Epilogue: Erich Fromm’s Relevance for Our Troubled World

Each author has shown different reasons why reading Fromm today is important. As psychoanalyst, sociologist, radical humanist, public intellectual, and clinician, Fromm brought a brilliant mind, clear and at times eloquent writing, courage, and a passionate commitment to his humanistic values to everything he wrote. The range of articles show the breadth of Fromm’s scholarship. The sheer body of work spanning over 50 years is impressive. In my estimation, he was one of the greatest psychoanalysts of the Twentieth Century and one of the greatest humanists of all times (Cortina, 2015b). Yet like any major author there are problematic issues and contradictions in his work that we can see more clearly with the benefit of hindsight. Daniel Burston in his 1991 book The Legacy of Erich Fromm points out that Fromm is best characterized as part of the “loyal opposition” to Freud’s work. Fromm was highly critical of Freud’s authoritarianism and biological instinct theory of human nature. But as Burston notes, he came closer to Freud toward the end of life by trying to revise Freud’s life and death instinct theory with an existentially based theory of biophilia and necrophilia in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973). I have argued earlier (Cortina, 2015a) and in this issue, that his existential humanism failed to provide an adequate sociobiological basis as an alternative to Freud’s life and death instinct theory.

What would Fromm have to say about today’s troubled world? Fromm wrote The Sane Society in a period of enormous economic prosperity that lasted for 30 years following the Second World War. At that time, there was a widespread belief and hope shared by Fromm that the gains in technology and economic productivity could in principle solve issues of economic scarcity in the world.

This economic prosperity began fraying when neoliberal policies and attacks on unions began with the Reagan and Thatcher administrations. The problem that Fromm saw was that the economic prosperity had created a massive consumerist society that was conformist and complacent – the marketing social character that Fromm saw as dominant among this huge new middle class. I think Fromm would have been astonished, as we are, by how easily the economic gains have been reversed and the Republican party and millions of Trump supporters have embraced extreme right-wing ideology. These changes are threatening the very existence of our democracy, creating conspiracy theories and tearing our country apart.

Fromm would have used his socio-psychoanalytic approach to understand this regression to authoritarianism and racism. And he would look for the leaders, people and movements who will stand against this neo-fascism and embrace human solidarity and reverence for life.

Mauricio Cortina, M.D.

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Mauricio Cortina

Mauricio Cortina, M.D., is a faculty member of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and The New Washington School of Psychiatry and the Instituto Mexicano de Socio-psicoanalisis A.C. in Mexico City. He is a psychiatric fellow of the American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis and winner of the 2019 Bowlby and Ainsworth Award. He edited with Michael Maccoby A Prophetic Analyst: Erich Fromm’s Contributions to Psychoanalysis (1996), and Leadership, Psychoanalysis, and Society (2022). He edited with Mario Marrone Attachment Theory and the Psychoanalytic Process (2003) and Apego y psicoterapia: Un paradigma revolucionario (2017). He has published more than 30 chapters and articles on the work of Erich Fromm, attachment theory and human evolution.