Chapter 8 Fromm: Humanistic Psychoanalysis 251In such times, political figures like Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, who characterized him-
self as the only savior of a nation struggling against sinister liberal influences, become
attractive to voters (Jebreal, 2015). Here in the United States, a similar candidate,
Donald Trump, announced his presidential bid in 2015 by saying that he would “build
a wall” on the United States’ southern border and ban all Muslims from entering the
U.S. until they could be vetted. Accepting the nomination for president, he told the
delegates at the convention “I alone can fix it.” Such candidates appeal to voters’
fears and provide reassurance in the form of absolute answers and certainty. We might
all do well to read Escape from Freedom in these uncertain times, so as to educate
ourselves about the dangers of submitting to charismatic leaders offering simple solu-
tions to complex (and, yes, often frightening) global problems.
Critique of Fromm
Erich Fromm was perhaps the most brilliant essayist of all personality theorists.
He wrote beautiful essays on international politics (Fromm, 1961); on the relevance
of biblical prophets for people today (Fromm, 1986); on the psychological prob-
lems of the aging (Fromm, 1981); on Marx, Hitler, Freud, and Christ; and on
myriad other topics. Regardless of the topic, at the core of all Fromm’s writings
can be found an unfolding of the essence of human nature.
Like other psychodynamic theorists, Fromm tended to take a global
approach to theory construction, erecting a grand, highly abstract model that was
more philosophical than scientific. His insights into human nature strike a
responsive chord, as evidenced by the popularity of his books. Unfortunately, his
essays and arguments are not as popularly known today as they were 50 years
ago. Paul Roazen (1996) stated that, during the mid-1950s, a person could not
be considered educated without having read Fromm’s eloquently written Escape
from Freedom. Today, however, Fromm’s books are seldom required reading on
college campuses.
From a scientific perspective, we must ask how Fromm’s ideas rate on the six
criteria of a useful theory. First, Fromm’s relatively imprecise and vague terms have
rendered his ideas difficult to operationalize, and therefore somewhat immune to
being generators of research. Research using the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale,
as well as some work on the marketing orientation, serve as exceptions to the rule,
but generally speaking our search of the last 45 years of psychology literature yielded
few empirical studies that directly tested Fromm’s theoretical assumptions. This pau-
city of scientific investigations places him among the lowest of the empirically
validated theorists covered in this book.
Second, Fromm’s theory is too philosophical to be either falsifiable or veri-
fiable. Nearly any empirical findings generated by Fromm’s theory (if they existed)
could be explained by alternative theories.
Third, the breadth of Fromm’s theory enables it to organize and explain
much of what is known about human personality. Fromm’s social, political, and
historical perspective provides both breadth and depth for understanding the human
condition; but his theory’s lack of precision makes prediction difficult and falsifi-
cation impossible.