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Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University pp 1–17Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Critical Theory and the Problem of Authority

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Part of the book series: Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice ((CPTRP))

Abstract

There are three main types of authority—religious, secular, and scientific. When all trust in authority vanishes, people become disenchanted, highly suggestible, and vulnerable to conspiracy theories of various kinds. This is chiefly due to the ways in which authority is exercised or wielded. Erich Fromm identified three different modes of authority, or specific modes of relatedness between those possessing authority (of different types) and those subject to them. Rational authority promotes equality and personal autonomy, fostering democratic norms and values. Irrational authority defends or deepens existing inequalities, eroding the person’s conscience and critical faculties, fostering authoritarianism. Anonymous authority fosters mediocrity and conformity. Critical theory focused on the harmful impact of irrational and anonymous authority on human development from its inception. These ideas also help us understand the politics of psychoanalysis, the Freud wars, the perils of postmodernism, and the current crisis in the Liberal Arts.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Organized religion plays an ambiguous role, historically, in fostering or fighting bigotry, hatred and scapegoating. The role played by a religious denomination or organization depends in part on whether it embraces an authoritarian or a humanistic interpretation of its sacred scriptures. For more on the distinction between humanistic and authoritarian religion, see Erich Fromm’s book Psychoanalysis and Religion (Fromm 1950.)

  2. 2.

    Studies on Authority and the Family, edited by Max Horkheimer, and published in 1936, was a landmark volume, containing notable contributions on the subject of authority from Horkheimer, Fromm, and Marcuse, among others. In addition to being highly interdisciplinary, it set the tone for many of the institute’s subsequent efforts. See Horkheimer, M. (Ed.). 1936. Studien über Autorität und Familie. Schriften des Instituts für Sozialforschung, 5, 947. For an incisive summary of the volume’s main features, see Martin Jay’s masterful study The Dialectical Imagination, Boston: Beacon Press, 1973.

  3. 3.

    Despite its immense popularity among students, radicals, and certain sectors of the intelligentsia during the 1960s, Marcuse’s book Eros and Civilization was fundamentally flawed because of his inability—(or refusal?)—to grasp many elementary features of the clinical dimensions of psychoanalysis. This shortcoming engendered massive distortions and untenable constructions in his interpretation of Freud and his critique of Fromm’s admittedly unorthodox approach to treatment. (For a fuller discussion of this point, see my book The Legacy of Erich Fromm, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991, chapter 9.) Adorno’s rendering of Freud (e.g., Adorno 1951) was far more faithful to the spirit and letter of the original, not least because he worked closely with clinicians in his study of authoritarianism, and because he never tried to extract (or in a manner of speaking, extort) a utopian or revolutionary message from Freud’s pessimistic philosophy of history.

  4. 4.

    These remarks pertain primarily to recent trends in psychoanalytic social psychology in the Anglo-sphere. Developments in the German-speaking world have followed a somewhat different path. See, for example, “Critical Psychoanalytic Social Psychology in the German Speaking Countries” by Marcus Brunner, Nicole Burgermeister, Jan Lohl, Marc Schwietring, and Sebastian Winter, translated by Nora Ruck, in Critical Psychology in a Changing World: Building Brides and Expanding Dialogue, in the Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 2013.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Daniel Burston

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Burston, D. (2020). Critical Theory and the Problem of Authority. In: Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University. Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34921-9_1

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