The Psychology of Inequality
eBook - PDF

The Psychology of Inequality

Rousseau's "Amour-Propre"

  1. 224 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Psychology of Inequality

Rousseau's "Amour-Propre"

About this book

In The Psychology of Inequality, Michael Locke McLendon looks to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's thought for insight into the personal and social pathologies that plague commercial and democratic societies. He emphasizes the way Rousseau appropriated and modified the notion of self-love, or amour-propre, found in Augustine and various early modern thinkers. McLendon traces the concept in Rousseau's work and reveals it to be a form of selfish vanity that mimics aspects of Homeric honor culture and, in the modern world, shapes the outlook of the wealthy and powerful as well as the underlying assumptions of meritocratic ideals.According to McLendon, Rousseau's elucidation of amour-propre describes a desire for glory and preeminence that can be dangerously antisocial, as those who believe themselves superior derive pleasure from dominating and even harming those they consider beneath them. Drawing on Rousseau's insights, McLendon asserts that certain forms of inequality, especially those associated with classical aristocracy and modern-day meritocracy, can corrupt the mindsets and personalities of people in socially disruptive ways. The Psychology of Inequality shows how amour-propre can be transformed into the demand for praise, whether or not one displays praiseworthy qualities, and demonstrates the ways in which this pathology continues to play a leading role in the psychology and politics of modern liberal democracies.

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Yes, you can access The Psychology of Inequality by Michael Locke McLendon in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & Political Philosophy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Introduction
  4. Chapter 1. Being Aristos and the Politics of Aristocracy
  5. Chapter 2. Amor Sui and Amour-Propre in Augustine and Neo-Augustinianism: Surrogate Virtue or Gateway to Libido Dominandi?
  6. Chapter 3. Amour-Propre in Rousseau: Subverting the Aristocratic Personality
  7. Chapter 4. Tocqueville’s Liberal Reply
  8. Conclusion
  9. Notes
  10. Bibliography
  11. Index
  12. Acknowledgments