Erich Fromm

In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

Summary

Erich Fromm (1900 - 1980) was well known not only as a psychoanalyst and social psychologist but also as an important representative of 20th century Humanism. He was born in Germany, had to flee the Nazis, and worked in many fields of the humanities.

His work was influential in the area of Anthropolological Aspects and Etiologies of Aggression (see Psychological Aspects of Biodanza).

Ideas

• Freedom - Fromm makes freedom the central characteristic of human nature.
• Social Unconscious - Fromm believed we often think that our way of doing things is the only way, the natural way. We have learned so well that it has all become unconscious (the Social Unconscious).
• Human Needs - Fromm believed that we have needs that go far beyond the basic, physiological ones that some people (like Sigmund Freud and many behaviorists), think explain all of our behavior.

Freedom

• Fromm describes three ways in which we escape from freedom:
  • Authoritarianism - We seek to avoid freedom by fusing ourselves with others, by becoming a part of an authoritarian system. Two approaches - one is to submit to the power of others, becoming passive and compliant - the other is to become an authority yourself, a person who applies structure to others. Either way, you escape your separate identity.
  • Destructiveness - If there is no me, how can anything hurt me? If I destroy the world, how can it hurt me? It is this escape from freedom that is repsonsible for much of the bad things in life - brutality, vandalism, humiliation, crime, ...
  • Automatonism - When we need to hide, we hide in our mass culture. If we look like, talk like, think like, feel like... everyone else then we disappear into the crowd, and we don't need to acknowledge our freedom or take responsibility.

Social Unconscious

We believe that we are acting according to our own free will, but we are only following orders we are so used to that we no longer notice them.

• Fromm lists five personality types/ orientations:
  • Receptive - These are people who expect to get what they need. if they don't get it immediately, they wait for it. They believe that all goods and satisfactions come from outside themselves.
  • Exploitative - These people expect to have to take what they need. In fact, things increase in value to the extent that they are taken from others:
  • Hoarding - Hoarding people expect to keep. They see the world as possessions and potential possessions. Even loved ones are things to possess, to keep, or to buy.
  • Marketing - The marketing orientation expects to sell. Success is a matter of how well I can sell myself, package myself, advertise myself.
  • Productive - This is a person who does not shirk from freedom and responsibility, and comes out of a family that loves without overwhelming the individual, that prefers reason to rules, and freedom to conformity.
• The first four orientations (which could be called neurotic) are living in the having mode. They focus on consuming, obtaining, possessing. They are defined by what they have.
• The productive orientation lives in the being mode. What you are is defined by your actions in this world. You live without a mask, experiencing life, relating to people, being yourself.

Human Needs

Fromm calls these human needs, in contrast to the more basic animal needs.

• He lists eight human needs:
  • Relatedness - As human beings, we are aware of our separateness from each other, and seek to overcome it. Fromm views it as love in the broadest sense. Love allows us to transcend our separateness without denying us our uniqueness.
  • Creativity - We all desire to transcend our sense of being passive creatures. There are many ways to be creative.
  • Rootedness - We need roots, to feel at home in the universe.
  • Identity - Man may be defined as the animal that can say I. We need to have a sense of identity, of individuality, in order to stay sane.
  • Orientation - We need to understand the world and our place in it. Society /religion often attempts to provide us with understanding. Myths, philosophies, and science provide us with structure.
  • Excitation/ Stimulation - Striving for a goal reather than simply responding.
  • Unity - A sense of oneness between an individual and the (natrural and human) outside world.
  • Effectiveness - The need to feel accomplished.