Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation & Political Control
by E. Michael Jones
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Writing at the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire, St. Augustine both revolutionized and brought to a close antiquity's idea of freedom. A man was not a slave by nature or by law, as Aristotle claimed. His freedom was a function of his moral state. A man had as many masters as he had vices. This insight would provide the basis for the most sophisticated form of social control known to man. Fourteen hundred years later, in a world eager to reject the intellectual patrimony of the West, show more a decadent French aristocrat turned that tradition on its head when he wrote that "the freest of people are they who are most friendly to murder". Like St. Augustine, the Marquis de Sade would agree that freedom was a function of morals. Freedom for the Marquis de Sade, however, meant willingness to reject the moral law. Unlike St. Augustine, the Marquis de Sade proposed a revolution in sexual morals to accompany the political revolution then taking place in France. Libido Dominandi -- the term is taken from Book I of Augustine's City of God -- is the definitive history of that sexual revolution, from 1773 to the present. Unlike the standard version of sexual revolution, Libido Dominandi shows how sexual liberation was from its inception a form of control. The logic is clear enough: Those who wished to liberate man from the moral order needed to impose social controls as soon as they succeeded because liberated libido led inevitably to anarchy. Over the course of two hundred years, those techniques became more and more refined, eventuating in a world where people were controlled, not by military force, but by the skillful management of their passions. It was Aldous Huxley who wrote in his prefaceto the 1946 edition of Brave New World that "as political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase". This book is about the converse of that statement. It explains how the rhetoric of sexual freedom was used to engineer a system of covert political and social control. Over the course of the two-hundred-year span covered by this book, the development of technologies of communication, reproduction, and psychic control -- including psychotherapy, behaviorism, advertising, sensitivity training, pornography, and, when push came to shove, plain old blackmail -- allowed the Enlightenment and its heirs to turn Augustine's insight on its head and create masters out of men's vices. Libido Dominandi is the story of how that happened. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I cannot recommend this book enough!
At 600+ pages Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control is something of a tome but well worth the read. If it were not well written, the subject matter alone would be enough to lead one from first to last page. But the book is very well-written, the style engaging enough to carry the reader through the material briskly.
Libido Dominandi is essentially a history book. It is the history of an idea: sexual liberation as a means to power. ‘It is not a new idea,’ says its author, E. Michael Jones. ‘[The idea] lies at the heart of the story of Samson and Delilah. The idea that sin was a form of slavery is central to the writings of Saint Paul. Saint Augustine, in his magnum opus… show more divided the world into two cities, the City of God, which loves God to the extinction of self, and the City of Man, which loves self to the extinction of God. Augustine describes the City of Man as “lusting to dominate the world” but at the same time “itself dominated by its passion for dominion.” Libido Dominandi, [this] passion for dominion, then, is a paradoxical project, practiced invariably by people who are themselves in thrall to the same passions they incite in others to dominate them.
While Mr. Jones can see this idea playing out in the Samson and Delilah story and ancient Israel’s frequent falling for the orgiastic cults of its day, Libido Dominandi relates the story of this vicious idea’s modern history. He begins his detailed account of the sexual liberation movement’s ebb and flow throughout history with the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 and traces its’ every twisted turn and monstrous morphing to the present day. It is an eye-opening, sobering and, at times, a shocking story of the most sordid souls and their endless quest to soil everything that is pure and good in this world. show less
At 600+ pages Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control is something of a tome but well worth the read. If it were not well written, the subject matter alone would be enough to lead one from first to last page. But the book is very well-written, the style engaging enough to carry the reader through the material briskly.
Libido Dominandi is essentially a history book. It is the history of an idea: sexual liberation as a means to power. ‘It is not a new idea,’ says its author, E. Michael Jones. ‘[The idea] lies at the heart of the story of Samson and Delilah. The idea that sin was a form of slavery is central to the writings of Saint Paul. Saint Augustine, in his magnum opus… show more divided the world into two cities, the City of God, which loves God to the extinction of self, and the City of Man, which loves self to the extinction of God. Augustine describes the City of Man as “lusting to dominate the world” but at the same time “itself dominated by its passion for dominion.” Libido Dominandi, [this] passion for dominion, then, is a paradoxical project, practiced invariably by people who are themselves in thrall to the same passions they incite in others to dominate them.
While Mr. Jones can see this idea playing out in the Samson and Delilah story and ancient Israel’s frequent falling for the orgiastic cults of its day, Libido Dominandi relates the story of this vicious idea’s modern history. He begins his detailed account of the sexual liberation movement’s ebb and flow throughout history with the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 and traces its’ every twisted turn and monstrous morphing to the present day. It is an eye-opening, sobering and, at times, a shocking story of the most sordid souls and their endless quest to soil everything that is pure and good in this world. show less
A Book to Far
This physically impressive book does not live up to the promise implicit in the author's quirky, but interesting, previous works. Problems start at a low level. Typographical errors of a sort impossible to miss (e.g., missing or superfluous words) appear every two or three pages and suggest that the manuscript was not carefully proofread. I could live with Jones' discursive style in his earlier books, but in this one entire paragraphs are repeated verbatim. (Compare page 368 to page 522.)
The most serious problems in this book involve content. I am sympathetic with the author's thesis that modern society is harmed by sexual promiscuity and that nowadays sex is frequently used as a tool to manipulate others. Jones' criticism show more of Kinsey appears, in particular, to be on target. But in an effort to tie together the various vignettes that make up this book, Jones seems to lend undue credence to various conspiracy theories and to overreach in the conclusions he draws from the available evidence. The author's denial of the reality of mental illness is not the only part of this book in which he comes across as more Catholic than the Pope. (See John Paul II's 11/30/96 address to the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health-Care Workers.) show less
This physically impressive book does not live up to the promise implicit in the author's quirky, but interesting, previous works. Problems start at a low level. Typographical errors of a sort impossible to miss (e.g., missing or superfluous words) appear every two or three pages and suggest that the manuscript was not carefully proofread. I could live with Jones' discursive style in his earlier books, but in this one entire paragraphs are repeated verbatim. (Compare page 368 to page 522.)
The most serious problems in this book involve content. I am sympathetic with the author's thesis that modern society is harmed by sexual promiscuity and that nowadays sex is frequently used as a tool to manipulate others. Jones' criticism show more of Kinsey appears, in particular, to be on target. But in an effort to tie together the various vignettes that make up this book, Jones seems to lend undue credence to various conspiracy theories and to overreach in the conclusions he draws from the available evidence. The author's denial of the reality of mental illness is not the only part of this book in which he comes across as more Catholic than the Pope. (See John Paul II's 11/30/96 address to the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health-Care Workers.) show less
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Author Information
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2000
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, History, Politics and Government, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy
- DDC/MDS
- 363.470973 — Society, government, & culture Social problems and social services Public Safety - Police, Crime Investigation Pornography
- LCC
- HQ472 .U6 .J65 — Social sciences The family. Marriage, Women and Sexuality The Family. Marriage. Women Erotica
Statistics
- Members
- 138
- Popularity
- 237,619
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.17)
- Languages
- English, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal)
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 2
