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On the Origins of Aggression
(1983)
Who Is Man?
(1983)
This dissertation investigates the relationship between the utopian idea of a normative totality and the genesis of modern totalitarianism in the exile novels Pardon wird nicht gegeben. Amazonas-trilogy, and November 1918 by Alfred Doblin (written between 1934 and 1937). – Chapter 1 analyses first the resurgence of narrative authority in the novel Pardon wird nicht gegeben as a function of Doblin's Marxist insight into economic determinism and as his literary contribution to the popular front of German emigres in the Paris of the 1930's. The novel describes the social rise and downfall of a proletarian whose sadomasochistic predisposition resembles the authoritarian character analysed by Erich FROMM in his psychoanalytic interpretation of Nationalsocialism. The protagonist's desire for social integration results in the destruction of his individuality through politically totalitarian groups. – Chapter 2 analyses the development of the concept of normative totality in Doblin's theory of the novel. – Chapter 3 shows how in Doblin's Amazonas-trilogy several historical attempts to realize a peaceful co-existence between European conquerors and their >Other< results in the brutal repression of the Native Indians. The desire of modern, rational, and technological man for a transcendental >home< is unmasked as the source also for the false totalitarian promises of salvation in our century. Doblin interprets Nationalsocialism as the repetition of earlier ecstasies of self-destruction, which in their turn were desperate responses to the loss of a holistic medieval order. – Chapter 4 follows the traces of Doblin's conversion to Catholicism in the narrative structure and content of November 1918. It elucidated the dialectics of totality totalitarianism by showing how Doblin's demand for a mystically motivated retreat from history results in the involuntary affirmation of those power structures whose inhuman face Doblins portrays in more than thousand pages. – The dissertation is framed by an introduction and a conclusion both of which deal with the problem of the relevance of his exile novels for our own time.
Recent discussions of the dominant Western character-type have focused on the decline of patriarchal conscience. The author compares Erich FROMM and Paul Tillich on these themes: characteristics of the bourgeois Protestant patriarchal conscience; the significance of its decline; and prescribed paths beyond it. Both regard the bourgeois Protestant type as unstable, needing either a regressive or a progressive solution to isolation. FROMM's progressive solution is humanistic conscience, returning to matriarchy on a higher level. Tillich sees FROMM's >human nature< as abstract; he seeks instead a connection between tradition and criticism, showing that patriarchy becomes self-critical in patriarchal religion. Like FROMM he restores matriarchy in his religion of grace.
On Supervised Analysis
(1983)
In this paper delivered at the 1982 meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis in Toronto, the author discusses the relevance of E. FROMM's (e.g., 1966, 1967) themes for psychoanalysis. His biblical themes are reflected in his negative theology and in his description of the role of prophets as identifying choices for humankind. FROMM's emphasis on the intrinsic nature of hope in the structure of life is also reviewed. Features that characterize FROMM's therapeutic mode include (1) the intense aliveness of the therapist to the patient; (2) the therapist's focus on sensitivity to authenticity; (3) an emphasis on responsibility; and (4) the therapist's promotion of the pro-life resources of the patient, including creativity and the capacity for joy and love. FROMM believed the conflict between the >being< and the >having< modes to be universal, with the being mode emphasizing inner activity, love, and respect. In therapy, FROMM was fully attuned to his patients and active in the therapeutic exchange. FROMM recognized, however, that the patient had to participate in the actual changing.
Unformulated Experience
(1983)
Reality, Dream and Trauma
(1983)
Self, Will and Empathy
(1983)
Piaget and Psychoanalysis
(1983)
It is argued that although the classical critical theory of the Institute for Social Research criticizes the consumer society that is typical of advanced capitalism, new perspectives on commodities, needs, and consumption are necessary. The ideas of Herbert Marcuse, Erich FROMM, and others on this are reviewed, and are criticized for advocating an excessively global critique of commodities, needs, and consumption as uniformly alienating and manipulative. A theory is presented that distinguishes between true and false needs, useful and useless commodities, and life-enhancing and alienating consumption. It is suggested that critical theory should accommodate a diversity of consumer practices in evaluating consumption, and should provide more discriminating accounts of commodities and needs. Rational and progressive consumer practices are proposed, and the argument is advanced that critical Marxists should take consumer, environmental, and health movement struggles more seriously in developing critiques of contemporary capitalism and theories of social change.
A comparison of social themes and political trends of the 1950s and 1980s shows some marked similarities: conservatism and career thinking are prevailing moods, fear of crime and communism are common, and social consciousness and liberalism have lost public favor. Some conservative intellectuals of the 1950s are still writing in the 1980s, including William F. Buckley, Norman Podhoretz, and Irving Kristol. Dissenting liberals of the 1950s, eg, Irving Howe, Gore Vidal, and Norman Mailer, have retained their positions. It is noted, however, that the radical voices of the 1960s are absent. One explanation for this situation is that many 1960s critics were European, including Erich FROMM, Paul Baran, and Herbert Marcuse; they influenced, but were not essentially a part of United States radical thought. A major difference between the intellectuals of the 1980s and those of the 1950s is that the former are mostly academics; by this trend, radical discourse has been limited to within-University forums, and large sectors of the lay public are ignored or alienated.
An examination of the mechanisms and costs of the repression of psychoanalysis, focusing on the case of the >political Freudians'< transplantation to America, in 7 Chpts with an author's Preface. (1) The Repression of Psychoanalysis-discusses the choice made by post-World War II immigrant psychoanalysts between the breadth of European psychoanalysis and a cautious exile in an anti-Marxist environment, and it is suggested that >the structure of psychoanalysis is founded on...the repression of its own past>. The history of Otto Fenichel's secret circle-including Edith Jacobson, Annie Reich, Kate Friedlander, George Cero, Barbara Lantos, Edith Ludowyk Gyomroi, and Berta Bornstein-and their Rundbriefe (round letters) is outlined. (2) Spring's Awakening: Analysts as Rebels-describes the atmosphere of psychoanalysis in pre-World War I Europe, focusing on the importance of theories of sexuality, and the impact of Otto Gross and the youth movements. (3) The Berlin Institute: The Politics of Psychoanalysis-treats Fenichel's activities among the Berlin psychoanalysts during the 1920s and early 1930s, including his controversial, political >Children's Seminar<. Fenichel's socialism, attitude toward communism, and visits to the USSR are evaluated. (4) Exile: The Secret Freudians and Their Rundbriefe-charts the Fenichel group's flight from the Nazis, their vain attempts to form a united front with Wilhelm Reich, and subsequent efforts to explore a social and political psychoanalysis in the face of the psychoanalytic establishment's growing conservatism. (5) Psychoanalysis and Its Discontents: Freudians against Freudians-outlines the disagreements Fenichel had with positions of Erich FROMM, Sandor Ferenczi, Karen Horney, Margaret Mead, and various Reichians, neo-Freudians, and conservatives. (6) The Illusion of a Future: Political Psychoanalysis in the United States-describes Fenichel's life and death in Los Angeles, Calif, where he was one of the few advocates of lay praxis and a classical and theoretical psychoanalysis. (7) The Americanization of Psychoanalysis-contrasts the works of Robert Lindner, C. Wright Mills, and Paul Baran, pointing to their different accesses to the classical and radical literature of their respective fields. The narrowing of psychoanalysis is examined, focusing on the change in translation from one cultural idiom to another, the loss of humanism and politics in the processes of medicalization and professionalization, and the repression of the possibilities of psychoanalysis. Appendix: Four Rundbriefe. Notes
Compares the views of E. FROMM (1947, 1973, and 1980-1981) on the subject of guilt with some of the more recent theoretical and empirical contributions in this area, and suggests that many of these developments were anticipated by FROMM, but that his contributions have not received due recognition. FROMM's contribution in this area is mainly formulated in theoretical terms. An integration of FROMM's theoretical concepts with later developments could have clinical relevance by leading to an alternative framework within which to organize the clinical data regarding aggressiveness and guilt. Specific issues addressed include FROMM's distinction between authoritarian and humanistic conscience, the development of different concepts of guilt (e.g., M. Friedman, see record 73-09143), and the integration of FROMM's concepts of ontogenesis, aggression, and phylogenesis with more recent developments.
A vol in II PARTS and 14 Chpts, with an author's Introduction, which is part of the International Library of Group Psychotherapy and Group Process series, under the editorship of Malcolm Pines and Earl Hopper. Presented is the argument that Freudian psychoanalysis has been widely misinterpreted as a therapy primarily for the individual, and that its central concepts are basically social in nature and should be applied to the study of societies, their values, cultures, and politics. – PART I presents (1) Body and Mind – which evaluates materialist and mentalist interpretations of the theory of instincts; (2) Individual and Society – assesses the conflict between an individual's desires and the barriers or requirements of cultures, and the importance of libidinal forces for uniting groups; (3) Normality, Neurosis and Therapy – considers the supremacy of a health paradigm of normal versus pathological in contemporary society as against the historical religious paradigm characterized by good and evil; Freud's view of normality is analyzed; (4) Culture, Normality and Morality – examines Freudian discourse as a moral philosophy, with consequent implications for values of enjoyment, pleasure, joy, and truth; (5) Science and Philosophy – discusses four features of psychoanalysis: Freud's positivism, the value element in his work, his causal imagery, and certain basic concepts, eg, the unconscious; (6) Utopia and Illusion – examines attributions of utopian thinking in the concepts of pleasure and emphasis on sexuality in Freud's work; utopias of both Eros and Logos are analyzed; and (7) Psychoanalysis and Culture – outlines a role for psychoanalysis in the human sciences by applying the apparatus for interpreting dreams and neuroses to sociocultural problems. – PART II indicates directions for the application of psychoanalysis to modern cultures, and integrates the views of social theorists whose sociocultural criticism contains concepts from psychoanalysis. Thus, Wilhelm Reich's and Erich FROMM's analyses of fascism as a social rather than political occurrence both apply Freud's view of the psychology of character-structure and borrow from Marx the revolutionary concepts inherent in dialectical materialism. Chpt (8) – The First Radicalization of Freud: Reich and FROMM, the Optimistic Utopians – describes Reich's and FROMM's views of the family as a socializing agent, Reich's views on sexuality, and his analysis of fascism; and Reich's and FROMM's integration of Marxian and Freudian concepts; (9) The Discovery of the Radical Freud: Marcuse and Brown – describes the belief in a distorted human nature and the quest for a cure in a new civilization; both Herbert Marcuse and Norman O. Brown support psychoanalytic concepts in the analysis of human sickness caused by repression. (10) Psychoanalysis and Contemporary American Culture: The Present as Utopia in the Work of Rieff – introduces Philip Rieff's application of Freudian concepts to a cultural theory of the end-of-ideology in an analysis of contemporary America; (11) Ernest Becker's Homo Heroica': Narcissus as the Cosmic Hero Without Followers – discusses Becker's view of a harmony between man and nature, the concept of >genius of man<, and the absence of real meaning in modern life and culture; (12) Narcissism and Contemporary Culture – characterizes the modern narcissist as a result of the absence of love in a modern world dominated by bureaucracies; (13) The Death Instinct and the Age of the Machine – prescribes alternative modes of regarding moral disintegration, social-overregulation, and the depersonalization of modern life; (14) Conclusions – analyzes contemporary culture in terms of a polarity between a robot and a narcissist, but criticizes the reductionist tendencies of many modern social theorists. A therapeutic role for psychoanalysis, in application to contemporary culture, is outlined. Appendix: An Attempt at Integration – Talcott Parsons – deals with Parsons's views on the integration of personality theories and social systems. Also considered are his theory of socialization and the role of love and eroticism in the process, the function of the family, and the formation of personality.
Drawing on the work of Erich FROMM and other thinkers, this essay concludes that schools can best offer moral education by treating students as people; teaching them philosophy and the receptive mode of thought, as in meditation; and discovering and presenting the self as a nucleus of communion and interrelatedness.
Erich Fromm
(1983)
The Drama of the Gifted Child and the Search for the True Self. London (Faber and Faber) 1983.
(1983)
Erich Fromm
(1983)
Promethean Fire. Reflections on the Origin of Mind. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1983.
(1983)
Psychiatry and Samizdat
(1983)