Collective Neurosis

[Pacifist Patriot]

Four symptoms:

1. Planless, day-to-day attitude toward life. Further planning makes no sense.

2. Fatalist attitude toward life. The day-to-day man considers planned action unnecessary, the fatalist considers it impossible.

3. Collective thinking. Man would like to submerge himself in the masses.

4. Fantacism. The collectivist ignores his own personality, the fanatic ignores that of those who think differently.

Ultimately, all these four symptoms can be traced back to man's fear of responsibility and his escape from freedom.

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Ijust read this in the introduction to Viktor Frankl's book The Doctor and the Soul. Obviously Frankl and Fromm were on similar wave lengths. This book was originally published in 1946 and is based on a manuscript that was confiscated from Frankl when he was admitted to Auschwitz.

I can't help but shake the feeling that the collective neurosis is coming to a head.

[lonestarnot]

1. So I fit into this description because I HATE repukes and ALL they stand

for! But believe me when I say, I am not part of the collective neurosis... as I have very good reasons for hating them!

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. I don't think disagreeing with the Repug platform

and their recent power grab would necessarily warrant inclusion in any of the four symptoms.

[lonestarnot]

5. Oh but if you read again... I do fit in there with my attitude! LOL

[EFerrari]

3. Notice this is Gandhi in reverse:

First they fight you, then they ignore you, then you win. (I probably butchered that.)

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. I think it goes...

Ignore, laugh, fight, win....but I'm not sure if I got it right either.

[htuttle]

6. I hadn't heard much about him before

Thanks!

I did some reading of all of Wilhelm Reich's books some years ago. Some of this echos his work in "Mass Psychology of Facism". I'll have to do a reading of Viktor Frankl and compare them. They both looked at (and were intimately affected by) the mass psychological events in Germany in WWII. It will be interesting to read Frankl's take on fanaticism.