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[Chinese abstract not available] Fromm analyzed the spiritual predicament of modern people after the two World Wars through the combination of Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis, and pointed out that the spontaneous individualization had to be subject to social conditions, resulting in the gap between positive freedom and negative freedom. In order to escape the burden brought by such negative freedom, people would rather lose their freedom than gain security and survival. In modern society, there is a common psychology of escape from freedom, which presents different forms of expression, and eventually results in totalitarianism and unsound society. Fromm tried to eliminate the ills of modern society by finding a way to realize positive freedom. The escape from freedom emphasized by Fromm is a prominent manifestation of modernity. At present, in the background of modernization and globalization, through the critical thinking of Fromm’s thought of escape from freedom, it is still enlightening and useful for the development of Chinese modernization to pursue and surpass this kind of modernity. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 12/2023]
The >Buddhist< culture itself, as a subculture, is usually characterized by the coexistence of rationality and sensibility and the coexistence of aggressiveness and anxiety. The choice of “Buddhist” life for college students is an escape to a certain extent. They leave their families and come to a relatively free university. A sense of loneliness and powerlessness is generated, which leads them to defend themselves to relieve pressure, thus the psychological phenomenon of >escape from freedom< appears. However, there is a certain pragmatism while escaping. This seemingly free and easy >Buddha system< Mentality actually has a negative impact on the subjective well-being of college students. In Fromm’s view, freedom has dual meanings. These college students who advertise as >Buddhist youth< are in the predicament of freedom. However, in reality, some college students choose to escape from negative freedom to overcome their inner loneliness. This paper analyzes this phenomenon based on Fromm’s >Escape from Freedom<, and attempts to propose a path to achieve positive freedom and help college students pursue positive freedom. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 4/2023]
In modern industrial society, alienation has become a general problem existing in politics, economy, culture and other fields. For this reason, based on humanism Fromm's uses Freudian psychoanalysis to expose the symptoms of alienation in modern society. And in the perspective of Marxism, he ran through the analysis of human psychological mechanism to seek a solution to eliminate the symptoms of alienation. However, in essence, Fromm exaggerated the role of psychological factors in eliminating alienation, so it has inevitable limitation. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 4/2023]
This article explores the relevance of the life and works of Kiyoshi Miki (1897 – 1945), a Japanese philosopher, to Maslovian humanistic psychology. Although Miki and Maslow differ in many respects, they shared a few common points that are important to examine. In his early articles, Miki equated philosophy with confessions of the soul and argued that individuality was impossible within the traditional framework of logic. His first main work on Pascal’s anthropology was an attempt to assimilate and synthesize the German existential/hermeneutic and the French moralist traditions he had learned in Europe in the early 1920s. Despite pioneering works by Wilhelm Reich and Erich Fromm, humanistic psychology has not exhausted the potentialities of Marxism. Maslow and other intellectuals sympathetic to this materialist philosophy were mutually disappointed. However, Maslow’s enlightened or eupsychian management may be an important step toward social revolution, compensating for a missing psychological viewpoint in traditional Marxism. Miki’s hermeneutic approach to this ideology offers two important points relevant to humanistic psychology: his concept of basic experience – later called Pathos – as the basis of any ideology, and the distinction between dialectic and organicism. His last years, during the War and fascism, raise important questions regarding what talented, self-actualizing intellectuals can do without freedom of speech and expression under a totalitarian and authoritarian regime. Finally, this article addresses how well Miki’s concept of utopia – on which he wrote an essay in the context of a dark age—corresponds to Maslow’s idea of eupsychia.
Fromm’s Critique of the Having-oriented Culture and Its Contemporary Value [弗洛姆对“重占有”文化的批判及其时代价值]
(2023)
Fromm points out in his theory of living mode that the having-oriented culture is caused by the market-oriented social character and it manifests itself as the abstraction of social culture, the unhindered desire and the utilitarianism of education. Fromm’s Critique of the having-oriented culture has offered us great inspiration with respect to the construction of socialist culture in China in the new era that we must uphold the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological field, build cultural confidence and strength, and promote the development of socialist spiritual civilization. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 8/2023]
In the theory of living mode, Fromm points out that bartering with money provides the preconditions for the emergence of the having-oriented consumption, building an external sense of self is the essence of the having consumption, and never being satisfied is the consequence of the having-oriented consumption. Fromm’s critique of the having-oriented consumption has important enlightenment significance for China to prevent and resolve the adverse effects of consumerism in the new era. We should vigorously cultivate and practice the core socialist values, strengthen the construction of socialist spiritual civilization, and guide people to establish a correct concept of consumption. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 7/2023]
Capitalism and its offspring, neoliberalism, are omnipresent in modern and postmodern societies. Illich, Giroux, and McLaren, among others, point to the futility and inequity of current models of education that focus on standardization, vocationalism, and conformity. Running counter to these powerful hegemonic systems, critical pedagogues and educational philosophers such as hooks and Silverman follow philosophers Frankfurt and Wolf in identifying a teaching approach rooted in love. Such an ethic embodies a robust, punk confrontation to potentially damaging, dehumanizing institutional norms perpetrated by current systems of schooling (Hewitt & Smith, 2020). The authors present and discuss vignettes as a duo-ethnographic study of one teacher’s work with a high school choir in Colorado Springs, USA, through which she works to engage young people as compassionate artistic citizens (Elliott & Silverman, 2015; Hendricks 2018). By teaching with love and by modeling love, she teaches young people to love, embracing what Noddings (2005) identifies as an ethic of care. This choral community demonstrates the messy, anarchist ideal that Wright (2019) highlights as a necessary future for music education, wherein the educator diverts from teaching solely to standardized expectations to address the affiliative needs of her students through a love that desires good for her students (Fromm, 1956; Noddings, 2005)
While many psychosocial theorists have drawn on psychoanalysis to explore conscious and unconscious connections between the psychic and the social, most such efforts have been in the realm of >applied psychoanalysis,< that is, the exploration of unconscious process in group relations, institutions, cultures, historical eras. Few, but increasingly more psychosocial psychoanalytic writers are taking up how socially shaped unconscious processes emerge and are worked with in the clinic.– In this chapter, I review some of the psychosocial psychoanalytic theory that has informed clinical work, including the work of Fanon, Fromm, liberation psychologists, psychoanalytic feminist theorists, and critical race theorists. My focus is on how concepts that bridge the psychic and the social, without reducing one to the other, have found their way into clinical theory and practice.– The chapter surveys a few different conceptualizations of what is meant by clinical social psychoanalysis and then focuses more specifically on what I have called >normative unconscious processes,< my own attempt conceptually to bridge these domains. Extending Fromm’s concepts of social unconscious and social character, I argue that a properly psychosocial psychoanalysis must account for the ways that patients’ and therapists’ intersectional social locations (e.g., class, race, gender, sexuality), as they are lived and enacted within particular power relations and histories, unconsciously and consciously emerge in the clinic, at times reproducing, and at times countering what Fromm called the >pathology of normalcy.< Given the current conjuncture, particular attention will be paid to neoliberal subject formations as they are met with in the clinic. The chapter concludes with a review of recent clinical papers that offer ways to counter the reproduction of normative unconscious processes.
[Chinese abstract not available] Starting from Fromm’s >freedom< theoretical system and based on Marx’s definition of the proletariat, Alice and Laura in >The Blind Assassin< are divided into proletarians objectified by the bourgeoisie. In the capitalist free market economy, Alice, as a representative of the proletariat, shifted her attitude towards freedom from >avoidance< to >pursuit<. Analyze the reasons for her self-awareness from passive avoidance to active pursuit of freedom in the context of the times, and come to the conclusion that in order to escape freedom, she tends towards authority and attachment. Although she can gain a sense of belonging, it also means the extinction of herself. Only by actively pursuing freedom can she truly achieve individual independence and integrity, and shape a healthy life. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 1/2024]
The societal changes of the last century, especially in the aftermath of World War II, have led thinkers to imagine philosophical anthropology centered on the concept of hope. From very different perspectives, authors such as Ernst Bloch, Erich Fromm, and Hannah Arendt understood that hope is deeply connected with the condition and destiny of humanity. Various sociologists have developed concepts closely linked with hope: action, social change, utopia, revolution, emancipation, innovation, and trust. However, a coherent and systematic analysis is yet to emerge. Taking up the threads of this rich but fragmented reflection, this paper intends to outline the traits of a >sociology of hope< as a tool for critically interpreting today’s society and the processes of change crisscrossing it, starting from some crucial questions: Who are the actors and historical bearers of hope? What are the main socio-historical forms of hope? What social, political, and cultural conditions favors the emergence and strengthening of this disposition? What are the effects and consequences on personal and social life?
O poczuciu bezradności
(2023)
Poczucie bezsilności
(2023)
Postawa kreatywna
(2023)
Czy nadal kochamy życie?
(2023)
Wola życia
(2023)
Vita activa
(2023)
The Courage of Disobedience
(2023)
Albert Camus, Emmanuel Levinas, Erich Fromm, Paulo Freire, and Mahatma Gandhi take issue, each in their own way, with the individualism and pessimism of Existentialist philosophy. They also question the ideological complacency and oversimplifications of social evolutionism. While these thinkers disagree on the role of God and rational thought in human affairs, they see courage as an important lever for resisting oppressive systems that undermine people’s freedom, their capacity for self-affirmation, their hopes for lasting peace, and their sense of humanity and ethical responsibility. The critical and progressive stance they take on the ravages of modern-day authoritarianism, colonialism, and imperialism is a world away from Hitler’s heinous call for the >courage of aggression< and the horrors that ensued.
Learning >in the Hive<: >Social Character< and Student Wellbeing in the Age of Psychometric Data
(2023)
Growing societal concern about a crisis in the wellbeing of young people has prompted a range of responses from governments and corporations, predicated on an ideal of the resilient, self-reliant individual. Behavioural economists, data scientists and educational technology companies now offer a variety of psychological interventions based on psychometric data, aimed at ‘equipping’ individual students with the necessary skills and character to enable them to withstand the pressures of contemporary life. As a consequence, the critical importance of mutually supportive interpersonal relationships continues to be neglected in mainstream approaches to Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). This article draws on Fromm’s theory of social character and Zuboff’s analysis of >life in the hive< to challenge the assumptions about human behaviour underpinning data science and its application in digital tools for social and emotional learning and self-managed wellbeing. To improve students’ wellbeing, we need to begin with an understanding of why they are more likely to thrive within a network of mutually supportive social relationships than a digital >hive<.
Historians, including intellectual historians such as myself, rely more on primary source research than philosophers. During the period 1992–2001, I conducted extensive research on both the Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer Archives in Frankfurt, Germany. This essay describes my experiences working in these archives. I highlight, in particular, some of the most important discoveries I made in the archives and how the primary source documents shaped my understanding of Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer’s crucial contributions to the development of Critical Theory. The essay also emphasizes the value of primary source research, especially for those working in the materialist tradition of the early Frankfurt School, which emphasizes the >Zeitkern der Wahrheit<, that is, the impossibility of separating ideas from a historically specific social context.
This chapter introduces a psychosocial strand of thinking that offers a way to conceive of creative relations between the psyche and the world. Whereas much current psychosocial theory stresses how anxieties are managed by defending the self against the world or fuel subjection to oppressive social norms, the theories we engage with here point to ways in which anxieties can be employed in the urge to bridge inner longings and external realities. These ideas took form in the early Frankfurt School, which despite their comprehensive integration of psychoanalytic and social theory until recently has been comparatively marginalized in Anglophone Psychosocial Theory.– The chapter presents and discusses three notions: Erich Fromm’s Freedom, Hans Loewald’s Resonance, and Alfred Lorenzer’s Interaction. Even though different in emphasis and outlook, these notions contribute to a shared intellectual project, namely, to point to potentially productive and non-antagonist interactions between the psyche and society. They do so not by virtue of some resistant part of unspoiled nature residing in the body or in the mind, but by virtue of being able to point to the more or less life-enhancing and life-impeding forms this interaction of psychic energies and societal needs may take.– We argue that these theorists and their notions of freedom, resonance and interaction, contribute to further developing the materialist conception of the psychosocial in ways that appear specifically urgent today. They enable us to theorize tensions within current society, between dynamics that drive instrumentalization and reification on the one hand, and more life-enhancing and mutually enriching interactions between human beings, social structures, and natural environments on the other.