‹ CFP: Basic Income Conference •
Veniamin Zatsepin
University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education
Table of Contents - Part 1:
Preface
Creation of the concept of the social system
The social system in Marxist philosophy
Post-Marxist concepts of the social systems
Testing the social system theories
Into the fabric of social institutes
The basic personality types
Psychopath (sociopath)
Authoritarian personality
Machiavellian personality
“Technocratic”, “practical” or “hoarding” personality
Amiable, friendly or agreeable personality
Altruistic personality
Creative personality
Part 2:
Personality types as the elements of anthroposystem
What is human nature?
Where is the concept of evil human nature from?
Afterword
Acknowledgments
References
Preface
It has always made me feel uneasy reading or hearing someone trying to explain people’s inhumane acts, and even brutish violence, by recourse to the concept of “human nature”. On this explanation, there are really only two possibilities: either one is a criminal (or at least a potential criminal) or one is simply not a human being. At the same time, I still find it bewildering that our primeval ancestors, the illiterate people of the stone and bronze ages (and our contemporaries, the Aborigines of Australia and the Americas), while poorly versed in the theory of nature’s laws, knew and expressed in their everyday lives closer kinship with nature than do even the most educated of us today. Their attitude to each and every part of nature was more humane and respectful than that of the majority of our contemporaries, despite the fact that these people burned trees for fire and killed animals for food. So what has happened to modern people, to society? Does civilization, indeed, spoil us? Why have we been breaking our contracts or mutual understanding with the animate natural world? What has been pitting us against each other and why do we degrade and eliminate other people? Is it true that mankind is a malignant tumor of the body that is earth? Are we, human beings, indeed evil from our very childhood? And who and what exactly are ‘we’?
These are the questions that the following discussion is concerned with.
Creation of the concept of the social system
The construction of the first holistic theoretical picture of the world as a system, which includes inorganic and organic nature, plants and animals as well as people, originated with Aristotle and Theophrastus as long ago as in the V – IV centuries BC. Their approach was both scientific and philosophical at the same time. They tried not to lose the vision of the whole “forest” while observing individual “trees”, but they also managed to notice individual “trees” being in the “forest”. Theophrastus is justly regarded as the founder of botany, but his Characters make him look as the founder of personality psychology as well. Regrettably, this part of his legacy was accepted only by classical writers, like Shakespeare, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky, while philosophers and social scientists have actually ignored it for more than twenty centuries. They concentrated their attention first and foremost on their attempts to understand society as a system.
Eventually they realised that society’s uniqueness as a special branch of the biological system springs from the manner of its existence, from the fact that the transforming activity of human labor was the foundation of society’s coming into being, and that people themselves created their own history. While the essence of living nature’s way of life is first and foremost an adaptation, through the conformity of organisms to their environment (although the transformation of the environment also takes place), in society the opposite is generally the case – the transformation of nature, its elements and processes, for the satisfaction of human needs, although of course some adaptation and adjustment to the natural environment has also taken place. So solely through transformative activity – the act of altering and changing nature to concur with the requirements of humans – human society itself has both been made possible, and brought into existence.
But society, at the same time, is a totality, or an aggregate of people, who are interconnected through the social relations that have been formed between people, during the course of a multiplicity of socially meaningful kinds of activity.
In a broad sense, a social system is regarded as a system of social institutions, which perform functions of regulation regarding economic, political, legal, moral and other relations. Each of the institutions is characterized by its goals, and the functions that make it possible to achieve these goals, as well as by its social position and roles, and the system of sanctions it employs to encourage desirable behaviors, and suppress or discourage undesirable or deviant behavior. Each institution establishes a set of demands, norms, and instructions congruent with its specific organizational structure. By these norms society effectively controls and regulates people’s activity in the most important areas of social life.
Major social institutions include private property, the family, the state, political parties, the church, the education system, parenting, as well as science and the means of communication. The most important social institutions in a developed society are political ones: the state (which establishes and maintains political power, and safeguards the economic and social structure of the country) and the economy (which ensures the production and distribution of goods and services, and the welfare of citizens of the state).
This supraindividual character of the connections and relations in a society transforms the society into an independent substance, which is primary towards the individuals. From their very birth, each individual is positioned within the already established structure of connections and relations, and in the process of his or her socialization the individual naturally accepts the existing norms and laws that regulate human behavior. One of the most important social institutes in civilized society is the family. Within a social system it is actually a special nursery for the reproduction of the population, which is why society tries to regulate its activity by the system of legal and religious norms. The social-cultural institutions, such as the educational system, the church, the health care system, and culture also play important roles in this process. Each of the elements of a social system occupies a specific place in the society and performs its own role, while also being simultaneously interconnected with all the others.
The uniqueness of human society as an entity in the world, and as an independent body, was understood by ancient thinkers as early as the V – IV centuries BC. They believed that since human beings, unlike animals, are reasonable, intelligent and goal-setting creatures, human social life should be organized on the basis of this characteristic of reason, for the sake of achieving common wellbeing. At the same time, both Plato (428 - 348 BC) and Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) saw that society was not homogenous in its content. Describing the oligarchic structure of Athenian society, Plato wrote in his Republic, that in an oligarchic state, we have actually two states: the state of poor people and the state of rich people. He thought, further, that these two states would inevitably conspire and plot against each other. In order to make the society more harmonic and human, it was necessary, in his opinion, to make philosophers the governors of the state, and to replace the current rulers with Philosopher Kings.
Aristotle, in his Politics, distinguished three groups of people in each country: very rich and prosperous ones (who were, in his opinion, the “scoundrels and great villains”), extremely poor ones (the “rascals and petty villains”), and moderate people of the “middle class”. According to Aristotle, in order to avoid a state susceptible to extremes, its leaders should be drawn from the “mean” (average) – the moderate class who comprised the largest group, and who he considered to be the positive nucleus of the society. It should be noted, however, that neither Plato nor Aristotle included slaves as part of the actual social structure, because slaves were not considered members of society.
The earliest version of the organic theory can be seen in the concept of the caste division of society, created by the Hindus around three and a half millennia ago. According to this concept, this division came about when Purushta, the creator of humankind, was broken into pieces, with each piece creating one of four separate castes (varnas). From his lips the Brahmins (teachers, scholars and priests) were formed. The Kshatriyas (kings and warriors) were created from his hands, while the Vaishyas (agriculturalists and traders) originated from his hips. The lowest caste, the Shudras (service providers and artisans), were formed from the soles of his feet. All other people, including foreigners, tribals and nomads, who did not subscribe to the norms of the Hindu society, were described as Mlechhas and treated as contagious and untouchable. Another group excluded from the part main society was called Parjanya or Antyaja. This group of former “untouchables” (Dalits), the downtrodden, was considered either the lower section of Shudras or outside the caste system altogether. The outcasts were regarded as formed from the water in which Purushta had washed his feet.
The three highest castes were considered “twice born ones” (first, from their mothers, and then, secondly, through the ceremony of devotion, from their guru). They constitute the aristocratic part of society. Once born Shudras are destined to be “clean, obedient, softly speaking and deprived of pride” - servants of the upper castes. So we can see that the social structure in this concept resembles a pyramid, with the Shudras and untouchables at its bottom. At the same time the light at the end of tunnel was shown to representatives of lowest castes; they were promised the possibility of rebirth into a higher caste if they behaved in accordance with their caste position in their current life.
The view of human society as a holistic organism is echoed by Roman historian Titus Livius (Livy) (59 B.C. - 17 A.D.). In his History of Roma, Livius recounts that when the plebeians, filled with indignation due to the fact that all the products of their labor had actually been consumed by the aristocracy, left the city, Marcus Agrippa was sent to them as a mediator. In the form of parable, Agrippa presented them with an organic conception of the social structure, in order to convince them of the necessity and inevitability of class divisions within society. According to the parable, in some far distant past, each organ in the human body had the ability to speak, and to make its own decisions. One day, the majority of the organs became outraged at the fact that the products of their works were actually misappropriated and consumed by the greedy and lazy stomach, which contributed nothing to them in return. In order to punish this parasite, the other organs decided to refuse to perform their various functions: the hands would cease bringing food to the mouth, the mouth would refuse to accept sustenance, the teeth would refuse to chew, and the throat would refuse to swallow. However, very soon it became apparent to each of them that they were growing progressively weaker and shakier. It was only then that they realized that the stomach not only takes their food, but also feeds them, and supplies them with necessary energy. By drawing this parallel between a human body, and the social body, Agrippa pacified the rebellion of the plebeians against the senators.
Later on, this approach gave birth to functionalism, which views society as a system. Functionalist analysis was prominent in the work of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and Herbert Spencer (1820 -1903), and was developed more fully by Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917).
The social system in Marxist philosophy
Marx incorporated the ideas of both British economists and French historians into the creation of his historical materialism. His materialistic understanding of history was firstly put across in its most clear-cut form in the Preface to his work, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859).
“In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.
The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.
At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.
Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production.
No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the tasks itself arises only when the material conditions of its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation. In broad outlines Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonisms, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation brings, therefore, the prehistory of society to a close”. (Abstract from the Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Download PDF )
So, Marx’s sociology was actually a kind of philosophy of history: he pictured a social system of humankind in its dynamic, in its developmental state. The two principal components of the social system that he distinguishes are the foundation, and the superstructure. Underwriting all the events of world history, according to Marx, is material production. The special character of the social and economic structure of a society is connected with the forms of property, and with the inequality of property rights. Private property, in turn, leads to the division of society into classes, and then to their struggle against each other.
Economic relations, or the relations of production, are the interactions between the people within society with respect to the processes of production, exchange, distribution and consumption of material wealth. Marx and Engels considered these relations material not only in the economic, but in the philosophical sense, because they have been established in society independently of human minds. In fact, this independence, in the sense of existing autonomously, independent of human minds, is the main characteristic of material (or matter) in Marxist philosophy. People were never free to choose the character of these relations, or the form of their social organization.
Marx used to say that windmills would inevitably give us a society with the suzerain at its head, while the steam engine would produce a society with the capitalist at its head. In other words, the laws of social development are as objective or independent of human will or intervention as are the laws of nature. They differ from the natural laws as follows: a) they are more complicated; b) they are less prolonged, compared with the eternal laws of nature, since they are specific for each epoch; and c) they operate in society only through the conduit of human activity.
It is solely the level of development of the productive forces, the productivity of human labor, which determines the character of people’s interrelations in the process of production, exchange, and distribution of material wealth. These material interrelations, in their turn, determine the character of the social system of a particular country, as well as the class structure of the society and the character of interrelations between the classes.
Relations of production, according to Marx, are the system-forming factors of a society. They are the real foundation upon which legal and political superstructures arise, and upon which various forms of ideological relations (that is, relations dependent on ideology, on the human mind) come into being (political, legal, religious, aesthetic, etc.). Simultaneously, the corresponding institutions appear (the state, the church, various unions and clubs, etc.), and consequent ideas develop, creating the appropriate intellectual and spiritual life of the society (morals, religions, juridical norms, arts, etc.).
But this superstructure, including its ideas, inevitably renders a reverse influence on the foundation which has given birth to it. The ideas and institutes of the ruling class have been trying to strengthen this foundation, while those of the exploited classes and struggling groups of the society are trying to weaken and eventually destroy it. For instance, the ideas of philosophers of the Enlightenment – Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau - helped the serf-ownership relation, and absolutism, to perish in many countries of Europe. So, in Marx’s social system, society is a product of people’s interactions, and the sum total of their relations to nature and to each other.
The productive forces of society include the people with their knowledge, habits of work, and skills (the personal component, or manpower), the tools created by them, and the subjects of labor (the material component of productive forces). In the 20th century, due to the scientific-technological revolution, science has also become a direct productive force of society (through automation of the processes of production, genetic engineering, etc.). The personal component has inevitably and continuously been developing, because even in primitive societies people accumulate and store their knowledge and working experiences, and communicate them to each other, as well as to the next generation. This accumulation of knowledge and experiences causes a continuous improvement of the old, as well as the invention of new, more effective tools. Accordingly, the productivity of people’s labor (which is the criterion of the level of development of the productive forces) increases. The combination of productive forces and corresponding relations of production, together with the superstructure, make up the mode of production, a special organizational structure of the society. Marx called this the social-economic formation stage in humanity’s development.
The tribal society had no classes; it was structured around kinship relations, and actually was a further extension of the natural division of labor existing in the family (with men hunting and women busy in domestic works). Gradually several tribes united and created a kind of primitive communism: with common property and no exploitation of one another. Step by step, by learning to grow plants and to domesticate animals, human beings (the clan, the tribe) started to produce much more produce than they could consume. The possibility of hoarding, and eventually privatizing, these surpluses, arose, and private property came into existence. This caused, on the one hand, the concentration of wealth in some members of the community, and the formation of a group of poor people, on the other hand. The division into groups of rich and poor people was the beginning of class society, because it made possible the privatization of another human being (at first perhaps prisoners of war, and later on, poor members of their own tribes) as slaves. The community divided into the two main classes of slaves and slave-owners; the slave-owner relation of production, and the exploitation of one human being by another had now appeared.
Within the slave-ownership mode of production, the slaves involved in the production of necessary things had no right to own the products of their labor, because they were themselves the property of their owners, the “talking tools or means of labor,” as opposed to domestic animals – which were the “bellowing means of labor”. In the beginning, these new, slave-ownership relations were a positive influence on the development of the productive forces. Thanks to these relations, some slave-owners, freed from physical labor, could indulge themselves in researching and thinking activities. In such a way intellectual labor became separate from physical labor, which caused the first “cultural revolution” in the middle of the first millennium BC. Mathematics and philosophy, which embraced all forms of knowledge about nature and human beings of that time (and from which all the sciences and arts were later descended) came into existence.
But gradually, from generation to generation, the same slave-ownership relations of production started to hamper the development of productive forces. The new generations of slaves, still deprived of any property and any material interest, lacked the motivation to use their tools most effectively any more, let alone to improve them or to invent new ones. The time had come to change these relations in favor of relationships that added an incentive for the labor class (added a carrot to a whip), and the feudal mode of production came into existence.
In the feudal mode of production, the primary producing class was the serfs, the small peasantry (most often former slaves). Although the labor of the serfs was still exploited, serfs were no longer considered entirely the property of their owners. For instance, an owner might still trade a serf, but did not have the right to kill him. In other words, the feudal lords owned the labor produced by their serfs, but were no longer the owners of the serfs “soul” The serfs and artisans were allowed to possess an allotment and their own tools; each feudal peasant knew exactly what proportion of his labor had to be handed over to the aristocracy and the church, the rest was at his disposal. In this way, laborers were enticed to become interested in increasing the productivity of their labor. And in fact, the resulting increase in productivity, and the shift in relations between workers and owners (from owner/slave to owner/serf) illustrates how new formations replace previous ones. The new relations caused significant changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport and brought society to the beginning of industrial revolution. A steam engine was introduced into all of these areas which brought about a further increase in productivity of labor. The growth of commerce (and of human populations) resulted in the accumulation of capital in the society. Some rich merchants started investing their money into industry, but they often were hampered by the feudal restrictions imposed by the aristocracy.
At the same time the increased debt incurred by the aristocracy, made it rather vulnerable to bankers. All of this, together with the ideas of Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) and other humanists, eventually led to the English Revolution of 1640-1660 and the French Revolution of 1789. The feudal restrictions of the productive forces were abolished, and the new bourgeois mode of production, which replaced the serf-owner relation, encouraged further growth of the economy in these countries.
Such is, according to Marxism, the dialectic of the interrelations between the productive forces and relations of production. While material productive forces have been changing continuously, the shift from one form of the relations of production to another can occur only as the result of social crisis and social revolution. This crisis begins when the old relations of production no longer correspond to the new level of development of material productive forces, and start to prevent their further development. The revolution results in dramatic changes in the economic basis of a society. The years 1848-1850 were a major turning point in European history. The revolutions opened the way to the further development of productive forces, and capitalism established itself in Europe.
As the rate of economic development increased, and most developed countries started to grab colonies in various areas of the world (as sources of raw materials and commodity markets), and create new empires, the danger of a world war over the redistribution of these colonies arose. At the same time, to the end of the 19th century capitalism with its anarchy of production (on the level of a country), convincingly exposed its vulnerability to periodical economic crises with dramatic consequences for working people. The Great War (together with the anti-war propagation of Marxist ideology) motivated new socialist revolutions in some European countries (Russia, Hungary, and Germany) in 1917 – 1920.
Social revolutions in general, according to Marx, have been the real locomotives of historic development. They manifest the transition from one social formation to another, more progressive one and through these social transformations we can see reflected the stages of humanity’s development. As a result of the socialist revolution in Russia in 1917, the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics was formed, which played a principal role in crushing the “plague of the 20th century”- Nazism and fascism in Europe, although at the immense expense of approximately 27 million human lives. (A victory, they say, has many parents, so the BBC, in some of its last “documentaries” was inclined to ignore its own archives, and move its former ally aside from the Pie of Victory: “Out of sight, out of mind.”)
The beginning of the history of humankind – from its coming into existence up to the establishment of capitalism – Marx called the “animal stage” because, being intelligent beings, people nevertheless in their social activities behaved rather intuitively, spontaneously. They did not know the objective laws of social development and could not direct society’s development as a single whole. The capitalist formation, in which mechanized industrial production developed, and with it the educated, skillful, disciplined and organized working class, Marx called a fore-part of the history of humanity, because despite all the changes brought about by industrialization, the private property, and the exploitation of working people by capitalists others, remained.
A number of conflicts with respect to capitalism arise periodically, creating financial and economic crises. These include: the conflict between the common character of production and the private-capitalistic character of distribution, appropriation, and consuming of material wealth; the ineradicable aspiration of capitalists to realize maximum profit; the anarchy of the market itself; the transformation of the market into the “only god”; and the lack of planning and coordination of social productivity. These periods of crises thwart the further development of society, and sometimes even throw the economic development of a country back. As well, crises of this sort can motivate countries to engage in wars, bringing to the society, and especially to the working people, immeasurable sufferings.
In Marx’s view, it is only after the elimination of capitalist exploitation, and the creation of a developed communist society, that the real human history of humankind begins. This new society establishes common property based on the means of production, and introduces the requisite central planning and coordination of productive social activity in accordance with the known laws of economic and social functioning and development. Eventually, the society will start to behave reasonably, consciously, and freely in the management of the economy, and in the organization of its social life, on the scale of the whole of humankind. In other words, the society starts to behave in a human way – as a rational, logical human being would.
Marx wrote in his Critique of the Gotha Program (1875) that in a higher phase of communist society, once labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want, once the productive forces have also increased the all-around development of the individual, and once all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly, only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety, so that society may inscribe on its banners: Each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
This means that society will be able to give people an opportunity to escape from the “rat-race” and the “war of everyone against everybody” that characterizes capitalism - to stop being puppets in the hands of market, and to achieve complete self-realization. In other words, society will offer each and every person a real opportunity to develop all his or her potential and abilities, and then to incorporate these into socially advantageous activity. In such a way a human being comes back to his own essence, and can attain self-realization, and self-accomplishment, which is the reason that Marx called communism the real humanism.
Marx and Engels consciously and intentionally created their theory – dialectical and historical materialism – not only as a traditional theoretical means for the explanation of history, but as the methodology of its transformation, and as a manual for revolutionary change within society. Like the Biblical God, they addressed their theory - their “commandments” - to a special group of people. But this group was not a specific tribe or ethnic group, nor the “chosen people”, but an international proletariat (worker) class, a main producer of all the human wealth. They considered the proletariat to be the only group that could be expected to be completely and sincerely loyal to the communist idea of common property, and to the ideals of humanism, because the proletarians “have nothing to lose but their chains; they have a world to win”. This is why they chose as their slogan the now well-known phrase: “Workers of all countries unite!”.
It should be noted, however, that the theory was not intended to transfer the balance of power from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat, or to deliver to the proletariat the means to subject other people to domination. Rather, it was intended to eliminate not only the domination of some human beings over others upon which capitalism thrives, but the rationale (the “profit motive” behind exploitation) so that even the sheer possibility that any human could gain, or exert, domination over any other, would be extinguished. The proletarian dictatorship that would replace the bourgeois dictatorship would be needed only for a historically brief period of time, during the transition of society to communism, in order to eliminate all the other dictatorships.
Marx and Engels anticipated that during this relatively short transition to communism, the typical capitalist “rat race”, the notion of “profit”, and the war of each person against all the rest, would disappear. Collectivism, collaboration, and helping each other would displace egoistic relations between people, as well as vicious competition. “Person to person as an ally, friend and a brother” would replace the traditional “homo homini lupus est”. In addition, the political organization of society, the state with its attributes (borders, armies, police, bureaucracy, visas and customs) would be doomed to perish due to its uselessness. Society would start the transition “from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom”. Wars between peoples would disappear, and something like a paradise would be established on the earth.
Post-Marxist concepts of the social systems
Perhaps the most consistent application of the systemic approach to the investigation of societies after Marx and Engels was used in the sociological conceptualizations of Talcott Parsons (1902 - 1979), whose work actually made functionalism the dominant social theory in the 1940s – 1950s. Parsons based his ideas on the theoretical principles of cybernetics and system theory, as well as on Emerson’s concept of “homeostasis”. In his books Economy and Society (with N. Smelser, 1956), Sociological Theory and Modern Society (1967) and The American University (with G. Platt, 1973) Parsons analyzed the historic processes that brought society to the modern state. Unlike Marx, who focused on the dynamics of the social processes, and on the occurrence of radical changes, Parsons was interested first and foremost in the society’s structure and functioning. Instead of addressing the question Marxists raised about why a society develops, h? explored how this system is able to maintain its stability and functioning. Parsons believed that only a commitment to common values provides a stable basis for order in society.
The procedure he adopted to analyze this system, and its subsystems, is called the “AGIL Paradigm”, “AGIL scheme” or “AGIL model”. Parsons applied this model at the social, psychological, structural, and ecological levels. The acronym “AGIL” represents the four basic functions that all social systems must perform if they are to persist: Adaptation (relations between the system and its environment; acquiring sufficient resources), Goal Attainment (deciding on, and implementing, the goals towards which social activity is directed), Integration (adjudicating conflicts, maintaining solidarity or coordination among the subunits of the system, developing and implementing legal norms and laws by the juridical system), and Latency (creating, preserving, and transmitting the system’s distinctive culture and values through the family, the education system and religion).
Within the social system he distinguished four subsystems, each of which performs one of the four main functions: economic subsystem (for adaptation of the system to the environment); political subsystem (for the achievement of its goals); societal community (for the creation of a holistic, monolithic community which behaves in accordance with accepted norms and regulations, and maintains the unity of the community); and a system for maintaining institutional cultural patterns. Each of the sub-systems depends on the other subsystems, and each exchanges the results of its own activity with the others.
Each of the four functions is carried out by appropriate institutions and organizations of the society. For instance, Adaptation is been carried out by business firms; Goal Attainment – by government agencies, banks; Integration – by integrative organizations (such as courts, political parties, social-control agencies); Latency – by pattern -maintenance organization (like museums, educational and religious organizations). Due to the fact that each of these types of organizations perceive the support of certain social functions as their own specific goal, Parsons thought, would ensure that this sort of structure creates social harmony. Naturally, an organization may expect to get resources and approval based on the importance of its function in society.
According to Parsons, as a system, society achieves the highest level of self-sufficiency with respect to the environment. This self-sufficiency is an outcome of a balanced combination of the mechanisms that control social relations with the environment, and the level of its own inner integration. This integration manifests itself in the ability of society to institutionalize any elements of culture, to offer a wide spectrum of roles to individuals, as well as to control its economic complex and its territory.
Parsons’ system looks comprehensive, explicit, and applicable at many levels, nevertheless it has many problems. Its main fault is that it is also too “clean”, too refined, too distilled, or in other words “too good to be true”. This is illustrated, for instance, by the fact that business firms can – and often enough do – strive first and foremost to “make money” for themselves, and do not put as much effort into trying to achieve socially meaningful goals, such as ensuring sufficient resources for society as a whole. In their pursuit of super-profits, they may actually destroy these resources not only in other countries, but even in their own one. A similar situation can be seen with regard to government agencies, for which the attainment of socially useful goals may be secondary to self-interest. Lead by their own greediness and thirst for power (sometimes disguised under cover of slogans about the need to protect the country against communist, imperialist or terrorist dangers), they can, for instance, throw their countries into wasteful and ruinous wars. Likewise, profit-hungry bankers can lead a country, and even the whole world, into a global financial crisis, while at the same time rewarding themselves with multi-million dollar bonuses for “exceptional achievements”. In other words, Parsons’ system ignores “the details” – and, often the devil is in the details – concerning the real sources of social problems. In addition, Parsons’ theoretical approach does not provide an adequate explanation for social change; on his conception, the process of social change resembles a kind of ”moving equilibrium”.
Testing of the social system theories
The defeat of the Russian army during the Great World, and the revolt by exhausted workers in Saint-Petersburg and Moscow, forced the tsar to abdicate in the spring of 1917, and on November 7th of the same year Bolsheviks lead by Lenin grasped power in the country. The banks, railways, factories and plants in Russia were immediately nationalized, and the exploiting classes eliminated, so that soon only two “friendly” classes were left in the country: workers, and collectivized peasants.
The economy of the country by that time was almost completely in shreds, because of the imperialistic, and then the Civil, wars. Lenin introduced “new economic policies” in an attempt to restore economic equilibrium quickly. Celebrating the fourth anniversary of the revolution, he wrote that “We are proud of the fact that to our lot falls the luck to begin the creation of the soviet state, to begin by this the new epoch of world history, the epoch of domination of a new class which is still yet suppressed in all the capitalist countries, but is going to a new life, to the victory over bourgeoisie, to the dictatorship of proletariat, to ridding humankind of the yoke of capitalism, and of imperialistic wars”. But soon after that Lenin died, and after several years of a struggle for power between various leaders within the party, Josef Stalin became the leader of both the communist party and the country.
Authoritarian and power-thirsty, “rude, intolerant and capricious,” Stalin eliminated his potential rivals, and all those revolutionaries who had been engaged in the long struggle for the welfare of the people against the tsarist regime. He surrounded himself, instead, with a pyramid of like-minded individuals. Under Stalin, the secret service was granted unrestricted power, and any opposition was effectively suppressed or eradicated. Due to this consolidation of power, and a structure of centralized planning and management, bureaucracy flourished.
There were no representatives of the exploitive classes in powerful positions; most of these positions were occupied by Bolsheviks, former workers and peasants, or their descendants. Nevertheless many of these new statesmen not only did not have appropriate abilities and skills, but often did not have any true intention of serving noble humanistic ideas, the emerging state, or the good of the people. Rather, they were often intent on serving their own interests; behind the smoke screen of their official support of Marxist ideology and ideals. In fact, their main preoccupation was often to learn the secret wishes and intentions of their boss, so that they might fulfill them, please him, and win additional favor and privileges. Eventually, they managed to actually “privatize” the economy of the country, and created their own state inside the “socialist” state.
Nevertheless, at an enormous human price, the industrialization of the country was accomplished in a very short period of time (in spite of the great world economic depression of 1929 – 1933). The 70-percent illiteracy rate within the population of 150 million was quickly eliminated, and free education was established (from pre-school up to university and postgraduate education), as were free medical services. Unemployment in the country was actually also eliminated. Inequalities in wages, and in the gap between high-earners and low-earners, were also decreased significantly. Health resorts and sanatoriums for all working people, including teachers and office workers, were built throughout the country. All of these social efforts helped the country to withstand the invasion of Nazi Germany and its satellites in 1941, and to destroy Nazism in 1945, together with its allies. Later on, the country was able to rebuild, repairing the destruction caused by the war industry, and even creating new industries. For instance, research into the cosmos allowed the country to launch the first satellite in 1957, and then the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit around the earth in 1961.
But gradually Marxism was transformed into a kind of religion, with Marx’s original humanistic ideals pushed aside and ignored. In the process the social and political freedoms in the country were suppressed, and the new self-replenishing exploiting class was formed. This was the special class of bureaucracy and party nomenclature. Its dictatorship replaced the Marxist proletarian dictatorship. Its representatives obtained unlimited power without any reciprocal responsibility towards society; their only real responsibility being towards their bosses.
With the coming into existence of this new class with their bureaucratic restrictions on local initiatives, new relations of production were created which conflicted with the level of development of productive forces within the country, and started to obstruct their further grow. The Soviet system of education encouraged and guaranteed the development of an individual’s abilities, but social reality did not give people the chance to implement them. Authoritarian bureaucratic restrictions, lack of freedoms, the submissive position of the media, and the enormous power of the KGB had immersed the life of the country in a new “ice age”. Economic progress gradually slackened its pace and slowed down, and finally the USSR collapsed. Fifteen new independent states were created within its territory, and their economic and industrial ties with each others, as the republics of the Soviet Union, were destroyed. A similar situation arose with respect to other European socialist countries.
That is why the years 1989 – 1991 were marked by a new wave of revolution in Europe, but this time, paradoxically, these were anti-communist revolutions. Referring to themselves as communists, the leaders of these countries were supposedly working to establish equality and fraternity, but the bulk of the population witnessed the secret privileges of the people who held the highest positions in government, and considered themselves “more equal than others”. But the most interesting thing is that now we can see in Russia the same kind of people possessing economic, financial and political powers under the supervision of the same secret services. They only changed the “music” (instead of Marxist hymns, the Orthodox Christianity is now in favor), and they changed their tactics. They do not risk restoring GULAG anymore. They learned to skillfully destroy any opposition by the modern methods of state terrorism: the intimidation of the masses, the discredit and even physical elimination of the most honest and active politicians and journalists, the very people who were both able and willing to undertake investigations of the crimes of the corrupted elite of the society. The blow to Marx’s concept of communism as the beginning of the “really human” history of humankind seemed to be unbearable. The result was that even many of the academics in Russia, including Marxist philosophers, proclaimed Marxism an insolvent utopia.
Indeed, some of postulates of Marxist theory were overly optimistic. Perhaps amongst the most fragile of these were the notions of class as a fundamental unit of society, and the proletariat as a kind of faultless and blameless class. In actuality, the proletariat was not able to perform its messianic role of bringing humankind into the “promised land” of communist relations and universal happiness. The working class turned out to be liable to contamination by the seeds of the exploiting classes (personal enrichment, corruption, careerism), which can easily germinate, grow and flourish in the appropriate social circumstances.
But Marx and Engels could not see deeper into the inner structure of this class, or the whole of humankind for that matter. First of all, this is because psychological science, especially the psychology of personality, was not sufficiently developed during their time.
Parsons’ notion of the social system received additional support at the end of the 20th century, and seemed to be able to withstand the trial of history. Bourgeoisie democracy proved to be much more beneficial and effective overall for social development than the bolshevist “proletarian dictatorship”. First of all, throughout its history capitalism has continually developed the productivity of labor, improving methods of production, and introducing new technologies. Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the American economy started to experience the longest period of growth in its history - the 1990s upswing and boom. (Although even at this time, the average annual growth rate was only 3.1 percent.)
Nevertheless, Parsons’ model would not have allowed anyone to predict the economic events of the 20th century. The end of the Cold War did not help the USA and other developed countries in Europe and North America to obtain a better life in the short run. In addition, the “free market” could not escape the new attack of its old and chronic disease – economic crises. At the end of 2001, the first sign of disaster appeared: the bankruptcy of its “market leader”, the energy trader Enron, one of the world’s leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications companies.
Very soon the financial crisis of 2007–2009 began. The loss of investor confidence in the value of secured mortgages in the United States resulted in a liquidity crisis that prompted a substantial injection of capital into financial markets by the United States Federal Reserve, Bank of England and the European Central Bank. The seemingly most reliable mechanisms of the social system, as pictured in Parson’s AGIL, was relatively easily derailed by the kind of small “sleeping” groups of “economic terrorists” that were imbedded in key positions within the economic structure of society.
So, clearly Parsons’ system has also proved to be far from perfect, and not reliable enough to furnish a complete understanding of social processes. This lack of a complete explanatory system contributed to the growth of public interest in Marxist ideas in some countries of Europe, as well as in Japan.
However, from the very beginning there were similarities in Marx’s and Parsons’ approaches. For instance, like Marx, Parsons could not find space for real, live, actual people in his system. And Parsons echoed Marx’s belief that society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of their interrelations. They both ignored the fact that the classes and other social groups, all the social institutes, including educational system, and the churches, are comprised of real people. The people incorporated into the social systems of Marx and Parsons were deprived of their human characteristics. The individuals in these systems appear to be “faceless”, “dehumanized”, and presented mainly as abstract bearers of some political, economic, or professional functions.
Parsons also ignored the fact that all people have always been, and still are, very different in many aspects, most noticeably in their proclivity and intentions to serve their society or humankind. He also failed to notice the fact that, along with the development of society, the role (especially the negative, destructive one) of individuals increases more and more. (Not only the role of individuals with respect to power, such as those associated with the economic, political, religious and other structures - but the role of each specific, individual members of society increases.) Of course, we cannot blame Marx or Parsons or other sociologist for all of these “omissions” because they are incorporated into the essence of social science itself: sociology has its own objectives, and the subject of its investigation - the social structure of society – has its own more or less definite borders.
Into the fabric of social institutes
There is, however, one “sin” for which most of our intellectual predecessors can be reproached. In the philosophical, sociological and theological perspectives, a human being was seen most often from the point of view of comparative biology. I mean that instead of comparing people within groups and within a society to each other (as writers, authors, and novelists used to do) the abstract “average human being” was characterized by these thinkers only in comparison with other mammals. In addition, this comparison was often not to the humans’ advantage. From time immemorial, the negative events in society were explained first and foremost with reference to an evil, malicious human nature. Even now some psychologists try to convince us that even quite good people can commit, and actually do commit, very much of the evil on the earth, and that many of the greatest crimes, atrocities and social catastrophes in history were consciously committed by these good people, even by those who had great ideals and sincerely believed in them, and were honestly intending to do something good for other people. Regrettably their arguments often look rather convincing.
At the same time, as far back as ancient Athens, Theophrastus, the pupil and friend of Aristotle, tried to have a closer look at human beings, and to create classifications for them. In his “Characters” he described scores of negative and positive traits and characteristics of people, and actually presented an early conception of personality types. The development of psychological science, especially in the second part of the 20th century, enabled psychologists to work out and test a multitude of quite reliable methods for the measurement of various human traits. As a result, we now have perhaps quite enough material for describing not only a social system, but also an anthroposystem.
Unfortunately, sociologists and psychologists are often reluctant to work with an anthroposystem, which is why results of work of this sort are very scarce. At this point, in spite of the rapidly developing globalization of economic, political, cultural and spiritual life, and despite the widespread recognition of the great negative impact of humankind on nature, we still do not have a more or less convincing description and understanding of humankind as a single whole. We cannot give a persuasive answer to the natural question that arises in the current circumstances about why we continue to behave so unreasonably towards nature and towards ourselves, why we endanger the very survival of humankind on the earth.
This work is an attempt to summarize the achievements of the modern philosophical and psychological sciences, and to represent human society, humankind itself, as an anthroposystem in which its elements, the personality types, are naturally and organically integrated into the structure of society, into a sociosystem, whereas this structure tries to spontaneously absorb these elements, leaving their essence basically intact, actually unchanged.
Of course, it would be pointless to try to present an anthroposystem of humanity on a “personal” basis, such that each of the more than six billion persons of the world population is to be regarded as a separate element of the system. The grouping of people is inevitable. But this assemblage should be grounded not only on the social, professional, anthropological and demographical, but also on the psychological, characteristics of people. Since the number of these characteristics is incalculable, it is reasonable, in my view, to restrict the groupings to personality types.
The basic personality types
Until the early part of the 20th century, the quest to identify a personality type (“character”) was a common element in European psychology, as well as in the other human sciences, especially literature. But by the 1930s-1940s, the centre of psychological investigations had shifted primarily to the USA, where most of the inventories and psychological testing methodologies were being formulated, and where psychology had already begun to be employed in the service of industry, marketing and politics. Just as importantly, a number of researchers from other disciplines, including physics and chemistry, had joined the psychological ranks, bringing with them a new emphasis on pragmatic, natural-scientific approaches to psychological investigations. As a result of this infusion of perspectives from the natural sciences, emphasis on the issue of personality typology was significantly weakened.
The trait theory, which was opposed to the notion of personality typology, was favored and more widely spread. The advocates of this theory interpret personality type as something which is both “closed” and “complete”, in the sense of the astrological principle of “all or nothing”. That is, a person either is, or is not, a representative of a given type, but cannot have the “typical” traits in various degrees. The trait theory asserts that the human psychological characteristics are normally distributed throughout the population and therefore are characteristics of all people, but to varying degrees. This means that the differences between people on each of the characteristics can be only quantitative.
The supporters of the trait theory seem to ignore the fact that we cannot equalize a person, say, with 100 percent, or even close to this percentage, of the traits of the authoritarian personality, for instance, with a person with 20 percent of these traits. In addition, in this case we have all the reason to call the person with the 100 percent score on the F-scale an authoritarian personality type. (Of course this case would represent an extraordinary, unusual event, an individualized extreme; in reality we often and quite justly call people “typical” simply on the basis of some dominant trait(s) in their personalities.)
Dodonov found that a personality type is actually “a particular version of amalgamation of the person’s inclinations around the strongest of them”. In other words, one of the person’s inclinations, the strongest one, becomes the core around which all other inclinations revolve. In such a way, the primary inclination suppresses competing inclinations, and guides the development and implementation of all the rest (Dodonov, 1978, p. 250 – 251). In this case “typicity” looks not so much like a quantitative manifestation, but the structural “domination” of a person’s principal inclination over all the others. Other motives and inclinations are not completely extinguished, and can still compete with each other for influence over the behavior of the person. But all of them are grouped around the dominant motive; it is through this motive that they synchronize with each other. In this view, personality type ceases to be something exceptional, and becomes much more easily detectable, recognizable and “catalogizable”, even without comprehensive psychological laboratory investigations and measurements.
From the abundance of personality traits and characteristics (and corresponding personality types) described in literature we can find that some of them are very significant (positively or negatively) for society and community; others are less important; still others are absolutely neutral with respect to society’s wellbeing. Those most important ones, which result in human behavior patters that impact on, or change, the psychological climate within a community, or within society as a whole, can be regarded as the basic personality characteristics (and types), as well as the elements of the anthroposystem (Zatsepin, 2002, 2003). Further, they are arranged according to the logic of the personality’s development (or to the levels of an individual’s socialization) - from embryo to the adult, and socially mature, person.
Psychopathy and its versions
This “subspecies” of homo sapiens are described variously in psychology as psychopath, antisocial personality, criminal personality, narcissistic personality, etc. Regardless of how they are described, these individuals exhibit a common dominant trait – extreme self-absorption - which manifests as extreme selfishness, egoism, egotism and egocentrism. It appears that psychopathic individuals lack empathy and concern for others, and the ability to form emotional bonds with other people. For them, other people are only objects, toys, or a kind of machine or instrument; a means for manipulation, for the achievement of their own extremely egoist goals. Indeed, some representatives of this type pursue a criminal life style, and may complete their lives as prisoners, especially if their lawyers cannot convince a judge and jury of their insanity as criminal psychopaths. But psychopaths, even criminal psychopaths, are not insane. They know right from wrong; they are aware of exactly what they’re doing, at least according to the consensus of most scholars (Samenow, 2004).
It is believed that psychopathy is a rarity (found in perhaps 1% of the population). Sociopaths are the second most common type (with the American Psychiatric Association estimating that 3% of all males in the USA are sociopaths). Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is the most common type, afflicting about 4% of the general population. Most likely, in my view, this does not mean that the total of these versions is 8% across a given population. Rather it could be just 4%, because APD can also include psychopathy and sociopathy, so that even altogether they comprise a tiny minority of population. Nevertheless it is a very impressive minority.
a) Psychopaths
The most comprehensive, and the classic, works on psychopaths are those of Hervey Cleckley (1976) and Robert Hare (1987 - 1999), while the most complete description of the medico-biological aspects is to be found in the work of Linda Mealey (1995). Psychopathic individuals constitute one of the most surprising, and distressing, problems within the range of human experience, primarily because for the most part they do not form or maintain strong attachments to anyone or anything, with the possible exception of power and drugs. Like most people, they need relationships, but they see others either in terms of how they can be used and preyed upon, or in terms of obstacles to be overcome or eliminated. Others are valued for their material value (money, property, etc.) and for the stimulation they provide, which enables the psychopath to build his or her own self-esteem. When psychopaths commit crimes, they are usually stone-cold and logical, cold-bloodedly taking what they want and doing as they please. They are capable of engaging in random violence, including remorseless killing, for no apparent reason. They feel little or no remorse for their crimes, except to express regret at being caught. Psychopaths most resemble natural-born interspecies predators, but they operate within the domain of humankind, preying on other humans to satisfy their lust for power and control through intimidation, violence, manipulation, and a superficial charm. In general, most societies and communities would regard them as criminals, although in some armies and amongst some political milieus they may sometimes be considered leaders, patriots or even heroes.
The most thoroughly researched and highly recognized general characteristics of psychopathic personality and behavior are presented in Robert Hare’s “The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, (1991), Toronto: Multi-Health Systems”. (This 20-item checklist is based on Cleckley’s 16-item checklist). These characteristics are as follows:
Glibness and superficial charm; grandiose sense of self worth; need for stimulation and proneness to boredom; conning and manipulativeness; pathological lying; lack of remorse or guilt; callousness and lack of empathy; shallow emotional response; poor behavioral controls; parasitic lifestyle; early behavioral problems; juvenile delinquency; many short term relationships; promiscuous sexual behavior; lack of realistic long term goals; impulsivity; failure to accept responsibility for their own actions; criminal versatility; revocation of conditional release.
There are many expressions and forms of psychopathy, of which sexual psychopath is only one. Along with Cleckley’s description of the two subtypes of psychopaths (primary and secondary), there have been four different additional subtypes distinguished:
Distempered psychopaths seem to fly into a rage or frenzy more easily, and more often, than other subtypes. Their frenzy will resemble an epileptic fit. They are also usually men with incredibly strong sex drives, capable of astonishing feats of sexual energy, and seemingly obsessed by sexual urges during a large part of their waking lives. Powerful cravings also seem to characterize them, as in drug addiction, kleptomania, and pedophilia, and any illicit or illegal indulgence.
Charismatic psychopaths are charming liars. They are usually gifted at some talents, and they use these to their advantage in manipulating others. They are irresistible. They are usually fast-talkers, and possess an almost demonic ability to persuade others out of everything they own, even their lives. Certain leaders of religious sects or cults, for example, exhibit this characteristic, and have even sometimes lead their followers to their deaths. Interestingly, they often come to believe in their own fictions.
Primary psychopaths don’t follow any life plan and seem to be incapable of experiencing any genuine emotion. Most of the time, they can manage to inhibit their antisocial impulses not because of conscience, but because it suits their purpose at the time. They do not respond to punishment, apprehension, stress, or disapproval. Words do not seem to have the same meaning for them as they do for us (a condition that Cleckley called “semantic aphasia”).
Secondary psychopaths are risk-takers; they are daring, adventurous, unconventional people who began playing by their own rules early in life. They expose themselves to more stress than the average person, although they are as vulnerable to stress as other people. They are also worriers, and guilt-prone, but they are unable to resist temptation although they are strongly driven by a desire to escape or avoid pain. As their anxiety toward some forbidden object increases, so does their attraction to it.
There is a significant amount of evidence to suggest that there is a genetic influence that contributes to the creation of a psychopathic personality. The brain of a psychopath may function and process information differently than do the brains of non-psychopaths, and in fact certain organic (brain) disorders and hormonal imbalances can mimic the state of mind of a psychopath. It is plausible that psychopathic behavior may have once had a strong genetic “survival of the species” value. They are unstoppable and untreatable predators whose violence is planned, purposeful and emotionless. Although many people would hope that there’s an effective treatment, some psychologists are convinced that there’s really no effective treatment for them other than locking them up in a secure facility with such rigid rules that they cannot talk their way out. In fact, adult psychopaths do not benefit from traditional counseling therapy, and may, in fact, offend again and sooner because of it.
b) Sociopaths
Many psychologists believe that sociopaths are individuals whose unsocialized character is due primarily to parental failure. Usually they are males, but the number of female sociopaths has been increasing during the last decades. Their sociopathy manifests itself from early childhood. Selfish and egocentric to the extreme, they only care about fulfilling their own needs and desires (“happiness now!”). Everything and everybody else is mentally twisted around in their minds as objects to be used in fulfilling their own needs and desires.
At the same time, they perceive themselves to be conscientious and honest people. They believe they have been doing something good for society, or at least nothing harmful. They do not subscribe to the rule of law and do not believe in these rules the way the rest people do, which is why rules do not guide their behavior. They instead live according to the law of the jungle, and behave like dominant animals living in an animal tribe.
c) Narcissistic personality
Narcissists are people with a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, an overwhelming need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. They are described as turning inward for gratification, and as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power and prestige. A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, are initial indications of a narcissistic personality. However, narcissistic personalities include at least five of the following traits:
Has a grandiose sense of self-importance; Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love; Believes that he or she is “special” and unique; Requires excessive admiration; Has a sense of entitlement; Is interpersonally exploitative; Lacks empathy; Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her; Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes. They are poor listeners. They usually interrupt, invalidate, and miss the emotions being communicated, and concentrate on “facts” rather than feelings.
Of course, each of us has some narcissistic elements to our personality because a certain degree of self-centered interest is actually necessary for our very survival and advancement in life. It becomes a disorder only when it starts to interfere with the person’s day-to-day relationships, for instance with their partner or relatives, or work colleagues. Narcissism can be considered pathological when the person afflicted has little or no ability to empathize with other people, using them basically as personal possessions, as need-satisfying objects, for instance, as a dispensable and replaceable audience, to admire, validate and do their bidding.
Authoritarian personality
In his first seminal work in 1941, Escape from Freedom, which attempted to understand and explain the Nazi plague in Germany, Erich Fromm described authoritarianism as a way of escaping from freedom. Since freedom is a difficult thing for some people to endure, because of the reciprocal responsibility that accompanies it, people tend to flee from freedom itself. One of the ways of doing so is to seek refuge in authoritarianism, by fusing and uniting with others as part of an authoritarian system reminiscent of society during the Middle Ages. They either become passive and compliant, submitting themselves to the power of others, or they attempt to become authoritative figures themselves, and then force a restrictive structure on others. Either way, they escape their separate identity. Fromm referred to two extreme versions of authoritarianism - masochism and sadism – which, despite their apparent contrasts, are akin in the sense of eliminating freedom. Even the sadist, for all his apparent power over the masochist, is not free to choose his actions.
In his book The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness Fromm describes authoritarian sadism as the passion for unrestricted power over another sentient being. “The experience of absolute control over another being, of omnipotence as far as he, she or it is concerned, creates the illusion of transcending the limitations of human existence, particularly for one whose real life is deprived of productivity and joy” (Fromm, 1974, p. 6). This will to exert power over others springs from a person’s inexhaustible fear of life, coupled with a strong belief in his own extreme weakness. Alfred Adler considered the authoritarian “will to power over others” a central neurotic trait, usually emerging as aggressive over-compensation for felt, and dreaded, feelings of inferiority and insignificance. According to his view, the authoritarian need to maintain control and prove superiority over others is rooted in a worldview populated by enemies and empty of equality, empathy, and mutual benefit.
The theory of authoritarian personality was developed by University of California, Berkeley psychologists, Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford in their 1950 book of the same name. Adorno and his colleagues viewed the fundamental basis of the authoritarian personality in terms of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, with an emphasis on early childhood experiences as the driving force of personality development. Because children take on the values of their fathers, grappling with a strict, authoritarian father leads to the development of a very strong super-ego. Therefore, from earliest childhood onward, unconscious desires and drives must be repressed and remain unsatisfied.
More recently, the understanding of authoritarianism was extensively updated, and validated with empirical data. One of the prolific contributors to these more recent efforts was Canadian psychologist Robert Altemeyer, who published three books on the subject (Right-Wing Authoritarianism, 1981; Enemies of Freedom: Understanding Right-Wing Authoritarianism, 1988; and The Authoritarian Specter, 1997). Altemeyer developed psychological tests that enabled him to identify individuals as either part of a “submissive crowd” or as a social dominator, and his work in this respect grounded this field of study on new footings.
Altemeyer found the three subtypes of authoritarian personality: The Leaders, The Followers, and the Double Highs (those who score high on both tests).
The Leaders are typically men with many of the following characteristics: dominating; opposes equality; desirous of personal power; amoral; manipulative; exploitive; takes advantage of “suckers,” tells other what they want to hear; fear-mongering; specializes in creating false images to sell themselves; may or may not be religious; knowingly cheats to win; intimidating and bullying; vengeful; pitiless; highly prejudiced against certain other races, women, and homosexuals; mean-spirited; nationalistic; militant; dishonest; faintly hedonistic.
The Followers can be men or women, and they generally display many of the following behaviors: submissive to authority; aggressive on behalf of authority; respectful of those with power; moralistic; trust untrustworthy authorities; uncritical toward chosen authority; gullible; prone to panic easily; moderate to little education; highly religious; highly self-righteous but little self-awareness; bullying; severely punitive; intolerant, narrow-minded; prejudiced against women, homosexuals, and anyone of a different religion; mean-spirited; demands loyalty and returns it; strict disciplinarian; dogmatic; hypocritical; zealous.
Double Highs, who score high on both sets of traits and combine the worst personality traits of leaders and followers. They are best positioned to become leaders of right-wing movements and undertakings, and according to John Dean, are likely to be particularly alarming and frightening (Dean, 2007, p.52).
People with an authoritarian personality type seek conformity, security, and stability. They become anxious and insecure when events or circumstances upset their previously existing world view. They are dogmatic and very intolerant of any divergence from what they consider to be the normal (which is usually conceptualized in terms of their own religion, race, history, nationality, culture, language, etc.) They lend credence to folktales or interpretations of history that fit their pre-existing definitions of reality. The world is conceived by them in terms of absolute right (their way) vs. absolute wrong (the “others” way - whether African American, liberal, intellectual, feminist, etc.). They usually think in extremely stereotyped ways about minorities, women, homosexuals, etc. As a rule, the minorities (ethnic, political, or religious) that are targeted are selected as a screen for the authoritarians’ psychological projections of their own “forbidden” drives and aggressions onto other people (because there are fewer social sanctions to fear). They can often fall back on socially acceptable prejudices (Altemeyer, 1997).
Machiavellian personality
“Machiavellianism” is the concept named after the Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who published his book Il Principe (The Prince) in 1532. He is well known for such generalizations as “the ends justify the means” and the contention that unethical behavior is acceptable, even necessary, if it helps to attain goals or protect political position.
A Machiavellian resembles a cross between the antisocial personality and the narcissist, and is someone who also has an extremely high sense of entitlement. He can be viewed as a mitigated version of an authoritarian type as well. Unlike the high authoritarian, and like the biblical Satan, he is inclined to manipulate and to seduce others, although he does not hesitate to employ force to make people do what he wants them to do for him.
Machiavellians use a wide spectrum of influencing tactics. Machiavelli teaches “It is good if you are loved and feared at the same time, but if you cannot achieve this simultaneously it is better for them to fear you than to love”. And, he continues, “Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred” (Machiavelli, 1975, p. 83). Although Machiavelli did not advocate violence as the only way to influence and control others, he did not shy away from the idea that sometimes force is the best tool. “Be it known, then, that there are two ways of contending, one in accordance with the laws, and the other by force; the first of which is proper to men, the second to beasts. But since the first method is often ineffectual, it becomes necessary to resort to the second. A prince should, therefore, understand how to use well both man and beast.” (Ibid, p. 79). Deception, in his opinion, is also acceptable, but only if practiced with a great degree of skill. “It is necessary, indeed, to put a good color on this nature, and to be skillful in simulating and dissembling. But men are so simple, and governed so absolutely by their present needs, that he who wishes to deceive will never fail in finding willing dupes . . .A Prince should therefore be careful that nothing ever escapes his lips which is not . . . the embodiment of mercy, good faith, integrity, humanity and religion”. (Ibid, p. 80). “Therefore, a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only” (Ibid. p. 75).
“Technocratic”, “practical” or “hoarding” personality
Among the types of general emotional proclivity that B.I. Dodonov describes, he identifies two specific types that represent direct interests that are not connected with inter-personal relations, but rather are more involved with things and actions. He called these the “Practical” and the “Acquisitive” types of general emotional proclivity. Erich Fromm distinguished a similar personality orientation, which he called the “hoarding orientation”. The real passion of these “pragmatic” personality types is a persistent wish to achieve success in their work – not so much for the sake of earnings or prestige, but just for the sake of completing the work, and for the satisfaction of the work being their “own”. For individuals with this personality type, their favorite emotional experiences are related to just this activity. Their prominent trait is a great involvement in, and fascination with, their work: solving emerging problems, admiring the results, and feeling blissfully contented when the work is successfully completed (i.e. when the device is functioning perfectly, when their glue holds, and the paint is perfectly applied, etc.)
The most pleasurable experiences of representatives of the acquisitive personality type are connected with the acquisition, collection and hoarding of things. Their stockpiles of objects usually far exceed their practical needs for these things. They experience special joy as their collection grows, and pleasurable feelings simply viewing it. “Hoarding” is defined as the acquisition of, and the reluctance to dispose of, large quantities of items, even though often these items are of little practical use or value (Frost & Gross, 2003). Typically, the hoarded material takes up significant space, and renders parts of the home unusable for their intended purposes. Hoarding individuals see the world in terms of possessions and potential possessions. In fact, this perception of everything as at least a potential possession extends even to their loved ones – who are viewed as something to possess, to keep, or to buy. Different people explain their hoarding behavior in different ways. However, many of the cited motives for hoarding reflect feelings of insecurity, and loneliness or isolation from the world. Collections of things are perceived by the hoarder as barriers that protect them from other people.
Of course, this sort of “self-defense” against the incursion of the world often results in an unintended social benefit - many museums and art galleries were founded on the collections accumulated by hoarders. The collection of banker John Julius Angerstain formed the beginnings of the Britain National gallery; three private European collections were the basis of the Metropolitan Museum in New York; a collection of pictures of Tretiyakov in Russia became the foundation of the State Teriyakov Gallery in Moscow.
With regard to the “technocrats” - Dodonov’s “practicians”- their influence is noticeable first of all in the development of “the second nature” of the human world. That is, they are instrumental is creating the material culture of inventions, industry, machine-building, etc. From an early age representatives of this type are inclined to deal with mechanisms and technical devices of various kinds. They are driven to create or invent something of “their own”. They usually are interested in other people first of all in the association with their primary interests – as collaborators. But by no means do they regard others as objects of suppression or conquest. These “practical” people often become the founders of industrial corporations and even of whole industries, and they are enthusiastic boosters of technical progress. (Unfortunately this progress can later on be transformed into the means of destruction of nature and elimination of people – by the representatives of sociopaths, authoritarians and Machiavellians.)
Sensation seeking personality
Marvin Zuckerman (University of Delaware, now a professor emeritus) initially developed the theory of “Sensation Seeking” in the 1950s. These individuals appeared to be especially venturesome and inquisitive, and eager to have new and exciting experiences, even if they did contain a degree of social or physical risk. Zuckerman defined sensation seeking as “the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and intense sensations and experiences and the willingness to take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the sake of such experience” (Zuckerman, 1994, p. 27). A large number of studies have shown that people who engage in a range of high risk behaviors tend to be high Sensation Seekers, which leads to the hypothesis that people take risks in order to have exciting, novel and intense new experiences. Dodonov (1978) related this kind of people to representatives of the “pugnic” type of general emotional proclivity, so called in reference to pugna, Latin for “struggle”. Common characteristics of this type of individuals are the thirst for unusual experiences, the passion to overcome various obstacles, the feeling of a “sportive heat”, the feeling of the strongest tension of their will and emotions, and extreme mobilization of their physical and mental abilities in dangerous situations (Dodonov, 1978, p. 114).
Subsequent research suggests that these characteristics penetrate into every aspect of people’s lives. They affect their engagement in risky sports, driving habits, job choices and satisfaction, relationship satisfaction before and during marriage, tastes in music, art and entertainment, food preferences, humor, creativity and social attitudes. High sensation seekers’ quest for new experiences leads some people to the high-stress jobs which a society needs to be done, but it also makes other people vulnerable to reckless behavior.
Zuckerman has found evidence for both a physiological and biochemical basis for the sensation seeking trait: approximately 60% of sensation seeking is genetically determined. It can be argued that at least a part of humanity evolved as a subspecies to take risks in order for the whole of humankind to survive. For instance, when an unexpected danger for a community arises, a set of responses is generated which is common for all animals – the “fight or flight or freeze” reaction. The representatives of the sensation seeking personality type accept the challenge and, in risking their own lives, could save the community. Their DNA is therefore likely to contain genes that influence their risk taking behaviors.
There are also neurophysiologic differences between high and low sensation seekers. When presented with new stimuli, high sensation seekers have a different orienting reflex (OR) than do low sensation seekers. As defined by Zuckerman (1990), the OR is a measure of arousal and interest triggered by any novel object appearing in a perceptual field. (Their heart-rates slowed down on the first exposure, while the heart rates of low sensation-seekers quickened.).
Amiable, friendly, or agreeable personality
“Agreeableness” was initially discovered in research using the method of factor analysis. This is a trait of human character that reflects a person’s concern for cooperation and social harmony; the tendency to be pleasant and accommodating in social situations. (The characteristic of agreeableness is also referred to as: Phlegmatic, Feeler, People Man, Helper, Interpersonal, Authoritarian Follower, Field dependent, External locus of control.)
The people who score high on this dimension have an optimistic view of “human nature”; they tend to believe that most people are honest, decent, and trustworthy. The agreeable people are empathetic, considerate, friendly, generous, and helpful. They want to build relationships; they love to give others support and attention, and value suggestions from others. They fear losing trust or having disagreements with others. Fromm (1956) has identified relatedness as one of five basic human needs. He describes relatedness as love in the broadest sense, which is a “union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one’s own self.” (p. 37). He believes that as human beings, we are aware of our separateness from each other, and seek to overcome it in relationships. But the need is so powerful that sometimes we seek it in unhealthy ways. For example, some seek to eliminate their isolation by submitting themselves to another person, to a group, or to their conception of a God.
Abraham Maslow called the same concept a need to belong: to give and receive affection from others. Belongingness is the human need to be an accepted member of a group. Whether it is family, friends, co-workers, or a sports team, people have an inherent desire to belong and to be an important part of something greater than them. Actually, the motive to belong is the need for “strong, stable relationships with other people”, which implies a relationship that is greater than simple acquaintance or familiarity.
Maslow suggested that the need to belong is one of the major sources of human motivation. He arranged basic needs on a hierarchy, according to the order in which it is necessary that they to be fulfilled. He puts the need to belong and be loved on the third place, immediately under the needs of physiology and safety. Maslow’s hierarchy thus arranges the five basic needs as: physiological; safety needs; belonging and love; self-esteem, and self-actualization. He thought these needs must be satisfied in a particular, logical order. If the biological and safety needs are not met, then an individual cannot completely love someone else. That ‘belonging’ is prior to esteem reflects Maslow’s notion that people need to belong to a group before they can gain esteem. Although needs related to ‘belonging’ include love and affection, people will often prefer to occupy a low social position within a particular group than leave and try to find another group. In other words, their need to belong is stronger than the need for self-esteem or personal attainment.
The results of research also show that people high in agreeableness are more likely to control negative emotions like anger in conflict situations. They are more likely to use constructive tactics when in conflict with others (whereas people low in agreeableness are more likely to use coercive tactics). They are also more willing to give ground to their adversary and may “lose” arguments with persons who are less agreeable. From their perspective, they have not really lost an argument as much as maintained a positive relationship with another person. But this makes some of them repeated victims of representatives of the authoritarian and Machiavellian personality types. Despite the fact that agreeableness can be viewed as the opposite of authoritarianism and Machiavellianism, in some circumstances agreeable individuals can act as the supporters and “mules” of representatives of these other two groups.
A central feature of agreeableness is its positive association with altruism and helping behavior. People who are high in agreeableness are more likely to report an interest in, and involvement with, helping others. In other words, they very closely resemble the altruistic personality type.
Altruistic personality
Analyzing altruistic behavior in the frame of his empathy-altruism theory, C. Daniel Batson has found that three personality variables are associated with the altruistic motivation to help: social responsibility, ascription of responsibility, and dispositional empathy. (Batson, 1991). Nevertheless, many psychologists and biologists still believe that altruism does not exist at all. People deeply contaminated by the notion of an “evil human nature” try to explain altruistic behavior only as a version of selfish behavior, or as the well-known Chelan motto expresses it: “Scratch an ‘altruist’ and watch a ‘hypocrite’ bleed”. Those who reject the notion of altruism counter with the claim that even in communal relationships concern for our partner’s welfare is instrumental to enhancing our own welfare: “We may be social in thoughts and action, but in motivation we are capable of caring only for ourselves” (Batson, 1991, p. 205).
It is undoubtedly with the amiable and altruistic people in mind that Machiavelli wrote that “he who wishes to deceive will never fail in finding willing dupes”, because the kindness of altruistic and amiable people is perceived by psychopaths, sociopaths and Machiavellians as stupidity. The voluntary helping and donations of these “good Samaritans” is perceived by authoritarians and Machiavellians as a result of their own pressure, or deception, as their “reward”, as a payment for their “clever”, “conning”, “wise” actions.
Dodonov (1978) has found that underneath the need to help other people and to protect them, there are altruistic feelings, experiences, which have been instilled from infancy, then grow up within a child or a young person. The inventory of altruistic emotion contains expressions like these: “A wish to bring joy and happiness to other people”; “Most of all I like to experience tenderness, care for, and worry about somebody”; “I like to know and feel that somebody needs me, that what I am doing is somebody’s value”; “My most favorable experiences – when I’ve done something pleasurable to people. I feel so excited. It seems that my soul is about to pop out from me – it is so good!” The altruistic emotions include concern for someone else’s circumstances and fate, care for another, empathizing with their success and joy, and sympathizing with their unlucky events, loss, pain, etc. Later on, the altruistic personality forms upon this emotional basis.
Although we may suspect altruistic people of hypocrisy, it is much more difficult to suspect animals of being hypocritical. But in fact altruism is also a well-documented behavior amongst animals. This appears most obviously in kin relationships but may also be evident amongst wider groups of animals. In the science of ethology (the study of behavior), and in the study of social evolution, altruism refers to behavior by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing the fitness of the actor. For instance, mothers, and in some species fathers, take on the task of protecting their young, where in some cases extreme examples of sacrifice are observed, such as matriphagy, the consumption of the mother by her offspring in the spider Stegodyphus. Certain birds have been observed to throw themselves in front of a predator to protect their young, or even to sacrifice themselves for the entire flock. Even in colonies of Belding ground squirrels, certain individuals sacrifice their lives just to warn the rest that danger is nearing. Dogs often adopt orphaned cats, squirrels, and even tigers; dolphins support sick or injured animals, swimming under them for hours at a time and pushing them to the surface so they can breathe; male baboons threaten predators and cover the rear as the troop retreats; gibbons and chimpanzees will share their food with others of the group, in response to a gesture; bonobos have been observed aiding other injured or handicapped bonobos. In numerous bird species, a breeding pair receives support in raising its young from other “helper” birds, including help with the feeding of its fledglings. Naked mole rats do not reproduce but instead devote their lives to caring for offspring of the queen. Similar behaviors have been observed in ants, where individual ants often sacrifice their lives to protect the colony. Worker honeybees give up reproduction in order to care for offspring of the queen.
It has been proposed that organisms that are predisposed to altruistic behaviors are likely to have an “altruistic gene” or some combination of genes that interact to produce brain systems giving rise to such a behavior. According to Darwinian concepts of natural selection, it makes sense that the individuals who are altruistic would eventually be “selected against” since they would die off without the propagation of their genetic material. But it is possible that natural selection can also operate on the level of a gene. For instance, one way that genes can be preserved by an individual organism performing an innate behavior (behavior that has an underlying genetic component) is by enhancing the survival of other copies of itself. By throwing itself at the predator, a bird is sacrificing its life but the lives of the rest of the flock are saved, and that is plenty of genes. So in that sense, the “altruistic gene” has been said to be what Richard Dawkins (1978) refers to as the “Selfish Gene”.
Insistence on such cooperative behaviors between animals was first exposed by the Russian zoologist and anarchist Peter Kropotkin in his 1902 book, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. Researchers on altruist behaviors among animals have been ideologically opposed to the social-Darwinist concept of the “survival of the fittest”. Samuel Bowles at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, US, has suggested that this be changed to the “survival of the nicest”. On a global level, however, this would still be compatible with the Darwinian theory of evolution: altruism towards other group-members would improve the overall fitness of the group.
C. Daniel Batson wrote that individuals who score high on “altruistic” personality dimensions report a strong sense of responsibility and concern for those in need; they report a more principled morality, and a highly positive self-image. Most likely, the “egoistic” motive for their helping behavior is actually a way of avoiding self-punishment in the form of shame and guilt for having failed to live up to their positive self-image as good, compassionate, caring, altruistic persons. When Abraham Lincoln’s friend “accused” him of altruism for saving a sow’s pigs that were in danger of drowning, Lincoln replied: “Why, bless your soul, Ed, that was the very essence of selfishness. I should have had no peace of mind all day had I gone on and left that suffering old sow warring over those pigs. I did it to get peace of mind, don’t you see?” (Batson, 1991, p. 182).
Of course, in the altruistic personality type we can find some subtypes with respect to the level of altruism, the character of its manifestation, and the direction of the altruistic feelings and deeds, but all of this can only prove the fact that the altruistic personality type does exist in the society.
Creative personality
Erich Fromm believed that creativity is an expression of love, and that most people want to be, and actually are, creators: they give birth; they plant seeds, make pots, paint pictures, write books, and love each other. But Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, emphasizes that creative individuals are special people who differ from others. Creativity is a central source of meaning in their lives. In his book Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People, Csikszentmihalyi describes the traits often present in creative people that are integrated with each other, but within a contradictory tension. For instance, creative people tend to be smart yet naive at the same time, they combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility. The playfully light attitude is typical of creative individuals, but this playfulness doesn’t go very far without its antithesis, a quality of doggedness, endurance, perseverance. They tend to be both extroverted and introverted, but usually they are individualistic. They are independent and self-reliant. They usually promote the exercise of their own ideas, goals and desires, while opposing most external interference upon their choices by other people or organizations.
Another apparent discrepancy in creative individuals is that they are humble and proud at the same time. It is perhaps because they are well aware that they stand “on the shoulders of giants”. Their respect for the area in which they work makes them aware of the long line of previous contributions to it, putting their own in perspective. They’re also aware of the role that luck played in their own achievements. Besides, they’re usually so focused on future projects and current challenges that past accomplishments, no matter how outstanding, are no longer very interesting to them. At the same time, they know that in comparison with others, they have accomplished a great deal. And this knowledge provides a sense of security, even pride.
People who bring about an acceptable novelty in a domain seem able to use well two opposite ways of thinking: convergent and divergent. Convergent thinking is measured by IQ tests, and it involves solving well-defined, rational problems that have one correct answer. Divergent thinking leads to no agreed-upon solution. It includes fluency, or the ability to generate a great quantity of ideas. Divergent thinking is often perceived as deviant by the majority, and so the creative person may feel isolated and misunderstood.
Perhaps the most difficult thing for creative individuals to bear is the sense of loss and emptiness they experience when, for some reason, they cannot work. This is especially painful when a person feels his or her creativity drying out. Yet when a person is working in the area of his of her expertise, worries and cares fall away, replaced by a sense of bliss. And one of the most important qualities, that are consistently present in all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake. As Russian academic Leo Artsymovich has it: “Science is the best way of fulfilling one’s own curiosity at the expense of the state’s money”.
It is important to note that the creative personality is not necessarily the one who holds a creative social or professional position. Sometimes we find absolutely non-creative persons at the top level of a creative organization (especially in the political structures), and we can meet a creative person in the lowest position of a production line in a mechanical works.
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Part 2 is available here: http://publicreason.net/2010/01/01/the-anthroposystem-and-%E2%80%9Chuman-nature%E2%80%9D-shortened-version-part-2-of-2/
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The entire essay is available for downloading (as a PDF) here:
http://publicreason.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/veniamin_zatsepin_anthroposystem-short-version.pdf
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1 - Sunday, 20 June 2010 at 12:57 am
Veniamin Zatsepin