У статті представлений погляд на природу і самотність Еріха Фромма. Розкриваються основні положення теорії Фромма, особливий акцент робиться на співвідносності дихотомії, екзистенціального конфлікту та структури характеру з феноменом самотності. Характерною рисою сучасного суспільства є криза, а вона негативно впливає на світ людини, як це було за часів Фромма. Тому проблематика статті є актуальною.

In the title essay, Erich Fromm uses the tools of psychoanalysis to examine the development of the dogma of Christ in the context of social history. The remaining essays examine psychological and cultural problems with keen insight and humanistic sympathies.

Values, psychology, and human existence -- Disobedience as a psychological and moral problem -- The application of humanist psychoanalysis to Marx's theory -- Prophets and priests -- Let man prevail -- Humanist socialism -- The psychological aspects of guaranteed income -- The case for unilateral disarmamament -- The psychological problems of aging.

“[A] groundbreaking study combining psychoanalytical and anthropological methods to analyse the impact of industrialization on ‘peasants.’” —Booknews The renowned psychoanalyst Erich Fromm analyzed more than just general society and societal processes. Together with Michael Maccoby, he completed a study of Mexican villagers to empirically illustrate how historical, economic, and social requirements determine behavior. Social Character in a Mexican Village does much more than introduce a new approach to the analysis of social phenomena. It throws new light on one of (...) the world’s most pressing problems, the impact of the industrialized world on the traditional character of the laboring class. Unanimously, the book is an outstanding introduction to Fromm’s concept of social character. “Fromm and Maccoby have written a study of crucial importance.” —Richard J. Barnet, Institute for Policy Studies. (shrink)

Modern man's pathology of normalcy -- The concept of mental health -- Humanistic science of man -- Is man lazy by nature?.

Erich Fromm fought long and hard for the rights and freedoms of the individual. He also recognized that fundamental to this pursuit is the promotion of self-knowledge. In encouraging people to analyse their own behaviour, Fromm identified the crucial link between psychology and ethics that underpins all our actions. Moreover, he saw in this a way out of the meaningless impasse which he regarded as the plight of the modern human race. The task that Fromm sets himself, therefore, in (...) Man for Himself is no less than to identify what man is, how he ought to live and how the tremendous energies within man can be released and used productively. (shrink)

Purpose. Research of the phenomenon of human destructiveness in the context of metaphysical images and violence practices of late Modernism. Theoretical basis. The problem is that the philosophical reflection of violence as objectified, realized destructiveness of man is usually contextual in nature and is on the periphery of understanding its external manifestations. Accordingly, anthropological crisis remains behind the scenes, as evidenced by the devaluation of the humanistic potential of modern culture. That is why one should turn the focus from (...) the obvious, objectively conditioned incarnations of violence in the XXI century to the internal factors that are in the realm of existential. The departure from the consideration of violence as an abstract, faceless or ideologically colored evil allowed us to focus on man, his way of thinking, life and social orientations, feelings and internal contradictions, which find their expression in one or another form of destructiveness. Originality. Based on the works of M. Scheler and E. Fromm defining for philosophical anthropology and psychoanalysis, for the first time the conceptualization of positive and negative forms of manifestation of human destructiveness against the background of sociocultural transformations of late Modernism was carried out. It has been proved that its ontological principles are rooted in specifically human existence and relations with other members of society, while anthropological ones are directly connected with the endless struggle of the life, the vital with the spirit in man. Conclusions. Violence is a tool and a product of man’s transition to more mature and complex forms of existence. The interdependence of the violence and nonviolence practices ensures the progressive movement of humanity towards society humanization. This progress is accompanied by a natural internal conflict of personality, which can be both progressive and regressive. At the metaphysical level, destructiveness appears as a connection between the entropy of world existence as a whole and the instability of human existence itself, which is a complexly organized and open to the world system. Self-transcendence as an anthropological prerequisite for human destructiveness has a dual nature and combines negative and positive characteristics, the content and significance of which were revealed in the study. The authors are convinced that there is no other way to overcome the negative, malignant destructiveness, except for the incessant, daily gathering of life meanings around them and their development. After all, the loss of such core structures of the existence as the meaning, purpose and value of life has become a truly global problem for the modern world. Emphasis is placed on the need to keep in harmony the trinity of body-soul-spirit, which will allow a person in any social transformation to preserve and increase his integrity. (shrink)

In Man for Himself , Erich Fromm examines the confusion of modern women and men who, because they lack faith in any principle by which life ought to be guided, become the helpless prey forces both within and without. From the broad, interdisciplinary perspective that marks Fromm’s distinguished oeuvre, he shows that psychology cannot divorce itself from the problems of philosophy and ethics, and that human nature cannot be understood without understanding the values and moral conflicts that confront us (...) all. He shows that an ethical system can be based on human nature rather than on revelations or traditions. As Fromm asserts, “If man is to have confidence in values, he must know himself and the capacity of his nature for goodness and productiveness.”. (shrink)

Publisher's Foreword As the present book is reissued, The American Mental Health Foundation celebrates its 86th anniversary. Organized in 1924, AMHF is ...

Man : wolf or sheep? -- Different forms of violence -- Love of death and love of life -- Individual and social narcissism -- Incestuous ties -- Freedom, determinism, alternativism.

Following the publication of the seminal Fear of Freedom, Erich Fromm applied his unique vision to a critique of contemporary capitalism in The Sane Society. Where the former dealt with man's historic inability to come to terms with his sense of isolation, and the dangers to which this can lead, The Sane Society took his theories one step further. In doing so it established Fromm as one of the most controversial political thinkers of his generation. Anaylsing how individuals conform (...) to contemporary capitalist and patriarchal societies, the book was published to wide acclaim and even wider disapproval. It was a scathing indictment of modern capitalism and as such proved unwelcome to many. Unwelcome because much of what Fromm had to say was true. Today, as we settle into the challenges of the 21st century, Fromm's writings are just as relevant as when they were first written. Read it and decide for yourself - are you living in a sane society? (shrink)

Disobedience as a psychological and moral problem -- Prophets and priests -- Let man prevail -- Humanist socialism.

This book argues that Fromm is a vital and largely overlooked contribution to twentieth-century intellectual history, and one who offers a refreshingly reconfigured form of humanism that is capable of reintegrating explicitly humanist analytical categories and schemas back into social theoretical (and scientific) considerations.

This paper explores Erich Fromm’s contribution to Deweyan democratic education by referring to his psychoanalytic interpretation of John Dewey’s pragmatic theory. First, it employs the work by Gert Biesta to secure a space between critical pedagogy and Deweyan democratic education, from which Fromm’s theory can be discussed. Furthermore, it argues that Biesta’s perspective offers a valuable theoretical ground to extend the emancipatory potential of Deweyan democratic education, while avoiding some pitfalls of critical pedagogy. Subsequently, the paper contrasts Marcuse’s and (...) Fromm’s views on Dewey to show how Fromm’s understanding of Dewey was more effective than that of Marcuse for developing the potential of Dewey’s philosophy. Next, the paper clarifies key similarities and differences between Fromm’s psychoanalysis and Dewey’s pragmatism, as it is applicable specifically to emancipatory education. Finally, the paper argues that despite the differences between these two thinkers, Fromm’s theory further radicalizes Deweyan democratic education by adding new elements to the list of preconditions on the role of the emancipatory teacher. (shrink)

On November 9, 2002, a few hundred people, mostly mental health clinicians, gathered at the New York University Medical Center for two days of discussions on the theme, September 11th: Psychoanalytic Reflections in the Second Year. The conference was sponsored by the five New York Societies of the International Psychoanalytical Association. The presentations described various bits of learning that seemed to be emerging from the crisis clinical work with so many traumatized people since the attack on the World Trade Center. (...) This paper discusses three of those presentations in the context of the author’s reflections based on his psychotherapeutic work with very troubled patients in a therapeutic community setting. He emphasizes the effect of trauma, not only on individuals, but on the holding environments and symbolic order on which human beings depend for their psychic survival. (shrink)

Social networking technologies have become a ubiquitous framework for social interaction, serving to organise much of the individual’s social life. Such technological structuring affects not merely the individual’s psyche (as a psychotechnics), it also affects broader aspects of society (as a socio-technics). While social networking technologies may serve to transform society in positive ways, such technologies also have the potential to significantly encroach upon and (re) construct individual and cultural meaning in ways that must be investigated. Erich Fromm, who (...) psychoanalytically describes humans as a product of their society and the economic systems within that society, may provide insight into the influence of social networking technologies in contemporary society. He sees the relationship between the individual and society as being in a constant state of dynamic change. Utilising Fromm’s psycho-societal insight, social networking technologies are shown to conflate and confuse the relation between Thanatos and Eros – the Thanatos of a lifeless and consumerist agenda-filled mechanisation, and the Eros associated with social engagement. Thanatos and Eros are tied together via social networking technologies. This results in, firstly, social networking technologies functioning predominantly to further capitalist agendas through the monetisation of these technologies – particularly in terms of linking commodity fetishism and the foundational social drive of the individual. Secondly, social networking technologies mechanise human action according to predictable behavioural paths through the use of these technologies, especially in terms of how socialisation is possible via these technologies (shaping how platonic and romantic relationships may take place in the contemporary world). Such a mechanisation of interpersonal engagement contrasts with Erich Fromm’s assertion that interpersonal relations (vis-à-vis love) are not “mere emotion”, but rather represent an interpersonal creative capacity and interplay. Fromm’s psycho-societal insights will show how contemporary individuals may take independent and responsible rational action to establish accountable and psychologically beneficial ways of engaging with others through social networking technologies. (shrink)

This paper begins by examining Erich Fromm’s “Manifesto and Program” written for the Socialist Party in 1959 or 1960, and addresses a simple question: Why would Fromm speak of something so apparently arcane as “prophetic messianism,” in his socialist program? When he insists that we have forgotten thatsocialism is “rooted in the spiritual tradition which came to us from prophetic messianism, the gospels, humanism, and from the enlightenment philosophers,” is this simply a literary flourish, a concession to liberalism, or (...) religious sentimentality? Part I, written by Nick Braune, answers the question by examining Fromm’ssocialist organizing commitments in the context of the late 1950s. Part II, written by Joan Braune, offers further defense of the term “prophetic messianism,” distinguishes two types of messianism, and suggests that Fromm may be attempting to address a problem in the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

When he was 26, the great psychoanalyst and philosopher Erich Fromm abandoned Judaism, though he himself was descended from a long line of rabbis and the product of a devout Jewish upbringing. The title essay of this collection was first published in 1930, just four years after he made that first, decisive split. It was to point towards the future Fromm's work, presenting the view that an understanding of basic human needs is essential to the understanding of society and (...) mankind itself. The following essays too, show a man who would eventually establish himself as a major thinker, producing some of that era's most influential and astute political works. (shrink)

The characterisation of mass society in a society without God, as a mere mimetic, hypnotic and unstable phenomenon is clearly insufficient. For its rise, social, psychological and relational changes had to take place, both among people and between people and their environment. Many scholars in recent times who have tried to explain the phenomenon of mass society have undoubtedly linked it to individualism, especially to one of its characteristics that could be considered specifically modern: loneliness. The study entitled “The Spiral (...) of Silence” is well known, in which Noelle-Neumann, taking up Tocqueville's classic thesis, highlights the tremendous negative force – as a psychosocial agent – of individual behaviour in the face of social forces. As Erich Fromm forcefully points out: “Feeling completely isolated and lonely leads to mental disintegration, just as starvation leads to death”. The phenomenon of a worldwide pandemic has forced a rethinking of the concept of isolation and loneliness, theoretically displaced by virtual and telematic forms of communication. However, mimetic effects and mass behaviours have not disappeared with isolation, but have been transmuted into new psychological, behavioural and cognitive attitudes. (shrink)

Discusses the influences of Erich Fromm, examines his conception of the nature of man, and analyzes his views of social psychology, philosophy, ethics, and religion.

The point of departure used in the article is the statement that in the bourgeois character there is embedded a feeling, not always conscious, of profound impotence. Psychoanalytic experiences are presented to illustrate such feelings. In extreme cases the content of such feeling may be described as follows : „There is nothing I can influence ; nothing I can move ; nothing I can change by my will in the external {World or in myself. I have no power, I am (...) not taken seriously, I am for other people like air which no one notices.“The feeling of being without power may be in relation to other people, to oneself, or to things. Its most important psychological consequences are a feeling of inferiority, fear, and anger. A series of examples are described in which an attempt was made to soften the intensity of the feeling of impotence, or to eliminate it entirely. In this sphere rationalizations explain the impotence as the result of certain non-psychological conditions, rationalizations which console because of their belief in sudden miracles or changes over long periods of time ; finally, a reaction which consists in an attempt to hide this feeling in activity and mere routine.The social conditions of the origin of this feeling of impotence are found in two fields : first in the fact that the child in the bourgeois family, even if treated very favorably, is not really taken seriously, and then in the place the adult has in modern society, his helplessness and dependence on powers he cannot comprehend and control, in particular his position of impotence in a process of production governed by the principle of division of labor.At the end the author attempts to show this feeling of impotence and the rationalizations which covered it up in the political behavior of the European masses during the post-war period.L'article constate tout d'abord qu'un sentiment d'impuissance profond, encore que d'ordinaire inconscient, marque la vie bourgeoise. L'article utilise l'expérience que livre la psychanalyse des individus pour décrire ce sentiment d'impuissance. Dans les cas extrêmes, la description aboutit aux traits suivants : je ne puis exercer d'influence sur rien, je ne puis rien mettre en mouvement, ma volonté est incapable de rien changer ni dans le monde extérieur ni en moi-même, je n'ai pas de force, je n'existe pas pour les autres, je suis comme l'air qu'ils respirent. Le sentiment d'impuissance peut se rapporter aussi bien à d'autres hommes qu'à la personne elle-même, ou à des choses. Les suites psychologiques les plus importantes de ce sentiment sont : complexe d'infériorité, angoisse, colère. L'article décrit une série de tentatives pour adoucir, ou même chasser de la conscience la souffrance qui naît de cette impuissance. A cette catégorie appartiennent des rationalisations explicatives qui ramènent l'impuissance à certaines circonstances extra-psychiques ; des rationalisations consolatrices qui font croire à la brusque irruption d'un miracle, ou bien à des changements progressifs, fruits d'une longue durée ; enfin une forme de réaction qui, à force d'activité, de routine affairée parvient à couvrir le sentiment d'impuissance, qui reste inconscient. Deux ordres de conditions sociales favorisent la formation du sentiment d'impuissance : d’abord le fait que l'enfant dans la société bourgeoise, si affectueusement qu'il puisse être traité, n'est pas — au fond — pris au sérieux ; d'autre part, le rôle de l'adulte dans la société bourgeoise, sa propre impuissance et sa dépendance à l'égard de forces qu'il est incapable de maîtriser ou même de reconnaître, plus particulièrement sa position dans le procès de production, qui, par suite de l'extrême division du travail, lui enlève autonomie et efficacité. Pour terminer, l'article tente de retrouver ce sentiment d'impuissance et les diverses formes de rationalisations qui le dissimulent, dans l'attitude des masses européennes durant l'époque de l'après-guerre. (shrink)

The text deals with the emergence of a specific Jewish counterculture in the wake of the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement in the USA in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, Erich Fromm’s humanism and the religious existentialism of Abraham Joshua Heschel had a significant impact on the ideas of the young Jewish generation and influenced their striving for a renewal of Jewish life. Although the three Jewish thinkers differed in their forms (...) of expression, they had in common a relentless critique of existing state of affairs and fought for a just society. Whether it be Buber’s communitarian society, Fromm’s humanist socialism or Heschel’s free society imbued with religion – they offered answers to the frustrated young generation and pointed the way to the “spiritual revolution” they longed for. Thus they became prophets for them. (shrink)

In 1939 Sigmund Freud published his latest book, Moses and Monotheism, which is his most unusual and problematic work. In Moses Freud offers four groundbreaking claims in regard to the biblical story: [a] Moses was an Egyptian [b] The origin of monotheism is not Judaism [c] Moses was murdered by the Jews [d] The murder sparked a constant sense of unconscious guilt, which eventually contributed to the rational and ethical development of Jewish monotheism. As is well known, Freud’s Moses received (...) extremely negative reviews from Jewish thinkers. The social psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm, who wrote extensively on Freud as well as on Judaism and the biblical narrative, did not explicitly express his position on Freud’s latest work. This paper offers explanations for Fromm’s roaring silence on Freud’s Moses. (shrink)

Nothing less than a manifesto for a new social and psychological revolution to save our threatened planet, this book is a summary of the penetrating thought of ...