Reviews of the book “Man for Himself” by Erich Fromm
“The goal of man is to be himself, and the condition for achieving this goal is to be a man for himself” (Erich Fromm)
“The main life task of a person is to give life to himself, to become what he potentially is.
The most important fruit of his efforts is his own personality” (Erich Fromm).
In this book, Fromm sets out in detail the doctrine of humanistic ethics he developed (as an applied science of the art of living). He sees its main goal as seriously thinking about “the problem of happiness and human development and, accordingly, the moral standards that contribute to achieving this goal.”
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Considering the well-being of a person to be the only criterion of ethical value, the author discusses the problems of ethics and its norms related to the realization by a person of his true self and his potential. “Our actions are determined by the value judgments we make, and our mental health and happiness depend on their correctness
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According to Fromm’s successful comparison (which was later used by Karen Horney using the example of an acorn and an oak tree), not every seed grows into a tree, but only one that has been placed in conditions favorable for such development. Likewise, a person needs appropriate conditions in order to “grow from a seed into a tree,” realizing the potential inherent in him. This idea is reflected in many of Fromm’s works, but through the work “Man for Himself” it runs like a red thread. Nature itself took care of the physical growth of a person, so it happens by itself. But for spiritual and intellectual growth, which does not have an automatic nature, additional conditions and special efforts of the individual himself are necessary. “Our moral problem is man’s indifference to himself”
, as well as a lack of understanding of the true needs of our “seeds” - children.
In contrast to manipulation and pressure, real “upbringing is identical to helping a child realize his potential
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By the way, the Latin root of the English word education - e-ducere - means “to lead forward”
or
“to identify something that potentially exists
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“To awaken a person’s emotional and intellectual abilities to life, to give birth to his personality, productive activity is required
,” that is, fruitful activity (primarily internal), the most important fruit of which is the personality itself.
According to Fromm, “psychology cannot be separated from philosophy and ethics, as well as from sociology and economics”
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And he sought to expand the horizons of psychoanalysis, emphasizing the role of sociological, political, economic, religious and anthropological factors in the formation of personality. In this book, the author affirms the correctness of humanistic ethics and shows that “moral norms are based on the innate properties of a person, and their violation leads to mental and emotional decay
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Fromm insists on the concept of human life as art, considering the purpose of life to be the development of the specific forces of the body. “Life itself is an art, at the same time the most important, and the most difficult and complex of all practiced by man... In the art of living, a person is both a creator and an object of art, a sculptor and a block of marble, a doctor and a patient
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Fromm considers self-love (and not self-denial or self-love) and affirmation (and not denial) of one’s personality and individuality to be the highest values of humanistic ethics. “To gain confidence in values, a person must know himself and his ability, bestowed by nature, for goodness and productivity
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Fromm views the term “productivity” as an expanded interpretation of the concept of spontaneity (the Latin word sponte means “of one’s own accord”
), described in “Flight from Freedom” and directly related to freedom.
Spontaneous activity (essentially the opposite of both external coercion and the internal automatism of the robot) is the free, direct and creative activity of the individual, uniting a person with the world and himself. “There is no other way for man to achieve unity with the world and at the same time feel unity with himself, be connected with others and maintain his integrity as a unique being, except through the productive use of his powers
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The manifestation of a person’s productive potential lies in the spontaneous expression of his capabilities (emotional, intellectual, physical). In the case of blocking of productive energy, destructiveness develops, the degree of which is proportional to the degree of inhibition in the development of the individual’s abilities. Destructive forces in a person are in inverse proportion to life-affirming ones: the stronger some are, the weaker others are, and vice versa. “Destructiveness is the outcome of an unlived life
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“Freedom is a necessary condition for happiness and virtue - not in the sense of the ability to make arbitrary decisions and not in the sense of freedom from necessity, but in the sense of realizing one’s capabilities, the manifestation of the true nature of man in accordance with the laws of his existence.”
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Fromm considers the true object of ethical research to be virtuous or vicious character, and not individual virtues or vices of a person. The character of any of us is usually a mixture of different orientations (productive and non-productive (receptive, exploitative, acquisitive, market)), one of which turns out to be dominant. If a productive orientation dominates the character structure, then unproductive ones do not have the negative meaning that they have when they are dominant. Moreover, they acquire a different, constructive quality, showing their positive aspects. In the words Fromm said on another occasion, “as a result of the productive conflict between good and evil, evil itself becomes the source of virtue.”
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According to Fromm, happiness and joy are companions of any productive activity (in thoughts, feelings, actions). “Happiness is not some kind of gift from God, but an achievement that a person achieves through his inner fruitfulness”
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And every neurosis is the result of failure in a productive and integral life, in achieving maturity and integrity of the individual, which can be considered as “a consequence of the conflict between the innate powers of a person and those factors that block their development
. According to Fromm, the opposite of happiness is not grief or pain, but depression, which stems from internal sterility and unproductivity.
“Humanistic ethics is of the opinion that if a person is alive, he knows what is allowed, and to be alive means to be productive, to use his powers not for the sake of some goal superior to man, but for himself, to make his existence meaningful, to be humane . As long as one believes that his ideal and goal are outside himself, that they are somewhere beyond the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go beyond himself and seek his own fulfillment where it cannot be found. . He will look for solutions and answers everywhere except the one place where they can be found - within himself.”
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A little biography
Fromm's biography is very interesting. He was born in Germany, in the city of Frankfurt am Main, in March 1900 into a Jewish family. There he received his education. Erich Fromm first studied at a national educational institution, then entered the University of Heidelburg, where he received basic knowledge in subjects such as philosophy, psychology and sociology.
He completed his studies at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. This institute is famous for the fact that great analysts such as Max Eitingon and many other psychoanalysts taught there at various times in its existence.
We recommend: Classic Freudian psychoanalysis
After graduation, Erich Fromm opened his own office. To summarize, he was a psychoanalyst for an average of thirty-five years of his life. When Hitler came to power in Germany, Fromm moved to the United States of America and taught at one of the universities there. There he helped open the first schools of psychiatry and even an institute.
Throughout his life he worked as a teacher in a large number of universities and institutes. Closer to the 60s of the 20th century, he wrote the program of the Socialist Party of the United States of America. He was involved in politics. Towards the end of his life he began to write books. In the last years of his life he had health problems. Erich Fromm suffered as many as three heart attacks. He died at the age of eightie in Switzerland.
