Fromm and Horney diverged over whether instinct or social conditions determine human behavior.
Evidence
Fromm’s assumption that instinctual structures were produced by the conditions of existence led him to demonstrate that the prevailing conditions of existence would continue indefinitely because they were embedded in instinctual structures. For Horney, an insight into the formative nature of social realities and norms became the springboard for a theory which released all forms of behaviour, perception and thinking from their embeddedness in instinctual structure and, in combination with the priority given to determination by social factors, left room for a redefinition and reshaping of the behaviour of women, for example. But her exposure of the premiss of biological determination as merely a piece of ideology developed into a conception in which the distorting effects of social conditions on instinctual structures were ignored, and in which better upbringing and better analytical therapy were supposed to provide a relatively simple solution to the difficulties of various cultures. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1119
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to critical theory’s critique of revisionist psychoanalysis — the split between biological determinism and social construction as competing diagnoses of neurosis. — connects to: Horney’s cultural determinism slid into ignoring social distortion of instinctive structure; Horney’s relational model replaced Freud’s libido-stage theory with social-environmental determinants. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1115; Fromm argued destructiveness varies across social groups, contradicting Freud — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 346 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Early divergence between boys and girls is socially imposed, not instinctual
#exemplifies(0.95) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 676 - Observed male-female differences reflect social situation, not fixed essence
#exemplifies(0.95) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 608 - Fromm argued destructiveness varies across social groups, contradicting Freud
#expands(0.90) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 346 - Social pressure converts a people into a set of shared psychological traits
#corroborates(0.85) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 219