Fromm conflated sadomasochistic character with authoritarian society, losing the psychological dimension

Evidence

Authoritarian forms of society, so termed by Fromm with reference to the widespread discussion which had been going on since the late 1920s about an authoritarian, total state, were characterized by the way in which every member of society was incorporated into a system of dependency relations with those above and below. For Fromm, this represented a precondition for the existence of functional interplay between the sado-masochistic character and the authoritarian form of society. We have attempted to show', he stated in conclusion, that the authoritarian structure of society both creates and satisfies needs which develop on the basis of sado-masochism.’ The expressions sadomasochistic' and authoritarian’ thus became synonymous for him. But in the term authoritarian' the relation to instinctual structure and psychosexual development, and thus to a dimension whose development in response to society would require explanation, was no longer explicitly addressed. Authoritarian’ related instead to a certain type of society or state. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 616

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The observation that calling a society ‘authoritarian’ silently drops the very instinctual explanation that made the concept interesting is a subtle methodological critique worth sitting with.
• XREF: connects to: Fromm’s rigor reduced the materialist conception of history to absurdity. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 233; Fromm’s shift to ‘authoritarian’ terminology dropped the psychosexual dimension requiring explanation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 617; Authoritarian traits may cohere from low education and SES, not psychodynamics — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 653 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Fromm’s shift to ‘authoritarian’ terminology dropped the psychosexual dimension requiring explanation #corroborates (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 617
• Fromm held that authoritarian societies both create and satisfy sadomasochistic needs #responds-to (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 616
• Authoritarian traits may cohere from low education and SES, not psychodynamics #corroborates (0.82) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 653
• Authoritarian traits may cohere as class norms rather than psychic dynamics #corroborates (0.78)
• Authoritarian-personality findings may reflect cultural associations, not personality dynamics #corroborates (0.75)