“Edge of Catastrophe” Guest Lecture by Roger Frie

What does it mean to be both a social critic and a practicing psychologist? In view of the social and political crises we face today, this is surely one of the profession's most pressing challenges. This talk will draw on the early work of Erich Fromm, one of the mid-twentieth century’s best known public intellectuals but least understood psychologists and psychoanalysts.

As a German-Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, Fromm stood out for his stalwart public stance against fascism. As Director of Social Psychology and Psychoanalysis at the Institute for Social Research, he developed a view of the human psyche as fundamentally social and political in nature. Shortly before the United States declared war on Nazi Germany, Fromm published Escape From Freedom (1941), which sought to explain why so many Germans enthusiastically supported Hitler. What has remained virtually unknown is that Fromm was simultaneously engaged in a campaign to save family members and colleagues who remained behind in Nazi Germany.

Drawing on unpublished Holocaust correspondence, this talk will show how the traumas and tragedies in Fromm’s family shaped his public stance against fascism, racism and human destructiveness. For Fromm, the personal was always political. In an era when psychology and psychoanalysis sought to keep the individual psyche strictly separate from social and political concerns, Fromm was ostracized for his progressive stance. Given the growth of fascism and racism today, what can we learn from Fromm’s sense of urgency? How might Fromm’s ethical stance apply to our current situation?