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 previously expressed thoughts, but I hope that new approach to the problem in this small book and the broader context will be of comfort even to 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 Marcel's book, and used for my own purposes a very good private translation of this book, which Beverly Hughes did for me. The bibliography indicates the official English edition.)
In an effort to make the book more accessible to the reader, I have reduced the number of notes and footnotes to the limit. Separate bibliographic 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 average and upper layers population, other people were inclined to interpret these gains 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 everything 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 has brought with it ecological 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 in Oslo in 1952 Nobel Prize world, he addressed the whole 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? Fromm Erich Seligmann
Erich Fromm To have or to be?
Erich Fromm
To have or to be?
Erich Fromm “To Have Or to Be?” © Copyright Erich Fromm, 1997 © Copyright Voyskunskaya N., Kamenkovich I., Komarova E., Rudneva E., Sidorova V., Fedina E., Khorkov M., translation from English Ed. "AST", M., 2000
Executive Editor Dr series Philosopher Sc., prof. P. S. Gurevich
Translation from English Voiskunskaya N., Kamenkovich I., Komarova E., Rudneva E., Sidorova V., Fedina E., Khorkova M.
Artist Yu. D. Fedichkin
1980 by The Estate of Erich Fromm
ACT Publishing House LLC, 1998
From the book The Bible of Rajneesh. Volume 1. Book 1 author Rajneesh Bhagwan Shri From the book To Have or To Be author Fromm Erich Seligmann From the book 100 Great Thinkers author Mussky Igor AnatolievichERICH FROMM (1900–1980) German-American philosopher, psychologist and sociologist, the main representative of neo-Freudianism. Based on the ideas of psychoanalysis, existentialism and Marxism, he sought to resolve the basic contradictions of human existence. Ways out of the crisis
From the book Think About It author Jiddu Krishnamurti20. To be religious means to be sensitive to reality. Isn't this green field with bright yellow flowers and a stream running through it pleasant to look at? I looked at him last night; and, seeing the extraordinary beauty and tranquility of the countryside, a person
From the book To Have or To Be? author Fromm Erich SeligmannTo have or to be? To act is to be. Lao Tzu People should think not so much about what they should do, but about what they are. Meister Eckhart The more insignificant your being, the less you manifest your life, the greater your property, the greater your
From the book Crowd, Masses, Politics author Heveshi Maria AkoshevnaInterpretation of freedom and its perception by the masses (E. Fromm) The interpretation of freedom and its perception by the masses became the subject of close attention in the sixties of the 20th century with their explosion of left-radical sentiments. In particular, interpretations of the masses, the “left-leaning” crowd,
From the book The Essence of Man author Bugera Vladislav Evgenievich3. Erich Fromm and Voivode Dracula In “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness” Fromm, among other things, developed a very deep concept of necrophilia and illustrated it with a number of clinical examples, as well as a detailed analysis of the necrophilic character
From the book Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis author Fromm Erich SeligmannErich Fromm
From the book Crisis of Consciousness: a collection of works on the “philosophy of crisis” author Fromm Erich SeligmannErich Fromm
From the book Love author Precht Richard DavidErich Fromm: The Mayor and the Art of Love Corsica, summer 1981. I was sixteen, I found myself in the south for the first time, in a small hotel buried in evergreen bushes. Like all sixteen-year-old boys, I was hopelessly in love - a textbook case of unrequited
From the book Feelings and Things author Bogat Evgeniy From the book Anatomy of Human Destructiveness author Fromm Erich SeligmannErich Fromm Biographical information Erich Fromm was born on March 23, 1900 in Frankfurt into an Orthodox Jewish family. His father sold grape wine, and his paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were rabbis. Erich's mother, Rosa Krause, was of Russian origin.
To have more or to be better? You must first of all be better, and only then want to have more. Many people who like to show that they have a lot of things squander these things without any benefit or suddenly lose them. But only very few show that they have the key
From the book Entertaining Philosophy [ Tutorial] author Balashov Lev EvdokimovichTo be or to have? Erich Fromm, a neo-Freudian, tried to combine Freudianism with Marxism, contrasting “to be” and “to have” (being to having). In the book "To Be or to Have" he argues that it is more important for a person to be rather than to have. In Marxism, private property is recognized as the main
The founder of neo-Freudianism E. Fromm talks in the works collected in this book about how the inner world person.
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 person and a 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 movement that has become widespread mainly in the USA modern philosophy and psychology, 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 irrational motives human activity, initially inherent in each individual). The named scientists shifted the center of gravity to the study 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. Deep and original thinking person finds himself faced with the need to expound new idea the language of his time.
To have or to be? Erich Fromm
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Title: To have or to be?
Author: Erich Fromm
Year: 1976
Genre: Philosophy, Foreign educational literature, Classics of psychology, Foreign psychology
About the book “To Have or to Be?” Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm is one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century, a psychoanalyst, psychologist and philosopher who critically revised Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic teaching about man and culture.
Throughout his life, Fromm explored issues of the spiritual sphere of man and wholeheartedly advocated for the revival of humanistic psychoanalysis. Summarizing the research of the great psychoanalyst, his late work “To Have or to Be” was published in 1976.
This work by Erich Fromm is dedicated to the eternal dilemma of “being” and “having” as the main ways of human existence. The author describes the features of human life in the new, capitalist-economic, as well as technogenic system, as slowly leading to decline human civilization. Existence in such a system replaces the true desires and needs of the individual with ones that are beneficial only to the system. Which ultimately leads to a person’s adaptation to a new aggressive environment of existence, making him a greedy, selfish and selfish materialist. This development trend, Fromm argues, will sooner or later lead to disaster. And the only way to change everything is to reorient the direction of development of the individual and the entire society in a humanistic direction.
“To Have or to Be” is about two in various ways human life. One way is to “Have.” The essence of which is a person’s possession of material things, as well as his desire to occupy a certain place in the life of society, to have a so-called social status.
The second way is “Be”. It means to live own life, without regard to public opinion, comply with all norms and principles, but remain yourself, remain free and do not evaluate your achievements with material benefits.
In essence, Erich Fromm’s work “To Have or to Be” is a book about self-determination, about how to get rid of loneliness, despair, bitterness of loss and even indifference. The author does not give clear instructions on how to do this, but his professional view of the problems and their roots in itself helps to clarify a lot.
Without a doubt, this book is capable of changing the reader’s consciousness and attitude. In the modern technogenic society of consumers, the mode of having dominates, but the mode of being, which is capable of opening everyone’s eyes and making him happy, remains unattended. To Have or To Be points the reader in the right direction.
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 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 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. During 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 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 social structure, its values and norms. Using the concept of 'religion' to designate any system of beliefs and actions held by any group of people and which serves as a scheme of orientation for the individual and the object of his worship, Fromm believes that it is rooted in the specific structure of the character of that person and in 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
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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... Dictionary Ozhegova
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 large library. You have everything, interrupted Manilov with the same pleasant smile, you have everything, even more... ... Popular dictionary of the Russian language
