1954a-e

Erich Fromm

The Psychology of Normalcy

„The Psychology of Normalcy,” was first published in: Dissent, New York,
Vol. 1 (Spring 1954), pp. 139-143. - The numbers in {brackets} refer to the
pages of this first English publication. - Copyright © 1960 by Erich Fromm;
Copyright © 2004 by The Literary Estate of Erich Fromm, Ursrainer Ring 24,
D-72076 Tuebingen, Germany, E-mail: frommfunk[at-symbol]aol.com.

To speak of a whole society as lacking in mental health implies a controversial

assumption, contrary to the position of sociological relativism held by most social
scientists today. They postulate that each society is normal inasmuch as it func-
tions, and that psychology can be defined only in terms of the individual’s lack of
adjustment to the ways of life in his society.
To speak of a „sane society“ implies a premise different from sociological
relativism. It makes sense only if we assume that there can be a society which is
not sane, and this assumption, in turn, implies that there are universal criteria for
mental health which are valid for the human race as such, and according to
which the state of health of each society can be judged. This position of norma-
tive humanism is based on a few fundamental premises.
The species „man“ can be defined not only in anatomical and physiological
terms; it also shares in the same basic psychic: qualities, the same laws which
govern its mental and emotional functioning, and the same aims for a satisfactory
solution of the problem of human existence. It is true that our knowledge of man
is still so incomplete that we cannot yet give a satisfactory definition of man in a
psychological sense. It is the task of the „science of man“ to arrive eventually at a
correct description of what deserves to be called human nature. What leas often
been called „human nature“ is one of its many manifestations--and often a patho-
logical one--and the function of such mistaken definitions was usually to defend a
particular way of behavior as being the necessary outcome of man’s mental con-
stitution.
Against such reactionary use of the concept of human nature, the liberals,
since the 18th century, have stressed the malleability, of human nature and the
decisive influence of environmental factors. True and important as such empha-
sis is, it has led many social scientists to an assumption that man’s mental consti-
tution is like a blank piece of paper, on which {140} society and culture write their
text, and which has no intrinsic quality of its own. This assumption is equally un-
tenable and equally destructive of social progress. The real problem is to infer the
core common to all the human race from the innumerable manifestations of hu-
man nature, the normal as well as the pathological ones, as we can observe
them in different individuals and cultures. The task is furthermore to recognize
the laws inherent in human nature and the inherent goals for its development and
unfolding. Just as the infant is born with all human potentialities which are to de-
velop under favorable social and cultural conditions, so the human race, in the
process of history, develops into what it potentially is.
The approach of normative humanism is based on the assumption that as in
the solution of any other question, there are right and wrong, satisfactory and un-
satisfactory solutions to the problem of human existence. Mental health is
achieved if man develops into full maturity according to tire characteristics and
laws of human nature. Mental illness consists in the failure of such development.
Prom this premise tire criterion of mental health is not that of adjustment of the

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individual to a given social order, but a universal one, valid for all men, of giving a
satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
What is so deceptive about the state of mind of the members of a society is
the “consensual validation“ of their concepts. It is naively assumed that the fact
that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of
these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth. Consensual validation
as such has no bearing whatsoever on reason or mental health. Just as there is a
„folie à deux“ there is a „folie à millions.“ The fact that millions of people share the
same vices does not make them virtuous, the fact that they share so many errors
does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share
the same forms of mental pathology does not make them sane.
There is, however, an important difference between individual and social
mental illness, which suggests differentiation between the two concepts: that of
defect, and that of neurosis. If a person fails to attain freedom, spontaneity, a
genuine expression of self, he may be considered to have a severe defect, pro-
vided we assume that freedom and spontaneity are the objective goals to be at-
tained by every human being. If such a goal is not attained by the majority of
members of any given society, we deal with the phenomenon of socially pat-
terned defect. The individual shares it with many others; he is not aware of it as a
defect, and his security is not threatened by the experience of being different, of
being an outcast, as it were. What he may have lost in richness and in a genuine
feeling of happiness is made up by the security of fitting in with the rest of man-
kind--as he knows them. As a matter of fact, his very defect may have been
raised {141} to a virtue of his culture, and thus may give him an enhanced feeling
of achievement.
Spinoza formulates the problem of the socially patterned defect very clearly.
He says: „Many people are seized by one and the same affect with great consis-
tency. All a man’s senses are so strongly affected by one object that he believes
this object to be present even if it is not. If this happens while the person is
awake, the person is believed to be insane. ... But if the greedy person thinks
only of money and possessions, the ambitious one duly of fame, one does not
think of them as being insane, but only as annoying; generally one has contempt
for them. But factually greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, al-
though one does not think of them as ‘illness.’” These words were written a few
hundred years ago; they still hold true, although the defect has been culturally
patterned to such an extent now that it is not even generally thought any more to
be annoying or contemptible.
Today we come across a person who acts and feels like an automaton; who
never experiences anything which is really his; who experiences himself entirely
as the person he thinks he is supposed to be: whose smiles have replaced laugh-
ter; whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech; whose
dulled despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements can be made
about this person. One is that he suffers from a defect of spontaneity and indi-
viduality which may seem incurable. At the same time, it may be said that he
does not differ essentially from millions of others who are in the same position.
For most of them, the culture provides patterns which enable them to live with a
defect without becoming ill. It is as if each culture provided the remedy against
the outbreak of manifest neurotic symptoms which would result from the defect
produced by it.
Suppose that in our Western culture movies, radios, television, sports
events, and newspapers ceased to function for only four weeks. With these main
avenues of escape closed, what would be the consequences for people thrown
upon their own resources? I have no doubt that even in this short time thousands
of nervous breakdowns would occur, and many more thousands of people would
be thrown into a state of acute anxiety, not being different from the picture which

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is diagnosed clinically as „neurosis.“1 If {142} the opiate against the socially pat-
terned defect were withdrawn, the manifest illness would make its appearance.
With a minority, the pattern provided by the culture does not work. They are
often those whose individual defect is more severe than that of the average per-
son, so that the culturally offered remedies are not sufficient to prevent the out-
break of manifest illness, but there are also those whose character structure, and
hence whose conflicts, differ from those of the majority, so that the remedies
which are effective for most of their fellowmen are of no help to them. Among this
group we sometimes find people of greater integrity and sensitivity than can be
found in the majority, those who for this very reason are incapable of accepting
the cultural opium, while at the same time they are not strong and healthy enough
to live soundly „against the stream.“

The foregoing discussion on the difference between neurosis and the socially
patterned defect may give the impression that if society only provides the reme-
dies against the outbreak of manifest symptoms, all goes well, and it can con-
tinue to function smoothly, however great the defects created by it are. History
shows us, however, that this is not the case.
It is true, indeed, that man, in contrast to the animal, shows an almost infinite
malleability; just as he can eat almost anything, live under practically any kind of
climate, and adjust himself to it, there is hardly any psychic condition which he
cannot endure, and under which he cannot carry on. He can live free, and as a
slave; rich and in luxury, and under conditions of half-starvation. He can live as a
warrior, and peacefully; as an exploiter and robber, and as a member of a coop-
erating and loving fellowship. There is hardly a psychic state in which man cannot
live, and hardly anything which cannot be done with him and for which he cannot
be used. All these considerations seem to justify the assumption that there is no
such thing as a nature common to all men, and that would mean in fact that there
is no such thing as a species „man,“ except in a physiological and anatomical
sense. Yet, in spite of all this evidence, the history of man shows that we have
omitted one fact. Despots and ruling cliques can succeed in dominating and ex-
ploiting their fellow man, but they cannot prevent reactions to this inhuman treat-
ment. Their subjects become frightened, suspicious, lonely, and if not due to ex-
ternal reasons, their systems collapse at one point because fears, suspicions and
loneliness eventually incapacitate the majority to function effectively and intelli-
gently. Whole nations, or social groups within them, can be subjugated and ex-
ploited for a long time, but they react. They react with apathy or such impairment
of intelligence, initiative, and skills that they gradually fail to perform the functions
which should serve their rulers. Or they react by the accumulation of such hate
{143} and destructiveness as to bring about an end to themselves, their rulers,
and their system. Again, their reaction may be such inflows of independence and
a longing for freedom that a better society is built upon the creative impulses.
Whichever reaction occurs depends on many factors; on economic and political
ones, and on the spiritual climate in which people live. But whatever the reactions
are, the statement that man can live under almost any condition is only half true;
it must be supplemented by the other statement, that if he lives under conditions
which are contrary to his nature and to the basic requirements for human growth
and sanity, he cannot help reacting; he must either deteriorate and perish, or
bring about conditions which are more in accordance with his needs.

1
I have made the following experiment with various classes of undergraduate college students: they
were told to imagine that they were to stay for three days alone in their room, without a radio, es-
capist literature, although provided with „good“ literature, normal food and all other physical com-
forts. They were asked to imagine what their reaction to this experience would be. The response of
about 90 per cent in each group ranged from the feeling of acute panic, to that of an exceedingly
trying experience, which they might overcome by sleeping long, doing all kinds of little chores, ea-
gerly awaiting the end of this period. Only a small minority felt that they would be at ease and enjoy
the time when they are with themselves.

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The point of view taken here is neither a „biological“ nor a „sociological“ one if
that would mean separating these two aspects from each other. It is rather one
transcending such dichotomy by the assumption that the main passions and
drives in man result from the total existence of man, that they are definite and as-
certainable, some of them conducive to health and happiness, others to sickness
and unhappiness. Any given social order does not create these fundamental
strivings, but determines which one of the limited number of potential passions
are to become manifest. Man as he appears in any given culture is always a
manifestation of human nature, a manifestation, however, which in its specific
outcome is determined by the social arrangements under which he lives.
The answer to the question of what is a „sane society“ must start, then, with
a concept of man, his nature, and the laws which govern his development. The
sane society is that which corresponds to the needs of man; not necessarily to
what he feels to be his needs--because even the most pathological aims can be
felt subjectively as that which the person wants most--but to what his needs are
objectively, as they can be ascertained by the study of man. Provided we agree
that the aim of social life is to be conducive to the fullest development of man--
and nothing else--we must judge any given society by this criterion. Our problem,
then, is a twofold one: the anthropological and psychological one of the nature of
man and of his needs stemming from it; and the social-psychological one of ex-
amining any given society from the viewpoint of its furthering or inhibiting influ-
ence on the realization of these needs. Since no society so far, including our
own, has created the conditions for the full realization of man, the main task is
essentially one of critical evaluation of society, which must be combined with the
constructive attempt of considering which socio-economic forms would be more
in accordance with man’s nature and needs.

Copyright © 1960 by Erich Fromm

Copyright © 2004 by The Literary Estate of Erich Fromm
Ursrainer Ring 24, D-72076 Tuebingen, Germany, E-mail: frommfunk[at-symbol]aol.com.