Reich & the Frankfurt School

James Rovira jrovira at drew.edu
Thu, 17 Apr 2003 14:46:47 -0400


A couple of brief corrections:

First,

>
>       Yet unlike the Frankfurt School, Freudians institutes have
>       relatively formal structures and are generally not run for life
>       by one individual
>
I think you mean "Freudian" institututes rather than "Freudians."

>
>       Theodor Adorno clearly played a major role in the internal
>       conflict within the Institute. Wiggershaus points out, for
>       example, that Adorno was fond on referring to Fromm as a
>       professional Jew (Wiggershaus, 1994: 266).
>
I think you meant to write, "fond of."

In this sentence:

>
>       Horkheimer and Adornos neglect in fully crediting Fromm for his
>       part in developing the F-scale could be seen somewhat generously
>       as what the literary critic Harold Bloom once call the anxiety
>       of influence.
>
I think you meant to say, "once called" rather than "once call."

In this sentence, I think there's an extra word:

>
>       since many scholars who came to intellectual maturity during the
>       1960s and 1970s were influenced by the one side-sided criticisms
>       made of Fromm by Frankfurt School
>
Should it be "one-sided" rather than "one-side sided."

It's interesting you provide these quotations from Adorno:

>     is sentimental and wrong to begin with, being a mixture of social
>     democracy and anarchism, and above all shows a severe lack of the
>     concept of dialectics. 


>           For Adorno, the revisionists give an oversimplified account
>           of the interaction of the mutually alienated institutions id
>           and ego, posit a direct connection between the
>           institutional sphere and social experience and are guilty
>           of superficial historicism (Adorno, 1968: 79; 89).
>

given your previous comments. It seems that the suggestions offered 
earlier had at least some validity in Adorno's case.

Overall you present a very convincing and fairly nuanced desciption of 
Fromm's break with Horkheimer and the FS. I appreciate having read it. 
It's everything I would expect from a 20 page or so professionally 
written article but not, of course, what I expect from a three line post 
to a listserve.

Thanks again,

Jim