Against Everyone with Conner Habib

AEWCH 59: JAMES STRICK or (RE)INTRODUCTION TO WILHELM REICH

Feb 12, 2019
Dr. James Strick, a historian of science at Franklin & Marshall College, dives into the life and revolutionary ideas of Wilhelm Reich. He discusses Reich's interdisciplinary influence and relevance today, touching on his sex-political work in 1920s Vienna and the implications of repression on politics and family. Strick explains Reich's break from Marxist parties, his controversial lab experiments with bions, and the design of the Orgone Accumulator. The conversation illuminates Reich's humanitarian aims and the complexities of his legacy.
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INSIGHT

Reich's Interdisciplinary Vision

  • Wilhelm Reich combined psychoanalysis, biology, sexuality, and politics into a unified project to understand what it means to be human.
  • James Strick emphasizes Reich's archival-based scholarship that reveals previously sealed biological work.
INSIGHT

Sex Education As Political Work

  • Reich created a proletarian sex clinic and wrote accessible sex-education pamphlets for workers and youth.
  • He fused Marxist critique with practical birth-control and counseling to challenge moralistic distortions.
INSIGHT

Sexual Curiosity Predated Psychoanalysis

  • Reich's interest in sex predated Freud and arose from childhood nature study and observation of animal sexual behavior.
  • Freud's theories confirmed and deepened Reich's conviction that sexual life drives much human behavior.
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