, such as given by Van de Velde, might be profitable to the publisher, but that it did not really touch their problems, nor did they feel that it was in any way a response to their problems. Thus it happened that the disappointed masses hastened to Hitler who, though in a mystical way, appealed to deeply vital forces. Sermonizing about freedom, without the constant, resolute struggle to set the responsibility involved in freedom into operation in the occurrences of everyday life, together with the social prerequisites of such freedom, leads to Fascism.

For decades, German science had been struggling to achieve the separation of the concept of sexuality from that of procreation. Of this struggle, the working masses of people knew nothing, for it was stored away in academic volumes and therefore had no social effect. Now Hitler promised to make procreation, and not happiness in love, the basic principle of his cultural program. Brought up not to call a spade a spade and to say ìeugenic improvement of the racial stock when they meant ‘happiness in love’, the masses of people hastened to Hitler, because he attached to the old concept a strong, though irrational, emotion. Reactionary concepts plus revolutionary emotion result in Fascist mentality.

The church had preached ‘happiness in the hereafter’ and had, with the aid of the concept of sin, deeply implanted in the human structure the helpless dependence on an omnipotent supernatural figure. But the economic crisis of 1929 to 1933 had confronted the masses of people with the most acute earthly want. They were unable to master this want themselves, either socially or individually. Hitler came along, declaring himself a God-sent earthly Fžhrer, omnipotent and omniscient, who would be able to eradicate the earthly misery. The stage was prepared for new masses of people to acclaim him, people who were hemmed in between their own individual helplessness and the small gratification provided by the idea of happiness in the hereafter. An earthly God who made them shout ‘Heil’ at the top of their lungs meant more to them emotionally than a God whom they never could see and who no longer helped them even emotionally. Sadistic brutality plus mysticism results in Fascist mentality.
Germany, in its schools and universities, had been struggling for decades for the principle of the ‘freie Schulgemeinde’, for modern spontaneous achievement and self-government of the student. The democratic authorities responsible for education were unable to outgrow those authoritarian principles which instilled in the student a fear of authority and at the same time a rebelliousness which took on every possible irrational form. Liberal educational organizations not only lacked the protection of society, but they were, instead, constantly threatened in their existence by all kinds of reactionary bodies, and were dependent on private subsidies. So it was not surprising that these beginnings in the direction of a new structural formation of the mass of people remained nothing but a drop in the bucket. Youth ran to Hitler in masses. He did not impose any responsibility on them, but he built upon their structure as it had been evolved by means of the authoritarian family. Hitler obtained a firm grip on the youth movement because democratic society had failed to do everything in its power to educate youth towards a way of living in which they took responsibility for their freedom.

In the place of voluntary achievement, Hitler promised the principle of compulsive discipline and work as duty. Several millions of German workers and employees cast their vote for Hitler. The democratic institutions had not only failed to cope with unemployment; they had shown themselves definitely afraid of actually leading the working masses of people towards actual responsibility for their achievement in work. They had been brought up not to understand anything of the process of work or the totality of the process of production, and simply to receive their pay envelopes. Thus, these millions of workers and employees did not find it difficult to submit to Hitler’s principle; it was nothing but the old principle in an accentuated form. Now they were able to identify themselves with ‘the state’ or ‘the nation’ which was ‘in their place’ ‘great and strong’. Hitler, in his writings and speeches, declared openly that the masses of people only give back what is being poured into them, because they are, basically, infantile and feminine. The masses of people hailed him; for here was one who was going to protect them.

Hitler decreed the subordination of all science under the concept of ‘race’. Major sections of German science submitted, for the theory of race had its roots in the metaphysical theory of heredity; a theory which, with the aid of the concepts of ‘inherited substances’ and ‘Anlagen’ had again and again enabled science to evade the duty of trying to understand the development of living functions and of comprehending in its actuality the social origin of human behavior. There used to be a general belief that when one stated that cancer, or neuroses or psychoses, were of hereditary origin, one had really said something. The Fascist theory of race is only a continuation of the convenient theories of heredity.

There is hardly any other slogan of German Fascism that fired the masses of people as much as the slogan of the ‘throbbing of German blood’ and its ‘purity’. The purity of the German blood means freedom from syphilis, from ‘Jewish contamination’. The fear of venereal disease, as a continuation of infantile genital anxiety, is deeply rooted in every single mortal. Thus it is understandable that the masses of people acclaimed Hitler, for he promised them ‘purity of blood’. Every human being feels in himself what is called ‘cosmic’ or ‘oceanic’ feelings. Dry academic science felt itself too superior to concern itself with such ‘mysticisms’. But, this cosmic or oceanic yearning in people is nothing but the expression of their orgastic longing for life. Hitler appealed to this longing. Therefore, the masses acclaimed him and not the dry rationalists who tried to stifle these obscure feelings for life with economic statistics.

In Europe, the ‘preservation of the family’ had always been an abstract slogan behind which were hidden the most reactionary mentality and behavior. He who dared to distinguish between authoritarian compulsive family and natural love relationship between children and parents, was considered an ‘enemy of the fatherland’, a ‘destroyer of the sacred institution of the family’, an outlaw. There was no official agency which would have dared to point out what was pathological in the family, or would have dared to do something about the suppression of the children through the parents, about family hatreds, etc. The typical authoritarian German family, particularly in the country and small town, bred Fascist mentality by the million. This family created in the children a structure characterized by compulsive duty, renunciation and absolute obedience to authority which Hitler knew so splendidly how to exploit. By advocating the ‘preservation of the family’ and at the same time taking youth out of the family and putting them in its own youth groups, Fascism took into account the fixation to the family as well as the rebellion against the family. Because Fascism emphatically impressed on the people the emotional identity of ‘family’, ’state’, and ‘nation’, the familial structure of the people could easily he continued in the Fascist, national one. True, this did not solve one single problem of the actual family or the actual needs of the nation, but it made it possible for the masses of people to transfer their family ties from the compulsive family to the larger ‘family’ called ‘nation’. ‘Mother Germany’ and ‘Father-God-Hitler’ became the symbols of deeply rooted infantile emotions. Now, in his identification with the ’strong and unique German nation’, every ordinary mortal, with all his misery and inferiority feelings, could be ’something big’, even if it was in an illusionary manner. Finally, the ideology of the ‘race’ succeeded in harnessing the sexual energies and in diverting them. The adolescents were now able to have sexual intercourse, if they believedóor pretended to believeóthat they were begetting children in the interest of improving the race.

The natural vital forces not only continued to be kept from developing, but, in addition, to the extent to which they could manifest themselves, had to do so now in much more disguised forms than ever before. As a result of this ‘revolution of the irrational’, there were in Germany more suicides and more social misery than ever before. The mass death in the war for the glory of the German race is the apotheosis of this witches’ dance.

Hand in hand with the longing for ‘purity of blood’, i.e., liberation from sin, goes the persecution of the Jews. The Jews tried to explain or to prove that they too were moral, that they too belonged to the nation, or that they too were ‘German’. Anti-Fascist anthropologists attempted by way of skull measurements to prove that the Jews were not an inferior race. Christians and historians tried to point out that Jesus was of Jewish origin. But-it was not a matter of rational problems at all; that is, it was not a question of whether the Jews too were decent people, whether they were not Inferior or whether they had proper skull sizes. The problem lay somewhere else entirely. It was just at this point that the consistency and correctness of sex-economic thinking proved itself.

When the Fascist says ‘Jew’ he means a certain irrational feeling. As one can convince oneself in every treatment, of Jews and Non-Jews, which penetrates deeply enough, the ‘Jew’ has the irrational significance of the ‘money-maker’, the ‘usurer’, the ‘capitalist’. On a deeper level, ‘Jew’ means ‘filthy’, ’sensual’, ‘brutally lustful’, but also ‘Shylock’, ‘castrator’, ’slaughterer’. The fear of natural sexuality is as deeply rooted in all humans as is the horror of perverse sexuality. Thus we can easily understand that the persecution of the Jews, so cleverly executed, stirred up the deepest antisexual defense functions of the antisexually brought up individual. Thus, the ideology of the ‘Jews’ made it possible to harness the anticapitalist as well as the antisexual attitudes of the masses and put them completely at the service of the Fascist machinery.

Unconscious longing for sexual happiness and sexual purity, plus simultaneous fear of normal sexuality and abhorrence of perverse sexuality, results in Fascist sadistic anti-semitism. ‘The Frenchman’ has the same meaning to the German as ‘the Jew’ and ‘the negro’ to the unconsciously Fascist Englishman. ‘Jew’, ‘Frenchman’, ‘negro’ have the meaning of ’sexually sensual’.

And so it happened that the modern ’sex reformer’ sexual psychopath and criminal pervert Julius Streicher was able to put his paper, ‘Der Sturmer’, into the hands of millions of German adolescents and adults. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly than the ‘Sturmer’ the fact that sexual hygiene has long ceased to be a problem restricted to medical circles; that, rather, it has become a problem of decisive social significance. The following samples of Streicher’s imagination, quoted from the ‘Stiirmer’, may illustrate the above:

‘Helmut Daube, 20, had just graduated from college. He went home around 2 AM, and at 5 AM his parents found his dead body in front of the house. The throat was cut straight through to the spinal column, the genitals were removed. There was no blood. The hands were cut up. The lower abdomen showed several knife blows’.

‘One day, the old Jew attacked the unsuspecting Non-Jewess, raped and desecrated her. As time went on, he would sneak into her room whenever he pleased; the door could not be locked’.

‘A young couple, taking a walk outside of Paderborn, came upon a hunk of flesh right in the middle of the road. On closer examination, they found to their horror that it was a female genital which had been anatomically dissected from the body.’

‘The Jew had cut up the woman into pieces weighing about a pound. Together with his father, he had scattered the pieces all over the neighborhood. They were found in a little woods, in the meadows, on tree stumps, in a pool, in a brook, in a sewer, and in the cesspool. The cut-off breasts were lying in the hay loft.’

‘While Moses throttled with a handkerchief the child which Samuel put on his knees, the latter took a knife and cut a piece off the child’s jaw. The others collected the blood in a bowl, at the same time stabbing the naked victim with pins’.

‘The woman’s resisting did not check his lust, on the contrary. He tried to shut the window so that the neighbors could not look in. But then he touched the woman again in a vile, typically Jewish manner. . . . He talked to her urgently, saying she should not be so prudish. He locked windows and doors. His words and his behavior became more and more shameless. More and more he cornered his victim. When she threatened to cry for help, he only laughed, and more and more he pushed her toward the couch. From his mouth came the lewdest and vilest expressions. Then, like a tiger, he leaped upon the female body, to finish his devilish work’.

Up to this point in this book, many readers undoubtedly thought that I was exaggerating when I spoke of the psychic plague. I can only assure them that I did not introduce this term frivolously nor as a neat figure of speech. I mean it very seriously. In millions and millions of people, German and otherwise, the ‘Sturmer’, during the past seven years, has not only confirmed their genital castration anxiety, but, in addition, has stimulated to a tremendous degree the perverse phantasies which lie dormant in everybody. After the downfall of the principal standard bearers of the psychic plague in Europe, it will remain to be seen how one can cope with this problem. It is not a German but an international problem, because genital anxiety and longing for love are international facts. Fascist youths, who had maintained a bit of natural feeling for life, came to see me in Scandinavia and asked me what attitude they should take toward Streicher, the theory of race and all the other outcroppings of the time. There was something wrong there, they said. I summarised the most necessary measures in the following outline:

‘What is to be done?

‘Generally: This reactionary obscenity must be counteracted by a well organised and factually correct enlightenment concerning the difference between healthy and pathological sexuality. Every average individual will understand the difference, because he has felt it in himself. Every average individual is ashamed of his perverse, pathological ideas of sex and longs for clarity, help and natural sexual gratification.

‘Specifically: We must enlighten and help. This can be done in the following ways:

‘1. Collection of all the material which makes the pornographic character of Streicherism self-evident to any thinking person. Distribution of it in hand-bills. The healthy sexual interest of the masses of people must be aroused, made conscious and be supported.

‘2. Collection and distribution of all the material that will show the population that Streicher and his accomplices are psychopaths themselves, and are jeopardising the health of the people. There are Streichers everywhere in the world.

‘3. Uncovering of the secret of Streicher’s influence on the people: he stimulates their pathological phantasies. The population will be grateful for good explanatory material and will read it.

‘4. The only way of combatting that pathological sexuality which forms the fertile soil for Hitler’s theory of race and for Streicher’s criminal activity is to contrast it to the natural sexual processes and attitudes. The people will immediately grasp the difference and will show burning interest in it, once they are shown what it is that they really want and only do not dare to express. For example:

‘a. An absolute prerequisite for a healthy, satisfactory sex life is the possibility of being alone with one’s partner, without being disturbed. That means: adequate housing for all those who are in need of it, including youth.

‘b. Sexual gratification is not identical with procreation. The healthy individual has sexual intercourse some three to four thousand times during his life, but an average of only two or three children. Contraceptives are an absolute necessity for sexual health.

‘c. The vast majority of men as well as women are sexually disturbed as a result of a training which inhibits their sexuality; that is, they are not satisfied in sexual intercourse. What is necessary, therefore, is the establishment of a sufficient number of clinics for the treatment of sexual disturbances. What is necessary, is a rational sex education which will affirm the validity of love.

‘d. Youth is made ill by its conflicts about masturbation. Masturbation is harmless to health only when it is not accompanied by guilt feelings. Youth has a right to a happy sex life under the best of conditions. Chronic sexual abstinence is definitely harmful. Pathological phantasies disappear only with a satisfactory sex life. Fight for this right!’

I know that hand-bills and enlightenment alone will not do. What is necessary is work on the human structure, on a broad basis and with the protection Of society; work on this structure which produces the psychic plague, which makes it possible for psychopaths to function as dictators and modem ’sex reformers’. In one word, what is necessary is the liberation of natural sexuality in the masses of people and its underwriting by society.

In 1930, human sexuality was a Cinderella of society, no more than an object of dubious reform bodies. By 1940, it has become a cornerstone of social problems. If it is correct that Fascism, in an irrational manner but successfully, utilised the sexual longings of the masses of people and thus created chaos, then it must be correct that the perversions which it allowed to erupt can be banished by a universal rational solution of the problem of sexuality.

The events in Europe between 1930 and 1940 in all their profusion of mental hygiene problems confirmed my point of view in the controversy with Freud. The painful thing about this confirmation is the feeling of powerlessness, and the knowledge that natural science is still far from comprehending what in this book 1 termed the ‘biological nucleus’ of character structure.

By and large, we, as humans as well as physicians and teachers, are as helpless in the face of the biological aberrations of life, as, say, the humans of the middle ages were in the face of infectious diseases. At the same time we feel in ourselves that the experiencing of the Fascist plague will mobilize those forces in the world which are needed to solve this problem of civilisation.

The Fascists make the claim of carrying out the ‘biological revolution’. What is correct is that Fascism has put before us in unmistakable form the fact that the vital functions of the human have become thoroughly neurotic. In Fascism there operates, at least from the point of view of the masses of its adherents, a tremendous will to life. However, the forms in which this will to life has manifested itself has shown only too clearly the results of an ancient psychic enslavement. For the time being, only the perverse drives have broken through. The post-Fascist world will carry out the biological revolution which Fascism did not create but which it made necessary.

The ensuing chapters of this volume discuss the functions of the ‘biological nucleus’. Its scientific comprehension and the social mastery of the problem presented by it, will be an achievement of rational work, militant science and natural love function, of truly democratic, courageous and collective efforts. Their goal is the earthly happiness, material and sexual, of the masses of people.

The Emotional Plague

by Wilhelm Reich

Originally appeared as Chapter 16

of Reich’s book ‘Character Analysis’

The term “emotional plague” is not a derogatory phrase. It does not connote conscious malevolence, moral or biological degeneracy, immorality, etc. An organism whose natural mobility has been continually thwarted from birth develops artificial forms of movement. It limps or walks on crutches. In the same way, a man goes through life on the crutches of the emotional plague when the natural self-regulating life expressions are suppressed from birth. The person afflicted with the emotional plague limps characterologically. The emotional plague is a chronic biopathy of the organism. It made an inroad into human society with the first mass suppression of genital sexuality; it became an endemic disease which has been tormenting people the world over for thousands of years. There are no grounds for assuming that the emotional plague is passed on from mother to child in a hereditary way. According to our knowledge, it is implanted in the child from the first days of life. It is an endemic illness, like schizophrenia or cancer, with one notable difference, i.e., it is essentially manifested in social life. Schizophrenia and cancer are biopathies which we can look upon as the results of the ravages of the emotional plague in social life. The effects of the emotional plague can be seen in the human organism as well as in the life of society. Every so often, the emotional plague develops into an epidemic just like any other contagious disease, such as the bubonic plague or cholera. Epidemic outbreaks of the emotional plague become manifest in widespread and violent breakthroughs of sadism and criminality, on a small and large scale. One such epidemic outbreak was the Catholic Inquisition of the Middle Ages; the international fascism of the twentieth century is another.

If we did not look upon the emotional plague as an illness in the strict sense of the word, we would run the risk of mobilizing the police against it, instead of medicine and education. The nature of the emotional plague necessitates police force, and this is how it spreads. The emotional plague does indeed represent a grave threat to life, but not one that will ever be eliminated by police force.

No one will take it as an insult if he is told that he is suffering from a cardiac disease or that he is nervous. No one should take it as an insult if he is told that he is suffering from an “acute attack of the emotional plague.” We sometimes hear it said among orgonomists: “No sense wasting your time with me today, I’m pesty.” In our circle, when someone is afflicted with a minor case of the emotional plague, he deals with it by isolating himself and waiting until the attack of irrationalism passes. In acute cases, where rational thinking and friendly advice are of no avail, orgone therapy is used to remove the infection. It can be seen again and again that such acute attacks of the emotional plague are always produced by a disturbance in the person’s love life. They disappear upon the elimination of the disturbance. The acute attack of the plague is such a familiar phenomenon to me and to my circle of coworkers that we accept it as a matter of course and deal with it objectively. It is extremely important for students of orgone therapy to learn to perceive acute attacks of the plague in themselves before such attacks go too far, to know how to keep such attacks from getting the best of them, to prevent them from spreading into the social environment and causing damage there, and, by means of intellectual detachment, to wait until they pass. In this way, we succeed in keeping harmful effects in our cooperative work at a minimum. Sometimes such an attack cannot be dealt with and the afflicted person causes a certain amount of harm or even resigns. We take such misfortunes in the same way one would take the acute physical ailment or demise of a beloved colleague.

The emotional plague is more closely related to character neurosis than to organic heart disease, for example, but it can lead to cancer or heart disease in the long run. Just like the character neurosis, it is sustained by secondary drives. It differs from physical defects inasmuch as it is a function of the character and, as such, is strongly defended. As opposed to a hysterical attack, an attack of the emotional plague is not sensed as a symptom and as ego-alien. True enough, character-neurotic behavior is usually highly rationalized, but this is true of the emotional plague reaction to a far greater extent. One is hardly aware of it at all. How do we recognize a plague reaction and how do we distinguish it from a rational reaction, the reader will want to know. The answer is that we distinguish it in the same way that we distinguish a rational reaction from the reaction of a neurotic character: as soon as the roots or motives of the plague-afflicted reaction are touched, the result is invariably anxiety or anger. Let us go into this in more detail.

A man who is essentially free of the emotional plague and is orgastically potent is not overcome by fear when a physician discusses the dynamics of natural life processes. On the contrary, he develops a lively interest in such a discussion. The man afflicted with the emotional plague will become restless or angry when the mechanisms of the emotional plague are discussed. Orgastic impotence does not always lead to the emotional plague, but every person afflicted with the emotional plague is either lastingly orgastically impotent or becomes impotent shortly before the attack. This makes it easy to distinguish the plague reaction from rational reactions.

Furthermore, a natural and healthy behavior cannot be disturbed or eliminated by any genuine medical treatment. For example, there is no rational means of “curing,” i.e., disturbing, a happy love relationship. But a neurotic symptom can always be eliminated. A plague reaction is accessible to and can be eliminated by the genuine character-analytic art of healing. This is how we recognize it. Thus, avarice, a typical character trait of the emotional plague, can be cured, but pecuniary generosity cannot be cured. Insidious cunning can be cured; characterological openness cannot be cured. Clinically, the emotional plague reaction is comparable to impotence; it can be eliminated, i.e., cured. Genital potency, on the other hand, is “incurable.”

An essential and basic characteristic of the emotional plague reaction is that action and the motive of the action never coincide. The real motive is concealed and a sham motive is given as the reason for the action. In the reaction of the natural and healthy individual, motive, action, and goal form an organic unity. Nothing is concealed. This unity is immediately evident. For example: the healthy individual has no other motive for his sexual acts than his natural need for love, and no other goal than its gratification. The ascetic, plague-ridden individual, on the other hand, uses ethical codes to justify his sexual debility. This justification has nothing to do with the manner in which he lives, which is there before the justification. The healthy person will not want to impose his way of life on anyone, but he will cure and he will help others when he is asked and when he is capable. In no case will a healthy individual legislate that everyone “has to be healthy.” First, such a demand would be irrational, for a person cannot be ordered to be healthy. Second, the healthy individual has no urge to force his way of life upon others, for the motives of conduct are related specifically to his own life and not to anybody else’s. The person afflicted with the emotional plague is distinguished from the healthy individual by the fact that he makes his demands of life not only on himself but, above all, on his environment. In situations in which the healthy individual makes suggestions and helps, in which he uses his experiences as an example to others, leaving it up to them whether they want to follow, the person afflicted with the emotional plague imposes his mode of life upon others by force. Individuals afflicted with the emotional plague do not tolerate views which threaten their armor or unmask their irrational motives. The healthy person is happy to be given an insight into his motives. The plague-afflicted individual is seized by frenzy. When views contrary to his own disrupt his life and work, the healthy individual puts up a strong rational fight for the preservation of his way of life. The plague-afflicted person fights against other modes of life even when they don’t concern him in any way whatever. He is impelled to fight because he senses the very existence of other ways of life as a provocation.

The energy which sustains the emotional plague reaction always derives from genital frustration, whether it is a matter of sadistic deeds of war or the defamation of friends. Stasis of sexual energy is what the plague-afflicted individual has in common with all other biopathies. I shall have a word to say about the differences shortly. The basic biopathic nature of the emotional plague is revealed in the fact that, like every other biopathy, it can be cured by establishing the natural capacity for love.

Susceptibility to the emotional plague is universal. There is no clear-cut line of distinction between those afflicted with and those uncontaminated by the plague. Just as every man somewhere in the depths is susceptible to cancer, schizophrenia, or alcoholism, so even the healthiest and most life-affirming among us is susceptible to irrational plague reactions.

It is easier to distinguish the emotional plague from the structure of the genital character than to distinguish it from the structure of the neurotic character. While the emotional plague is indeed a character neurosis or character biopathy in the strict sense of the word, it is also more than that, and this “more” distinguishes it from biopathies and character neuroses. We can de[ne the emotional plague as human behavior that, on the basis of a biopathic character structure, operates in an organized or typical way in interpersonal, i.e., social, relations and in social institutions. The emotional plague is just as widespread as the character biopathy. In other words, wherever there are character biopathies, there is also at least the possibility of a chronic effect or an acute epidemic outbreak of the emotional plague. Let us briefly outline a few typical areas in which the emotional plague is either chronically rampant or capable of breaking out in an acute way. We shall see immediately that it is precisely the most important spheres of life in which the emotional plague is active: mysticism in its most destructive form; passive and active thirst for authority; moralism; biopathies of the autonomic nervous system; party politicking; familial plague, which I have designated as “familitis”; sadistic methods of education; masochistic toleration of such methods or criminal rebellion against them; gossip and defamation; authoritarian bureaucracy; imperialistic war ideologies; everything that falls under the American concept of “racket”; antisocial criminality; pornography; profiteering; racial hatred.

We see that the compass of the emotional plague coincides approximately with the broad compass of social abuse, which has always been and still is combatted by every social freedom movement. With some qualifications, it can be said that the sphere of the emotional plague coincides with that of “political reaction” and perhaps even with the principle of politics in general. This would hold true, however, only if the basic principle of all politics, namely thirst for power and special prerogatives, were carried over into those spheres of life which we do not think of as political in the usual sense of the word. For example, a mother who resorts to political methods to alienate her child from her husband would come under this extended concept of the political emotional plague. The same would apply to an ambitious scientist who works himself up to a higher social position not by concrete accomplishments but by intrigue.

We have already stated that biological sexual stasis is the common biophysiological core of all forms of the emotional plague. On the basis of our present experiences, we can say that a genital character is incapable of using the methods of the emotional plague. This constitutes a great disadvantage in a society ruled to such a large extent by plague-ridden institutions. There is another common denominator in all forms of the emotional plague: the lack of the capacity for natural sexual gratification leads to the development of secondary impulses, particularly sadistic impulses. There is abundant clinical evidence in support of this statement. Hence, it does not surprise us to find that the biopsychic energy which sustains the emotional plague reactions always derives from secondary drives. In pronounced cases, specific human sadism is never missing.

Thus, it is not surprising that truthfulness and straightforwardness, though highly extolled modes of behavior, are rarely encountered in human intercourse; they are so rare, indeed, that most people are amazed when they occasionally prevail. To judge from our “cultural” ideals, one would expect truthfulness and straightforwardness to be everyday, self-understood attitudes. The fact that they are not, that they are looked upon with astonishment, that truthful and straightforward men and women are considered freaks, a bit “touched in the head”, that, indeed, being truthful and sincere often entails severe social dangers– all this cannot be explained on the basis of the ruling cultural ideology. To arrive at an understanding of these contradictions, we must turn to our knowledge of the organized emotional plague. This knowledge alone is capable of providing an insight into the reasons why objectivity and truthfulness, the driving forces of all strivings for freedom, have been frustrated again and again over the centuries. It cannot be assumed that any freedom movement will have any chance of achieving its goals if it does not sharply and clearly confront the organized emotional plague with truthfulness.

The fact that the emotional plague was not previously recognized was its surest protection. An exact investigation of its nature and its dynamics will demolish this protection. The champions of the emotional plague will be right in interpreting this declaration as a mortal threat to their existence. This will be clearly brought out in the way the champions and perpetuators of the emotional plague react to the following objective representations. On the basis of these reactions, we shall be able to and shall have to distinguish those who want to help in the fight against the emotional plague from those who want to preserve its institutions. We have seen again and again that the irrational nature of the emotional plague unwittingly reveals itself as soon as one attempts to go to the root of it. This is understandable because the emotional plague can only react irrationally. It is doomed to extinction when it is sharply and clearly opposed by rational thinking and the natural feeling for life. It does not have to be attacked or fought directly. The plague will automatically and inevitably work itself into a rage when the natural functions of the living organism are objectively and truthfully described. There is nothing it hates more than this.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE GENITAL CHARACTER, THE NEUROTIC CHARACTER, AND EMOTIONAL PLAGUE REACTIONS

a) In thinking

The genital character’s thinking orients itself on objective facts and processes. The genital character distinguishes the essential from the non-essential or less essential; ne attempts to think out and eliminate irrational emotional disturbances; he is, in terms of his nature, functional, i.e., capable of adapting himself; he is not mechanistic and he is not mystical. His judgments are the result of a thought process. Rational thinking is open to objective arguments, for it has difficulty functioning without objective counterarguments.

To be sure, the neurotic character also attempts to orient himself in objective facts and processes. In the neurotic character, however, rational thinking is interfused with and affected by chronic sexual stasis, as a result of which he also to some extent orients himself on the principle of the avoidance of unpleasure. So the neurotic character will use various means of avoiding processes and events which, if he examined them, would produce unpleasure or would be at variance, for example, with a compulsive character’s system of thinking; or he will probe these processes and events in such a way, i.e., irrationally, that the rational goal becomes unattainable. Let us cite an example. Peace and freedom are universally desired. However, since the average character structure is neurotic in its thinking, fear of freedom and fear of responsibility (pleasure anxiety) become intertwined with ideas of peace and freedom, and these goals are therefore discussed in a formalistic rather than objective manner. It is almost as if the simplest and most immediate facts of life, i.e., those facts which obviously represent the natural building material of peace and freedom, are intentionally avoided. Important relations and connections are overlooked. For example, it is certainly no secret that politics is ruinous and that humanity is sick in the psychiatric sense of the word. Yet no one seems to see the connection between these facts and the demand for a viable democratic order. Thus, two or three well-known and generally valid facts exist side by side, without any connection. Showing how these facts are related to one another would immediately necessitate radical changes in the practical affairs of everyday life. Ideologically, the neurotic character would be prepared to affirm these changes. However, he fears their practical realization. His character armor forbids a change in the life pattern that has become rigid. Thus, he will, for example, agree with the critique of irrationalism in society and in science. In a practical and objective way, however, he will refashion neither himself nor his surroundings in keeping with this critique. He will not create a model social center reflective of the ideology he affirms. It often happens, indeed, that the same individual who says yes when it is a question of ideology becomes a vehement opponent in practice when someone else brings about actual changes. At this point, the boundaries between the neurotic character and the individual afflicted with the emotional plague become blurred.

The individual afflicted with the emotional plague is not content to take a passive attitude–he is distinguished from the neurotic character by a more or less life-destructive social activity. His thinking is completely muddled by irrational concepts and governed almost exclusively by irrational emotions. In the neurotic character, thinking and acting do not coincide. This is not true of the plague-afflicted character. As in the genital character, his thinking is in complete agreement with his actions, but there is a significant difference, i.e., his conclusions are not the result of his thinking. They are always predetermined by his emotional affliction. In the person afflicted with the emotional plague, thinking does not, as in the rational individual, serve to help him arrive at a correct conclusion; on the contrary, it serves to confirm and rationalize a predetermined irrational conclusion. This is generally known as “prejudice,” but one fails to see that this prejudice has detrimental social effects on a large scale. It is universally disseminated and characterizes just about everything that is called “tradition.” It is intolerant, i.e., it does not countenance the rational thinking which could pull the ground out from under it. Hence, plague-afflicted thinking is not accessible to arguments. It has its own technique in its own sphere, its own “coherence,” so to speak, which impresses one as “logical.” In this way, it creates the impression of rationality, without in reality being rational.

For instance, a strict authoritarian educator will tell you that children are difficult to teach and that is why his methods are necessary. In this narrow framework, his conclusion seems to be correct. If a rational thinker comes along and points out that the intractableness of children which the strict authoritarian cites to justify his methods is itself a social consequence of precisely this irrational thinking in education, he will find himself face to face with a mental block. Precisely at this point the irrational nature of plague-afflicted thinking emerges.

Let us give another example. Moralistic sexual repression produces secondary drives, and secondary drives make moralistic suppression necessary. Any number of logical conclusions can be drawn on the basis of this relation. But if the clear thinker points out that the secondary drives can be eliminated by making possible the natural gratification of needs, the plague-afflicted individual, though his frame of reference has been shattered, will react not with insight and correction but with irrational arguments, silence, or even hatred. In short, it is emotionally important for him that both repression and secondary drives continue to exist. He is afraid of the natural impulses. This fear operates as an irrational motive for his entire, in itself logical, frame of reference and drives him to commit dangerous actions when his social system is seriously threatened.

b) In acting

In the genital character, motive, goal, and action are in harmony with one another. The goals and motives are rational, i.e., socially oriented. In accordance with the natural character of his motives and goals, i.e., on the basis of their primary biological foundation, the genital character strives for an improvement in his own conditions of life and in the conditions of life of others. This is what we call “social accomplishment.”

In the neurotic character, the capacity for action is always limited, because the motives are devoid of affect or are contradictory. Since the neurotic character has usually deeply repressed his irrationality, he is constantly forced to keep it under control. And this very repression constitutes the limitation of his capacity for action. He is afraid to become fully involved in any activity, for he is never sure whether sadistic or other impulses might break through. He usually suffers because he is aware that he is inhibiting his own life, but he is not envious of healthy people. He can be characterized by the attitude: “I was unfortunate in life; our children should have it better than I did.” This attitude makes him a sympathetic, though sterile spectator of progress. He is not detrimental to progress.

In the individual afflicted with the emotional plague, the motives of the action are always counterfeit. The ostensible motive never tallies with the real motive, whether the latter is conscious or unconscious. Nor does the ostensible goal tally with the real goal. In German fascism, for example, “salvation and pacification of the German nation” was given as the goal, whereas the real goal–grounded in the character structure–was imperialistic war, the subjugation of the world, and nothing but that. It is a basic characteristic of the plague-afflicted individual that he seriously and honestly believes in the ostensible goal and motive. I should like to stress that the character structure of a person afflicted with the emotional plague can be comprehended only if it is taken seriously. The plague-afflicted person acts under a structural compulsion. No matter how good his intentions may be, he can act only in the manner of the plague. His action is in keeping with his nature just as much as the need for love or truth is in keeping with the nature of the genital character.

But the plague-afflicted individual, protected by his subjective conviction, does not suffer from insight into the harmfulness of his act. A father who, out of hatred for his wife (who, let us say, was unfaithful to him), demands custody of their child is seriously convinced that he is acting “in the best interest of the child.” But if the child suffers under the separation from the mother or even begins to go to pieces, such a father will prove to be totally impervious to any form of remedy. The plague-afflicted father will find all kinds of superficial arguments in support of his conviction that he “means well” by the child in keeping him away from his mother. It will be out of the question to convince him that the real motive is sadistic punishment of the mother.

The person afflicted with the emotional plague, in contrast to the neurotic character, always develops as a part of his structure an envy coupled with a deadly hatred of everything healthy. A character-neurotic spinster lives a resigned life and does not interfere in the love life of young girls; a plague-afflicted spinster, on the other hand, cannot endure the sexual happiness of young girls. If such a spinster is a teacher, she will be sure to make the girls entrusted to her care incapable of experiencing sexual happiness. This holds true for every life situation. The character afflicted with the emotional plague will attempt, under all circumstances and with every available means, to change his environment so that his way of life and his way of seeing things are not jeopardized. He senses everything that is at variance with his way of life as a provocation and, therefore, persecutes it with bitter hatred. The ascetic is a good illustration. Under one guise or another, the ascetic’s basic attitude is: “Why should others have it any better than I had it? Let them suffer as I suffer.” In every case, this basic attitude is so well concealed in a logical, well-thought-out ideology or theory of life that only someone having wide practical experience and capable of incisive thinking can unmask it. It is distressing but necessary to record here that, as recently as the beginning of this century, the greater part of official European education was modeled along these lines.

c) In sexuality

The sexuality of the genital character is essentially determined by the basic natural laws of biological energy. He is so constituted that he naturally takes pleasure in the sexual happiness of others. In the same way, he is indifferent to perversions and has an aversion to pornography. The genital character is easily recognized by the good contact he has with healthy children. He considers it quite natural that children and adolescents are essentially sexually oriented. In the same way, he fulfills or at least strives to fulfill the (often socially restricted) demands which result from these biological facts. This attitude exists spontaneously, whether a corresponding knowledge has been acquired or not. In our society, these very mothers and fathers, unless they happen to live in a milieu which supports their views, are exposed to the serious danger of being looked upon and treated as criminals by authoritarian institutions. They deserve the exact antithesis–the greatest possible social protection. They constitute centers of society from which rationally acting educators and physicians will one day proceed. The basis of their life and actions is the sexual happiness which they themselves have experienced. Parents, for example, who would allow their children to experience sex in keeping with completely healthy, natural laws, would be in danger of being accused of immorality (or “moral turpitude”) and of being deprived of their children by any ascetic who happened to have power.

The neurotic character lives a sexually resigned life or engages in secret perverse activities. His orgastic impotence is accompanied by a yearning for sexual happiness–he is indifferent to the sexual happiness of others. He is more likely to be ruled by anxiety than by hate whenever he comes into contact with the sexual problem. His armor relates solely to his own sexuality and not to the sexuality of others. His orgastic longing is very often incorporated into cultural or religious ideals, which are neither very useful nor very detrimental to the welfare of the community. The neurotic character is usually active in circles and groups which do not have any great social influence. There can be no doubt about the cultural value of some of these groups. But the neurotic character is not capable of making any significant contribution to creating healthier structures on a mass scale, for the broad masses are far more intimate with the question of natural sexuality than he is.

This basic attitude on the part of the sexually innocuous, neurotic character is capable, at any time and under corresponding external conditions, of changing into a plague-ridden attitude. The process is usually as follows: the secondary drives held in check by the cultural and religious ideals break through. The sexuality of the character afflicted with the emotional plague is usually sadistic and pornographic. It is characterized by the parallel existence of sexual lasciviousness (owing to the incapacity to achieve gratification) and sadistic moralism. This dualism is a part of his structure; the plague-afflicted individual could not change it even if he had insight and knowledge. In terms of his structure, he cannot be anything but pornographically lascivious and sadistically moralistic at the same time.

This is the core of the character structure of the plague-afflicted person. This structure develops bitter hatred against every process which provokes its own orgastic yearning and, hence, orgasm anxiety. The demand for asceticism is directed not only against oneself but, above all and in a sadistic way, against the natural sexuality of others. Persons afflicted with the emotional plague have a strong tendency to form social circles. These circles become centers for the molding of public opinion. Their most outstanding characteristic is their strong intolerance in questions of natural sexuality. They are widespread and well known. Under the banner of “culture” and “morality,” they persecute to the extreme every expression of natural sexuality. Over the years they have developed a special technique of defamation. We shall speak of this later.

Clinical investigations leave no room for doubt that sexual gossip and defamation afford these emotionally plagued individuals a kind of perverse sexual gratification; they can thus attain sexual pleasure without the natural genital function. It is precisely in such circles that we often find homosexuality, sexual intercourse with animals, and other forms of perversion. These Vehmic courts direct their sadistic attacks against the natural sexuality of others, not against perverse sexuality. They take an especially sharp stand against the natural sexuality of children and adolescents, whereas, strangely enough, they are purblind to every form of perverse sexual activity. They have many human lives on their consciences.

d) In work

The genital character takes an active interest in the development of a work process which is allowed to take its own course. His interest is focused essentially on the process itself. The result of the work is achieved without special effort, for it ensues spontaneously from the work process. The shaping of the product through the course of the work process is an essential feature of the biological pleasure of work. This leads to a sharp criticism of all methods of educating children through toys which spell out the child’s activity. The predetermination of how the toy is to function and the rigid prescription of how the toy is to be put together stifle the child’s imagination and productivity. Compulsive moralism tolerates only mystical ecstasy; it has no patience with genuine enthusiasm, and this is the reason why enthusiasm with regard to work is always lacking. A child who has to put together a preplanned house with preplanned building blocks in a preplanned way cannot apply his imagination and cannot develop any enthusiasm. We can easily understand that this basic characteristic of authoritarian education is part of the pleasure anxiety of adults. It has a stultifying effect upon the child’s pleasure in work. The genital character influences the work performance of others by setting an example and not by prescribing the product and the method of work. That requires the ability to tolerate vegetative streaming and to be able to let himself go.

The neurotic character is more or less restricted in his work. His biological energy is essentially consumed in the warding off of perverse fantasies. The neurotic disturbance of work can always be traced back to a misuse of biological energy. For the very same reason, the work of the neurotic character, no matter how rich in potential it may be, is perfunctory and joyless. Since the neurotic character is incapable of genuine enthusiasm, he will look upon the child’s capacity for enthusiasm as “unseemly” (if, for instance, he happens to be a teacher). In a compulsive neurotic way, nonetheless, he insists on determining the work of others.

The individual afflicted with the emotional plague hates work, for he senses it as a burden. Hence, he runs away from any responsibility and especially from small jobs which require patience. He may dream of writing an important book, of painting an outstanding work of art, of running a farm, etc.; however, since he is incapable of work, he shuns the necessary step-by-step, persistent organic development inherent in every work process. This predisposes him to becoming an ideologue, mystic, or politician, i.e., to engage in activities which do not require any patience and organic development. He is just as likely to become an idle vagrant as the dictator of this or that sphere of life. He has created a picture of life made up of neurotic fantasies and, since he himself is incapable of doing things, he wants to force others to work toward the realization of this sick picture of life. The American’s negative concept of the word “boss” is a product of such a constellation. A genital character who is in control of a collective work process will spontaneously lead the way by his good example: he will work more than the others. On the other hand, the character afflicted with the emotional plague will typically want to work less than the others. The smaller his capacity for work and, consequently, the lower his self-esteem, the greater is his insistence on being a labor leader.

This comparison necessarily took the form of clear-cut distinctions. In reality, every genital character also has his neurotic inhibitions and his plague reactions. By the same token, every plague-afflicted individual bears in himself the possibilities of the genital character. Experiences in orgone therapy leave no doubt that persons afflicted with the emotional plague, those who come under the psychiatric concept of “moral insanity,” are not only curable in principle but are capable of developing exceptional capacities for work, sexuality, and intellectual activity. This again gives us the opportunity to stress that the concept “emotional plague” does not imply a disparagement. In the course of almost thirty years of biopsychiatric work, I have come to realize that a predisposition to the emotional plague is indicative of very high quantities of biological energy. Indeed, the high tension of the individual’s biological energy makes him sick with the emotional plague if, because of a rigid character and muscular armor, he cannot realize himself in a natural way. The person so afflicted is a product of authoritarian compulsive education. Because of the frustration of his unrealized talent, he wreaks revenge on compulsive education far more successfully than the quiet and resigned neurotic character. He differs from the genital character inasmuch as his rebellion is not socially oriented and is therefore incapable of effecting any rational changes for the better. He differs from the neurotic character inasmuch as he does not become resigned.

The genital character controls his emotional plague reactions in two ways: (1) Since the structure of his character is of an essentially rational nature, he senses his own plague reaction as alien and senseless. (2) He is so immersed in rational processes that he is immediately aware of the danger to his life process which could ensue from his irrational tendencies. This awareness enables him to keep himself in control. The person afflicted with the emotional plague, on the other hand, derives so much secondary, sadistic pleasure from his own behavior that he is inaccessible to any correction. The acts of the healthy individual flow directly from the reservoir of biological energy; the acts of the plague-afflicted individual stem from the same source, but they have to break through the character and muscular armor each time and in the process the best motives become antisocial and irrational actions. In its passage through the character armor, the original goal of the act changes its function: the impulse begins with a rational intention; the armor thwarts a smooth and organic unfolding of the impulse; the plagueafilicted character senses this obstruction as an intolerable inhibition; the impulse must first break through the armor in order to become at all manifest; in this process the original intention and the rational goal are lost. When finally realized, the act contains little of the original rational intention; it is an exact reflection of the destructiveness which had to be brought into play in the process of breaking through the armor. The brutality of the plague-afflicted individual is a result of the failure on the part of the original impulse to get through the muscular and character armor. A loosening of the armor is impossible, for the plague-ridden act neither discharges energy orgastically nor produces rational self-confidence. This “failure” enables us to comprehend some of the contradictions in the structure of the individual affiicted with the emotional plague. He has a strong desire for love; he finds a woman whom he believes he can love; he proves himself incapable of the experience. This drives him into a sadistic rage against himself or against the desired woman, a rage which not infrequently ends in murder.

Basically, therefore, the individual afflicted with the emotional plague is characterized by the contradiction between an intense desire for life and the inability (because of the armor) to achieve a corresponding fulfillment of life. To the careful observer, Europe’s political irrationalism was clearly characterized by this contradiction. With the logic of a compulsion, the best intentions led to destructive ends.

It is my opinion that the gangster type constitutes a simple demonstration of the mechanism of the emotional plague, if the result of the gangster act is taken into account along with the inhibition of the rational impulse which turns it into a plague-ridden act.

Now let us endeavor to examine these differentiations in simple examples from everyday life.

Let us take as our first example the fight for the child which usually occurs when parents sue for divorce. There are three possible reactions: the rational, the inhibited reaction of the neurotic character, and the emotional plague reaction.

a) Rational

Father and mother fight for the healthy development of the child with rational arguments and means. It is possible that they agree in principle–then it is easy; but it is also possible that they will have very different ideas about the matter. Nonetheless, in the interest of the child, they will shun underhanded methods. They will speak openly with the child and allow him to make his own decision. They will not allow themselves to be governed by selfish interests; they will, instead, be guided by the child’s inclinations. When one or the other parent is an alcoholic or is mentally ill, this information will be communicated to the child as a misfortune that has to be borne bravely, taking the greatest possible care to spare his feelings. The motive will always be to prevent the child from being damaged. The attitude is dictated by the sacrifice of one’s personal interest.

b) Character-neurotic

The fight for the child is inhibited by all kinds of considerations, essentially fear of public opinion. Conformity to public opinion takes precedence over the child’s best interest. In such things, character-neurotic parents abide by the prevailing practice: the child remains with the mother under all circumstances, or they submit the case to legal authorities. When one of the parents is a drinker or is mentally ill, then the tendency exists to sacrifice oneself, to conceal the fact, with the result that the child as well as the older parent suffer and are endangered. Divorce is avoided. The motive of their behavior is epitomized in the sentence, “We don’t want to make a stir.” Their attitude is determined by resignation.

c) The individual afflicted with the emotional plague

The welfare of the child is always a spurious and, as the results show, unfulfilled motive. The real motive is to wreak revenge on the partner by depriving him or her of the pleasure of the child. Hence, in the fight for the child, one partner resorts to defamation of the other, whether he or she is healthy or sick. The absence of any consideration for the child is brought out by the fact that his love for the other parent is not taken into account. As a means of alienating the child from one or the other parent, he is told that his mother or his father is an alcoholic or is mentally ill, a statement which usually does not correspond to the facts of the case. The result is that the child is the one who suffers most; the motive is revenge on the partner and domination of the child. Genuine love for the child is not at issue.

There are any number of variations on this example, but its basic features are the same and they are of general social importance. In making decisions, a rational jurisprudence would have to give priority to such differentiations. It can be assumed that there will be a significant increase in the number of divorces; and it is my opinion that only a correctly trained psychiatrist and educator is capable of measuring the extent of the damage caused solely by emotional plague reactions in cases of divorce.

Let us cite another example from the sphere of private life in which the emotional plague rages far and wide: the infidelity of a love partner.

a) Rational

In cases in which one of the partners in a love relationship wants to be or is unfaithful, the healthy individual reacts principally in one of three ways: factual separation from the partner; competition and the attempt to regain the partner’s love; or toleration when the other relationship is not too serious and is of a temporary nature. In such cases, the healthy person does not take flight into neurosis, does not make any legal claims, and becomes angry only if the affair is carried out indecently.

b) Character-neurotic

The infidelity is either suffered masochistically or the armor shuts off its cognizance. There is acute fear of separation. Resignation, flight into a neurotic illness or alcoholism, and hysterical attacks are typical reactions.

c) Individual afflicted with the emotional plague

As a rule, infidelity occurs not for reasons of love for another person but because one has become weary of one’s partner. The injured party attempts to hold the partner in the house, to wear him or her out with hysterical attacks, dominate him or her with scenes of the lowest sort, or even have him or her watched by a detective. Flight into alcoholism often occurs as a means of facilitating the brutalizing of the partner. The motive is not love for the partner but thirst for power and possessiveness.

Reactions of emotional plague are quite prevalent in tragedies of jealousy. At the present time, there are neither medical nor social nor legal views and measures which take this vast and desolate sphere of life into account.

Now let us turn our attention to an especially striking and typical mode of reaction of the emotional plague which we shall designate as ‘’specific plague reaction.”

The specific plague reaction has a special preference for the use of sexual, i.e., moralistic, defamation. It functions in a way similar to the projection mechanism in delusions of persecution; i.e., a perverse impulse which has broken through the armor is transferred to persons or objects in the outer world. What in reality is an inner impulse is misinterpreted as an external threat. The same applies to the sensations which originate in the orgonotic plasma currents. The healthy individual experiences these currents as something joyful and pleasurable. The schizophrenic on the other hand, because of the contradictions which result from his character armor, perceives these currents as the secret workings of an evil fiend intent upon destroying his body with electrical currents. These insane projection mechanisms are well known. However, psychiatry makes the error of limiting such projection mechanisms to the mentally ill. It fails to see that precisely the same mechanism is rampant in social life in the form of the specific plague reactions of ostensibly normal people. This is our next topic of discussion.

The biopsychic mechanism is the following: compulsive moralism in upbringing and in life produces sexual lasciviousness, which has nothing to do with the natural need for love, and constitutes a real secondary drive like, for example, sadism or masochism. Since orgonotic aliveness in the natural experience of pleasure has atrophied, lasciviousness and the thirst for sexual gossip become unbridled secondary needs. Just. as the mental patient projects his orgonotic currents and his perverse impulses onto other persons and experiences them as a threat issuing from them, the plague-afflicted individual projects his own lasciviousness and perversions onto other persons. In contrast to the mental patient, he does not masochistically experience as a threat the impulses which he projects onto the other person; rather, he makes use of gossip in a sadistic way as a defensive mechanism, i.e., he imputes to others what he cannot take cognizance of in himself. This applies to natural genitality as well as to the secondary perverse impulse. The mode of life of the genitally healthy person painfully reminds him of his own genital weakness and, as such, constitutes a threat to his neurotic balance. Thus, in conformity with the principle, “What I can’t have, you can’t have,” he is forced to cast a slur upon the natural genitality of others. Moreover, since he is not capable of wholly concealing his own perverse lasciviousness behind a fac,ade of ethical moralism, he imputes it to the victim of his gossip. In every case of this form of plague reaction, one comes to realize that the healthy individual is reputed to have precisely those characteristics against which the plague-ridden individual struggles in vain or indulges in with a bad conscience.

The mechanism of the specific plague reaction is easily carried over from the sexual to the non-sexual sphere. It is characteristic that something one does oneself, would like to do, or is on the verge of doing is attributed to someone else. We shall use a few typical, everyday occurrences to illustrate the specific plague reaction.

There are young intellectuals who were once known as “cultural snobs” among the serious intellectual circles of Europe. They are clever, but their intelligence is devoted to a kind of sterile artistic activity. Their acquaintance with the magnitude and seriousness of the problems probed by a Goethe or a Nietzsche is less than superficial, but they take great pleasure in quoting classical literature. At the same time, they are full of cynicism. They regard themselves as modern, liberal, free of any conventions. Incapable of serious experience, they look upon sexual love as a kind of child’s play. They spend their summer vacations in communes, little boys and little girls living together. At nights, there are amusing diversions, i.e., the “child’s play.” At the breakfast table, the child’s play is joked about in a carefree and very clever manner. Possibly, the “sinful woman” will be made to blush by ambiguous allusions. All this is very much part of today’s “liberal” and “unconventional” way of living. One is “jolly”; one is “hip.” One intimates how often one has engaged in the “play” the night before; and one lets it be known, everything described in the “choicest” figures of speech, that it was “very nice,” that she was “delightful,” etc. The serious listener, who is all too familiar with the abysmal sexual misery of masses of people and the destructiveness of sexual triviality, comes away with the impression that the lasciviousness of these “bright” young men and women is the result of sexual hunger due to orgastic impotence. Such cultivated “Bohemians” typically look upon the serious efforts of sex-economy to fight the emotional plague in masses of people as the fabric of a sick mind. But then these young “geniuses” are well versed in the art of “high politics.” Forever prattling about the cultural “values” that have to be upheld, they become furious as soon as one begins to translate their talk into social action among masses of people.

One such Bohemian met a woman who wanted to come to me to study. Naturally, the conversation turned to my work. He gave her fair warning, saying that he would send neither his best friend nor his worst enemy to me, for I was, so he said, the “owner of a public brothel, without license.” To conceal the flagrant plague-ridden nature of this statement, he immediately added that I was a very able clinician. This defamation, patterned along the lines of the specific plague reaction, made the rounds. Notwithstanding, the woman came to me to study sex-economic pedagogy and soon grasped what we call the emotional plague.

It is difficult to maintain an objective and correct attitude in such situations. One cannot give into the impulse, which arises spontaneously and for which there is good reason, to give such a plague-ridden individual a good thrashing so that he will not go around defaming people any more, for one wants to keep one’s hands clean. To ignore the incident in a noble way is to do precisely what the plague-afflicted individual counts on so that he can continue to perpetrate his social mischief with impunity. There remains the possibility of a libel suit against him. However, this would be to fight the emotional plague on its own level and not in a medical way. Thus, one allows the matter to take its own course. In so doing, however, one runs the risk that another such plague-afflicted person, perhaps a “scientific historian,” will take up the matter and pass one on to posterity with the “objective historian’s authority” as the owner of a secret hrothel.[1]

The matter is important because the emotional plague has succeeded again and again, by means of such rumors, in crushing honest and important accomplishments. The fight against the emotional plague is socially necessary, for it causes more damage in this world than “ten thousands canons.” Read, for example, Friedrich Lange’s account of the defamations to which the pioneer natural scientist of the seventeenth century, de la Mettrie, was subjected by the emotional plague. In his great work Histoire Naturelle de l’Ame, de la Mettrie clearly grasped the essential relations between perception and physiological stimuli and correctly divined and described the connection between the body-soul problem and the biological sexual process. This was too much for the Philistines, who far outnumber bold and honest scientists; they circulated the rumor that de la Mettrie was able to arrive at such views only because he was a “libertine.” And thus the rumor was passed on to posterity that de la Mettrie died from a pastry which, in true voluptuary fashion, he had consumed too voraciously.

This of course is medical nonsense. More than that, it is a typical example of plague-afflicted rumor-mongering which, when seized upon by human organisms incapable of pleasure, becomes a specific plague reaction and is passed on to posterity, defiling, without rhyme or reason, a decent name. We readily recognize the catastrophic role played by such plague reactions in social life.

I should like to cite another example in which the projection mechanism of the emotional plague, in the form of defamation, is even more clearly manifested. In Norway, I heard that a rumor was being circulated that I had become schizophrenic and had spent some time in a mental institution. With some effort we succeeded in tracing the source of the rumor. When I came to the United States in 1939, I ascertained that this rumor was very widespread, much more so than in Europe, where my work was better known. In America, the source of the rumor was even more obscure than it had been in Europe, but certain signs clearly indicated that it stemmed from the same European source. [2]

The situation was not devoid of humour. Shortly after my expulsion from the International Psychoanalytic Association, the person who had originally started this rumor suffered a nervous breakdown and was forced to spend several weeks in a mental institution. This fact was directly communicated to me by a university professor who was well informed on the situation. Evidently, the nervous breakdown gave this slanderer a terrible fright. He found himself at that time in a difficult situation: on the one hand, he recognized the correctness of my development; on the other, he could not detach himself from an organization that was sharply opposed to that development. As is usual in such cases, he took advantage of the circumstances to divert attention from himself and focus it on me when I was in the center of a critical controversy. He thought that I was finished, and the opportunity to give me another kick was too tempting. His reaction was a specific plague-afflicted projection.

I have never been mentally ill, nor have I ever been confined to a mental institution. I have borne until the present day one of the heaviest burdens ever imposed upon a man, without any disturbance to my capacity for work and love. To become mentally ill is no disgrace. I, like every self-respecting psychiatrist, have deep sympathy for mental patients and often admiration for their conflicts. As I have stressed elsewhere, a mental patient appears to me far more serious, far closer to what is alive than a Philistine or a socially dangerous individual afflicted with the emotional plague. This defamation was intended to ruin me and my work and it did result in a number of serious situations that were not easy to master. With some students, for example, I had the additional difficulty of persuading them that I was not mentally ill. In certain phases of orgone therapy, a specific mechanism of the emotional plague inevitably appears. As soon as the patient or pupil comes into contact with his plasmatic currents, severe orgasm anxiety appears. What happens is that the orgone therapist is looked upon as either a “dirty” sexual pig or an “insane” man. I want to emphasize that this reaction appears regularly. Most of my students had indeed heard about the rumor. Some aspects of the theory of sex-economy are so revolutionary that it is extremely easy to regard the theory itself as insane. I must state that, as a result of this rumor, certain complicated situations became mortally dangerous. There should be clear-cut legal possibilities for precluding such consequences of a plague-afflicted reaction. I have only my clinical experience to thank for my being able to weather–in addition to the already existing difficulties of my work–the dangers which derived from the rumor about my mental illness.

The affair was not without comic after-effects. When it was realized some years later that my scientific work clearly indicated that I was not schizophrenic, a new rumor was circulated and again from the same source. Now it was said that, happily, I had “recovered” from my schizophrenic illness.

Specific plague reactions are encountered particularly in the sphere of politics. Again and again during the last few years we have seen that, with every fresh conquest, dictatorial-imperialistic governments attribute to the victim precisely the intention they themselves have carried out. For instance, it was said that Poland had been secretly planning an attack on the German empire, that this had to be anticipated, and therefore Germany was justified in attacking Poland. The attack on the Soviet Union was “justified” in the same way.

Also illustrative of this specific plague reaction are the now famous “Moscow trials” of Lenin’s early co-workers. At these trials, the charge of high treason was lodged against functionaries hostile to the Russian Communist Party; the defendants were accused of having maintained direct contact with the German fascists and, together with them, of having planned the overthrow of the government. To those who knew the backgrounds of those accused, it was clear that the charges against them had been trumped up. But in 1936 no one could explain the purpose of such an obviously spurious accusation. The Russian government was strong enough to eliminate any troublesome opposition with less transparent arguments. It wasn’t until 1939 that the mystery was cleared up, at least for those who were already familar with the specific plague mechanism. In 1936 the accused were said to have committed precisely that crime against the state which the government itself actually did commit in 1939. It signed a pact with Hitler that precipitated the war with Poland and divided Poland with the German fascists. Only then was it understood that, by defaming others, the state had succeeded in clearing itself of the pact with Hitler, so well, indeed, that the implications of its action remained unknown to the public. This case was yet another confirmation of the fact that the public acts as if it had no memory. Such political plague reactions in fact count on this very irrationality in mass thinking. It makes no difference that this pact did not help, that eventually the German dictatorship became engaged in a war with the Russian dictatorship. Nor could the subsequent rationalization change the fact that a pact had been signed.

Let us cite another example from the sphere of the emotional plague. Leon Trotsky had to defend himself against the accusation that he was involved in a plot against the life of his rival. This was incomprehensible, for the murder of Stalin would have only damaged the Trotskyites. It became comprehensible when Trotsky was murdered in 1941. (These facts have nothing to do with political points of view for or against the Trotskyites.)

If we go back only a few decades in the history of politics, we find the famous Dreyfus case. High-ranking military men of the French general staff had sold plans to the Germans; to cover themselves, they accused the unsuspecting and respectable Captain Dreyfus of the very crime they were guilty of. They succeeded in having their victim convicted, and he languished in jail for more than five years on a faraway island. Without Zola’s courageous intervention, this specific plague reaction would never have been combatted. That Dreyfus was subsequently honored does not erase in any way the atrocity committed against him. If policies of state were not ruled to such a large extent by the laws of the emotional plague, it would be a self-understood principle that such catastrophes should never happen in the first place. However, since the emotional plague governs the molding of public opinion, it always succeeds in passing off its atrocities as regrettable errors of justice, only to be able to continue its mischief with impunity.

In the case of a government figure, his personal character has enormous importance for the social life as a whole. If, for instance, the girl friend of a king is French, one can be assured that in a world war during this king’s reign, his country will be on the side of France against the German “arch enemy.” If that same king should forfeit his throne shortly before or at the beginning of the second world war, and if his successor had a personal relationship with a German woman, the same country would fight the war on the side of its former arch enemy, Germany, against France, its former ally.

Whoever takes pains to scrutinize the workings of the emotional plague in the sphere of politics will become more and more immersed in a condition akin to acute confusion. Is it possible, one will ask oneself, that the clericalism of a political dictator or the love affair of a king can determine the weal and woe of several generations? Does irrationalism in social life go that deep? Is it really possible. that millions of industrious adults are not aware of this, indeed refuse to be aware of it?

These questions seem peculiar only because the effects of the emotional plague are too fantastic to be perceived as something tangible. Human intelligence evidently refuses to admit that such absurdity can predominate on such a massive scale. It is this stupendous illogicality of such social conditions that represents their strongest protection. We must realize just how enormous the effects of the emotional plague are and understand that this enormity makes them appear incredible. I firmly believe that not one social evil of any magnitude can ever be eliminated so long as the public refuses to recognize that this absurdity does exist and is so enormous that it is not seen. Compared with the enormity of social irrationality, which is constantly nourished by the deeply rooted emotional plague, the basic social functions of love, work, and knowledge, which govern the life process, appear infinitesimal; indeed, they appear socially ridiculous. We can easily convince ourselves of this.

On the basis of long and extensive medical practice, we know that, unresolved as it is, the problem of adolescent sexuality plays an incomparably greater part in the molding of our social and moral ideologies than some tariff law or other. Let us imagine that a parliamentarian, who happened to be a physician, approached his government and demanded the opportunity to give a thorough presentation of the problem of puberty at a parliamentary session and to have it debated as a tariff bill is debated. Let us further imagine that this same outstanding person resorted to a filibuster because his request was denied. In a simple way, I believe this example shows the basic contradiction between everyday life and the administrative form which rules it. If we consider the matter calmly and objectively, we shall find that there is nothing very special about a legislative debate on the problems of puberty. Everybody, every member of parliament included, has gone through the hell of the adolescent neurosis brought on by sexual frustration. No other conflict compares with this one in magnitude and importance. It is a problem of general social interest. A rational solution to the difficulties of puberty would eliminate at one blow a multitude of social evils, such as juvenile delinquency, public care of mental patients, the misery of divorce, the misery of child rearing, etc.–thousands of formal bills on budgets and tariff systems could never even approach the problem.

So we regard the demand of our medically oriented parliamentarian as unequivocally rational, progressive, and useful. At the same time, however, we ourselves shy away from it. Something in us is opposed to the possibility of a public, parliamentary debate on this topic. This “something” is precisely the effect and intention of the social emotional plague, which is constantly striving to preserve itself and its institutions. It has drawn a sharp distinction between official and private life, and the latter has been denied access to the public platform. Official life is asexual on the surface and pornographic or perverse beneath the surface. If this dichotomy did not exist, official life would immediately coincide with private life and correctly mirror everyday life in large social forms. This unification of everyday living and social institutions would be simple and uncomplicated. Then, however, that sector in the social framework would automatically perish which not only does not contribute to the preservation of social life but, rather, periodically brings it to the brink of the abyss. We can place this sector under the heading of “high politics.”

The continuation of the gap between the real life of the community and its official facade is one of the emotional plague’s bitterly defended intentions. There is no other way to explain the fact that the emotional plague always resorts to force of arms when an effort is made to touch upon this gap in an objective and rational way. Representatives of high politics, whether personally affected or not, always attempted to thwart the dissemination of the sex-economic recognition of the relationship between man’s biological organism and the state. In their mildest form, their attacks were somewhat as follows: “These ’sex philosophies’ are immoral abscesses on the social body which break open from time to time. It is true that the human animal has a sexuality, but this is only to be