Laika's essays

[Laika]

I think this is probably the best sub-forum to put this. I expect I will keep adding to this thread as I come up with new material to write about and share. As this is my first one, its pretty long and I'll try to cut it down next time into something more managable. enjoy.

Communist Psychology: Beyond Human Nature

Introduction

It is effectively a matter of commonsense that communism is opposed to human nature. It is probably the most commonly use criticism of communism you will come across, and yet it is easily the most complex to respond to. In the two words “human nature” is expressed a whole variety of social and moral philosophies and for most people who do not have the luxury of time to think on these questions deeply, it is part of the inherited wisdom of society.

In this article, I intend to show exactly how the “human nature” argument is in error and illustrate the possible scope of human social behaviours in which Communist societies. From the outset, it needs to be stated clearly that this is very much in the totalitarian school of thought in that the society (or the state) must “engineer” a mode of thought, feeling and behaviour which aligns with the planned development of society.

There are three problems with communists have to successfully address to have a “workable” society;

i) How far it is possible to Harmonise individual and social interests;

ii) How elastic human behaviour is and therefore able to be reformed or change;

iii) How far it is within the conscious control of individuals and society to change such behaviour;

The article is written in such a way as to downplay Marxist terminology and so is more accessible to non-Marxist readers as a reference material. It is therefore not a full exploration of the problem but rather a decent summary and an approximation of the major issues communists face. This is not intended to prove its overall validity, but simply to express what this view generally consists of.

This is sort of social engineering is, not without good reason, a source of intense fear and anxiety as it clearly underlines the intrusive nature of communist society and in how the personal experience of the “self” can be warped and manipulated to fit into the “appropriate” forms. I will leave aside the ethical questions of whether such a process should be undertaken as it relies on many of the concepts developed here and requires a level of thought that will exceed the scope of the article. I leave it up to you, the reader, to decide for yourself if you think this is either possible or desirable.

 

[Laika]

Part 1. Harmonisation of individual and group interests

The First issue is to do with degree to which individual behaviour can be harmonised with social behaviour. Anti-communists protest that human nature is necessarily selfish and egotistical and therefore does not readily serve idealistic ends of selflessness, self sacrifice and altruism. The idea that human beings are selfish is initially true and compatible with communist thought, but it does not necessarily follow that being selfish means being egotistical.

Marxism shares some similarities with Social Darwinism in treating man as an animal and a biological organism. Man therefore has a set of needs for self-preservation and it is clearly in a person’s self-interest to ensure their own survival. Man is however a social animal rather than solely an individual; human beings associate and co-operate in order to better exploit the economies of working together and have evolved the ability to empathise and communicate with others as a result.

Where Marxism differs from Social Darwinism is in the sense that “nurture” takes precedence over “nature”. Marxists believe that environmental factors, such as when we interact with nature in the process of production in order to attain the means necessary for our survival and the way we interact or socialised into society take precedence over “natural” predispositions. This does not mean that biology or genetics do not play a role or are excluded from the picture, only that they are treated as subordinate. Here the similarities end as there is a clear distinction between Communism as a Marxist philosophy and Nazism as a Social Darwinist philosophy; Marxism believes the concept of race is socially determined by the organic evolution of tribal communities based on shared external characteristics into a politically organised “nationality” which does not necessarily reflect those racial distinctions. Nazism however treats race, not only as a determining factor in human communities but in individual human behaviour with certain moral qualities being treated as “Aryan” or “Jewish” as a reflection of the essence of a race.

Variations of social Darwinist philosophy are at work in liberal and democratic societies in the idea the competition between individual persons is a biological necessity in all societies. Marxists would argue it is an economically conditioned institution to do with market economies and the advantages of specialisation and the division of labour in capitalist society- but not all societies. The selfishness of capitalist society reflects not simply the biological need for self-preservation, but also the conditioned requirements of the social organisation.

From the Marxist perspective therefore, achieving a degree of social harmony is primarily dependent on the socio-economic relations of a given society. In a society in which capitalism pre-dominates and people are effectively commodities, the law of value within the market means that people are selfish by going through a process of accumulation. We outwardly experience this in terms of “success” or “failure” within the competitive marketplace. Under Communism however, with the abolition of private property the socio-economic necessity of such competition ceases, as individuals do not struggle against each other in the marketplace to gain resources, but have shared access to the products of societies labour through the common ownership of the means of production. Consequently, what is “selfish” is to produce for the common wealth and to receive from it. Given the mutual interdependence of all people’s efforts, it is “moral” that people work hard and do not take advantage of the system of social distribution by what would be characterised as “welfare dependency” in capitalist societies. In so far as the ego aligns with the needs of production, the egotism of the individual necessarily serves to contribute to the production of social wealth and therefore the betterment of society.

From this it is clear that Marxist believe that human behaviour is primarily environmentally determined and that in the conditions of socialist society, the antagonism between individuals is not longer an economic necessity. This does not exclude the possibility of biological and genetic factors influencing human behaviour, but only that environmental factors predominate. Without this, communism would not be able to function as a collectivistic society, as “human nature” would be necessarily individualistic.

 

[Laika]

Part 2. Elasticity of human behaviour

The second issue is the extent to which human behaviour can be changed or reformed or how “elastic” human behaviour is. As may be clear from the first part which explains how individual and social behaviour could be reconciled or harmonised, Marxism asserts that “nurture” takes precedence over “nature”. Many critics of Communism will argue that human nature is static or fixed and consequently that many of the habits of capitalist society, such as its propensity for selfishness as a form of accumulating goods and property, are “innate” qualities. Communists would argue that this is not the case and that those “capitalistic” behaviours can be reformed or changed.

In debating “nature” or “nurture”, Communists come down on the side of “nurture” in that the environment takes precedence in forming human behaviour. Marxists effectively inherited the view that man is a “blank slate” and is not born with innate ideas, but rather that through the learning of language as a way to communicate and represent our sensations, we are able to form more complex systems of reasoning.

The extent to which genetic or biological factors play a role in determining human behaviour is therefore limited to our “animal” behaviour and not to the more “human” capacity for language, thought and abstract reasoning. Soviet psychologists understood human behaviour through a form of pavlovian classical conditioning. In classical conditioning there are “unconditioned reflexes” in which we are genetically and biologically conditioned to respond to stimuli. So for example, blinking in response to something over the eyes is an unconditioned reflex because it is an evolved instinctual means to protect the eyes, much the same way as we pull our hand away from a hot stove without consciously thinking about it. The “conditioned reflexes” involve responses which we have adopted within our own lifetime. So for example, specific emotional responses to given words or images, such as “fascism”, “racist” or “socialist” are dependent on environmental factors and not biologically or genetically determined.

In understanding more complex behaviour, we can look at how our emotions function in relation to our thinking. As said in part one, it is not impossible to be selfish under communism in seeking our own self-preservation. Humans are naturally predisposed to desire pleasure and the way in which our pleasure-pain sensations are responses to environmental stimuli shows how we can be “conditioned” to expect or anticipate pleasure or pain.

The difficultly for communists in therefore in using positive and negative re-enforcement in which we come to expect pleasure or pain in response to particular stimuli. It is well established amongst psychologists that positive re-enforcement is more effective in affecting human behaviour given our natural predisposition to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

The ultimate question of how elastic or changeable human behaviour is is therefore dependent on the means by which people are “conditioned” to behave. This takes place primarily through the process of socialisation which “educates” or “indoctrinates” people to behave in accordance with the prevailing norms of society. These norms are ultimately economically determined by their practical relationship to production, and how effective our standards of “right” and “wrong” are in getting us to work together as part of social production.

Under Socialism, society has at its disposal a variety of means for “positive re-enforcement” to promote communist ideas by monopolising schools and youth organisations to indoctrinate children, using the media such as television, film and books or government control of social clubs control of churches and subordination of religious messages to the state to condition adult behaviour. The necessity of “negative re-enforcement” relies on punishment through the state and the use of coercion against those individuals who do not behave “correctly” in accordance with the needs of society. Given that the goal of communism is conformity to the needs of society, this does imply extensive control of human behaviour based on “conditioning” people to respond in a predictable way that corresponds to the planned development of society.

So to wrap up this section, the question of whether human behaviour can be changed under communism is dependent on the relationship between biologically and genetically determined “unconditioned” reflexes and environmental or “conditioned” reflexes, and how this relates to our emotional state, the use of language, thought and abstract reasoning, as the means society can produce and distribute ideologies or enforce moral codes.

 

[Laika]

Part 3. Rationality and degree of conscious control

The third major problem for communism is the degree to which human behaviour can be under conscious individual or social control. This determines how effectively human social behaviour can be changed and how communist ideas can be internalised as a person’s own moral and political understanding. From the point of view of anti-communists, there isn’t a clear position taken on this issue but the general sentiments emphasise that “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” With this in mind, many critics of communism are highly sceptical as to whether communist morality can be anything more than coerced outward conformity with the wishes of the state, insisting the “human nature” remains separate and isolated from the professed morality that communists uphold. By and large Communists insist the reverse that it is capitalist morality that conflicts with man’s natural propensity to social behaviour and forces conformity, leading to a condition of “self-alienation” in which man is reduced to a tool as an appendage to the production process rather than being truly self-realised under “humanising” social conditions.

The work of Sigmund Freud and the discovery of the unconscious proved to be highly problematic in soviet psychology given that the unconscious both acted as a source of “irrational” behaviour through repressed unconscious conflicts and a barrier to conscious control of our own behaviour. The Soviets overall had a strong preference for pavlovian classical conditioning as a way to understand human behaviour because it meant that there was a clear cause and effect relationship between environmental stimuli and conditioned behaviours. However, Freudian psychology did gain favour in comparatively liberal periods of soviet history such as the 1920’s or under the influence of de-Stalinisation during the Khrushchev period in the 1950’s and 60’s.

There was some agreement between these two schools however that under communism there must be a “unity of thinking and feeling” which meant that we possess a sufficient level of self-knowledge to be aware of how our thoughts and feelings are formed in response to our needs and our environment. In this view, what could be called “reason” in terms of our most abstract thinking was not meant to be in conflict with our “feelings”. In the Freudian sense, this meant that it was not necessary to repress our feelings but to express them, and that emotional repression (particularly sexual) was a form of class oppression and exploitation in which the ruling class imposes its morality not only on the external behaviour of the oppressed classes, but also the “inner” emotional and intellectual world also.

The Soviets had a strong philosophical bias against introspection based on the believe that looking inwards was a source of mysticism and that knowledge could not be found in the realm of “pure thought” but only from the world external to us. In a sense this may have reflected the pavlovian tendency to seek for the causes of our conditioned behaviour in our surroundings. This is significant because it downplays the role of individual conscience and autonomy in that our sense of “self” is determined by our environment and therefore society. Our ideas would not be merely “individual” but “social”. Under Communism there is a process of “socialisation of thought” in which ideas begin to take on a much looser relationship with individual experience. Our ideas as a form of intellectual property along with philosophical conceptions of “truth” cease to be the property of the individual and become the property of society as a whole. This is why so often communists are accused of being “unrealistic” when in fact they would argue that basing our conception of reality primarily or exclusively on our individual experiences is very limiting. The nature of social knowledge is not simply found in direct sensation and perception, but looking at the vast social reservoir of historical knowledge combined with recognising the ways in which abstract reasoning links these properties, causes together in “ideologies” as systems of thinking.

It is worth taking a moment to note that this “unity of thinking and feeling” implies that ideologies are not only systems of thought but also systems for organising our emotional life. This is interesting because it helps us understand how our ideas as tools for understanding reality can shape our experience of it. The close relationship between thought and feeling is most evidence in strong emotions, such as a Nazis hatred of the Jews, the compassion of a messiah based on a universal love of mankind or in a religious person’s experience of the transcendent. Communist ideology therefore implies, not simply a mode of thinking, but a mode of feeling as well. The way, in which our thoughts and feelings are determined by our environment, regardless as to whether the role played by the unconscious, means that there is some degree of reflection between thinking and feeling in our inner life.

As such, by understanding the way our thoughts and feelings can consciously correspond to one another means that human beings can be changed and can change themselves under given circumstances. Human nature is not necessarily fixed or beyond our control but can be understood “scientifically” (or if you prefer “methodically” by a process of trial and error and accumulation of social knowledge. It is worth keeping in mind that the same mechanisms of spreading communist ideology can also engineer not only people’s thoughts but also their feelings as part of the process of socialisation. It is more than possible for this to be characterised as highly manipulative given its reliance on propaganda to actively promote the states preferred values and policies.

Conclusion

As should probably be clear by now, communism does not offer a single set of fixed explanations of human behaviour but rather a sort of “scope” of possibilities with key central themes. It is a complex system of reasoning that tries to confront the difficulties contained in the problems with “human nature” as a potentially individualistic, fixed or possibly irrational factor which acts as impediments to social change and to individual change in adopting communist ideals. This is part of the ideological exploration of the concept of the “new man” and “new woman” of communist society, as collective ideals which people should aspire towards based on self-improvement by a process of criticism and self-criticism. It is not a sort of finished position but rather a sketch of human behaviour based on practical needs and ideological requirements that could continue to evolve and adapt under new circumstances. It is firmly placed within an authoritarian set of conceptions of social engineering to instil the “correct” behaviours, raising a large number of ethical questions that may perhaps be examined some other time.

If you have managed to survive reading the whole of this article, and perhaps enjoyed it, feel free to let me know. If there are specific things you think I should improve on for future articles or have questions regarding specific points, you’re very welcome to ask.

=======end of essay====​

 

[suncowiam]

I hate long reads.

But since you highlighted the main issue I see with Communism which is human nature, then I will force myself to read this. It's either this or keep on doing my taxes.

 

[suncowiam]

Great read. Your writing and flow was very well done.

I strongly disagree with many of it but I'm not going to debate you about it.

Good work.

 

[Deidre]

Hello

I'm curious on something, what sparked that initial intrigue and interest with communism?

 

[Laika]

Great read. Your writing and flow was very well done.

I strongly disagree with many of it but I'm not going to debate you about it.

Good work.

Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Hello

I'm curious on something, what sparked that initial intrigue and interest with communism?

I was at secondary school and it just sort of combined my love of science with my love of history. For my history exams I did German and America during the twenties and the Great Depression. I got home one night and got out my history textbook and read the section on Russian history which was in there for another course and was intrigued. Later on I trawled second hand book shops and found a copy of one of lenin's pamphlets. After flicking through it, although it was in a really bombastic style, it just came across as very mysterious and I got hooked.

 

[suncowiam]

Thanks for taking the time to read it.



I was at secondary school and it just sort of combined my love of science with my love of history. For my history exams I did German and America during the twenties and the Great Depression. I got home one night and got out my history textbook and read the section on Russian history which was in there for another course and was intrigued. Later on I trawled second hand book shops and found a copy of one of lenin's pamphlets. After flicking through it, although it was in a really bombastic style, it just came across as very mysterious and I got hooked.

I can understand the lure of these theories. Deep down inside, I'm sure everyone wouldn't mind a utopian society where they can just simply focus on their happiness and goals.

Although my day job pays very well, I myself wouldn't mind venturing to other projects like building houses or remodeling.

Do you know what the demographics are for communists believers outside of communist states? From RF, I get a sense that they are usually young with little experience in the workforce.

Again, good work. If you're this hooked, maybe you can apply to publishing a book.

 

[Willamena]

Laika, if you haven't already, you might enjoy watching the documentary The Century of the Self.

 

[Laika]

I can understand the lure of these theories. Deep down inside, I'm sure everyone wouldn't mind a utopian society where they can just simply focus on their happiness and goals.

Although my day job pays very well, I myself wouldn't mind venturing to other projects like building houses or remodeling.

Do you know what the demographics are for communists believers outside of communist states? From RF, I get a sense that they are usually young with little experience in the workforce.

Again, good work. If you're this hooked, maybe you can apply to publishing a book.

Thanks. I'd certianly like to be a writer and it be really nice to write an epic novel or something like that. I wouldn't mind making money from it (but its a long shot statistically).

There aren't really reliable sources for who makes up the far left, but having looked it up in the past I can remember quite a bit. I think it falls into certian sterotypes of the "new left" student radicals rather than the "old left" of working class politics.

In the UK and US, far left parties (excluding the greens) have never got more than 1% of the vote in their history (since 1920 basically). Sometimes its less than 0.5%.

I was on revleft.com a few years ago and looked up polling data on the site. As a forum it was more libertarian left with alot of anarchists rather than stalin/mao types. From memory It was disproportinately young, about a third had a sexual orientation other than straight or did not conform to their "biological" gender, about half had some religious belief whilst the other half were atheists. I can't remember exactly but I think it was ethnically pretty diverse too. One of the reasons I left revleft was that 75% of those polled had either a history or currently had depression, anxiety or some other form of mental illness (probably because it had so many young people). It rang alarm bells as to what kind of online environment it was to share with people. Sadly, there were at least two attempted suicides on the site whilst I was there. The second time was when I left along with a friend as the lack of reaction to it was deeply concerning.

Another source (relating to terrorism threat posed by the far left) showed that "left wing extremist" groups were often had a higher proportion of women as members than far-right groups. The left was somewhere between 30-40% women but was male dominated.They also had above average levels of education as graduates or university students. (Far right groups generally have a lower level of education ussually about college level I think and come from deprived backgrounds).

There is a demographic age gap in the far left- with the far left coming largely from the young but also with some older ones too left over from the 1960's and 1970's. There is a "missing generation" of radicals from the 80s and 90's as it essentially skipped a generation as people currently of working age weren't interested or else became dissilusioned with it. Thats interesting because it means the far left is not now made up of the "working class" as it used to be. I faintly remember that the highest percentage in age range was in their 20's and early 30's but it dropped off sharply after 35.

I hope thats what you were looking for.

 

[floraphilips]

Hey!

This is a good write-up. I think that Man in a society behaves in a certain way. Necessarily, there are some situations where he needs to act in a selfish manner but somehow the laws of karma and the earth will definitely give him (Man) a chance to improvise on the bad deeds that are done.

Hope to read more such good posts from you! I also found a similar post here Assignment Help UK: Pay 20% Lesser On Your First Order .
Thanks
Flora

 

[Laika]

Hey!

This is a good write-up. I think that Man in a society behaves in a certain way. Necessarily, there are some situations where he needs to act in a selfish manner but somehow the laws of karma and the earth will definitely give him (Man) a chance to improvise on the bad deeds that are done.

Hope to read more such good posts from you! I also found a similar post here Assignment Help UK: Pay 20% Lesser On Your First Order .
Thanks
Flora

Thanks, and Welcome to the Forums. I hope you enjoy you're time here and you may want to start an introduction thread here to get to know everyone better.