Kieran Durkin is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie global fellow at University of York, and a visiting scholar at University of California Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm and co-editor of Erich Fromm’s Critical Theory: Hope, Humanism, and the Future.
The German socialist philosopher Erich Fromm sought to explain the social psychology of right-wing authoritarianism after the Nazis drove him into exile. His work is full of valuable insights that can inform struggles for political and economic freedom today.
The German socialist thinker Erich Fromm developed a powerful critique of authoritarian culture in response to the rise of Nazism. Today’s Left has much to learn from that critique, and from his defiant political optimism in the face of dark times.