Wilhelm Reich and Severe Sexual Conflicts

Wilhelm Reich and Severe Sexual Conflicts

The intention of Wilhelm Reich in The Mass Psychology of Fascism appears both clear and admirable. He wants to understand the roots of Fascism, and in doing so, to prevent further atrocities like the Holocaust from occuring. The crux of many of his arguments rely on his medical experience. Yet, as a scientist, Reich’s credibility is less than ideal. His research into orgonomic functionalism has been largely abandoned and ignored by psychologists and physicists, his books even burned by the US Government. However, this does not make his arguments false. But, crucial in Reich’s argument is “the fact that severe sexual conflicts (in the broadest sense of the word), whether conscious or unconscious, inhibit rational thinking and the development of social responsibility” (202). The inhibited thinking from these sexual conflicts, Reich contends, is one of the most important causes of Fascism. This paper can make no claims as to whether that fact is objectively true or false. However, whether Reich’s text will succeed in its task of inhibiting the next rise of fascism is a matter of how well his own arguments are supported by his text. Reich’s appeals to scientificity, however, are nonetheless dwarfed by the volume of unsupported assertions perforating the text. Looking at the crucial argument on the linkage between sexual conflict and inhibited thinking, this paper will explore how Reich’s arguments fail in their appeal to scientificity due to their lack of falsifiable, reproduceable claims that are the basis of post-Popper scientific discourse. Reich’s arguments may still have value, but as moral or philosophical, not scientific claims.

First and foremost in understanding the cleavage between scientific discourse and Reich’s claims can be demonstrated by a close reading of Reich’s crucial argument, beginning with the context of his uncritical acceptance of Freud. Although the quotation comes in a section entitled “The NonPolitical Man” it actually is the most lucid explanation for a phenomenon Reich discusses through the entire work and is the ultimate metamorphosis of a question posed toward the beginning. “For what sociological reason,” Reich asks, “is sexuality suppressed by the society and repressed by the individual?” (28). Reich first must demonstrate that sexuality is indeed suppressed; however, this task he leaves to Freud. Instead of building upon the conclusions of Freud examples from his own research, however, Reich instead takes Freud’s claims, and his interpretation of Freud’s claims, as “fact” a priori.1

Reich comes close to making scientific claims again when discussing the propensity for religion to negate sexuality, but instead again opts to leave his assertions supported by other works that are accepted without question. As Reich claims, “Sexual debility results in a lowering of self-confidence. In one case it is compensated by the brutalization of sexuality, in the other by rigid character traits. The compulsion to control one’s sexuality, to maintain sexual repression, leads to the development of pathologic, emotionally tinged notions of honor and duty, bravery and self-control” (55). This lengthy and incredible assertion, however, is not clearly supported by any example from his research that he shares with the audience. Instead, Reich footnotes a work by Ernst Mann as “an especially informative book for the recognition of these relationships” (55). His inability or unwillingness to characterize this assertion, like the assertion at the crux of his argument, again leaves doubt over what Reich means by “severe sexual conflicts (in the broadest sense of the word), whether conscious or unconscious” (202). Reich does offer one example when discussing the unconscious struggle against one’s own sexual needs, the one that gives rise to mystical thinking. This example, not based from his clinical experience, but instead a reading of National Socialist ideology, is his observation that sentiments of, “personal honor, family honor, racial honor, national honor” (56) pervade National Socialist propaganda. This he righfully remarks has a corrolation with his proposed structure of the individual psyche. However, this corrolation does not provide evidence in support of the original structure he proposed. Once again, the shape of what Reich means by sexual conflict is left very much in doubt.

The shape of what Reich means by sexual conflict becomes even more obfuscated when he uses the term tautologically, while further moving away from the scope of scientific discourse. As Reich argues, “One does not have to be a psychologist to understand why the erotically provocative form of fascism offers a kind of gratification, however distorted, to a sexually frustrated lower middle-class woman who has never thought about social responsibility, or to a young salesgirl who could not arrive at sexual consciousness owing to an intellectual deficiency caused by sexual conflicts” (202). This sentence, instead of clarifying Reich’s terms or emphasizing his arguments, instead drifts into absurdity. First is Reich’s mention that one need not be a psychologist to understand the example; he is quite right, since one need not have even read the preceding 201 pages to understand why the sentence is a tautology and uninformative. If we remove the unnecessary inclusion of political terms, Reich’s sentence could be rephrased to, “One not need be a psychologist to understand why the sexually provocative appeals to the sexually frustrated.” Indeed, the comment could be even further revised to, “One not need be a psychologist to understand why the provocative appeals to the frustrated.” One need not be a psychologist because the provocative, by the definition being provocative, will appeal to the frustrated. In a final rephrasement, Reich could have instead written, “the provocative appeals” or “the provocative is provocative.”

The political ramifications of Reich’s major claim has direct entailments for the role of religion and his position as anti-religious. As Reich argues, “natural sexuality is the arch enemy of mystical religion” (178) and that “sexual consciousness is the end of mysticism” (179). Yet, Reich also claims that all human beings and creatures are “subject to sexual tensions” (147). Following this admission, Reich differentiates religious man from normal man. Due to “sex-negating religious conceptions” the religious man “suffers from a chronic state of physical excitation… He is not only shut off from earthly happiness-it does not even appear desirable” (147). Bearing in mind that Reich is talking about, as he deems them, “the masses”—not religious extremists—for once Reich has at least made a scientific claim with a testable hypothesis. Under this system, to contradict Reich’s claim, a single example of a religious man showing an inclination for worldly happiness would discredit his hypothesis. Considering the plurality of such examples, Reich’s claims can at times be scientific—but when they are posited in a scientific manner, they tend to be demonstrably false. Since the sexual conflicts that allow fascism to occur are, according to Reich, the same conflicts that brood mystical thought, it thus seems that the “severe sexual conflicts” he describes at the crux of his argument do not, in the broadest sense of the word, Reich can not be shown to exist.

If Reich refocused his claim, away from the vacuous “broadest sense” and at least contextualizing the significance of the difference between conscious or unconscious sexual conflict, then perhaps the crux of his argument would be more compelling. After all, Hitler sexual repression was evident in Hitler’s Germany. Yet, Hitler also rose to power through the politics of anti-semitism, through militarism, and through romanticism.2 In any case, Reich’s arguments seem incomplete as scientific claims. Those claims that are testable or reproduceable nonetheless seem demonstrably false when applied blanketly to the “mass” of religious people, and those claims that aren’t seem to be so vague as to be non-science. This does not make the claims false, yet it does raise a question of Reich’s audience. If Reich’s audience was scientists, he failed. Reich was rejected from other scientific discourse—his arguments did not become psychiatric policy. If Reich’s audience was the victims whose rationality was supposedly inhibited, then Reich failed. By appealing to scientific discourse, he appears at best elitist and at worst insolent, and by failing to provide concrete examples demonstrating his claims he fails to appeal to even pseudoscientific discourse. No religious or “mystical” person would find his claims and arguments compelling, many will reject claims of sexual repression, and many more will reject any linkage between religious belief and fascism. If Reich had instead posed his arguments in a reconciliary mode, focusing on his readings of fascist propaganda—as just that, readings, not scientific diagnosis—then his arguments may have been more compelling. If fascist states do not rise again, it is unlikely they will have been inhibited by this work.

Endnotes

1. Reich seems outraged whenever he mentions anyone mounting any criticism whatsoever against Freud. In footnote 8 on page 58, he says, “He who would want to dismiss these facts as “Freudian” would only give proof of his scientific cretenism. One should argue and not chatter, without possessing special knowledge. Freud discovered the Oedipus complex. Revolutionary family politics would be impossible without this discovery.” Ignoring for a moment the incoherence of the second sentence which I will throw up to a translation issue, the fallacy of poisoning the well could not be more obvious in the first sentence. In Reich’s understanding, the very act of disagreeing makes one a cretin. His unconditional acceptance of Freud’s discovery and emphasis on “special knowledge” borderlines on becoming the very mysticism that Reich derides through most of his work.

2. If it is indeed the case that sexual repression was the result, and not the cause of the patriarchal authoritarian order, as Reich seems to assert on page 88, then how Reich seeks to cure fascist behavior based on his proposal for sexual consciousness is left even more vague than it already was. A complete discussion of this topic, however, is outside the scope of this paper.