Wilhelm Reich *24. März 1897 – weltbekannt als einer der Pioniere der Psychoanalyse und Sexualforschung, der von Nazis, Stalinisten und Traditionalisten gleichermaßen verfolgt, über Skandinavien ins amerikanische Exil entkam, nur um dort elendig in einer Gefängniszelle zu enden…
1945 hat Reich ein reichlich verbittertes, für das Archiv des Orgoninstituts bestimmtes Essay über die Dummheit der Menschheit, Machtmissbrauch, Leiden und Rebellieren geschrieben, das von William Steig („shrek!“) treffsicher illustriert dann 1948 doch veröffentlicht wurde.
Zeichnungen und einige Sentenzen aus „Listen, little man“:
(…) Take a look at your patriots: They do not walk; they march. They do not hate the enemy; instead they have hereditary enemies. They do not sing songs; they yell martial airs. They do not embrace their women; they “lay” them and “do” so and so many “numbers” a night.
(…) Don’t get excited, little Führer of all democrats and all proletarians of the world. I believe that your real freedom of the future depends more on the answer to this one question than on tens of thousands of resolutions of your Party Congresses. …… You have been believing that your freedom is secured when you ‘put people against the wall.’ For once, put yourself in front of a mirror!
(…) You had the choice between the Nietsche’s elevation to the Ubermensch and Hitler’s degradation into the Untermensch! You cried, Heil! and chose the Untermensch. You had the choice between the genuinely democratic constitution of Lenin and the dictatorship of Stalin. You chose the dictatorship of Stalin.
(…) You had the choice between Jesus and Paul. (…) You had the choice between Marx’s realisation of the productivity of labour and the idea of the state. You forgot about living in your work and chose the state .(…) You had the choice between the cruel Inquisition and the truth of Galileo. (…) You have the choice between an understanding of mental disease and shock therapy. You chose shock therapy, in order not to have to realize the gigantic dimensions of your own misery, in order to continue to remain blind where only open clear eyes can help.
(…) It took many millions of year to develop you from a jelly-fish to a terrestrial biped. Your biological aberration, in the form of rigidity, has only lasted six thousand years. It will take a hundred or five hundred or maybe five thousand years before you rediscover nature in you, before you find the jelly-fish in yourself again.
(…) You cling to your stupidities, such as your ‘race,’ ‘class,’ ‘nation,’ religious compulsion and suppression of love as a louse clings to a fur. Every once in a while, you stick your head out of the morass to yell, Heil! The croaking of a marsh frog is closer to life.
(…) You are afraid of Life, Little Man, deadly afraid. You will murder it, in the belief of doing it for the sake of “socialism”, or “the state,” or “national honour,” or “the glory of God.” There is one thing you do not know nor want to know: That you yourself created all your misery, hour after hour, day after day; that you do not understand your children …………
(…) You are afraid of genuine love, afraid of your responsibility for your own work, afraid of knowledge. This is why you can only exploit the love, work and knowledge of others but can never create yourself. This is why you steal happiness like a thief in the night; this is why you cannot see happiness in others without getting green with envy.
(…) You are great, Little Man, when you are not small and petty. Your greatness, Little Man, is the only hope left. You are great when you carry on your trade lovingly, when you enjoy carving and building and painting and decorating and sowing, when you enjoy the blue sky and the deer and the dew and music and dancing, your growing children. (…) You are great, Little Man, when you sing the good old folk songs, or when you dance to the tune of an accordion, for the folk songs are warm and soothing, and are the same all over the world. And you are great when you say to your friend: ‘There is only one thing that counts: to live one’s life well and happily. Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. //
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