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The Selfish Society: How We All Forgot to Love One Another and Made Money Instead
Author and respected psychologist Sue Gerhardt goes to the heart of the causes of broken Britain
Ambitious and wide-ranging, The Selfish Society reveals the vital importance of understanding our early emotional lives, arguing that by focusing on the attention we give to our young children we can create a better society. Open any newspaper, and what do you find? Violence and crime, child abuse and neglect, expenses scandals, addiction, fraud, and corruption, environmental melt-down. Is Britain indeed broken? How did modern society get to this point? Who is to blame? How can we change? We have come to inhabit a culture of selfish individualism which has confused material well-being with happiness. As society became bigger and more competitive, working life was cut off from child-rearing and the new economics ignored people's emotional needs. We have lived with this culture so long that it is hard to imagine it being any different. Yet we are now at a turning point where the need for change is becoming urgent. If we are to build a more reflective and collaborative society, Gerhardt argues, we need to support the caring qualities that are learnt in early life and integrate them into our political and economic thinking. Inspiring and thought-provoking, The Selfish Society sets out a roadmap to a more positive and compassionate future.
Ambitious and wide-ranging, The Selfish Society reveals the vital importance of understanding our early emotional lives, arguing that by focusing on the attention we give to our young children we can create a better society. Open any newspaper, and what do you find? Violence and crime, child abuse and neglect, expenses scandals, addiction, fraud, and corruption, environmental melt-down. Is Britain indeed broken? How did modern society get to this point? Who is to blame? How can we change? We have come to inhabit a culture of selfish individualism which has confused material well-being with happiness. As society became bigger and more competitive, working life was cut off from child-rearing and the new economics ignored people's emotional needs. We have lived with this culture so long that it is hard to imagine it being any different. Yet we are now at a turning point where the need for change is becoming urgent. If we are to build a more reflective and collaborative society, Gerhardt argues, we need to support the caring qualities that are learnt in early life and integrate them into our political and economic thinking. Inspiring and thought-provoking, The Selfish Society sets out a roadmap to a more positive and compassionate future.
388 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 28, 2012
Came across this author when I read 'Why Love Matters' a favourite book of mine.
Sue Gerhardt's polemic is an unusual thing: it not only pinpoints what is wrong, but also suggests ways to put it right. Her argument is that society has created "selfish" beings of us, and not, as some evolutionary theorists might assert, that we are genetically selfish. By lightly tracing the history of capitalism, she shows how we have arrived at the present condition, where we shop to make ourselves feel less lonely, change our bodies to feel more loved, and reach for fame to give our lives a sense of purpose.
Our natural instinct is to be connected to others. If we watch how a baby behaves, Gerhardt argues, we see how our survival instinct incorporates a desire for communication with others, particularly those others who are meant to look after us. We never lose that early need to be loved and cared for, but, now that we increasingly live apart from our family and friends, capitalism has exploited and channelled it into a desire to shop and buy things.
The substitution of money for relationships is even affecting our brain development, according to Gerhardt: "Our pressurised way of life alters the behaviour of the brain's neurotransmitters," she writes. I suspect that, however readily we tend to accept arguments when they are couched in scientific terminology, this is the weaker part of her reasoning.
But, just as her allegiance to Penelope Leach's child-development theories will align her against Gina Ford's followers, Gerhardt knows that she is taking on long-cherished beliefs. Not least in her favouring of Scandinavian-style working patterns for new parents. If we don't change the way we bring up children, beginning from the moment that they are born, we will stay depressed and in debt, Gerhardt says. I think I believe her. (Review from The Independent)
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July 22, 2011This really is a book of two halves. The first half relating to child-development and the second a political treatise.
The first half is well written and well researched. It is lucid and contains a good degree of common sense regarding child-development. She does tend to be uncritical of biological facts and theories and argues often well beyond the evidence base in this area. However, on issues of child rearing, parenting roles or the place of the infant in society there is a deal of good information and evidence of wisdom.
There is a trait, common amongst those who work with children, to forget that development of character is lifelong. While the early years may be vital and highly formative later life experience and learning also plays a part. This tends to be neglected. But for parents in modern society, attempting to deal with the confusing and contradictory statements about bringing up your child, the advice here is sound.
The second part of the book is unfortunately less impressive. This is a chemotherapeutic assessment of politics which is overly simple and often just wrong. The psychoanalytic chapters on Blair and Bush are rather cringeworthy. Generally this is an unsatisfactory part of the book. The end call for a state running programmes to improve the emotional literacy of the population and promoting right-hemisphere thinking is almost laughable were it not serious. The nanny state with a psychotherapist as the nanny is hopefully unlikely to be the next stage of post-capitalist development.
The first half is well written and well researched. It is lucid and contains a good degree of common sense regarding child-development. She does tend to be uncritical of biological facts and theories and argues often well beyond the evidence base in this area. However, on issues of child rearing, parenting roles or the place of the infant in society there is a deal of good information and evidence of wisdom.
There is a trait, common amongst those who work with children, to forget that development of character is lifelong. While the early years may be vital and highly formative later life experience and learning also plays a part. This tends to be neglected. But for parents in modern society, attempting to deal with the confusing and contradictory statements about bringing up your child, the advice here is sound.
The second part of the book is unfortunately less impressive. This is a chemotherapeutic assessment of politics which is overly simple and often just wrong. The psychoanalytic chapters on Blair and Bush are rather cringeworthy. Generally this is an unsatisfactory part of the book. The end call for a state running programmes to improve the emotional literacy of the population and promoting right-hemisphere thinking is almost laughable were it not serious. The nanny state with a psychotherapist as the nanny is hopefully unlikely to be the next stage of post-capitalist development.
October 12, 2011
This book argues that antisocial adults are the clear result of poor quality parenting - no surprises there - but Gerhardt provides the scientific evidence to back her thesis up. There is also research which supports the idea that the relentless pursuit of capitalism, a fairly recent phenomenon in western culture, has so distanced people from their human emotional needs that we have become a society of selfish individuals, ignorant of and uncaring towards others' wellbeing. I'm not convinced that the people of yesteryear lived in the idyllic co-operative paradise painted here - after all, even the author acknowledges that the bad parents of today are only imitating their forebears. She also shows a certain naivety in failing to provide any workable solutions to transform society into a more caring social environment. However, she makes a good point about the insular individualism that infects us today, and how such attitudes only fuel ubiquitous problems such as poverty, climate change, and crime. There is a certain irony in the idea that the only way out of this psychic quagmire is the very joint effort that selfishness prevents. It was a good read, and if nothing else, food for further thought.
August 4, 2022
Really interesting book about how commercialization has fractured and deconstructed the family model and “fractured” people through commerce. The end result ultimately is that we begin to think in unitary individualistic terms rather than collectively and those groups which is probably how we've lived for thousands and thousands of years as homo sapiens. Next level shizzle kicks, here are some of the best tricks:
However just as an insecurely attached child may have more difficulty in developing his or her higher brain capacities so to a competitive and insecure society may not facilitate the development of more mature forms of social organization. For instance in higher unequal societies the process of gathering information from all parts of the body politic is hampered: there is a tendency to pay attention only to the more powerful and vocal layers of society and to ignore the experiences of lower social and economic groupings. This can produce poor decision making just as ignoring bodily symptoms can lead to illness. Sunny: Wow.
When children grow up feeling powerless and uncared for they may become adults who are drawn to groups with authoritarian structures such as political or religious sects. Children who have not been well loved find the authoritarian demands of a totalitarian leader familiar and even comfortable. They respond because it is a welcome repetition of an old pattern that can be followed without investment of a new emotional energy.
For example a mentalizing child who is being criticized is more able to say to himself: I wonder why he is behaving like that? And to keep different answers going in his mind, rather than feeling compelled to accept a negative view of himself. However children cannot develop these capacities without appropriate adult support in the first place.
A social world has come to mirror and mimic the rhythms and characteristics of the market contractual nature. Meanwhile the family, the site of virtually the only lifelong relationships we enjoy, has become an even weaker institution: extended families are increasingly marginal, nuclear families are getting smaller and more short lived, almost half of all marriages end in divorce and most parents spend less time with their preschool children.
Things can even become a source of individual identity since brands sometimes appeared to deliver a sense of self that people have not been able to derive from their family relationships. Equally “retail therapy” can sometimes provide a sense of power and choice that is lacking in everyday life: often the only power many people will ever have experience of is “purchasing” power.
We have phony rich people with interest only mortgages and piles of debt, phony beauty with plastic surgery and cosmetic purchases, phony athletes with performance enhancing drugs, phony celebrities via reality TV and YouTube, phony genius students with grade inflation, a phony national economy with $11 trillion of government debt, phony feelings of being special among children with parenting education focused on self esteem above all else and phony friends via the social networking explosion.
It's often the way things are done that express our relationship to the world not just what we do. In particular it's our tone of voice or sequence of facial expressions, body language or the quality and timing of our speech which convey rich layers of emotional meaning.
Some studies have found that even thinking about a particular person elicits the behaviors we associate with them.
Medieval culture was notable for a kind of psychology and primitive thinking which modern psychoanalysts refers to as splitting. Where complex social reality is crudely represented through polarization : it's good or bad. In particular the church which was the dominant form of culture as well as the major authority in medieval times used such extreme ways of thinking to enforce its norms for good behavior threatening the populace with the prospect of punishment such as roasting in hell if people failed to comply.
Most genes are expressed only when the environment requires them.
For example the technology which led to the production of paper the technique of printing made the Bible directly available to more people at this time and in turn opened up the possibility that more people could learn to think for themselves without relying on priestly authority.
Their attitudes were in many ways typical of the new Protestant work ethic, which revered hard work in stark contrast to the peasant tendency to work only as much as necessary to live
Farmers who lacked self-discipline would not have flourishing farms and marriages based on overly high expectations would be in danger of floundering in small communities where there was little choice of partner.
The strict parenting regime however has proved widely malleable to the demands of a consumer society. Indeed separating babies from their mothers at night, a linchpin of western baby rearing in the 20th century, could even be said to promote a materialistic attitude. This is an unusual practice when viewed from a worldwide and historical perspective. The effect of this practice is to encourage babies to depend not on people for comfort and company but on objects, bottles, pacifiers, blankets and other accoutrements which we can buy.
The development of a more empathetic form of parenting depends on being able to give time and attention to children feelings.
Finding a way of paying attention to the evidence about early child care and valuing motherhood whilst at the same time avoiding the conservative trap of advising return to the traditional division of Labor is critical.
The conflict that women experience between the pull of biological ties our mammalian instincts and our modern opportunities for individuation, is still unresolved.
During the unfolding events of 9/11 the TV footage of George W Bush sitting in a children’s school library looking blank and frozen did as much to help the viewing public evaluate his emotional response as anything he later said or did. In recent presidential debates McCain’s physical stiffness and Barrac Obama’s fluidity of movement around the studio seemed to communicate as much as their words. The valuable nonverbal information we pick up from other people is processed outside of awareness.
Children who grow up in families which do not recognize and acknowledge their feelings often become adults who have difficulties in recognizing and acknowledging other people’s feelings.
His Sotho and Nguni Culture also passed on the values of interdependence with mottos such as: a person is a person through other people.
The work culture of a corporation like Enron was extreme but not untypical. In the 1990s they introduced a bonus system which had no ceiling allowing traders to eat what they killed. It stoked up competition between employees to keep them on the edge using a performance appraisal system known as “rank and yank”. Employees might either be in line for a massive bonus or could equally well lose their jobs.
When they no longer have to respond to others or be constrained by others needs their sensitivity to others will inevitably be blunted
John Adams said in 1798: our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. Sunny: Oh my God how far America has fallen from this.
For example if they experience their parents or social institutions as very demanding and perfectionist they may readily be shamed by their own failures: if they were hurt by others in early life they may be quick to feel resentment and anger.
Weather in a marriage family: a social institution, or conflicts between nations, the key to resolving persistent problems is to use empathy and mentalizing to grasp the other person or groups motivations and feelings.
Traditionalists believe that adults who leave their marriages are behaving selfishly in putting their own needs in front of their children needs. But we can turn the clock back and reestablish marriage as an unbreakable lifelong merger of two individuals who come together to raise their family. There is some evidence that such a secure structure is beneficial for children and equal evidence that divorce is painful and stressful for them.
Human mothers have never before reared babies single handedly and have always needed other adults to help them
However just as an insecurely attached child may have more difficulty in developing his or her higher brain capacities so to a competitive and insecure society may not facilitate the development of more mature forms of social organization. For instance in higher unequal societies the process of gathering information from all parts of the body politic is hampered: there is a tendency to pay attention only to the more powerful and vocal layers of society and to ignore the experiences of lower social and economic groupings. This can produce poor decision making just as ignoring bodily symptoms can lead to illness. Sunny: Wow.
When children grow up feeling powerless and uncared for they may become adults who are drawn to groups with authoritarian structures such as political or religious sects. Children who have not been well loved find the authoritarian demands of a totalitarian leader familiar and even comfortable. They respond because it is a welcome repetition of an old pattern that can be followed without investment of a new emotional energy.
For example a mentalizing child who is being criticized is more able to say to himself: I wonder why he is behaving like that? And to keep different answers going in his mind, rather than feeling compelled to accept a negative view of himself. However children cannot develop these capacities without appropriate adult support in the first place.
A social world has come to mirror and mimic the rhythms and characteristics of the market contractual nature. Meanwhile the family, the site of virtually the only lifelong relationships we enjoy, has become an even weaker institution: extended families are increasingly marginal, nuclear families are getting smaller and more short lived, almost half of all marriages end in divorce and most parents spend less time with their preschool children.
Things can even become a source of individual identity since brands sometimes appeared to deliver a sense of self that people have not been able to derive from their family relationships. Equally “retail therapy” can sometimes provide a sense of power and choice that is lacking in everyday life: often the only power many people will ever have experience of is “purchasing” power.
We have phony rich people with interest only mortgages and piles of debt, phony beauty with plastic surgery and cosmetic purchases, phony athletes with performance enhancing drugs, phony celebrities via reality TV and YouTube, phony genius students with grade inflation, a phony national economy with $11 trillion of government debt, phony feelings of being special among children with parenting education focused on self esteem above all else and phony friends via the social networking explosion.
It's often the way things are done that express our relationship to the world not just what we do. In particular it's our tone of voice or sequence of facial expressions, body language or the quality and timing of our speech which convey rich layers of emotional meaning.
Some studies have found that even thinking about a particular person elicits the behaviors we associate with them.
Medieval culture was notable for a kind of psychology and primitive thinking which modern psychoanalysts refers to as splitting. Where complex social reality is crudely represented through polarization : it's good or bad. In particular the church which was the dominant form of culture as well as the major authority in medieval times used such extreme ways of thinking to enforce its norms for good behavior threatening the populace with the prospect of punishment such as roasting in hell if people failed to comply.
Most genes are expressed only when the environment requires them.
For example the technology which led to the production of paper the technique of printing made the Bible directly available to more people at this time and in turn opened up the possibility that more people could learn to think for themselves without relying on priestly authority.
Their attitudes were in many ways typical of the new Protestant work ethic, which revered hard work in stark contrast to the peasant tendency to work only as much as necessary to live
Farmers who lacked self-discipline would not have flourishing farms and marriages based on overly high expectations would be in danger of floundering in small communities where there was little choice of partner.
The strict parenting regime however has proved widely malleable to the demands of a consumer society. Indeed separating babies from their mothers at night, a linchpin of western baby rearing in the 20th century, could even be said to promote a materialistic attitude. This is an unusual practice when viewed from a worldwide and historical perspective. The effect of this practice is to encourage babies to depend not on people for comfort and company but on objects, bottles, pacifiers, blankets and other accoutrements which we can buy.
The development of a more empathetic form of parenting depends on being able to give time and attention to children feelings.
Finding a way of paying attention to the evidence about early child care and valuing motherhood whilst at the same time avoiding the conservative trap of advising return to the traditional division of Labor is critical.
The conflict that women experience between the pull of biological ties our mammalian instincts and our modern opportunities for individuation, is still unresolved.
During the unfolding events of 9/11 the TV footage of George W Bush sitting in a children’s school library looking blank and frozen did as much to help the viewing public evaluate his emotional response as anything he later said or did. In recent presidential debates McCain’s physical stiffness and Barrac Obama’s fluidity of movement around the studio seemed to communicate as much as their words. The valuable nonverbal information we pick up from other people is processed outside of awareness.
Children who grow up in families which do not recognize and acknowledge their feelings often become adults who have difficulties in recognizing and acknowledging other people’s feelings.
His Sotho and Nguni Culture also passed on the values of interdependence with mottos such as: a person is a person through other people.
The work culture of a corporation like Enron was extreme but not untypical. In the 1990s they introduced a bonus system which had no ceiling allowing traders to eat what they killed. It stoked up competition between employees to keep them on the edge using a performance appraisal system known as “rank and yank”. Employees might either be in line for a massive bonus or could equally well lose their jobs.
When they no longer have to respond to others or be constrained by others needs their sensitivity to others will inevitably be blunted
John Adams said in 1798: our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. Sunny: Oh my God how far America has fallen from this.
For example if they experience their parents or social institutions as very demanding and perfectionist they may readily be shamed by their own failures: if they were hurt by others in early life they may be quick to feel resentment and anger.
Weather in a marriage family: a social institution, or conflicts between nations, the key to resolving persistent problems is to use empathy and mentalizing to grasp the other person or groups motivations and feelings.
Traditionalists believe that adults who leave their marriages are behaving selfishly in putting their own needs in front of their children needs. But we can turn the clock back and reestablish marriage as an unbreakable lifelong merger of two individuals who come together to raise their family. There is some evidence that such a secure structure is beneficial for children and equal evidence that divorce is painful and stressful for them.
Human mothers have never before reared babies single handedly and have always needed other adults to help them
April 8, 2010
A highly knowledgable and passionate account of how parenting in the first two years of a child's life influences the resultant shape of society as a whole as individuals emerge. Without a single strong emotional relationship the child will lack in its emotional development and fail to develop empathy. The results of these failures can be seen in our current consumerist capitalist society. This is not a book that will be favoured by feminists or captains of industry or finance but I await reviews with interest.
November 27, 2011
A warm plea for a stronger ethic of care within family, social and political life. Main focus on the types of parenting and the underestimated and under-supported influence of child-rearing in the first 2 two years of a newborn. Recommended for future parents.
December 10, 2020
This was a re-reading, checking my original response to a book which was highly praised by most readers.
Reading Gerhardt's book for the first time, I stopped on page 126. At this point, two of the writer's claims prompted me to abandon the book. Based on the evidence of a diary kept by one early eighteenth century merchant essentially as a business log book, and the opinion of one social historian, Gerhardt states that people at this period 'did not yet have the self awareness' which would enable them to examine their emotional life. In the next paragraph, she states that ' levels of brutality in the past would probably shock us today'
Sweeping statements continue throughout the book, as centuries of economic and social history become the patients of a psychotherapist, skilled and successful in her own field, but not in the study and understanding of economic, political and social history.
Reading the final chapter. An Unselfish Society ? The Moral Makeover, in December 2020 was an interesting experience... Gerhardt concludes : ' Ultimately, our survival will depend on how we treat others on a global scale'.
Reading Gerhardt's book for the first time, I stopped on page 126. At this point, two of the writer's claims prompted me to abandon the book. Based on the evidence of a diary kept by one early eighteenth century merchant essentially as a business log book, and the opinion of one social historian, Gerhardt states that people at this period 'did not yet have the self awareness' which would enable them to examine their emotional life. In the next paragraph, she states that ' levels of brutality in the past would probably shock us today'
Sweeping statements continue throughout the book, as centuries of economic and social history become the patients of a psychotherapist, skilled and successful in her own field, but not in the study and understanding of economic, political and social history.
Reading the final chapter. An Unselfish Society ? The Moral Makeover, in December 2020 was an interesting experience... Gerhardt concludes : ' Ultimately, our survival will depend on how we treat others on a global scale'.
July 13, 2018
Excellent points about the intense need of babies in the first few years and how if this is not met with care and compassion it has repercussions for that person's lifetime and into society. The second half dealing with the political sphere made sense in light of this, but I found it harder to get through.
July 30, 2022
didn't like it, the way the writing is annoyed me. stopped at page 53.
September 3, 2011
I found this book quite hard going but not in the way I expected. I'd found her book "Why Love Matters" to be very dense and unappealing considering my feelings about the subject matter and as this book is a kind of extension, I feared more of the same.
The main message of the book is that the environment we create for very young infants has long term repercussions for society and indeed global functioning - but that parenting in such a way as to foster a better society is hard for those who have not themselves received such parenting.
Gerhardt gets pretty political, including looking at the upbringing of Blair and Bush and how we entered into war in Iraq and the child rearing choices of the Obamas. It appeals to all my political sensibilities and personal practices but also to my own need for even handedness - she considers the motivations of those who take a rigid authoritarian approach to parenting, wanting to foster independence in one's children for their own protection (but with the result that a disdain for interdependence and responsibility to society is created alongside). She is clear sighted about the past and recognises that there has never been a Golden Age of responsive but responsible parenting.
The main message of the book is that the environment we create for very young infants has long term repercussions for society and indeed global functioning - but that parenting in such a way as to foster a better society is hard for those who have not themselves received such parenting.
Gerhardt gets pretty political, including looking at the upbringing of Blair and Bush and how we entered into war in Iraq and the child rearing choices of the Obamas. It appeals to all my political sensibilities and personal practices but also to my own need for even handedness - she considers the motivations of those who take a rigid authoritarian approach to parenting, wanting to foster independence in one's children for their own protection (but with the result that a disdain for interdependence and responsibility to society is created alongside). She is clear sighted about the past and recognises that there has never been a Golden Age of responsive but responsible parenting.
August 10, 2024
Kniha sa snažila byť opozitom k tvorbe a filozofii sebeckosti Ayn Rand. Gerhartová čerpá z vedeckých poznatkov o rannom citovom vývoji a rozvoji mozgu (anatomicky presne lokalizované oblasti mozgu), z vývojovej psychológie, z výchovy detí, z histórie, ekonómie, politiky aj sociálnej antropológie. Zistíte, čo majú spoločné tzv. mentalizovanie, empatia a etika. Autorka pomerne podrobne argumentuje, že depresívni, ustráchaní a materialisticky orientovaní dospelí, nie sú voči svojim deťom dosť vnímaví a vychovávajú z nich sebeckých ľudí, ktorí chcú mať všetko pod kontrolou a nikomu nedôverujú. Riešenie vidí v systémovom rozvoji citovej gramotnosti. Pravdepodobne v preklade z originálu vznikla chyba, Mr. Spock je zo Star Treku a nie Star Wars. Nepresný je aj preklad „flow“ ako „príliv“, lebo pojem, ktorý spopularizoval Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi sa buď neprekladá, alebo prekladá ako „prúdenie“ alebo „tok“.
May 19, 2015
A interesting read discussing how society has evolved into more selfish/isolated units and how parenting, the coming of capitalism along with progress and more wealth in the west has contributed to it. It certainly makes you think where it could all end and what life will be like living in a society where self is put first.
March 20, 2011
An interesting read, thought provoking for parents and non-parents alike. Raises some interesting points on the future direction our society could take... Possibly worth a re-read in a few months time.
January 28, 2013
Although I largely agree with Sue Gerhardt's idea that as a society we need to nurture children more so that we don't continue on our current uber-selfish track, I found this book a bit simplistic, worthy and unremarkable.
March 25, 2013
Very interesting!
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