Philosophy Reich, Wilhelm: Listen, Little Man!, v.1, 5 September 2008.

[Patricia]

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957)
Listen, Little Man (Rede an den kleinen Mann)
Translated from the German by Theodore Peter Wolfe (1902–1954)
Date of translation: 1948.


This is from a man who really knows how to rant.
Reich was a psychologist who was persecuted by the Nazis, emigrated to the USA and found himself persecuted there. Eventually he was sent to an asylum, where he died.
The focus of this rant is the ‘little common man’: the person who refuses to take responsibility for his actions, who is a jobsworth, and who, by inactivity and narrow-mindedness, allows fascism to flourish, even supporting it..
In my opinion, it contains some useful insights about fascism, though I’m not convinced by Reich’s belief that sexual repression is the cause of fascism, nor by his belief in ‘orgone energy’.

The source was Wikilivres (a Canadian site). The file was not up to their usual standards and contained a number of OCR and formatting errors, which I have corrected. There is a more recent, illustrated translation, which is still in copyright everywhere.