The
data
upon
which
Prescott
based
his
conclusions
was
derived
in
large
part
from
primate
studies
--
especially
those
done
by
Harlow,
which
we
have
already
described.
Prescott
supplements
this
with
anthropological
data,
and
his
own
neurological
investigations.
From
the
combination
of
these
three
sources
he
amassed
rather
compelling
evidence
in
support
of
his
main
theses.
In anthropological studies Prescott found evidence which is too powerful to be ignored. With regard to early infant stimulation, " Societies ranking high or low on the Infant Physical Affection Scale were examined for degree of violence " .
" The results clearly indicated that those societies which give their infants the greatest amount of physical affection were characterized by low theft, low infant physical pain, low religious activity, and negligible or absent killing, mutilating, or torturing of the enemy. These data directly confirm that the deprivation of body pleasure during infancy is significantly linked to a high rate of crime and violence. " 26
It might be worth commenting in passing on Prescott's concern for " low religious activity. " One may place a high value on forms of spirituality that are life affirming, and non-hierarchical, and that emphasize the need for living in harmony with the order of nature, and still find oneself in fundamental agreement with Prescott. Organized religion has a long history of supporting oppressive hierarchies, of imposing sex-negative norms and laws on people, and of seeing pleasure, in and of itself, as something sinful or otherwise contrary to spiritual growth. This kind of religion should be opposed by thinking and progressive individuals.
With regard to his thesis about the benefits of sexual permissiveness, Prescott also found support in anthropological studies. He points out that " other research also indicates that societies which punish premarital sex are likely to engage in wife purchasing, to worship a high god in human morality, and to practice slavery. "
Wilhelm Reich, a psychiatrist who worked closely with Sigmund Freud during the 1920s, wrote "The Mass Psychology of Fascism," which was published in 1933. Throughout his life Reich was concerned with liberating people both sexually and economically from power structures that he perceived to be oppressive and exploitive. During the rise of the Nazi power structure in Germany, Reich observed that " It was precisely the wretched masses who helped to put fascism, extreme political reaction, into power. " 27 This was good for the rich elite, but hardly in the interest of the ordinary citizen. This observation led to the basic question that he addressed in " The Mass Psychology of Fascism. " " What was going on in the masses that they followed a party whose leadership was objectively as well as subjectively in diametrical opposition to the interests of the working masses? " 28 To answer this question he turned to the psychoanalytic perspective in which he was trained.
Both
Reich
and
Freud
believed
that
society
imposed
a
painful
renunciation
of
sexual
freedom
on
its
members,
and
that
the
repression
of
sexuality
was
internalized
to
become
a
part
of
the
character
structure
of
the
individual.
Freud's
term
for
this
internalized
repressive
voice
of
society
-- as
funneled
to
the
individual
through
parenting
figures
-- was
the
" super-ego. "
Reich's
concern
with
regard
to
the
issue
of
liberation,
however,
led
to
a
profound
break
with
Freud
who
was
more
conservative
and
who
saw
sexual
repression
as
being
the
price
that
had
to
be
paid
for
the
development
of
civilization.
Reich
saw
the
same
internalized
structure
as
a
Trojan
Horse
that
consistently
led
individuals
to
betray
their
true
interests,
and
to
deny
their
own
most
intense
desires.
If love energy is indeed so strong, what force would be strong enough to oppose it? This is where p sychoanalytic theory takes a curious turn. The object of every child's desire is first the mother and then the father. If the father (with the support of the mother) prohibits the expression of sex love -- even of a harmless infantile variety -- on pain of losing parental love, then the child turns against his or her own sexuality and learns to love and seek the approval of the repressive person. In other words fire is fought with fire. Love turns against love. The child turns against his or her own sexual desire in order the secure the love of the repressive adult. This establishes the character structure of a person who will, for the rest of his or her life, seek the love of authority figures, no matter how repressive they are. In Germany, of course, the supreme authority figure whose love was courted was Hitler. The Fuhrer.
Reich states that "every social order produces in the masses of its members that structure which it needs to achieve its main aims. " 29 This would suggest that the specific patterns that internalize society's agenda might vary somewhat from one culture to another, or even from one individual to another. It might not always display the exact dynamic that Freud described as the " Oedipus complex " . But the character structure needed for oppressive forms of government always requires two things: sexual repression and an ideology that justifies repression and blind obedience. As Reich sums up the process as he sees it, " In short, morality's aim is to produce acquiescent subjects who, despite distress and humiliation, are adjusted to the authoritarian order. Thus, the family is the authoritarian state in miniature, to which the child must learn to adapt himself as a preparation for the general social adjustment required of him later. Man's authoritarian structure -- this must be clearly established -- is basically produced by the embedding of sexual inhibitions and fear in the living substance of sexual impulses. " 30 Character structure is, in short, the link between between child rearing practices and the political sphere.
It is important that the very real contribution that Reich made to our understanding of the relationship of character structure to political dynamics not be dismissed because of his later rather controversial theories about the collection and use of "orgone energy." With any highly intelligent and creative person it is necessary to sort out what is of value in their thinking and what may have been less productive avenues of exploration.
Prescott and Reich approach the issue of development quite differently. Prescott is oriented to physiological data, while Reich comes from a psychoanalytic tradition. Yet they both come to a similar conclusion: deprivation with regard to loving physical intimacy in the primary relationship, and the prohibition against other erotically desired relationships ultimately leads to a rigid, authoritarian personality capable of great violence. Prohibition of what people most desire must be enforced with severe threats and/or punishments if it is to be effective. When one encounters these prohibitions and punishments and discovers them to be insurmountable, he or she often ends up seeking the love the prohibiting and punishing person, thus introducing a sado/masochistic dynamic to the whole process. I am suggesting that something of this sort is the "normal" -- th at is to say by far the most common -- developmental sequence in Western society. This is our madness.
The Central Importance of Persons -- Object relations theory
Although thinkers and researchers like Harlow, Reich and Prescott have clearly contributed a great deal of importance to our understanding of human behavior, they all seem to suggest that it is pleasure itself (the orgasm in Reich's case) rather than relationships that provide the conditions for positive human development, and for healing when something has gone wrong. A bias of this sort was embedded in Freudian theory. The Freudian school of thought saw human activity as motivated by " drives. " Hunger and sex are perhaps the most obvious drives we are acquainted with. Interpersonal relationships were driven mainly by the sex drive. The sexual act served the purpose of releasing painful physiological tensions that built up within the organism. It does not seem to me that Freud was entirely consistent regarding this, and his thinking shifted and matured throughout his life. Nevertheless, it is hard to get away from the notion that for Freud the primary significance of other people was that they provided an occasion for gaining release from painful sensations. As the meaning of a piece of pie was that it allowed one to overcome the painful sensation of hunger, the primary meaning of another person was that he or she allowed one to overcome the discomfort of sexual tension.
I would suggest there are two biases that have plagued psychology from its inception. The first is that it should be built exclusively on the basis of observations that are available from the outside. Behaviorism, for example, prided itself on this. "Subjective" knowledge was not knowledge at all, and introspection was a waste of time. The second problem was the effort in the human sciences in general to reduce human reality to mechanics. Freud, of course based his theory on information provided by introspection, but was as guilty of the mechanization of human reality as was Skinner. Theories that are grounded in either or both of these biases may enable us to predict and control behavior in some situations. But even their predictive value has its limitations. It should be mentioned, for example, that it was behaviorism that was at least in part responsible for the creation of the marasmus babies wasting away in institutions we talked about earlier. But even when such theories are capable of predicting and controlling, they tell us little or nothing about the psyche -- the person qua person. They are psychologies without a psyche.
Thinking that we best understand human beings only from seeing them from the outside and conceptualizing them as machines, is a little like thinking that the equation "32 feet per second per second" gives us significant information about Newton's famous apple. In certain situations the equation can help us to predict and control how an apple will behave, but little else. The apple, qua apple, eludes such calculations. Within their sphere of application physiological descriptions of behavioral events are interesting and in some cases useful. But if we want to understand what it means to be a human being we must access the data of subjective experience and employ a vocabulary that is appropriate to the data. Let me illustrate this point by a love poem:
My Amygdala Sighs For You
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