Thesis: Every culture, every system is based on a certain "economy" based on production, exchange, and consumption of Eros or Desire

Wayland Young: "The great merit of the old socialist's achievement is its complete absence of comment [though this was also a symptom of the absence of self-reflection]. It is natural joy in natural beauty naturally shared with the beholder. It would be absurd to comment further on that which is beautiful." Eros Denied

In this, "natural joy in natural beauty" was very much in the spirit of the Renaissance and much against the spirit of Protestantism and even Christianity. In this, there was thus something archaic and even pagan in this "old socialist art" and its "achievement."

The West discovered "natural joy in natural beauty" largely through Freud and through advertising, largely based off Freud, which therefore is neither really about "natural joy in natural beauty" nor for the sake of "natural joy in natural beauty" but for the sake of selling something that is in fact fake and artificial--made up.

Having said, I also readily agree that what Khruschev or Brezhnev and their bureaucracies personified was almost a perfection of the un or ant-erotic life. Life unsexed of life. And 1989 showed that an (internally) dead system cannot live in this age that long.

Life runs on desire.