Chapter 8: Erich Fromm Flashcards
1
Q
Biography of Erich Fromm
Birth-Death, Wife, and Influenced by..?
A
Birth: March 23, 1900, in Frankfurt, Germany
Death: March 18, 1980, in Muralto, Switzerland
Wife: Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, a Psychoanalyst
Influenced by: The writings of Freud
2
Q
Fromm’s Basic Assumptions
A
- Human personality can only be understood in the light of history
- Humans have been torn away from their prehistoric union with nature
- Left with no powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world
- Instead, we have acquired the ability to reason the “Human dilemma” as Fromm calls it
3
Q
Human/Existential Needs
A
- Fulfilling animal needs (basic survival) cannot fulfill Human Dilemma (HD), only by satisfying the Human needs can this (HD) be achieved, and reunification with the natural world starts.
- Fromm: Human needs are existential needs
a. Relatedness - Isolation vs Social
b. Transcendence - Destroy vs Create
c. Rootedness - Stay with Mom vs Independence
d. Sense of Identity - Conformity vs Individuality
e. Frame of Orientation - Philosophy in Life
4
Q
Relatedness
A
- Our desire for union with another person
- Relate through 3 ways:
Nonproductive:
(1) - Submission
(2) - Power
Productive:
(3) - Love (the only one capable of solving Human Dilemma)
Love - the ability to unite with another while retaining one’s own individuality and integrity.
5
Q
Transcendence
A
- to transcend or rise above their passive and accidental existence
- our nature is to destroy or create
- Nonproductive: Malignant aggression, destroy/kill for no reason
- Productive: Create and care
6
Q
Rootedness
A
- to establish roots and feel at home in the world
- Productive: Grow beyond the safety/comfort of our Mother and establish ties of our own
- Nonproductive: Fixated and afraid to move beyond the security and safety of our mother/ (mother) substitute
7
Q
Sense of Identity
A
- The fourth human need is for a sense of identity, or an awareness of ourselves as a separate person.
- Nonproductive: Conformity
- Productive: Individuality
8
Q
Frame of Orientation
A
- a road map or consistent philosophy by which we find our way through the world.
- Nonproductive: Striving for irrational goals
- Productive: Movement towards rational goals
9
Q
Summary of Human Needs
A
- People are motivated to satisfy the five existential or human needs because if they are unsatisfied in these needs, they are driven to insanity
- Each of the needs has both a positive and a negative component, but only the satisfaction of positive needs leads to psychological health
10
Q
The Burden of Freedom
A
- Humans are freaks of the universe, we are the only self-aware animals
- More political freedom equaled to more isolation. As a result, freedom becomes a burden, and people experience basic anxiety, or a feeling of being alone in the world.
11
Q
Mechanisms of Escape
A
- To reduce the frightening sense of isolation and aloneness, people may adopt one of three mechanisms of escape.
- Authoritarianism - unite with a powerful partner in a continuous relationship
- Masochism (inferiority, powerlessness)
- Sadism (exploitation of others)
- Destructiveness - doing away from others, utter destruction
- Conformity - surrendering one’s individuality to meet the wishes of others
12
Q
Positive Freedom
A
- it is the successful solution to the human dilemma of being part of the natural world and yet separate from it
- is the spontaneous activity of the whole, integrated personality, which is achieved when a person becomes reunited with others and with the world
13
Q
Character Orientations
A
- people relate to the world by acquiring and using things (assimilation) and (socializing) by relating to self and others
- The Productive: Psychologically healthy people who work toward freedom through productive work, love, and thoughts. Necessitates a passionate love of all life “BIOPHILIA”
- The Nonproductive:
1. Receptive - all good lies outside, passiveness;loyality
2. Exploitative - all good lies outside;they take what they want
3. Hoarding - keep what they already possess, including ideas, opinions, feelings, and materials. loyal;obssessive
4. Marketing - view themselves as commodities, they sell themselves. Adaptive;Hollow
14
Q
Nonproductive Orientations
A
- Receptive
- people who rely on the receptive orientation believe that the source of all good lies outside themselves and that the only way they can relate to the world is to receive things,
- including love, knowledge, and material objects. Positive qualities include loyalty and trust; negative ones are passivity and submissiveness - Exploitative
- the source of good lies outside themselves but they aggressively take what they want rather than passively receiving it.
- positive qualities of include pride and self-confidence; negative ones are arrogance and conceit
- Hoarding
- try to save what they have already obtained, including their opinions, feelings and material possessions
- positive qualities include loyalty, negative ones are obsessiveness and possessiveness - Marketing
- see themselves as commodities and value themselves against the criterion of their ability to sell themselves
- they have fewer positive qualities than the other orientations, because they are essentially empty. However, they can be open-minded and adaptabe, as well as opportunistic and wasteful
15
Q
Productive Orientation
A
- psychologically healthy people work toward positive freedom through productive work, love, and thoughts. PRoductive love necessitates a passionate love of all life and is called biophilia.
