Chapter 11 Chapter Three Love and Its Decline and Fall in Contemporary Western Society

If love is a faculty of those who have a creative and mature character, it follows from this that the faculty of love in every person living in a given society depends on the influence of that society on his character.When we speak of love in contemporary Western society, we ask the following question, whether the social structure of Western civilization and the spirit produced by this social structure will promote the development of love.To ask this question means to answer it in the negative.Anyone who observes our life in the West objectively will say without hesitation that love—fraternal love, maternal love, and sexual love—is a rare phenomenon in the West, and has taken its place in its place by many forms of false love that are really only The form of love's decay.

Capitalist society is based on the principle of political freedom on the one hand, and on the market as the principle regulating all economic activities, and therefore all social relations, on the other.The goods market determines the conditions under which the exchange of goods takes place.The labor market regulates the buying and selling of labor.Useful things and the energy and skill of useful people become values ​​which are exchanged voluntarily and fairly according to the conditions of the market.Take shoes, for example. Even if the shoes themselves are useful and necessary, they will lose any economic value (exchange value) once no one cares about them in the market.So it is with human strength and skill.The owner of capital can buy labor power and order labor power to work for the profitable investment of his capital.Owners of labor must sell their labor according to prevailing market conditions so as not to starve.This economic structure is reflected in high and low levels of value.Capital rules labor power, and inanimate objects are worth more than labor power, human talent, and all living objects.Possession is higher than being.

This structure has been the basis of capitalism from the beginning.Although this social structure remains the hallmark of modern capitalism to this day, a number of factors have changed which have given modern capitalism new characteristics and have had a profound effect on the character structure of modern man.We see that the result of the development of capitalism is the continuous concentration of capital.Large enterprises continue to expand, while small enterprises are increasingly squeezed out.In large enterprises, ownership of capital is increasingly separated from management of capital.Hundreds of thousands of stockholders are the "owners" of the business.Those who manage the enterprise are the management bureaucracy. Although their salaries are very high, the enterprise does not belong to them.These bureaucrats are not only interested in making large profits, but also in ever expanding enterprises, and thus their own power.The increasing concentration of capital and the formation of a powerful managerial bureaucracy were also manifested in the development of the labor movement.Unions organize labor so that workers do not have to fight alone in the labor market.Workers became members of large trade unions, which were also run by a powerful bureaucracy and represented workers against industrial giants.Whether in the field of capital or in the field of labor, individual initiative is replaced by the bureaucratic class.More and more people lose their independence and become attached to the bureaucratic class of the huge economic empire.

Another defining feature brought about by the concentration of capital is the particular form of organization of labor which is also one of the characteristics of modern capitalism.Enterprises with high concentration and strict division of labor lead to a new organization of labor, in which the individual loses his individuality and becomes a cog in the machine that can be changed at any time.The problems of the individual in modern capitalism can be summarized as follows: Modern capitalism requires large numbers of people who can work together in harmony.These people have increasingly demanding consumption needs, but their tastes are standardized, easily controlled and predictable.Modern capitalism needs people who, on the one hand, feel free and independent and believe that they will not submit to any authority, principle, or conscience; on the other hand, they are ready to execute orders, complete tasks assigned by others, and obey slipping into the machine of society, obediently at the mercy of others, voluntarily obeying leaders, and blindly being directed—with one exception, and that is that they work tirelessly, perpetually functioning and striving for advancement.

What was the result?If modern people are alienated from themselves, from their contemporaries and from nature. 1 He becomes a commodity and experiences his own life force as a capital that will bring him the greatest profit under the given market conditions.The relationship between human beings is essentially alien to each other, the relationship between automatic machines, and the basis of security is to find ways to get close to a group of people, to be consistent with this group of people in thought, feeling and action .While each strives to be close to others, each is actually alone, filled with insecurities, fears, and guilt.As long as the barrier between people is not overcome, this feeling will continue to appear.But our civilization offers possibilities that make people feel less alone.First of all, people repeat the same rigid mechanical work every day. This kind of work order makes them no longer consciously feel the basic requirements of human pursuit of transcendence and unity.But this alone is not enough, so man reduces this unconscious despair through enjoyment, through the music and pictures provided by the entertainment industry, and through the constant purchase of new objects.In fact, modern people are very much like Huxler* (* Huxler (1894-1963), American writer, deeply influenced by Buddhism. -Translator's Note) described in his "Brave New World" "well-nourished, well-dressed, sexually gratified, but without ego, and only superficially in contact with his contemporaries." "There is wine today and drunk today" or "Today, everyone is happy".The happiness of modern people is enjoyment, which is to meet the requirements of consumption and assimilation of the same group of people.They consume goods, pictures, food, drink, cigarettes, people, magazines, books, movies, you name it.The world is just to fill their bellies, like a giant apple, a giant wine bottle and a giant breast, and we are babies, always waiting, always hoping, always the losers.Our personalities struggle to accommodate the demands of exchanging, receiving, and consuming.Everything—spiritual and material—becomes objects of exchange and consumption.

As for love, of course, it is also completely in line with the social character of modern people.Automata don't love, they can only trade "packages of features" in hopes of getting a good deal.In this alienated structure, the basic requirement of people in love is the idea of ​​"partnership", which is particularly prominent in marriage.In countless articles promoting a happy marriage, a frictionless couple is hailed as the ideal union.This propaganda is no different from the standards that society requires employees to be handy.This clerk must be "correspondingly independent," a good collaborator, tolerant, yet aggressive and demanding in life.As marriage counselors tell us, a husband should understand his "wife" and be her helper.He should appreciate her wife's new clothes, as well as her cooking.And whenever the husband comes home tired and full of resentment, the wife should be considerate of him, and when the husband talks about professional troubles, the wife should pay attention to him.If the husband forgets her birthday, the wife should not be angry but be reasonable.All of this is to show that the relationship between these two people is as frictionless as oiled, but these two people will never know each other all their lives, never reach the "central relationship", but treat each other like guests, just try to make each other comfortable .Such a concept of love and marriage actually emphasizes protecting oneself from unbearable loneliness.In "Love" people finally find a safe haven.Two people form an alliance to oppose the whole world, but they regard the selfishness of these two people as love and trust.

Emphasizing the spirit of companionship and emphasizing mutual tolerance is a relatively new development.A different love formula was at work in the days after World War I.At that time mutual sexual satisfaction is the basis of a satisfying love relationship, especially a happy marriage.It is believed that the cause of many unhappy marriages is that the couple cannot "cooperate" well in sex life, and the root cause is the lack of correct attitude towards sex life, that is, one or both parties have failed to master the skills of sex life well.In order to "eliminate" this defect and help those unfortunate couples who cannot love each other, many books provide suggestions and explanations for various correct sexual attitudes, and more or less promise that as long as this is done, happiness and love will arise spontaneously .The basic idea is that love is the product of sexual satisfaction, and if a man and a woman learn to satisfy each other sexually, they will love each other.This fits perfectly with the popular fantasy in society that the right technology can solve not only the problems of industrial production, but also the problems of people.It is not seen that the opposite view is precisely true.

Love is not the result of sexual satisfaction, but sexual happiness, and even the mastery of so-called sexual skills is the result of love.If it is necessary to confirm this point of view, in addition to everyday observations, it is possible to turn to many concrete examples of psychoanalytic treatment.A study of the most frequent sexual problems—frigidity in women, psychological forms of impotence, severe or less severe, in men—shows that these problems arise not from lack of skill, but from the timidity of these men and women Psychology makes them incapable of love.Fear of the opposite sex, hatred of the opposite sex are the cause of these difficulties, which prevent them from giving themselves and acting spontaneously, making them physically intolerable to the approach of the opposite sex.If a person with a sexual disorder can get rid of his fear and hatred, he will gain the ability to love and his sexual problems will be solved.No amount of knowledge about sexual techniques will help if you can't get rid of it.

Although the experience of psychoanalytic treatment has proved that the view that happiness and love can be produced by the correct mastery of sexual skills is wrong, the basic idea that produces this view, that is, love is the product of sexual satisfaction between a man and a woman, has been greatly influenced by Freud. The influence of moral thought.Freud believed that love is fundamentally a sexual phenomenon. "Sexual love can give people the greatest satisfaction and a model of happiness. This experience can be used to illustrate that we should continue to find human satisfaction in sexual relationships and make sex the focus of life." 2 The experience of fraternity is also the result of sexual demands in Freud's eyes, but in this demand the sexual instinct becomes a kind of "purposeless excitement". "From the perspective of its origin, this kind of aimless love is also a purely sexy love, and it has always remained in people's subconscious." 3 And the sense of unity—which constitutes the essence of mystical experience and is at the root of a close union with another person or contemporaries—was called by Freud a pathological phenomenon, explained as To "re-establish unlimited narcissism". 4

Here we go a step further and see that for Freud love itself is an irrational phenomenon.For him there is no difference between irrational love and love as a mature human being.In "On Transference"5 Freud pointed out that transferred love is essentially no different from "normal" love.The birth of love is a neighbor to absurdity, a blind treatment of reality, and a transfer of the object of love in the same year.Love as a rational phenomenon, love as a sign of maturity, is not the object of Freud's study, because he believes that such love does not exist at all. But we would be wrong to overestimate the impact of Freud's ideas on the idea that love is a product of sexual attraction.Fundamentally speaking, it is correct to reverse the causal relationship.Freud's ideas were partly influenced by the zeitgeist of the nineteenth century, and partly his ideas were propagated by the zeitgeist of the first years after World War I.Chief among the factors that influenced Freud's thought and made his views popular was the reaction against the strict ethics of the late nineteenth century.

The second factor that determined Freud's theory was the dominant anthropological thinking at the time, which was based on the structure of capitalism.In order to prove that capitalism meets the natural requirements of man, it must first be proved that man is by its nature a competitor and an enemy of others.Economists base this on man's unquenchable desire for profit and Darwinians base this on the biological principle of the jungle, while Freud bases it on the man's desire to possess all women, just society The pressure to rein in their views comes to the same conclusion.So on Freud's view all men are jealous of each other, and this jealousy, this rivalry will persist even after all the social and economic causes of this jealousy have disappeared. 6 Freud's thought was also ultimately influenced by the dominant materialism of the nineteenth century.It is believed that the basis of all psychic phenomena can be found in the phenomena of physiology.Therefore Freud believed that love, hatred, ambition and jealousy are the products of various forms of sexual instinct.He fails to see that the fundamental reality is the human condition, first of all the general situation which is the same for all men, and then the practice of life as a result of the particular structure of society. (The most crucial step beyond this type of materialism was done by Marx, in Marx's "historical materialism", not the body, instinct, desire for food, or possession is the key to understanding man, the key is the whole process of man's life , People's "life practice".) According to Freud's point of view, all instincts; desires, if satisfied without reservation, will cause mental health and bring happiness.But clinical experience shows that those men and women who have been fully satisfied in their sexual life throughout their lives do not feel happy because of it, and they often even feel pain because of spiritual conflicts and symptoms.The satisfaction of all instinctive desires is not only not the basis of happiness, but also cannot guarantee the basic health of the human spirit.Despite this, Freud's ideas continued to gain widespread popularity after the First World War because of changes in the spiritual life of capitalism: the emphasis had shifted from frugality to The success of the shift to a view of consumption as the basis of ever-expanding markets and as the chief satisfaction of the automated, timid beings.Being drunk today has become the principle of material consumption, and it has also become the principle of sexuality. The two views of love as a product of sexual gratification and love as a companionship thought and a safe haven from loneliness are the two "normal" forms of love's decline in Western societies, a socially determined and caused love disease Science.There are many individualized forms of this pathology, all of which end in conscious suffering.These forms are called neuroses by psychoanalysts and increasingly by laymen.Some frequently occurring forms are briefly illustrated below with a few examples. The basic condition for psychopathic love is that the "loving" partner or partners cling firmly to the father or mother figure and transfer his former feelings, expectations, and fears of the father or mother to "all" in adulthood. Lover's body.These people never get beyond childhood and are still finding childhood connections as adults.In this environment, these people remain at the stage of two, five, or twelve years old in terms of emotional life, but their intellectual and social abilities are in line with their actual age.In severe cases, this emotional immaturity can disrupt social life; in less severe cases, the conflict is limited to the realm of personal intimacy. Let's go back to the father-centered or mother-centered discussion we've already mentioned.The following example is related to the pathological love relationship we often see today, that is, the man stays in the relationship with his mother throughout the emotional development process.These men are never weaned, they always feel that they are children, they need their mother's protection, maternal love, warmth, care and appreciation.They need unconditional maternal love--the only condition for this love is that they need this love, they are mother's children, weak and powerless.These men are often amiable and personable when they try to win a woman's love; and if they succeed, they remain so.But their relationship with this woman (as with everyone, really) was superficial and irresponsible.Their purpose is to be loved, not to love themselves.A strong vanity and lofty ambitions that are not fully exposed are often seen in this type of person.If they find the "right" wife, they feel confident that they have the upper hand in the world; they are then also amiable and gentle with other people.But after a period of time his wife no longer fits his imagination, and conflicts and frictions arise.If his wife doesn't consistently appreciate him, if she demands a life of her own, wants to be loved and protected, if she - in extreme cases - isn't prepared to forgive him for his affairs (or to reveal that she has a rather nasty feeling about it). for the interest of admiration), then he will feel greatly hurt and disappointed.Generally speaking, he will simplify his feelings by saying "the wife does not love him, is selfish or authoritarian".It's clear that any slight neglect by the "loving mother" of her bewitching "son" is seen as a sign of lack of love.These men generally confuse their polite manners, and their desire to please others, with true love, and thus conclude that they are being treated unfairly.They think they are great lovers, and they complain endlessly about their wives' dissatisfaction.