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Character and Social Process
Fromm, Erich
http://www.connexions.org/CxArchive/MIA/fromm/works/1942/character.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1942/character.htm Year Published: 1942 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX10629 The social character results from the dynamic adaptation of human nature to the structure of society. Changing social conditions result in changes of the social character, that is, in new needs and anxieties. These new needs give rise to new ideas and, as it were, make men susceptible to them; these new ideas in their turn tend to stabilise and intensify the new social character and to determine man's actions. In other words, social conditions influence ideological phenomena through the medium of character; character, on the other hand, is not the result of passive adaptation to social conditions but of a dynamic adaptation on the basis of elements that either are biologically inherent in human nature or have become inherent as the result of historic evolution. Subject Headings |