The Frankfurt School had the luxury and misfortunate privilege of existing in unique times. During the Interwar Period (1918-1939) in the heart of rising Fascism an incredible group of academics and scholars found each other in Germany with a like-minded goal: to provide societal research and reach greater understanding
The Frankfurt School: A Dissident’s Life
Erich Fromm, faced with hatred and being labeled a political dissident, chose to study the opposite of what he saw as the main problem facing all of humanity: hate, segregation, and divisiveness.
- Fromm was forced to flee Germany during the Fascist takeover in the 1930s
- He first went to Geneva, ultimately finding residency at Columbia University in New York
- During this time Fromm began wondering about what was wrong with humanity
- The fundamental problem of humanity, according to what Fromm learned from his colleagues at the Frankfurt School, is divismiveness
Erich Fromm: Love in Our Modern Age
We are seeing into each other’s lives in ways that are inherently commodified
- Treat Love as an art, not a feeling and commodity
- Pursuing an art requires courage to continue, humility to understand that you are just beginning, and faith that if you practice with diligence you will become a master of the craft
Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
The existential loneliness that affects humanity comes from our ability to judge and be aware of our own actions
- Our search for a tribe or a group often finds us excluding those not in that tribe
- This feeling created the divisiveness that destroyed Fromm’s nation
Seeing the Problem Ahead of Time
Erich Fromm put forward the idea of people shying away from freedom and leaning toward authoritarian principles in the late 1920s
- If the people in society that are part of the 75% – the neutral, majority party – had a fundamental misunderstanding of Love and Freedom, which they did, then the remaining 75% would be more likely to fall into authoritarianism
- This is because authoritarianism pushes you into a group or at least into a leadership role
The Difference Between Mature and Immature Love
Mature love: when love is generated from a point of narcissism
- The most narcissistic facet of this type of love is a transactional relationship
- Our contemporary understanding of love and how we find love falls into this category
- Dating app sites limit the number of matches you can have based on the income and other filters
The Solution: The Four Aspects of Love
Love should begin with being comfortable with loneliness.
- The next two aspects of love that are required to change our understanding go hand in hand: courage and faith – anyone who gives out love to everyone they meet does not commodify their fellow members of society and trusts that this understanding will spread and benefit everyone who understands and partakes in it.
- The fourth aspect of Love is diligence – this is the aspect that keeps love going and changes the individual’s life.
The Frankfurt School: Positive Freedom and Negative Freedom
Negative Freedom: The freedom from
- It represents the removal of things that can control us entirely: freedom from hunger, freedom from preventable diseases
- Positive Freedom: the freedom to
- We have the opportunity to choose what things we pursue
- If we have “freedom to”, then we are not restricted to a life of needs
What Do We Need Beyond Positive Freedom?
Sadomasochists: wish for there to be an order or hierarchy that limits the access to positive freedom
- In agreeing to this rank they submit themselves to hierarchy and restrictions in life
- The sadist in them is the part that uses their position in this hierarchy to control those beneath them with less freedom to
