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Human Destructiveness
This ground-breaking work by world-renowned psychiatrist Anthony Storr, author of the widely acclaimed SOLITUDE, focuses on one of the most disturbing aspects of human behavior: our virutally unlimited capacity to inflict cruelty.
Originally published in the early 1970s, HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS has been completely revised by the author to reflect the most up-to-date research and his own accumulated experience as a psychotherapist. The result is a thought-provoking work that sheds new light not only on such vast historical cataclysms as the Holocaust, but on some of the most compelling social issues of today -- the physical and sexual abuse of children; the upsurge in violent crime; the routine use of torture in many allegedly civilized nations. Dr. Storr challenges widely held views on a broad range of subjects, including child-rearing, criminal justice, caste and class, alcohol and drug addiction, violence in the media, and the limits on the obligation to obey authority. For this edition he has written a new chapter on how, as a society, we can reduce the incidence of violence and cruelty.
Always lucid, and imbued with the humane intelligence and graceful style that are the hallmarks of Dr. Storr's work, HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS belongs in the library of every thoughtful reader who seeks to understand -- and resist -- the alarming tide of violence in our times.
"One of those rare books that can help us understand the world we have made for ourselves."
-- Los Angeles Daily News
Originally published in the early 1970s, HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS has been completely revised by the author to reflect the most up-to-date research and his own accumulated experience as a psychotherapist. The result is a thought-provoking work that sheds new light not only on such vast historical cataclysms as the Holocaust, but on some of the most compelling social issues of today -- the physical and sexual abuse of children; the upsurge in violent crime; the routine use of torture in many allegedly civilized nations. Dr. Storr challenges widely held views on a broad range of subjects, including child-rearing, criminal justice, caste and class, alcohol and drug addiction, violence in the media, and the limits on the obligation to obey authority. For this edition he has written a new chapter on how, as a society, we can reduce the incidence of violence and cruelty.
Always lucid, and imbued with the humane intelligence and graceful style that are the hallmarks of Dr. Storr's work, HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS belongs in the library of every thoughtful reader who seeks to understand -- and resist -- the alarming tide of violence in our times.
"One of those rare books that can help us understand the world we have made for ourselves."
-- Los Angeles Daily News
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
15 people are currently reading
441 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Storr
49 books166 followersAnthony Storr was an English psychiatrist and author. He was a child who was to endure the typical trauma of early 20th century UK boarding schools. He was educated at Winchester, Christ's College, the University of Cambridge and Westminster Hospital. He qualified as a doctor in 1944, and subsequently specialized in psychiatry.
Storr grew up to be kind and insightful, yet, as his obituary states, he was "no stranger to suffering" and was himself allegedly prone to the frequent bouts of depression his mother had.
Today, Anthony Storr is known for his psychoanalytical portraits of historical figures.
Storr grew up to be kind and insightful, yet, as his obituary states, he was "no stranger to suffering" and was himself allegedly prone to the frequent bouts of depression his mother had.
Today, Anthony Storr is known for his psychoanalytical portraits of historical figures.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 18, 2016
A very interesting and comprehensive study (for its time) on the aggressive behaviour of the human species. Poses a lot of interesting questions in the shadow of WWII and discusses the need for further research on the human mind (which, 40+ years later, we are still following). Recommend to anyone with an interest in psychology, but remember that this is not a new piece of scientific literature, and some of the things in it have been debunked by modern research.
November 18, 2025
Concise, depressing read. Sometimes Storr gets a little too Freudian, but I still think many of his instincts are useful.
December 12, 2024
...we know in our hearts that each one of us harbours within himself... savage impulses which lead to murder, to torture and to war.
From this most Jungian introduction ever, Storr goes on to state and "prove" that not only do we all have the capacity for great violence, but that we generally take pleasure in inflicting it upon others. To these underlying fallacies, I call bullshit. Despite the indoctrination called education that many of us endure from adolescence, violence is NOT a natural impulse of all or even the majority of humanity. It is, rather, the provenance of the sociopath--the predators amongst us who wear human costumes and aggressively seek (and thus disproportionally achieve) positions of authority over their prey.
Human Aggression joins Consciousness Explained, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and other pseudo-intellectual work with the imprimatur but none of the methodology of science. I thus classify these under Science with great hesitation. These and many like them represent scientific approaches to sociology and psychology only to the extent that they have been uncritically accepted as such.
Like its fellows in the cesspool of Spencerian social Darwinist propaganda, Storr here is effectively justifying the atrocities man has inflicted and continues to inflict upon those he sees as inferior, weaker, less-deserving, and different from himself. In other words, "man" described here is the one-dimensional Homus Economus, the caricature invented for the liberal economic model that holds that we act in near-perfect rational economic self-interest, which rationale naturally subordinates any other possible consideration for one's behaviour. Storr is at great pains to show that violent aggression is not only innate but is also necessary for biological survival. It's not clear where the line rests for Storr between acceptable and unacceptable violent expression, and he expressly credits innate aggression with sustaining "necessary" social hierarchies (pp.45-48) and for the strongest humans to "be selected and flourish" (pp.51).
While Storr spends much of the latter half of his essay on overcoming our universal murderous impulses, and indeed devotes an entire nine pages to psychopathic aggression, the basis here is simply post-hoc justification dressed up as objective observation. Storr notes that his observations should be a sobering thought to those idealists who conceive that society's primary link is that of brotherly love pp.51.
One can readily spot these sorts of frauds by their repeated references to a conventional wisdom or the "widely accepted" view, such as Storr's comment on pp.16: It is widely accepted that the infant is potentially aggressive from the moment of birth, and psycho-analysts with special experience in treating small children claim that even infants inevitably entertain destructive phantasies of terrifying intensity (no citations).
A few more:
It is expected that primitive man... would tend to live in a state of perpetual war with other tribes. Such indeed is generally the case pp.57 (no citation).
Spurious arguments for the necessity and even benefits of war in the form of the arts, pp.77-78 (no citations).
Disagreement, controversy, and even competitive striving have a positive function in human existence pp.83 (no citation).
Women only tend to show aggression towards other women who might become a rival for the male's affections pp.86 and it is the aggressive woman who resents the male and who is unconsciously competing with him who constitutes the commoner problem in our culture (source: Storr's own asshole).
The final chapter, Ways of reducing hostility, I thought may be worth a read. Storr points to the benefits of international exchange and the institutional assumption of similarity (the Russians love their children too) in helping humanity reduce irrational hostility. pp.155-8. His suggestion for the UN to take the concept of the Nobel Peace Prize and extend this to nation states, to hold friendly competitions around creativity and human progression (e.g. which nation can design the best council house). While it would of course be better if we could cooperate on such endeavors, it's not a ridiculous suggestion - if we could handicap the wealthiest nations appropriately. Unfortunately, Storr then launches into a fully Malthusian argument that we must dramatically reduce the population of the earth by imposing birth control on all nations receiving some form of humanitarian aid. Want antibiotics? Tie those tubes! If not that, then it's the nukes.
From this most Jungian introduction ever, Storr goes on to state and "prove" that not only do we all have the capacity for great violence, but that we generally take pleasure in inflicting it upon others. To these underlying fallacies, I call bullshit. Despite the indoctrination called education that many of us endure from adolescence, violence is NOT a natural impulse of all or even the majority of humanity. It is, rather, the provenance of the sociopath--the predators amongst us who wear human costumes and aggressively seek (and thus disproportionally achieve) positions of authority over their prey.
Human Aggression joins Consciousness Explained, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and other pseudo-intellectual work with the imprimatur but none of the methodology of science. I thus classify these under Science with great hesitation. These and many like them represent scientific approaches to sociology and psychology only to the extent that they have been uncritically accepted as such.
Like its fellows in the cesspool of Spencerian social Darwinist propaganda, Storr here is effectively justifying the atrocities man has inflicted and continues to inflict upon those he sees as inferior, weaker, less-deserving, and different from himself. In other words, "man" described here is the one-dimensional Homus Economus, the caricature invented for the liberal economic model that holds that we act in near-perfect rational economic self-interest, which rationale naturally subordinates any other possible consideration for one's behaviour. Storr is at great pains to show that violent aggression is not only innate but is also necessary for biological survival. It's not clear where the line rests for Storr between acceptable and unacceptable violent expression, and he expressly credits innate aggression with sustaining "necessary" social hierarchies (pp.45-48) and for the strongest humans to "be selected and flourish" (pp.51).
While Storr spends much of the latter half of his essay on overcoming our universal murderous impulses, and indeed devotes an entire nine pages to psychopathic aggression, the basis here is simply post-hoc justification dressed up as objective observation. Storr notes that his observations should be a sobering thought to those idealists who conceive that society's primary link is that of brotherly love pp.51.
One can readily spot these sorts of frauds by their repeated references to a conventional wisdom or the "widely accepted" view, such as Storr's comment on pp.16: It is widely accepted that the infant is potentially aggressive from the moment of birth, and psycho-analysts with special experience in treating small children claim that even infants inevitably entertain destructive phantasies of terrifying intensity (no citations).
A few more:
It is expected that primitive man... would tend to live in a state of perpetual war with other tribes. Such indeed is generally the case pp.57 (no citation).
Spurious arguments for the necessity and even benefits of war in the form of the arts, pp.77-78 (no citations).
Disagreement, controversy, and even competitive striving have a positive function in human existence pp.83 (no citation).
Women only tend to show aggression towards other women who might become a rival for the male's affections pp.86 and it is the aggressive woman who resents the male and who is unconsciously competing with him who constitutes the commoner problem in our culture (source: Storr's own asshole).
The final chapter, Ways of reducing hostility, I thought may be worth a read. Storr points to the benefits of international exchange and the institutional assumption of similarity (the Russians love their children too) in helping humanity reduce irrational hostility. pp.155-8. His suggestion for the UN to take the concept of the Nobel Peace Prize and extend this to nation states, to hold friendly competitions around creativity and human progression (e.g. which nation can design the best council house). While it would of course be better if we could cooperate on such endeavors, it's not a ridiculous suggestion - if we could handicap the wealthiest nations appropriately. Unfortunately, Storr then launches into a fully Malthusian argument that we must dramatically reduce the population of the earth by imposing birth control on all nations receiving some form of humanitarian aid. Want antibiotics? Tie those tubes! If not that, then it's the nukes.
October 19, 2014
3.5 stars.
October 29, 2019
Author was very familiar with the subject
Aggression whether Innate or a product of environment
Frustration leads to aggression and aggression leads to war, rampage...
Without aggression the world wouldn't have moved to this present level..
He analysed how sex stimulate aggression and how mentally imbalance people use aggression to exercise their inner wound.
An emotional factor played a vital role balancing and denting the world
Superb book!
Aggression whether Innate or a product of environment
Frustration leads to aggression and aggression leads to war, rampage...
Without aggression the world wouldn't have moved to this present level..
He analysed how sex stimulate aggression and how mentally imbalance people use aggression to exercise their inner wound.
An emotional factor played a vital role balancing and denting the world
Superb book!
Want to read
June 11, 2020Place holder.
Had an interesting discussion with another clueless on twitter and he mentioned this book.
Digital library doesn't have it so I'll have to wait until the physical ones are open.
Had an interesting discussion with another clueless on twitter and he mentioned this book.
Digital library doesn't have it so I'll have to wait until the physical ones are open.
December 27, 2012
Amazing book..
April 1, 2021
Excellent book!
June 10, 2022
not good
April 23, 2015
clumsy and wordy
May 2, 2017
العدوان البشري كتاب مهم للطبيب النفسي انتوني ستور
ورغم ان هذا الكتاب صدر في السبعينات اي ان هناك الكثير من المعلومات والابحاث الواردة فيه قديمة إلا انه يحتوي على معلومات قيمة جدا
الكتاب يشير الى حقائق مهمة عن فكرة العدوان البشري واسبابه ومنها
العدوان البشري جزء غريزي من الطبيعة البشرية يمكن التقليل منه ولكن لا يمكن التخلص منه تماما
لأن العدوان ضروري من اجل اثبات الانسان لذاته ووجوده وتمرده على حياته كما انه يفيد في سعيه للسيطرة على البيئة المحيطة به
ولولا هذا العدوان لما استطاع الانسان ان يتحكم في العالم ويتطور ويخترع كل هذه الاشياء
العدوان لا وجود له في مملكة الحيوان كما يشاع , فالحيوانات لا تقتل بني جنسها مطلقا والحيوانات المتوحشة تقتل الفرائس من اجل الطعام فقط ولكنها لا تتلذذ
بتعذيب الفريسة ولا تكن لها اي كراهية او ضغينة
والحيوانات تتنافس على السيطرة و الزعامة كما تتنافس على الاناث
ولكنها في حالة انهزامها لا تعمد الى قتل بعضها
بينما البشر لديهم ميول سادية وفصامية تجعلهم يتلذذون بتعذيب الخصوم والقتل من اجل المتعة
وقدرة البشر على اسقاط مشاعرهم على الصخية او الخصم هي التي تجعلهم يعمدون الى الانتقام منه والتلذذ بتعذيبه
لا يرى انتوني ستور أن العدوان البشري يمكن أن ينتهي تماما فهو يراه بشكل واقعي كجزء من الصراع بين البشر للسيطرة على الارض والموارد
ولكنه يرى أنه يمكن التقليل والتخفيف منه فقط
ترجمة الكتاب جيدة في المجمل رغم ان هناك بعض العبارات فيها كانت غير واضحة بالنسبة لي
والكتاب رغم حجمه الصغير لكنه سيغير رؤيتك لفكرة العدوان
التقييم 3 من 5
ورغم ان هذا الكتاب صدر في السبعينات اي ان هناك الكثير من المعلومات والابحاث الواردة فيه قديمة إلا انه يحتوي على معلومات قيمة جدا
الكتاب يشير الى حقائق مهمة عن فكرة العدوان البشري واسبابه ومنها
العدوان البشري جزء غريزي من الطبيعة البشرية يمكن التقليل منه ولكن لا يمكن التخلص منه تماما
لأن العدوان ضروري من اجل اثبات الانسان لذاته ووجوده وتمرده على حياته كما انه يفيد في سعيه للسيطرة على البيئة المحيطة به
ولولا هذا العدوان لما استطاع الانسان ان يتحكم في العالم ويتطور ويخترع كل هذه الاشياء
العدوان لا وجود له في مملكة الحيوان كما يشاع , فالحيوانات لا تقتل بني جنسها مطلقا والحيوانات المتوحشة تقتل الفرائس من اجل الطعام فقط ولكنها لا تتلذذ
بتعذيب الفريسة ولا تكن لها اي كراهية او ضغينة
والحيوانات تتنافس على السيطرة و الزعامة كما تتنافس على الاناث
ولكنها في حالة انهزامها لا تعمد الى قتل بعضها
بينما البشر لديهم ميول سادية وفصامية تجعلهم يتلذذون بتعذيب الخصوم والقتل من اجل المتعة
وقدرة البشر على اسقاط مشاعرهم على الصخية او الخصم هي التي تجعلهم يعمدون الى الانتقام منه والتلذذ بتعذيبه
لا يرى انتوني ستور أن العدوان البشري يمكن أن ينتهي تماما فهو يراه بشكل واقعي كجزء من الصراع بين البشر للسيطرة على الارض والموارد
ولكنه يرى أنه يمكن التقليل والتخفيف منه فقط
ترجمة الكتاب جيدة في المجمل رغم ان هناك بعض العبارات فيها كانت غير واضحة بالنسبة لي
والكتاب رغم حجمه الصغير لكنه سيغير رؤيتك لفكرة العدوان
التقييم 3 من 5
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews