Hat die Liebe in unserer Gesellschaft noch eine Chance? Reflexionen in Anschluß an Erich Fromm
(1978)
Einleitung des Herausgebers
(1980)
Einer der engsten Mitarbeiter in den letzten Jahren von Erich FROMM beschreibt die Einheit von Leben und Werk dieses radikalen Humanisten und Kritikers der Wohlstands- und Wachstums-Gesellschaft, die über das >Immer-mehr-Haben< das >Sein< vergesse. Die Wirkung auf eine breite Öffentlichkeit beruhe wohl auch darauf, daß er mit seiner ganzen Existenz zu leben versucht habe, was er dachte und schrieb. In einer umfangreichen Laudatio wird die Originalität von FROMMs Lebenspraxis belegt.
Registerband
(1980)
Es wird über ein Streitgespräch einer Expertenrunde über die Leistungen Erich FROMMs berichtet. Zunächst wird darüber diskutiert, ob FROMM die Libido-Theorie tatsächlich überwunden habe. Hierüber gehen die Meinungen ebenso weit auseinander wie über die Frage, ob FROMM mehr zu Optimismus oder Pessimismus neigte. Einerseits wird behauptet, FROMM sei keine Alternative zu Freud, sondern habe lediglich dessen Konzept erweitert, andererseits wird eingewandt, FROMMs Ansatz sei etwas weitgehend Neues. Einigkeit herrscht darüber, dass FROMM ein genialer Mann gewesen sei, der die Psychoanalyse in wesentlichen Punkten ergänzt habe. Er sei aber mehr Suchender und Anreger denn Vollender gewesen. Seine Bedeutung liege in seiner Charaktertheorie, in geringerem Masse in seinen Beiträgen zur therapeutischen Technik und zu klinischen Fragen. FROMM sei ohne Freud, aber auch ohne Karl Marx kaum zu begreifen.
Erich Fromm
(1985)
Frömmigkeit zwischen Haben und Sein – Religionspsychologische Aspekte im Anschluß an Erich Fromm
(1986)
Der Umgang mit der Angst
(1986)
>Erich Fromm’s Humanist Philosophy of the Need to Establish a Science of Man<: Erich Fromm’s concept of the scientific enterprise is characterized by the propounding of a special methodology. His concept of >science< is not in the least bit orientated to the natural or the social sciences. Rather it is based on reflections on the >situatedness< of human beings in the world (the conditio humana itself), reflections that rightly seen as constituting a philosophical anthropology. Moreover, Fromm does not proceed by generalizing and abstracting in either a deductively naturalistic fashion or in one that seeks its point of departure in the findings of the various sciences. Rather Fromm blends together insights derived from the various humanities and social sciences to arrive at his approach to the situatedness of human beings in the world. This he does by harmonizing the biological, social and psychical determinants so that their combined relevance for humanity becomes apprehensible, i.e. whether they are functional or dysfunctional. The rationality of the perceiving subject is always seen by Fromm as persisting in an interrelation with the activity-directed character of the subject. The upshot is that, by drawing on the character conception and its orientation, Fromm is not only able to reflect in his methodology the >interest< of the subject striving for objective knowledge, but he also manages to arrive at a conception of the scientific task that pegs it squarely to value judgements. This means that the science of man, understood as a genuinely human anthropology, is necessarily orientated to the humanistic ideal of love, productive rationality and productive activity. At the same time, Fromm attempts to draw on the science of man in order to demonstrate that humanism can be both humane and scientific at one and the same time.
>Humanism in the Life and Work of Erich Fromm. A Laudatio on his 90th Birthday<: Apart from the socio-psychological concern informing Erich Fromm’s whole opus, it is his humanist thought that runs as a leitmotif through his life and work. This essay attempts to indicate the wellsprings of Fromm’s humanist thought and to systematically delineate the essential traits of Fromm’s humanism. The primary early impulse behind Fromm’s humanism was the embodiment of Jewish humanism he encountered in the person of Salman Baruch Rabinkow, the Habad Hassid and Erich Fromm’s Talmudic teacher in Heidelberg between 1919 and 1925. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis with its teaching and guiding precept of opening oneself up to persons in their wholeness was to become the second source of Fromm’s humanism. For all that Fromm stressed his roots in the humanism of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, there is no doubting the uniqueness and authenticity of his own version, nor that his reading of the essence of humanism transcended these traditional forerunners in essential points. This essay is rounded off by a characterization of the humanist Fromm using only statements quoted from Fromm himself and others on the personality of his teacher Rabinkow.
Vom Haben zum Sein
(1992)
Einleitung
(1993)
>On the Present Escalation of Violence: Causes, Connectivities, and Containment Strategies<: The current increase in youthful crimes of violence mainly directed against foreigners is often put down to defective education. This essay will have none of such simplifying explanations, pointing instead to a connection between >direct< (youthful) violence, >structural< violence (in the public sphere and the economy), and >cultural< violence (in the media). As to the psycho-social genesis of youthful crimes of violence, Helmut Johach distinguishes a >classically asocial< socialization type, mainly restricted to the lower class, from a >narcissistic< deviance syndrome that more characterizes the middle class. An alteration in socialization conditions, affecting both types equally, has been brought about by television more and more replacing primary social experiences in the family. The fact that youthful violence by skinheads and other rightist groups is mainly directed against foreigners is seen as being due to a post-reunification >drift to the right< in German public life and society at large – a drift also manifested in e.g. the asylum-seeker debate in the bundestag. Finally, the author locks horns with the thesis that the >anti-authoritarian upbringing< propagated in the aftermath of the 1968 student revolts has led to a >value decay< in today's younger generation. The ideological function of such pronouncements is to attract attention away from the real causes of the crisis, which are in the nature of the capitalist economic system. Helmut Johach concludes that calls for a >strong state< are quite wrongheaded if the aim is to combat rightwing radicalism; what is needed instead is a more energetic commitment to maintaining a democratic and socially concerned framework.
Die Mauer in uns selbst
(1993)
Erich Fromm
(1993)
Schule, Gewalt und Narzißmus
(1994)
>Narcissism and Violence against the Alien<: Not the increasing frequency of clinically relevant narcissistic disturbances alone, but also the wide dissemination of the narcissistic character as a new social type, explains why many people do not characteristically suffer passively from xenophobia, but react instead with hostility and aggression towards what is alien to them. As far as the narcissist is concerned, the more he is driven to indulge himself and stabilize his fragile sense of self with the help of grandiose phantasies, the more he projects the alien-inhimself onto others – with the result that he feels himself existentially threatened by others. The other person is made into the epitome of evil and weakness, of the wicked and the menacing. The narcissistic compensation is invariably associated with hostility towards whatever lies outside one's idealized self. This essay first demarcates narcissistic violence towards the alien from other social-characterological forms of violence towards the alien. Enlisting the reception of the Frommian conception of the self, as it was developed towards the end of the thirties, Rainer Funk distinguishes two different psychodynamics of narcissism; he then uses these to interpret violence towards the alien as an expression of wounded narcissism. Finally, the social causes behind the growth of narcissism in industrial cultures are reviewed.
Biophilie
(1994)
>The Significance of Fear in Personality Development<: Fear is a part of life, of the developmental curve followed by human life. When it takes a concrete form, as specific fears, it indicates a threat to human life and launches survival strategies. Rainer Funk shows that without facing down fear there can be no human development. But fear is also a primary feature of psychic ailments. By means of case studies, Hans Hufnagel elucidates the full spectrum of fear-related ailments and goes on to show how pathologies in the capacity for objective relationships by those afflicted are at the root of phobic and fear-rooted neurotic ailments.
Selbstverlustängste
(1995)
>Fears of Losing One's Self<: Fears of loss can be directed at specific objects, but at the human self no less so. When the latter occurs, we speak of fears of losing one's self – these are experienced as extremely threatening existentially, which explains why they mostly only emerge as defence mechanisms. Based on the social-psychological approach adopted by Frommian psychology of the self, the importance is first shown of inner images of both objects and the self, since these reveal fears of loss as ways of compensating for unstable personality cores. Then the various defence mechanisms in the service of the a priori relatedness to the self and others are analyzed in terms of Frommian social character orientations, and, in a second stage, systematized as compensation strategies against fears of losing one's self. After this attempt at a systematization in terms of character orientations and fears of losing one's self, the author proceeds to a heuristic analysis of both narcissistic defence strategies in terms of their psychological dynamism. Finally, he suggests ways and means of coping with these fears of losing one's self when such openly manifest themselves.
>The Significance of Fear in Personality Development<: Fear is a part of life, of the developmental curve followed by human life. When it takes a concrete form, as specific fears, it indicates a threat to human life and launches survival strategies. Rainer Funk shows that without facing down fear there can be no human development. But fear is also a primary feature of psychic ailments. By means of case studies, Hans Hufnagel elucidates the full spectrum of fear-related ailments and goes on to show how pathologies in the capacity for objective relationships by those afflicted are at the root of phobic and fear-rooted neurotic ailments.