Propriety of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of material prohibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Ver- öffentlichungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers.

McLaughlin_N_2015

Review Durkin, K.: The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm

Neil McLaughlin

“Review Durkin, K.: The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm,” was first published in: Fromm Forum (English Edition – ISBN 1437-1189), 19 / 2015, Tuebingen (Selbstverlag), pp. 72-74. Copyright © 2015 by Professor Neil McLaughlin, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8 / Canada; E-mail: sociology[at-symbol]mcmaster.ca.

There is a major revival of interest going on Durkin’s great strength is a combination of in the English speaking academic world re- intellectual ambition and scholarly modesty garding the work and ideas of Erich Fromm. and care; he has produced a comprehensive Kieran Durkin’s The Radical Humanism of account of Fromm’s ideas while dealing Erich Fromm could well end up being the fairly with the existing literature. Durkin most important contribution to this project. draws at length on the insights in Rainer Fromm’s work still sells, of course, and he Funk’s The Courage to be Human (1982) retains a worldwide audience for his books. and Daniel Burston’s The Legacy of Erich And the work of the International Erich Fromm (1991), two central texts in the re- Fromm Society, active particularly in Ger- covery of Fromm’s ideas in English. But he many and throughout Europe, as well as the goes further than both authors did, produc- efforts of a number of prominent Mexican ing a balanced account of Fromm’s work psychoanalysts have laid the foundation for that puts his ideas up against the best exist- a Fromm revival through decades of bio- ing competing contemporary academic so- graphical, theoretical, clinical and empirical cial theory. And one of the highlights of the work. But the truth is the vicious and unfair book is a superb short biographical chapter, attacks launched by orthodox Freudians, where he lays out the life and early experi- dogmatic Marxists and critical theorists, Cold ences of Fromm, making the case that there War neo-conservatives, Freud bashers and is continuity to his radical humanist thought proponents of “value free” scientistic social despite shifts in focus and language over science created a context whereby Fromm several decades of writing. This engage- became a “forgotten intellectual” among elite ment with biography is extremely important intellectuals and academics in North Amer- because, for better or worse, the agenda for ica, Ireland, Great Britain and Australia. the revival of Fromm’s work in English is go- ing to be set by the reception of Lawrence Given the massive influence English lan- Friedman’s The Lives of Erich Fromm guage social science has come to have on (2013). global intellectual life, it is inevitable that Fromm’s reputation would suffer internation- Always fair and judicious, Durkin draws ally unless the mythologies about his ideas generously from Friedman’s knowledge of in English are undermined and a positive in- the history of the American left and social tellectual case is made for his theories. This sciences and his archival digging, while is a job for a social theorist. Durkin is an ex- moving beyond some of the limitations of the tremely sophisticated sociological and politi- Friedman biography. Friedman is a major cal theorist, and he has taken the debate American biographer. (His book on Erik about Fromm’s social theory to a new level. Erikson entitled Identity’s Architect is a mas- ter work with impeccable writing that draws

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on new information about Erikson that al- great scholar when he penned Escape from lowed him spell out the core motivating Freedom (1941) but descended into simplis- forces that led to his brilliant insight about tic popularizing and quasi religious and un- identity crises.) From my perspective, Fried- realistic utopianism in his later years, Durkin man’s account of Fromm’s efforts to secure deals with Fromm’s later writings seriously. release for his cousin from a Stalinist jail in Durkin has produced the single best discus- East Germany after World War II, his fund- sion in the English language literature about ing of Amnesty International, the things we Fromm of how Fromm’s writing on Nazism, learned about his relationship with the fa- his critique of modernity, his later work (with mous African-American dancer Katherine Michael Maccoby) Social Character in a Dunham, the connection between Fromm’s Mexican Village (1970) and his ambitious love for his third wife and the making of The The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness Art of Loving (1956) and the details he offers (1973) holds up to contemporary scholarship about Fromm’s political involvement with the in the empirical social sciences. disarmament movement and the American The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm political establishment including the Ken- could play a very important mediating role in nedy administration all make for an impor- the revival of Fromm’s work in the social sci- tant contribution. Friedman’s credibility and ences, partly because he engages seriously track record as a historian and the status of with the organizational leadership research his Columbia University Press publisher agenda pursued since Fromm’s death by means that Love’s Prophet will set the tone Michael Maccoby, Sonia Gojman Millán and for the reception of Fromm in English for the Salvador Millán’s important participatory ac- next decade. This practical reality makes tion social character agenda among the Durkin’s book even more important, be- Mexican poor and Mauricio Cortina’s brilliant cause as a piece of scholarship it is far su- attempt to synthesize Fromm’s theories with perior. Many Fromm scholars are critical of current attachment and evolutionary social the psychological speculation in Friedman’s psychology research. But unlike Fromm book, a tendency towards gossip, and slop- scholars who come to the theory of social piness when engaging with the secondary character through clinical work, Durkin has literature, but for me the core weakness in the time and training to engage with main- Love’s Prophet is its lack of theoretical so- stream academic sociology, philosophy, his- phistication, precisely the strength of tory and political theory. As a result, Durkin’s Durkin’s The Radical Human of Erich work is indispensible for efforts to take Fromm. Fromm back into mainstream academic The core three chapters of the book are in- work where he was discussed seriously in dispensible for a discussion of Fromm’s so- the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Particularly cial theory: “The Roots of Radical Human- important for sociologists, is Durkin’s sug- ism,” “Radical Humanist Psychoanalysis,” gestion that social character theorists en- and “Psychoanalytic Social Psychology.” gage French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s While some of the early defenses of Fromm influential concept of habitus, as Greek against orthodox Freudians and his Frank- scholar Leonidas Cheliotis has done in vari- furt School critics (my work included) some- ous social science journals. times engaged in open polemics, Durkin is Ultimately, however, Fromm’s work will be incredibly balanced and fair-minded as he revised and developed in a variety of nations examines the evidence for Fromm’s revision and languages outside of the English lan- of Freud, and the debates on this and other guage academy in North America. The re- questions that divided Horkheimer, Adorno vival will be successful when practitioners in and Marcuse from their former collogue in psychoanalytic, social work, education, the- the Frankfurt School circle. And while ology and political activism and politics find Friedman repeats the conventional wisdom ways to connect what they are doing with in North America created by sociologist masses of dissidents in their own fields. Lewis Coser that suggests Fromm was a

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Only so much will come out of the big pic- mian inspired vision Durkin argues for will ture critique of the anti humanist consensus come from political science, sociology, psy- in the social sciences and humanities that chology or philosophy disciplines as they are Durkin’s chapter five provides, followed by currently constituted. Nonetheless, Durkin’s his well written concluding case for “The book is a terrific primer on Frommian radical Renaissance of Humanism.” Read alongside humanism. It is a book worth reading, debat- Lawrence Wilde’s important Erich Fromm ing and returning to as people of good faith and the Quest for Solidarity (2004) and Joan around the world attempt to deal with cli- Braune’s provocative and inspiring Erich mate change, out of control consumerism, Fromm’s Prophetic Messianism: Towards a violence and war using the powerful analytic Critical Theory of Hope (2014), Durkin’s The tools Fromm has left us. Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm repre- sents an important step in bringing Fromm’s work back into academic discourse in the . Kieran Durkin: The Radical Humanism English speaking world and beyond. But we of Erich Fromm. New York: Palgrave must remember that the original radical hu- Macmillan, 2014; 250 p., ca. 90 Euro, manist Fromm did not emerge primarily from hard cover, ISBN: 978-1-137-43639-9. inside the academic establishment. There is thus no reason to think the powerful From-

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