The analysis of the concept of work-democracy has, as we see, led us into a sphere of human life that, though it has been ascribed enormous importance for thousands of years, has been looked upon as overwhelming and beyond mastery. It is the complicated and vast sphere of so-called ‘human nature’. That which philosophers, poets, superficial politicians, but also great psychologists, designate and bemoan with the sentence’ that’s the way human nature is’ completely coincides with sex-economy’s clinical concept,’ emotional plague’. We can define it as the sum total of all irrational functions of life in the human animal.
If ‘human nature’, which is conceived of as immutable, is identical with the emotional plague, and if, in turn, the emotional plague is identical with the sum total of all irrational functions of life in the human animal; if, moreover, the functions of work, in themselves and independent of man, are rational, then we are confronted with two enormous fields of human activity, which are mortally opposed to one another: vitally necessary work as the rational function of life on the one hand and the emotional plague as the irrational function of life on the other hand.
It is not difficult to divine those work-democracy views as being a part of the emotional plagues all politics that is not based upon knowledge, work and love and that, therefore, is irrational. This is work-democracy’s answer to the timeless and age-old question of how we could finally come to grips with our ‘notorious’ human nature in a simple way: Education, hygiene and medicine, which have been grappling with the problem of human nature since time began without achieving satisfactory results, find in the rational function of vitally necessary work a powerful ally in the fight against the emotional plague.
To follow work-democracy’s train of thought to the end, we must first of all wholly free ourselves from conventional political and ideological thinking. Only in this way is it possible to compare the fundamentally different train of thought that springs from the world of love, work and knowledge to the train of thought that springs from the world qf pomp and circumstance, of diplomatic and political conferences.
The politician thinks in terms of ‘state’ and ‘nation’; the working man lives ‘sociably’ and ‘socially’. The politician thinks in terms of ‘discipline’ and ‘law and order’; the average working man experiences ‘pleasure of work’ and ‘order of work’, ‘regulation’ and ‘cooperation of work’. The politician thinks in terms of ‘morals’ and ‘duty’; the working man experiences or would like to experience ‘spontaneous decency’ and a ‘natural feeling for Me’. The politician speaks of the ‘ideal of the family’; the working
man enjoys or would like to enjoy the ‘love of husband, wife and children’. The politician speaks of the ‘interests of the economy and the state’; the simple working man wants ‘gratification of needs and an untrammelled food supply’. The politician speaks of the ‘free initiative of the individual’ and thinks of ‘profit’; the simple working man wants the freedom to try things on his own, the freedom to become what he is or could be.
In an irrational way, the politician holds sway over precisely those spheres of life that the working man copes or could cope with in a rational way, if he were not severely hampered by political irrationalism. Though the irrational and rational labels relate to the same spheres of life, they are diametrically opposed to one another; they are not words that could be substituted for one another. In actual practice they are mutually exclusive.
This is borne out by the fact that, throughout the history of human society, the authoritarian discipline of the state has always thwarted natural sociability and the pleasure of work; the state has thwarted society; the. Compulsive sacredness of the family has thwarted the love of husband, wife and children; compulsive morality has thwarted the natural decency that springs from the joy of life; and the politician has continually thwarted working men and women. Fundamentally, our society is ruled by concepts - by political-irrational concepts, let it be noted - that exploit human labour to compass irrational goals by force. Effective institutions are needed to secure freedom of action and development for the life activity of masses of people. The social basis for these institutions cannot be any old arbitrary, interchangeable political orientation or ideology; it can be only the social function of vitally necessary work as it results naturally from the interlacing of the various vitally necessary fields of work in the sphere of work as a whole.
Let us pursue work-democracy’s train of thought a step further into the thicket of entangled rational and irrational functions of life. In this pursuit we want to stick strictly to the logical sequence of thoughts and to exclude our personal interests as much as possible. To reach an applicable conclusion, we have to put ourselves, even in these considerations of the concept of work-democracy, in its position, i.e., we have to act as if we wanted to burden natural work-democracy with the responsibility for social existence. In short, we have to test its tenability from all angles in a strictly objective way. If we should allow our personal interests in some unnecessary activity or another to influence us, we would automatically exclude ourselves from the framework of this discussion.
If there were nothing but the emotional plague in its various forms, the human species would have met its doom long ago. Neither political ideology nor mystical ritual, the military power apparatus nor diplomatic discussions, would be able, by themselves, to provide the population of any country with food, even for just an hour, to keep the traffic system running smoothly, provide living quarters, cure diseases, safeguard the rearing of children, ferret out nature’s secrets, etc. According to the work-democratic concept, political ideologies, mystic rituals and diplomatic manoeuvres are necessary only within the framework of social irrationalism. They are not necessary in the factual sphere of life, which is ruled by love, work and knowledge. These vitally necessary functions obey their own self-generated laws; they are not accessible to any irrational ideology. Love, work and knowledge are not ‘ideas’, ‘cultural values’, ‘political programmes’, ‘mental attitudes’ or ‘confessions of creed’. They are concrete realities, without which human society could not exist for a day.
If human society were rationally organized, the priority of love, work and knowledge would be unquestioned; they, and not unnecessary institutions, would have the right to determine social existence. In accordance with the work-democratic conception, individual groups could arm themselves and kill one another; other groups could glory in mystical rituals, and still other groups could take delight in the discussion of ideologies. But they would not be able to dominate, exploit and lay claim to the basic biologic functions of society for their own selfish purposes. Moreover, they would not be able to deprive them of every right to exercise a determining influence.
The social irrationalism in the attitude towards these two spheres of human activity is enormous:
A politician is in a position to deceive millions of people, e.g., he can promise to establish freedom without actually having to do so. No one demands proof of his competence or of the feasibility of his promises. He can promise one thing today and the exact opposite tomorrow. Without let or hindrance, a mystic can imbue masses of people with the belief that there is a life after death - and he need not offer the least trace of proof. Let us now compare the rights of a politician or a mystic to the rights of a railroad engineer. The latter would be immediately put in jail or a mental institution if he would try to persuade as few as two dozen people who wanted to .travel from one town to another that he could fly to the moon. Let us further imagine that this same railroad engineer, armed with a gun now, insisted that his assertions were true and that he would have the waiting passengers locked up if they refused to believe him. The railroad engineer has to transport people from one place to another; he has to do so as practically and as safely as possible if he wants to hold his job.
It is wholly immaterial whether an architect, physician, teacher, lathe operator, educator, etc., is a Fascist, Communist, liberal; or Christian when it comes to building a school, curing the sick, making a piece of furniture or taking care of children. No one of these workers can hold long speeches or make fantastic promises; he has to perform concrete, practical work. He has to place one brick upon another and, before he begins, he must give careful thought to and draw blueprints of the number of rooms a school is to have, where the ventilation and exits are to be placed, where the windows are to be and where the administration office and kitchen are to be placed. Liberal, social democratic, religious, fascist or communist ideologies are of no use whatever when it comes to performing practical work. No worker can afford to fritter away his time in idle chatter.
Each worker must know what he has to do, and he must do it. But an ideologist can go on giving free rein to his fantasy, without ever performing one piece of solid work. Long after a group of politicians has completely bankrupted some country or another; it continues its threadbare ideologic debates in some other country. Real processes are totally foreign to the politician. Actually, there would be nothing to object to in this if the politicians would content themselves with debating among themselves and not try to impose their ideology on others, or even to determine the fate of nations.
I once made the attempt of testing the above exemplified system of thought of work-democracy on myself. In 1933, when I began to divine the existence of a universal biologic energy as a hypothesis, if I had openly asserted that such an energy really did exist, that it was capable of destroying cancerous tumours, I would only have confirmed the diagnosis of schizophrenia that overzealous psychoanalysts had passed around and
would have been confined to a mental institution. On the basis of my research in the field of biology, I could have promulgated any number of ideologies and could have founded a political party, let us say, a work-democratic freedom party. There is no doubt that I could have done this as well as others who had less practical experience. By virtue of my influence on people, it would have been an easy matter to surround myself with my own SS and to have thousands of people provided with work-democratic insignia. All of this would not have brought me one step closer to the problem of cancer or to a comprehension of the cosmic or oceanic feeling of the human animal. I would have firmly established a work-democratic ideology, but the naturally present, but as yet unperceived, process of work-democracy would have remained undiscovered. For years on end, I had to work very hard, to make observations, to correct mistakes, to overcome my own irrationalism as well as I could, to comprehend why biology is both mechanistic and mystical at the same time. I did not complain. I had to read books, to dissect mice, to deal with various materials in a hundred different ways, until I actually discovered orgone, until I was able to concentrate it in accumulators and make it visible. Only after this had been accomplished was I able to pose the practical aspect of the question, namely whether orgone contained curative effects. In this I was guided by the organic development of the work process. This means that every vitally necessary and practical work is a rational, organic development in itself, and it cannot be surmounted or circumvented in any way whatever. This formulation contains an essential biologic principle, which we call ‘organic development’. A tree must first have reached the height of one yard before it can reach the height of two yards. A child must first learn to read before he can find out what other people are saying in their writings. A physician must first study anatomy before he can understand pathology. In all these cases the development ensues from the organic progress of a work process. Working men and women are the functional organs of this work. He or she can be a good or poor functioning organ, but the work process itself does not undergo any fundamental change. Whether a man or woman is a good or poor functioning organ depends essentially upon the degree of irrationalism in his or her structure.
As might be expected, this ‘law of organic development’ is absent in irrational functions. In such functions the goal is there as an idea from the very beginning, long before any practical work is begun. The activity follows a fixed, preconceived plan; by its very nature, therefore, it has to be irrational. This is clearly and plainly shown by the fact that, of the world-famous irrationalists, literally nothing remains behind that could be put to use by posterity.
Over thousands of years the law of organic development has been dearly manifested in all technical and scientific arts. Galileo’s achievements originated in the criticism of the Ptolemaic system and extended the work of Copernicus. Kepler took up the work of Galileo, and Newton took up the work of Kepler. Many generations of working and searching men and women were developed from each of these functional organs of objective natural processes. Of Alexander, the so-called Great, Caesar, Nero, Napoleon, on the other hand, nothing whatever remains behind. Nor do we find any trace of continuity among the irrationalists, unless the dream of a Napoleon to become a second Alexander or Caesar is regarded as continuity.
In these men, irrationalism is completely exposed as a non-biologic and non-social, indeed anti-biologic and anti-social, function of life. It lacks the essential characteristics
of the rational functions of life, such as germination, development, continuity, non-deviation of process, interlacing with other functions, fragmentation and productivity.
Now let us apply these insights to the question whether the emotional plague can be fundamentally overcome. The answer is in the affirmative. No matter how sadistic, mystical, gossipy, unscrupulous, fickle, armoured, superficial and given to idle chatter human animals may be, they are naturally predisposed to be rational in their work functions. Just as irrationalism vents and propagates itself in ideological processes and mysticism, man’s rationality is confirmed and propagated in the work process. It is an inherent part of the work process and, therefore, an inherent part of man that he cannot be irrational’ in his work function. By his very nature of work itself, he is forced to be rational. Irrationalism automatically excludes itself by virtue of the fact that it disrupts the work process and makes the goal of work unattainable. The sharp and irreconcilable opposition between the emotional plague and the work process is clearly expressed in the following: As a working man or woman, one can always come to an understanding with any technician, industrial worker, physician, etc., in a discussion on work functions. As soon as the conversation shifts to ideology, however, the understanding falls to pieces. It is indicative of so many dictators and politicians that they regularly give up their work when they enter the province of politics. A shoemaker who loses himself in mystical ecstasy and begins to think of himself as a saviour of the people, sent by God, will inevitably cut the soles the wrong way and mess up his stitches. As time goes on, he will be faced with starvation. It is precisely by this process, on the other hand, that the politician becomes strong and rich.
Emotional irrationalism is capable only of disrupting work; it is never capable of accomplishing work.
Let us examine this work-democratic train of thoughts from its own point of view. Are we dealing here with an ideology, a glorification or idealization ‘of work’? I asked myself this question in view of my task to teach physicians and educators. It is incumbent upon me as a physician, researcher and teacher to differentiate between vitally necessary, rational work and unnecessary, irrational ideology, i.e., to ascertain the rational and rationally effective character of work. I cannot help, one of my students of vegetotherapy to overcome a practical difficulty in his own structure or in his work with patients by feeding him hopes of a better beyond or by appointing him ‘Marshal of Vegetotherapy’. The title of Marshal of Vegetotherapy would not make him the least bit more capable of dealing with difficulties. By appointing him Marshal of Vegetotherapy, I would only endanger him and possibly even precipitate a disaster. I must tell him the whole truth about his weaknesses and shortcomings. I have to teach him to recognize them by himself. In this I am guided by the course of my own development and my practical experience. I do not have an ideology that compels me to be rational for ethical or other reasons. Rational behaviour is imposed upon me by my work in an objective way. I would starve if I did not strive to act rationally. I am immediately corrected by my work if I try to cover up difficulties with illusions; for I cannot eliminate a biopathic paralysis with illusions any more than a machinist, an architect, a farmer or teacher can perform his work with illusions. Nor do I demand rationality. It is objectively present in me, independent of what I am and independent of the emotional plague. I do not order my students to be rational, for that would serve no purpose. I teach them and advise them, in their own interest and in the light of practical work processes, to distinguish the rational from the irrational in themselves and in the world. I teach them to promote the former and to check the latter. It is a basic feature of the emotional plague in social life to escape the difficulties of responsibility and the actualities of everyday life and work by seeking refuge in ideology, mysticism, brutality or a political party.
This is a fundamentally new position. It is not the rationality of work that is new, nor its rational effect on working men and women, but the fact that work is rational and has a rational effect in itself and of itself, whether I know it or not. It is better if I know it. Then I can be in harmony with the rational organic development. This is also a new position for psychology and sociology. It is new for sociology because, until now, sociology has looked upon society’s irrational activities as rational; and it is new for psychology because psychology did not doubt society’s rationality.
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