This paper analyzes >The Winter of Our Discontent<, John Steinbeck’s last novel, from the perspective of humanistic ethics as advocated by American psychologist Erich Fromm. Affected by corrupt social values, the protagonist Ethan fails to realize his primary potentiality for goodness at first. Touched by his untainted daughter Alan, however, Ethan eventually experiences an epiphany, gradually recognizes the importance of self-love, and overcomes alienation in his realization of active freedom. By tracking Ethan’s moral development, Steinbeck gives voice to his own ethical concerns. [Translation: www.DeepL/Translator, free version, 6/2023]
[Chinese abstract not available] With the American psychologist Erich Fromm's humanistic ethics as a point of reference, this article analyzes >The Winter of Our Discontent< (1961), John Steinbeck's final work of fiction. This novel focuses on protagonist Ethan Allen Hawley as he succumbs to the influence of corrupt social values and thereby fails to actualize his primary potentiality for goodness. At the novel's end, however, as he is on the verge of suicide, he thinks about the innocence of his daughter, Ellen, and experiences an epiphany of light that leads to a realization of love for self and others. Overcoming his sense of alienation from the good, he embarks on a course of active freedom that will enable him to go on with his life. Steinbeck's exquisite depiction of Ethan's moral development reflects his own ethical concerns about the well-being of his beloved America. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 9/2023]
[Chinese abstract not available] A personal character is determined by the historical era in which one lives. Erich Fromm is particularly concerned with the debated issue of freedom, especially the escape mechanism of freedom. As a member of the Frankfurt School, Erich Fromm believes that human beings are mainly social beings, not a self-sufficient enclosed system. After analyzing how the escape mechanism for freedom is produced, Fromm advocates that positive freedom should be the freedom to develop oneself freely, to fully tap and realize one’s own potential, to pursue the ideal of truth, goodness and beauty, and to promote personal growth and happiness. Only when people actively play their own roles in the society can their sense of isolation and helplessness be overcome. Replacing authoritarian power with democracy and instilling to people the ideas about life, liberty and truth can they find a right path towards self-realization. [Author's English]
Some successors of Marxists once insist that the >substance<of the world is >abstract matter< of old materialism. Western Marxists who are the affirmative or negative of >substance< commonly demand re-understanding Marx’s texts because they think that the judgment doesn’t embody the real Marxist philosophical revolution. With the refusing to >abstract matter<, Lukács, Fromm, Schmidt and Gramsci etc.do their most to emphasize ontological significance of historical practice and the nullity of two-pattern of materialism and idealism to understanding Marxist philosophy. Though Western Marxism excessively emphasis on practice, their theoretical approach has important theoretical significance to the research of contemporary Chinese Marxist philosophy. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 6/2023]
Fromm is a representative of >Freudian Marxism<. He combined some of Marx’s guidance theories and Freud’s seminars on the spirit level, and analyzed their mental orientation, their current plight, and revealed the profound psychological mechanism of modern man and the nature of the alienation of personality. He proposed a new theory of >escape from freedom< which was totally different from the former one. The only way to truly free yourself is to use love and creative work. His theory of escaping freedom not only provides insight and reflection to the people in the pursuit of real freedom, but also provide some reference for the construction of socialism in China’s new era. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 4/2023]
面对百年未有之大变局,>加快构建以国内大循环为主体、国内国际双循环相互促进的新发展格局<,消费已成为打通国内大循环生产、分配、流通、消费各个环节的重要突破口,作为劳动力再生产的必要手段,消费结构和质量更是关系到人民对美好生活的追求。数字经济时代人民消费的方式、内容和结构都发生了深刻的变革,消费主义文化在虚拟和现实世界交互中被放大,导致背离人本身需要的数字消费异化现象越来越成为一个不容忽视的社会问题。一、消费异化的根源消费异化理论可追溯到法兰克福学派埃里希·弗洛姆和赫伯特·马尔库塞的>消费领域的异化>和>虚假的需要<等概念。弗洛姆提到:因为消费成了目的本身因为消费不再是为了使用或享受买来的消费物品,所以购买和消费的行为成了强迫性的和非理性的目的。>同样,马尔库塞认为消费异化使人按照<虚假的需求>而消费,<>虚假的需求<是指那些在个人的压抑中由特殊的社 …
There are three types of Ch’an kung-an that often bewilder Buddhologists; namely, (1) the contradictory, (2) the inexpressible, and (3) mixture of the two. D. T. Suzuki and the scholars influenced by him, for example, E. Fromm, think that these three types of kung-an imply the truth realized by Ch’an masters, the truth which goes beyond daily language and logic. However, as the author points out, there are two traditions in Ch’an School: (1) the >Buddha-nature< tradition based on the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, and (2) the prajna tradition based on the Diamond Sūtra. Suzuki and Fromm’s interpretation only emphasizes the first tradition and ignores the second one. According to the second tradition, the contradiction and inexpressibility of kung-an may seem to indicate the truth of non-existence-śūnyatā, not necessarily indicating the truly existing >Buddha-nature<.
本文聚焦于东欧新马克思主义理论家马尔库什对马克思>人的本质<概念的解读。在《马克思主义与人类学》中,马尔库什试图将马克思的>人的本质<概念与历史概念缝合在一起,进而阐明马克思的唯物史观。在有效区分>人的本性>和>人的本质<的基础上,他剖析了>人的本质<概念的三个要素:劳动、社会性和意识,并揭示出人的本质不是一切时代每个人类个体所必然具备的特性的总和,而是人类的真实的历史存在的那些特性,即自由、普遍性和主体性的实现。马尔库什对马克思>人的本质<概念的解读,秉承了卢卡奇人道主义马克思主义的基本思路,同时又有效避免了弗洛姆和阿尔都塞的理论缺陷,在一定程度上超越了西方马克思主义理论家的基本理路,对我们深入理解马克思思想具有重要的参考价值。
[Chinese abstract not available] Lorraine Hansberry, the first black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critics’ Circle award, her >A Raisin in the sun<, opens on Broadway with great success. This paper mainly adopts the Alienation Theory of Fromm to explore her consciousness of reconstructing an inclusive Black Community based on disclosing that the dreams of the black people are distorted into sublime objects constructed by the dominant ideology. Grounded on the three principles from Fromm’s Alienation theory, this paper finds that Hansberry has not only suggested that the elimination of alienation can be achieved by the strong power of family bonds but also highlighted the essential role that the Black tradition plays in the construction of an inclusive Black Community where black people can traverse the ideological fantasy and develop their racial pride. [Author's English]
[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]
[Chinese abstract not available] What is the unique feature of China’s model of development? Upon reviewing the >dialectics of development< that draws on both Amartya Sen and Erich Fromm, this paper argues that the China Model may have a particular strength in reconstructing its Confucian tradition towards social solidarity. In China, like other countries with a rapid development, swift social transformation has brought to fore as many positive as negative consequences, on the basis of which a mixed record of development in modern society can be pathologically diagnosed. Following the Durkheimer's premise that these social ills may be cured by a shift from mechanical solidarity (characteristic of a traditional society) to its organic counterpart, this paper, drawing on both Fisk and Confucius, proposes the idea of >civitas homini<as the core concept to anchor such transition. It defines the linking of individuals to each other in particular and to society in general via voluntary associations that are based on multiple cohesive factors, whether it be modern or traditional. It emphasises the respecting of individual rights to choice and liberties based on informed reasoning faculties. Different forms of >civitas homini<, when combined together, shall reach a stage of >res publica latium< (commonwealth) that ensures both individual liberties and social solidarity, with different communities entering into terms of intersubjective recognition, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence. Through this >civitas homini<, we can rewrite the paradigm of development as one that aims at solidarity rather than purely individualistic freedom. [Author's English]
In the last decade we have witnessed the vast development of AI algorithm, which is perceived as a new approach to solve human problems. Meanwhile, within the humanist framework love is regarded as the answer to human survival as well as to the question of good life. However, love itself is in crisis today. AI (which is exactly how love is pronounced in Chinese/Mandarin), with its algorithmic revolution, is nonetheless powerless in coping with the crisis of love revolution. In the post-humanistic horizon, we are facing three different kinds of >black box<. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 1/2023]
[Chinese abstract not available] Jesmyn Ward’s third novel, >Sing, Unburied, Sing<, however, is Ward’s second work to have won the National Book Award for fiction. It was >Sing< that laid a solid foundation for Ward’s reception from the American literary circle as a powerful new voice. Sing focuses on a black family in the American south, which was nearly torn apart by poverty, drugs, and racial discrimination; Apart from the estranged kinship in the black family, represented by ghost Richie, the black group in the novel also shows a seemingly strong desire for identity. Based on Erich Fromm’s alienation theory and his theories of love, this paper gives an analysis of the alienation of the protagonist at the level of love and racial identity and focuses on the struggle of the black group to survive in the white mainstream society, which resulted in their dual lack and dual pursuit of love and identity. This paper aims to reveal Ward’s fierce criticism of racist ideology that has caused the double dilemma of survival and spirit of black people in the American South and demonstrate her deep understanding as well as support for the ideals and actions of African Americans in terms of their eagerness to integrate into the mainstream society. [Author's English]
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]
Love as an Event [作为事件的爱]
(2022)
群文阅读能让学生的思维方式变得多元化,思维获得提升,让语文教学焕发新的活力。基于此,笔者设计了以《群文阅读高中读本》(高一)中>剪不断的生命脐带<为议题的群文教学。前置任务:学生运用浏览、默读、批读、细读等方法阅读,整体感知文本内容,并完成导学案。课堂探究:首先,通过分析《触龙说赵太后》(《战国策》)掌握劝说的艺术,懂得由>父母之爱子,则为之计深远<到>对一朵花的爱是欣赏与合理的浇灌<的关于真爱的哲学。其次,比较阅读《我的母亲》(胡适)《谢幕的教养》(刘心武)《母亲的力量》(孟鸿)《多年父子成兄弟》(汪曾祺)《父母与孩子之间的爱》(艾里希·弗洛姆),分析概括父母行为、性格和对孩子的影响,感受父母对孩子的爱,激起学生心灵的共鸣。
消费作为一种现象存在于人类的日常生活中,是人类生存需要使用的手段。随着科学技术的进步、生产能力的不断提高,人们在消费过程中其消费方式、消费目的不断发生着变化,甚至说是发生了某种程度上的异化。西方是最早进入消费社会的国家,消费异化现象较为突出,弗洛姆作为法兰克福学派的代表人物之一,他在认真分析并借鉴马克思的劳动异化理论和弗洛伊德的精神分析学说的基础之上,又借鉴于卢卡奇的物化理论及马尔库塞的单向度理论,把社会批判理论作为其立足点,从社会心理学这样的全新视角诠释了他的乌托邦救赎之路。他针对20世纪资本主义社会的现实情况,剖析出消费异化的表现、危害、根源及其消除路径,指出消费不能仅仅是对消费品的消耗和浪费、占有和享乐,而是要在消费的过程中充分展现人的主体性,体现生命的价值和意义。消费应该是理性的、适度的,而不是盲目的、无止境的占有。在中国,伴随着全球化的发展,西方社会的生活方式、文化、价值观念等逐渐渗透到我国日常生活领域,因此,面对如今不同于20世纪的新的时代,弗洛姆的消费异化理论给我们带来了哪些思考,这是本课题的研究目的所在。
Entering the 14th Five-Year Plan period, accompanied by significant trend of China’s population aging, the digital integration of the elderly group has become the core concern in academic circles. In view of this, taking Erich Fromm’s humanistic theory and his philosophy for considering China’s reality, open the interface between the elderly and technology from three top-level designs of understanding needs, stimulating creativity, and strengthening education support, which could help the elderly group to adapt to digital life and enjoy its dividends smoothly. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 1/2023]
Chinese abstract not available] This article aims to interpret dreams in John Keats’s narrative >The Eve of St. Agnes< from different perspectives: the Beadsman’s, Porphyro’s, Madeline’s and John Keats’s, the poet. We will analyze their functions respectively, and then draw a conclusion of Keats’s purpose in structuring such a way of weaving dreams. After summarizing studies and theories on dream and soul from the perspective of psychoanalysis and scholars’ views on >The Eve of St. Agnes<, we will continue to illustrate the ways in which John Keats constructs three layers of dreams with the pertinent approaches by Freud, Fromm, Lacan, Rank, Žižek, etc. so as to reveal John Keats’s viewpoints on life and death, dream and reality, and pleasure and pain. [Author's English]
Love is an Art [爱,是一门艺术]
(2008)
心理學普通不設宗教信仰這一問題,因為兩者的研究對象各有不同之故。但由於心理學所討論的人,是「整體性」的,生理與心理固然不能分離,肉體與精神現象也很難完全分開處理;因此自五十年代以來,某些研究「人之所以為人」之特徵的心理學家,已開始對宗教信仰這一問題發生了興趣。心理學家討論信仰問題,不管他們的背境是什麼,藉通不強調、更不執著某種特定的宗教系統,如佛教、基督教、或天主教,雖然這些心理學家也有他們自己的特定信仰。本文收集了五位較有代表性的心理學家,並計劃從他們不同的立場來討論人與宗教之問題:(一)從成熟的人格觀點來看人之宗教信仰對人之人格成熟有何關連。這裡介紹了兩位心理學家,即亞爾伯之人格理論及梵岡之信仰健康觀。(二)從人生意義之探索看信仰問題。並以意義治療學之創始人以弗蘭克為代言人。(三)從追求道德及靈魂之實有看宗教,以新精神分析學權威佛洛姆為主。(四)從人之自我實現論談宗教信仰,並以此理論之創始人馬斯洛為主要依據。輔大以全人教育為宗旨,並以真善美聖為師生共同追求的目標,但全人教育不設宗教這一問題又如何能成為「全人」。真善美聖的實際內涵又脫不了終極關懷的問題。我們不願以自己的信仰談宗教,雖然我們也有此權利及責任,但畢竟易引起誤會及反感。本各完全以人自己的立場來說信仰,似乎應該易於接受。
[Chinese abstract not available] The flourish development of scientific psychology in America was often understood as the necessary subsequence of the evolution of intellectual history in psychology, in which psychology separated itself from philosophy and gradually found its own scientific methods during the past centuries. However, as one of categories of culture, the history of psychology could not be understood without the considering of societies and people who live in it. According to Fromm’s social psychological studies, social change may form the social character of a given society, and the social character will initiate new thoughts or ideas which constitutes new culture and ideology. This new kind of culture and ideology will be easy to be accepted by the society, and solidify its social character in turn. So it will be interesting if we explore the process in which psychology in America committed to scientism from the perspective of social change and social character after World War II. There were a lot of changes after World War II in America society in terms of politics, economics, industrial structure, population, education, and belief. On the material level, America reached the so-called advanced industrial society and consumer society. On the mental level, the worship of knowledge gradually replaced the worship of god in America society. These changes formed the social character of America after World War II through pragmatism and individualism that were parts of American culture. The key trait of this kind of social character are one-dimensionality, pursuing of instrumental rationality, and individual priority. What this kind of social character looking forward in terms of psychology as a part of culture and ideology is the disenchantment of inner world, or we can say the secularization of mind, which will offer some kind of certainty for the working of American society.– World War II promoted the development of psychology on general, and also left abundant of problems for America society, such as psychic trauma of veteran, the need for mental health, how to avoid the reviving of totalitarianism, how the collective affect the behavior of individual, and how to train more scientists, professors, and engineers for America and finally win the competition with Soviet Union. All these needs from society led to the boom of clinical psychology, social psychology, developmental and educational psychology, and psychometrics in America. Not only the numbers of APA members and journals, but also the number of PHD in American psychology surged during three decades after World War II. The schools of psychology in America also changed during that time. New behaviorism declined after Hull and Skinner’s time due to its neglect of psyche. Psychoanalysis used to affect American psychology and evolved to ego psychology which could be seen as the product of Americanization. However, psychoanalysis was finally marginalized by scientific psychology in America because of the rise of evidence based medicine. The Third Force Psychology once made a noise in America, but it finally faded due to its attempt to connect psychology and philosophy again, and its complicated methods. It was cognitive psychology that became most popular and the main paradigm of American psychology. In a nutshell, the history of American psychology expressed its social character after World War II which called for the secularization of mind. The scientific psychology in America also plays its ideological role in maintaining the efficient work of American society in turn. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 7/2023]
[Chinese abstract not available] In Fromm's thought, the most important one is humanism. The socialization problem in modern human society is not only the problem of social system, but also the problem of human personality and psychology. Therefore, in order to reduce the occurrence of social destructive phenomena, it is necessary to reduce human destructive behavior. Through psychological analysis and theoretical study, we can improve people's psychological potential and optimize their sociality, so as to create and maintain good social forms. [Author's English]
弗洛姆作为法兰克福学派的重要成员,在思想上继承法兰克福学派的重要观点,认为批判性是马克思主义的灵魂,而同时,其推崇弗洛伊德的相关学说,也由此具有较为浓厚的人道主义色彩。他在对社会现实的考察当中继承了马克思的一系列思想,特别是在对资本主义社会的批判上,多次采用马克思对于异化的批判,逐步构建自己的理论体系。随着资本主义社会的发展,异化现象开始走出经济领域,迈向了更广阔的空间,弗洛姆也注意到了这一点,从多个角度入手进行了一定的批判。同时,弗洛姆也非常欣赏弗洛伊德,在分析的过程中也融入了弗洛伊德的精神分析学说,提出了社会性格学说。本文将重点分析其对资本主义文化现象的一系列批判,从中汲取一定的宝贵经验。
Fromm divided the value orientation of human beings into two kinds: emphasis on >having< and emphasis on >being<, and distinguished the essence of the two. He pointed out that alienated consumption is a way of existence of emphasis on having, which leads to the alienation of human beings and nature, between people and people as well as individual human beings, so that people are more and more far away from the >being<. He believes that only by changing the value orientation of people can we abandon the alienated consumption and return to the nature of human existence. Under the influence of western consumer society, alienated consumption is also spreading in our country. At this critical time, Fromm’s criticism of alienated consumption is of great significance for us to cultivate the correct consumption concept, imple¬ment the correct consumption behavior, and realize the sustainable utilization of resources, social harmony and the all-round development of human beings [Translation: www.cnki.net, 4/2023]
弗洛姆(Erich Fromm)愛的理論中認為,愛包括一些元素:照顧、責任、尊重及瞭解,其中母親與小孩的關係最密切,她代表著溫暖和安全的狀態,兒童從胚胎起便與母親相互依戀著,縱使日後脫離母體向世界探索,也是相當緊密的。值得注意的是,父親之愛與母愛最大的差別在於,母親是無條件的,而父愛是有條件的。《三國演義》對於劉禪親情的書寫,從三十四回出生到四十一回趙子龍單騎救主、四十二回摔阿斗、六十一回截江奪阿斗、甚至到後來八十五回的託孤事件、及後主登基之後劉禪與諸葛亮的關係等,在在都是於親情的軌跡上書寫。是故,本文欲從現代西方心裡學家弗洛姆(Erich Fromm)《愛的藝術 The Art of Loving》中對於親情剖析的觀點析論《三國演義》中劉禪為中心的敘述,期以重新理解作者在情節段落中的安排和更貼近真實人心的心理狀態,重要的是期盼能梳理出後主人格缺陷部分始是造成蜀國敗亡的真正原因,再從弗洛姆的父親之愛、母親之愛再推而影響人類成年後的父性良知和母性良知,以釐清日後造就出後主如此懦弱無能的主因,竟和童年的親情脈絡有著密不可分的關係。
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]
On the basis of Freud’s character theory, Fromm introduced Marx’s historical materialism and creatively put forward the social character theory, which not only broke through the limitations of Freud’s character theory, but also improved Marx’s historical materialism. With the help of social character theory, Fromm elaborated the concrete operation mechanism between social existence and social consciousness. [Translation: www.cnki.net, 11/2022]
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]