Fromm

[articul8]

Adorno is only a bourgeois thinker to the extent that he offers an immanent critique of bourgeois thought, and he has the courage not to flinch in the face of reality

Fromm fuses romantic anti-capitalism with a radical liberal humanism. Interesting, but ultimately offers social democracy with progressive ego-psychology. Not very close, certainly no cigar

 

[gorski]

He didn't even have the courage to call the F-syndrome its rightful name...

See his view on family and sex...? Conservative....

Not to mention the episode when he invited the police to the Uni... A couple of breasts startled him... Ughhh...

 

[Dillinger4]

Gorski - post #28 is brilliant.

 

[articul8]

He didn't even have the courage to call the F-syndrome its rightful name...

What F-syndrome?

See his view on family and sex...? Conservative....

he was by no means anti-sex, but equally anti what Marcuse called "repressive desublimation"

Not to mention the episode when he invited the police to the Uni... A couple of breast startled him... Ughhh...

He was actually quite supportive of the SDS to begin with (see correspondance with student Elisabeth Lenk) - but he did resent anti-intellectualism in the "left" as well as the right.

 

[gorski]

What F-syndrome?

Sorry:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...hl=en#PPA58,M1http://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/frenkel.html

he was by no means anti-sex, but equally anti what Marcuse called "repressive desublimation"

Indeed, a conservative... So were all of them... at least in those matters...

He was actually quite supportive of the SDS to begin with (see correspondance with student Elisabeth Lenk) - but he did resent anti-intellectualism in the "left" as well as the right.

Who didn't? That doesn't bring him/them out of a bourgeois hole...

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fromm has some wonderful things to say about love.

“Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.'
Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you'”

“Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.”

“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”

“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love”

“Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.”

“While every human being has a capacity for love, its realization is one of the most difficult achievements”

“There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started out with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet which fails so regularly, as love.”

 

[geoff64]

just finished reading The Sane Society. Seems weird that it was so controversial at the time cos i didn't find very challenging. Is that just sympomatic of how influential his ideas have become? Or is it because he wrote for a US market in the 1950's when capitalism was the bees knees?

Incidentally, and I'm not sure i should blame him for this necessarily (cos he was an academic) but there's plenty of opinionising about what should be done to make society more sane (a form of communitarian socialism) but no suggestion of how this should be achieved - especially as he rules out violent expropriation of capital. It's very utopian in that sense.

Liked his critique of Marx and Freud. i read Freud's Civilisation and its Discontents a fews years ago and was led on to Marcuse' Eros and Civilisation.

Fromm has interestingly taken on Freud's idea of a pathology of society (notwithstanding his critique of Freud), and has persuasively argued that economic transformation without changing the individual is a recipe for disaster. Vanguard Socialists have argued that the process of revolutionary struggle inherently changes human nature to prepare it for the new society - but Fromm is right, imo, to argue that this is not enough. Because the majority of people, i guess, are never fully engaged in the process of revolution, but passive witnesses to it or victims of it. But his arguments fail to bridge that gap.

Anyway, got a copy of Fear of Freedom to read too.

 

[frogwoman]

Yeah got a lot of time for Fromms work. Even though I've hardly read any of it ...

 

[fela fan]

Fromm has interestingly taken on Freud's idea of a pathology of society (notwithstanding his critique of Freud), and has persuasively argued that economic transformation without changing the individual is a recipe for disaster. Vanguard Socialists have argued that the process of revolutionary struggle inherently changes human nature to prepare it for the new society - but Fromm is right, imo, to argue that this is not enough. Because the majority of people, i guess, are never fully engaged in the process of revolution, but passive witnesses to it or victims of it. But his arguments fail to bridge that gap.

Anyway, got a copy of Fear of Freedom to read too.

And isn't the title of that book such an amazing one. Not least because it describes so many of the 'free' human population.

As for the need for transformation of the self, i don't care who argues for it, it is the next great evolution for humanity. Revolution of the individual is just the only way out of our mess. That mess being constant war and fighting between humans for reasons other than need or deprivation. Our wars these days are simply driven by the greed of leaders, and allowed by the people due to their fear of freedom...

Only when enough people embrace freedom, and all the responsibility and hard work it entails, will we evolve into possibly the very beings that humans have always been capable of.

Eric Fromm remains, for me, the finest articulator and commentator on the human condition. However, he doesn't go much beyond hinting at what people should do to improve themselves.

That of course lies in the more spiritual side of things.

 

[fela fan]

Yeah got a lot of time for Fromms work. Even though I've hardly read any of it ...

Then start filling that time frogw!! The art of loving is just a beautiful little book in really accessible language.

Reading it, as with a lot of his work, it really does lead the reader into suspecting that a lot of humans spend a lot of time acting in insane ways. Insanity prevails!

 

[durruti02]

He's the daddy.

he he bit freudian but yes well him and ( early) reich are tops

 

[Barking_Mad]

Erich Fromm stuff......

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Part 4.

Radio Lecture - in 5 parts:

 

[gorski]

In addition, posts 318 and 319, by me:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=251492&page=8