Question About Week 5 Reading Question

[Brianna Delmolino]

Hey there!
I’m stuck on question j. on the reading questions document. The question asks “Fromm asked his students to go without what for 3 days? (list a few things) How did they think it would go? How would you do if you tried this? Why is this significant?” I don’t know if I missed this topic in the videos or the reading but I was unable to find the answer to this question. Can someone point me to where this answer can be found? Thanks!!

[Cole]

Howdy Brianna,

Question J is not in the lecture videos. The relevant text is at the top of page 4 of this weeks Fromm excerpt. I believe Fromm wants to take this anecdote as something like an example of the paragraph preceding it. However, I think the anecdote under scrutiny has weaker connection than he would like us to see, but I’ll let you explore it for yourself. If you come back and post after reading the anecdote and answering question J (I don’t want to be charged with handing out my opinions as answers) I would love to hear your thoughts about and discuss its significance.

Cole

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Cole!
Great and helpful response. I’ll wait and see what you two come up with as well.
Jeff

[Brianna Delmolino]

Hi Cole,

Thanks for your help! I would agree that the excerpt about Fromm’s students was used as a type of example for the point he made in the paragraph above it. I personally appreciated the smaller-scale example of his students going 3 days without typical American escapist activities (such as literature, and radio) to further the point of us as humans being so reliant on Western culture movies, radios, television, sports, and newspapers to distract us from our own impending neurosis. It gave me a moment to really self-reflect on myself, who I have thought of as pretty good at being alone with little forms of escape or any tasks. Turns out I think I would lose my mind as well.
However, I could see a case made for the unreliability of an experiment such as this because there is a lack of socialization variable that may impact the outcome. Basic socialization is a necessity for humans and I wouldn’t classify it as an culture-prescribed cure for insanity, so this would likely skew the data.
I’m interested to hear your thoughts!

[Cole]

Brianna,

I agree with you. I see in myself and society writ large a tendency to fall back uncritically on social defects to find comfort. I appreciate Fromm’s ability to clearly point out we need to critique society as a whole, and that society impacts mental health, not just individual things like genetics. I also have faith that he does so with good intentions (something I enjoy about psychologist/philosophy crossovers like Fromm and Frued is that, agree or disagree with their ideas they come across in the text as caring about others but I digress…). However, I think this anecdote displays a somewhat scary hole or atleast ambiguity in Fromm’s thought (though I can charitably assume it is just not addressed in the excerpt here). I think we should consider that Fromm has given no purpose for the persons to be locked in a room, which may contribute authentically to the anxiety/neuroses of the students. In addition, as you pointed out, Fromm has also made it clear the students’ social needs will not be met in the room further affecting their mental health. Should we consider these students’ daily lives in the outside world nothing but an opiate, and the resulting anxiety in their removal as neurotic, or uncovering hidden insanity? Why should we assume the students do not have a strong relation to their authentic purpose and human connection outside in the world? In the anecdote, the only hope for the psychological needs (relatedness to others which need not be physical, and purpose) of the students being met, is through agreement and interaction with what Fromm considers “good” literature, which I think we can assume in the anecdote Fromm wants us to believe should be enough. Here a dangerous possibility of oversimplification of all humans to someone’s own notions of meeting universal needs appears. In taking his own notion of what meets human needs to be the rule, and “sane”, Fromm has presupposed that people cannot truly be different. I think this anecdote should cause us to question how Fromm’s universal objective needs of man can be discerned and applied, which appears lacking in the excerpt. In a worrying manner to me, in his definition of normative humanism he kind of just deems it obvious (“there are right and wrong, satisfactory and unsatisfactory solutions…”), and any later mentions just vaguely state that we will find it “studying man”. My concern here is there seems to exist a possibility, that like Fromm and the students in the anecdote hypothetically carried out, we may overlook differences as defects and impose psychological pain on others, viewing it as righteous or for their own good.

Some other surrounding thoughts include why a universal criteria of human nature is inherently necessary to critique society, why can’t society participate in internal/immanent critique? And even though I do understand and share in the intuition that humans share needs, I mean just try and ask people to define love. Assuming they can even express a definition they are probably different between people and even across time from one and the same person. In this sense, perhaps I am getting mixed up in the fulfilling of needs vs needs themselves? But it seems to be inherent in the idea of socially patterned defect that there is a correct way to fulfill a need? There is a tension between the first half touting the universal needs of man and the second focusing on spontaneity/individuality. I see perhaps some kind of hope for answers in Fromm’s definition of Love “as the union of the individual with others on the basis of the preservation of the individual self”?

So Brianna, do you think Fromm is setting up a system that presents a danger of imposing correct sanity on others? Do you think Fromm has already done so himself in suggesting the students were neurotic, and assuming their concerns to be mere opiate? Has Fromm given any guiding lights in the excerpt as to how his ideals could become concrete in a positive manner? Am I being uncharitable, conflating terms or missing something from the text? Any thoughts appreciated.

Cole

[Brianna Delmolino]

Hey Cole,

Wow, I didn’t really consider this. I think you definitely have a great point about the possibility of Fromm suggesting that all humans are/function the exact same way. Sure, humans all have innate needs but genetics, upbringing, and other factors can impact the ways in which we fulfill those needs and feel fulfillment in them. It does make you wonder, is Fromm implying something that is in its own way, harmful to humans as well? If society is assuming we are all sane, and insane folks are defects, is it not in similar fashion to assume we are all insane? Is it so black and white?

Another potential issue with the experiment with the students, is the students don’t have anything to bring entertainment. As humans, we need entertainment just as much as comfort. Sure, as Americans we can take entertainment too far, and it can become an escape, but it is still a general need and has proven itself to be so by generations and generations of humans before us. Without it, we become bored, which can cause insanity if it’s for an extended period of time, such as three days.

It is possible we are missing some context from this experiment, or maybe context from the theory in general. It would be interesting to learn if that’s the case. Or maybe we are just so insane that we are missing the point.

[Cole]

Brianna,

Interesting points. I had not considered entertainment as need. Perhaps proof could be linked to things like “clinical denial” from last week, in which the brain can be seen to naturally need escape from somethings, or perhaps the way in which memory functions in a finite manner. We appear to need “a break” in some respects (I sleep a lot of the day away not of my own desire!) But in trying to prove entertainment a need I ask myself, and Fromm, what objectively differentiates a psychological need from a desire (want)? I am assuming we are transcending the physiological here so we cannot use death, but need a psychological standard. I also wonder about something like the potential well-being of non-well-being. In the schoolgirl put on adhd meds hypothetical from the lecture videos, my gut intuition is that it is a travesty to be augmenting her brain like that to fit the institution. I actually feel pretty strongly against adhd medication. However, we should consider, if she were to not be medicated, and not able to learn certain things at that age, she might when older end up in regret and mentally unwell at missed education. As humans we are damned, in that somethings cant be undone, and we kind of have to choose now, so it might be worth enduring pain now for a better future later. In a certain sense, I believe we are forced to choose with incomplete knowledge, and perhaps for this reason humans reserve something like the right to prioritize a better future over a better present. And I guess here I don’t have an answer, we cant know what the future girl will desire/need?, and she might be a poor judge of her own future at such a young age. I guess my heart goes out to parents kind of doomed to failure, but also bring it in brother, welcome to being human? Is Fromm kind of a la Sartre’s idea of bad faith moving towards denying humans transcendence through focus on facial needs? Clearly his spontaneity talk in the latter half is supposed to rectify this. Quite the tightrope walker, what a show, will Fromm slip? I cant say from the excerpt alone but am captivated.

Cole

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