"A person who wants to drive a car has to pass a driver’s test; this is a necessary requirement to guarantee the safety of others. A person who owns a bigger house than he can afford is forced to rent or buy a smaller house. A person who wants to open a shoe store must show proof of his ability to do so. But in this twentieth century of ours, there is no law to protect the newly born against the parents’ inability to bring them up and the parents’ neurotic influence. Scores of children can, indeed should, according to the fascist ideology, be put into the world; but no one asks whether they can be nourished properly and whether they can be educated in keeping with the highly extolled ideals."
- Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
- Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
RP talks about similar topics (A) but tends to direct criticism towards society as a whole and provides suggestions for self improvement with an appreciation that he does not (and cannot) know his readers very well, though he does seem to be aware of the fact that we as a society are not currently exploring our best potentials. However, speaking from my perspective as someone whose quality of intellectual, social, and economic life has been abridged by parents who were not ready for nor cognizant of the requirements of their child, I would readily argue that childrearing is a task appropriate for a significantly narrower portion of the current global population. That being said. the only reality is to manage the life one has, rather than fantasizing about impossible potentials (though I am annoyed I find myself complaining and requesting advice on the Internet). In other words, children, and the adults they grow up to be, are far more sophisticated and potentially dangerous systems than a car, so how, with the guidance of people like RP, can we go about maximizing our collective potentials? (I am aware that RP talks about the importance further research to make his writings more relevant to our individual contexts.)
Has anyone found effective techniques for dramatically/ reliably improving one's intellectual and economic resources? Obviously there are no short cuts, but there must be ways of objectively acknowledging and improving the learning process (socially, intellectually, financially, sexually, etc).
A) Intelligence and Metabolism...
Appropriate stimulation is an essential part of the developmental process. Inappropriate stimulation is a stress that deforms the process of growth...
Education can either activate or suppress mental energy. If it is mainly obedience training, it suppresses energy. If it creates social dislocations, it disturbs mental and emotional energy.
Stress early in life can impair learning, cause aggressive or compulsive behavior, learned helplessness, shyness, alcoholism, and other problems. ...
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