The Emotional Plague: The Root of Human Evil

Psychiatrist Konia has been a practicing Reichian therapist for over 40 years. Taking his title from a term coined by Wilhelm Reich, Konia argues that in the current ""emotional plague"" there is a mass ""displacement of intra-psychic conflicts of armored people onto the social and political sphere."" To put it another way, Konia believes that what Freud saw as normal human defenses are, in the 21st century, growing out of control. It is happening because of the dominance of an overly mechanistic view of human life, where the function of human life is reduced to its bodily mechanics, and all individuals are seen as interchangeably made to serve the same meaningless ends. One result, Konia argues, is a reactionary mysticism, one that, he says, feeds everything from alternative medicine to jihadist Islamism. In chapters including ""Freedom, Responsibility and Sociopolitical Ideology"" and ""Democracy in Armored Society: Formal Democracy versus Work Democracy,"" Konia shows the macro effects of ""armored society""-a humanity splintered into groups in conflict-in detail. By way of a solution, Konia argues for a recognition of a ""biological core"" than unites humanity in need, and in differences. While Konia's discussion can get fairly technical, it is passionate and engaged throughout.