LETTERS

LETTERS A market success I write to call your attention to the misstatements of fact concerning Rogers & Wells in the recent article by Paul Glastris entitled "The Government Debt Racket"...

...While I suggest that it is a good idea to insist on some fairness and justice in ongoing relationships, most of the book stresses the importance of caring and consideration for other people, of helping and altruism, for positive human relations, for individual satisfaction, and for harmony within groups...
...It is not psychology but rather modern consumeristic capitalism which fosters the increasing individuation of America...
...he/she acts with no capacity for feeling how the results of such action will feel for the sufferer/victim...
...I do suggest that in ongoing relationships, when one partner gives much and expects and gets nothing in return, he or she will often be taken for granted...
...1-3 ("SEC Report...
...But this is in an instance where lawyers deserve credit for work well done...
...Bar Committee...
...MURRAY S. DAVIS JR...
...First, the author's statement that "the firm's almost total lack of experience rendered New York [City] bonds unmarketable" is false and defamatory...
...C. L. HUBBELL Chicago, Illinois I believe that Wallach and Wallach were carried away by a valuable idea...
...There is, however, one conclusive argument that they failed to state, one that may be applied to all the social sciences as well...
...My compliments to you and to Philip Longman for his article "The Fall of the Idea of Thrift" (January...
...RON M. LANDSMAN Washington, D.C...
...Benicia, California How about Hawaii...
...In a fit of childish pique, it seems, the moderns have abandoned the field to the fundamentalists...
...And not so much as a hint of an explanation...
...LETTERS A market success I write to call your attention to the misstatements of fact concerning Rogers & Wells in the recent article by Paul Glastris entitled "The Government Debt Racket" [February...
...I find their strictures well taken...
...For this, I blame the entire academic community...
...The altruist takes pleasure in (here is single "selfishness") even sacrificing the self for others, saving a drowning daughter even at cost of the father's life...
...the second, despite its attraction for leaders of the Enlightenment (Spinoza, Locke, Kant), has fallen into disuse: the categorical imperative, the theme of Faust (Part II), the statements by Pope and Donne, Arnold's insistence on "sweetness and light" are now disregarded and discarded...
...We regret we must point out evidence of your insensitivity to the feelings of the people of Welsh descent everywhere, here and abroad...
...To assert that psychology sanctions the self and thereby propagates the self as a cult which is harming American society is deeply misleading...
...From what I call "emotional resonance...
...Entrepreneurship, steel, and California politics are all well and good, but where's the puzzle...
...Should either contender for the minds of men emerge wholly victorious, the result could be disaster for our society...
...REV...
...and a feeling of personal responsibility for others' welfare...
...Modern psychology, sociology, economics, and related disciplines follow humanist leads that have become conceptually corrupted through neglect of half of the humanist tradition...
...DENZIL WALTERS Seattle, Washington Denzil Walters is president of The Welsh AntiDefamation League...
...The findings you report were contained in a report of a committee of the D.C...
...If I see my wife get badly burned, I literally feel a cold tingle of pain—and, so would you in like circumstances...
...My research and the theory described in the book (volume I) stress the importance of "prosocial orientation?' This has three components: a positive evaluation of human beings...
...This is the sort of article that makes me look forward to your monthly, expecting always to find something to agree with and something with which to disagree...
...A second volume with the same title explores how the motivation and the behavior to benefit other people evolve...
...Currently there are many other psychologists with concerns and orientations similar to mine...
...See Securities and Exchange Commission Staff Report on Transactions in Securities of the City of New York, August 26, 1977, Introduction and Summary, at pp...
...Pretty shabby...
...LINDA K. MUNDEL Los Angeles, California...
...Looks to me like you went and sold so much advertising that there was no room for an unprofitable puzzle, so it got the old heave-ho...
...They note the view of one team of researchers who consider helping others in an emergency as a "selfish desire to rid oneself of an unpleasant emotion...
...Although there has been a tendency in psychological theory to focus on concerns of the self, it is not unreasonable to claim that psychology is going through a transformation, with much attention to altruism, cooperation, the interconnectedness among human beings...
...of] the Cult of the Self...
...The four attorneys who conducted the study—Anita Johnson, Carol Cowgill, Barry Cutler, and Ellen Broadman—did so on their own time, as a pro bono publico activity, where that term is particularly apt...
...Our moderns' avoidance of even the appearance of accepting religious insights as valid has blinded them to the possibility that the central thesis of the Old Testament and New, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," may be a fundamental imperative for any continuously workable society, even without invocation of enforcement by an Almighty...
...Thank you for printing the Wallachs' article on modern psychology...
...The apparent reason is the effect of the recent conflict between science and religion...
...the human faculty of empathetically resonating in emotional harmony with the hurting of other persons...
...As we would expect, people who possess such a value orientation help others more, whether the need arises from physical or psychological distress...
...To date, Rogers & Wells remains the sole bond counsel for the City of New York and has rendered legal opinions on the City's bonds and notes in excess of $12 billion...
...Our firm voluntarily reduced our time charges for the City's 1979 fiscal year from $934,500 to $750,000 because of the extraordinary time required to negotiate all aspects of the City's four-year federally guaranteed financing and our desire to cooperate in the City's efforts to restore its financial health...
...Even though one of these firms was hired as bond counsel in an attempt by the City to return to the public credit market in 1977, the proposed sale was not successfully concluded...
...I agree that preoccupation with the self is a danger for any society...
...MICHAEL J. O'HARA Killingworth, Connecticut Legal make-up Your "Tilting at Windmills" column in the February issue (page 7) correctly reported the absurd side of the dismal record of the D.C...
...The fact is that Rogers & Wells, as the City's bond counsel, rendered the sole legal opinion upon the City's successful return to the public market with the issuance in January 1979 of $125 million of...
...But instead of attacking bystanders and symptoms, let us grapple with the disease itself: the power of capitalism to break apart society into struggling "selfs" and especially the current administration's attempts to restore this disease to epidemic levels...
...The firm was originally retained by the City's Board of Estimate upon the joint recommendation of thenMayor Beame and Comptroller Goldin, a process that was reaffirmed under the Koch administration...
...it is excellent...
...But it is not an unbroken stream...
...The article refers to a very minor portion of my book, Positive Social Behavior and Morality (volume I) and quotes me writing that "when we give unconditionally without any returns, what we give loses its value...
...Two kinds of "selfishness" can be distinguished: single selfishness (Selfish) and double selfishness (Selfish-selfish...
...Your criticism of the legal profession (among others) is well-founded and usually right on target...
...The article notes the emphasis of Carl Rogers, a highly influential psychologist, on living life in a satisfying and self-expressive way, but not his view that accepting and loving oneself, which is necessary for a satisfying life, is intimately tied to accepting and loving other people...
...Subsequent investigation convinced me that I misinterpreted both what I read and what I was told...
...In the article titled "The Government Debt Racket" by Paul Glastris (February), we read this: "If the state welshed just once on these moral obligation bonds, it would lose its standing in the credit markets for a very long time...
...The fact is that as a result of New York City's severe fiscal crisis the public debt market had been closed to the City since March 1975, one full year before Rogers & Wells was retained as bond counsel...
...Bar, Division 2, Committee on Consumer Affairs...
...Humanism derives from a millenium of thought by many of the best free minds of western civilization...
...O.K., O.K., we apologize HEY...
...Indeed, the Consumer Affairs Committee, of which Professor David Koplow of Georgetown University is chairman, and of which I am an occasional participant, has a long record of public interest activities...
...Had higher education insisted on knowledge and understanding of the classics, even if only in translation, this state of affairs could never have occurred...
...TODD BEAMISH Johnson City, Tennessee There is a way of clarifying the perplexities of apparently conflicting facts and psychological theories Michael Wallach and Lise Wallach so ably sketch in their critique of the "psychology...
...it divides into the largely contrary intellections of Epicureanism (hedonism) and stoicism...
...Although earlier psychological theory focused on human problems, on the self, on aggression, even some of these theories (which the authors discussed) had interest in love and caring for others...
...Thank you...
...The first line of thought is the basis of modern social science...
...Hence "fellow feeling," and hence altruism...
...They do not report that this is a minority view, not shared by most researchers who are trying to understand the altruistic bases of helping behavior...
...And also, of accounting for altruism itself...
...I therefore retract the offending statements and apologize for them...
...But you failed to give credit where credit is due...
...From what comes altruism...
...This process has been going on for centuries and the present proponents of unbridled capitalism such as President Reagan and his horde have done far more to propagate the concept of Self above Society than Freud, Maslow, or Rogers...
...The Corporation Counsel wrote at the time that "the City is pleased with the services rendered by Rogers & Wells and is confident that the work done by that firm has been of great value to us in our efforts to reestablish full marketing access...
...The selfish-selfish person takes pleasure in grabbing a floating piece of wood to save the self even at the cost of a daughter's life...
...Third, the claim that our firm "overcharge[d] the City by several hundred thousands of dollars" is also erroneous...
...At the time it lost access to the public market, the City was represented by three bond counsel firms with long experience (SEC Report, Volume VI, at p. 2...
...Revenue Anticipation Notes, and in April 1981 with the issuance of $75 million of Serial Bonds...
...Board of Cosmetology...
...Selfish" behavior may be and often is behavior for sake of perceived good for others or ideal good toward which the self aspires...
...WHERE'S THE PUZZLE...
...Not to be able to feel such emotional resonance is a symptom of the constitutional sociopathic personality...
...Culture Club I'm afraid I must take issue with "How Psychology Sanctions the Cult of the Self" [Michael and Lise Wallach] in your February edition...
...HENRY CARR Palos Verdes Peninsula, California Just received the February issue...
...Molly Sinclair of the Post, an excellent consumer affairs journalist, did cover the story, but the actual investigating was done by the lawyers on the D.C...
...ROGER A. CLARK Rogers & Wells The author replies: The statements complained of were based on two articles in a respected legal publication, The American Lawyer, and on interviews with city officials and members of the municipal bond bar...
...concern about others' welfare...
...To show that psychologists' views of human nature sanction selfishness they reduce some complex views to fit this idea and ignore recent developments...
...ERVIN STAUB Amherst, Massachusetts Ervin Staub teaches psychology at the University of Massachusetts...
...Norman Thomas long ago in his autobiography remarked that if humans universally had to feel how other humans feel, there would be no war...
...Moreover, starting about 20 years ago, theory and research on people benefiting other people, on altruism, has appeared, and has blossomed since...
...Point by point analysis may show weakness or bias, but the overview of his presentation, showing the interdependence of national and individual economic policies and culture change provokes much thought (and maybe there's a place closer to home than Samoa for the anthropologists...
...Now, neither academic nor fundamentalist appears to grasp what humanism really consists of...
...Great Scots...
...In contrast, "selfish-selfish" behavior is that where the goal is exploitation, manipulation, power over, even pleasure in cruelty toward other selves...
...Second, the suggestion that the City was not able to return to the public credit market with Rogers & Wells as its counsel is also false...

Vol. 17 • April 1985 • No. 3


 
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