Civilization And Freedom

See:

Psychodynamics

Bernal's "Devil" Is Anderson's "Protean Enemy"

The psychodynamicist says that most people hate civilization and could not live happily in a world with neither war nor crime.

The Un-man reflects that we rebel again both civilization and freedom.

These are not quite the same proposition. The psychodynamicist says that people hate the restrictions of civilization because they want to regain a primordial freedom to run, chase, kill, rejoice, feast and then sleep when full. If some people do rebel against freedom as such, then presumably those people do want to be restricted in some way - because they perceive restriction as safe, secure, predictable or whatever?

But what do we think of either proposition? The psychodynamicist goes into more detail about civilization. Trekking through a wild area, he enjoys fresh air, open spaces, a blue jay against green spruce, a brook belling over mossy stones and a thrush singing and wonders why men stopped hunting. Marie suggests that farming made food more secure and certain but he (psychodynamicist/gangster/her kidnapper/Rheinbogen) replies that this was the case only in bad hunting areas where, of course, farming began. He then concedes that there are some advantages to the civilization that has developed from the agricultural surplus:

"'The power, the gadgets...'"

-"License," p. 160.

But that is somewhat half-hearted. Technology is more than gadgets. We have learned about the universe. We read printed books, watch films and discuss them on the Internet. We have vastly expanded the range of our consciousness and understanding. Would we prefer to chase a mastodon? Right at the end, Rheinbogen thinks that he himself needs to hunt to satisfy his instincts but then reflects that research is a hunt, that Newton, Darwin and Einstein neither killed nor stole because they hunted bigger game and that he can do the same as a psychodynamicist.

Before that, he does rightly identify the deadly aspects that civilization has had:

crowding;

confinement to a single place;

anonymity;

being bossed, herded and cut off from nature;

subordinating everything else to a single job.

But he also acknowledges good results like medical science and:

"'...potentialities, if only we can realize them.'" (ibid.)

And we can now realizes potentialities like automation that can end drudgery.