[Marxism-Thaxis] Fromm and Bourdieu

2010-06-02 Thread Domhnall Ó Cobhthaigh

Thanks everyone for all the help.

 

cb - I take your point. I ventured somewhere with the Lenin stuff that I did 
not want to. I obviously have misunderstood the little I've read...more reading 
there remains.

 

Ralph - thanks for your summary it helped a lot. Am looking forward to those 
links.

 

One question is how you see Fromm as idealist. 

 

At least as far as I understand him he doesn't seem idealist to me - he is 
always at pains to identify the determining medium of repression (which 
conditions ideology) to the social reality in which humans live. So the roots 
for this feedback loop are material. But I know that Marcuse accused him of 
being idealist in Eros and Civilization. However, I think that his attack on 
Marcuse is more substantial as all the Hegelians certainly appear to have a 
weakness when it comes to grounding their dialectics in empirical fact - it 
seems to me as if Marcuse earned the accusation of idealism much easier than 
Fromm.

 

Obviously Fromm's Marxism was certainly early period stuff focussing on the 
concepts of the Philosophical notebooks era but I still don't see that as 
leading inexorably to idealism. 

 

One way in which idealism could creep back is perhaps that by seeing repression 
as reflecting inherent perhaps platonic 'human' drives that cannot find 
expression in concrete society. But I think he would reply by saying that they 
are objective, scientifically verifiable drives having their own roots in 
material reality - albeit the reality inherent in the human condition. So at 
base both drives and the cause of their repression are material and that these 
constitute factors which provide a mechanism for the development of an 
ideological superstructure corresponding to any given base.

 

Perhaps you can shed light on this as this is pretty much the issue I was 
wanting some insight on. It's actually a similar question in regard to 
Bourdieu's approach.
  
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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Fromm and Bourdieu

2010-06-02 Thread Ralph Dumain
I do not see Fromm's psychoanalysis as idealist at all, no matter what 
Marcuse says.  However, Fromm's specific assessments of people and 
ideas, e.g. Pope John XXIII or D.T. Suzuki, smack of a lack of 
groundedness.

Marcuse, Horkheimer, and Adorno spent the 1930s turning idealism on its 
head, but that doesn't mean their avowed materialism was always 
materialist. Marcuse seems the most influenced by Romantic thought.

But none of these classifications can be applied in a hard and fast manner.

On 06/02/2010 06:22 PM, Domhnall Ó Cobhthaigh wrote:
 Thanks everyone for all the help.



 cb - I take your point. I ventured somewhere with the Lenin stuff that I did 
 not want to. I obviously have misunderstood the little I've read...more 
 reading there remains.



 Ralph - thanks for your summary it helped a lot. Am looking forward to those 
 links.



 One question is how you see Fromm as idealist.



 At least as far as I understand him he doesn't seem idealist to me - he is 
 always at pains to identify the determining medium of repression (which 
 conditions ideology) to the social reality in which humans live. So the roots 
 for this feedback loop are material. But I know that Marcuse accused him of 
 being idealist in Eros and Civilization. However, I think that his attack on 
 Marcuse is more substantial as all the Hegelians certainly appear to have a 
 weakness when it comes to grounding their dialectics in empirical fact - it 
 seems to me as if Marcuse earned the accusation of idealism much easier than 
 Fromm.



 Obviously Fromm's Marxism was certainly early period stuff focussing on the 
 concepts of the Philosophical notebooks era but I still don't see that as 
 leading inexorably to idealism.



 One way in which idealism could creep back is perhaps that by seeing 
 repression as reflecting inherent perhaps platonic 'human' drives that cannot 
 find expression in concrete society. But I think he would reply by saying 
 that they are objective, scientifically verifiable drives having their own 
 roots in material reality - albeit the reality inherent in the human 
 condition. So at base both drives and the cause of their repression are 
 material and that these constitute factors which provide a mechanism for the 
 development of an ideological superstructure corresponding to any given base.



 Perhaps you can shed light on this as this is pretty much the issue I was 
 wanting some insight on. It's actually a similar question in regard to 
 Bourdieu's approach.
   
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