Reich & the Frankfurt School

[James Rovira]

I think the two people who made these suggestions were making just 
that...suggestions...rather than forcefully arguing a specific position. 
 I appreciate the link you provided, however, and hope to get to it 
sometime this weekend.

Jim

Neil McLaughlin wrote:

>Fromm had many faults as a thinker, and there is much that is useful in
>Wiggerhaus, but Fromm certainly did not maintain that
>individual psychology could be smoothly transferred to social
> theory. How could anyone maintain such a silly position. What exactly
>would it mean to take this position. One can quote things Fromm wrote that
>were questionable, or silly, but this is just a simplistic critique,
>without specifics.  And Fromm as Mr. Anti-Dialectics?  Well, that is
>just a silly clich, rooted in the origin myths of the Frankfurt School.
>For a discussion of the conflict between Adorno and Fromm, and the origin
>myths that shape what critical theorists today think they know about
>Fromm, see
>http://www.ualberta.ca/~cjscopy/articles/mclaughlin.html
>My piece above is purposefully polemical, and I have since re-thought some
>of
>what I had written and how it is framed.   The truth will lie
>somewhere
>between (or beyond!) this account, and the original Frankfurt School
>"line" on Fromm
>versus Adorno.  But my account in "origin myths in the social science:
>Fromm, and the Emergence of Critical theory" will certainly move us beyond
>simplistic cliches about Fromm...
>
>Neil McLaughlin
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>Neil G. McLaughlin     			KTH-620
>Associate Professor			McMaster University
>Department of Sociology			Hamilton, Ontario
>E-mail: nmclaugh@mcmaster.ca		L8S 4M4
>Phone (905) 525-9140 Ext. 23611		Canada
>
>On Thu, 17 Apr 2003, James Rovira wrote:
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>>That's a good question -- the quotation seems exactly backwards.  I
>>remember Martin Jay describing a falling out between Fromm and H and A
>>in _The Dialectical Imagination_, but I don't remember the details
>>offhand.  It could be that a "smooth" transition between individual
>>psychology and social theory would undermine any possible dialectical
>>relationship between the two.  A tension needs to be maintained, rather
>>than seeing one collapsed into the other.
>>
>>Jim
>>
>>Ralph Dumain wrote:
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>>>Wiggershaus has only a few references on Wilhelm Reich, mostly in
>>>connection with Fromm, who incorporated the concept of character
>>>structure into his social psychology.  There is one curious reference
>>>to Adorno, though (p. 159).  Adorno was working on some project (some
>>>time between 1933 and 1935, it seems): Wiggerstrauss says Adorno
>>>"would begin with Reich, because Reich, unlike Fromm, maintained that
>>>individual psychology could not be smoothly transferred to social
>>>theory."  What's this all about?
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