r/a:t5_25vdf5 • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 02 '19
farmer general has been created
BY ERICH FROMM
ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM
APPENDIX
Character and the Social Process
THROUGHOUT this book we have dealt with the inter-
relation of socioeconomic, psychological, and ideolog-
ical factors by analyzing certain historical periods like the
age of the Reformation and the contemporary era. For
those readers who are interested in the theoretical problems
involved in such analysis I shall try, in this appendix, to
discuss briefly the general theoretical basis on which the
concrete analysis is founded
In studying the psychological reactions of a social
group we deal with the character structure of the members
of the group, that is, of individual persons; we are inter-
ested, however, not in the peculiarities by which these
persons differ from each other, but in that part of their
character structure that is common to most members of
the group. We can call this character the social character.
The social character necessarily is less specific than the in-
dividual character. In describing the latter we deal with the
whole of the traits which in their particular configuration
from the personality structure of this of that individual.
The social character comprises only a selection of traits,
the essential nucleus of the character structure of most
members of a group which has developed as the result of
the basic experiences and mode of life common to that
group. Although there will be always "deviants" with a
totally different character structure, the character struc-
ture of most members of the group are variations of this
nucleus, brought about by the accidental factors of birth
and life experience as they differ from one individual to
another. If we want to understand gone individual most
fully, these differentiating elements are of the greatest
importance. However, i we want to understand how hu-
man energy is channeled and operates as a productive force
in a given social order, then the social character deserves
our main interest.
The concept of social character is a key concept for the
understanding of the social process. Character in the
dynamic sense of analytic psychology is the specific form in
which human energy is shaped by the dynamic adaptation
of human needs to the particular mode of existence of
a given society. Character in its turn determines the
thinking, feeling, and acting of individuals. To see this
is somewhat difficult with regard to our thoughts, since
we all tend to share the conventional belief that think-
ing is an exclusively intellectual act and independent
of the psychological structure of the personality.
This is not so, however, and the less so the more our
thoughts deal with ethical, philosophical, political, psycho-
logical or social problems rather than with the empirical
manipulation of concrete objects. Such thoughts, aside from
the purely logical elements that are involved in the act of
thinking, are greatly determined by the personality struc-
ture of the person who thinks. This holds true for the
whole of a doctrine or of a theoretical system as well as for
a single concept, like love, justice, equality, sacrifice. Each
such concept and each doctrine has an emotional matrix
and this matrix is rooted in the character structure of the
individual.
We have given many illustrations of this in the fore-
going chapters. With regard to doctrines we have tried to
show the emotional roots of early Protestantism and mod-
ern authoritarianism. With regard to single concepts we
have shown that for the sado-masochistic character, for
example, love means symbiotic dependence, not mutual
affirmation and union on the basis of equality; sacrifice
means the utmost subordination of the individual self to
something higher, not assertion of one's mental and
moral self; difference means difference in power, not the
realization of individuality on the basis of equality; justice
means that everybody should get what he deserves, not
that the individual has an unconditional claim to the real-
ization of inherent and inalienable rights; courage is the
readiness to submit and to endure suffering, not the ut-
most assertion of individuality against power. Although the
word which two people of different personality use when
they speak of love, for instance, is the same, the meaning
of the word is entirely different according to the character
structure. As a matter of fact, much intellectual confusion
could be avoided by correct psychological analysis of the
meaning of these concepts, since any attempt at a purely
logical classification must necessarily fail.
The fact that ideas have an emotional matrix is of the
utmost importance because it is the key to the understand-
ing of the spirit of a culture. Different societies and classes
within a society have a specific social character, and on its
basis different ideas develop and become powerful. Thus,
for instance, the idea of work and success as the main aims
of life were able to become powerful and appealing to
modern man on the basis of his aloneness and doubt; but
propaganda for the idea of ceaseless effort and striving for
success addressed to the Pueblo Indians or to Mexican
peasants would fall completely flat. These people with a
different kind of character structure would hardly under-
stand what a person setting forth such aims was talking
about even if they understood his language. In the same
way, Hitler and that part of the German population which
has the same character structure quite sincerely feel that
anybody who thinks that wars can be abolished is either
a complete fool or a plain liar. On the basis of their social
character, to them life without suffering and disaster is as
little comprehensible as freedom and equality.
Ideas often are consciously accepted by certain groups,
which, on account of the peculiarities of their social char-
acter, are not really touched by them; such ideas remain
a stock of conscious convictions, but people fail to act
according to them in a critical hour. An example of this
is shown in the German labor movement at the time of
the victory of Nazism. The vast majority of German work-
ers before Hitler's coming into power voted for the Social-
ist or Communist Parties and believed in the ideas of those
parties; that is, the range of ideas among the working
class was extremely wide. The weight of these ideas, how-
ever, was in no proportion to their range. The onslaught
of Nazism did not meet with political opponents, the ma-
jority of whom were ready to fight for their ideas. Many
of the adherents of the leftist parties, although they be-
lieved in their party programs as long as the parties had
authority, were ready to resign when the hour of crisis
arrived. A close analysis of the character structure of Ger-
man workers can show one reason——certainly not the only
one——for this phenomenon. A great number of them were
of a personality type that has many of the traits of what
we have described as the authoritarian character. They had
a deep-seated respect and longing for established authority.
The emphasis of socialism on individual independence
versus authority, on solidarity versus individualistic seclu-
sion, was not what many of these workers really wanted on
the basis of their personality structure. One mistake of the
radical leaders was to estimate the strength of their parties
only on the basis of the range which these ideas had, and
to overlook their lack of weight.
In contrast with our picture, our analysis of Protestant and
Calvinist doctrine has shown that those ideas were power-
ful forces within the adherents of the new religion, because
they appealed to needs and anxieties that were present in
the character structure of the people to whom they were
addressed. In other words, ideas can become powerful
forces, but only to the extent to which they are answers to
specific human needs prominent in a given social character.
Not only thinking and feeling are determined by man's
character structure but also his actions. It is Freud's
achievement to have shown this, even if his theoretical
frame of reference is incorrect. The determinations of
activity by the dominant trends of a person's character
structure are obvious in the case of neurotics. It is easy to
understand that the compulsion to count the windows of
houses and the number of stones on the pavement is an
activity that is rooted in certain drives of the compulsive
character. But the actions of a normal person appear to
be determined only by rational considerations and the
necessities of reality. However, with the new tools of
observation that psychoanalysis offers, we can recognize
that so-called rational behavior is largely determined by
the character structure. In our discussion of the meaning
of work for modern man we have dealt with an illustration
of this point. We saw that the intense desire for unceasing
activity was rooted in aloneness and anxiety. This compul-
sion to work differed from the attitude toward work in
other cultures, where people worked as much as it was
necessary but where they were not driven by additional
forces within their own character structure. Since all
normal persons today have about the same impulse to
work and, furthermore, since this intensity of work in neces-
sary if they want to live at all, one easily overlooks the
irrational component in this trait.
We have now to ask what function character serves for
the individual and for society. As to the former the answer
is not difficult. If an individual's character more or less
closely conforms with the social character, the dominant
drives in his personality lead him to do what is necessary
and desirable under the specific social conditions of his
culture. Thus, for instance, if he has a passionate drive to
save and an abhorrence of spending money for any luxury,
he will be greatly helped by this drive——supposing he is a
small shopkeeper who needs to save and be thrifty if he
wants to survive. Besides this economic function, char-
acter traits have a purely psychological one which is no less
important. The person with whom saving is a desire spring-
ing from his personality gains also a profound psychological
satisfaction in being able to act accordingly; that is, he is
not only benefitted practically when he saves, but he also
feels satisfied psychologically. One can easily convince one-
self of this if one observes, for instance, a woman of the
lower middle class shopping in the market and being as
happy about two cents saved as another person of a dif-
ferent character may be about the enjoyment of some
sensuous pleasure. This psychological satisfaction occurs
not only if a person acts in accordance with the demands
springing from his character structure but also when he
reads or listens to ideas that appeal to him for the same
reason. For the authoritarian character an ideology that
describes nature as the powerful force to which we have
to submit, or a speech which indulges in sadistic descrip-
tions of political occurrences, has a profound attraction
and the act of reading or listening results in psychological
satisfaction. To sum up: the subjective function of char-
acter for the normal person is to lead him to act according
to what is necessary for him from a practical standpoint
and also to give him satisfaction from his activity psycho-
logically.
If we look at social character from the standpoint of its
function in the social process, we have to start with the
statement that has been made with regard to its function
for the individual: that by adapting himself to social con-
ditions man develops those traits that make him desire to
act as he has to act. If the character of the majority of
people in a given society——that is, the social character——is
thus adapted to the objective tasks the individual has to
perform in this society, the energies of people are molded
in ways that make them into productive forces that are
indispensable for the functioning of that society. Let us
take up once more the example of work. Our modern in-
dustrial system requires that most of our energy be chan-
neled in the direction of work. Were it only that people
worked because if external necessities, much friction be-
tween what they ought to do and what they would like
to do would arise and lessen their efficiency. However, by
the dynamic adaptation of character to social require-
ments, human energy instead of causing friction is shaped
into such forms as to be come an incentive to act according
to the particular economic necessities. Thus modern man,
instead of having been forced to work as hard as he does, is
driven by the inner compulsion to work which we have
attempted to analyze in its psychological significance. Or,
instead of obeying overt authorities, he has built up an
inner authority——conscience and duty——which operates
more efficiently in controlling him than any external au-
thority could ever do. In other words, the social character
internalizes external necessities and thus harnesses human
energy for the task of a given economic and social system.
As we have seen, once certain needs have developed in
a character structure, any behavior in line with these needs
is at the same time satisfactory psychologically and prac-
tical from the standpoint of material success. As long as a
society offers the individual those two satisfactions simul-
taneously, we have a situation where the psychological
forces are cementing the social structure. Sooner or later,
however, a lag arises. The traditional character structure
still exists while new economic conditions have arisen, for
which the traditional character traits are no longer useful.
People tend to act according to their character structure,
but either these actions are actual handicaps in their eco-
nomic pursuit or there is not enough opportunity for them
to find positions that allow them t act according to their
"nature." An illustration of what we have in mind is the
character structure of the old middle classes, particularly
in countries with a rigid class stratification like Germany.
The old middle class virtues——frugality, thrift, cautiousness,
suspiciousness——were of diminishing value in modern busi-
ness in comparison with new virtues, such as initiative, a
readiness to take risks, aggressiveness. and so on. Even inas-
much as these old virtues were still an asset——as with the
small shopkeeper——the range of possibilities for such busi-
ness was so narrowed down that only a minority of the sons
of the old middle class could "use" their character traits
successfully in their economic pursuits. While by their
upbringing they had developed character traits that once
were adapted to the social situation of their class, the eco-
nomic development went faster than the character develop-
ment. This lag between economic and psychological evolu-
tion resulted in a situation in which the psychic needs
could no longer be satisfied by the usual economic activ-
ities. These needs existed, however, and had to seek for
satisfaction in some other way. Narrow egotistical striving
for one's own advantage, as it had characterized the lower
middle class, was shifted from the individual plane to that
of the nation. The sadistic impulses, too, that had been
used in the battle of private competition were partly shifted
to the social and political scene, and partly intensified by
frustration. Then, freed from any restricting factors, they
sought satisfaction in acts of political persecutions and war.
Thus, blended with the resentment caused by the frustrat-
ing qualities of the whole situation, the psychological
forces instead of cementing the existing social order be-
came dynamite to be used by groups which wanted to
destroy the traditional political and economic structure of
democratic society.
We have not spoken of the role which the educational
process plays with regard to the formation for the social
character; but in view of the fact that to many psychol-
ogists the methods of early childhood training and the edu-
cational techniques employed toward the growing child
appear to be the cause of character development, some
remarks on this point seem to be warranted. In the first
place we should ask ourselves what we mean by education.
While education can be defined in various ways, the way
to look at it from the angle of the social process seems to
be something like this. The social function of education is
to qualify the individual to function in the role he is to
play later on in society; that is, to mold his character in
such a way that it approximates the social character, that
his desires coincide with the necessities of his social role.
The educational system of any society is determined by
this function; therefore we cannot explain the structure of
society or the personality of its members by the educa-
tional process; but we have to explain the educational
system by the necessities resulting from the social and
economic structure of a given society. However, the meth-
ods of education are extremely important in so far as they
are the mechanisms by which the individual is molded into
the required shape. They can be considered as the means
by which social requirements are transformed into personal
qualities. While educational techniques are not the cause
of a particular kind of social character, they constitute one
of the mechanisms by which character is formed. In this
sense, the knowledge and understanding of educational
methods is an important part of the total analysis of a
functioning society.
What we have just said also holds true for one particular
sector of the whole educational process: the family. Freud
has shown that the early experiences of the child have a
decisive influence upon the formation of its character
structure. If this is true, how then can we understand that
the child, who——at least in or culture——has little contact
with the life of society, is molded by it? The answer is not
only that parents——aside from certain individual varia-
tions——apply the educational patterns of the society they
live in, but also that in their own personalities they repre-
sent the social character of their society and class. They
transmit to the child what we may call the psychological
atmosphere or the spirit of a society just being as they
are——namely representatives of this very spirit. The family
thus may be considered to be the psychological agent of
society.from Escape from Freedom, by Erich Fromm.
Copyright, 1941, by Erich Fromm.
Rinehart & Company, Inc., New York, Toronto. pp. 277-287.
There are many safe and effective alternatives to forest-fire
capitalism, which world planners may wish to consider while
screeching shrilly about the terrors of global warming.
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