Re: Reich & the Frankfurt School

[James Rovira <jrovira@xxxxxxxx>]

That's a good question -- the quotation seems exactly backwards.  I
remember Martin Jay describing a falling out between Fromm and H and A
in _The Dialectical Imagination_, but I don't remember the details
offhand.  It could be that a "smooth" transition between individual
psychology and social theory would undermine any possible dialectical
relationship between the two.  A tension needs to be maintained, rather
than seeing one collapsed into the other.

Jim

Ralph Dumain wrote:

> Wiggershaus has only a few references on Wilhelm Reich, mostly in
> connection with Fromm, who incorporated the concept of character
> structure into his social psychology.  There is one curious reference
> to Adorno, though (p. 159).  Adorno was working on some project (some
> time between 1933 and 1935, it seems): Wiggerstrauss says Adorno
> "would begin with Reich, because Reich, unlike Fromm, maintained that
> individual psychology could not be smoothly transferred to social
> theory."  What's this all about?
>
>