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The National Association of educational broadcasters presents Freud and the American democracy one in a series of transcribed programs dealing with some of the discoveries and errors of Sigmund Freud. A series titled Man is not a thing. First you'll hear Dr. Eric from psychoanalyst and author as recorded in his study in Cuernavaca Mexico. Then you will meet Robert Nisbet dean of the College of Letters and Science University of California Riverside. Together with Floyd Ross professor of world religions of the Southern California School of Theology and Dr. Edward Rutan chief psychiatry of the California State Mental hygiene clinic in Riverside. Now here is Erich Fromm as interviewed by John Harter in cornerback a Mexico doctor from have the teachings of Freud any relevance for our present problems of political democracy. Will I would say they have in as much as we consider what Freud's picture of manual Freud saw man essentially gifted with two functions one his conscience in the other one his
reason his conscience he called it the technical term which is quite popular today. The super ego that is to say that instance in Man in which he has incorporated the basic laws and norms of his culture and Freud assume that man is and ought to be directed in his actions by this super ego by his conscience. That is one aspect which is important and the other aspect which is important is Freud's concept of man is a reasonable be in this respect. Fraud was a son of a light meant philosophy in a Lightman pit. He felt that the only thing man had to find his way in life individually and in society was his reason. By reason Freud did not simply understand manipulating intelligence but understood reason in a deeper sense namely the faculty of man of arriving by thought. If the true essence of a phenomenon which is
after all the sense in which reason is used in all sciences. True science is not concerned with just describing and weighing and counting but is concerned with finding out that which is not under surface and which can be found only by analyzing the surface critically. No to the problem of democracy this is a very important contribution in Freud's view of man namely Freud believed that men being endowed with conscience and being with endowed with reason can be a responsible citizen. Who knows who is informed and who decides on his convictions. Not only in his individual life but in those questions which matter for social life and for society. I would say that if we assume that the idea of democracy is the responsible citizen who knows and responds to the problems realistically that Freud's picture of man was exactly the picture of a man who could
function in democracy. Do you see this man functioning in a democracy in our own political democracy one of the present status of a political democracy. Are we producing these kinds of men or women. I'm afraid my answer to this question is rather in the negative. We do pay a great deal of lip service to the Virgin more Crecy but actually due to a number of circumstances in our democracy process and the way it functions has changed a great deal I would say as change fundamentally from what democracy meant 100 years ago. Why that is so is of course a complex question. I think it has to do partly with the tremendous increase in population. It's one thing whether if a small village in Switzerland of a few hundred or even a thousand inhabitants makes its decision in a town
meeting or this would hold true for a small village in the United States in the past too. And it's quite another thing if hundred and eighty million people have to vote. Now what we see today is more and more unfortunately that while we do vote our votes to a large extent not based on information on active participation on the real sense of responsibility but that our votes are swayed by slogans and by all sorts of money affiliation in which the voter is very little aware of what is really at stake what the facts are and what is worse in which they're voted deep down is convinced that he does not have much influence on what is really decided of the public. You sound somewhat pessimistic we will talk about what may happen in the future as there's is this pessimism related to the alleged pessimism that leads to Freud.
With Freud's pessimism is really a problem which is rather complex. Freud especially until the First World War had the kind of optimism in social life and in therapy which was so characteristic of the liberals and of the representative of the Lightman philosophy in the 18th and 19th century. He really believed that if man only learns how to use his reason men can arrive at a reasonably decent and good regulation and management of his own affairs. Well this certainly isn't pessimism. No that is not pessimism but Freud changed the First World War was a terrific blow to him as it was a terrific blow to many people of seeing how passions were aroused and how men behaved unreasonably and without paying any respect to the demands of reason. And after the First World War Freud became more and more pessimistic. In fact not only with regard to the
social arrangements of the possibility of democracy but also with a god to therapy. Freud toward the end of his life was by far not as enthusiastic about the possibilities of a league Zappy as he had been in his younger years. Not to speak of the fact of course that the victory of Naziism was an additional blow may be even more severe and of more far reaching consequences for him than the first world war had been. If Royd in his own his own response to his own thinking came to came to a position of pessimism. How do we escape this pessimism today. As we look around we see a good deal of irrational or or anti rational activity behavior carried on. Well I would say it is to a certain extent a matter of faith but not a matter of faith in the sense of believing something which our reason says is
nonsensical. But a fetus in a sense of relying on the experiences we have had which give us a conviction that things could be different. I think the trouble with all of us today is that we have great imagination and great faith in the miracles of technique and that we have little imagination a little faith with regard to the miracles of man. We think because things are the way they are they couldn't be different. I believe if we use only a little bit of the ingenuity which is used by physicists and chemists today to arrive at the most miraculous things we could indeed arrive at a better form of democracy in which we make democracy again reality rather than just the word. What do you think of the future. You suggest this is a possibility. I think the first step for the future would be to see that while we talk about democracy democracy does not really work properly anymore.
That while we are not any more in danger of becoming slaves we are in real danger of becoming robots automatons. I would say to see the deficiencies the defects. Here is an individual life is a first step. And I am sure if we see these clearly and if we are really concerned with democracy in the true sense of the meaning of the bird then we can devise new methods in which we could implement considering our modern situation our modern techniques. The concept of democracy is all that it really becomes again a way of decision making in which the individual is really informed sings responsibly and also can have the conviction that there is a direct influence between of his thoughts and decisions upon the affairs of the state and upon decision making. You have heard Dr. Eric from psychoanalyst and author as recorded in his study in Cuernavaca Mexico. Now to continue our discussion of Freud and
democracy we'll switch to Studio C at San Bernardino Valley College where we're joined Dean Robert Nisbet of the University of California Riverside. Professor Floyd Ross of the Southern California School of Theology and Dr. Edward Rutan chief psychiatry Hist. of the riverside state mental hygiene clinic. Dean is but is our moderator. Well gentlemen I think that Dr. from has opened up some imaginative avenues through the whole problem of freedom and organization here and with your forbearance I'd like to offer my own reaction for the first few seconds or a moment. I'm particularly struck by an arc from ZZ emphasis in the last paragraphs on the importance of decision making in democracy. Quite correctly I think from has put his finger on the central problem of American and all other large
democracies in the world at the present time. And that is the difficulty of the individual citizen feeling himself a part of the decision making organization or relationship. And this seems to me to be crucial rationality. Yes the free use of reason in the sense of self-discipline I regard all of these as important to a democracy. But it seems to me the bridge that exists between these and the reality of democracy is the bridge of opportunity to participate in meaningful decisions in society. Unfortunately many of us seem to be afraid of taking the responsibility for our decisions. I think of what some of the young men have told me more recently in and outside of classrooms one reason they welcomed service in the armed forces was they didn't have to make any fundamental decisions for themselves. I saw a lot of that. Does this say something about the lack of desire to assume the responsibility for freedom and decision
making in American democracy. I can't help thinking of an earlier book for almost the book perhaps that has been the most influential thing he ever wrote and that was it is a book Escape from freedom in which he argued very persuasively and with a great deal of airy addition that one of the chief reasons in the rise of totalitarianism in modern Europe has been the desire on the part of enlarging numbers of people to escape the burden of responsibility that a free government imposes on them. This seems to me as part of the problem. Dr. Frum also pointed out that the individual needs to have the conviction that his contribution is indeed being felt that his thoughts his ideas are having some direct influence on the government or on any decision making so that unless there is some provision for allowing him to feel that he is indeed making a contribution
isn't he going to withdraw regress and allow others to make the decisions for him. Do you think the factor of sheer size the growth of our population has kept many modern Americans from feeling that their decisions have any influence in governmental circles local state or national. I don't think it's they fact of size population as such although they are extraordinary increase population as perhaps provided the background of the problem or more accurately has been involved in the whole complex of fact doors which lie behind it. I think what is really important here is the kind of participation in decision making that we look for. We have to admit I think. In all honesty there was a kind of participation in the decision making that went into a totalitarian government like that of Hitler. And here I'm thinking of the mass participation
of the individual German in vast rallies that sense of participation all being in some kind of crusade. There was a form of participation passive though it may have been. Now this kind of mass participation where the individual goes to the ballot box every four years or every two years doesn't seem to me to be really at the heart of the kind of participation that is necessary to democracy. Don't we have to recognize that Hitler's appeal like that of many a demagogue was to the most irrational factors in the human psyche and was based upon hatred an antipathy toward minority groups. I am learning and it seems to me that it is in the spectacle of the mass the kind of mass that gathered in the hundreds of thousands to hear Hitler in the public squares. It's an that kind of mass that these irrational factors are most likely to emerge and become dominant in the political sensibilities of the individual.
I wonder if this isn't part of the reason for Freud's pessimism after World War 2 and particularly after the Nazi upsurge. He was it seems to me very much like our physicists today who are out of their investigations and discoveries have produced a weapon which can be used for good and for evil. And Freud I think was surprised amazed and hurt to find that his discoveries could be as easily manipulated by those who needed to control men in irrational ways as it could be used by those whose efforts might have been to help men to go forth rationally. This was part of the superficial optimism that prevailed unfortunately in the latter part of the 19th century when man began to think that after all human nature was very very good if not perfect whereas if we had recognised some of the things that the older traditions had said. We would have known that man also has a tremendous
capacity for destructiveness. I think that's very true and quite apart from the atmosphere of optimism and liberal rationalism that Freud was living in. There was also the almost blind certainly unquestioning faith in the voice of the people. Now this we properly take is one of the cardinal tenets of political democracy but the government that Abraham Lincoln referred to as government by for and all of the people. But I think there was too little recognition in the 19th century of the fact that the people are less educated and less informed. Unless they are meaningful members of a society the people as a whole may be guilty of just as many irrationalities cruelties and brutalities as an individual does spot. This is the assumption that when people act
collectively they act through their egos and super egos and rules out the fact that they act also with their is that their basic upsurge is their basic investments that basic needs are as heavily contributing to their decisions as heavily contributing to their relationships to the society as are the rational elements. The ego and the super ego if the super ego can be considered as rational in all cases. We seem to agree generally that democracy puts a premium on man's capacity for south direction and for decisions based on ability to suspend his judgment entail the relevant facts are in. We also seem to recognize that reason is that self often dominated by these irrational factors and man Sankey know how can this reason be freed from the tyranny of the unventilated areas of man's life. Why for example are we swayed by slogans so much as Dr. Frum points out. Certainly before we vote we can all
go and lie on the psychiatric couch and have a series of sessions. Unfortunately perhaps. Well here is a case it seems to me where reason that is unadorned individual reason may not in itself be enough. What I have reference to here is the profound value of communities of purpose. These communities of purpose may be irrational. We hope they are rational but they have a value to the individual and this value I think is one of reinforcement of the individual mind of individual conscience. And I think perhaps any individual no matter how sworn he may be to the life of reason. Reaches points in his career where faith may waver where reason may be unsure and where he is supported or reinforced by some of these communities of purpose that he belongs to in his economic or religious or cultural life.
But Bob you too had to insert a parent that ical comment that you hoped that these communities of purpose were rational. And this kind of hope is fine to have but I think we must be willing to accept that some of our conclusions will be motivated by some irrational components in ourselves and that this is one of the reasons that we are so susceptible to the slogans that these appeal to some of the irrational needs or the unconscious needs that we have and that this is going to be a part of our democratic process. We may hope that ultimately the rational man. It wins out in a sense and that the ego of the individual is able to manipulate the irrational components. But we do have to face that in the democratic process there will be irrational needs which will need to be met at times too.
Isn't part of the problem to get these basic irrational needs our energies directed as it were to fulfilling some of the objects that the function of reason may help a small community group to discover. In other words I would not want to divorce reason on the one hand from the basic drives on the other. Reason operates in the total organic context. Now how are we going to help these small communities of interest are the interest groups that emerge in home school and church and elsewhere. How are we going to help these groups. Take the steps that will free them from the dominance of the tyranny of the irrational so that they won't respond to the slogan simply as the slogans are in unseated by the man who is most eloquent. I wonder to change the focus slightly here if I may. If they problem of democracy it has not been vastly complicated by the tremendous burden of responsibility that we now place upon the
state. I'm thinking of areas of Social Security and education and the like. We've tended to pass to many of the community responsibilities for either happy or implying that and frequently they have gone up higher simply because they communities themselves or the states in the American system have been utterly unwilling to carry these responsibilities. Doesn't this get back to the individuals concept of the Father or the mother too. They can do it better than they can take better care of me and they should take care of me. The assumption that this state and. It's always a higher governmental echelon that can do it better this state can and should take care of me. Doesn't this then perhaps if this is the case Doesn't this reflect then the individual's basic insecurity in his relationships in his own family so that we perhaps get into the politics of the family or the interpersonal relationships of the family again in order to try to understand this individual's relationship to his government.
Doesn't it seem then Ed that wherever there is a vacuum in the lives of persons a vacuum of meaning less ness there is a tendency for people to behave essentially a non-rational ways. I was interested in from his use of the word faith. This is commonly found in a theological context but it's being used more now even in the psychological context faith certainly means confidence among other things. And perhaps we in modern society have lost confidence in our own basic resources and our capacity to direct these resources more constructively for example it seems to me we're living under a psychology of fear in this country ourselves. In my fairly short life I have been brought up first to hate the Germans then to hate the Japanese then to hate the Chinese the Russians for a while then off again on again and it seems to me that we have been conditioned to a psychology of fear and the bomb stands as it were for our slavery to this psychology of fear which the politicians have learned how to use very effectively for their own
purposes I'm afraid. I think Professor Ross especially in your words on the crucial importance of meaning I think has put his finger on something that is fundamental to democracy. We all admit the genuine operating political democracy depends upon a faith in reason. And a willingness to use reason and not be frightened by the responsibilities of reason. But I think there is in this whole area of the individual's sense of belonging to a culture or to a community of ends that is meaningful to him that we find perhaps an equally important problem of democracy. But how do we instill it. How do we get this sense over to young people as a means of making them true supporters of democracy.
Don't we have to reverse the process of passing more and more of the decisions up to Dad or the old man at the top. Symbolically speaking where do we start stopping this process what we're asking about. We're talking about the concept of security itself and when we talk about faith think representing a confidence. We are talking about the basic securities of the individual and this again goes back to the relationship that the individual has to the prime parent figure to the mother in the first few months to a year of life. If this individual has had a an adequate satisfying relationship here and has felt loved has felt protected he has developed a certain optimism about life he has developed a certain confidence that things will come out all right at the next meal will be forthcoming and he can then go into his social relationships with some confidence that things will turn out all right instead of being afraid of the relationship itself.
Do you think that these communities of purpose that Dina has been has referred to might function in a sense as a form of group therapy. Let's grant that the individual has been injured or traumatized in his early years as you say. But can we also expect that there can be a kind of group healing. In communities of concern and of interest that are directed to restoring something of a sense of personal warmth there is a kind of group healing I don't know that we can call it group therapy but there is a kind of group Healing we've learned from some experiences in the Korean War that certain things happen to individuals when they become related to a group of individuals. The community of purpose that you were talking about Bob that they develop new kinds of egos and super egos that they adopt some of the values some of the characteristics some of the concerns some of the mores of the group. And that as long as they are in the group they function by these values rather than by their
own what we might call native values they really aren't native but these are values of the basic individual character formation. I think that's wholly solved or at least that's a way of saying that I agree with it. But the reason they use of individual reason although it is indispensable to political democracy is by no means alone in its indispensability any more than reason is in the life one leads in a family. These non-rational factors of love. Response to recognition of a sense of status where these are lacking it seems to me that all the reason and all of the rational teaching in the world will not prevent most people from abdicating from democracy as surely as a man will abdicate from any other form of association if these non-rational needs are not being met then his man is to stand up against an increasingly impersonal state. You will have to establish a certain quality of relationship in his own local community
so that he can play a more meaningful room in the political life of the community. I think that's right. I think the local community and other forms of association to the religious and economic core so to speak so many steps to they kind of association that is political democracy itself. In other words having reached this point of conclusion we may regard democracy and the whole political process as one that requires reason perhaps First of all but reason in the context of a fulfillment of some of the other needs that man has which are in no sense defined by reason alone. To you Dr. Edward Roden chief psychiatrist of the riverside state mental hygiene clinic. And to you Professor Floyd Ross of the Southern California School of Theology. Our thanks for this informative and stimulating discussion. You have been listening to Freud and the American democracy won in a series of
transcribed programmes concerned with the discoveries and errors of Sigmund Freud. A series titled Man is not a thing. First you heard Dr. Eric from psychoanalyst and author as interviewed in his study in Cuernavaca Mexico then to Studio C at San Bernardino Valley College where we heard from Robert Nisbet dean of the College of Letters and Science University of California Riverside. Together with Floyd Ross professor of World Religions Southern California School of Theology and Dr. Edward Rutan chief psychiatry of the California State Mental hygiene clinic in Riverside. These programs were produced and edited by John harder for the community education division of San Bernardino Valley College and were developed under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. There should be an IEEE B Radio Network.
Series
Man is not a thing
Episode
Freud and the American democracy
Producing Organization
San Bernardino Valley College
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-j678xj3g
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Description
Episode Description
This program, "Freud and the American Democracy," looks at how Freud's theories apply to American democracy.
Series Description
This series presents a discussion of the discoveries and errors of Sigmund Freud and his impact on the American family, politics and religion.
Broadcast Date
1958-01-01
Topics
Psychology
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:24
Embed Code
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Credits
Editor: Harding, Bob
Interviewer: Walker, Fred
Producer: Harter, John
Producing Organization: San Bernardino Valley College
Speaker: Fromm, Erich, 1900-1980
Speaker: Nisbet, Robert A.
Speaker: Ross, Floyd Hiatt
Speaker: Rudin, Edward
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 58-22-6 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:10
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Citations
Chicago: “Man is not a thing; Freud and the American democracy,” 1958-01-01, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-j678xj3g.
MLA: “Man is not a thing; Freud and the American democracy.” 1958-01-01. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-j678xj3g>.
APA: Man is not a thing; Freud and the American democracy. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-j678xj3g