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In this book a psychologically-orientated sociologist examines the problem of loneliness, which he considers a central discontent of our culture. He starts from the assumption that man's two basic drives are the social and the sexual. The social or 'bio-social' drive is rooted in the biological unity of mother and child before and after birth. What Freudians call pre-genital sexuality is the colouring, and often the retro-active colouring, by genital sexuality of earlier media of 'bio-social' union.
Man's desocialization is the product of culture, since the establishment of culture means that problems are solved by reference to a tradition instead of by creative acts of social participation. The Industrial Revolution is the cultural event par excellence which has aggravated this desocialization, and an ideology of privacy and reserve, founded on the individualistic traditions of Christian asceticism, has grown up to justify the competitive social system and to rationalize the loneliness which it imposes. This, the author believes, has been insufficiently emphasized by psychologists who are impressed by the individual-genetic factors which bring about social isolation, and regard social isolation too exculsively as a symptom of neurosis in the individual. Dr. Halmos emphasizes the degree to which neurosogenic rearing attitudes are themselves the products of culture. He then attempts to demonstrate the supected correlation between neurotic traits in individuals and social factors such as size of the individual's parental family, or the frequency of his acts of social participation. This he does by means of a statistical investigation into a group of college students, using tests based on Eysenck's tests of 'neuroticism'. He then brings forward case-material not related to the college students to show the beneficial effect of breaking down social isolation, and discusses the possibilities of cross-fertilization between social reform and social therapy.
Dr. Halmo