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America, beginning as a small group of devout Puritan settlers, ultimately became the richest, most powerful Empire in the history of the world, but having reached that point, is now in a process of implosion and decay. This book, inspired by Frankfurt School Critical Theory, especially Erich Fromm, offers a unique historical, cultural and characterological analysis of American national character and its underlying psychodynamics. Specifically, this analysis looks at the persistence of Puritan religion, as well as the extolling of male toughness and America's unbridled pursuit of wealth. Finally, its self image of divinely blessed exceptionalism has fostered vast costs in lives and wealth. But these qualities of its national character are now fostering both a decline of its power and a transformation of its underlying social character. This suggests that the result will be a changing social character that enables a more democratic, tolerant and inclusive society, one that will enable socialism, genuine, participatory democracy and a humanist framework of meaning. This book is relevant to understanding America’s past, present and future.
As a Freudian revisionist and neo-Marxist, Erich Fromm (1900–1980) lessened the import of sexuality in the individual psyche but stressed the role played by the sex differential in the distribution of power throughout history and in the post-patriarchal form of matriarchy he envisioned. Seeking to reinforce the male/female divide and heteronormativity, Fromm outlined a >New Science of Man< that readily ignored not only the challenges posed to binary sexuality by post-Darwinian critical sexologies, but also the same-sex complexities evinced by key figures of his own cultural pantheon. Regardless of his declared pursuits, however, Fromm at times expressed insights suitable to undermine the cogency of his most cherished sexual convictions. As a tool for uncovering >indubitable commonsensical axioms< as sources of alienation, Fromm’s conception of >ideology< challenges his own sanction of sexual binarity and heterosexuality, thus facilitating an understanding of the individual’s sexual difference as a unique modulation of male/female intermediariness.
Among various social factors associated with health behavior and disease, social cohesion has not captured the imagination of public health researchers as much as social capital as evidenced by the subsuming of social cohesion into social capital and the numerous studies analyzing social capital and the comparatively fewer articles analyzing social cohesion and health. In this paper we provide a brief overview of the evolution of the conceptualization of social capital and social cohesion and we use philosopher Erich Fromm’s distinction between >having< and >being< to understand the current research focus on capital over cohesion. We argue that social capital is related to having while social cohesion is related to being and that an emphasis on social capital leads to individualizing tendencies that are antithetical to cohesion. We provide examples drawn from the literature where this conflation of social capital and cohesion results in non-concordant definitions and subsequent operationalization of these constructs. Beyond semantics, the practical implication of focusing on >having< vs. >being< include an emphasis on understanding how to normalize groups and populations rather than providing those groups space for empowerment and agency leading to health.
This paper examines the process of radicalisation of Monsignor Ivan Illich during the 1960s, having as its setting Cuernavaca, Mexico – a creative, fluid space where Illich was in contact with Bishop Méndez Arceo, Erich Fromm and Gregorio Lemercier. Illich’s writings and the reports from the centres led by him are placed here in context, and it is argued that his encounter with psychoanalysis in Cuernavaca shaped his critique of the Church as an institution. The radicalisation of his concept of the Church reached a high point with the publication of >The seamy side of charity< and >The vanishing clergyman<, both in 1967.
The Frankfurt School is known to be the first institution in Germany that in 1929 has officially related psychoanalysis to a university. The most important person in this process was Karl Landauer. With him Fromm, Horkheimer and others completed their training analyzes, he decisively worked in the Institute and the first volumes of the Journal of Social Research. Landauer and Horkheimer regularly ex¬change information in the time of emigration and discuss their texts together. Landauer is also responsible for the reception of psychoanalysis in Horkheimer’s further programs he writes for the Institute, as in his programmatic essay >Egoism and freedom-movement< from 1936. When he was murdered in concentration camp in 1945, it was a great per¬sonal and theoretical loss for Horkheimer which he hardly could overcome. Also the known dispute between Adorno and Fromm at the Institute for Social Research has as a backbone an old rivalry between the psychoanalytic institutes from Berlin and Frankfurt, which is exacerbated during the emigration and the >Gleichschaltung< in fascist Germany.
The life and works of Georg Groddeck are reviewed and placed in historical context as a physician and a pioneer of psychoanalysis, psychosomatic medicine, and an epistolary style of writing. His >Das Es< concept stimulated Freud to construct his tripartite model of the mind. Groddeck, however, used Das Es to facilitate receptivity to unconscious communication with his patients. His >maternal turn< transformed his treatment approach from an authoritarian position to a dialectical process. Groddeck was a generative influence on the development of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Erich Fromm, and Karen Horney. He was also the mid-wife of the late-life burst of creativity of his friend and patient Sándor Ferenczi. Together, Groddeck and Ferenczi provided the impetus for a paradigm shift in psychoanalysis that emphasized the maternal transference, child-like creativity, and a dialogue of the unconscious that foreshadowed contemporary interest in intersubjectivity and field theory. They were progenitors of the relational turn and tradition in psychoanalysis. Growing interest in interpsychic communication and field theory is bringing about a convergence of theorizing among pluralistic psychoanalytic schools that date back to 1923 when Freud appropriated Groddeck’s >Das Es< and radically altered its meaning and use.
The field of social work is currently wrestling with a number of divergent theories and concepts as it seeks to discover ways of thinking about social issues, client worlds, and best practices. Yet many of those eclectically gathered theories are not aligned logically or philosophically. This has led to a disjointed, ad hoc, and disunited theoretical basis within the field that has, arguably, weakened its collective effectiveness, reputation, and impact. Erich Fromm (1900-1980), a German-born psychoanalyst and philosopher, offers a number of theoretical ideas, stances, and directions that may improve social work’s theoretical underpinnings and perhaps even provide some foundational elements useful for the creation of a unified theory of human functioning in the world. This article explores Fromm’s body of work with the intention of applying a selection of his ideas to social work theory, policy, and practice. Remedies to resolve the bifurcation of psyche-based and society-based theories are discussed. Following this is a presentation of Fromm’s concept of “social character” as well as implications for social work practice.