Self-Knowledge Emerges
From Acting With Justice
Erich Fromm
Erich
Fromm (1900-1980)
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Editorial Note:
Unlike Carl G.
Jung, who had sympathies
for Nazism during
the 1930s, Erich Fromm saw
Ethics as part of Psychology.
This is one of the central
elements in common between
original theosophy and
Fromm’s thought. One
might ask, though, why is it that
ethics should be important in esoteric philosophy. Ethics
is central to real theosophy
because one must reap what one
sows, and Ethics is
the art and science of sowing good karma.
Pseudo-Theosophy,
on the other hand, prefers to follow C.G.
Jung instead of
Ethics. The following text is a fragment from
the book “Man For Himself”, by Erich Fromm, published
by Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, New York, 1960, 254 pp. It
can be found at the
Foreword, pp. VII-IX.
(Carlos Cardoso
Aveline)
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In his eclectic admiration for any
religion [Carl G.] Jung has relinquished
[the] search for the truth in his theory.
It may be surprising to many
readers to find a psychoanalyst dealing with problems of ethics and,
particularly, taking the position that psychology must not only debunk false
ethical judgments but can, beyond that, be the basis for building objective and
valid norms of conduct.
This position is in contrast
to the trend prevailing in modern psychology which emphasizes “adjustment”
rather than “goodness” and is on the side of ethical relativism. My experience
as a practicing psychoanalyst has confirmed my conviction that problems of
ethics can not be omitted from the study of personality, either theoretically
or therapeutically.
The value judgments we make
determine our actions, and upon their validity rests our mental health and
happiness. To consider evaluations only as so many rationalizations of
unconscious, irrational desires - although they can be that too - narrows down
and distorts our picture of the total personality. Neurosis itself is, in the
last analysis, a symptom of moral failure (although “adjustment” is by no means
a symptom of moral achievement). In many instances a neurotic symptom is the
specific expression of moral conflict, and the success of the therapeutic
effort depends on the understanding and solution of the person’s moral problem.
The divorcement of psychology
from ethics is of a comparatively recent date. The great humanistic ethical
thinkers of the past, on whose works this book is based, were philosophers and
psychologists; they believed that the understanding of man’s nature and the
understanding of values and norms for his life were interdependent. Freud and
his school, on the other hand, though making an invaluable contribution to the
progress of ethical thought by the debunking of irrational value judgments,
took a relativistic position with regard to values, a position which had a
negative effect not only upon the development of ethical theory but also upon
the progress of psychology itself.
The most notable exception to
this trend in psychoanalysis is C.G. Jung. He recognized that psychology and
psychotherapy are bound up with the philosophical and moral problems of man.
But while this recognition is exceedingly important in itself, Jung’s
philosophical orientation led only to a reaction against Freud and not to a
philosophically oriented psychology going beyond Freud.
To Jung “the unconscious” and
the myth have become new sources of revelation, supposed to be superior to
rational thought just because of their nonrational origin. It was the strength
of the monotheistic religions of the West as well as of the great religions of
India and China to be concerned with the truth and to claim that theirs was the
true faith. While this conviction often caused fanatical intolerance against
other religions, at the same time it implanted into adherents and opponents
alike the respect for truth.
In his eclectic admiration for
any religion Jung has relinquished this search for the truth in his theory. Any
system, if it is only nonrational, any myth or symbol, to him is of equal
value. He is a relativist with regard to religion - the negative and not the
opposite of rational relativism which he so ardently combats. This
irrationalism, whether veiled in psychological, philosophical, racial or
political terms, is not progress but reaction. The failure of eighteenth - and
nineteenth - century rationalism was not due to its belief in reason but to the
narrowness of its concepts. Not less but more reason and an unabating search
for the truth can correct errors of a one-sided rationalism - not a pseudo-religious
obscurantism.
Psychology can not be divorced
from philosophy and ethics nor from sociology and economics.
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In September 2016, after
a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students
decided to form the Independent Lodge of
Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in
the different dimensions of life.
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