Listen, Little Man!

by Wilhelm Reich

Book Overview

Listen, Little Man is a great physician's quiet talk to each one of us, the average human being, the Little Man. Written in 1946 in answer to the gossip and defamation that plagued his remarkable career, it tells how Reich watched, at first naively, then with amazement, and finally with horror, at what the Little Man does to himself; how he suffers and rebels; how he esteems his enemies and murders his friends; how, wherever he gains power...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374504016
• ISBN13: 9780374504014
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

A Wake Up Call For Anyone Ready to Hear It

The story of Wilhelm Reich is sad. He led a life of scientific inquiry that included very radical views on sexuality and life, and, in the end, was arrested for it. Reich always seemed to believe that he would be crucified, and, for all intents and purposes, he was. I don't mean to make him out to be the messiah he seems to half believe himself to be because Reich never learned to live peacefully in a world that wasn't ready to hear him. In my opinion, he let his (justified) fury interfere with his ability to change the world more than he ended up doing. That being said, Listen, Little Man!, which is the only work I've read of Reich's, reveals enough about his insight into the human condition to make it obvious that this was a very brilliant man. I don't know if his orgone research is legitimate or if it is the ravings of a lunatic, but, to my knowledge, no one has done enough research of their own to really determine the answer to that question. That is our issue: Reich's insights scare us so much by their sheer truth, that we refuse to even listen to anything else he might have to say. This is precisely the plight of the little man that this book is about. The way we all consistently choose to lead lives of unhappiness and unfulfillment out of fear, and then kill those who would lead us to that happiness out of the same fear. When I began to really think about these ideas, it became impossible for me to disagree with Reich. The ONLY reason any of us are any less fulfilled than we could be is because we CHOOSE to be because we are afraid to have what we really want. Not because of any unchangeable circumstances. This is a very difficult idea to wrap your mind around, but I think it is essential to attaining happiness. I know that Reich isn't normally associated with these authors, but you will find similar ideas in Neale Donald Walsh's Conversations With God and any of the Ayn Rand where her self-righteousness hasn't overtaken her ability to be rational, and I would reccomend them too. Listen, Little Man! is exactly the kind of book anyone searching for fulfillment should read. It'll take you probably 2-3 hours at most. Give it a chance. If you don't get it at first, put it down for a few weeks or months, but let the ideas sit, evaluate them for yourself, and see if they make sense for you. But for a book that was never intended for publication, this is a remarkably impressive work from an impressive man.

Reality Check

Although it's been awhile, I love this book. I am looking for another copy, as the one I read was borrowed. Yes, many negative comments are true in that Reich does lambast an imaginary little man and it seems like an endless relentless diatribe.. However he does not do this for fun and recreation or because he is full of hate for peoplekind. I think this is a genuine recognition of his own ability to be an automated human. No one can engage in such an intimate critique without having "been there" himself. It really is a call to liberation of self, not in the tradition of spiritual monasticism and such, but rather the liberation of "Prisons We Choose to Live In" quoting Doris Lessing's book title, for the average person.The cartoons are great, especially the one with the broken ball and chain and angst-ridden prisoner, who is finally free. Reich gets to the point, without writing some long winded academic treatise. Brief and unapologetic.

The next level

Wilhelm Reich was far ahead of his time. Like seemingly all visionaries, he was completely at odds with mainstream thought. By the time he wrote this book, he had been completely discredited, humiliated, and even imprisoned! Despite his ruin, he still had hope for mankind, as evident by the tone of this book. Inspirational, entertaining, and most of all, empowering.

A call to rise above.

Wilhem Reich was an influential psychoanalyst and thinker whose work has greatly influnced many practitioners and theoreticians of psychotherapy, psychology and psychoanalysis. He was a member of Freud's circle but like many before and after him broke free from his influence later on. His analysis on fascism can be considered as seminal and has influenced amongst others Theodore Adorno in his work for the Princeton institute. His insights into how the human body is inseparable from the human human psychic have also had a great influence on therapeutic practise. He postulated that the various phobias, neurosis and mood disorders have a direct effect on ones body both on the physiological level (internally in the organism) and on the overall posture and facial expressions, and saw Freud's attempts at bringing about change with the sole use of language ('the talking cure') as, to say the least, problematic and insufficient. He, on the other hand, believed that one can go the other way round and make changes at the overall posture which will in turn help resolve the inner psychic conflicts, thus bringing in a whole new perspective to therapy. The several years he spend in the U.S. where primarily conserned with 'orgone energy', a term that he coined for the everlasting, unchangeable energy that permeates the universe and is the source of healing, something like Freud's libido but in more broader cosmic terms, or Bergson's elan vitale. Falling victim of the U.S. goverments witch-hunt at that period, the vile fanaticism and hatred that they intilled in people against his research, and the smearing campains that went on against him personaly, he was finaly incarcerated, his institute broken apart, his research papers and other documents confiscated and burned. He finally died in prison in 1957, a horrible, undeserved end for such a human being.This book was written in hot blood in 1947, 10 years that is before his demise, and it is a pamphlet, a critique, a rant, a vibrant piece of history in the making. It was not meant to be published but later on was in fact published as Reich's defence for the atrocieties commited against him. Reich here focusses on the individual, the little man of the title, who is lead to believe this and that by the powers that be, and never who assumes his responsibilities for his own life and freedom. It is a powerfull text in every possible sense. Reich rallies against the "sentimental plague", the propaganda of his time, and makes a call to arms to anyone who is willing to listen, to stop being the little man, or a big little man of fame and fortune, and to become what he is meant to be, an aware, responsible, lively individual. It is an inspiring short piece more poetical than philosophical, more political than psychological. I would recommend it a primer to E. Fromm's escape from freedom and to any existential writing for that matter.Reich in the end is optimistic. Unlike Giacomo Leopardi whose thought abounds as an influe

Never again has human been described so litteraly !!

The best book i have ever read.. I have never again seen such a genius book descibing man so small .. making him seem more and more faint in his eyes. And trying to help him become , from a little man , a big man . ... Read it... If you understand the 10 % of it , you will be truly happy .