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authorSilvio Rhatto <rhatto@riseup.net>2018-01-16 19:49:49 -0200
committerSilvio Rhatto <rhatto@riseup.net>2018-01-16 19:49:49 -0200
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More Eros, or more civilization?
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@@ -504,3 +504,67 @@ Superego:
it is genuine, seems to grow out of a non-repressive instinctual constellation
and to envisage non-repressive aims -- so much so that the term sublimation
seems to require considerable modification if applied to this kind of work.
+
+ [...]
+
+ The "automatization" of the superego 25 indicates the defense mechanisms by
+ which society meets the threat. The defense consists chiefly in a strengthening
+ of controls not so much over the instincts as over consciousness, which, if
+ left free, might recognize the work of repression in the bigger and better
+ satisfaction of needs. The manipulation of consciousness which has occurred
+ throughout the orbit of contemporary industrial civilization has been described
+ in the various interpretations of totalitarian and "popular cultures":
+ co-ordination of the private and public existence, of spontaneous and required
+ reactions. The promotion of thoughtless leisure activities, the triumph of
+ anti- intellectual ideologies, exemplify the trend.
+
+ [...]
+
+ But these personal father-images have gradually disappeared behind the
+ institutions. With the rationalization of the productive apparatus, with the
+ multiplication of functions, all domination assumes the form of administration.
+ At its peak, the concentration of economic power seems to turn into anonymity:
+ everyone, even at the very top, appears to be powerless before the movements
+ and laws of the apparatus itself. Control is normally administered by offices
+ in which the controlled are the employers and the employed.
+
+ [...]
+
+ Most of the clichés with which sociology describes the process of
+ dehumanization in presentday mass culture are correct; but they seem to be
+ slanted in the wrong direction. What is retrogressive is not mechanization and
+ standardization but their containment, not the universal co-ordination but its
+ concealment under spurious liberties, choices, and individualities. The high
+ standard of living in the domain of the great corporations is restrictive in a
+ concrete sociological sense: the goods and services that the individuals buy
+ control their needs and petrify their faculties. In exchange for the
+ commodities that enrich their life, the individuals sell not only their labor
+ but also their free time. The better living is offset by the all-pervasive
+ control over living. People dwell in apartment concentrations -- and have
+ private automobiles with which they can no longer escape into a different
+ world. They have huge refrigerators filled with frozen foods. They have dozens
+ of newspapers and magazines that espouse the same ideals. They have innumerable
+ choices, innumerable gadgets which are all of the same sort and keep them
+ occupied and divert their attention from the real issue -- which is the
+ awareness that they could both work less and determine their own needs and
+ satisfactions.
+
+ The ideology of today lies in that production and consumption reproduce and
+ justify domination. But their ideological character does not change the fact
+ that their benefits are real. The repressiveness of the whole lies to a high
+ degree in its efficacy: it enhances the scope of material culture, facilitates
+ the procurement of the necessities of life, makes comfort and luxury cheaper,
+ draws ever-larger areas into the orbit of industry -- while at the same time
+ sustaining toil and destruction. The individual pays by sacrificing his time,
+ his consciousness, his dreams; civilization pays by sacrificing its own
+ promises of liberty, justice, and peace for all.
+
+ The discrepancy between potential liberation and actual repression has come to
+ maturity: it permeates all spheres of life the world over. The rationality of
+ progress heightens the irrationality of its organization and direction.
+ Social cohesion and administrative power are sufficiently strong to protect the
+ whole from direct aggression, but not strong enough to eliminate the
+ accumulated aggressiveness. It turns against those who do not belong to the
+ whole, whose existence is its denial. This foe appears as the archenemy and
+ Antichrist himself : he is everywhere at all times ; he represents hidden and
+ sinister forces, and his omnipresence requires total mobilization.