“We are hung up on the illusion of success, and so we aim constantly higher: more production, more knowledge, more power, more, more, more.”
—Dr. Alexander Lowen
The modern individual is committed to being successful, not to being a person. He belongs rightly to the “action generation,” whose motto is do more but feel less. This attitude characterizes much of modern sexuality: more action but less passion.
Given his culture and the character it produces, what is the fate of modern man?
If the story of Oedipus can serve as a prophecy, it is a prophecy of achieving the success and power one seeks only to find one's world coming apart or breaking down.
If success is measured by material possessions, as it is in the industrialized countries, and power by the ability to do and go (machines and energy), most people in the Western world have both success and power. The collapse of their world is the impoverishment of their inner or emotional lives…
Having committed themselves to success and power, they have little else to live for. And like Oedipus they have become wanderers on the earth, uprooted beings who can find no peace anywhere…