Customer Reviews

Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter With Marx and Freud (Credo Perspectives)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Our civilization produced a tremendous number of books to inspire people who enjoy thinking, but the truly great thinkers have suffered greatly from the reversal of meaning as important concepts have been replaced by entertainment values. I am bitter about becoming an unmpublished Freudian expert in the humor of the Vietnam War as Americans dread the monetary net catching the war blood underwater jellyfish that flow with political economy in lame stream media. Fromm has a good picture of the problem of modern man:

He has become the object of blind economic forces which rule his life.

This part of a discussion of the Old Testament concept of idolatry is only a few pages after describing the neurosis of "all forms of depression, dependence and idol worship (including the fanatic)." Explaining transference in analysis, Fromm states:

In order to overcome his sense of inner emptiness and impotence,
he chooses an object onto whom he projects all his own human qualities:
his love, intelligence, courage, etc. . . .
This mechanism, idolatric worship of an object,
based on the fact of the individual's alienation,
is the central dynamism of transference,
that which gives transference it strength and intensity.

These quotes are all from Chapter 6, The Sick Individual and the Sick Society. Much later in the book, brain washing is mentioned as different in degree from the way in which any society exists in "the fundamental picture of a mixture between repression and acceptance of fiction."

Marx did a lot of thinking about the means of production, but lifeless mechanisms that control the flow of money in "the preponderance of the desire for spending and for ever-increasing consumption, as twentieth century capitalism does" is now the major part of the concept of psychic pathology that can make us poorer.

Okay, I have to admit I think Fromm is very inspiring. He does do a great job of critically analyzing Freud, and shows how Marx's social analysis is vastly superior to Freud's(something which I definitely agree with). He goes to great lengths to show how we are chained to our illusions (be they religions or non-theistic ideologies or in the innumerable other ways so that we feel secure), and shows how we create ideologies out of the great ideas.

HOWEVER, it seems to me that he ideologizes towards the end of the book when he uncritically raves about Buddha, Jesus, the Old Testament (and of course Marx throught the entire book). This final contradiction which I found to be so obvious blew me away...how can someone come so far but then so blatantly and uncritically glorify (ideologize?) the 'Masters' and 'Masterworks', shouldn't he try to bring those down to earth by analyzing them and risk trying to break what may be our grandest illusions?:

1. the reincarnation theory of Buddha,
2. the denial we have of the incredible violence of the Old Testament,
3. or even more bravely possibly criticizing, or at least analyzing Jesus' life and ideas,
4. he could even try to take on Marx, by perhaps at least raising the great debate of Bakunin/Marx concerning Marx's possible authoritarianism and the idea of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'...?

If he could critically analyze those four Masters, then I would have been significantly more impressed.

I suspect that he may be overly careful about offending and he may even be catering to populist sentiments. He wants the Marxists and the religious folk all in one go. The contradiction and the lack of depth is too much for me to say this is a work of genius (5 stars). 4 stars for trying (but ultimately failing)to legitimately bring us out of alienation and separateness.

Get a copy of this book. It can change your life. A must read before you leave the face of this earth. An insightful and wise view of life, other people and the world you live in. Fromm is the best. Thank God he lived and wrote everything down for us, and all we have to do is learn from it. After Fromm, you have no excuses for not "getting it".

Get a copy of this book. It will change your life. A must read before you leave the face of this earth. A refreshing look at yourself, other people and the world you live in. Fromm is the best!