The Twit and the Wisdom: September 2018

Monday, September 17, 2018

Fromm, from May Man Prevail?

Today certain opinions are held with pride as being “realistic,” when they actually are as fantastic and unrealistic as are some of the Pollyannish illusions that they attack. It is a peculiar fraility of human reactions that many are prone to believe that a cynical, 'tough' perspective is more likely to be'realistic' than a more objective, complex, and constructive one. Apparently many people think that it takes a strong and courageous man to see things simply and without too many complexities, or to risk catastrophe without blinking. They forget that it often takes fanatical, self-righteous, and ignorant men to confuse what C. W. Mills has so rightly called “crackpot realism” with a rational appreciation of reality.

Erich Fromm, May Man Prevail? An Inquiry Into the Facts and Fictions of Foreign Policy, NY: Doubleday, 1961, p. 29.