Fromm argued destructiveness varies across social groups, contradicting Freud

Evidence

By so understanding it, Fromm was able to write: “If Freud’s assumptions were correct, we would have to assume that the amount of destructiveness either against others or oneself is more or less constant. But what we observe is to the contrary. Not only does the weight of destructiveness among individuals in our culture vary a great deal, but also destructiveness is of unequal weight among different social groups.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 346

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Fromm’s empirical attack on the death instinct’s constancy is the hinge of his whole social-psychological method: destructiveness is culturally produced and socially stratified, not a fixed biological constant — a paradigm-shifting premise for the Frankfurt turn to social character.
• XREF: connects to: Fromm’s early social psychology critiqued Freud’s purely libidinal account of authority — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 417; Fromm interpreted the death instinct as the need to destroy, diverging from Freud — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 346; Psychoanalysis reduces the social to the psychological by axiom (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Fromm’s early social psychology critiqued Freud’s purely libidinal account of authority #corroborates (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 417
• Fromm interpreted the death instinct as the need to destroy, diverging from Freud #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 346
• Psychoanalysis reduces the social to the psychological by axiom #corroborates (0.75)
• Freud traced scapegoating to conflict between a punitive superego and repressed id impulses #contradicts (0.70) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1562