Hello there. I do read often Erich Fromm. He was also a psychoanalyst and a critique of Jung.
I was wundering if you people do confront yourself often with the criticism of the work of Jung.
I think it's always eye opening, if you engage also in the critique of the people you like the most. Often one tend to be blind for the bad side of the own idols.
So here's a little bite, that fromm wrote about jung:
.... he described him as a "necrophilic character" who was more fascinated by the past and rarely by the present and future. This inclination towards people who love the dead is expressed in his initial sympathy for Hitler and in his racial theories. On the other hand, Jung was an unusually creative person, Β«[...] and creativity is the opposite of necrophilia. He resolved the conflict within himself by balancing his destructive powers within himself with his desire and ability to heal, and by making his interest in the past, in the dead, and in destruction the subject of brilliant speculation."
Furthermore, Fromm came to the conclusion, that the reason why Jung is" close" to the nazis lays in his thoughstructures of his theories.
I have to say I'm not an expert in Jung. I read a lot of his works and spent many hours in jungs house and talked a lot with jungians. And somehow (in my opinion) fromm critics was harsh but he had a point...
The way jung structured his thoughts is obviously predestined to be open for a phenomena like Hitler and the nazis... And for that reason (even if he was just fascinated and no a participant) I think he was so curious and saw many things that suits his idea about unconscious and so on..
Anyway I shouldn't write too much with my bad English haha Greetings from Switzerland. (I speak German, French and Italy haha there was no more space for proper English! Sorry for that)
So the questions would be: What other critics you know? Have you been aware of Erich fromm? And what do you think about his take?
Enjoy the evening
I'd never read anything by Fromm. But having purchased both Escape from Freedom and the Art of Loving, his theories have a profound resonance with my own ways of thinking. In particular his description of the three ways of escaping freedom seem to describe American politics right now.
I think I'd never read him because I've generally avoided continental philosophers with a background in psychoanalyticsβthey always struck me as overly subjective. But what's critical theory's take on Fromm? Are his theories seen as legitimate? Outdated? Applicable?
