Utopia in dreamland
Eysenck
he Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. Erich ranun (Jonathan Cape 1,4.50)
0
he approaches a new book by Erich Fromm h With 2 somewhat ambivalent attitudes. He is h`-'2vIously a highly gifted, widely read man, h humane sympathies and far-ranging „magination; when he undertakes to discuss of the great problems of our time — human ,"estructiveness — in a book of such length Over five hundred pages) it seems likely that he otiltaY have something important to say. On the knher hand, he is a convinced Freudian, and this th awn attitude determines from the beginning f`;4e sort of thing he is likely to say. Indeed, just s, ern knowing Fromm's previous work and his 8°,,e,heral outlook, I was able to build up a fairly e'-'-urate picture of what he was going to say bv.p) before I opened the book. Such predicta0,4,431 suggests a lack of response to factual -bvidence. Nevertheless, to many readers this Pro'Will be a welcome discussion of many ,,Problems, attempted solutions, empirical ehqUiries, philosophical disputations, and eng PsYehoanalytical speculations; it certainly rp, ages the mind, even though the final -srponse may be disappointment. 48 rrorrim starts out by contrasting two major — the instinctivists, among whom he "mnbers Freud and Lorenz, and the environrnenta 1. skin ists and behaviourists, particularly in nee The former regard aggression as an h0 ate, genetically determined property of the sanan animal, which is elicited by appropriate wh"t11-1,1i; the latter consider it a learned response 444'1C!I has in the past been rewarded by drhnitive reinforcement." This sounds fine; ectical opposition always seems to sort out e-aliago
„ nists into rival camps whose view can be
reash,''Y Understood. But unfortunately there are if any living psychologists who would ktree to be placed into either camp. We all hal;Nv that agressive behaviour has a biological inject androgens into rats and they will beisatne much more aggressive than they were fa,c)re. We all know that circumstances may twy°ur or disfavour aggressive behaviour; place °tic)) rats in a box and they will disregard each Will Give them an electric shock, and they
I attack each other. Heredity and environment ai
tha, ways operate in conjunction; the notion with' either alone can meaningfully be credited ah,;', any kind of behaviour causation is too ab"md to be taken seriously, even by the much -!sed and despised behaviourists! "hehrm spends much time on what he calls fac,?viourism"; he never even considers the at the term has many meanings. The two ITle ones are methodological behaviourism
and philosophical behaviourism. Methodological behaviourism simply states that psychology must operate with observables, if it is to be scientific; this is now pretty universally accepted by psychologists, and in this sense we are all behaviourists. Philosophical behaviourism has something to say about the non-existence of mind and consciousness; it is close to naive realism, and is not adopted by any leading psychologist I have ever read. Fromm does not make this very clear distinction, and consequently what he has to say about behaviourism is critical of a non-existent position — he attacks the usual man of straw with a great show of courage and sword-play, but to very little purpose. Behaviourists may be environmentalists, or they may not; I am usually counted as a behaviourist, but some of my main contributions have been in the field of behavioural genetics. Many behaviourists are not interested in genetic and instinctive aspects of behaviour because there is little you can do about them; they want to get on with changing behaviour. That does not make them 100 per cent environmentalists.
Fromm's antipathies become clear when he discusses psychological experiments; he clearly doesn't like the experimental approach. He feels that psychological states cannot be dissected in the laboratory. He does not prove this odd and somewhat unusual point; he tries to illustrate it with a discussion of two experiments he does not seem to care for. One could illustrate the' opposite view by quoting some experiments that have given rise to . important new developments, such as behaviour therapy; clearly, illustration is not enough, we need proof. But like all good psychoanalysts, the very notion of proof is too much for Fromm, he is content to argue, to comment, and to illustrate. This may convince his readers, particularly those not familiar with the field, but it is not. a good way of arriving at the truth. We had the same argument in physics in Victorian times; at a famous British Association meeting Preece argued that Sir Oliver Lodge's laboratory findings that sparks from Leyden jars jumped to and fro were irrelevant to the question of whether lightning iwas a DC discharge or rather an AC one. His :point was that natural phenomena could not be imprisoned in a laboratory. However, Lodge 'was right, and Preece was wrong. Perhaps Fromm had better think again.
Fromm makes his own contribution towards the latter half of the book. He distinguishes between defensive aggression, which serves survival, and destructiveness and cruelty, which are specifically human. His analysis, as one might have expected, is again by illustration, not by scientific proof; he looks at Hitler, Stalin and Himmler in order to support his views that it is the failure to achieve the capacity for love and reason which results in the development of these evil impulses. I cannot give an account here of what his theories are; they are too nebulous, too convoluted, and too unclear to make brief summary possible. His remedy for our imperfections — as usual, he demands a restructuring of society. True; people are moulded by society. However, society is created by people; how can the people who have been moulded by a society which has been created by similar people change this society into its opposite? Like most Utopians, Fromm's answer requires people quite unlike those who now make up society. Perhaps Skinner, with all his imperfections, is a better guide if we wish to change 'human nature'; he at least has some demonstrable success on his side. There is no evidence that psychoanalysis ever changed anyone; perhaps that is why Fromm prefers argument to experiment. It is so easy to have one's favourite ideas disproved in the laboratory. It happens to me all the time. It clearly has never happened to Fromm. He makes sure that it can't.
H. S. Eysench is Professor of Psychology at the University of London
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