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Before reading Fromm, I never thought about the difference between having and being; but once seen it can hardly be unseen. Like when he talks about idolatry or

Before reading Fromm, I never thought about the difference between having and being; but once seen it can hardly be unseen. Like when he talks about idolatry or God, with a point and seriousness and as atheist, or the distinction between necrophilia and love of life -- before Fromm necrophilia was something out of gross jokes to, not anything I could seriously ponder, but now I'm thinking we're just so deep into all that, so deep down the rabbit hole, that the truth hurts too much, but he never exaggerated even one bit. for example ( from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psVNR51ctdc&t=33m28s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psVNR51ctdc&t=33m28s ) : [..] if one is in touch with one's own unconscious reality, I think one would have to admit that in all of us there is a piece of Eichmann, and if you ask why, on what basis do I say this, then I would ask you wether you have lost your appetite when you read that in India people were starving, or wether you have gone on eating. As soon as you have not lost your appetite, when you knew other people were starving, then your heart has hardened, and in principle, you have done the same which Eichmann did. Nobody wants to hear that. I don't want to hear it either. If I read it in a book which otherwise is telling me many things that are obviously wise and come from a good motivation, I can ponder it. If someone just says that about me, to my face, I defend myself before I fully heard what was said. But it's true. He goes on: I don't think, that if we are really in touch with the inner reality of ourselves, that there is any crime, or perhaps any virtue, which we cannot discover in ourselves. We shut ourselves [off] from the awareness of our inner reality, we project the evil to our opponents and enemies, and believe that the good is in ourselves; indidivually, nationally, and group-wise in general. But if you can really see that every one of us, carries all of humanity, the good and the evil, within himself, then indeed is very hard to be a fanatic, then indeed it's very hard to be a judge, then indeed would follow, a deep understanding, if not love, of your fellow man. Which is part of being truly a person. Bam. Consider how far this is from the maturity of our so called leaders and us, how far away from even our highest standards. The fact that this stuff comes across as cheesy rhetoric so easily, is just testament to how lost we are. Sorry for rambling, but I can't deny it, I love that dude, and I honestly think everybody should at least try to read him because they might, too.

graycat 13y ago
Wow! Some of that may also be in the last half of 'The Art of Loving', but what you wrote is new to me. You are right -- just from what you quoted, he had something perceptive and important to say. And on India, he's right: I refuse to pay attention to India, and for essentially just the reason he said.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  I think many, if not all of his ideas show up in all of his writings here and there, he is consistent that way :) But what still positively surprised my about "The Sane Society" was the last third, where he goes into (then) recent history, and quotes a lot of people I never heard of about the up and coming age of industrialization. Very good stuff, and all news to me. At the risk of overdoing it (even more), one last quote I consider a true pearl because it sums up so much, from http://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ http://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ : The whole concept of alienation found its first expression in Western thought in the Old Testament concept of idolatry. The essence of what the prophets call "idolatry" is not that man worships many gods instead of only one. It is that the idols are the work of man's own hands -- they are things, and man bows down and worships things; worships that which he has created himself. In doing so he transforms himself into a thing. He transfers to the things of his creation the attributes of his own life, and instead of experiencing himself as the creating person, he is in touch with himself only by the worship of the idol. He has become estranged from his own life forces, from the wealth of his own potentialties, and is in touch with himself only in the indirect way of submission to life frozen in the idols. The deadness and emptiness of the idol is expressed in the Old Testament: "Eyes they have and they do not see, ears they have and they do not hear," etc. The more man transfers his own powers to the idols, the poorer he himself becomes, and the more dependent on the idols, so that they permit him to redeem a small part of what was originally his. The idols can be a godlike figure, the state, the church, a person, possessions. Idolatry changes its objects; it is by no means to be found only in those forms in which the idol has a socalled religious meaning. Idolatry is always the worship of something into which man has put his own creative powers, and to which he now submits, instead of experiencing himself in his creative act. Among the many forms of alienation, the most frequent one is alienation in language. If I express a feeling with a word, let us say, if I say "I love you," the word is meant to be an indication of the reality which exists within myself, the power of my loving. The word "love" is meant to be a symbol of the fact love, but as soon as it is spoken it tends to assume a life of its own, it becomes a reality. I am under the illusion that the saying of the word is the equivalent of the experience, and soon I say the word and feel nothing, except the thought of love which the word expresses. The alienation of language shows the whole complexity of alienation. Language is one of the most precious human achievements; to avoid alienation by not speaking would be foolish -- yet one must be always aware of the danger of the spoken word, that it threatens to substitute itself for the living experience. The same holds true for all other achievements of man; ideas, art, any kind of man-made objects. They are man's creations; they are valuable aids for life, yet each one of them is also a trap, a temptation to confuse life with things, experience with artifacts, feeling with surrender and submission. To me Erich Fromm's writings are like a holograms, they all seem to contain a rough version of the whole ^^

graycat 13y ago

Wow! Some of that may also be in the last half of 'The Art of Loving', but what you wrote is new to me. You are right -- just from what you quoted, he had something perceptive and important to say. And on India, he's right: I refuse to pay attention to India, and for essentially just the reason he said.

PavlovsCat 13y ago
I think many, if not all of his ideas show up in all of his writings here and there, he is consistent that way :) But what still positively surprised my about "The Sane Society" was the last third, where he goes into (then) recent history, and quotes a lot of people I never heard of about the up and coming age of industrialization. Very good stuff, and all news to me. At the risk of overdoing it (even more), one last quote I consider a true pearl because it sums up so much, from http://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ http://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ : The whole concept of alienation found its first expression in Western thought in the Old Testament concept of idolatry. The essence of what the prophets call "idolatry" is not that man worships many gods instead of only one. It is that the idols are the work of man's own hands -- they are things, and man bows down and worships things; worships that which he has created himself. In doing so he transforms himself into a thing. He transfers to the things of his creation the attributes of his own life, and instead of experiencing himself as the creating person, he is in touch with himself only by the worship of the idol. He has become estranged from his own life forces, from the wealth of his own potentialties, and is in touch with himself only in the indirect way of submission to life frozen in the idols. The deadness and emptiness of the idol is expressed in the Old Testament: "Eyes they have and they do not see, ears they have and they do not hear," etc. The more man transfers his own powers to the idols, the poorer he himself becomes, and the more dependent on the idols, so that they permit him to redeem a small part of what was originally his. The idols can be a godlike figure, the state, the church, a person, possessions. Idolatry changes its objects; it is by no means to be found only in those forms in which the idol has a socalled religious meaning. Idolatry is always the worship of something into which man has put his own creative powers, and to which he now submits, instead of experiencing himself in his creative act. Among the many forms of alienation, the most frequent one is alienation in language. If I express a feeling with a word, let us say, if I say "I love you," the word is meant to be an indication of the reality which exists within myself, the power of my loving. The word "love" is meant to be a symbol of the fact love, but as soon as it is spoken it tends to assume a life of its own, it becomes a reality. I am under the illusion that the saying of the word is the equivalent of the experience, and soon I say the word and feel nothing, except the thought of love which the word expresses. The alienation of language shows the whole complexity of alienation. Language is one of the most precious human achievements; to avoid alienation by not speaking would be foolish -- yet one must be always aware of the danger of the spoken word, that it threatens to substitute itself for the living experience. The same holds true for all other achievements of man; ideas, art, any kind of man-made objects. They are man's creations; they are valuable aids for life, yet each one of them is also a trap, a temptation to confuse life with things, experience with artifacts, feeling with surrender and submission. To me Erich Fromm's writings are like a holograms, they all seem to contain a rough version of the whole ^^