From Heffner To ‘Me Too’
The ‘me too’ crisis shows little sign of abating almost one year on since revelations started pouring in about Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein. The allegations regarding the film producer’s behaviour in his circles relate to a lifestyle perceived as ‘repugnant’ and ‘abhorrent’ by those in charge at the Oscars. Apparently, the ‘freedom’ Weinstein is claimed to have chosen to enjoy is viewed as severely compromising the rights of other individuals as vouchsafed by the legal system, accounting for the strong reaction.
In September, 2017 – a month before the Weinstein headlines – the world observed the passing of Hugh Heffner, the man who strove toward ‘emancipation’ of the Western world, and through the West of the entire human population. In the process of giving shape to his zeal he earned considerable wealth and fame for himself even as his involvements would often be looked upon unfavourably by many.
Heffner’s impetus rose in the 1950’s after the horrors of the Second World War had ended, and the process of reconstruction was on to heal the deep psychological scars left behind, alongside the huge physical devastation all around. Understandably, his initiative would have set out to rescue humanity from the discontents of civilization that Freud had alluded to in his 1929 book Civilization and its Discontents[1].
These discontents, according to Freud, originate with libidinal repression. The repression in place in the Abrahamic tradition that looks upon sex as a sin, starting with the concept of the original sin, has shaped the psyche of the West for millennia, which may be viewed as accounting for a tremendous suffering for the people in its wake. Freud extends his broad model of analysis to the practice of all religions in his attempt to free the world from suffering as the scientist looks forward to an unhindered flow of the pleasure principle, as far as possible, away from the unwelcome effects of religious influence on humanity in thwarting the flow. This opened up the venture for Hugh Heffner.
Freud’s Stand
Of course, Freud is quite aware that the path to happiness is strewn with severe obstacles, — physiological, physical or societal — where the need arises to take recourse to the reality principle, and curtail the course of the pleasure principle in making room for necessary adjustments in order to avoid unwelcome suffering on the way. The only purpose of life, however, is to follow the pleasure principle, according to Freud, rooted in libidinal satisfaction[2]. Various adjustments to it, including taking to yoga, which he sees as an attempt at ‘killing off the instincts’ that fall in line with the pleasure principle[3], are no substitute to the instant gratification provided by the senses, necessary though they might be to avoid sufferings on the way. Yoga, according to Freud, lands us in a situation where the subject ‘has sacrificed his life … [having] only achieved the happiness of quietness’[4]. In the same vein, Freud does not see the intrinsic worth of the value beauty either, nor an independent, ‘elevated’ or ‘sublime’ state around it in life. Life after all is for the primary libidinal force of the pleasure principle in his system, and requires us to make adjustments along the way in our pursuit of its true purpose, following on the principle. Here there is a built-in opposition between true human satisfaction and civilization history has created for humanity. Hugh Heffner simply follows the cues from Freud in the former’s attempt at establishing humans on their right footing toward ‘true satisfaction’ in the teeth of the demands of civilization. In other words, the negative impacts of civilization on humanity at the macro level that Freud indicates in his theory leads to the practical ventures on Hugh Heffner’s part to heal them, also at the macro level. People following the path carved out by the latter keep engaged in the art of satisfying themselves in pursuit of the pleasure principle while they are not understood to be hurting others, thereby making everyone happy in the process. Such indeed is the claim.
The Shortcomings
But are people generally happy following the new way? Certainly Heffner has brought about a libidinal revolution. The activities that the likes of Weinstein are alleged to have been involved in are undreamt of for practice in public life a hundred years ago. The film magnet has in line once respected celebrities like Bill Cosby, Morgan Freeman and many others. Should we look upon the acts they are said to have indulged in as aberrations on the road to satisfaction that Heffner paved? Is there room for contentment in human psychology after all that provides peace of mind conspicuously missing in today’s world? How does the path to human happiness created by Heffner fare with boredom and depression that unfortunately has gripped the human race today? According to the psychological theory of Freud there certainly is little room for the ‘oceanic feeling’ of spirituality that Romain Rolland chances to mention in his letter to the psychologist[5]. The question that naturally props up here is: If things are in balance, sandwiched between the pursuit of pleasure introduced in the way of Heffner and the overarching rule of law resting on the foundation of human rights, why are so very many leaders in the public eye opening themselves up to be perpetrators of the indignity of sexual exploitation in public and private life? Is the legal system, fortified by its dosage of punishment, strong enough to protect human rights while there is an ongoing promotion and propagation of the new mood of satisfaction that libidinal freedom is supposed to ensure? Are Weinstein and his ilk, in other words, dragged onto the slippery slope of life triggered by the hype society promotes on the lead of Hugh Heffner, while they fail to keep themselves within the safe confines of the legal system, as if under a spell?
Suicide on the heels of deep rooted depression resulting from the new lifestyle is common today in societies all over. ‘Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park,’ Anthony Bourdain had said during the prime of his life. The world is grieving the loss of this celebrated personality who worked out the mantra he had uttered, reflecting the belief of so many today, accepting it as sacrosanct in a religious fashion. Life indeed is worthy of reverence, and the body we have is not a focus of experiments and excesses. We do lose our own sustainability following pursuit of satisfaction structured on the Freudian model in everyday life, as we are led to suspect to have happened in this case, in line with many other celebrities and their innumerable followings. The model is based on the hypothesis the scientist has insisted we put our faith in, even though it does not corroborate with facts in so far as living life based on the hypothesis makes people terribly discontented, bored and depressed to the point of being suicidal, instead of making us really happy. The prevailing lifestyle of today that touches us all is frivolous and undignified to say the least. Self-aggrandizement stands in the way of self-respect, leaving little prospect for respect for others to grow. No wonder, Weinstein faces charges for actions that originate from lack of a minimum respect for oneself and others.
We for ourselves, however, prefer to see things in the world as they are, and not through the lens of Freud’s which, though granted consistency, does not reflect truth. Freud’s theory does not enable us to apprehend or explain the fact of human existence as a whole, in as much as the theory postulates reduction of human values, including the aesthetic ones, to the libidinal instinct.
The Sustainable Alternative Freud Ignored
There are two options Freud recognizes as open to us humans: repression and its opposite — unhindered satisfaction. Since repression is not acceptable, satisfaction is after all the only alternative worth pursuing according to him. He begins his 1929 book Civilisation and its Discontents with a sharp criticism of the ‘oceanic feeling’ in the spiritual domain that Rolland praisingly refers to in his letter to the psychologist. “I cannot discover this ‘oceanic feeling’ in myself,” Freud declares. “It is not easy to deal scientifically with feelings,” he continues[6]. Freud does not wait to criticize the details of a theory built on the basis of the feeling; he rather hastens to methodologically dislodge the feeling itself to start with, as not the right item suitable in the machinery of science. The possibility of profitably cultivating the feeling is not open to him by any stretch of imagination outside the domain of his view of science as he prefers to treat psychology in the genetic mode where the libido has the place of primacy for him. Rolland, on the other hand, who is a creative writer, has come to be aware of the feeling from the Eastern, Hindu tradition where there are spiritual procedures in place to cultivate the state of the feeling, often in a process of gradual intensity of attainment. The procedures may better be called spiritual, rather than religious, as there is a mark of universality on them dissociated from the specific variances of religions, signifying compatibility with science. They accompany a state of inner harmony where the libido is not repressed as ‘sin’, but is situated at a creative platform in harmony and balance with life, as members of the same as well as the opposite sexes get a spontaneous care and respect issuing from the attained state of inner harmony generating the feeling. This is not just a state of libido management either, with a view to equipping an individual with the ability to navigate in society even as one’s attention is always fixed on an unrepressed perusal of the pleasure principle. Here at stake is the self respect of the individual which is the basis for respect for the others, as we mentioned before. To repeat, the allegation against “the Weinsteineans'” lack in self-respect, accounts for their inability to treat others with minimum respect while using them as means to the satisfaction of the pleasure principle. The cultivation of the oceanic feeling seems under the circumstances quite logical, and scientific indeed, contrary to Freud’s position. It is the third alternative that Freud chooses to ignore to start with, along with accommodating the aesthetic as well as ethical values in his theory, which ground pursuit of science in the right setting in life without allowing the values to be reduced to the scientific domain.
It is this oceanic feeling that Swami Vivekananda wanted to propagate to humanity for us to be able to rightly belong to the world in its individual, social as well as ecological settings, safeguarding science from becoming a tool for destruction at any of the levels. Rolland, the great creative thinker, was inspired by Vivekananda’s ideas to communicate the concept of oceanic feeling to Freud. Unfortunately the writer failed in his attempt due to no shortcoming on the his own part. Freud was not receptive enough as he stuck dogmatically to his own theory. The outcome was Hugh Heffner and the Weinsteinians.[7] The task lies ahead of us today to rebuild the unwieldy system we have in place at the macro level, so that the true, secular spirituality, which goes hand in hand with science, becomes the unifying tie for humans that Roman Rolland is so keen to impress upon his scientist friend Freud who is ready and willing to sacrifice creative human values at the altar of a trimmed and abstracted view of science. The ideas of Romain Rolland do not generate from any scriptural commandments, but from phenomenological experience instead which is the building block of psychology leading to creative living.
[1] Tr. by Joan Riviere, Revised and Newly Edited by James Strachey, The Hogarth Press, London, 1963. The book is one of the most prominent creations by Freud to disseminate his own ideas.
[2] Ibid, pp. 12-13.
[3] Ibid, p. 16.
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid, , pp. 1-2, 9.
[6] Ibid, pp. 1-2, 9.
[7] For more discussion on the concept of the oceanic feeling vis a vis Freud’s stand relating to it see Ethics in the Mahabharata, by Sitansu S Chakravarti, Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 2006, pp 112-20.
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