Volume 4, Number 7 · May 6, 1965
Childhood, Society, and Erik Erikson
By Edgar Z. Friedenberg
Childhood and Society
by Eric Erikson
Norton, 445 pp., $2.95 (paper)
Insight and Responsibility
by Eric Erikson
Norton, 256 pp., $5.00
The career of the distinguished social psychologist, Erik Homburger Erikson, is remarkably interesting both in its own right and as a case study of the way our society handles the problems created by an exceptionally gifted scholar whose basic concerns are virtue and human growth. Erikson was a humanist before he became a scientist, and has remained one, in a society that is not notably humane. Since we nevertheless insist that the values of our culture are humane, we have had to develop effective ways of paying appropriate homage to distinguished humanists while limiting their influence on, and, gradually, their interest in, the way society actually functions. We try to find a place for them in which, like the good children of yesteryear, they can be seen but not heard. Healers like Erikson and Albert Schweitzer, who turn from careers in the arts to practice their new art on a darker continent, and who evolve into sages through the experience of practicing among peoples whose common humanity is masked by great cultural diversity, present a particularly challenging problem.
Review, 5229 words
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