DAVlD RIESMAN
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this seminar, and I remember one episode which illustrates Fromm's ap–
proach. Fromm asked, "Are the children ever teased?"
And George Murdoch's first response was, "Oh no. Oh no. The
children are treated very nicely."
"Are you sure that they're never teased? Can you not think of any
episode of teasing?" Fromm persisted.
"Oh yes," one of the anthropologists said. "A child would be given a
piece of bread and an uncle would say, 'Just let me have a look at that.'
He'd take a bite. Another relative would say, 'Let me have a look at it.'
By the time they were all done taking a look at it, the piece of bread had
disappeared. "
That observation was central to Fromm's picture of the Trukese,
which was radically different from what was presented at the seminar:
all
these terribly nice people in this Pacific paradise who were very good at
tying knots and doing other nautical things. Fromm's indication of what
he thought about Trukese social character was confirmed by historical
evidence gathered from earlier missionary accounts, which the anthropol–
ogists in their snobbery had rejected. There was high dramatic tension.
The Yale anthropologists had thought that they could deceive Fromm;
that he would not get the right picture.
DB :
What in Fromm's work did you find most attractive?
DR:
I don't remember when Fromm's book
Man Jor Himself
came out,
but I didn't think Fromm was a very good writer. His thought was better
than his writing, and my "analysis" with him was really conversational -
not that he didn't help me psychologically; he did. I must tell you of my
first encounter with him, how it came about that I went to see him at
all.
My mother, a very avant-garde person, had been interested in psycho–
analysis for a very long time. She went to New York to be analyzed by
Karen Horney, and afterwards she wanted to discuss her interest with me.
I met Karen Horney, who told my mother that I was a "very resigned
young man," which was the case. And Horney, who then was very close
to Fromm (they later split), suggested that I go to him. I went to his
home and office on the Upper West Side near Columbia University.
When I saw the
Cesammelte Werke
of Marx and Engels on his book–
shelves, I said to Fromm, "I don't want any of that stuff."
Fromm said, "Don't worry. I'm not out to persuade you or convince
you." I later became skeptical of Fromm's picture of the lower middle
class, a kind of snobbish, European style picture, just as I later did with
C.
Wright Mills's picture of Americans in his book,
White Collar.
But I did
accept Fromm's focus on social psychology.
