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Deguchi_T_2019
Post-Truth Politics as a Pathology of Normalcy Beyond Alienation and Narcissism in the Age of Globalization
Takeshi Deguchi
„Post-Truth Politics as a Pathology of Normalcy: Beyond Alienation and Narcissism in the Age of Globalization“, in: Fromm Forum (English Edition – ISSN 1437-1189), 23 / 2019 (Special Edition), Tuebingen (Selbstverlag), pp. 161-168. Copyright © 2019 by Takeshi Deguchi, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, The University of Tokyo, Japan; E-Mail: deguchi[at-symbol]da2.so-net.ne.jp
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to public opinion than the appeals to emotion examine post-truth politics using Erich and personal belief.« The United King- Fromm’s theory of narcissism and dom’s European Union membership refer- showing a route towards a sane socie- endum and the 2016 United States presi- ty in Fromm’s sense. Post-truth situa- dential election are often considered ex- tions are generated by negative syner- emplary political events driven by this phe- gistic effects between narcissistic psy- nomenon. In Japan, since the Brexit Refer- chological tendencies and social me- endum and the 2016 US presidential elec- dia. Both of them have so-called filter tion, Posuto Shinjitsu, or Post-truth, has bubble effects which segregate people become a popular topic of discussion from inner and outer reality. The pro- among the general population. It is true cess of integrating an unknown expe- that some Japanese media researchers say rience or reality into the self produces that the Japanese political climate is rela- a new experience. That is a definition tively free from post-truth situations be- of Fromm’s love and the way to over- cause Japan is linguistically and geopoliti- come narcissism. cally isolated from European countries and the U.S. However, post-truth political sce- Keywords: Erich Fromm, post-truth narios can also often be observed in Japan. politics, narcissism, alienation, self- For example, hate speeches based on a love, self-interest. misunderstanding of colonial history, made by right-wing politicians and activists Introduction against Korean people living in Japan, are a The aim of this study is to examine post- serious problem. The Korean population in truth politics using Erich Fromm's theory of Japan are the descendants of people who narcissism and to show a route towards a emigrated from the former colonial Korean »sane society,« in Fromm's sense. Peninsula to the Empire of Japan before and during the Second World War. »Post-truth,« according to Oxford Diction- aries, refers »to circumstances in which ob- My paper is divided into four parts. First, I jective facts are less influential in shaping will explain what »post-truth« is by focus-
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ing on the architecture of social media, in- media provide their users a personalized cluding Twitter or Facebook. Post-truth sit- »filter bubble.« Filter bubble refers to a uations are generated by negative syner- situation in which people are surrounded gistic effects between narcissistic psycho- by facts they want to know regardless of logical tendencies and social media. I will whether or not these facts are true. argue that social media give rise to a »filter Furthermore, in post-truth politics it is no bubble.« Second, I will re-construct use denying subjective reality by showing Fromm's narcissism theory as a critical so- objective facts, because people do not cial theory by describing the theoretical merely disrespect facts but actively believe development from Sigmund Freud to Erich in »alternative facts,« which are »objec- Fromm. Here, I will pay special attention to tive« from their perspective. three key points, namely self-relation, self- interest and group-narcissism. Third, I will Briefly, post-truth politics has two charac- diagnose post-truth politics as a pathology teristics: first, it binds people together and of »normalcy.« Finally, I will argue that forms a very emotional aggregate where Fromm shows a way to recover from nar- groups are isolated from each other, and cissism through individual self-transfor- second, people believe in their own objec- mation and social movements. tive facts which are psychologically real for them. Post-truth politics and social media Narcissism from Freud to Fromm The Oxford Dictionary definition and the above-mentioned events show us that in Fromm himself regards narcissism as one post-truth situations people disrespect or of Freud's great findings in psychoanalysis. distort objective facts and they are divided For Freud, narcissism is immediately relat- into friends and enemies who are emo- ed to his libidinal theory. He postulates the tionally opposed to each other. This indif- existence of two types of drives: one is ference to objective facts and emotional ego-instinct or psychical interest and the cohesion are brought about by the archi- other is sexual instinct. Narcissism can be tecture of social media. First, users make defined as a state of individual mind in friends only with people who have similar which the libidinal sexual instinct, which political beliefs or personal preferences has been withdrawn from the external and, consequently, read only their favorite world or objects, has been directed to the posts or news. Second, users can easily ego. share or retweet contributed articles with To develop Freud's clinical theory of an in- the push of one button and, therefore, dividual pathology into a critical social the- these articles are spread widely and in- ory using Fromm's theory, I will introduce stantly without any fact-checking. Third, by three concepts: self-relation, self-interest using website algorithms, social media and group narcissism. cannot only selectively block news and posts which individual users dislike but also The concept of self-relation aims to shed distribute only the information that users light on the relationship of the self to the want to read. self itself. Put simply, the relationship of the subject to the object can be never sep- By combining these three aspects, social arated from the relationship of the subject
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to the subject itself. We can find this idea for their inner emptiness with overestima- clearly in Fromm's distinction between self- tions of themselves or the group to which ishness and self-love. According to Fromm, they belong. They may also appear selfish Freud is strongly influenced by the bour- because they must satisfy their vanity. geois materialism of his age and, conse- Now that we have established that the quently, cannot think of psychical power narcissistic psychical tendency of selfish- without material power. Freud identifies ness is caused by a lack of love for both self the psychical instinct with sexual energy and others, the next step is to investigate because psychical and physical behaviors narcissistic people's subjective reality. are strongly interrelated in sexual phe- Fromm himself pays attention to historical nomena. Based on this, Freund concludes changes in the ethics of self-interest. that the more people love themselves, the Fromm's concept of self-interest appears in less they love others, because the total the form of »selfishness, self-love and self- amount of sexual energy derived from the interest« in Man for Himself (1947a), a re- libidinal instinct is relatively constant. vised version of »selfishness and self-love« Fromm thinks that sexual desire and love coined in 1939 (Fromm 1939b). are often mixed, but they must also be Fromm argues that the meaning of self- separated in that, while sexual desire aims interest has changed drastically from an- exclusively at being satisfied, love is an ex- cient Greek philosophers, through Spinoza, pression of life itself and the power to gen- to modern culture. Fromm notes, like erate something new, such as thoughts, Michel Foucault in his later writings, that in emotions and experiences, both in the sub- ancient Greek self-interest refers to the ject and the object of love. In other words, care of the self. This idea can be seen in the the relationship of the subject to the object Stoic School of Cicero and Seneca. In Spi- can be never separated from the relation- noza, self-interest is identical to self- ship of the subject to the subject itself. preservation or the ego-instinct in the Fromm suggests that people who can love Freudian sense and refers to the full devel- others can also love themselves, while on opment of human potentialities. Fromm the other hand, people who fail to love names these ethics »the art of being.« themselves are also unable to love others, because both the self and others are the However, in modern culture the meaning object of the love of the self. It follows of self-interest has evolved into selfishness from what we have discussed above that in or »subjective« interest in material goals: Fromm narcissism involves psychical status, honour, success, power, money and tendencies caused by the lack of self-love, so on. Consequently, paradoxically, self- while Freud regards narcissism as loving interest assumes an ethically negative the self too much. character. By contrast, ancient Greek phi- losophers and Spinoza consider self- Fromm explains narcissistic people's emo- interest an objective goal. To realize this tional attachment to themselves, to their goal people should have knowledge of own group or to what they have through themselves; in our modern society self- overcompensation. People who cannot interest is just a collection of »subjective« love are not able to generate anything on preferences. Material goals outside and their own. Thus, they cannot but make up transcending individuals are much more
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»real« and ironically more »objective« than tic people who share the same beliefs or inner self-interest. preferences bind together in an extremely tight way because such people tend to be From the criteria of modern culture, narcis- fond of those who are similar to them- sists are seemingly too interested in them- selves. In addition, since narcissistic indi- selves; however, from the perspective of viduals who belong to the same aggregate Fromm's art of being, narcissists lose ob- think and behave as a collective and in sim- jective goals and do not take care of them- ilar ways, the psychologies of individuals selves and are occupied, or rather, alienat- are applicable to the collective phenome- ed, by various kinds of outer goals and non. idols which transcend themselves. It may also be noted that instead of the Subjective reality and alienation ego-instinct Freud himself uses an expres- Now we must return to and diagnose post- sion of »ego-interest« or »psychical inter- truth politics from the perspective of a crit- est.« We could say that Fromm also under- ical social theory of narcissism. People in stands Freud's ego-instinct or self- post-truth situations experience a subjec- preservation within the stream of ethical tive reality surrounded by a filter bubble thought on »self-interest« from ancient and also form tight emotional binds with Greece to modern society. people who share their beliefs or prefer- In summary, Fromm's considerations of ences. In other words, they are included self-interest show us that the »subjective« within another, bigger bubble which sepa- reality of our everyday life can conceal our rates the in-group and the out-group. Un- objective self-interest. This perspective der these circumstances, brought about by constitutes a critical base for analyzing so- social media, narcissistic psychical tenden- cial phenomena. We shall return to this cies such as overestimation of the self and point later. one's membership group, or one's attach- ment to subjective reality are strength- Let us now leave self-interest and turn to ened. The same tendencies in turn increase group narcissism. Fromm distinguishes one's dependence on social media. group narcissism from individual narcissism in The Heart of Man (1964a). To establish a Before we address the move towards a critical social theory of narcissism, it is im- sane society, I would like to return to portant to examine the gap between the Fromm's self-relation or self-love and self- individual and the collective levels. Fromm interest as discussed above. From the ethi- does not develop a thorough theoretical cal point of view, narcissistic tendencies explanation here; however, we can con- are generated by a psychological state clude the following of both the societal and which is alienated from self-love and self- individual processes. interest. To Fromm, love is an expression of life itself and the power to generate At the societal level, through the introduc- something new. By realizing self-love, peo- tion of the theory of the social construction ple can have the new experience of pro- of reality, it can be argued that reality is es- ducing ideas and emotions, which is the sentially subjective but becomes objective experience of »becoming« or Werden. We through the intersubjective process of in- can say briefly that through self-love and teraction. At the individual level, narcissis-
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self-interest people will be able to move social character, which function as filters. out from self-alienation and emancipate In this sense, narcissistic people in post- themselves from narcissistic tendencies truth circumstances are surrounded not such as »subjective« overestimation at the only by the outer filter of social media but individual level. To clarify this emancipa- also the inner filters of language, grammar tory process, I will address Fromm's con- and social character. Hence, these people cepts of being conscious and unconscious. cannot fully access their own experiences and, consequently, construct a distorted For Fromm, it can be said that our subjec- reality. tive reality is constructed and maintained by the filter effects of language and gram- Towards a sane society mar. People cannot necessarily perceive our whole experience of our inner and The way to control narcissistic tendencies outer worlds. Due to the filter effects of is to expand the conscious against the un- language and grammar, some aspects of conscious. For Fromm, the conscious and our experience are accessible to us but the unconscious experience of reality are others are not. Consequently, we are »con- not firmly disconnected. Fromm refutes a scious« of the experience of realities which spatial image of the unconsciousness and we can approach; however, other aspects warns us that we should not think of the of our reality remain in our unconscious- unconscious as a secret underground room ness. which people can never access. We can re- cover from narcissistic tendencies to an ex- To make this process clear, Fromm refers tent we can become aware of the uncon- to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis from cultur- scious and can integrate it into the con- al anthropology. The Sapir-Whorf hypothe- scious. The more clearly we are aware of sis states that everyday ways of living and the unconscious, the more objective we thinking are closely connected to language can be. However, it is impossible to be ob- and grammar. Differences in culture and jective at a point distant from the subjec- ways of life depend on different languages tive self. Therefore, being objective means and grammars. Put another way, the reali- that we experience an ongoing process of ties in which people live vary from culture being conscious of the unconscious and by to culture. There is no sole and objective doing so, subjectivity is opened towards an reality; rather, there exist various realities. unperceived experience and decentralized. Fromm adds social character (personality structure) and the repression of society to At the societal level, Fromm says that it is language and grammar as cognitive filters. relatively easy to direct narcissistic energy Social character and repression also give to challenges which human beings must rise to collective consciousness, or a »social deal with: starvation, disease or disaster. If consciousness,« which people in certain we can cooperate and produce something groups or societies cannot perceive. important, we can be proud of it together. We must here again return to self-love and Within the individual self, there exist two self-interest. The process of integrating an kinds of cognitive objects: one of which we unknown experience into the self and the are conscious, and the other of which we de-centralization of the subject produce a are unconscious. They are distinguished new experience. In conclusion, we can say from each other by language, grammar and
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the best way towards a sane society or a Fromm, E. (1964a): The Heart of Man: Its Geni- society free from narcissism is, both at in- us for Good and Evil, New York (Harper & dividual and societal levels, to produce Row). something new through the cooperation or Fromm, E. (1979a): Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought unification of heterogeneous and some- , New York (Harper & Row). times conflicting elements. That is the def- Funk, R. (1994): »Gibt es einen neuen autoritä- inition of love in Fromm's sense. ren Charakter?« Vortrag beim IX. Forum der International Federation of Psychoanalytic References Societies »Psychoanalysis at the Threshold Fromm, E. (1939b): »Selfishness and Self-love,« of the XXI Century Florenz, 12. bis 15. Mai in: E. Fromm, Love, Sexuality, and Matriar- 1994. chy, New York (Fromm International Pub- Funk, R. (2008): »Die Ursachen der Gewalt— lishing Corporation) 1997, pp. 163-195. nicht nur im Faschismus,« Vortrag am 12. Fromm, E. (1947a): Man for Himself, New York November 2008 im Evangelischen Gemein- (Rinehart). dehaus von Wittlich im Rahmen der Veran- Fromm, E. (1955a): The Sane Society, New York staltungen zu »70 Jahre Reichskristallnacht« (Rinehart). Oxford Dictionary: Definition of post-truth in Fromm, E. (1956a): The Art of Loving, New York English (Oxford University Press): (Harper & Row). https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definitio Fromm, E., Suzuki, D. T., and Martino, R. D. n/post-truth (1960a): Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, Sakurai, T. (2018): Political Theories of Narcis- New York (Harper & Row). sism: Towards Self-Reflection on Knowledge Fromm, E. (1962a): Beyond the Chains of Illu- and Politics from the Psychoanalytic Per- sion: My encounter with Marx and Freud, spectives of Erich Fromm and Fujita Shozo New York (Simon and Schuster). (Politikwissenschaft), Münster (Lit Verlag).
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