What would Erich Fromm say about North Korea? A preliminary
application of humanist psychoanalysis
(2013)
This paper considers the possibility of applying the sociologically oriented humanist psychoanalysis of Erich Fromm to the evaluation of the political character of the North Korean state and society, with particular attention given to Fromm's concepts of the matricentric complex and patricentric complex, as well as to his analysis of fascism and Stalinism. The author explains that if humanist psychoanalysis is consistently applied, North Korea can be understood as a transitional postcolonial Stalinist state with a patricentric social order that exploits the matricentric complex for mass control.
This talk was delivered to students in Sociology IEE3131: Politics and Society of North Korea at the Yonsei University International Summer School, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, on July 1, 2010. The subject is the social psychology of the national-Stalinist North Korean state-regime from the perspective of Erich Fromm's sociological revision of psychoanalysis. Totalitarianism, patricentricism, group narcissism, ideology, and the revolutionary facade are addressed. A revised and expanded version of the talk is published as the paper “Erich Fromm and North Korea: Social Psychology and the Political Regime” in Critical Sociology, Vol. 40.4 (2014): 575-600. Keywords: critical theory, group narcissism, humanist psychoanalysis, nationalism, North Korea, patricentrism, social psychology, Stalinism, totalitarianism.