Time and Place:New York at Kaufman Concert Hall on April 23, 1968

Abstract: The lecture series The Causes of Human Aggression and Destructiveness presents the results of research published by Erich Fromm in his book The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973). In the sixth lecture, Fromm analyzes the defensive or reactive aggression if vital interests are attacked that is common to animal and humans. Nevertheless, there is a decisive difference by what is experienced as vital interest since humans can also imagine a fictitious threat of vital interest. After a reference to dominance-submission patterns in animals, the vital interests of humans and their potential paranoid thinking, but also their reaction to coercion, injustice and frustration are explicated. Of particular interest is the specifically human hostility: not only to stay alive but to stay sane, which is the equivalent of being alive in the mental sense. This particularity holds true if the vital interest of staying sane is represented by and linked to taboos or idols or connected with a narcissistic idealization of oneself, of ideas or ofinstitutions. Finally, Fromm speaks of faked threats to his vital interests due to brainwashing.– The lecture was given by Erich Fromm on the invitation of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association at Kaufman Concert Hall. The lecture (54’) is followed by Fromm’s answers (23’) to questions from the audience.

The text of the lecture and discussion can be downloaded as a PDF file.

ID in the directory of Erich Fromm’s works (https://fromm-online.org/en/works/original-writings/): 1968s-eng