{"id":332,"date":"2025-01-19T20:46:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T20:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ideas.design-preview.link\/?p=332"},"modified":"2025-01-19T20:53:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T20:53:44","slug":"sexual-liberation-and-the-culture-war-book-review-of-libido-dominandi-sexual-liberation-and-political-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/19\/sexual-liberation-and-the-culture-war-book-review-of-libido-dominandi-sexual-liberation-and-political-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexual Liberation and the Culture War\u00a0Book Review of\u00a0Libido Dominandi:\u00a0Sexual Liberation and Political Control"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Published November 12, 2000 in Our Sunday Visitor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catholic author E. Michael Jones, former professor of literature and current editor of the magazine Culture Wars<\/em>,  argued in previous books that modernity is nothing more than \u201crationalized lust.\u201d  In his most recent book Libido Dominandi<\/em>: Sexual Liberation and Political Control<\/em>, he further develops and expands this theme.  The result is a tour de force<\/em> of history, brilliant analysis, interweaving and interconnecting biographies, philosophies and ideas and an invitation to every Catholic to, well, \u201cwake up and smell the coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201ccoffee\u201d for American Catholics at this point in history is the knowledge that a powerful \u201celite,\u201d enemies of the Church, have employed the Enlightenment idea of sexual liberation and the psychology of modern advertising to rob them of their birthright and to bring into existence an immoral culture which is inimical to their beliefs (and which will also mean the eventual demise of democracy.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effort to destroy a Catholic or moral voice in this so-called pluralistic society depends on an Enlightenment idea that a knowledgeable \u201cadept\u201d can  manipulate a person\u2019s will.  This manipulation, of course, must remain hidden.  For this reason,  Dr. Jones undertook a monumental task to uncover  the often hidden connections between the ideas which have inspired this effort, the people who have acted upon them, and the means by which they were put into effect.  He has succeeded.  From its opening scene in Ingolstadt, Germany, in 1776 to its concluding one in Washington, D.C. in 1992,  this book is a tremendously interesting account of the program to undo a Christian society and a tremendously important disclosure of the forces at work to bring us to where we are today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, it is no surprise after reading this book to hear that Time<\/em> Magazine<\/em>\u2019s recent cover story was entitled \u201cWho Needs a Husband?,\u201d nor to hear that pornography pulls in more profit than any other business on the Internet.  Libido Dominandi<\/em> documents and explains the ramifications of  sexual liberation–and after reading this book, there is no doubt that the ramifications are both legion and deadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With 600 pages of history and 30 pages of endnotes, Libido Dominandi<\/em> tells us many things, but for those of us who came of age during the \u201csexual revolution,\u201d one disclosure holds special interest. \u201cThe sexual revolution was not a grassroots uprising;\u201d  writes Dr. Jones,  \u201cit was not the coalescing of \u2018particles of revolt and enlightenment;\u2019 it was rather a decision on the part of the ruling class in France, Russia, Germany and the United States at various points during the last 200 years to tolerate sexual behavior outside of marriage as a form of insurrection and then as a form of political control.\u201d When the sixties revolutionaries thought they were overturning \u201cThe Establishment,\u201d they were in reality playing into its hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the above quotation indicates,  the overarching purpose of this book is to show that there exists a Wizard of Oz of sexual liberation, i.e. a man (or men) behind the curtain pulling the strings to bring about a sexually liberated populace. His (or their) purpose is to gain and keep political control.  Dr. Jones brilliantly shows through historical research that sexual liberation inevitably led to the political control of those who have been \u201cliberated.\u201d  Why? Because unleashed passions on a large scale will inevitably lead to civic collapse.  Controls must then be instituted to stabilize society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Libido Dominandi<\/em> shows that those who unleash the passions and those who then institute the measures to control these passions are one and the same. \u201cThe Liberal regime loves to play both arsonist and Fire Department,\u201d Dr. Jones writes.  Thus, those who have the passion for dominion (libido dominandi) <\/em>are at the same time \u201cin thrall to the same passions they incite in others to dominate them.\u201d  In historical events and biographies, Dr. Jones unearths this recurring pattern.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such biography is that of Adam Weishaupt, the Bavarian professor from Ingolstadt where the book opens.  Weishaupt took advantage of the temporary suppression of the Jesuits by Pope Clement XIV to advance rapidly through the University ranks.  In following his vaunting ambition, Weishaupt \u201cdecided…to create a secret society of his own to ensure that the Jesuits would not return to Ingolstadt.\u201d  Thus was born the Order of the Illuminati, whose intent was, as was the Freemasons\u2019 and other secret societies\u2019 of that time, to topple \u201cthrone and altar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weishaupt is the prototype for all the revolutionaries presented in this book in his \u201cdepravity,\u201d in his case, having \u201can affair with his sister-in-law,\u201d and trying to cover up the affair by \u201cprocuring an abortion.\u201d  And as with these other revolutionaries, Weishaupt tried to justify his lust by creating a theory or system to rationalize it.  When he turned to the public sphere after losing control of the  private, Weishaupt \u201csought to create a technology of control to take the place of self-control, which he himself lacked.\u201d  Weishaupt \u201ccreated a system of control that would create disciplined cells which would do the bidding of their revolutionary masters often, it seemed, without the slightest inkling that they were being ordered to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the book, Dr. Jones shows again and again how leaders of  sexual and cultural revolutions  developed theories, programs, public policy, and systems of government to justify their own immorality.  \u201cThe normal social order made no sense in light of sexual liberation,\u201d writes Dr. Jones, \u201cand failure to repent led inexorably to social activism that tried to mandate that behavior for society at large.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Jones also proposes that all succeeding revolutionary politics depend on \u201cIlluminist politics\u201d which is \u201cthe ability to manipulate people through their vices.\u201d  The \u201cidea of a science of control\u201d became \u201cin many ways the intellectual history of the next 200 years.\u201d
 
That history includes the French Revolution, the English Romantics, Marxism in Europe and the United States, the Communist Revolution in Russia, and the sexual revolution of the sixties in the United States.  It also includes lesser known \u201crevolutions,\u201d such as those that took place with the advent of social science in academia; those wrought when the communication techniques used during both world wars to persuade and control large numbers of people were applied to civilian populations for various purposes after the war (the birth of advertising and public relations);  those funded by major foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation\u2019s funding of Kinsey and the eugenics movement;  those driven by literary figures, such as the Harlem Renaissance and the Beats;  and those engineered to destroy ethnic or religious opposition to the sexual revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This last would include Catholics, of course, and a major part of the book is devoted to this outrageous–and successful–effort.  But it also includes the destruction of African-American resistance.  As Dr. Jones has shown the result has been devastating to both groups, though the black community arguably has lost far more and paid a far greater price for its \u201csexual liberation\u201d than the Catholics in this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This history also includes numerous biographies.  The Marquis de Sade, Mary Wollstonecraft, Sigmund Freud,  John B. Watson, Max Eastman, Wilheim Reich, Claude McCay, Allexandra Kollontai, Margaret Sanger, Thomas Merton, Jack Kerouac, Alfred Kinsey, Carl Rogers and Leo Pfeiffer are just a few of the more famous.   Some biographies are fuller than others, but in each case, using their own words and letters, Dr. Jones shows either their adherence to or rejection of the ideas that have consistently driven the sexual and cultural revolutions of the last 200 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is in teasing out these ideas that Dr. Jones\u2019s work shines so brilliantly.  To summarize them cannot do them justice, for they must be presented as he has presented them, backed by reams of supporting documents and shown in connection to other ideas, to individuals\u2019 histories and to the consequences that followed from acting on these ideas.  But some of the more important ideas include several paradoxes:   Sexual liberation leads to bondage, addiction and, ultimately, death; the Enlightenment which was supposed to be the triumph of  \u201creason\u201d led instead to the tyranny of uncontrolled passion in both individuals and in societies; \u201cmodernity…is nothing more than the truths of antiquity stood on their head.  What Euripedes intended as a warning, people like Reich and Nietzsche turned into exhortation;\u201d science, which was supposed to liberate thinkers from the authoritarian Church, tradition and family, has simply replaced those  authorities with its own unbending dogmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Jones has woven together the history of many events, but two histories in the book may be of particular interest to Catholics today.  The first is his reading of the way that liberals betrayed one of their dearest causes in this country–the welfare of those living in black ghettos.  They did this by ultimately rejecting the Moynihan Report of 1965 which proposed a long-term solution to the problem of poverty in the black ghettos. This solution hinged on restoring the black family, and, in particular, the father to his family.  Moynihan, himself a liberal Democrat, writing of the liberal reaction which killed his policy, opined that his report \u201cwas the point of unparalleled opportunity for the liberal community [to help underprivileged blacks]and it was exactly the point where that community collapsed.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does this event fit in with Dr. Jones\u2019 thesis?  \u201cWhat the liberal Left saw in the Moynihan Report was an attempt to roll back their hard-won sexual freedoms.  This particular attempt to strengthen the Negro family proposed a sexual morality that they had deliberately jettisoned en route to becoming part of the sexually enlightened Left.\u201d    He states this betrayal more explicitly: \u201cthe liberals chose to perpetuate the ghetto as a bulwark to preserve the sexual revolution.\u201d   One of the results of the politics of sexual liberation is that \u201cillegitimacy among all blacks increased from 20 percent to over 70 percent\u201d in the years since the Moynihan Report and \u201cthe situation which Moynihan described as epidemic for blacks in 1965 has become the norm for American society, which now has an illegitimacy rate of 21 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attack against Catholic sexual morality in this country is the second history of particular interest.  The purpose of the assault was to weaken Catholic power by reducing Catholic population growth.  To do so, Catholics\u2019 rejection of the use of artificial contraception and their tendency to have large families must be changed.   As is clear in 2000,  Catholics have changed en masse<\/em> on both of these.  Dr. Jones\u2019 explication of how and why it happened is abundantly documented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The groups and individuals who directed the attack are made indisputably clear in Libido Dominandi<\/em>, and Dr. Jones has used  some fascinating archival material to chronicle this concerted effort on the part of non-Catholics.  But, alas, the attack would have failed except that powerful men and women within the Church, also named, aided and abetted this assault on Catholics\u2019 beliefs and practices.  The story of this \u201cFifth Column\u201d within the Church is one of the more disheartening–and enlightening– accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of the use of the \u201cHuman Potential Movement\u201d and Carl Roger\u2019s\/Abraham Maslov\u2019s  Encounter Groups to weaken and sometimes destroy religious life in convents, monasteries and rectories is also a fascinating account for Catholics today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the book gives a detailed history of the way advertising and public relations has made political control far more intimate, all-encompassing and powerful than was ever possible before their advent.   \u201cThe best way to make men unaware of their lack of political freedom is to indulge their sexual passions,\u201d  as Dr. Jones summarizes claims of both Sade and Aldous Huxley and the aim of  today\u2019s elite class. The media, foundations, think tanks, public relations firms, academia, courts and captains of commerce currently work in cahoots<\/em> to continue the corruption of morals for they stand to profit hugely from this corruption, gaining both more money and more power.  In reading this book, one cannot overlook the courage of Dr. Jones in uncovering this information and revealing to the light of day.  His book will anger many of the high and mighty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those of us who, like Dr. Jones, came of age during the sixties and who want to know the forces which drove ourselves or many of our peers,  this book is an essential read.  For Catholics of all ages, it is a powerful incentive to wake up.   For unless Catholics realize that they, like other \u201cconsumers\u201d plugged into the dominant culture, are being told what to do and, a la<\/em> Huxley\u2019s Brave New World<\/em>, being made \u201cto love their servitude,\u201d  they will continue to lose their freedom, both civic and, more importantly, moral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published November 12, 2000 in Our Sunday Visitor Catholic author E. Michael Jones, former professor of literature and current editor of the magazine Culture Wars,  argued in previous books that modernity is nothing more than \u201crationalized lust.\u201d  In his most recent book Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control, he further develops and expands this theme.  The result is… Read More »Sexual Liberation and the Culture War\u00a0Book Review of\u00a0Libido Dominandi:\u00a0Sexual Liberation and Political Control<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333,"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ideasrealized.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}