Origins of Love and Hate by Ian Suttie

-
I have just begun reading this book and it is far more technical psychology than I am able to follow entirely, but I find some of his ideas very interesting and more meaningful than popular Freud (I say it that way because I have never read Freud, but all of us are familiar with many of his ideas).

One of his first ideas is that the theories of infants and children as being like primitive animals is entirely wrong. Suttie says: "the child mind is less like that of primitive animals than is the adult mind ... vastly different from that of free-living, self-supporting animals. Instead of an armament of instincts ... it is born with a simple attachment-to-mother who is the sole source of food and protection."

Then he builds from that to argue (mind you I am only in chapter one) that from this primal attachment-to-mother which is stronger in humans than any other animal comes play, cooperation, competition and ultimately culture. This is why "man has become virtually the only cultural animal."

Then he says: "Necessity is not 'the mother of invention'; Play is." And "in man a collection of instincts is replaced by a relatively aimless and plastic curiosity, attachment, and interests, is of course the reason why this play period can be turned to such account. Non-appetitive 'interest' combines with need-for-company to apply the drive to the cultural pursuits of knowledge for its own sake, and to the development of a tradition which can be accumulated indefinitely. These three characteristics, then, represent the advantages that the course of evolution has conferred upon man. Respectively they make him social, educable, and progressive. At the same time evolution has left man with so little definite biological guidance in the form of instinct and with so much drive toward association and experiment that he has become unstable and pervertible."

Yes. I see that and find it interesting that he can see so much through the lens of the simple idea of our being born dependent and therefore social, in need of nurture.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Hearth

-
Image
"A stove used to furnish more than mere warmth. It was a focus, a hearth, a place that gathered the work and leisure of a family and gave the house a center. Its coldness marked the morning, and the spreading of its warmth the beginning of the day. It assigned to the different family members tasks that defined their place in the household. The mother built the fire, the children kept the firebox filled, and the father cut the firewood. It provided for the entire family a regular and bodily engagement with the rhythm of the seasons that was woven together of the threat of cold and solace of warmth, the smell of wood smoke, the exertion of sawing and of carrying, the teaching of skills and the fidelity to daily tasks." (Albert Borgmann: Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ) So what is our new center? Warmth is now provided in a completely uniform way requiring no demands on our skill, strength or attention. In fact, the warmth device (central heating system) is c...
Read more

Idolatry in the West

-
"in order to promote killing in civilized societies it must be legalized under deceitful names. Yet liberal societies seem happy to be deceived exactly to the degree to which they have developed into societies of covetousness." Ok ... I know you need more before you know where this is going ... I am reading a book of essays on the ten commandments. This is in a section talking about the relatedness of all ten commandments, primarily through the command not to murder. He goes from there to make the point that we are a society dominated by want and covetousness and the more the claws of greed entangle us (from human traffiking to slave labor for our cheap consumer goods, to "designer babies" and whatever else technology deems to sell) the more we will redefine sin and morality. Bernd Wannenwetsch continues: "the culture of death is essentially marked by the business of redefinition. In defining our own humanity we claim the property rights that entitle us to dist...
Read more