Erich Fromm: A Brief Biography

  • Daniel Burston and Sharna Olfman's note that early in his career Fromm had begun to question Freud's historical perspective that assumed that the ad-vancement of society would necessarily create a stronger repression of instinc-tual drives. According to Freud, there were no free rides on the route to pro-gress, and any cultural advancement would leave in its wake a legacy of com-mon unhappiness. Regardless of the merits of this position, Freud's sober out-look had the virtue of challenging the belief that reason would bring gradual and inexorable progress. Fromm also thought that society had a repressive function, but as Burston and Oilman point out, Fromm's approach was qualitative rather than quantitative. Social demands based on economic modes of production and unequal distribution of goods would conflict with human demands for freedom and happiness. The conflict between social demands and human aspirations had to be analyzed for each particular case and could not be generalized into false historical categories as Freud's theory did.

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Metadaten
Author:Daniel Burston
Parent Title (English):M. Cortina and M. Maccoby (Eds.), A Prophetic Analyst. Erich Fromm's Contribution to Psychoanalysis, Nothvale and London (Jason Aronson Inc.) 1996, pp. 415-426.
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:1996
Release Date:2012/12/13
Format:PDF-file upon request / PDF-Datei auf Anfrage
IdNo:Burston_D_1996b
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Articles / Artikel
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
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