Fighting Consumerism and Materialism: A Lifelong Journey of Consciousness or Unconsciousness, Longing or Fulfillment

By Aurore Adamkiewicz ND

"What is the most difficult of all to do? What also seems the easiest: To see with your eyes what lies before your eyes" Goethe (from Reich's Selected Writings)

"Love, work, and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it." Wilhem Reich

I am still working on the Intro and the foreword of Wilhelm Reich's Selected Writings though my class has moved on to Chapter 2. The forewordw is such a personal cry from Reich it really pulls at my heart strings especially as he relates to the infants and children. How he lived and worked in defense and help of the children- the future of tomorrow, or as the title of his other book "Children of the Future"

Education, Work, and Depression

I am at the present very interested in the educational aspects of this two chapters as it relates to children educationally which directly correlates to adults who work.
Gleaning on these words from the foreword:
"...The tendency of man, born from fear-to get along at any price..."
This really resonates with me as a homeschooler and this is the
main problem I have with early schooling-specifically before the age
of 7-9. I see children being broken down in the system-not being
listened to, told they are a tattle tale if they try to get help,
forced to fight battles that they are unequipped emotionally and
physically to fight, ignored and abandoned in large classrooms and more specifically forming little emotional plague gangs with their other abandoned peers.
The childhood gangs may have been fine in Malinowski's Trobriand Islanders world
without shame and child abuse before the patriarchal regime, but in the West here-I find that children have had their childhood taken from them by the adults and machines and will use free time away from the adults to take their anger and pent up emotions out on eachother...and so as conscious parents who actively love our children protecting our children's mental health from the mental illness of others is a constant pressing issue.
Solving the Problem of Consumerism and Emptiness; Which Can Lead to Depression Part of the problem of adult and adolescent depression can be solved or should I say could have been solved with a contactful childhood within the family unit and a more desirable and fulfilling educational model. Not based on paying the children for good grades but on direct contact with the natural world.I was surprised in the Intro of the Selected Writings that Reich quoted Goethe who
was a mystic-but for me, it was appreciative because I have long found
correlations between Reich's work and Steiner-educationally, and
although many would probably disagree because Reich followed
democratric schooling in favor of Summerhill, Steiner's work is based
on Goethe's science of the natural world-
and in this way I see it parallel Reich's work when Reich writes:
"Our world would look better if the consumers of work knew more about
the process of work and the life of working people, if they did not
pluck so carelessly [unconsciously] at the fruits of others labor."
This is the essence of Steiner's educational model- giving children an
understanding of the natural world and how to pull creatively and
learn from it...
For instance- children in first grade watch a sheep wool shorn and
then they feel the wool and then they learn how to knit-with only real
100% wool. ..
and so when we are talking about consumerism-materialism,
Reich really is spot on when he uses the example of humans
driving in cars without having any idea of how it works or who made it in the intro
and in that way Steiner's educational models gives us the tools to
fight consumerism and to be more conscious of longing as adults by
having the natural world of real organic/energetic "things" to touch
and feel and create with...
Of course I would say this is secondary to the contact with the Mother
and the family unit.....
Every adult is a reflection of the pain or joy of childhood....