Emotional Plague

Thus, it is not surprising that truthfulness and straightforwardness, though highly extolled modes of behavior, are rarely encountered in human intercourse; they are so rare, indeed, that most people are amazed when they occasionally prevail. To judge from our “cultural” ideals, one would expect truthfulness and straightforwardness to be everyday, self-understood attitudes. The fact that they are not, that they are looked upon with astonishment, that truthful and straightforward men and women are considered freaks, a bit “touched in the head”, that, indeed, being truthful and sincere often entails severe social dangers– all this cannot be explained on the basis of the ruling cultural ideology. To arrive at an understanding of these contradictions, we must turn to our knowledge of the organized emotional plague. This knowledge alone is capable of providing an insight into the reasons why objectivity and truthfulness, the driving forces of all strivings for freedom, have been frustrated again and again over the centuries. It cannot be assumed that any freedom movement will have any chance of achieving its goals if it does not sharply and clearly confront the organized emotional plague with truthfulness.

Taken from Wilhelm Reich's Book Character Analysis, chapter 16 about the 'emotional plauge'