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combination of individual, familial, and social factors can be expected to
produce aggression. The exposition is further confused by Fromm's
infatuation with the existentialist doctrine of radical freedom. On more
than one occasion he asserts that human beings can to a considerable
extent make of their lives what they will.
If
such is the case, then surely
any effort to sort out the causes of aggression becomes meaningless.
I don't wish. to dwell on the book's failure to provide a clear and
ready explanation of human destructiveness. The matter is doubtless
complex, the variables many, and the empirical work necessary to such
an explanation far from complete. The book is annoying not primarily
because of its inconclusiveness but because of its intellectual
mannensms.
For one thing it is insufferably pedantic. There are endless distinc–
tions and definitions, many of which immediately disappear from view.
It
is as if one were permanently stuck in the introduction. Italics are
applied with the heavy hand of an Indian chef dispensing curry. And we
are forever being told what will be discussed "later on," the last such
announcement coming only twenty-five pages from the end of the text.
Granted these are matters of style, but they nonetheless distract from
one's pleasure in reading the book.
Much more serious is Fromm's lack of intellectual rigor. He has a
weakness for uplifting but unpersuasive generalizations about love,
justice, creativity, and life. He also posits fine-sounding but dubious
psychological propensities, such as "the need for a goal," or the need for
"a frame of orientation and devotion." He is, in short, relentlessly tender
minded, despite his somber and dispiriting topic.
Most objectionable of all is a habit of mind that might be called
prurient sexlessness. It is not simply that Fromm dismisses sexual experi–
ence as "trivial" and "transitory"--a mere reflection, not an integral
component, let alone a determinant, of character structure.
If
that were
all, one could with conscience respect his opinion. But in fact he insists
on abusing the language and categories of those intellectuals, such as
Freud, who hold that sexual experience is of absolutely primary
psychological importance.
For example, Fromm calls the two principal varieties of human
destructiveness "sadism" and "necrophilia." Now, as we all know, sadism
and necrophilia are sexual practices, recognized as such by every au–
thority on human sexual behavior from t he Marquis de Sade to William
Masters and Virginia Johnson. Fromm, however, takes issue with this
consensus. The sexual manifestations of sadism and necrophilia, he tells
us, are but special instances of a general psychological orientation, and
far from the most important. He is thus led to posit two new categories
