SIGMUND FREUD: 1856-1956
209
is rooted in productiveness and may properly be called, therefore,
'productive love' ") . Since only a person genuinely capable of loving
himself is capable of loving others, self-interest is a social good, as
it was for Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith. Fromm writes:
The failure of modern culture lies not in its principles of individualism,
not in the idea that moral virtue is the same as the pursuit of self–
interest, but in the deterioration of the meaning of self-interest; not in
the fact that people are
too much concerned with their self-interest,
but that they are
not concerned enough with the interest of their real
self; not in the fact that they are too selfish, but that they do not laue
themselves.
Even the superego in
The Sane Society
is loving and productive, "a
voice which tells us to do our duty, and a voice which tells us to
love and to forgive- others as well as ourselves."
The aim of therapy is naturally to free this true self for its true
productive loving self-interest. "Mental health is characterized by
the ability to love and to create," he writes, and "creation" as an
ideal is defined rather broadly: "an ever-increasing number of people
paint, do gardening, build their own boats or houses, indulge in any
number of 'do it yourself' activities."
As
for the nature of man, "we
look upon human nature as essentially historically conditioned," and
Freud's Manichaean dualism becomes the Christian certainty of vic–
tory for God's Party: "the forward-going life instinct is stronger and
increases in relative strength the more it grows." We know that our
redeemers live, even if they are only people in the French Com–
munities of Work with "a resilient spirit of good will," "people who
have said 'yes' to life"; not yet the truly "awakened ones" like
"Ikhnaton, Moses, Kung Fu-tse, Lao-tse, Buddha, Jesaja, Socrates,
Jesus."
Sullivan's underlying philosophy seems essentially similar, al–
though its expression is a good deal more rugged and considerably
less inspirational. In
Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry,
Sullivan de–
fines love as a "state of affectional rapport," which has "great adap–
tive possibilities" and produces "a great increase in the consensual
validation of symbols." In
The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatr)'
1
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