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Beyond Alienation and Narcissism in the Age of Globalization

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Beyond Alienation and Narcissism in the Age of Globalization Property of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of material pro- hibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentlichungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. 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- page/Seite 1 of/von 6 Deguchi, T., 2019 Post-Truth Politics as a Pathology of Normalcy Property of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of material pro- hibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentlichungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. 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 page/Seite 2 of/von 6 Deguchi, T., 2019 Post-Truth Politics as a Pathology of Normalcy Property of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of material pro- hibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentlichungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. 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.
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