Letters: Human Nature (2005)

Letters to the Editors from the December 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Human Nature

Dear Editors,

I’m aware that Socialists often have to face the criticism that Socialism is against human nature. According to this point of view human beings are naturally selfish and acquisitive, even when they have enough to satisfy their own needs. There would certainly seem to be plenty of apparent evidence for that point of view. I thought you might appreciate a section I came across in “The Neurotic Personality of Our Time” (1937) by Karen Horney:

“The irrational quest for possession is so widespread in our culture that it is only by making comparisons with other cultures that one recognises that it is not a general human instinct, either in the form of an acquisitive instinct or in the form of a sublimation of biologically founded drives. Even in our culture compulsive striving for possession vanishes as soon as the anxieties determining it are diminished or removed.”

Horney saw “the irrational quest for possession” as one of a number of ways in which people try to cope with feelings of anxiety, and not as an expression of “human nature”.  She rejected over-generalised ideas about “human nature” and recognised how diverse people are in their attitudes and behaviour.

Adam Waterhouse, 

Bristol

Buying Life’s Essentials

Dear Editors

The aim of capitalism is to sell. I remember that in the 1939/45 war if we had food, warmth and shelter we wanted nothing, so I try to restrict my buying to essentials.

M. B. A. Chapman, 

Bath.

Reply:

We’re not too sure about this. If it caught on, employers would be able to pay us all less.

Editors.

Humanism

Dear Editors

Permit me to comment on your book review of Postmodern Humanism (November). The British Humanist Association was founded in 1896 and not as stated in 1963. A founding member was Charles Bradlaugh MP and when I ceased to be a member in 1997 there existed links with South Place Ethical Society, Rationalist Press Association and National Secular Society. I shall not comment on the reviewer’s claim “they still seem to be working out what their positive case is beyond promoting a non-religious but still ethical approach to life”. But I do assure you that they have taken an active role in the promotion of a large network of funeral celebrants and likewise for wedding and naming ceremonies. Whether these activities exist with the same momentum today, no doubt the book’s author (as a member of the North East Humanists) is  better able to judge.

E. Hirsch, 

Hockley, Essex.

Reply:

According to the British Humanist Association’s own website, they were founded in 1963. It was another body, the Ethical Union, with which they are now associated, that was founded in 1896.

Editors.

Letters: Karen Horney again (2006)

Letters to the Editors from the January 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karen Horney again

Dear Editors,

A letter last month quotes Karen Horney. Her book on neurosis is really worth a read since she was much in the same social psychology vein as Erich Fromm, i.e. finding more to neurosis in the way our society is than merely positing biological and individual causes. She argued that the neurotic individual doesn’t have a large ego (real sense of self, not the negative connotation of ego) and substitutes an unreal sense of self in place.

As an illustration, every one of us gets told to get passes in this or that in order to get a well paid job. That can lead to someone knocking their head against a wall, doing things they aren’t in to, and having an unrealisable goal to achieve and thus having a measure for their failure to get down over.

It has always been a socialist argument that we will do what we like doing in socialism and thus this will lead to harmonious development of people. Horney the psychiatrist put a theoretical or psychological insight/argument that backs this up somewhat.

Graham Taylor, 

Brabrand, Denmark

Dear Editors,

Regarding Karen Horney, I found her first and last books the best and her other stuff mediocre. Her first book, New Ways in Psychoanalysis, is excellent if you want a crash course on Freud and she seems to be a bit more radical probably under the influence of “her close friend” Fromm. She seemed to have sold out a bit in her last book.

I don’t want to give the impression that Neurosis and Human Growth is not worth a read. I think it is a must and is one of the most influential books I have read. I think you have to read it at least twice to get the full impact.

Dave Balmer (by email)