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가정폭력처벌법과 가정폭력방지법이 제정된 이후 20년이 흘렀음에도 가정폭력은 여전히 심각한 사회적 문제이다. 이 문제의 해결을 위해 가정폭력 가해자의 체포우선주의나 상담조건부 기소유예제도의 폐지 등 법적 개선의 논의가 활발하다. 이러한 상황에서 영국이 2015년 Serious Crime Act를 개정하여 신체적 폭력이 없는 패턴화된 강압적이고 통제적인 행위를 독립적인 범죄로 처벌할 수 있게 한 것은 인상 깊은 사건이다. 형법상 범죄를 구성하지 않는 심리적 폭력들도 가족구성원 사이에서 지속적이고 반복적으로 행해지고 피해자에게 심각한 영향을 미쳤다면 범죄로 처벌될 수 있게 된 것이다. 가정폭력에 대처하는 영국법의 이러한 새로운 입장은 미국의 Evan Stark 교수의 강압적 통제론(coercive control)을 바탕으로 가정폭력의 개념을 새롭게 정의함으로써 가능해졌다. 스타크 교수의 강압적 통제론은 가정폭력의 핵심은 ‘통제’이고, 가정폭력은 피해자의 자유에 대한 침해라고 재정의하였다. 즉, 그 자체로는 폭력성이 낮은 행위라도 강압적이고 통제적인 방식으로 지속적으로 행해질 때에는 통제의 패턴을 이룸으로써 피해자의 자유를 구속하는 폭력이 될 수 있다는 이론이다. 가정은 매우 친밀한 공동체이기 때문에 폭력성의 수위 자체는 낮은 통제적 행위라 하더라도, 지속적이고 반복적으로 행해질 때 그 해악이 크다. 따라서 형법적 범죄를 구성하는 수준에 이르지 않는 통제적 행위들이 꾸준히 가해져서 통제적 패턴이 형성되는 상황을 법적으로 규제할 필요성이 충분하다. 이 글에서는 영국이 가정폭력의 개념과 규제 방식을 바꾼 취지를 수용하여, 영국의 SCA Part 5 Section 76을 소개하고(II), 2016년에 실시한 한국의 부부간 심리적 폭력의 실태조사와 부부간 심리적 폭력의 범죄화에 대한 여론조사의 결과를 소개함으로써 한국의 상황에서도 영국의 문제의식이 유효한 것임을 고찰해보았다(III). 나아가 강압적 통제 행위의 해악을 프롬(Fromm)이 제시한 네크로필리아(necrophilia)의 개념을 활용해 재해석함으로써 이러한 유형의 가정폭력이 심각한 해악을 미치는 것임을 새롭게 이해해보고자 하였다(IV). 마지막으로는 연구의 결과를 바탕으로 한국의 가정폭력 관련 형사정책이 부부간 심리적 폭력에 관심을 더욱 둠으로써 더욱 실효적으로 되기를 제안하면서 글을 마무리 한다(V).
이 글에서 논자는 한국 사회에서 자유의 영역을 확장하기 위해서 필요한 이론적 관점은 어떤 것인지 고찰하고 몇 가지 실천적 과제를 제안하고자 했다. 한국 사회에서 자유의 문제는 근본적으로 경제적인 양극화의 문제와 떼어서 생각할 수 없다. 부의 편중에 따른 새로운 신분제 사회의 등장이 경제영역에서뿐 아니라, 정치, 교육, 문화 등 다양한 영역에서 차별을 만들어내며 한국 사회의 자유의 영역을 축소시키고 있다. 이런 상황을 개선시키기 위해서 요구되는 자유의 개념을 모색하기 위해 논자는 노직, 롤즈, 바우만, 프롬, 벌린, 로티 등의 철학자들에게서 언급되고 있는 자유의 개념이 어떤 의미를 지니는지 살펴보았다. 세넷이 말하는 신자유주의의 >사악한< 자유의 개념에 맞대응하기 위해서는 일차적으로 노직의 완전자유주의적 태도는 배제되어야 한다. 나아가 자유의 문제를 개인적인 자아정체성의 문제와 결부짓고 있는 관점들도 적합하다고 볼 수 없다. 한국 사회에서 자유의 문제는 사회적 불평등 및 차별과 연관되어 있기 때문에 사회적인 자유에 초점이 맞추어져야 한다. 그런 의미에서 프롬이나 벌린에게서 언급되고 있는 >적극적인 자유<도 현재로서는 논의의 대상이 아니다. 논자는 자유를 개인적인 정체성의 문제와는 다른 층위에서 다루어야 한다고 보는 로티의 >자유주의자<의 자유의 개념 및 그와 개념적으로 유사한 벌린의 >소극적 자유<의 개념이 실천을 위해 적합한 이론적 도구라고 보았다. 이들의 자유 개념은 구체적인 내용을 담고 있기보다는 실천을 위한 사회적인 차원의 자유의 조건에 대해 이야기하고 있다고 보았기 때문이다. 이런 자유의 개념에 입각하여 호네트나 웅거가 주장하듯이 지속적인 사회적인 실험이 이루어져야 한다. 논자의 실천적 제안은 그런 사회적 실험들이 사회적인 자유의 확장을 위해서 자본의 탐욕을 제어하고, 권위주의를 청산하고, 공공성을 확장할 제도적 장치들을 마련하는 것을 목표로 해야 한다는 것이다.
이 글은 프롬의 바이오필리아와 네크로필리아 개념을 중심으로 4차 산업혁명의 시대에 법이 가져야 할 방향성을 고찰한다. 바이오필리아는 생명에 대한 사랑을 의미하고 네크로필리아는 죽음에 대한 사랑을 의미하는데, 프롬의 이론에서 네크로필리아는 기계적인 것에 대한 사랑으로 새롭게 해석된다. 흥미로운 것은 프롬에게서 바이오필리아와 네크로필리아가 심리적이면서 도덕적인 문제로 설정된다는 점이다. 이 점에 착안하여 이 글은 인간의 로봇화, 로봇의 인간화가 말해지고 인공지능 로봇의 발전으로 인해 >쓸모없는 인간 계급<이 등장할 가능성마저 말해지는 지금의 상황에서, 바이오필리아와 네크로필리아가 법의 방향성을 모색할 유용한 개념일 수 있음을 주장한다. 법이 과학의 발전을 도모하면서도 기계적인 것에 대한 사랑이 생명에 대한 사랑을 대체하지 않도록 하는 파수꾼으로서 기능할 때, 바이오필리아를 확대시키는 생명의 법으로 거듭날 수 있을 것이다. 이 글은 특히 법적 상징계에 인공지능 로봇 등의 기계를 위치시킴에 있어서 지능적 기계와 동물이 비교되는 상황의 위험성을 지적하고, >인간-비인간(non-human)<의 패러다임에서 벗어나서 >생명-비생명(non-life)<의 패러다임으로 나아갈 것을 촉구한다. 또한 인간과 로봇의 관계를 법적으로 규율하는 미래적 과제에 임할 때에, 그 관계가 자기애적이고 네크로필리아적인 것일 가능성을 인식할 필요성도 제안해보았다.
이 연구의 목적은 지도자와 장애선수의 참 만남을 위하여 부버, 프롬, 하이데거의 관점을 가지고 살림의 관계회복을 탐구하는 것이다. 관계는 죽임의 관계와 살림의 관계 맺음이 가능하다. 어떤 관계 맺음을 하느냐에 따라서 관계는 달라진다. 지도자가 장애선수를 소유와 도구적 대상이라고 인식하는 것은 잘못된 만남(죽임의 관계)의 시작이다. 이 문제를 해결하는 해법은지도자가 장애선수를 실존, 인격, 목적의 주체로서 인식하고(부버) 존재적 삶의 태도(프롬)와 심려라는 마음씀(하이데거)을유지하는 데서 찾을 수 있다. 이러한 관계 맺음은 살림의 관계회복으로 신뢰회복과 참 만남을 가능하게 한다. 오늘날 우리에게 필요한 것은 부버, 프롬, 하이데거의 관점에서 얻을 수 있는 살림의 관계회복이다. 장애선수의 능력과 개성과 창의성을 죽이는 죽임의 관계가 아니라 개성과 창의성을 발휘할 수 있는 살림의 관계회복이 요구된다. 지도자 역시 장애선수와 함께 지도철학과 꿈을 실현하는 살림의 관계를 형성한다면, 현장에서 지도자와 장애선수의 참 만남은 현실화될 것이다.
В статье предлагается исследование психологии религии Э. Фромма и отмечается ее актуальность для современного религиоведения. Признавая изначальную доброту человеческой природы, он подвергает критике возможность возврата к традиционному религиозному укладу. Обсуждаются сложные взаимоотношения между психоанализом и религией. Отмечается недостаточность позиций по этому вопросу З. Фрейда и К. Юнга. Анализируются различные функции религии, проблема врачевания души, ритуализм, символизм и идолопоклонство современного человека. Э. Фромм делает акцент на психологической субъективности, предлагая игнорировать онтологическую проблематику, что ограничивает возможности его подхода.
Στην παρούσα εργασία αναδεικνύονται οι βασικότερες θέσεις του Erich Fromm για τη Θρησκευτική Εμπειρία του ανθρώπου, μέσα από τα βιβλία του: >Ο άνθρωπος για τον εαυτό του<, >Ψυχανάλυση και θρησκεία<, >Η υγιής κοινωνία<, >Ο φόβος μπροστά στην ελευθερία< και >Η τέχνη της αγάπης<. Επίσης, αναλύεται το ηθικό σύστημα που είχε συγκροτήσει σε επιστημονικά του άρθρα, όπου παρουσιάζεται η Ψυχολογία στενά συνδεδεμένη με τη Φιλοσοφία και τη Θεολογία, ως βασική προϋπόθεση για την πληρέστερη κατανόηση του ανθρώπου. Επιπλέον, στην εργασία γίνεται λόγος για αντιθετικές έννοιες που κατέχουν βασική θέση στη Διαπροσωπική Θεωρία Ψυχανάλυσης του Fromm, όπως η διάκριση μεταξύ ιδιοτέλειας και αγάπης, εσωτερικευμένης και εσωτερικής συνείδησης και συμπεριφοράς, πίστης και αμφιβολίας, παραγωγικότητας και καταστροφικότητας, καθολικής και κοινωνικά επιβαλλόμενης ηθικής, εξουσιαστικών και ανθρωπιστικών θρησκειών, ενώ παρουσιάζονται οι έννοιες της κοινωνικά μορφοποιημένης ανεπάρκειας και της αγάπης. Τέλος αναδεικνύεται η σπουδαιότητα και η εφαρμογή των θέσεων του Erich Fromm στη διδασκαλία του μαθήματος των Θρησκευτικών με παραδείγματα και αναφορές στην Παλαιά και την Καινή Διαθήκη.
Worte des Dankes
(2017)
Witch-mother is which? The potential role of the analyst in facilitating authentic motherhood
(2017)
This paper explores challenges in the treatment of women suffering from disturbances in maternal identification. A review of the psychoanalytic and developmental literature focuses on the frequent finding of early-onset mother–daughter relational disturbance involving maternal narcissistic fragility and exaggerated dependency needs, intergenerational trauma, and related psychopathology including mutual affect dysregulation. A case example of a young woman with a severe anxiety disorder is presented and discussed to illustrate the challenges to the traditional psychoanalytic technique. This patient avoided pregnancy into her late thirties and entered analysis with feelings of inauthenticity, characterological masochism, and a >secret mission< to unmask the witch recurring in her dreams. Through an elaborate working-through of negative maternal transference, the analyst and patient saw through the birth of the patient’s authentic self, a new approach to her career, her relationships with men, and her anticipation of the birth of a child by the sixth year of treatment. The author posits that psychoanalytic technique benefits from contemporary, attachment, and trauma research that supports the analyst’s playing a more active role in approaching, co-regulating, tolerating, and integrating avoided affects and memory traces that are associated with early-onset relational disturbances worsened by the effects of violence, maltreatment, and loss.
The initiator of the conference and (together with Sophie de Mijolla-Mellor) conference co-chair, Harold Blum, introduces the objectives of the interdisciplinary and psychoanalytic conference on >Parent–Infant Disturbance: Theory and Therapy.< In the epilogue, the author brings up the coincident Paris terrorist attack of November 13, 2015 – the first day of this two-day conference.
How can some classical Freudian concepts such as defense, transference, infantile sexuality, and the role of the body ego and superego in the first year of life be applied to help the analyst working with parent–infant dyads? The case of a newborn that could not look at her mother, who did not feel empathy towards this child conceived as a result of an egg donation, was understood using Winnicott’s notion of early superego and the lack of libidinal pleasure. The notion of defenses towards primitive anxiety and the role of unconscious maternal functioning were helpful in helping the child as well as the parents to regulate their interactions.
This essay addresses some of the challenges involved in accounting for history’s impact on psychological development. First, I consider how the personal beliefs and theoretical assumptions of psychoanalysts and historians can limit their understanding of other people, whether in the past or the present. Second, I examine the degree to which an individual’s perception and understanding is always a reflection of the collective cultural understanding in which that person lives. I apply these two observations to the discussion of how European Jewish psychoanalysts responded to the traumas of the Holocaust in the decades afterWorld War II. I suggest that individual responses were shaped by the absence of a collective discourse about the Holocaust during this time. When examining the past, I maintain that psychoanalysts and historians should be cautious, lest their current theories determine their understanding of the past.
Symbolic of what we have possessed, lost, and wish to remember, the arts can memorialize cultural experiences too telling for mere speech. Aided by art, design, and storytelling, the many millions of visitors to the National September 11 Memorial Museum are remembering together not just one or more individuals or local communities, but an entire world that no longer exists. This paper details the collaboration between exhibition designer, Tom Hennes of Thinc Design, and myself, a psychoanalytic psychologist, in the relational design of the museum. This process entailed use of parallel and intertwined perspectives on how to help visitors remember, commemorate, honor, educate, witness, and mourn in order to transform unspeakable destruction into a creative reconstruction of continuity and vitality. How a psychoanalytic consultation to a museum design team developed from applying a few theoretical principles to a more generalizable model will be illustrated with narrative accounts of key moments.
Why would a group of people behave in ways that appear to us as moral nihilism, such as the events of 9/11? One cause is an affective one that underlies all violent behavior, namely, narcissistic injuries severe enough to threaten the survival of the self or of the group with which the self identifies, in the absence of non-violent means of maintaining or restoring individual or collective self-esteem. But there is also a uniquely modern cognitive reason for this uniquely modern form of violence, and of the apocalyptic fundamentalism that legitimizes it: namely, that terrorists see themselves as destroying the nihilism that they perceive as coming from us, that is, from the modern Western scientific mentality that destroys the credibility of the traditional sources of moral, legal and political authority and legitimacy, God and religion. Fundamentalism originated in the United States and has spread throughout the world as a rebellion against modernity. This suggests means of curing it: by facilitating access to modern education, psychological awareness, socio-economic equality and political democracy, to help protect all societies from the affective threats of shame and humiliation, and the cognitive threats of nihilism, anomie and anarchy (and their alternatives, nationalism, dogmatism and theocracy).
Isu kebhinekaan atau keberagaman akhir-akhir ini diserukan kembali oleh orang-orang yang dianggap tokoh atau menokohkan diri dalam kehidupan masyarakat Indonesia. Pengangkatan kembali isu-isu tersebut bisa dimaklumi karena akhir-akhir ini tindakan-tindakan yang mengarah pada radikalisme muncul di berbagai tempat di Indonesia. Artinya, terdapatnya kelompok masyarakat yang anti kebhinekaan (tidak terang-terangan) itu pernah muncul pada masa-masa sebelumnya tetapi frekuensinya tidak sebanyak yang terjadi pada akhir-akhir ini. Bukan tidak mungkin gerakan-gerakan tersembunyi seperti itu membahayakan keutuhan negara. Tokoh panutan-kharismatis yang mengedepankan kebhinekaan demi keutuhan negara selalu dibutuhkan agar masyarakat Indonesia terbebas dari kekacauan yang disebabkan oleh sara (suku, agama dan ras).
This paper focuses on how Islamic terrorism is primarily part of a larger internal conflict within Islamic culture. Western, liberal (largely Christian) democracies evolved over centuries of their own bloody philosophical and political struggles between religious authority and what came to be defined as a modern, civil society built on individual freedom of belief, secular authority, and law. Now, Western liberal modernity represents a deep existential threat to traditional Islamic societies around gender, family relations, and individual beliefs. A ferocious internal struggle exists between those Muslims who believe Islam can absorb those tensions – creating its own version of an open, tolerant, cultural modernity – versus political Islamists, jihadists, for whom the annihilation anxiety elicited by the threatened social change is directed both internally and in violent rage at the West.
The tripod of terrorism
(2017)
Violent attacks against innocent civilians occurring on an everyday and global basis have intensified the discourse on terrorism. However, like pornography, terrorism seems readily recognizable but hard to define. The designation is applied to the destructive acts of religious zealots, mentally unstable individuals, terror-inducing despots, separatist militia, and, at times, even legitimate freedom fighters. Ordinary language fails to define terrorism’s nosological circumference and is itself defiled in the process. While acknowledging this denotational conundrum, this paper will propose that the origins of the current mayhem by the radicalized few reside in three geopolitical realms. These include the long shadow of colonialism, the hypocrisy and violence of certain Western foreign policies, and some fundamental problems in the societies that form the crucible of such rage. As a result, ameliorative strategies need to be directed at (and require the collaboration of) all three parties at the root of this tragic and bloody scenario.
A candidate’s training analysis is arguably the most influential aspect of her psychoanalytic training. Therefore, the training analyst has a special responsibility to our field. It can be deeply satisfying to contribute to the development of a younger colleague. However, we must not overlook the risk of putting our own narcissistic needs ahead of those of our patients. This paper explores some ways in which the training analyst’s need for self-enhancement may subvert the candidate/patient’s best interests. Although this is a danger in any analytic treatment, there are some special risks when the patient is an analytic candidate.
Maslow’s concept of self-actualization has been a bulwark of humanistic psychology for more than fifty years, and has increasingly gained international appeal beyond its original nexus within the United States. His description of the high-achieving characteristics of self-actualizing men and women has influenced theorists and practitioners in such fields as counseling, education, health care, management, and organizational psychology. Through these same decades, Maslow’s formulation has also been criticized as promoting a hyper-individualistic, even narcissistic, orientation to personality growth. Because Maslow by temperament and intellectual style expressed himself in an ever-evolving set of speeches and writings that were seldom explicit about interpersonal relations, his actual outlook on the social world of self-actualizers has remained elusive. The focus of this paper, therefore, is how Maslow depicted self-actualizing people with regard to five major interpersonal dimensions of life: friendship, romantic love, marriage and lasting intimacy, parenthood, and communal service. By pulling together Maslow’s comments primarily in his published works, and secondarily in his unpublished works-in-progress, it is possible to explicate his tacit viewpoint. Doing so will not only help dispel the misconception that Maslow depicted self-actualizers as loners or even hermits, but also guide future theory and research on personality growth.
Drawing upon Erich Fromm’s psychoanalytical-diagnosis of man in capitalism, this essay reflects upon some of the most political and philosophical themes of Cartoon Network’s adult animated sitcom >Rick and Morty<. It focuses mainly in juxtaposing the nihilism and the alienation of the characters Rick and Jerry, respectively. Discussing the loss of agency due to the illusions and repressions of contemporary society, the essay concludes that capitalism benefits from both Jerry and Rick’s self-destructive worldviews.
The arrival of a newborn baby confronts the parents with the loss of their own childhood and the process of mourning that this entails. In the case of a premature birth, where the often brutal experience of birth is followed by a forced separation of hospitalization, the situation is even more complicated, making it sometimes difficult for the mother to invest in the baby libidinally. The presence of a psychoanalyst working with the resuscitation team can facilitate the encounter with the parents, the baby, and the caretakers, and can, by >supposing a subject< in the baby, help to restore the bond between mother and child.
The rabbi and the psychoanalyst: Erich Fromm and Samson Raphael Hirsch – an unacknowledged debt
(2017)
Erich Fromm (1900–1980) was one of the twentieth century’s most renowned psychologists. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888) is regarded as the herald of Modern Jewish Orthodoxy. Fromm’s grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi with strong personal ties to Rabbi Hirsch. Fromm grew up as an Orthodox Jew in Rabbi Hirsch’s hometown Frankfurt, and his intensive Jewish learning until his rupture with Orthodox Judaism (at the age of 26) is well attested. Thus Fromm must have been familiar with Hirsch’s teaching and thought. Through his entire life Fromm continued to write about Judaism, from a psychoanalytic point of view. Although Fromm mentions Hirsch only in passing in two of his very early German writings, in at least two instances in his mature writings – dealing with symbolism and Shabbat – he draws heavily and undoubtedly on Hirsch’s thought. The present article presents the evidence for this claim.
The German pilot Andreas Lubitz, who intentionally crashed a plane with 149 passengers, killing all on board including himself, had been a patient in psychiatric and psychotherapeutic consultations. This paper deals with the legal and psychoanalytic consequences of this action, including terminological issues concerning terrorism.
The mother’s intrapsychic mental representation of her infant begins before pregnancy and is modified during pregnancy and thereafter. Parents have conscious expectations and unconscious fantasies about their infant, which are all too often not consistent with reality. Early intervention in infant–parent disturbances is important for repair of the relationship and prevention of later pathogenic development. A clinical example of a mother’s unconscious ambivalent mental representations of her infant is presented.
Second only to Freud, Erich Fromm remains the most widely read psychoanalyst in history. He was, in this author’s view, a public psychoanalyst, a man who wished to address what he believed were the most pressing issues of his day, who saw psychoanalysis as a tool to explicate and interrogate contemporary society in order to change it. This paper not only seeks to restore Fromm to his place as a forefather of the relational turn but also attempts to demonstrate how Fromm’s enduring sense of hope, his radical humanism, and his call to acknowledge what unites us rather than separates us offer an implicit critique of the excesses of the politics
There is nothing more fitting, the author believes, than for psychoanalysts to help our nations better understand the identity struggle that he believes underlies the radicalization process of radical Islamists. This identity struggle is a very deep one. At its core, it concerns what an individual Muslim feels about his or her bonds to the nation-state and what single cause in their life they are willing to die for. In this article, this struggle is characterized as theo-political and Islamo-national. In order to understand this better as psychoanalysts, the importance of the personal narrative – this sense of how an individual’s identity fits and meshes with the world around them – is stressed. To that end, this article will first given an introduction to the author and his family, and then bring readers to the Arab Awakening, which began in 2011. Dr. Slavin’s paper on Tunisia has highlighted so many of the elements of the changes that transformed Tunisia and some of the substrate that led to that evolution; this article provides the context both regionally and, more importantly, within the Muslim consciousness. The author describes the lens through which he was raised in Wisconsin as a devout Muslim and the son of Syrian political refugees. This then overlays an understanding of what was really happening across the revolutions of the Arab Awakening against tyranny and in the global consciousness of individual Muslims.
In diesem Beitrag soll in Anknüpfung an soziologische Befunde zum sozialen Wandel skizziert werden, welche Herausforderungen für eine psychoanalytisch orientierte Supervision und Organisationsberatung bestehen und welche Ansatzpunkte sich aus einer humanistischen Perspektive daraus ergeben. Dafür wird an Grundannahmen des analytischen Sozialpsychologen Erich Fromm angeknüpft.
Bu çalışmada, sosyal bilimler alanında yeni olan ama gittikçe önemi artan sosyal sermaye kavramının Fromm düşüncesindeki yeri gösterilmeye çalışılmaktadır. Böylece, sosyal sermaye üzerine; henüz yeterli olmayan literatürün zenginliğinin oluşmasında mütevazı bir katkı yapmayı başarmak amaçlanmaktadır. Fromm, >sağlıklı toplum< analizini ortaya koyarken toplumun akıl sağlığının en önemli göstergelerinden birini, bu ilişki ve iletişim bağlarının varlığı ya da yokluğuna bağlamaktadır. Özellikle >yabancılaşma< kavramına yaptığı atıflar ve modern toplumlarda bireylerin ürettiklerine bizzat dahil olamamaları ile ortaya çıkan anomik durumun ürettiği iletişim sorunlarına değinir. Fromm’a göre, >sosyal sermaye< açısından değerlendirilebilecek ikinci husus da toplumu oluşturan bireylerin akıl sağlığını koruyan dini, vicdani ve ahlaki değerlerin varlığını sürdürerek bir dayanışma ve yardımlaşma duygusu üretmesidir. Buna göre sevgi, güven, dayanışma gibi iletişim biçimleri toplumun akıl sağlığını olumlu anlamda sosyal bir sermayeye evrilten dinamiklerdir.
This article brings Erich Fromm and Theodor W. Adorno back into dialogue by discussing the cultural phenomena of humor and laughter based on their theoretical writings. I argue that what is typically considered socially critical humor, like offensive jokes or harsh satire, often fails to meet the preconditions of criticism in the light of Adorno’s and Fromm’s thinking. Humor, to be socially critical, has to be life-affirmative and non-positional, and it has to challenge the limits of humor. It is also claimed that in this scope, humor cannot be instrumental.
Several thinkers have expressed the view that the central nostrums of neoliberalism, including self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual risk, have become part of the >common sense< fabric of everyday life. My paper argues that Erich Fromm’s idea of social character offers a comprehensive and persuasive answer to this question. While some have sought the answer to this conundrum in Foucault’s notion of governmentality, I argue that, by itself, this answer is not sufficient. What is significant about the notion of social character, I claim, is that it manages to unify >top-down< approaches like governmentality focused on ideas and policy, with >bottom-up< approaches focused on how the insights of day to day experience are mediated through culture. Adapting this theory to neoliberalism, I argue, means that the >common sense< nature of neoliberalism, and the lack of a reckoning for its massive economic failure (as evidenced by the 2007 Great Recession), are explicable through the formation of a neoliberal social character, by means of which experiential processes align with cultural meanings and, subsequently, fuse with social expectations.