Talk:A&HH6577/Assignment11

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Discussion reading for the week

• Fromm, Erich. The Fear of Freedom. 2nd Ed, Routledge, 2001. (Definitely Chapters 4 & 5; Chapters 6 & 7 if you have time)
  Electronic reserve: Chs. 4 & 5; Chs. 6 & 7.
  eBray Online (You need to install a free eBrary reader in your browser).

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Talk

2nd week in 322 Thompson -Eric Strome 15:45, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

While I am aware that many of you disagree with my sentiment that Fromm's work is a period piece, I stand by that argument. With the exception of the argument on the nature of democracy within chapter seven, this book is laden with pessimism throughout, as one would expect from a book written about human nature in the dark times of the late 1930's. In addition, the use of Freud, Nietzsche, and Keirkegaard as basis' for Fromm's hypothesis gives this piece a distinct flavor that could only be found during this brief period. For it was during this brief period that all of these theorists were well regarded, as it was prior to the subsequent dismantling of many of their theories by the new age of psychiatrists and the post-modernist philosophers of the 1950's and 60's. But most importantly, I don't believe, given his later work, that Fromm himself would have come to the same conclusions even a decade later. Fromm writing in the 1950's would have seen a democratic people in West Germany attempting to come to terms with their peoplescrimes and a society literally being reborn in Japan, something that would not have been possible under many of the theories he professes in this work. - jab

In the edition that I have, he has a second forward, written 20 years after the initial publication. In it he acknowledges certain progress; the fall of both Hitler and Stalin, new liberalism stirring in the smaller soviet bloc countries, America's refusal to entertain totalitarianism, and the progress of civil rights for women and blacks. He makes it clear, though, that he stands by his essential thesis, that people suffer psychological trauma by their position as small, alienated individuals in a world that seems beyond their reach and control. He points specifically to nuclear weapons and the fact that a small group of people stand ready to destroy the world. Is he mistaken in claiming the 1960s world of the cold war is just as alienating and dark as the 1930s era's economic depression and rise of totalitarianism? I agree that Fromm's reliance on Freud, Nietzsche, and Keirkegaard (especially Freud) may lead him into some traps, but, imo, he's still standing on solid ground laid by Hegel, Marx, and Weber as well as his colleagues, Marcuse, Adorno, et al. Mostly, though, I just wanted to share some of what Fromm wrote in the second forward... Matt 13:47, 16 November 2007 (EST)

I think these articles that I perused would also shed light on the conversation and the notion of Fromm's relevance in today's world. "Nazism, Nationalism, and the Sociology of Emotions: Escape from Freedom Revisited," Neil McLaughlin Sociological Theory, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Nov., 1996), pp. 241-261; "The Two Voices of Erich Fromm: The Prophetic and the Analytic" by Michael Maccoby Published in: Society, July/August. (This article is adapted from a lecture given at the Erich Fromm International Symposium, Washington, DC, May 6 1994.); and an interesting contribution on the common ground between Dewey and Fromm by R. Scott Webster, entitled "A Deweyan Education as a Spiritually Creative Enterprise." sp