Fromm, Erich (1900–1980)

ERICH FROMM WAS a well-known German psychoanalyst and social psychologist. Born and raised in Frankfurt, Germany, Fromm's education was fostered by intensive religious studies, mainly Judaism. In 1922, at the age of 22, Fromm completed his doctoral studies at Heidelberg in sociology. Not too long after his graduation, at the age of 26, he denounced the Jewish roots that had shaped his young mind.

After completing his formal education, between 1929 and 1932, Fromm helped to establish the Frankfurt Psychoanalytic Institute. He was also invited to join the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research and began lecturing at the Institute and at the University of Frankfurt. By 1934, with the grip of Nazism taking over in Germany, Fromm moved to the United States. He continued to lecture between 1934 and 1950 at such prestigious institutions as Yale and Columbia universities. It was during this time that some of Fromm's most recognizable and influential works were written.

In his works and in his life, Fromm sought to combine the notions of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. While Freud held to the idea that human characteristics were crafted by biology and the unconscious, Marx saw people as products of their society. Fromm injected the notion of freedom, or as Dr. C. George Boeree stated, “He allows people to transcend the determinisms that Freud and Marx attribute to them. In fact, Fromm makes freedom the central characteristic of human nature!” [Page 181]In one of his earliest works, Escape from Freedom(1941; published in the UK as The Fear of Freedom in 1942), Fromm tried to explain why some individuals clung to the fascist regimes in Germany and Italy. It was a thorough examination of the growth of human freedom from the Middle Ages to modern times. He argued that while man seeks “freedom,” he inversely seeks to belong to a larger group. A sense of freedom often leaves one with a feeling of isolation, at which time he or she seeks out a relationship with a larger group, thus surrendering freedom to the rules and mores of the larger social order.

When the highly democratic Weimar Republic was ousted by Adolf Hitler and Nazism in 1933, German citizens were left with the choice either to flee and establish their own form of freedom or adopt the patriotic attachment to the new ruling government. Many chose the inclusive option of submitting to the fascist regime in Berlin.

Fromm's works continued in the post-World War II era with Man For Himself (1947) and The Sane Society(1956). Combined, these two works argued that the modern capitalist society was yet another form of escape from freedom. Fromm sharply attacked the contemporary culture emerging at that time and, as Douglas Kellner noted, “popularized the neo-Marxian critiques of the media and consumer society, and pro-moted democratic socialist perspectives during an era when social repression made it difficult and dangerous to advocate radical positions.”

As his career continued and his writings remained mainstays in Marxian and Freudian thinking, he penned several more books in the 1950s through the 1970s. Among these were The Art of Loving (1957), Sigmund Freud's Mission (1959), The Heart of Man (1964), and The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness(1973). Amid his writing, Fromm maintained an arduous lecturing regimen. After moving to Mexico in 1950, he helped direct the Mexican Institute of Psychoanalysis in Mexico City until 1976. His liberal humanist approach of mixing Freud and Marx kept him politically active as well.

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