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The postmodern university is experiencing a legitimation crisis because of a deepening and corrosive mistrust of all forms of authority; even those that are intended to benefit students by enabling them to >think critically<, or to deepen and improve their knowledge and skills. Some of the problem is rooted in prevailing cultural and economic trends, but others inhere in the nature of postmodernism itself; especially the postmodern claim that truth itself is non-existent or simply unattainable or unavailable, even at the best of times. Unlike earlier generations of critical theorists, who believed that >the truth shall make you free<, postmodern theorists, following Nietzsche, claim that the very idea of truth is moot, if not entirely obsolete. But absent a commitment to a search for truth, the entire structure of the university itself begins to crumble.
Letters to the Editor
(1993)
Letters to the Editor
(1993)
A Profile of Erich Fromm
(1991)
A biography of German psychoanalyst Erich FROMM, beginning with the influence of an intensive Jewish religious education, which was an admixture of philosophy, mysticism, socialism, psychoanalysis, and traditional rabbinical wisdom. It is argued that this early training is evidenced in FROMM's assertion that character can change throughout life, and that prevailing social character has a profound impact on the developing individual, regardless of family idiosyncracies or misfortunes. FROMM typified a Jewish synthesis of rationalism, mysticism, and love of tradition, combined with a prophetic element of radical protest. Also discussed are his progression through religious and sociological doctoral studies and analytic training from Freud loyalists. It is contended that FROMM emerged from the turbulent 1930s and 1940s to become one of the most prolific psychoanalytic authors of the twentieth century, and that his impact on the humanities and social sciences 1950-1970s is unparalleled. Alleged weaknesses in FROMM's work that suggest drawbacks for the clinician are discussed, including the complexities created by his deliberate policy of making minimal use of case histories and clinical vignettes, his tendency toward overstatement, inconsistency in his emphasis on the cultural and economic determinants of mental disturbance, and his purported reversion to a pre-Freudian psychology.