A History of Arrogance

The relentless plundering of our planet and its resources in the name of boundless growth has increasingly alarming consequences. However, only its technical aspects are discussed. The psychological ones are met with silence. Why have we lost the ability to limit our needs? Many factors show that abundance worsens our quality of life, as evidenced by the rates of suicide, mental disorders, crime, and many diseases stemming from affluence. In his book, Luigi Zoja warns that the human psyche's relationship with desire is pathological. Therefore, we must understand the irrational impulse that causes it.

If we are to discuss the limits of economic development, we must ask ourselves why we demand infinite growth. At that moment, we will realise that this is a relatively recent and historically conditioned tendency. Only yesterday, we lived in an agrarian society governed by the changing of the seasons and sustained by seasonal fruits. The history of the West is a history of overcoming this way of life and replacing it with expansion that knows no bounds; a metastasis of production that is merely a consequence of the metastasis of needs. To understand history, we must approach it – just like economics – psychologically. The origin of this development lies in the unconscious conversion of our ancestors. For the ancient Greeks, who formed the basis of Western thought, morality lay in respecting limits. They lived in fear of humanity's hidden craving for the infinite, which they called arrogance and considered a mortal sin. The gods wanted happiness only for themselves; they were envious and punished those who had or wanted too much. But these same Greeks, thanks to their successes, grew arrogant, became pioneers of ambition, and swept away the taboo of limits: they began to put themselves in the place of the gods.

In his book, Luigi Zoja wants to recall and bring to the present a story hidden in the myths of the ancient Greeks, a story with which we could identify and, thanks to which, believe once again in the benefit of boundaries.

Renowned psychoanalyst Luigi Zoja (1943) has previously worked in New York and at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, was president of the International Association of Analytical Psychology, and has taught at several universities in Italy and abroad. He currently runs his own practice in Milan. He has written works such as Nascere non basta (Being Born Is Not Enough, 1985), Coltivare l’anima (Cultivating the Soul, 1999), and Al di là delle intenzioni. Etica e analisi (Beyond Intentions. Ethics and Analysis, 2011). For his book The Decline of the Father (PROSTOR, 2005), he received the Italian literary prize Premio Palmi and the American scholarly Gradiva Award. Many of his works have been translated into a total of fourteen languages. His key themes include addictions, the absence of the father, violence, hatred, and paranoia in politics.

A History of Arrogance is an excellent book by an erudite visionary, written in a brilliant style. It is an ocean of Western thought distilled into a single volume.

The Economist

Zoja's book, full of insight and powerful experience, deals with the very question of Western society as a whole: its devotion to expansion. By placing personal psychology and all kinds of therapy in the context of Western history, culture, and mythology, Zoja reveals a millennium of denying limits – and the resulting persistent sense of guilt as a side effect. A truly essential book with the power to change your thinking.

James Hillman, American psychologist