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Erich FROMM's strategy of social change was based on reform, with the institutions of alienated society changing in response to increased public commitment to humanistic values. While Herbert Marcuse did not reject reformist strategies outright, and even insisted that every opportunity on that level should be taken advantage of, he distrusted >controlled democracies< and their tendency to manipulate consciousness. The two thinkers did not differ in their advocacy of humanistic values and reformist strategies but in their respective estimates of their efficacy; Marcuse tended to believe that extralegal and politically revolutionary steps would ultimately be required to bring about meaningful social change.
Mainstream social science has been blindsided by the rise of Trumpism and broader growth of authoritarian populism. We make the case that Frommian work is desperately needed inside the core of contemporary social science theorizing by examining social character theory up against and alongside the concept of habitus developed by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Both Fromm and Bourdieu were concerned with the human costs of social change and economic development, Fromm with his writings on advanced capitalism in The Sane Society (1955a) and on Mexican village life in Social Character in a Mexican Village (with Michael Maccoby, 1970b), and Bourdieu with his extended studies of peasants in Algeria during the French colonial war of the 1950s and early 1960s. We will compare and contrast the theory of social character developed in the Mexican study with Bourdieu's concept of habitus, and discuss what Fromm's ideas can add to Bourdieu-influenced critical social science.
The Corporate Climber
(1976)
The Psychoanalytic Study of the American Public: Biophilia vs. Necrophilia, 32 pp. (Typoscript)
(1969)
The two dominant voices in the work of Erich FROMM, particularly in his psychoanalysis, are examined: the analytic and the prophetic. The analytic voice was skeptical and inquiring. It searched for answers to questions and did not condemn the answers received. In contrast, the prophetic voice was urgent and judgmental; condemnation rather than analysis of perverse human behavior was the result. From the analytic perspective, psychoanalysis was a vehicle for the liberation of people from fear and the realization of creative potential. From the prophetic perspective, psychoanalysis was a spiritual discipline that could tap people's social and spiritual revolutionary potential. Unfortunately, FROMM's two voices were often in disharmony. FROMM's failure to harmonize the two voices limited his ability as a therapist and created confusion about the methods and goals of psychoanalysis. D. Generoli
E. FROMM's promised volume on clinical psychoanalysis was never completed. Maccoby analyzes the contradictions in E. FROMM's work that contributed to his difficulty in delivering on this promise. Two distinct voices can be discerned in FROMM's work. The analytic voice describes what is and how it came to be. It provides an analysis of the thoughts, emotions, and behavior patterns that may be conscious or unconscious. While the analytic voice helps us understand what can be, the prophetic voice states what should be. The prophetic voice looks to the future and rekindles hope. FROMM's messianic view of hope is central to the prophetic vision.
To fully develop a science of social character, three aspects of Fromm's social character theory need to be clarified. The first has to do with the difference between individual and social character. Fromm expanded on Freud's description of normal types: erotic (receptive), obsessive (hoarding) and narcissistic (exploitative). Besides the concept of social character, Fromm made three major contributions to the psychoanalytic theory of character: the concept of productiveness, sociopolitical modes of relationship, and the marketing character. Social character is an interac-tion between internalized culture (values) and individual character. This interaction results in variations in social character and helps explain the Secon issue, how so-cial character changes. The concept of social selection explains how narcissistic en-trepreneurs restructure social institutions to shape a new social character. The third issue concerns how social character develops throughout the life cycle. Fromm never offered a developmental theory. Erik Erikson's model of development fit the social character of America at the mid-century. A revision of this model provides a useful construct for understanding changes in the kind of problems being brought to psychoanalysis at the start of the 21st century and also changes in psychoanalytic practice.
Work and Human Development
(1980)
Work and Human Development
(1980)
Psychoanalytical methodology and sociological theory are combined to produce a sociopsychoanalytic approach in the study of social character of groups. An overview of sociopsychoanalytical research is presented, based on E. FROMM's 2 major contributions to the discipline: the sociopolitical study of German workers in the Hitler era, and a later project concerned with social pathology in a small Mexican village. In the former study, efforts were made to determine the degree of authoritarianism in the character of those workers who were pro-Nazi, and of those who held socialistic and democratic values. In the latter study, focus was on the high incidence of violence and alcoholism among a specific group of Mexican peasants, and whether these were symptoms related to social conditions or were negative characteristics shared by a social group. Interpretive questionnaire's were employed in both studies. Sociopsychoanalysis has much to contribute to the traditional methods of studying man and society that are presently used by social anthropologists and sociologists.
Über Kultur und Äquivalenz
(1971)
Über Kultur und Äquivalenz
(1971)