"an opposing conceptual framework: psychology versus culture, private versus public, self versus society, individual versus collective, mind versus context, and so forth" (374)
"Because the viewpoint I am describing rejects persisting Cartesian dichotomies between inner and outer, mind and context, it is sometimes referred to as "post-Cartesian" or "contextual," and is indebted to the hermeneutic philosophical tradition (cf. Cushman, 1995; Frie, in press)" (390)
Something that struck me from this reading was the opposition of "mind v. context." As Frie writes: "The notion of the individual mind, free from its sociocultural or historical contexts, is a creation of modern individualism (Frie, 2011a)" (390). Frankly, I never considered this opposition before, but thanks to Frie's text, it now appears obvious how and when (some) psychoanalysts and anthropologists have operationalized and mobilized around "mind v. context." Within the "opposing conceptual framework" as described by Frie, mind becomes interlocked with "psychology," "private," "self," and "individual" whereas "context becomes interlocked with "culture," "public," "society," and "collective" (and "so forth"). I would like to examine this binary more closely, paying attention to how/when/where it emerged and became naturalized as an opposition. Frie frames this as "Cartesian dichotomies," but I wonder what alternative genealogies underly "mind v. context."
"Sapir first met Harry Stack Sullivan at the University of Chicago in 1926. Their meeting occurred shortly after the death of Sapir's wife, who had long suffered from mental illness. Sapir requested Sullivan's counsel and their initial interaction quickly emerged into a productive friendship and collaboration that would lost until Sapir's early death in 1939. It was through Sapir that Sullivan encountered the work of the Chicago School of Sociology, which would strongly influence the development of interpersonal theory... As Regina Darnell suggests, this led to a remarkable cross-fertilization of ideas: "Sullivan's interpersonal approach stimulated Sapir's emerging emphasis on society as an intermediary between the individual and culture... Psychiatry could teach anthropologists how to do justice to the individual in concrete cases through life histories; anthropology could teach psychiatrists how to place the individual in a cultural world" (Darnell, 1986, p. 162)" (378)
I hope to read Sapir and Sullivan side-by-side with the new knowledge of their collaboration. Frie cites the "Chicago School of Sociology" as an influence on the development of interpersonal theory -- I wonder what specific role George Herbert Mead's theory of self played in this story.
"By contrast, Erich Fromm's writings convey no ambiguity with respect to the negative effects of social adaptation. Indeed, Fromm equates social conformism with a kind of neurotic relatedness that can and must be resisted. For Fromm, it is precisely the process of revealing and resisting social and cultural deformations of selfhood that is relevant to the maintenance of emotional well-being. Whereas Sullivan views human development in a social interactional context, Fromm's critique of social mores and institutions derives from his Marxist background and his work as a founding member of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, more commonly known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory" (383)
I returned to this passage after our discussion in class about adaptationism and the problem of how systems of domination co-opt methods of resistance in order to further dominate. Is Frie's account of Fromm: social life or context is "a done deal," a prison from which the individual needs to discover their genuine self (or at least the ways in which their self has been deformed) in order to escape? Is conformity (or systems of power/domination) always waiting to chew up and swallow the individual? The language of deformity hints at an already existing individual with a genuine self separate/separable from their sociocultural context. Are there ways out of this imaginary that are not individualist (Fromm's issue) or adaptationist (Sullivan's issue), "mind v. context? I think Frie discusses Fromm's "way out" here:
"Society and the individual are not "opposite" to each other. Society is nothing but living, concrete individuals, and the individual exists only as a social human being. His individual life practice is necessarily determined by the life practice of his society or class and, in the last analysis, by the manner of production of his society, that is, how this society produces, how it is organized to satisfy the needs of its members. The differences in the manner of production and life of various societies or classes lead to the development of different character structures typical of the particular society. Various societies differ from each other not only in differences in manner of production and social and political organization but also in that their people exhibit a typical character structure despite all individual differences. We shall call this "the socially typical character," (Fromm, 1937/2010, p. 58, emphasis in original)" (384)
To which I would add Sullivan's keen insight, also mentioned by Frie:
"Sullivan emphasized the "conflicting influences" within cultures that undermined any "common central principle" (Sullivan, 1950/1965c, p. 208)" (385)
