The Sane Society

And for many people, the mere knowledge that it is possible is enough to change the direction of a life.

Fromm developed these themes across decades of prolific writing and teaching, from Escape from Freedom in 1941 through Man for Himself in 1947, The Sane Society in 1955, The Art of Loving in 1956, and To Have or To Be.

In 1976, he returned again and again to the same fundamental questions, approaching them from different angles, deepening and refining his answers, but never abandoning the core conviction that animated his entire body of work.

Each of these works extended the same fundamental inquiry in a different direction, like a geologist studying the same mountain range from different vantage points.

Authoritarian Personality is the, uh, Adorno book.

Uh, Escape from Freedom, uh, The Art of Loving, uh, and, uh, The Sane Society, right? And, uh, Fromm always considered himself more of a Marxist than a Freudian.

Uh, in The Sane Society, he points out how, um, you know, Marx was a theorist who's just levels beyond Freud.

Uh, that said, he is somewhat critical of exactly the kind of Marxist instincts you're talking about to assume that, well, under the right social conditions, all these kind of, uh, vulgarities and perversities are just going to disappear.

Uh, one of the quotes that Fromm gave that has been on my mind for the better part of 10 years right now, uh, talking about the 1930s when Hitler rose to power.