No Subject

[microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net]

Subject: 670 lines of IED verbosity
Summary: Reich related ranting
Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA

In article <8908180937.AA09613@GAFFA.MIT.EDU>, IED
(IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu) writes:
> Subject: long overdue mailbag (long!? it's praKTically interminable!)
>     IED apologizes for his (for him) long silence in this forum.

And I apologize for this note coming out with the headers screwed up,
assuming that they are broken again.  Also excuse my verbosity.

>     First, IED must say a word or two about the recent revival
>of criticism of the work of Wilhelm Reich.

More like 1632 words (just about Reich, never mind the rest) !

>     First, Martin Gardner's remarks about Reich, while accurate
>enough, overlook the most salient aspect of Reich's work in the
>context of Kate Bushology: namely, its _artistic_ qualities.

Just because his writing was artistic, and some of his psychology
work admirable, doesn't mean that his medical quackery was excusable. 
The Joker in the _Batman_ movie did most of his murders in an artistic
way, yet certainly couldn't be called admirable.  W. Reich's writing
was artistic (I'm taking your word on this) and some of his psychology
work was admirable, but that doesn't excuse quackery, even if quackery
is a lesser crime than the Jokers' crimes.  I'd rather use a real life
example than a fictional example, but I can't think of any real life
artistic criminals who are nearly so well known as the Joker.

>                                 So do the supercilious views of such
>debunkers of pseudo-science as Gardner--a man who, for all his intelligence,
>scarcely ever manages to maintain a truly scientific dispassion for
>the objects of his criticism.

This may be true, but a passionate debunking of astrology doesn't make
astrology valid.

>Yet such ridicule fails to address the fact that Reich's works continue to
>draw a substantial readership throughout the world. And the ridicule fails
>in this regard because the attraction--the beauty--of Reich's
>fantastic world of pseudo-science cannot be understood, nor even recognized,
>through an analysis of its feasibility (or lack of same) as science.

The beauty of pseudo-science isn't what makes it sell, in general.  In the
case of Kate and Reich, the beauty (and her familiarity with Peter Reich)
is the attraction, but most people get into pseudo-science because they
are attracted to the bogus claims and don't understand the corresponding
real science.  I think most astrology enthusiasts read the stuff because
they think it will do them some good, rather than for art in the writings. 
Most astrology isn't good art anyway.  The fact that some people can find
art in some pseudo-science is good, but doesn't excuse the pseudo-science,
particularly for those that it defrauds.

It's wonderful that Kate could make such a beautiful song based on William
Reich's pseudo-science (and Peter Reich's scholarly and artistic writings
about his father).  It doesn't make W. Reich's pseudo-science excusable
though.  Kate made beautiful music about bank robbery and the Vietnam war,
but that doesn't mean bank robbery or the Vietnam war were good things.

>                              Surely with all the insistence on the
>importance of the scientific method, the readers of Love-Hounds can
>see that no accurate assessment of the value of Reich's work can
>be made merely by reading the glib and facile reviews of people like
>Martin Gardner.

We can't read everything.  Gardner's debunking of other pseudo-science
is very well researched, and that gives reason to believe his research
of Reich is also well researched.  Gardner doesn't claim to debunk
Reich's psycho-analytic works, and I trust that his debunking of Reich's
pseudo-science is fair.

> >                Charging patients for worthless cures is a crime.

>     But Reich _never_ lured people with cancer away from legitimate
>therapy in favour of his own! There was never any evidence presented
>at his trial which even suggested such a thing. That accusation is
>totally unsubstantiated.

This wasn't what " > > " meant.  The intention was to say that
Reich's quack medicine was fraud, whether it was a cure for cancer
or for impotence (or whatever medical benefits it was supposed to
offer).  And again, his worthwhile work in psycho-analysis early in
his career doesn't excuse his later quackery.  In fact, it makes the
quackery worse, because the past good science increases the chance
that people will swallow the quackery along with the good science.