'The sage knows you better than you know yourself': Psychological utopianism in Erich Fromm's work

History of Political Thought

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 86-115

  Pietikainen, Petteri ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI   (Finland)

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EID: 1442359596     PISSN: 0143781X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (153)

1. Throughout this article, 'Socialist Humanism' is capitalized in order to differentiate Fromm's version of it from the same term as used by other authors. Fromm himself did not capitalize 'Socialist Humanism'.
2. See F.E. Manuel and P.P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Cambridge, MA, 1979) for a short discussion of Fromm's utopianism. For an overall view on his life and thought, see R. Funk, Erich Fromm: His Life and Ideas (New York, 2000); and D. Burston, The Legacy of Erich Fromm (Cambridge, MA, 1991).
3. See F.E. Manuel and P.P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Cambridge, MA, 1979) for a short discussion of Fromm's utopianism. For an overall view on his life and thought, see R. Funk, Erich Fromm: His Life and Ideas (New York, 2000); and D. Burston, The Legacy of Erich Fromm (Cambridge, MA, 1991).
4. See F.E. Manuel and P.P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Cambridge, MA, 1979) for a short discussion of Fromm's utopianism. For an overall view on his life and thought, see R. Funk, Erich Fromm: His Life and Ideas (New York, 2000); and D. Burston, The Legacy of Erich Fromm (Cambridge, MA, 1991).
5. th Century Popular Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2001).
6. th Century Popular Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2001).
7. L. A. Coser, Refugee Scholars in America (New Haven, 1984), p. 74.
8. S.E. Bronner, Of Critical Theory and its Theorists (Oxford, 1994), p. 209; P. Roazen, Political Theory and the Psychology of the Unconscious (London, 2000), p. 100.
9. S.E. Bronner, Of Critical Theory and its Theorists (Oxford, 1994), p. 209; P. Roazen, Political Theory and the Psychology of the Unconscious (London, 2000), p. 100.
10. See McLaughlin, 'How to Become a Forgotten Intellectual'.
11. R. Funk, 'Erich Fromm's Life and Work', in Erich Fromm and Critical Criminology, ed. K. Anderson and R. Quinney (Urbana and Chicago, 2000), p. 14.
12. E. Fromm, 'Reminiscences of Shlomo Barukh Rabinkow', in Sages and Saints, ed. L. Jung (Hoboken, 1971/1987), pp. 99-105.
13. E. Fromm, 'Das Jüdische Gesetz' (1922), in Erich Fromm Gesamtausgabe, Band XI (Stuttgart, 1999), pp. 19-126.
14. Quoted in G.A. Hornstein, To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World (New York, 2000), p. 65.
15. E. Klein-Landskron, 'Max Horkheimer und Erich Fromm', in Erich Fromm und die Frankfurter Schule, ed. M. Kessler and R. Funk (Tübingen, 1992), pp. 161-80.
16. The reasons for the breakup are complex, for personal, intellectual and professional ties between Horkheimer and Fromm were tightly intertwined. See Erich Fromm und die Frankfurter Schule. For Fromm's own views on the Institute, see his letter to Martin Jay ('Erich Fromm an Martin Jay'), 14 May 1971, in ibid., pp. 249-56.
17. As a Marxian, Fromm took it for granted that 'socialist-revolutionary' attitudes of workers were positive, and 'conservative-authoritarian' attitudes negative. Fromm and his co-workers concluded that supporters of the workers' parties expressed 'a clearly authoritarian tendency'. Thus, the 'most important result is the small proportion of left-wingers who were in agreement in both thought and feeling with the Socialist line'. E. Fromm, The Working Class in Weimar Germany, ed. W. Bonss (London, 1984), p. 228. In short, there was a discrepancy between manifest political outlook and underlying character structure among workers. For a critical assessment of both this study and the later (1950) attempt by Theodor Adorno and his co-workers at an empirical social-psychological study of the 'authoritarian character', see F. Samelson, 'The Authoritarian Character from Berlin to Berkeley and Beyond: The Odyssey of a Problem', in Strength and Weakness: The Authoritarian Personality Today, ed. W.F. Stone, G. Lederer and R. Christie (New York, 1993), pp. 22-43.
18. As a Marxian, Fromm took it for granted that 'socialist-revolutionary' attitudes of workers were positive, and 'conservative-authoritarian' attitudes negative. Fromm and his co-workers concluded that supporters of the workers' parties expressed 'a clearly authoritarian tendency'. Thus, the 'most important result is the small proportion of left-wingers who were in agreement in both thought and feeling with the Socialist line'. E. Fromm, The Working Class in Weimar Germany, ed. W. Bonss (London, 1984), p. 228. In short, there was a discrepancy between manifest political outlook and underlying character structure among workers. For a critical assessment of both this study and the later (1950) attempt by Theodor Adorno and his co-workers at an empirical social-psychological study of the 'authoritarian character', see F. Samelson, 'The Authoritarian Character from Berlin to Berkeley and Beyond: The Odyssey of a Problem', in Strength and Weakness: The Authoritarian Personality Today, ed. W.F. Stone, G. Lederer and R. Christie (New York, 1993), pp. 22-43.
19. E. Fromm's letter to Martin Jay, 14 May 1971, p. 252. In Escape from Freedom (New York, 1941), Fromm writes that the 'social character comprises only a selection of traits, the essential nucleus of the character structure of most members of a group which has developed as the result of the basic experiences and mode of life common to that group ... [I]f we want to understand how human energy is channeled and operates as a productive force in a given social order, then the social character deserves our main interest' (pp. 277-8). He had first formulated the idea of the social character in the early 1930s. See E. Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion (London, 1962/1980), p. 75n.
20. E. Fromm's letter to Martin Jay, 14 May 1971, p. 252. In Escape from Freedom (New York, 1941), Fromm writes that the 'social character comprises only a selection of traits, the essential nucleus of the character structure of most members of a group which has developed as the result of the basic experiences and mode of life common to that group ... [I]f we want to understand how human energy is channeled and operates as a productive force in a given social order, then the social character deserves our main interest' (pp. 277-8). He had first formulated the idea of the social character in the early 1930s. See E. Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion (London, 1962/1980), p. 75n.
21. P. Roazen. 'The Exclusion of Erich Fromm from the IPA', Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 37 (1) (2001), pp. 5-42.
22. E. Fromm, Sigmund Freud's Mission: An Analysis of His Personality and Influence (New York, 1959).
23. R.I. Evans, Dialogue with Erich Fromm (New York, 1966/1981), p. 74.
24. M. Maccoby, 'The Two Voices of Erich Fromm: The Prophetic and the Analytic', in A Prophetic Analyst: Erich Fromm's Contribution to Psychoanalysis, ed. M. Cortina and M. Maccoby (Northvale, NJ, 1996), p. 74.
25. Funk, Erich Fromm, p. 145.
26. See E. Fromm, Man for Himself (New York, 1947).
27. For a short account of SANE see P. Buhle, 'Peace movements', in Encyclopedia of the American Left, ed. M.J. Buhle, P. Buhle and D. Georgakas (New York and Oxford, 1998), pp. 592-8.
28. E. Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, p. 10. On Fromm's activism in the peace movement, see H.A. Jack, 'Die Friedensbewegung und Erich Fromm', in Der unbekannte Fromm: Biographische Studien, ed. L. von Werder (Frankfurt, 1987), pp. 61-70.
29. E. Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, p. 10. On Fromm's activism in the peace movement, see H.A. Jack, 'Die Friedensbewegung und Erich Fromm', in Der unbekannte Fromm: Biographische Studien, ed. L. von Werder (Frankfurt, 1987), pp. 61-70.
30. Glenn Perusek defines Cold War liberalism 'by its low toleration of deviation from a narrow definition of citizenship. Intolerance was used as a tool, first of all, against the unions, then to sanitize much of American society against principled dissent.' G. Perusek, 'Shifting Terrain: Styles of Liberalism, Periodization, and Levels of Analysis', International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 15 (3) (2002), p. 417. For an overall account of American liberalism in the early Cold War era, see R. Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and the 1950s (New York, 1985). See also P. Buhle, Marxism in the United States (London, 1991).
31. Glenn Perusek defines Cold War liberalism 'by its low toleration of deviation from a narrow definition of citizenship. Intolerance was used as a tool, first of all, against the unions, then to sanitize much of American society against principled dissent.' G. Perusek, 'Shifting Terrain: Styles of Liberalism, Periodization, and Levels of Analysis', International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 15 (3) (2002), p. 417. For an overall account of American liberalism in the early Cold War era, see R. Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and the 1950s (New York, 1985). See also P. Buhle, Marxism in the United States (London, 1991).
32. Glenn Perusek defines Cold War liberalism 'by its low toleration of deviation from a narrow definition of citizenship. Intolerance was used as a tool, first of all, against the unions, then to sanitize much of American society against principled dissent.' G. Perusek, 'Shifting Terrain: Styles of Liberalism, Periodization, and Levels of Analysis', International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 15 (3) (2002), p. 417. For an overall account of American liberalism in the early Cold War era, see R. Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and the 1950s (New York, 1985). See also P. Buhle, Marxism in the United States (London, 1991).
33. E. Fromm, The Sane Society (New York, 1955/1969), p. viii.
34. Ibid., p. 103.
35. N. Pressman, Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine (Cambridge, 1998), p. 20.
36. Fromm, The Sane Society, pp. 72, 193.
37. Ibid., p. 203.
38. Ibid., p. 168.
39. Ibid., p. 360.
40. See E. Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man (New York, 1961/1983), pp. 43-57; E. Fromm, The Dogma of Christ and Other Essays on Religion, Psychology and Culture (New York, 1963), pp. 95-106.
41. See E. Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man (New York, 1961/1983), pp. 43-57; E. Fromm, The Dogma of Christ and Other Essays on Religion, Psychology and Culture (New York, 1963), pp. 95-106.
42. Evans, Dialogue with Erich Fromm, p. 89.
43. Fromm, The Sane Society, p. 121.
44. See N. Lobkowics, 'Alienation', in Marxism, Communism and Western Society, Vol. 1, ed. C.D. Kernig (New York, 1972), pp. 88-109.
45. Quoted in T.A. Cooney, The Rise of the New York Intellectuals (Madison, WI, 1986), p. 241.
46. For a critique of the way modern Western intellectuals, including Fromm, have conceptualized alienation, see P. Hollander, Political Pilgrims (New York, 1983).
47. Fromm, The Sane Society, p. 358.
48. Ibid., p. 359.
49. See Evans, Dialogue with Erich Fromm, p. 56.
50. See E. Dolnick, Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis (New York, 1998).
51. Fromm, The Sane Society, p. 82. It was typical of Fromm in his writings to characterize the family as the 'psychic agency of society'. This definition fitted in well with his theory of social character.
52. F. de Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master (New York, 2001), p. 291.
53. See E. Fromm, 'The Significance of the Theory of Mother Right for Today' (1970) and 'The Theory of Mother Right and its Relevance for Social Psychology' (1934), both in E. Fromm, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis (New York, 1970). See also E. Fromm, Love, Sexuality, and Matriarchy, ed. R. Funk (New York, 1997).
54. See E. Fromm, 'The Significance of the Theory of Mother Right for Today' (1970) and 'The Theory of Mother Right and its Relevance for Social Psychology' (1934), both in E. Fromm, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis (New York, 1970). See also E. Fromm, Love, Sexuality, and Matriarchy, ed. R. Funk (New York, 1997).
55. See E. Fromm, 'The Significance of the Theory of Mother Right for Today' (1970) and 'The Theory of Mother Right and its Relevance for Social Psychology' (1934), both in E. Fromm, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis (New York, 1970). See also E. Fromm, Love, Sexuality, and Matriarchy, ed. R. Funk (New York, 1997).
56. Fromm, The Sane Society, pp. 270-352.
57. Years later Michael Maccoby tried to find out what happened to Boimondeau. He learned that the 'factory did not survive in the competitive marketplace. Like many other promising and short-lived cooperative enterprises, Boimondeau depended on an exceptional leader who left.' Maccoby, 'The Two Voices of Erich Fromm', p. 70.
58. For his later discussion of the guaranteed income, see E. Fromm, The Revolution of Hope (New York, 1968), pp. 126-8; and E. Fromm, 'The Psychological Aspects of the Guaranteed Income' (1966), in E. Fromm, On Disobedience and Other Essays (New York, 1981), pp. 91-101.
59. For his later discussion of the guaranteed income, see E. Fromm, The Revolution of Hope (New York, 1968), pp. 126-8; and E. Fromm, 'The Psychological Aspects of the Guaranteed Income' (1966), in E. Fromm, On Disobedience and Other Essays (New York, 1981), pp. 91-101.
60. These practical suggestions of Fromm are not fantastic and utopian. In fact the idea of a guaranteed income has resurfaced in recent years in political discussions in Europe (e.g. in the Nordic countries). The accomplished reforms in adult education in Western societies are compatible with Fromm's proposal, and the strictly hierarchical, inflexible workplace that Fromm criticized is increasingly a relic in today's information society. The whole Aristotelian-communitarian ideal that Fromm promoted has re-emerged in Anglo-American philosophy in recent decades (see, for example, the works of Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre).
61. For Fromm's later discussion of a 'sane' and a 'sick' society, see Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, pp. 41-59.
62. For a critique of liberalism from the right wing of the political spectrum, see J. Burnham, Suicide of the West (London, 1965). Burnham's basic thesis here is that liberalism is the 'ideology of Western suicide'.
63. For a history of socialism in Western Europe, see D. Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century (London, 1996).
64. Erich Fromm, 'Let Man Prevail: A Socialist Manifesto and Program', in Fromm, On Disobedience, p. 71.
65. Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man; Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion.
66. Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man; Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion.
67. E. Fromm, 'Introduction', in Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium, ed. E. Fromm (New York, 1965), p. x.
68. E. Fromm to K. Polanyi, 14 April 1960. Quotation with permission of the Literary Estate of Erich Fromm, Tübingen (address: Rainer Funk, Ursrainer Ring 24, D-72076 Tübingen).
69. Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, p. 11. He later regretted that he had made this evaluative comparison. See his letter to Martin Jay, 14 May 1971, in Erich Fromm und die Frankfurter Schule, p. 252.
70. Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, p. 11. He later regretted that he had made this evaluative comparison. See his letter to Martin Jay, 14 May 1971, in Erich Fromm und die Frankfurter Schule, p. 252.
71. E. Fromm, 'The Application of Humanist Psychoanalysis to Marx's Theory', in Socialist Humanism, p. 244.
72. 'The main motive and aim of my work has been a synthesis of psychoanalytic and Marxian thought.' Fromm to Martin Jay, 14 May 1971, in Erich Fromm und die Frankfurter Schule, p. 251. See also Fromm, 'The Application of Humanist Psychoanalysis to Marx's Theory'.
73. 'The main motive and aim of my work has been a synthesis of psychoanalytic and Marxian thought.' Fromm to Martin Jay, 14 May 1971, in Erich Fromm und die Frankfurter Schule, p. 251. See also Fromm, 'The Application of Humanist Psychoanalysis to Marx's Theory'.
74. Fromm rejected Althusser's contribution to the collection of essays on Socialist Humanism that he was editing. See Fromm's letter to Althusser, 8 January 1964, and Althusser's letter to Adam Schaff, 1 February 1964, both in the Erich Fromm Archives, Tübingen.
75. The Praxis group denotes a group of Marxist philosophers and sociologists who focused on Marx's idea of praxis, or self-creative activity. In 1964 they founded the journal Praxis, which published a translation of one of Fromm's essays on Marx. From the 1960s onwards many of Fromm's articles and books were translated into Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Polish and, in the 1990s, Russian.
76. Heinz Brandt was a German Communist who in the 1930s fought Nazism and spent most of the time between 1933 and 1945 in a penitentiary and concentration camp. After the war he lived in East Germany, but became disillusioned with the Ulbricht regime. To avoid arrest he fled with his family to West Germany, where he found a job as an editor of a trade union newspaper (Metall). In 1961 he travelled to West Berlin to attend a trade union congress. Suddenly, he disappeared. It was soon discovered that he had been captured by the East German secret police and brought to East Berlin (this was just before the erection of the Berlin Wall). After spending a year in jail, Brandt was secretly tried and sentenced to thirteen years in the penitentiary in East Germany. However, thanks to the efforts of Fromm and some other public figures, most notably Bertrand Russell, Brandt was released in 1964. He returned to West Germany and wrote a book about his life and work (The Search For a Third Way, 1970). Fromm wrote the foreword to Brandt's book. A copy of Bertrand Russell's letter to East Germany's prime minister Ulbricht (dated 26 January 1963) can be found in the Erich Fromm Archives in Tübingen.
77. T. Bottomore, 'Fromm, Erich', in A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, ed. T. Bottomore (Oxford, 1991), p. 213. '[H]is [Fromm's] ideas and even more his gift for popularization made him an important figure for the early New Left.' H. Paget, 'Erich Fromm', in Encyclopedia of the American Left, p. 248.
78. T. Bottomore, 'Fromm, Erich', in A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, ed. T. Bottomore (Oxford, 1991), p. 213. '[H]is [Fromm's] ideas and even more his gift for popularization made him an important figure for the early New Left.' H. Paget, 'Erich Fromm', in Encyclopedia of the American Left, p. 248.
79. T. Bottomore to B. Betz, 17 July 1972, in B. Betz, An Analysis of the Prophetic Character of the Dialectical Rhetoric of Erich Fromm (PhD Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1974), p. 334.
80. V.I. Dobrenkov, Neo-Freudians in Search of 'Truth' (Moscow, 1976) p. 140.
81. F. Erös, 'Fromm's Theory and the Problems of "Real Existing" Socialism', in Wissenschaft vom Menschen/Science of Man - Yearbook of the International Erich Fromm Society, Band 2 (Münster/Hamburg, 1991), p. 315.
82. Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, p. 154.
83. B. Goodwin and K. Taylor, The Politics of Utopia (London, 1982), p. 81.
84. W. Goldstein, 'Messianism and Marxism: Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch's Dialectical Theories of Secularisation', Critical Sociology, 21 (2002), pp. 246-81.
85. Fromm, The Revolution of Hope, p. 19n.
86. Ibid., p. 58.
87. Ibid., p. 107.
88. Karl Popper called utopian rationalism 'pseudo-rationalism' and 'self-defeating rationalism' in his famous critique of utopianism. See K. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (London, 1963), pp. 358-76.
89. Fromm, The Revolution of Hope, p. 151.
90. As his biographer points out: 'After the publication of To Have or to Be? [in 1976], Fromm became almost as well known in Europe as he had been during the 'sixties in America.' Funk, Erich Fromm, p. 162.
91. As his biographer points out: 'After the publication of To Have or to Be? [in 1976], Fromm became almost as well known in Europe as he had been during the 'sixties in America.' Funk, Erich Fromm, p. 162.
92. Fromm, 'Introduction', in Socialist Humanism, p. ix.
93. See L.T. Sargent, 'The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited', Utopian Studies, 5 (1994), pp. 1-37.
94. The closest Freud got to utopianism was probably in the last pages of his critical book-length essay on religion, The Future of an Illusion (1927), in which he saw the advancement of irreligious education and the primacy of the intellect as giving hope for the future.
95. See P. Pietikainen, 'Utopianism in Psychology: The Case of Wilhelm Reich', Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 38 (2) (2002), pp. 157-75.
96. L.T. Sargent, 'The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited', p. 9.
97. See the Index of Fromm's Gesamtausgabe, Band X and Band XII ('Utopie', 'Utopismus').
98. But see also E. Fromm, 'Meister Eckhart und Karl Marx: Die reale Utopie der Orientierung am Sein' (1974), in Gesamtausgabe, Band XII, pp. 485-526.
99. E. Fromm, 'Vorwort zu Edward Bellamy "Looking Backward" ', Gesamtausgabe, Band V, pp. 273-84 (orig. E. Bellamy, Looking Backward (New York, 1960)).
100. E. Fromm, 'Vorwort zu Edward Bellamy "Looking Backward"', Gesamtausgabe, Band V, pp. 273-84 (orig. E. Bellamy, Looking Backward (New York, 1960)).
101. E. Fromm, 'Nachwort zu George Orwell "1984" ', Gesamtausgabe, Band V, pp. 285-93 (orig. G. Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (New York, 1961)).
102. E. Fromm, 'Nachwort zu George Orwell "1984" ', Gesamtausgabe, Band V, pp. 285-93 (orig. G. Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (New York, 1961)).
103. Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, p. 162.
104. Fromm, The Revolution of Hope, p. 169.
105. E. Fromm, The Heart of Man (New York, 1964).
106. See Fromm, The Revolution of Hope, pp. 60 ff.
107. Ibid., p. 79.
108. On Fromm's discussion of Marx's 'dynamic psychology', see E. Fromm, 'Marx's Contribution to the Knowledge of Man', in Fromm, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis, pp. 46-58.
109. Fromm, 'Marx's Contribution to the Knowledge of Man', p. 68.
110. Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 11 (Jerusalem, 1971), p. 1410.
111. Ibid., p. 1411.
112. Quoted in ibid., p. 1416.
113. M. Brumlik, 'Messianic Thinking in the Jewish Intelligentsia of the Twenties', in Wissenschaft vom Menschen/Science of Man, pp. 20-32. See also Z. Tarr and J. Marcus, 'Erich Fromm und das Judentum', in Erich Fromm und die Frankfurter Schule, pp. 211-20.
114. M. Brumlik, 'Messianic Thinking in the Jewish Intelligentsia of the Twenties', in Wissenschaft vom Menschen/Science of Man, pp. 20-32. See also Z. Tarr and J. Marcus, 'Erich Fromm und das Judentum', in Erich Fromm und die Frankfurter Schule, pp. 211-20.
115. E. Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (Harmondsworth, 1973/1987), p. 154. In his reference to the 'cash nexus', Fromm repeated the claims of Marx and Engels, who had picked up the term from the work of another nineteenth-century social critic, Thomas Carlyle (who wrote in 1839 that 'Cash Payment has become the sole nexus of man to man!'). On the 'Cash Nexus' and the 'breakdown of connections' as discussed in nineteenth-century sociology, see B. Mazlish, A New Science (Oxford, 1989).
116. E. Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (Harmondsworth, 1973/1987), p. 154. In his reference to the 'cash nexus', Fromm repeated the claims of Marx and Engels, who had picked up the term from the work of another nineteenth-century social critic, Thomas Carlyle (who wrote in 1839 that 'Cash Payment has become the sole nexus of man to man!'). On the 'Cash Nexus' and the 'breakdown of connections' as discussed in nineteenth-century sociology, see B. Mazlish, A New Science (Oxford, 1989).
117. E. Fromm, You Shall Be as Gods (New York, 1966), pp. 12-13.
118. E. Fromm to Betz, 14 October 1972, in B. Betz, An Analysis of the Prophetic Character of the Dialectical Rhetoric of Erich Fromm, p. 331.
119. E. Fromm to A. Schaff, 13 January 1965. Quotation with permission of the Literary Estate of Erich Fromm, Tübingen.
120. See D.T. Suzuki and E. Fromm, Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis (New York, 1960).
121. K. Kumar, Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times (Oxford, 1987), p. 421.
122. Sargent, 'The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited', p. 21.
123. For an insightful analysis of psychoanalysis as a doctrine of secular salvation, see E. Gellner, The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason (London, 1993).
124. For a discussion of the constructivist myth of the Blank Slate (tabula rasa), see S. Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York, 2002).
125. M. Maccoby, Toward a Science of Social Character', International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 11 (2002), pp. 33-44.
126. See E. Fromm, The Revision of Psychoanalysis, ed. Rainer Funk (Boulder, CO, 1992).
127. N. McLaughlin, 'Optimal Marginality: Innovation and Orthodoxy in Fromm's Revision of Psychoanalysis', The Sociological Quarterly, 42 (2001), p. 279.
128. P.A. Robinson, The Freudian Left (New York, 1969), p. 5; R. Jacoby, Social Amnesia (Hassocks, 1975), p. 15; S. Frosh, The Politics of Psychoanalysis (Houndmills, 1987), p. 163.
129. P.A. Robinson, The Freudian Left (New York, 1969), p. 5; R. Jacoby, Social Amnesia (Hassocks, 1975), p. 15; S. Frosh, The Politics of Psychoanalysis (Houndmills, 1987), p. 163.
130. P.A. Robinson, The Freudian Left (New York, 1969), p. 5; R. Jacoby, Social Amnesia (Hassocks, 1975), p. 15; S. Frosh, The Politics of Psychoanalysis (Houndmills, 1987), p. 163.
131. See N. McLaughlin, 'Origin Myths in the Social Sciences: Fromm, the Frankfurt School and the Emergence of Critical Theory', Canadian Journal of Sociology, 24 (1999), pp. 109-39. For Fromm's view of Marcuse, see especially E. Fromm, 'The Alleged Radicalism of Herbert Marcuse', in Fromm, The Revision of Psychoanalysis, pp. 111-29.
132. See N. McLaughlin, 'Origin Myths in the Social Sciences: Fromm, the Frankfurt School and the Emergence of Critical Theory', Canadian Journal of Sociology, 24 (1999), pp. 109-39. For Fromm's view of Marcuse, see especially E. Fromm, 'The Alleged Radicalism of Herbert Marcuse', in Fromm, The Revision of Psychoanalysis, pp. 111-29.
133. Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man, p. 63 (italics added).
134. E. Fromm, 'Values, Psychology, and Human Existence' (1959), in Fromm, On Disobedience, p. 1.
135. Fromm, The Dogma of Christ, p. 176.
136. Ibid., p. 67.
137. Fromm, 'The Application of Humanist Psychoanalysis to Marx's Theory', p. 243.
138. I. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford, 1969), p. lii.
139. See I. Berlin, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment (Oxford, 1939), in which Berlin critically examines Marx's historical theodicy.
140. See J. Gray, Isaiah Berlin (Princeton, NJ, 1996), for a discussion of Berlin's challenge to the liberal tradition.
141. G. Perusek, 'Shifting Terrain: Styles of Liberalism, Periodization, and Levels of Analysis'.
142. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, p. 122.
143. The term was coined by John Gray to illustrate Berlin's political outlook. See Gray, Isaiah Berlin.
144. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, p. xlii.
145. Ibid., p. lvii.
146. Ibid., p. 169.
147. Ibid., p. xlvii.
148. Fromm, The Revolution of Hope, p. 91.
149. J.H. Schaar, Escape from Authority: The Perspectives of Erich Fromm (New York, 1961), p. 6.
150. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, pp. 149-50.
151. E. Fromm, 'Prophets and Priests' (1967), in Fromm, On Disobiedience, p. 43.
152. For an insightful (and influential) account of reciprocal altruism from an evolutionary perspective, see R. Trivers, 'The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism', Quarterly Review of Biology, 46 (1971), pp. 35-57.
153. This assessment does not mean that Fromm's utopian ideas are perforce inferior to more analytic and less normative forms of political thought. One could plausibly contend that it is exactly because of his utopian inclinations that Fromm's political thought is worth discussing. For a defence of utopianism in political thought, see Goodwin and Taylor, The Politics of Utopia.