A Kindly Apocalypse: Philip Rieff and the Endgame of the Therapeutic
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This article explores Philip Rieff’s idea of the therapeutic, and how it provides an indispensable lens through which to understand the culture wars in the US. For Rieff, the therapeutic has an impact on the liberal West that has been nothing less than revolutionary. It is the democratic capitalist West, and not the communist East, which has produced the truly radical society and generated a new type of human subject, psychological man. The US has become the first society to subordinate the beliefs and values of society to the desires and ambitions of the individual. Whereas in traditional societies, the good life entails living up to the ideals of the community and fulfilling one’s political and moral obligations, psychological man is loyal to a faith only so long as it validates his self-esteem. Rieff is both anti-intellectual in feeling that he has the right not to learn things he does not wish to know, and anti-political, taking the market as his guide model for social relationships. But a society of psychological men is not one which is defined by an insouciant hedonism. Rather, the expansion of individualistic desires leads to a society wracked by anxiety and unease. The fear that one is insignificant and trivial has generated a society where individuals demand total validation for their choices and tastes, regardless of whether they are harmful or destructive. The therapeutic now imperils the liberal project of modus vivendi, in which people of different values and outlooks live peacefully alongside each other.
Abstract
This article explores Philip Rieff’s idea of the therapeutic, and how it provides an indispensable lens through which to understand the culture wars in the US. For Rieff, the therapeutic has an impact on the liberal West that has been nothing less than revolutionary. It is the democratic capitalist West, and not the communist East, which has produced the truly radical society and generated a new type of human subject, psychological man. The US has become the first society to subordinate the beliefs and values of society to the desires and ambitions of the individual. Whereas in traditional societies, the good life entails living up to the ideals of the community and fulfilling one’s political and moral obligations, psychological man is loyal to a faith only so long as it validates his self-esteem. Rieff is both anti-intellectual in feeling that he has the right not to learn things he does not wish to know, and anti-political, taking the market as his guide model for social relationships. But a society of psychological men is not one which is defined by an insouciant hedonism. Rather, the expansion of individualistic desires leads to a society wracked by anxiety and unease. The fear that one is insignificant and trivial has generated a society where individuals demand total validation for their choices and tastes, regardless of whether they are harmful or destructive. The therapeutic now imperils the liberal project of modus vivendi, in which people of different values and outlooks live peacefully alongside each other.
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