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Modern culture is more ego-oriented than body-oriented, with the result that power has become the primary value, while pleasure is reduced to the position of a secondary value…The domination of the personality by the ego is a diabolical perversion of the nature of man. The ego was never intended to be the master of the body, but its loyal and obedient servant. The body, as opposed to the ego, desires pleasure, not power. Bodily pleasure is the source from which all our good feelings and good thinking stems. If the bodily pleasure of an individual is destroyed, he becomes an angry, frustrated, and hateful person. His thinking becomes distorted, and his creative potential is lost. He develops self-destructive attitudes.
Pleasure is the creative force in life. It is the only force strong enough to oppose the potential destructiveness of power. Many people believe that this role belong to love. But if love is to be more than a word, it must rest on the experience of pleasure.
-- Alexander Lowen
 
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