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The prescience and paradox of Erich Fromm: A note on the performative contradictions of critical theory

  • As social theorists seek to understand the contemporary challenges of radical populism, we would do well to reconsider the febrile insights of the psychoanalytic social theorist Erich Fromm. It was Fromm who, at the beginning of the 1930s, conceptualized the emotional and sociological roots of a new ‘authoritarian character’ who was meek in the face of great power above and ruthless to the powerless below. It was Fromm, in the 1950s, who argued that societies, not only individuals, could be sick. This essay traces the intertwining of psychoanalytic and sociological methods that allowed Fromm to create such new ideas. At the same time, it highlights how Fromm’s sociology was hampered by an economistic Marxist approach to the institutions and culture of democratic capitalist societies. Such theoretical restriction prevented Fromm from conceptualizing how institutions like democracy, science, and psychotherapy can provide resources for widespread emotional recuperation and civil repair.

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Metadaten
Author:Jeffrey C. Alexander
Parent Title (English):Thesis Eleven, Vol. 165, No. 1 (2021), pp. 3-9. [Online ISSN 1461-7455] [doi.org/10.1177/07255136211032830]
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2021
Release Date:2024/04/04
Format:to purchase via publisher
IdNo:Alexander_J_C_2021
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Articles / Artikel
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
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