The Romantic Separatism of Charles Reich

The Romantic Separatism of Charles Reich WILLIAM E. AKIN With the possible exception of Eric Toffler's Future Shock, Charles Reich's The Greening of America has generated the liveliest debate of any book of the seventies. It has already found its way into use in a wide variety of college courses, has fathered a full length book of responses, and a spate of articles. 1 Its author has even been enshrined in a pop comic strip. Both because of its own immense popularity, and because of its ability to express even more widespread beliefs, the book warrants serious consideration. The "greening of America 11 that Reich visualizes is a continuation of the cultural revolution of the sixties, and the book must be understood in that context. It was the last book of the sixties, not the first book of the seventies. As a document of the social and historical analysis, the ideals and aspirations, self-image and self-delusions of the romantic left of the recent past (and present to a lesser degree), it is of lasting usefulness. But as an analysis either of America's social and economic structure, or of the relationship between cultural change and political shifts, it possesses little that is original. Nor is it the most convincing expression of the conclusions that its author espouses. For such purposes , better to read Galbraith's New Industrial State and Roszak's Making of a Counter Culture, from which Reich's views derive. 2 It is Reich's style of thought and analysis that separates him from others who express similar views. Like Marshall McLuhan, whose own excursion into pop expression produced a similar -excitement in the early sixties, Reich rejects linear logic and one-dimensional rationality. Like the Youth Culture on which he places all his hopes, Reich is ,.,.deeply suspicious of logic, rationality, analysis, and of principles." 3 Having "been exposed to some rather bad examples of reason," Reich's newthink "believes it essential to get free of what is now accepted as rational thought." 4 The medium for understanding that he offers is Consciousness . The notoriety of the book rests upon his assertion of prevailing levels (or stages) of consciousness. Reich explains levels of consciousness as psycho-historical stages of THE CANADIAN REVIEW OF AMERICAN STUDIES VOL, III, NO. 2 1 FALL 1972 development. His treatment of history is deftly painted with bold strokes that indicate a sensitivity to earlier ideals which he rejects. The first such historical stage he terms Consciousness I. It emerged out of the American Revolution, offering liberation from the social hierarchy and village life of the Old World. Its values were those of hard work, thrift, rugged individualism, Puritan morality, self-interest, and competitiveness; the myths by which farmers, petit-bourgeoisie, and workers lived. But it led to ruinous competition, unreliable products, robber barons, and the chaos of excessive individualism. The underpinnings of this level of consciousness were destroyed by industrialization, but the "CI'' has held tight to his myths. Reformers attempted to combat the abuses of unlimited competition and to subject economic power to the public interest. But, in Reich's view, the reforms which culminated in the New Deal were a failure. The fundamental cause of their lack of success, in Reich's view, was their political orientation. It is Reich's contention that "Mere political change, mere alterations in the law, in structure, or in government power, cannot accomplish basic reform." 5 Out of the failure of reform a Consciousness II emerged as the new synthesis. CII is the consciousness of the Corporate State; the Organization Man, meritocracy, life in an organization. Its myths are those by which the middle class live. Like the catalogue of all contemporary social critics, Reich's list of the ills of the American Corporate State is long and indisputable; it is also rather liturgical. His most forcefully laid charge is that the Self has been lost: men have become consumers and as such are sold substitutes for living. But, Reich contends, the Corporate State has begun to self-destruct. Drawing from Galbraith he maintains that "a power elite does exist and is made rich by the system, but the elite...