AnarWiki/markdown/Introduction_(The_Irrational_in_Politics).md

The **introduction** to [Chris Pallis'](Chris_Pallis "wikilink") 1970
book [The Irrational in
Politics](The_Irrational_in_Politics_\(Book\) "wikilink"). It is
followed by the first chapter, '[Some
examples](Some_examples_\(The_Irrational_in_Politics\) "wikilink")'.

## Introduction

This pamphlet is an attempt to analyze the various mechanisms whereby
modern society manipulates its wage (and house) slaves into accepting
their slavery and - at least in the short term - seems to succeed. It
does not deal with "[police](police "wikilink")" and
"[jails](Prison "wikilink")" as ordinarily conceived but with those
internalized patterns of repression and coercion, and with those
intellectual prisons in which the "mass individual" is today entrapped.

The pamphlet starts by giving a few examples of the irrational behaviour
- at the level of politics - of classes, groups and individuals. It
proceeds to reject certain facile "interpretations" put forward to
explain these phenomena. It probes the various ways in which the soil
(the individual psyche of modern man) has been rendered fertile
(receptive) for an authoritarian, hierarchical and class-dominated
culture. It looks at the family as the locus of reproduction of the
dominant ideology, and at sexual repression as an important determinant
of social conditioning, resulting in the mass production of individuals
perpetually craving authority and leadership and forever afraid of
walking on their own or of thinking for themselves. Some of the problems
of the developing [sexual revolution](Sexual_Revolution "wikilink") are
then discussed. The pamphlet concludes by exploring a new dimension in
the failure of the [Russian
Revolution](October_Revolution_\(Russia\) "wikilink"). Throughout the
aim is to help people acquire additional insight into their own psychic
structure. The fundamental desires and aspirations of the ordinary
individual, so long distorted and repressed, are in deep harmony with an
objective such as the [libertarian reconstruction of
society](Libertarian_Socialism "wikilink"). The revolutionary "ideal"
must therefore be made less remote and abstract. It must be shown to be
the fulfilment - starting here and now - of peoples' own independent
lives.

The pamphlet consists of two main essays: '[The Irrational in
Politics](The_Irrational_in_Politics_\(Book\) "wikilink")' and '[The
Russian
Experience](The_Russian_Experience_\(The_Irrational_in_Politics\) "wikilink")'.
These can be read independently. The subject matter does not overlap
although the main arguments interlock at several levels. The essays are
followed by an
[appendix](Appendix:_Clara_Zetkin,_Reminiscences_of_Lenin_\(The_Irrational_in_Politics\) "wikilink"):
an excerpt from [Clara Zetkin's](Clara_Zetkin "wikilink")
*[Reminiscences of Lenin](Reminiscences_of_Lenin_\(Book\) "wikilink")*,
which illustrates an aspect of [Lenin's](Vladimir_Lenin "wikilink")
thinking little known - or desirably forgotten - by all those Leninists
now jumping on the bandwagon of [women's
liberation](Feminism "wikilink").

Frequent references will be found to the works of [Wilhelm
Reich](Wilhelm_Reich "wikilink"). This should not be taken to imply that
we subscribe to all that Reich wrote - a point spelt out in fuller and
more specific detail later on. In the area that concerns us Reich's most
relevant works were written in the early 1930s. At that time, although
critical of [developments in Russia](USSR "wikilink") (and more critical
still of the policy of the [German Communist
Party](Communist_Party_of_Germany "wikilink")) Reich still subscribed to
many of their common fundamental assumptions. Even later he still spoke
of the "basic socialism of the Soviet Union"\[1\] and muted his
criticisms of the [Bolshevik](Bolsheviks "wikilink") leaders to an
extent that is no longer possible for us, writing four decades later.
Moreover such is the influence of authoritarian conditioning that even
those who have achieved the deepest insight into its mechanisms cannot
fully escape its effects. There is an undoubted authoritarian strand in
Reich.\[2\]

A final point concerns the section on the historical roots of sexual
repression. The author (who is neither a historian nor an
anthropologist) found this difficult to write. There seems little doubt,
on the evidence available, that sexual repression arose at a specific
point in time and fulfilled a specific social function - although
experts differ as to many of the details. The difficulty here has been
to steer a middle course between the great system builders of the
nineteenth century - who tended to "tidy up reality" in order to make it
conform to their grandiose generalizations - and the theoretical
nihilism of many contemporary social scientists who refuse to see the
forest for the trees. For instance the reluctance of Establishment
anthropologists to envisage their subject from a cultural-evolutionary
viewpoint often stems, one suspects, from fear of the revolutionary
implications of such an approach and of its implicit threat to
contemporary institutions. We share none of these fears and can
therefore look into this area without anxiety.

## Introduction to the 1975 Edition

We first published this text in June 1970. A great deal has happened
since then. The works of Wilhelm Reich have become available in many
cheap editions and his ideas are widely known among
revolutionaries.\[3\] The rise of the Women's Liberation Movement has
ensured that many of the notions rather tentatively put forward in this
pamphlet are now widely accepted. The debate about "sexual liberation"
and about "sexual politics" in general has in fact gone a lot further
than was envisaged in these pages.

What is striking, however, is the disparity between radical attitudes in
this area (now shared by many) and the continued acceptance by most
so-called revolutionaries ([Stalinists](Marxist-Leninism "wikilink"),
[Trotskyists](Trotskyism "wikilink"), [Maoists](Maoism "wikilink"),
etc.) of authoritarian practices and institutions. Whether we like it or
not these groups and the ideas they peddle still dominate the political
scene. We hope our pamphlet may contribute to subverting their
orthodoxies and incidentally help some of them come to libertarian
politics.

The author has two main criticisms of the original text. The first is
that it was insufficiently critical of Reich's concept of the centrality
of sexual repression in the genesis of authoritarian conditioning. Reich
undoubtedly achieved many valid insights in this field, but other
factors are also clearly involved and an overwhelmingly unidimensional
approach (such as Reich's) in the long run creates more problems (both
practical and theoretical) than it solves.

Secondly, the original text, while correctly stressing the social
dimension of the problem of sexual liberation, was probably too
optimistic in its hopes that it would prove easy for individuals to
break with a process of conditioning as old as class society itself, and
to live as rational, emancipated human beings, free of sexual
inhibitions, yet considerate of the feelings of others.\[4\]

These two considerations do not detract, however, from the relevance of
this area. They should, on the contrary, be seen as a spur to further
investigation into the roots of human belief and behaviour. If socialism
is, in the phrase of the young [Marx](Karl_Marx "wikilink"), "man's
positive self-consciousness", then all endeavours to deepen our
understanding of *how* people think, and *why* they think and feel
certain things, seem both worthwhile and necessary.

## Notes

<references />

1.  [Wilhelm Reich](Wilhelm_Reich "wikilink"), *[The Sexual
    Revolution](The_Sexual_Revolution_\(Wilhelm_Reich_Book\) "wikilink")*
    (New York: The Noonday Press, 1962), p. 204.
2.  See for instance the recent biography by his third wife, Ilse
    Ollendorf Reich, *Wilhelm Reich* (London: Elek, 1969).
3.  See our reviews of Reich's *[What is Class
    Consciousness?](What_is_Class_Consciousness?_\(Book\) "wikilink")*
    and his *[Dialectical Materialism and
    Psychoanalysis](Dialectical_Materialism_and_Psychoanalysis_\(Book\) "wikilink")*.
4.  See our review of [George Frankl's](George_Frankl "wikilink") *[The
    Failure of the Sexual
    Revolution](The_Failure_of_the_Sexual_Revolution_\(Book\) "wikilink").*