Imagined Human Beings. Bernard Jay Paris

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      The creation of the idealized image leads to additional inner conflict. The conflict between the interpersonal strategies is imported into the idealized image, which reflects not only the predominant solution but also the subordinated ones. Since each solution glorifies a different set of traits, the idealized image has contradictory aspects, all of which demand to be actualized. A conflict also arises between pride and self-hate. Individuals can feel worthwhile only if they live up to their idealized image, deeming everything that falls short to be worthless. As a result, they develop a “despised image” of themselves that becomes the focus of self-contempt. A great many people shuttle, says Horney, “between a feeling of arrogant omnipotence and of being the scum of the earth” (1950, 188).

      The idealized image evolves into an idealized self and the despised image into a despised self, as people become convinced they really are the grandiose or awful beings they have imagined themselves to be. Horney posits four selves competing with each other: the real self, the idealized self, the despised self, and the actual self. The real (or possible) self is based on a set of biological predispositions that require favorable conditions for their actualization. The idealized (or impossible) self is an imaginary creation that is unrealistically grandiose, and the despised self is unrealistically worthless and weak. The actual self is what a person really is—a mixture of strengths and weaknesses, health and neurosis. The distance between the actual and real selves will vary, depending on the degree of self-alienation. It will be small in self-actualizing people.

      With the formation of the idealized image, the individual embarks upon a “search for glory,” as “the energies driving toward self-realization are shifted to the aim of actualizing the idealized self” (Horney 1950, 24). What is considered to be glorious depends on the major solution. Horney does not see the search for glory, the quest of the absolute, the need to be godlike as essential ingredients of human nature but as reactions to the frustration of basic needs. It is when people feel themselves to be nothing that they must claim to be all.

      For many people the search for glory is the most important thing in their lives. It gives them the sense of meaning and feeling of superiority they so desperately crave. They may experience depression or despair if they feel that their search for glory will never succeed. They fiercely resist all encroachments on their illusory grandeur and may prefer death to the shattering of their dreams. The search for glory is a “private religion” the rules of which are determined by the individual’s neurosis, but glory systems are also a prominent feature of every culture. They include organized religions, various forms of group identification, wars and military service, and competitions, honors, and hierarchical arrangements of all kinds.

      The creation of the idealized image produces not only the search for glory but the whole structure of phenomena that Horney calls the pride system. We take an intense pride in the attributes of our idealized selves and on the basis of this pride make “neurotic claims” on others. At the same time, we feel that we should perform in a way that is commensurate with our grandiose conception of ourselves. If the world fails to honor our claims or we fail to live up to our shoulds, we become our despised selves and experience agonizing self-hate. As with our idealized image, the specific nature of our pride, shoulds, claims, and self-hate will be influenced by our predominant solution and by the conflicts between it and subordinate trends.

      Our need to actualize our idealized image leads us to impose stringent demands and taboos upon ourselves, a phenomenon Horney calls “the tyranny of the should.” The function of the shoulds is “to make oneself over into one’s idealized self: the premise on which they operate is that nothing should be, or is, impossible for oneself” (Horney 1950, 68). The shoulds are characterized by their coerciveness, disregard for feasibility, imperviousness to psychic laws, and reliance on willpower for fulfillment and imagination for denial of failure. There is a good deal of externalization connected with the shoulds. We often feel our shoulds as the expectations of others, our self-hate as their rejection, and our self-criticism as their unfair judgment. We expect others to live up to our shoulds and displace onto them our rage at our own failure to do so. The shoulds are a defense against self-loathing, but, like other defenses, they aggravate the condition they are employed to cure. Not only do they increase self-alienation, but they also intensify self-hate, since the penalty for failure is a feeling of worthlessness and self-contempt. This is why the shoulds have such a tyrannical power. “It is the threat of a punitive self-hate” that “truly makes them a regime of terror” (85).

      The shoulds are impossible to live up to because they are so unrealistic: we should love everyone; we should never make a mistake; we should always triumph; we should never need other people, and so forth. The shoulds always demand the repression of needs, feelings, and wishes that cannot be repressed. The shoulds are also impossible to live up to because they reflect our inner conflicts and are at war with each other. They are generated by the idealized image, but the idealized image is a composite of various solutions, each of which produces its own set of demands. As a result, we are often caught in a crossfire of conflicting shoulds. As we try to obey contradictory inner dictates, we are bound to hate ourselves whatever we do, and even if, paralyzed, we do nothing at all. The crossfire of conflicting shoulds is a powerful concept that explains much inertia and inconsistency.

      Another product of the idealized image is “neurotic claims,” which are our demands to be treated in accordance with our grandiose conception of ourselves. Claims also involve the expectation that we will get what we need in order to make our solution work. Generally speaking, neurotic claims are unrealistic, egocentric, and vindictive. They demand results without effort, are based on an assumption of specialness or superiority, deny the world of cause and effect, and are “pervaded by expectations of magic” (Horney 1950, 62).

      Neurotic claims do not achieve their objective, which is confirmation of our idealized image and our predominant solution. If the world fails to honor our claims, as is often the case, it is saying that we are not who we think we are and that our strategy for dealing with life is ineffective. We may react with rage, despair, and self-hate, but we may also reaffirm our claims, which are extremely tenacious, since we depend on them for self-aggrandizement and a sense of control over our lives.

      The claims are what we feel entitled to according to the conception of justice that is part of our predominant solution. Although specific expectations will vary from solution to solution, the essential conception of justice remains the same. In a just world, our claims will be honored; if they are not, life is absurd. Since our solution will collapse if the universe is not organized as it is supposed to be, we have a powerful vested interest in preserving our belief system in face of contrary evidence. If we become convinced that the world has belied our expectations, we may go to pieces or switch to another solution with a different conception of the universe.

      An important part of the justice system in each solution is what Horney calls a “deal” and what I have called a bargain with fate, the specifics of which will vary with the solution, as I have shown. The bargain is that if we obey our shoulds, our claims will be honored, our solution will work, and our idealized conception of ourselves will be confirmed. I have made a detailed study of this phenomenon in Bargains with Fate: Psychological Crises and Conflicts in Shakespeare and His Plays (1991), where I argue that the leading characters of the major tragedies are thrown into a state of psychological crisis by precipitating events that challenge their bargains with fate.

      It is important to recognize that the bargain with fate involves not only an expectation that our claims will be honored if we live up to our shoulds, but also a conviction that we will be punished if we violate them. The justice system of our solution can turn against us, as it does against Macbeth. In some cases, conflicting solutions generate conflicting bargains, ethical codes, and conceptions of justice.

      Neurotic pride, says Horney, is “the climax and consolidation of the process initiated with the search СКАЧАТЬ