More Eros, or more civilization?

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.