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diff --git a/books/psicologia/eros-civilization.md b/books/psicologia/eros-civilization.md index e2d82bc..93d4806 100644 --- a/books/psicologia/eros-civilization.md +++ b/books/psicologia/eros-civilization.md @@ -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. |