Psychology, History and Society

Introduction

Philosophers (Georg Henrik von Wright) has noticed that all civilizations seem to carry the seed of its own destruction within it. I intend to show that it is the individual with infantile personality that has undermined civilizations through out history. I will do this by presenting a theory of human nature. The reason we say history keeps repeating itself is because people with infantile personality lack the capacity to learn from history. Finally I will project our human nature on society and discuss anxiety on a social scale which can develop into a neuroses.

Human Nature

This account of the human nature does not claim to be complete or correct in every detail. The purpose has been to try to find the foundation of our personality. That is what all humans have in common. I have used introspection to do this and it started as a top down process, but developed to become a bottom up process. For some behaviours I have used strictly observations to determine their existence. My conclusion is that human nature can be divided into four distinct levels, instincts, emotions, ego needs, and philosophical insight.

Instincts

Instincts are the lowest level from where one can organize higher behaviours. It is my stand point that all higher organisms including man’s behaviour has its roots in instincts.

Emotions

This level has developed with the purpose to enhance our capacity for survival. Complex learning becomes possibel through operant conditioning. This means that emotions function as a reward for behaviours that gives gratification to the instinct it is paired with. Emotions stop functioning as reward as soon as the desired behaviour has been established. This is also valid for more complex emotions such as dignity and love. Anxiety is used to indicate that the instinct is not being satisfied. This forces the development of ego needs as the environment changes. One could say anxiety is the result of a changing society and that Nature use anxiety to kick mankind along. Anxiety also forces evolution on the brain as a physical organ.

Ego Needs

This level has a similar appearence as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The major difference is that I conclude there is a self-realization for each ego need. This view adds much more complexity to the human nature. It also puts focus in how many areas we as humans can grow and develop our approach to life. Free will exist on this level due to the fact that we are not able to take into account the effect of unconscious input into our decision making. Learning is accomplished through operant conditioning and modeling, with emotions serving as positive or negative reinforcement. I have split this level up in three different sub-levels, need for security, need for appreciation, and self-realization. The expression of the instinct and the relevant emotions decline as one moves upwards towards self-realization. It should be noted that ego needs is the sublimation of instincts. To move upwards in ego needs the instinct must not be easily satisfied, that is anxiety forces development on us, or we cognitively learn a more mature way to satisfy the instinct. If a person to easily satisfy their needs the development of those needs will be arrested. The drive to go forward is the need for the instinct to express itself.

On the lowest level of ego needs, need for security, one can approach life in two different ways. These two approaches are opposites, and how you start life will influence your way of approaching life in general. From this we understand how important childhood is for us since that’s mainly when we have the biggest need for security and exist mainly on this level.

Philosphical Insight

On this level emotions have ceased to function as reinforcement. There is no need and consequentley no drive. The insight itself is enough. This final step is strictly an intellectual exercise. Moral philosophie seems to be the most valuable insight, since it will give piece of mind. This view was established by Socrates with whom I am in complete agreement. To reach this level one should live a life in moderation, be accountable, have self discipline, and respect for all living creatures. To see an outline of the human nature see Table 1. That which is written in the squares of Table 1 is an idea of the models that the unconscious works with. These ideas are subjective and open to change, not like Plato’s ideas which where supposed to be objective and final. To remove illusions that cloud the ideas means to better be able to experience reality to a higher degree, and in this sense my ideas are similar to what Plato was talking about. Hence there is no reality only perception.

Infantile Personality

This personality has as its main characteristics a lack of conscience and identity (personality) and no capacity for empathy. The human nature for this personality is at the level of need for security for all instincts, which means these individuals approach life with an attitude of it is either or, never maybe or perhaps. Consequently they live in a world that is black and white. The reason for this is that they produce very little psychic energy to their instincts. Their behaviour is characterized by a desire for respect, hence their desire for power and to work in a profession with high status. The lack of psychic energy means they do not suffer from anxiety like normal people, which is basically the same as saying that behaviour is an intellectual exercise. Looking at these individuals from a degree of consciousness they have not successfully developed an identity and therefore have no capacity for empathy, which is an obvious shortcoming among medical doctors and psychopaths. These individuals have no personality they have roles that they act in order to get the upper hand, or be socially accepted. Normally you can study a person’s behaviour and from this understand his thought process. This is not possible to do with people having infantile personality, for them behaviour (roles) and thought process (who they truly are) are two different things. They pretend to be something they are not, grown-ups. The lack of identity activates the defence mechanism known as reaction formation and creates the delusion “I am somebody” (maybe I’m the superman that Nietzsche talked about), which also is hubris (grandiose self-worth). Descartes said: “I think, therefore I exist”. These people think: “Somebody is kissing my ass, therefore I must exist”. This is because they rationally subscribe to the idea of submissiveness or control in order to get respect. The lack of a conscience is an obvious shortcoming among medical doctors and psychopaths. These individuals are also socially incompetent (superficial). Their lack of identity has the effect that they do not respect other people. It seems obvious that they are unhappy and dissatisfied with life in general, which is caused by their lack of psychic energy. Individuals with this personality type are mainly stuck at the basic level where the brain rewards learning facts, which really is a rather childlike quality. A large proportion of people having antisocial personality (psychopaths) would have infantile personality. One might conclude that their behaviour is dominated by their need for respect and that they choose to rebel against society. This will lead to what looks like a lack of impulsivity control and disrespect for others. This causes them to break the law as well as socially acceptable behaviour. One might add that people with infantile personality as a consequence of their lack of human nature know the words but not the music.

The idea of a black and white world makes the more intelligent individuals with this personality highly attracted to become medical doctors. This will give them maximum of respect and the ultimate position of power since they become the ones who control life and death. We, their patients are forced to lay our lives in the hands of doctors so we damn better show them submissiveness and respect. Medical doctors are also in the position to classify everything as healthy or sick, which is another kick these people get. Those who become psychiatrists are probably sadists that use projection when diagnosing schizophrenics. These individuals also invented the IQ-test, which measures the degree of conscious logical thinking and how it’s influenced by the unconscious. Actually IQ-tests measures indirectly to what degree one approaches life at the level of need for security. That is lack of human nature or personality. I do suspect that it’s this individual who has designed the lie detector, and if that is the case you can bet your last dollar that they can pass the lie-detector test no matter what. The theoretical explanation for this would be that they are emotionally immature and therefore do not respond as a normal person.

Another characteristic behaviour among these individuals is that when they are not successful at something they simply switch to something else instead of making an effort of becoming better. This is because of their belief that they somehow should be special and good at something, to them life is supposed to be easy. If things become difficult just do something else. That’s how they deal with adversity in life, very childish.

It’s my understanding of history that the more intelligent of these individuals in the past always have tried to uphold the power over life and death in order to get respect, which means that these individuals used to become priests as long as the church had any influence in society. Today they are demoted to the medical profession. What these individuals desire from life is respect.

The Authoritarian Archetype

The reason I bring up this particular archetype is that it has had tremendous effect on society and history, but that is changing. It has its origin in the relation between God and man. This leaderstyle was projected in every aspect of society. To finally be a part of the family. It used to be that the father was an authority. This means the child makes the connection between authority-power-good. The child learns quickly that good does not necessarily mean authority and power, but authority always means power and good. Power means authority and good, but the connection is not a 100%. The most obvious effect of an authority is that we are reduced to ass kissers. This archetype is built on the idea that no one takes any responsibility except God. Responsibility can always be refered to someone above yourself, which originally ended up being God.

This concept that I call the authoritarian archetype is something we use all the time. The effect it has on our reality (perception) is that the more authority someone projects on us the more power are we willing to give that person and we think the very best (good) of them. Arbitrarily we assign a quality such as goodness to a person based on how well that person is able to project authority on to us. My theory for evolution and structural violence predicts that it has been most beneficial to put the trash in charge. That is to say that the more authority one is capable to project the more of an ass kisser one is. This has changed with the coming of democracy. The only thing that is persistent about evolution is change.

Lets look at the extreme of this type of generalization. The Stockholm syndrome was created from that power in extreme amounts were projected on to people. From this they concluded that these people (bank robbers) were authoritarians and good. The result was that they all turned in to ass kissers. Lets not forget Patty Hearst either. Maybe the Stockholm syndrome should be renamed to ass kissing syndrome.

Lets for fun look at the meaning of the word authority. It means personal influence arising from knowledge or position or from both. This has been a necessity during evolution of society in order to make people obey whether they like it or not. Today we understand that authority is an illusion since no person has such extensive knowledge. Today we know that people with the greatest knowledge are the first to admit how little they know. Authority based on position is an illusion we all are aware of. It's just to look at the behaviour of royal people and officers to know there is no connection between authority and position. A person trying to project authority on to us could against this background be said to be delusional.

Today we have replaced the function of authority with democracy. That means we elect the individuals we want to have power over us. The idea of authority became more or less useless when the church lost its grip over people, which took place gradually as democracy evolved. Religion was the control system of old, but it has been replaced by democracy which is a much more sophisticated and sturdy control system.

Theory For Evolution

Evolution favours behavior improvments in the majority, because in majority is diversity contained. Diversity and numbers ensures survival of the species from most plagues and other natural catastrophes. The purpose of the dominant individual(s) is to evolve the behaviour of the species. The majority learns new behaviours from the dominant individual(s) whereupon that individual(s) becomes insignificant to the species. In return the dominant individual(s) can choose any breeding partner. These behaviours are stored in the unconscious as models. The soul is a reflection (an idea) of the unconscious and it transfers the idea of the unconscious models into the genes.

A Historical Perspective

All dictatorships are doomed to fall. The people in power in all dictatorships have infantile personality. They believe that they are better than the rest of us. Better fit to lead.

This leads to that all dictatorships develop a culture of looking down on the masses, which simply is a reflection of the leaderships infantile personality. This culture will according to my theory of evolution permeate the bureaucracy. People who don't agree with this culture will tend to avoid the bureaucratic system, also known as the power structure within society. People with deviant opinions will be marginallized by the system. An example of this is how Gorbatjov tried to reform the communist system from within, but was eliminated by Jeltsin. What happened was that the system that looks down on people remained in power. Basically Russia was given democracy, but the culture remained the same. Today we have Putin who seem to have some kind of love affaire with power.

The long-term effects of that power is in the hands of people with infantile personality is that people become passive. Scientific progress cease. It's all just a matter of time before internal change (revolution) take place or a more vigorous civilization comes and overthrows the system.

Characteristics that make a civilization vigorous are natural empathy and concern for others. Just the opposite to the selfish behaviour displayed by the infantile personality.

Historically people with unhealthy desire for respect and power has ventured into religion. Respect, power, and authority (no responsibility) with no demand for social competence. Religion has in the past proven itself to be a force that has undermined whole civilizations. Today religion attracts a different kind of personality since the power over people is limited today and the influence on society even more restricted.

What we can see is that democracy has removed people with infantile personality from official positions of power and influence within society. Within democracy we see the opposite of selfish behaviour. This I believe is the heart of what will turn todays civilization into something permanent. However the medical professions influence over media is a destabilizing factor at present.

Finally I would like to say that Hitler was a clear example of a person with infantile personality who gathered similare people around himself. These people, the leadership within the nazi party, projected their infantile personality onto the german people who in accordance with my theory for evolution adopted this behaviour. The nazi party also projected authority and power on the people with the result that people turned in to ass kissers believing the very best about the leadership. In closing, dictatorships are based on the idea of conformity and submissivness.

Entropy on a Social Scale

I claim the will to happiness is the equivalent of entropy on the human scale. On a social scale this would expresses itself in the following way: strive to organise society and form nations (dictatorships) < strive for progress < strive for freedom and democracy. What precedes dictatorships is hard to say but an obvious requirement is a language. What follows on democracy might be the strive for piece. We can also see that there is a globalisation going on in many areas right now. However, the over all objective is not easily discernible.

Todays Swedish Society as a Reflection of Our Instincts

I have suggested that society is building in a model of itself into our unconscious. It could also be said that society is a reflection of the collective output of our instincts. In the table below I show my view of society as an expression of our instincts.

I'd like to develop the stages that precede peace. It's my understanding that a people must have strong enough identity to respect other people (otherwise one is a racist nation). Next one has to develop a strong confidence, because a people who has a strong identity and confidence can handle being made fun of. Next one realize that if one finds other people amusing, than they might just find us equally amusing. This means one does not take oneself very seriously. That would lead to piece.

The same process should be valid when a country is created from different ethnic groups.

I would guess that having a homogenous culture would be the second biggest factor that make up an identity.

Finally I would like to argue that freedom and democracy is an expression of the will to individuality in man, which is an expression for our desire to happiness. More specifically we call it moral, which I claim is the key to individuality. This would make democracy the key to identity on a social scale. In that sense democracy is probably the single most important factor of a nations identity.

Anxiety on a Social Scale

It would seem like a society that is not feeling well, that is having anxiety, would express this in some way. For an individual we call this expression a neuroses when it’s an established behaviour, on a social scale we call anxiety war.

Looking at the world and the present situation one might assume USA are having some issues that are causing anxiety since they have been at war on and off since 1945. It's my personal experience that the American society is having a problem of assigning the individual a proper value in relation to the all mighty dollar. Assigning a higher value to the individual is the same thing as saying, "As a society we care about each other". Maybe a society need to reach the point where it says "The individual is always more important than money".

If one compares Sweden and USA the only major difference is the health care system. Other differences are to be viewed more or less as cosmetic. It's my understanding that for USA to continue to grow as a society it needs to adopt a health care plan that guarantees each individual in the american society medical care from craddle to grave. This should have a positive overall effect on the american society as a whole and would mark the beginning of a new era.

Final Words

All of this is based on the theory of human nature, which than has been projected onto society and history. It's not to be seen as cut in stone, rather as a possible theoretical interpretation of history up till this date.