Wilhelm Reich & the Frankfurt School?

[Ralph Dumain]

I didn't think extended discussion of Reich's ideas would be appropriate 
for this list, apart from any intersection they may have with the 
Frankfurters.  But indeed, given time, I could provide a very detailed 
analysis of Reich's later works, which I suggest unequivocally represent a 
deterioration from his earlier ones.  First, his "scientific" writings on 
orgonomy, physics, cloudbusting, etc., are pure nonsense.  Much more 
interesting are his philosophical statements, in which he attempts to 
distinguish the orgonomic perspective from both mechanism and mysticism, 
which he considers the twin ideological diseases of the human race.  He 
attempts to provide a natural scientific translation for mystical concepts, 
which at the same time is very clever but in the end irrational and 
obsessive.  I think Reich's fate as desperate paranoid in Cold War America 
(as an exile from fascist Europe) presents yet another object lesson for 
the inability of bourgeois society to mediate the dichotomy between 
positivism and life-philosophy (scientism and Romanticism).  So yeah, I can 
provide as firm a foundation as you need, but I can't do it in one or two 
paragraphs.  At least I am contributing something to this list; I see 
little productive thought going on here otherwise.  Care to offer some 
thoughts of your own on any subject of your choosing?

At 04:40 PM 4/10/2003 -0400, malgosia askanas wrote:
> > Reich's later deterioration into crackpot vitalism is
> > interesting for the lessons it unintentionally teaches, even though it
> > doesn't have the positive features of his early work.
>
>Does this sentence have any firm foundation?  What is your definition of
>"vitalism" and "crackpot"?  And what have you studied of Reich's works?
>
>-m