A Quote by Gilles Deleuze
The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?
Related Quotes
Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?
We've learned a lot from the great psychologists. Wilhelm Reich wrote about the relationship between fascism and sexual repression. Freud rediscovered the underworld of consciousness that European rationalism had denied. But when you have a nation of people in therapy and counselling, "support" groups for every kind of human condition, where, in the clichés of that milieu, people "share" and "heal," the question, "What for?", "What now?" is no longer asked.
He [Wilhelm Reich] believed that the individual's walk, stance, and breath patterns revealed a specific character type. Reich thought chronic muscular tension indicated repression and blocked the expression of affect. An example is the tight holding of the chest area as a sign of repressed feelings of need and longing.
The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.
He did ten years in Attica, reading Nietzsche and Wilhelm Reich.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
The adjective "political" in "political philosophy" designates not so much the subject matter as a manner of treatment; from this point of view, I say, "political philosophy" means primarily not the philosophic study of politics, but the political, or popular, treatment of philosophy, or the political introduction to philosophy the attempt to lead qualified citizens, or rather their qualified sons, from the political life to the philosophic life.
America faces a fundamental choice: either the blessings of liberty or the servitude of liberalism. In the political struggle for survival, one or the other is headed for extinction.
I am profoundly indebted to the legacy of Wilhelm Reich, whose monumental contribution to the understanding of energy was taught to me by Philip Curcurruto, a man of simple wisdom and compassionate heart.
To these people, unhappiness was a condition, an intolerable state of affairs. If pills could help, pills were taken. But pills were not going to change the fundamental problem in the construction. Wanting what you can´t have. Looking for self-worth in the mirror. Layering work on top of work and still wondering why you weren´t satisfied - before working some more.
The fundamental question of political philosophy, one that precedes questions about how the state should be organized, is whether there should be any state at all. Why not have anarchy?
I have a counter-theory...I believe men built most things because women were shut out of political power, job opportunities, and education for most of history, and instead forced into servitude towards men in the home. I believe my theory has a lot of evidence for it, in the form of all of history.
My mother used to say, If other people have a problem with you, that's their problem. It's not your problem. I still have that philosophy today.
A writer must always try to have a philosophy and he should also have a psychology and a philology and many other things. Without a philosophy and a psychology and all these various other things he is not really worthy of being called a writer. I agree with Kant and Schopenhauer and Plato and Spinoza and that is quite enough to be called a philosophy. But then of course a philosophy is not the same thing as a style.
Interestingly, a number of the people I know - probably you do, too - who predicted that Trump would win were precisely Russians and Ukrainians who found the political style familiar and just asked, 'Well, why couldn't it work there?' They were the ones who turned out to be right.
At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one.
Related Authors
Albert Camus Quotes
French
Philosopher
Antoine de Saint-Exupery Quotes
French
Writer
Blaise Pascal Quotes
French
Philosopher
Charles Baudelaire Quotes
French
Poet
Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes
French
Writer
Honore de Balzac Quotes
French
Novelist
Jean de la Bruyere Quotes
French
Philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
French
Philosopher
Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes
French
Novelist
John Calvin Quotes
French
Theologian
Marcel Proust Quotes
French
Novelist
Michel de Montaigne Quotes
French
Philosopher
Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes
French
Statesman
Simone Weil Quotes
French
Philosopher
Victor Hugo Quotes
French
Novelist
Voltaire Quotes
French
Writer