Read the book “To Have or to Be?” online completely - Erich Fromm - MyBook. Erich Fromm - to have or to be E fromm to have or to be
Current page: 1 (book has 17 pages total) [available reading passage: 12 pages]
Erich Fromm
To have or to be?
The path to action in being.
Lao Tzu
People should think less about what they should do and more about what they are.
Meister Eckhart
The less you are, the less you outwardly demonstrate your life, the more you have, the more significant your true, inner life.
Karl Marx
Series "New Philosophy"
HABEN ODER SEIN?
Translation from German by E.M. Telyatnikova
Cover design by V.A. Voronina
Reprinted with permission from The Estate of Erich Fromm and of Annis Fromm and Liepman AG, Literary Agency.
The exclusive rights to publish the book in Russian belong to AST Publishers. Any use of the material in this book, in whole or in part, without the permission of the copyright holder is prohibited.
Preface
This book continues two lines of my previous research. First of all, this is a continuation of work in the field of radical humanistic psychoanalysis; here I specifically focus on the analysis of egoism and altruism as two fundamental options for personality orientation. In the third part of the book, I continue the theme begun in two of my works (“Healthy Society” and “Revolution of Hope”), the content of which is the crisis of modern society and the possibilities of overcoming it. It is natural to repeat thoughts previously expressed, but I hope that the new approach to the problem in this small book and the broader context will comfort even those readers who are well acquainted with my earlier work.
The title of this book almost coincides with the title of two previously published works. These are Gabriel Marcel's book "Being and Having" and Balthasar Steelin's book "Having and Being". All three works are written in the spirit of humanism, but the authors’ views diverge: G. Marcel speaks from theological and philosophical positions; in B. Shteelin's book there is a constructive discussion of materialism and idealism in modern science and this represents a certain contribution to analysis of reality.
The theme of my book is an empirical psychological and sociological analysis of two ways of existence. For readers who are seriously interested in this topic, I recommend reading both G. Marcel and B. Shteelin. (Until recently, I myself did not know that there was a published English translation of Marcel’s book, and I used for my own purposes a very good private translation of this book, which Beverly Hughes did for me. The official English edition is indicated in the bibliography.)
In an effort to make the book more accessible to the reader, I have reduced the number of notes and footnotes to the limit. Selected bibliographical references are given in parentheses in the text, and the exact output should be seen in the Bibliography section at the end of the book.
All that remains is the pleasant duty of thanking those who contributed to the improvement of the content and style of the book. First I would like to name Rainer Funk, who was of great help to me in many ways: he helped me through long discussions to penetrate deeper into the complex problems of Christian doctrine; he was tireless in selecting theological literature for me; he read the manuscript many times, and his brilliant constructive criticism and recommendations were invaluable in improving the manuscript and eliminating shortcomings. I cannot but express my gratitude to Marion Odomirok, who contributed greatly to the improvement of the text with her excellent and sensitive editing. I also thank Joan Hughes, who, with rare conscientiousness and patience, reprinted numerous versions of the text and more than once suggested to me successful stylistic turns. Finally, I must thank Annis Fromm, who read all versions of the book in the manuscript and made many valuable comments. As for the German edition, I express special thanks to Brigitte Stein and Ursula Loke.
Introduction
Great Expectations, Their Failure and New Alternatives
The end of one illusion
Since the beginning of the industrial age, entire generations of people have lived by faith in a great miracle, in the greatest promise of limitless progress based on the mastery of nature, the creation of material abundance, the maximum well-being of the many and unlimited individual freedom.
But these possibilities turned out to be not limitless. With the replacement of human and horse power by mechanical (and later by nuclear) energy, and human consciousness by computers, industrial progress has established us in the opinion that we are moving along the path of limitless production and thus limitless consumption, that technology makes us omnipotent, and science omniscient. We were ready to become gods, powerful beings capable of creating a second world (and nature was only supposed to give us the building material for our creation).
Men (and even more women) experienced a new sense of freedom, they were masters of their lives; having thrown off the chains of feudalism, they were freed from all bonds and could do whatever they wanted. That's what they thought, at least. And although this applied only to the middle and upper strata of the population, other people were inclined to interpret these conquests in their favor, hoping that the further successes of industrialism would inevitably benefit all members of society.
Socialism and communism very quickly from the movement for new society and new people turned into the force that proclaimed the ideal of bourgeois life for everyone: universal bourgeois as a person of the future. It was tacitly assumed that when people lived in prosperity and comfort, everyone would be unconditionally happy.
The core of the new religions of progress became the trinity of limitless production, absolute freedom and endless happiness. A new, earthly City of Progress replaced the City of God. It is not surprising that this new faith filled its adherents with energy, hope and vitality.
One needs to visualize the scope of these great hopes against the backdrop of the fantastic material and spiritual achievements of the industrial age in order to understand how bitter and painful the disappointment and the realization that the collapse of expectations has become. For the industrial age failed to deliver on its promises. And gradually more and more people came to understand the following facts:
Happiness and general prosperity cannot be achieved by limitlessly satisfying all needs;
The dream of freedom and independence disappears once we realize that we are all just wheels in a bureaucratic machine;
Our thoughts, feelings and affections are manipulated by mass media;
Economic progress concerns only rich nations, and the gap between rich and poor is becoming more and more glaring;
Technological progress brought with it environmental problems and the threat of nuclear war;
Each of these consequences can cause the death of the entire civilization, if not life itself on Earth.
When Albert Schweitzer received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1952, he addressed the world with the words: “Let us dare to face the truth. In our century, man has gradually turned into a being endowed with superhuman strength... At the same time, he does not demonstrate superintelligence... It becomes completely obvious what we still did not want to admit: as the power of a superman increases, he turns into an unhappy person... for, having become a superman , he ceases to be human. This is, in fact, what we should have realized a long time ago!”
Why did great hopes not come true?
In addition to the inherent economic contradictions of industrialism, these reasons lie in two most important psychological principles of the system itself, which read:
1. The highest goal of life is happiness (that is, maximum joyful emotions), happiness is determined by the formula: satisfaction of all desires or subjective needs (this is radical hedonism);
2. Selfishness, selfishness and greed are properties that are necessary for the system itself for its existence; they lead society to peace and harmony.
Radical hedonism, as is known, was in circulation in different eras. The patricians of Rome and the elite of Italian cities of the Renaissance, the elite strata of England and France of the 18th and 19th centuries - those who owned enormous property, always tried to find the meaning of life in endless pleasures.
Although the ideas of radical hedonism periodically became a practice in certain circles, they were not always based on theoretical constructions thinkers of the past about happiness, and therefore you should not look for their roots in the philosophical concepts of the sages of Ancient China, India, the Middle East or Europe.
The only exception was the Greek philosopher, student of Socrates Aristippus (first half of the 4th century BC), who taught that the purpose of life is the maximum satisfaction of bodily needs, the receipt of bodily pleasures, and happiness is the total sum of satisfied desires. We owe the little that we know about his philosophy to Diogenes Laertius, but this is enough to call Aristippus the only radical hedonist of the Ancient world, for he argued that the presence of a need in itself is a sufficient basis for its satisfaction and man has an unconditional the right to fulfill one's desires.
Epicurus cannot be considered a representative of this type of hedonism, although Epicurus considers “pure” joy to be the highest goal - for him it means “the absence of suffering” (aponia) and “peace of mind” (ataraxia). According to Epicurus, joy from satisfying passions cannot be the goal of life, because the inevitable consequence of such joy is disappointment and thereby a person moves away from his true goal, which is the absence of pain (in Epicurus’ theory there are many parallels with the teachings of Freud).
No other great thinker taught that the actual presence of a desire constitutes an ethical norm. Everyone was interested in the optimal good of humanity (vivere bene). The main element of their teachings was the division of needs into two categories: those that are only subjectively felt (their satisfaction leads to momentary pleasure), and those that are rooted in human nature and the satisfaction of which contributes to the development and well-being of mankind (eudaimonia). In other words, they distinguished purely subjectively felt needs And objectively existing and reflected that the former are partly contrary to human development, and the latter are consistent with the needs of human nature.
For the first time after Aristippus, the idea that the purpose of life is the fulfillment of all human desires received clear expression among philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Such a concept could easily have arisen at a time when the word “benefit” ceased to mean “benefit for the soul” (as in the Bible and later in Spinoza), but acquired the meaning of “material, monetary gain.” It was an era when the bourgeoisie threw off not only its political shackles, but also the bonds of love and solidarity and became imbued with the belief that a person who lives only for himself, has more opportunities to be himself. For Hobbes, happiness is a constant movement from one passion (cupiditas) to another; La Mettrie even suggests inventing pills to create at least the illusion of happiness; for the Marquis de Sade, the satisfaction of cruel instincts is justified by the very fact that they exist and need to be satisfied. These were thinkers who lived in the era of the final victory of the bourgeois class. What was once the practice of life of aristocrats (far from philosophy) has now become the theory and practice of the bourgeoisie.
Since the 18th century, many ethical theories have arisen; some were more respectable forms of hedonism, such as utilitarianism, others were strictly anti-hedonistic systems, such as the theories of Kant, Marx, Thoreau and Schweitzer. Nevertheless, in our era, that is, after the end of the First World War, there has been a return to the theory and practice of radical hedonism.
It should be noted that the concept of boundless pleasures is opposed to the ideal of disciplined work, and the ethic of compulsory work is incompatible with the understanding of free time as absolute laziness after the end of the working day and complete “doing nothing” during vacation. But a real person is between two poles. On the one hand, there is an endless conveyor belt and bureaucratic routine, and on the other, television, cars, sex and other joys of life. In this case, conflicting combinations of priorities inevitably arise. An obsession with work alone can drive you crazy just as much as complete idleness. Only a combination of work and joyful rest allows one to survive. And this combination corresponds to the economic needs of the system: capitalism of the 20th century a priori presupposes, on the one hand, compulsory labor brought to the point of automation, and on the other, a constant increase in production and maximum consumption of goods and services.
Theoretical considerations show that radical hedonism does not and cannot lead to a “good life.” And it is clear to the naked eye that the “hunt for happiness” does not lead to true well-being. Our society is a society of chronically unhappy people, tormented by loneliness and fears, dependent and humiliated, prone to destruction and experiencing joy from the fact that they managed to “kill the time” that they are constantly trying to save.
We live in an era of unprecedented social experiment, which should answer the question of whether the achievement of pleasure (as a passive affect as opposed to an active state of joy of being) can provide a solution to the problem of human existence. For the first time in history, satisfying the need for pleasure has ceased to be the privilege of a minority, but has become the property of at least half of the population of industrial countries. However, we can already say that in developed industrial countries the “social experiment” gives a negative answer to the question posed.
The second psychological postulate of the industrial age, which asserts that individual selfishness contributes to harmony, peace and general prosperity, is also erroneous from a theoretical point of view, and its inconsistency is confirmed by factual data.
The thirst for profit leads to endless class struggle. The communists' claim that with the abolition of classes their system is freed from class struggle is a fiction, for the system is also built on the principle of full satisfaction of growing needs. And as long as everyone wants to have more, classes will inevitably arise, class struggle will continue, and, on a global scale, world wars. The thirst for possessions and a peaceful life are mutually exclusive.
Radical hedonism and boundless egoism could not have become the leading principles of economics if one fundamental revolution had not occurred in the 18th century. In medieval society, as well as in many other highly developed and primitive cultures, the economy was determined by certain ethical standards. For example, the categories “price and private property” for scholastic theologians were an integral part of theological morality. And although theologians found formulations with which they were able to adapt their moral code to new economic requirements (for example, the definition of the concept of “fair price” given by Thomas Aquinas), nevertheless, behavior in economics remained human behavior and, therefore, was subject to the norms of humanistic ethics.
Eighteenth-century capitalism gradually brought about radical changes: the economic aspect of behavior was moved beyond the framework of ethical and other value systems. The economic mechanism began to be viewed as an autonomous area that does not depend on human needs and will, as a system that lives by itself and according to its own laws. The impoverishment of workers and the ruin of small owners due to the growth of concerns began to be viewed as an economic necessity, as a natural law of nature.
And economic development began to be determined not by the question what is best for a person, and the question: what is better for the system? She tried to veil the severity of this conflict by arguing that everything that contributes to the growth of the system (or an individual corporation) also serves the benefit of the individual. This concept was also supported by an additional construction, which stated that all the human qualities that the system requires from an individual - selfishness, selfishness and passion for accumulation - are all inherent in a person from birth. Therefore, societies lacking these traits were classified as “primitive”, and representatives of primitive societies were classified as naive infants. No one dared to refute these constructions and admit that selfishness and hoarding are not natural instincts that industrial society uses, and that they are all product social conditions.
Not least important is another circumstance: man’s relationship with nature gradually became deeply hostile. Initially, the contradiction was rooted in existence itself: man is a part of nature and at the same time, thanks to his mind, rises above it. We have tried for centuries to solve the existential problem facing humanity by changing nature in accordance with our goals and objectives. But over time, not a trace remained of the messianic vision of harmony between man and nature; we moved on to exploit it and subjugate it, until that conquest began to look more and more like destruction. The passion for conquest and hostility blinded us and did not allow us to see that natural resources are not limitless and can be depleted, and then nature will take revenge on man for his barbaric, predatory treatment of it.
Industrial society despises nature; as well as everything that is not a product of machine production - including all people who are not involved in the production of machines (this automatically includes representatives of colored races; recently, an exception has been made only for the Japanese and Chinese). Today we see in people a craving for everything mechanical, lifeless, as if they were captured by the magic of technical progress and an ever-increasing thirst for destruction.
The Economic Necessity of Human Change
So far, I have said that some traits generated by our socio-economic system (that is, our way of life) are pathogenic and ultimately create a sick personality, and therefore a sick society. However, there is another important argument (put forward from a completely different point of view) in favor of the need for profound changes in humans in order to avoid economic and environmental disasters.
This argument is supported by the reports of the Club of Rome, which contain a wealth of convincing scientific evidence. The author of the first report is Denis Meadows, the second was prepared by two authors, M. D. Mesarovic and E. Pestel. Both reports focus on global technological, economic and demographic trends. Mesarovic and Pestel conclude that only bold and decisive changes in economics and technology, carried out on a global scale in accordance with a specific master plan, can prevent “the greatest, and ultimately global, catastrophe.” The data they present is based on the most extensive and systematic research ever conducted in this area. (Their report has certain methodological advantages over the earlier Meadows report, but the latter envisions even more radical economic changes as an alternative to disaster.) Mesarovic and Pestel ultimately conclude that such economic changes are only possible if “ if in a person’s value orientations(or, as I would say, in the direction of the human personality) fundamental changes will occur, leading to the emergence of a new ethic and a new attitude towards nature"(italics mine. - E.F.). Their conclusions only confirm the opinions of other experts expressed before and after their report that a new society is possible only if in the process of its formation will also be formed new person, or, in other words, if cardinal transformations occur in the personality structure of a modern person.
Unfortunately, both reports are too formalized, abstract and far from the human factor. In addition, they completely ignore any political and social factors, without which no realistic project is possible. Nevertheless, they provide valuable data and, for the first time, examine the economic situation of humanity on a global scale, its opportunities and the dangers lurking in it. The authors' conclusion about the need for a new ethics and a new attitude towards nature is all the more valuable because this demand is in such striking contradiction with their philosophical concepts.
The opposite position is taken by the German author E.F. Schumacher, also an economist and at the same time a radical humanist. His demand for fundamental human change stems from the conviction that our current social system is making us sick and we will find ourselves on the verge of economic disaster if we do not decisively change our social system.
The need for a profound change in man appears not only as an ethical or religious requirement, not only as a psychological need determined by the pathogenic nature of modern man, but also as a prerequisite for the physical survival of the human race. A righteous life is no longer seen as fulfilling a moral and religious requirement. For the first time in history the physical preservation of humanity is made dependent on radical changes in the human soul, which, however, are necessary and possible only to the extent that serious economic and social changes will give every mortal the chance, as well as the necessary courage and will, to successfully implement these changes.
A book that will never lose its relevance. What is more important: the possession of objects of material culture or a meaningful existence, when a person realizes and enjoys every moment of a fast-flowing life? In his work “To Have or to Be?” Fromm very clearly and in detail explores the reasons for the formation of relationships according to the principle “You give me - I give you” and clearly demonstrates what this ultimately leads to.
Preface
Introduction
The collapse of great hopes and new alternatives
Part One Understanding the Difference Between Having and Being
Chapter I First look at the problem
Chapter II Having and Being in Everyday Life
Chapter III The Principles of Having and Being in the Old and New Testaments and in the Writings of Meister Eckhart
Chapter IV The mode of possession - what is it?
Chapter V What is a mode of being?
Chapter VI Other Aspects of Having and Being
Part Three The New Man and the New Society
Chapter VII Religion, character, society
Chapter VIII Conditions for human change and traits of a new person
Chapter IX Features of the new society
Bibliography
The end of one illusion
From the very beginning of the industrial age, the hope and faith of generations was nourished by the Great Promises of Unlimited Progress - premonitions of material abundance, personal freedom, mastery over nature, i.e. the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. It is known that our civilization began when man learned to sufficiently control nature, but until the beginning of the age of industrialization this control was limited. Industrial progress, which has seen the replacement of animal and human energy, first by mechanical and then by nuclear energy, and the replacement of the human mind by the electronic machine, has led us to think that we are on the way to unlimited production and therefore unlimited consumption, which technology can do us as omnipotent, and science as omniscient. We thought that we could become superior beings who could create a new world using nature as a building material.
Men, and increasingly women, experienced a new sense of freedom and became masters of their own lives: freed from the shackles of feudalism, man could (or thought he could) do what he wanted. This was indeed true, but only for the upper and middle classes; the rest, if the same pace of industrialization were maintained, could be imbued with the belief that this new freedom would eventually spread to all members of society. Socialism and communism soon became movements aimed at creating new society and formation new a person, into a movement whose ideal was the bourgeois way of life for everyone, and the standard of men and women of the future became bourgeois. It was assumed that wealth and comfort would ultimately bring boundless happiness to everyone. A new religion arose - Progress, the core of which was the trinity of unlimited production, absolute freedom and boundless happiness. The new Earthly City of Progress was supposed to replace the City of God. This new religion gave its adherents hope, energy and vitality.
One must visualize the enormity of the Great Expectations, the amazing material and spiritual achievements of the industrial age, in order to understand what trauma is caused to people today by the disappointment that these Great Expectations did not come true. The Industrial Age has failed to deliver on the Great Promise, and more and more people are beginning to come to the following conclusions:
1. Unlimited satisfaction of all desires cannot be the path to prosperity - happiness or even maximum pleasure.
2. It is impossible to become independent masters of our own lives, since we have realized that we have become cogs in a bureaucratic machine, and our thoughts, feelings and tastes are completely dependent on the government, industry and the media under their control.
3. Since economic progress has affected a limited number of rich nations, the gap between rich and poor countries is increasingly widening.
4. Technological progress has created dangers for the environment and the threat of nuclear war - each of these dangers (or both together) can destroy life on Earth.
1952 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer, in his acceptance speech, called on the world to “dare to face the current situation... Man has become a superman... But the superman, endowed with superhuman strength, has not yet risen to the level of superhuman intelligence. The more his power grows, the poorer he becomes... Our conscience must be awakened to the realization that the more we turn into supermen, the more inhuman we become.”
Why Great Expectations Didn't Realize
Even without taking into account the economic contradictions inherent in industrialism, we can conclude that the collapse of Great Expectations is predetermined by the industrial system itself, mainly by its two main psychological attitudes: 1) the purpose of life is happiness, maximum pleasure, i.e. satisfaction of any desire or subjective need of the individual (radical hedonism); 2) selfishness, greed and selfishness (so that this system can function normally) lead to peace and harmony.
It is well known that throughout human history, rich people have followed the principles of radical hedonism. The owners of unlimited funds were the aristocrats of Ancient Rome, large Italian cities of the Renaissance, as well as England and France in the 18th and 19th centuries. looked for the meaning of life in boundless pleasures. But maximum pleasure (radical hedonism), although it was the goal of life for certain groups of people at certain times, was never, except for the only time before the 17th century. exception, was not put forward as welfare theories none of the great Teachers of life either in Ancient China, or in India, or in the Middle East and Europe.
Socrates' student Aristippus, a Greek philosopher (first half of the 4th century BC) was this only exception; he taught that the purpose of life is bodily pleasures and the total sum of pleasures experienced constitutes happiness. What little is known about his philosophy has come to us thanks to Diogenes Laertius, but this is enough to consider Aristippus the only true hedonist, for whom the existence of a desire serves as the basis for the right to satisfy it and thereby achieve the goal of life - pleasure.
The founder of neo-Freudianism E. Fromm talks in the works collected in this book about how the inner world of a person is transformed.
The patient comes to the doctor and together they wander through the recesses of memory, into the depths of the unconscious, to discover hidden secrets. A person’s entire being goes through shock, through catharsis. Is it worth forcing the patient to relive life’s cataclysms, childhood pains, and the beginnings of painful impressions? The scientist develops the concept of two polar modes of human existence - possession and being.
The book is intended for a wide audience.
To have or to be?
Preface
Introduction. Great Hopes, their collapse and new alternatives
The end of the illusion
Why did Great Expectations fail?
The Economic Necessity of Human Change
Is there any alternative to disaster?
Part one. Understanding the difference between having and being
I. First look
THE MEANING OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAVING AND BEING
EXAMPLES FROM VARIOUS POETIC WORKS
IDIOMATIC CHANGES
Old Observations
Modern usage
ORIGIN OF TERMS
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS OF EXISTENCE
POSSESSION AND CONSUMPTION
II. Having and being in everyday life
EDUCATION
POSSESSION OF KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE
III. Having and being in the Old and New Testaments and in the writings of Meister Eckhart
OLD TESTAMENT
NEW TESTAMENT
MEISTER ECKHART (c. 1260-1327)
Eckhart's concept of possession
Eckhart's concept of being
Part two. Analyzing the Fundamental Differences Between the Two Ways of Existence
IV. What is the mode of possession?
THE SOCIETY OF ACQUISITORS IS THE BASIS OF THE MODUS OF OWNERSHIP
THE NATURE OF POSSESSION
Possession - Power - Rebellion
OTHER FACTORS ON WHICH POSSESSION ORIENTATION IS BASED
POSSESSION PRINCIPLE AND ANAL CHARACTER
ASCETISM AND EQUALITY
EXISTENTIAL POSSESSION
V. What is a mode of being?
TO BE ACTIVE
ACTIVITY AND PASSIVITY
Activity and passivity in the understanding of great thinkers
BEING AS REALITY
DESIRE TO GIVE, SHARE WITH OTHERS, SACRIFICE YOURSELF
VI. Other aspects of having and being
SAFETY - DANGER
SOLIDARITY - ANTAGONISM
JOY - PLEASURE
SIN AND FORGIVENESS
FEAR OF DEATH - AFFIRMATION OF LIFE
HERE AND NOW - PAST AND FUTURE
Part three. New man and new society
VII. Religion, character and society
FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL CHARACTER
Social character and social structure
SOCIAL CHARACTER AND "RELIGIOUS NEEDS"
IS THE WESTERN WORLD CHRISTIAN?
"Industrial Religion"
"Market character" and "cybernetic religion"
HUMANISTIC PROTEST
VIII. Conditions for human change and traits of a new person
NEW PERSON
IX. Features of the new society
NEW SCIENCE ABOUT HUMAN
A NEW SOCIETY: IS THERE A REAL CHANCE TO CREATE IT?
The greatness and limitations of Fromm himself
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) - German-American philosopher, psychologist and sociologist, founder of neo-Freudianism. Neo-Freudianism is a direction of modern philosophy and psychology that has become widespread mainly in the United States, whose supporters combined Freud's psychoanalysis with American sociological theories. Some of the most famous representatives of neo-Freudianism include Karen Horney, Harry Sullivan and Erich Fromm.
Neo-Freudians criticized a number of provisions of classical psychoanalysis in the interpretation of intrapsychic processes, but at the same time retained the most important components of its concept (the doctrine of the irrational motives of human activity, initially inherent in each individual). These scientists shifted the focus to the study of interpersonal relationships. They did this in an effort to answer questions about human existence, how a person should live and what he should do.
Neo-Freudians believe that the cause of neuroses in humans is anxiety, which arises in a child when faced with a hostile world and intensifies with a lack of love and attention. Later, this reason turns out to be the inability for an individual to achieve harmony with the social structure of modern society, which creates in a person feelings of loneliness, isolation from others, and alienation. It is society that neo-Freudians view as the source of universal alienation. It is recognized as hostile to the fundamental trends in the development of personality and the transformation of its value, practical ideals and attitudes. None of the social devices that humanity has known has been aimed at developing personal potential. On the contrary, societies of different eras put pressure on the personality, transformed it, and did not allow the best inclinations of a person to develop.
Therefore, neo-Freudians believe that through the healing of the individual, the healing of the entire society can and should occur.
In 1933 Fromm emigrated to the USA. In America, Fromm did an extraordinary amount for the development of philosophy, psychology, anthropology, history and sociology of religion.
Calling his teaching “humanistic psychoanalysis,” Fromm moved away from Freud’s biologism in an effort to clarify the mechanism of the connection between the individual’s psyche and the social structure of society. He put forward a project to create, particularly in the United States, a harmonious, “healthy” society based on psychoanalytic “social and individual therapy.”
The work "The Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Theory" is largely devoted to the disengagement with the founder of Freudianism. Fromm reflects on how cultural context influences the researcher's thinking. We know today that the philosopher is not free in his creativity. The nature of his concept is influenced by those ideological schemes that dominate society. A researcher cannot jump out of his culture. A deeply and originally thinking person faces the need to present a new idea in the language of his time.
The path to action in being.
Lao Tzu
People should think less about what they should do and more about what they are.
Meister Eckhart
The less you are, the less you outwardly demonstrate your life, the more you have, the more significant your true, inner life.
Karl Marx
Series "New Philosophy"
HABEN ODER SEIN?
Translation from German by E.M. Telyatnikova
Cover design by V.A. Voronina
Reprinted with permission from The Estate of Erich Fromm and of Annis Fromm and Liepman AG, Literary Agency.
The exclusive rights to publish the book in Russian belong to AST Publishers. Any use of the material in this book, in whole or in part, without the permission of the copyright holder is prohibited.
Preface
This book continues two lines of my previous research. First of all, this is a continuation of work in the field of radical humanistic psychoanalysis; here I specifically focus on the analysis of egoism and altruism as two fundamental options for personality orientation. In the third part of the book, I continue the theme begun in two of my works (“Healthy Society” and “Revolution of Hope”), the content of which is the crisis of modern society and the possibilities of overcoming it. It is natural to repeat thoughts previously expressed, but I hope that the new approach to the problem in this small book and the broader context will comfort even those readers who are well acquainted with my earlier work.
The title of this book almost coincides with the title of two previously published works. These are Gabriel Marcel's book "Being and Having" and Balthasar Steelin's book "Having and Being". All three works are written in the spirit of humanism, but the authors’ views diverge: G. Marcel speaks from theological and philosophical positions; in B. Shteelin's book there is a constructive discussion of materialism and idealism in modern science and this represents a certain contribution to analysis of reality.
The theme of my book is an empirical psychological and sociological analysis of two ways of existence. For readers who are seriously interested in this topic, I recommend reading both G. Marcel and B. Shteelin. (Until recently, I myself did not know that there was a published English translation of Marcel’s book, and I used for my own purposes a very good private translation of this book, which Beverly Hughes did for me. The official English edition is indicated in the bibliography.)
In an effort to make the book more accessible to the reader, I have reduced the number of notes and footnotes to the limit. Selected bibliographical references are given in parentheses in the text, and the exact output should be seen in the Bibliography section at the end of the book.
All that remains is the pleasant duty of thanking those who contributed to the improvement of the content and style of the book. First I would like to name Rainer Funk, who was of great help to me in many ways: he helped me through long discussions to penetrate deeper into the complex problems of Christian doctrine; he was tireless in selecting theological literature for me; he read the manuscript many times, and his brilliant constructive criticism and recommendations were invaluable in improving the manuscript and eliminating shortcomings. I cannot but express my gratitude to Marion Odomirok, who contributed greatly to the improvement of the text with her excellent and sensitive editing. I also thank Joan Hughes, who, with rare conscientiousness and patience, reprinted numerous versions of the text and more than once suggested to me successful stylistic turns. Finally, I must thank Annis Fromm, who read all versions of the book in the manuscript and made many valuable comments. As for the German edition, I express special thanks to Brigitte Stein and Ursula Loke.
Introduction
Great Expectations, Their Failure and New Alternatives
The end of one illusion
Since the beginning of the industrial age, entire generations of people have lived by faith in a great miracle, in the greatest promise of limitless progress based on the mastery of nature, the creation of material abundance, the maximum well-being of the many and unlimited individual freedom.
But these possibilities turned out to be not limitless. With the replacement of human and horse power by mechanical (and later by nuclear) energy, and human consciousness by computers, industrial progress has established us in the opinion that we are moving along the path of limitless production and thus limitless consumption, that technology makes us omnipotent, and science omniscient. We were ready to become gods, powerful beings capable of creating a second world (and nature was only supposed to give us the building material for our creation).
Men (and even more women) experienced a new sense of freedom, they were masters of their lives; having thrown off the chains of feudalism, they were freed from all bonds and could do whatever they wanted. That's what they thought, at least. And although this applied only to the middle and upper strata of the population, other people were inclined to interpret these conquests in their favor, hoping that the further successes of industrialism would inevitably benefit all members of society.
Socialism and communism very quickly from the movement for new society and new people turned into the force that proclaimed the ideal of bourgeois life for everyone: universal bourgeois as a person of the future. It was tacitly assumed that when people lived in prosperity and comfort, everyone would be unconditionally happy.
The core of the new religions of progress became the trinity of limitless production, absolute freedom and endless happiness. A new, earthly City of Progress replaced the City of God. It is not surprising that this new faith filled its adherents with energy, hope and vitality.
One needs to visualize the scope of these great hopes against the backdrop of the fantastic material and spiritual achievements of the industrial age in order to understand how bitter and painful the disappointment and the realization that the collapse of expectations has become. For the industrial age failed to deliver on its promises. And gradually more and more people came to understand the following facts:
Happiness and general prosperity cannot be achieved by limitlessly satisfying all needs;
The dream of freedom and independence disappears once we realize that we are all just wheels in a bureaucratic machine;
Our thoughts, feelings and affections are manipulated by mass media;
Economic progress concerns only rich nations, and the gap between rich and poor is becoming more and more glaring;
Technological progress brought with it environmental problems and the threat of nuclear war;
Each of these consequences can cause the death of the entire civilization, if not life itself on Earth.
When Albert Schweitzer received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1952, he addressed the world with the words: “Let us dare to face the truth. In our century, man has gradually turned into a being endowed with superhuman strength... At the same time, he does not demonstrate superintelligence... It becomes completely obvious what we still did not want to admit: as the power of a superman increases, he turns into an unhappy person... for, having become a superman , he ceases to be human. This is, in fact, what we should have realized a long time ago!”
TO HAVE OR TO BE?
'TO HAVE OR TO BE?'
(‘To have or to be?’, 1976) - Fromm’s work devoted to the analysis of ‘being’ and ‘possession’ as fundamental ways of human existence (the category of ‘being’ is used by Fromm as psychological and anthropological, and not as metaphysical). Fromm regards the state of modern civilization as pre-catastrophic. The 'Great Expectations' for achieving personal and public benefits inherent in technogenic civilization, according to Fromm, did not come true, and humanity found itself on the verge of self-destruction. Fromm believes that the causes of crisis phenomena lie in the specifics of capitalist society. The capitalist economic system, according to Fromm, is guided in its development not by the true interests of man, but by its own systemic needs. As a result, the socio-economic conditions of capitalism form an individual adapted to them - selfish, selfish and greedy. According to Fromm, the character traits of a person generated by the socio-economic system of capitalism are pathogenic and as a result form a sick personality, and therefore a sick society. Fromm argues that the only way to avoid a global catastrophe is a humanistic reorientation of the direction of development of man and society. Fromm associates the problem of implementing humanistic alternatives with the need for profound changes in human character. He associates differences in the individual characters of people and in the types of social character with the predominance of one of the two main ways of human existence - ‘possessing’ or ‘being’. When existing according to the principle of ‘possession’, the attitude towards the world is expressed in the desire to make it an object of possession, in the desire to turn everything and everyone, including oneself, into one’s property. In 'being' as a way of existence, Fromm distinguishes two forms; one of them is the opposite of ‘possession’ and means love of life and genuine involvement in existing things. Another form of 'being' is the opposite of appearance and refers to the true nature, the true reality of a person or thing. The implementation of the principles of ‘being’ and ‘possession’ is considered by Fromm using examples of a number of phenomena of everyday life: learning, memory, conversation, reading, power, knowledge, faith, love. The general signs of ‘possession’, from Fromm’s point of view, are inertia, stereotyping, superficiality; ‘being’ - activity, creativity, interest. Fromm comes to the conclusion that in modern society, oriented towards consumption values and profit-making, the mode of ‘possession’ dominates. One of the symptoms of this, in his opinion, is the abuse of the verb ‘to have’ in speech practice. The nature of 'possession' is seen by Fromm as determined by the nature of private property. The mode of 'possession' is determined by the dominance of the attitude towards acquiring property and the unlimited right to retain everything acquired. Ownership and acquisition values extend, according to Fromm, to things, other people, one’s own ‘I’, ideas, beliefs and even habits. This way of existence is formed as a result of social repression in relation first to a child and then to an adult. In the course of individual development, a person’s true desires and interests, his personal will, are replaced by those imposed by socially accepted standards of thoughts and feelings. In the possession mindset, happiness lies in the feeling of superiority over others, in power, in the ability to use violence. Fromm believes that the strengthening of the orientation towards possession is facilitated by language, which creates the illusion of the permanence of objects, and the biologically determined desire to live, which generates the need for surrogates of immortality - fame and inherited property. The main characteristic of the mode of ‘being’ is internal activity, the productive use of one’s own potentialities. Such activity is realized, according to Fromm, in the manifestation of all one’s own abilities, talents, in interest in the world, in overcoming the framework of one’s own isolated ‘I’. Happiness in the 'being' mindset is love, caring for others, and self-sacrifice. The structure of ‘being’ is dominated by living inexpressible experience, living and productive thinking. Both ‘being’ and ‘possession’ are, according to Fromm, potential possibilities of human nature. Fromm considers ‘possession’ to be ultimately based on the biological need for self-preservation. ‘Being’ is associated with the specifics of human existence, with the inherent need for a person to overcome loneliness through unity with other people. Both of these potentialities live within every person; the dominance of one of them depends on the social structure, its values and norms. Using the concept of 'religion' to designate any system of beliefs and actions held by a group of people and which serves as a scheme of orientation for the individual and an object of his worship, Fromm believes that it is rooted in the specific structure of the character of that person and in the social character. ‘Religious’ needs, according to Fromm, are immanent in man, rooted in the basic conditions of existence of the human species. Their occurrence is associated with the loss of the ability to act under the influence of instincts and the presence of reason, self-awareness and imagination. The specificity of human existence gives rise to the need to form a picture of the world and the individual’s place in it, as well as to create an object of worship that allows one to integrate efforts in a certain direction. At the same time, the deep motivations of behavior often do not correspond to the declared values, and the individual himself does not even realize what really is the object of his personal worship. Thus, Fromm believes that Christian values had a certain influence in Europe only in the period between the 12th and 16th centuries. In the 16th century an ‘authoritarian, obsessive, hoarding character’ begins to develop, associated with the ‘industrial religion’ that arose behind the façade of Christianity. In the 'industrial religion', labor, property, profit, and power are 'sacred'. By the end of the 19th century, according to Fromm, the market character gradually began to prevail, in which a person feels himself as a commodity, and his ‘value’ - not as ‘consumer’, but as ‘exchange’. The structure of this character corresponds, according to Fromm, to the “cybernetic religion” of impersonality and mechanization. Fromm's program for changing man and society was focused on a massive change in human character with a transition from a 'having' mindset to a 'being' mindset. It assumed a transition to ‘healthy consumption’, the implementation of ‘participatory democracy’, decentralization of industry, replacement of bureaucratic management with humanistic management, a ban on methods of manipulating consciousness and a number of other measures.
History of Philosophy: Encyclopedia. - Minsk: Book House. A. A. Gritsanov, T. G. Rumyantseva, M. A. Mozheiko. 2002 .
See what is "TO HAVE OR TO BE?" in other dictionaries:
- “To have or to be?” (German: “Haben oder Sein”), a late work by psychoanalyst and Freudo-Marxist philosopher Erich Fromm, published in 1976, exploring issues of the spiritual sphere of man. Erich Fromm characterizes the area of interest of a psychoanalyst as follows: ... ... Wikipedia
This article should be Wikified. Please format it according to the rules for formatting articles... Wikipedia
TO HAVE OR TO BE?- (To have or to be?, 1976) Fromm’s work, devoted to the analysis of being and possession as fundamental ways of human existence (the category of being is used by Fromm as psychological and anthropological, and not as metaphysical).... ... Sociology: Encyclopedia
- (To have or to be?, 1976) Fromm’s work, devoted to the analysis of being and possession as fundamental ways of human existence (the category of being is used by Fromm as psychological and anthropological, and not as metaphysical).... ... History of Philosophy: Encyclopedia
Present vr. no (except for 3 l. units: yes; book., 3 l. plural: essence); be, be; was, was, was (with the negative: wasn’t, wasn’t, wasn’t, weren’t); I will, you will; former; being; nsv. 1. Exist. I think there are aliens. Troy was once here. * IN … encyclopedic Dictionary
BE, present vr. no (except for the 3rd person singular, there are both obsolete and bookish. The 3rd person plural is the essence); was, was, was (wasn't, wasn't, wasn't, weren't); I will, you will; be; former; being; imperfect 1. Live, exist. Question: to be or not to be? There were people in our... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary
have- e/y, e/eat, yut, nsv. 1) (whom/what) To own whom l. or whatever on property rights. Have birds and goats on the farm. Have a car. Have a large library. You have everything, Manilov interrupted with the same pleasant smile, you have everything, even more... ... Popular dictionary of the Russian language
be- present vr. no (except for 3 l. units: yes; book., 3 l. plural: essence); be, be/be; was, was/, would/lo see also. to be therefore, to be so as not to be, perhaps, perhaps... Dictionary of many expressions
have a ruble forty-five- to be involved or to be convicted under Art. 145 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (robbery) ... Thieves' jargon
have a ruble forty-six- to be involved or to be convicted under Art. 146 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (robbery) ... Thieves' jargon