e. fromm - the essence and purpose of man

Fromm E.

Austrian philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm(1900-1980).

“Anatomy of human destructiveness”, “To have or to be”, “Ways out of a sick society”.

Fromm, in particular, shows that the rise to power of such necrophiles (Greek necrophilia - love of death), like Hitler and Stalin in states with the most inhumane, totalitarian regime - this is the inevitable result of distortions of the natural path along which the civilization of the 20th century took. From such positions, Fromm even distinguishes between “good” and “evil” cultures.

Modern society puts a person in a dilemma - “To have or to be?” “Having” means realizing oneself through a consumer attitude towards everything - people, money, education, culture as such, when everything is bought and sold. “To be” means to be a person, to develop your inner core, to keep God in your soul. “When there is no God in the soul, an irrepressible evil SPIRIT takes his place,” it was written in the Bible. If Nietzsche stated the “death of God,” then Fromm and M. Foucault went even further, discovering that in the twentieth century. “a person died”;

Among the most destructive vices of our civilization, Fromm identifies the “modern form of cannibalism” - the desire to use people for oneself, when a person is perceived only as a means. A destructive force in a “sick society” is the manipulation of people, the subordination of their thoughts to attitudes imposed on them and perceived by them as their own. Following Marx, who saw this danger already in the 19th century, Fromm wrote: “The only condition for abandoning illusions about one’s position is a state of society in which there is no need for illusions.”

Fromm E. The Art of Love.

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) - German-American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist, His classic work "The Art of Loving" of 1956, where he argued that love is the criterion of the authenticity of human existence, the answer to the problem of human existence.

E. Fromm's views on love and its meaning in human life form an essential part of the concept “The Art of Living” that he developed, which is based on:

· theoretical “science of man”,

· “applied science” - “humanistic ethics”

An essential part of the “humanistic ethics” he developed is the “art of loving.” Thus, E. Fromm’s “art of living” includes the “art of loving.”

E Fromm argued that love is an art, not an instinct or a gift from above. Love does not come completely independently of us - as an instinct beyond our control or as a happy accident, as a confluence of external circumstances that gave us a loved one. The point, first of all, is whether we ourselves know how to love. All human abilities and skills must be developed and formed thanks to our efforts and experience. This fully applies to love. Knowledge in love is the experience of “getting used to” the secrets of the soul of another, empathizing with him.

Love is an active penetration into another person, a penetration in which my desire for knowledge is satisfied through union.

The purpose of love is “This is a way to overcome the separation of people from each other. A separated existence is unbearable for a person, it introduces and keeps him in a state of anxiety.”

The art of love.

This book aims to show that love is not a sentimental feeling that anyone can experience, regardless of the level of maturity they have achieved.

· all attempts at love are doomed to failure if a person does not strive more actively to develop his personality as a whole in order to achieve a productive orientation;

· satisfaction in individual love cannot be achieved without the ability to love one's neighbor, without true humanity, courage, faith and discipline.

To avoid failure in love, you need to explore the reasons for this failure.

Misconceptions that lead to the belief that there is nothing to learn in love.

Love as overcoming human loneliness, the fulfillment of a passionate desire for unity

I. The need to arouse self-love. To be loved, not to love, to be able to love. For most people, the ability to arouse love is essentially a combination of cuteness and sex appeal.

They take several paths to achieve this goal.

1. to become lucky, to become strong and rich as much as the social situation allows (usually used by men).

2. make yourself attractive by carefully looking after your body, clothes, etc. (usually used by women)

3. develop good manners, the ability to conduct an interesting conversation, willingness to help, modesty, unpretentiousness.

II. Choosing an “object of love.” It is easy to love, but to find a true object of love - or to be loved by this object - is difficult. In a culture where market orientation prevails and where material success is of outstanding value, human love relationship follow the same patterns that govern the market.

1. Most people seek romantic love, a personal experience of love that should then lead to marriage. (And marriage is a contract where each party has its own functions).

2. For a man, an attractive woman - for a woman, an attractive man is the prey that they are for each other. Attractiveness usually means a nice package of attributes that are popular and sought after in the personality market. I seek benefits: the object must be desirable from the point of view of social value, and at the same time must itself desire me, taking into account my hidden and obvious advantages and capabilities.

III. Blind attraction. Mixing the initial feeling of falling in love with the permanent state of being in love. “Infatuation” with each other is proof of the power of love, although it is evidence only of the degree of previous loneliness.

Two strangers allow the wall separating them to crumble, this moment of unity becomes one of the most moving experiences in life. The miracle of unexpected intimacy often happens more easily if it begins with physical attraction and its satisfaction. However, this type of love by its very nature does not last. Two people get to know each other better and better, their intimacy loses more and more of its wonderful character, until finally their antagonism, their disappointment, their satiety with each other kills what is left of their initial excitement. At first they did not know all this; they were, indeed, captured by a wave of blind attraction. This attitude that nothing is easier than loving continues to be the dominant idea regarding love, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

There is scarcely any activity, any occupation, which would begin with such enormous hopes and expectations and which would still fail with such invariability as love. If this concerned any other activity, people would do everything possible to understand the reasons for failure, and learn to act in the best way for this task - or abandon this activity.

How to learn to love?

Love is an art, just like the art of living: if we want to learn to love, we must do exactly the same as we have to do when we want to learn any other art, say, music, painting, carpentry, medicine or engineering art.

The process of learning art can be successively divided into two stages:

1. mastery of theory;

2. mastery of practice.

But along with theory and practice, there is a third factor necessary in order for to become a master in any art - mastery of the art should be a matter of utmost concentration.

The only way of complete knowledge is an act of love: this act goes beyond thought, goes beyond words. It is a bold dive into the experience of oneness. Only if I know a human being objectively can I know his deepest essence in the act of love.

So far I have talked about love as overcoming human loneliness, the fulfillment of a passionate desire for unity. But above the general vital need for unity rises a more specific, biological need: the desire for unity of the male and female sexes. Just as physiologically every man and woman have opposite sex hormones, they are also bisexual psychologically. They carry within themselves the principles that force one to receive and penetrate deeper, the principles of matter and spirit. A man and a woman find inner unity only in the unity of their male and female polarities. This polarity is the basis of all creation.

The idea that love is an orientation that is directed towards everything and not towards one thing is not based, however, on the idea that there is no difference between different types of love depending on the types of the loved object.

Shapes of love

· Physical

· Non-physical

1. Brotherly love. The most fundamental type of love, which forms the basis of all types of love, is brotherly love. This is responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of some other human being, the desire to prolong his life.

Brotherly love is love for all human beings; it is characterized by a complete lack of preference. In brotherly love there is the experience of unity with all people, human solidarity, human unity. Brotherly love is based on the feeling that we are all one. The main thing here is the identity of the human essence common to all people.

To experience a sense of identity, you need to go deep - from the periphery to the center. If I understand another person only superficially, I understand only the differences that separate us. If I penetrated into the essence, I comprehended our identity, the fact of our brotherhood. This is the connection of center with center - and not periphery with periphery - “central connection”.

Brotherly love is love between equals;

maternal love is love for a helpless creature

2. Erotic love. The opposite of brotherly and maternal types of love. She longs for complete fusion, unity with a single person. It is by its very nature exclusive and not universal; besides, it is probably the most deceptive form of love.

For most people, the knowledge of their own personality, as well as the knowledge of other personalities, is too hasty, too quickly exhausted. For them, intimacy is affirmed through sexual contact. Since they experience the other person's alienation as physical alienation, they take physical unity to be an overcoming of alienation.

Sexual desire is caused or easily merged with any other strong emotion, only one of which is love. Because sexual desire is associated with the idea of love in most people's minds, they are easily deluded into thinking that they love each other when they are physically attracted to each other. Sexual desire creates for a brief moment the illusion of unity, but without love this unity leaves strangers as strangers to each other as they were before. Sometimes it makes them feel ashamed and even hate each other, because when the illusion disappears, they feel even more alienated than before.

Tenderness does not mean, as Freud thought, the sublimation of the sexual instinct; it is a direct result of brotherly love and is present in both physical and non-physical forms of love.

E. FROM

^ WOLF MAN OR SHEEP?

Many people believe that people are sheep, others consider them to be predatory wolves. Each side can argue its point of view. Anyone who considers people to be sheep can at least point out that they easily follow the orders of others, even when it causes harm to themselves. He can also say that people again and again follow their leaders into war, which gives them nothing but destruction, that they believe any nonsense if it is stated with due persistence and supported by rulers - from the direct threats of priests and kings to the insinuating voices of more or less secret seducers. It seems that most people, like dozing children, are easily influenced and that they are ready to limply follow anyone who, by threatening or ingratiating themselves, persuades them persistently enough. A man of strong convictions who disregards the opposition of the crowd is the exception rather than the rule. He is often admired by subsequent centuries, but is usually a laughing stock in the eyes of his contemporaries.

Grand Inquisitors and dictators based their systems of power precisely on the premise that people are sheep. It was precisely the view that people are sheep and therefore need leaders to make decisions for them that often gave the leaders themselves the firm conviction that they were fulfilling a completely moral, although sometimes very tragic, duty: taking leadership and relieving others of the burden of responsibility and freedom, they gave people what they wanted.

However, if most people are sheep, why do they lead lives that completely contradict this? The history of mankind is written in blood. It is a story of never-ending violence, as humans have almost always subjugated their own kind through force. Did Talaat Pasha himself kill millions of Armenians? Did Hitler alone kill millions of Jews? Did Stalin alone kill millions of his political opponents? No. These people were not alone, they had thousands who killed and tortured for them and who did it not just with desire, but even with pleasure. Are we not confronted everywhere with the inhumanity of man - in the case of ruthless warfare, in the case of murder and violence, in the case of the shameless exploitation of the weak by the stronger? And how often the groans of a tortured and suffering creature are met by deaf ears and hardened hearts! A thinker like Hobbes concluded from all this: homo homini lupus est (man is a wolf to man). And today many of us come to the conclusion that man is by nature an evil and destructive creature, that he resembles a murderer who can only be kept from his favorite pastime by fear of a stronger killer.

Yet the arguments on both sides are not convincing. Even though we personally met some potential or obvious murderers and sadists who, in their shamelessness, could compete with Stalin and Hitler, but still these were exceptions, not the rules. Are we really supposed to believe that we ourselves and most ordinary people are just wolves in sheep's clothing, that our “true nature” supposedly will appear only after we throw away the restraining factors that have hitherto prevented us from becoming like wild beasts? Although this is difficult to dispute, this line of thought is also not entirely convincing. IN Everyday life There is often scope for cruelty and sadism, and it can often be done without fear of retribution. Nevertheless, many do not agree to this and, on the contrary, react with disgust when faced with cruelty and sadism.

Perhaps there is another, better explanation for this surprising contradiction? Perhaps the simple answer is that a minority of wolves live side by side with a majority of sheep? Wolves want to kill, sheep want to do what they are told. Wolves force sheep to kill and strangle, and they do this not because it gives them joy, but because they want to obey. Moreover, to induce the majority of the sheep to act like wolves, the murderers must come up with stories about the righteousness of their cause, about defending a freedom that is in danger, about avenging children bayoneted, about raped women and outraged honor. This answer sounds convincing, but even after it many doubts remain. Doesn't it mean that there are, as it were, two human races - wolves and sheep? Moreover, the question arises: if it is not in their nature, then why are sheep so easily seduced by the behavior of wolves when violence is presented to them as a sacred duty. Maybe what was said about wolves and sheep is not true? Perhaps it is still true that an important characteristic of a person is something wolfish and that the majority simply do not show it openly? Or maybe we shouldn’t be talking about an alternative at all? Maybe a person is both a wolf and a sheep at the same time, or is he neither a wolf nor a sheep?

Today, when nations are weighing the possibility of using the most dangerous weapons of destruction against their “enemies” and, apparently, do not even fear their own death in the course of mass destruction, the answer to these questions is crucial. If we are convinced that man is naturally destructive, that the need to use violence is deeply rooted in his being, then our resistance to ever-increasing cruelty may weaken. Why should we resist wolves if we are all wolves to one degree or another? The question of whether a person is a wolf or a sheep is only a pointed formulation of a question that, in its broadest and in a general sense belongs to the fundamental problems of theological and philosophical thinking of the Western world, namely: is man essentially evil and vicious, or is he essentially good and capable of self-improvement? Old Testament does not believe that man is fundamentally flawed. Disobedience to God on the part of Adam and Eve is not considered a sin. Nowhere do we find any indication that this disobedience ruined the man. On the contrary, this disobedience is a prerequisite for the fact that a person has become aware of himself, that he has become capable of solving his own affairs. Thus, this first act of disobedience is ultimately man's first step towards freedom. It seems that this disobedience was even part of God's plan. According to the prophets, it was precisely because man was expelled from paradise that he was able to shape his own history, develop his human powers and, as a fully developed individual, achieve harmony with other people and nature. This harmony took the place of the previous one, in which man was not yet an individual. The messianic thought of the prophets clearly proceeds from the fact that man is fundamentally blameless and can be saved apart from a special act of God's mercy.

Of course, this does not yet say that the capacity for good necessarily wins. If a person does evil, then he himself becomes more evil. For example, Pharaoh's heart became “hardened” because he constantly did evil. It became so hardened that at a certain point it became completely impossible for him to start all over again and repent of what he had done. The Old Testament contains no less examples of atrocities than examples of righteous deeds, but it never makes an exception for such exalted images as King David. From the point of view of the Old Testament, a person is capable of both good and bad, he must choose between good and evil, between blessing and curse, between life and death. God never interferes with this decision. He helps by sending his messengers, the prophets, to instruct people how they can recognize evil and practice good, to warn them and oppose them. But after this has already happened, a person is left alone with his “two instincts” - the desire for good and the desire for evil; now he himself must solve this problem.

Christian development proceeded differently. As the christian church a point of view appeared that Adam’s disobedience was a sin, and so grave that it destroyed the nature of Adam himself and all his descendants. Now man could no longer free himself from this depravity on his own. Only an act of God's mercy, the appearance of Christ who died for people, can destroy this depravity and save those who believe in Christ.

Of course, the dogma of original sin did not remain undisputed within the church itself. Pelagius attacked her, but he failed to prevail. During the Renaissance, humanists within the church tried to soften this dogma, although they did not directly fight or challenge it, as many heretics did. True, Luther was even more radical in his belief in the innate meanness and depravity of man, but at the same time, the thinkers of the Renaissance, and later the Enlightenment, dared to take a noticeable step in the opposite direction. The latter argued that all evil in a person is only a consequence of external circumstances and therefore a person really has no choice. They believed that it was only necessary to change the circumstances from which evil grew, then the original goodness in a person would manifest itself almost automatically. This point of view also influenced the thinking of Marx and his followers. Belief in the fundamental goodness of man arose from a new self-awareness acquired through economic and political progress unheard of since the Renaissance. The moral bankruptcy of the West, which began with the First World War and led through Hitler and Stalin, through Coventry 23 and Hiroshima to the current preparation for universal destruction, on the contrary, influenced the fact that man's propensity for evil began to be more emphasized again. Essentially, it was a healthy reaction to underestimating man's innate potential for evil. On the other hand, too often this served as a reason for ridicule of those who had not yet lost their faith in man, and the latter’s point of view was misunderstood, and sometimes deliberately distorted...

The main danger to humanity is not a monster or a sadist, but a normal person endowed with extraordinary power. However, in order for millions to put their lives on the line and become killers, they must be instilled with feelings of hatred, resentment, destructiveness and fear. Along with weapons, these feelings are an indispensable condition for waging war, but they are not its cause, just as guns and bombs in themselves are not the cause of wars. Many believe that nuclear war in this sense differs from traditional war. The one who pushes the button starts atomic bombs, each of which is capable of taking hundreds of thousands of lives, hardly experiences the same feelings as a soldier who kills with a bayonet or a machine gun. But even if the launch of an atomic missile in the consciousness of the person in question is experienced only as an obedient execution of an order, the question still remains: whether destructive impulses or, at least, deep indifference towards life must not be contained in the deeper layers of his personality in order to Is such an action even possible?

I would like to dwell on three phenomena that, in my opinion, underlie the most harmful and dangerous form of human orientation: love of the dead, inveterate narcissism and symbiotic-incestuous fixation. Taken together, these three orientations form a “disintegration syndrome” that drives a person to destroy for the sake of destruction and to hate for the sake of hating. I would also like to discuss the "growth syndrome", which consists of love for living things, love for people and independence. Only a few people develop full development of one of these two syndromes. However, there is no doubt that each person moves in a certain direction chosen by him: towards the living or the dead, good or evil.

^ Fromm E. The spiritual essence of man.

Capacity for good and evil // Human

and its values. M., 1988. S. 56 - 6

In terms of its bodily organization and physiological functions, man belongs to the animal world. The life of animals is determined by instincts, certain patterns of behavior, determined in turn by hereditary neurological structures. The higher an animal is organized, the more flexible its behavioral patterns and the more incomplete the structure of its adaptation to the environment is at the time of birth. In higher primates, one can even observe a certain level of intelligence - the use of thinking to achieve desired goals. In this way, the animal is able to go beyond its instincts as prescribed by behavioral patterns. But no matter how impressive the development of the animal world may be, the basic elements of its existence remain the same.

An animal “lives” its life thanks to the biological laws of nature. It is part of nature and never transcends it. An animal has no moral conscience, no awareness of itself and its existence. He has no mind, if by mind we understand the ability to penetrate through the surface of phenomena given to us in sensations and comprehend the essence behind it. Therefore, an animal does not possess the concept of truth, although it may have an idea of what is useful to it. |

The existence of an animal is characterized by harmony between it and nature. This, naturally, does not exclude the possibility that natural conditions may threaten the animal and force it to fight fiercely for its survival. What is meant here is that another animal is naturally endowed with abilities that help it survive in the conditions to which it is opposed, just as the seed of a plant is “equipped” by nature in order to survive by adapting to the conditions of soil, climate, etc. evolution.

At a certain point in the evolution of living beings, a one-of-a-kind turn occurred, which is comparable only to the appearance of matter, the origin of life or the appearance of animals. A new result arose when, in the course of the evolutionary process, actions ceased to be largely determined by instincts. Adaptation to nature lost the character of compulsion; action was no longer fixed by hereditary mechanisms. At the moment when the animal transcended nature, when it went beyond the predestined | given the purely passive role of a created being, it became (from a biological point of view) the most helpless of all animals - a man was born. At this point in evolution, the animal, thanks to its vertical position, was emancipated from nature, its brain increased significantly in volume compared to other highly organized species. The birth of man may have lasted hundreds of thousands of years, but the end result was the emergence of a new species that transcended nature. Thereby life began to become aware of itself.

Self-awareness, reason and the power of imagination destroyed the “harmony” that characterizes the existence of the animal. With their appearance, a person becomes an anomaly, a quirk of the universe. He is part of nature, he is subject to its physical laws, which he cannot change, and yet he transcends the rest of nature. He stands outside of nature and yet is part of it. He is without kin and yet is firmly connected with the genus common to him and all other creatures. He is thrown into the world at a random point and at a random time and just as randomly must leave it again. But since a person is self-aware, he understands his powerlessness and the limits of his existence. He foresees his own end - death. Man is never free from the dichotomy of his existence: he can no longer free himself from his spirit, even if he wanted to, and cannot free himself from his body while he lives, and his body awakens in him the desire to live.

Reason, the blessing of man, is also his curse. Reason forces him to constantly search for a solution to an insoluble dichotomy. Human life differs in this regard from the life of all other organisms: it is in a state of constant and inevitable imbalance. Life cannot be “lived” by simply repeating the pattern of its kind. A person must live on his own. Man is the only thing Living being, which can miss, which may feel expelled from paradise. Man is the only living being who perceives his own existence as a problem that he must solve and from which he cannot get rid of. He cannot return to the pre-human state of harmony with nature. He must develop his mind until he becomes master over nature and himself.

But from ontogenetic and phylogenetic points of view, the birth of a person is largely a phenomenon negative. Man has no instinctive adaptation to nature, he has no physical strength: at the moment of his birth, man is the most helpless of all living creatures and needs protection much longer than any of them. He lost unity with nature, and at the same time he was not provided with the means that would allow him to lead new life outside of nature. His mind is extremely rudimentary. Man does not know natural processes and does not have tools that could replace his lost instincts. He lives within small groups and does not know himself or others. His situation is clearly represented biblical myth about heaven. In the Garden of Eden, man lives in complete harmony with nature, but is unaware of himself. He begins his story with the first act of freedom - disobedience to the commandment. However, from this moment a person begins to realize himself, his isolation, his powerlessness; he is expelled from heaven, and two angels with fiery swords prevent his return.

The evolution of man is based on the fact that he has lost his original homeland - nature. He will never be able to return there, he will never be able to become an animal. He now has only one way: to leave his natural homeland and look for a new one, which he will create for himself, in which he will turn the world around him into a world of people and he himself will truly become a man.

Having been born and thus giving birth to the human race, man had to emerge from a secure and limited state determined by instincts. He finds himself in a position of uncertainty, the unknown and openness. Knowing exists only in relation to the past, and in relation to the future it exists only insofar as this knowledge relates to death, which in reality is a return to the past, to the inorganic state of matter. According to this, the problem of human existence is the only problem of its kind in nature. Man “fell out” of nature and yet is still in it. He is partly like a god, partly an animal, partly infinite and partly finite. The need to look for new solutions to the contradictions of his existence, ever higher forms of unity with nature, surrounding people and himself is the source of all mental forces that motivate a person to activity, as well as the source of all his passions, affects and fears.

An animal is content when its natural needs are satisfied - hunger, thirst, sexual need. To the extent that a person is an animal, these needs have power over him and must be satisfied. But since he is a human being, satisfying these instinctual needs is not enough to make him happy. They are not even enough to make him healthy. The “Archimedes” point of specifically human dynamics is this uniqueness of the human situation. Understanding the human psyche should be based on an analysis of those human needs that arise from the conditions of his existence...

A person can be defined as a living being who can say “I”, who can recognize himself as an independent entity. An animal lives in nature and does not transcend it, it is not aware of itself, and it has no need for self-identity. Man is taken out of nature, endowed with reason and ideas, he must form an idea for himself, must be able to say and feel: “I am I.” Because he doesn't lives, but lives because he has lost his original unity with nature, must make decisions, recognize himself and the people around him as different persons, he must develop the ability to feel like the subject of his actions. Along with the need for relatedness, rootedness and transcendence, his need for self-identity is so vital and powerful that a person cannot feel healthy unless he finds ways to satisfy it. A person’s self-identity develops in the process of liberation from the “primary ties” that bind him to his mother and nature. A child who feels his unity with his mother cannot yet say “I”, and he does not have this need. Only when he realizes external world as something separate and apart from himself, he will be able to recognize himself as a separate being, and “I” is one of the last words that he uses when speaking about himself.

In development human race The degree to which a person recognizes himself as a separate being depends on how far he has freed himself from the sense of clan identity and how far the process of his individuation has advanced. A member of a primitive clan will express his sense of self-identity in the formula: “I am We.” Such a person cannot yet understand himself as an “individual” existing outside the group. In the Middle Ages, man was identified with his social role in the feudal hierarchy. The peasant was not a man who accidentally became a peasant, and the feudal lord was not a man who accidentally became a feudal lord. He was a peasant or feudal lord, and the sense of the immutability of his class identity was an essential part of his self-identification. When the feudal system subsequently collapsed, the sense of self-identity was thoroughly shaken and a person was faced with the acute question: “Who am I?”, or, more precisely: “How do I know that I am me?” This is precisely the question that Descartes formulated in philosophical form. When asked about self-identification, he replied: “I doubt, therefore I think, I think, therefore I exist.” This answer focuses only on the experience of "I" as the subject of any mental activity and the fact that the “I” is also experienced in the process of feeling and creative activity is lost sight of.

Western culture has developed in such a way that it has created the basis for the full experience of individuality. By giving the individual political and economic freedom, by educating him in the spirit of independent thinking and liberation from any form of authoritarian pressure, it was intended to enable each individual to feel as an “I” in the sense that he was the center and active subject of his powers and felt yourself as such. But only a minority have achieved such an experience of the Self. For most, individualism was nothing more than a façade that hid the fact that man had failed to achieve individual self-identification.

Attempts have been made to find, and have been found, some surrogates for truly individual self-identification. The providers of this kind of self-identity are nation, religion, class and profession. “I am an American”, “I am a Protestant”, “I am an entrepreneur” - these are the formulas that help a person to identify himself after he has lost the original sense of clan identity, and before real individual self-identification has been found. In our modern society different types of identification are usually used together. In this case we are talking about status identifications in a broad sense, and such identifications are more effective if, as is the case in European countries, they are closely related to feudal remnants. In the United States of America, where feudal vestiges are less pronounced and where society is more dynamic, such status identifications, of course, do not have such importance, and self-identification shifts more and more towards the experience of conformity.

As long as I do not deviate from the norm, as long as I am the same as others, I am recognized by them as "one of us", I can feel like "I". I am “Who, Nobody, One Hundred Thousand,” as Pirandello titled one of his plays. Instead of the pre-individualistic clan identity, a new herd identity develops, in which self-identification rests on the feeling of undoubted belonging to the herd. The fact that this uniformity and conformism is often not recognized and is hidden behind the illusion of individuality does not change anything, in fact.

The problem of self-identity is not purely philosophical problem or a problem that affects our spirit and thinking, as is commonly thought. The need for emotional self-identification comes from the very condition of human existence and is the source of our intense aspirations. Since I cannot remain mentally healthy without a "sense of Self", I try to do everything to achieve this feeling. Behind the craving for status and conformity lies the same need, and sometimes it is even stronger than the need for physical survival. Clear evidence of this is the willingness of people to risk their lives, sacrifice their love, give up their freedom and their own thinking just to be a member of the herd, to keep pace with it and thus achieve self-identification, even if it is illusory...

^ Fromm E. Paths from sick societies II

The problem of man in Western philosophy.

M., 1988. S. 443-446, 477-480

Name: The Problem of Man in Western Philosophy: Translations

Collection of translations from English, German, French. Compilation and afterword by P. S. Gurevich. General editing by Yu. N. Popov

M.: Progress, 1988.- 552 p.
pdf 2.05 MB
Quality:excellent (recognized text page by page, page numbering is observed)

What is a person? What is its nature, essence, purpose? What determines the meaning and value of human life? What are the cardinal problems of human existence? What is the fate of humanism today? What is the specificity of philosophical comprehension of man? These and other similar questions that determine the content of philosophical and anthropological thought are the focus of the proposed collection. The main trends in the development of the problem of man in modern Western philosophy are presented here, as well as positivist, naturalistic, irrationalistic, existentialist, theological, psychoanalytic and other concepts of man. The authors of the works are leading representatives of the main philosophical movements of Western thought. Recommended for philosophers, sociologists, and anyone interested in personality problems.

Content

Cashirer E.Experience about Man: Introduction to the Philosophy of Human Culture
Sheler M.The position of man in space (translated by A. Filippov)
Plesner H.Stages of organic and man
Gelen A.About the taxonomy of anthropology
Ortega y Gasset H. New symptoms
Sartre J.-P.Primary relationship to another: love, language, masochism
Maritain J.Brief Essay on Existence and Existing
Heidegger M.European nihilism
Heidegger M.Letter on Humanism
Fink E.Basic phenomena of human existence
Marcel G.Towards tragic wisdom and beyond
Williams W.The Makropoulos Case: Reflections on the Boredom of Immortality
Fromm E.Ways out of a sick society
Canetti E. Transformation
Man as an object of socio-philosophical analysis (afterword by L. Gurevich)

E. Fromm - German-American philosopher, psychologist, sociologist.

An animal is naturally equipped with abilities that help it survive in the conditions to which it is opposed, just as the seed of a plant is “equipped” by nature in order to survive by adapting to the conditions of soil, climate, etc., in the course of evolution.

At a certain point in the evolution of living beings, a one-of-a-kind turn occurred, which is comparable only to... the origin of life or the appearance of animals. The new result arose when, in the course of the evolutionary process, actions ceased to be largely determined by instincts.

Adaptation to nature lost the character of coercion; action was no longer fixed by hereditary mechanisms. At the moment when the animal transcended nature, when it went beyond the purely passive role of a created being destined for it, it became (from a biological point of view) the most helpless of all animals - man was born. At this point in evolution, the animal, thanks to its vertical position, was emancipated from nature, its brain increased significantly in volume compared to other highly organized species. The birth of man may have lasted hundreds of thousands of years, but the end result was the emergence of a new species that transcended nature. Thus, life began to become aware of itself.

Self-awareness, reason and the power of imagination destroyed the “harmony” that characterizes the existence of the animal. With their appearance, man becomes an anomaly... He is a part of nature, he is subject to its physical laws, which he cannot change, and yet he transcends the rest of nature. He stands outside of nature and yet is part of it. He is without kin and yet is firmly connected with the genus common to him and all other creatures. He is thrown into the world at a random point and at a random time and just as randomly must leave it again. But since a person is self-aware, he understands his powerlessness and the limits of his existence. He foresees his own end - death.

Fromm E. Ways out of a sick society // The problem of man in Western philosophy. - M., 1988. - P. 443-446.

Cholera in Odessa was a great success. Against the communist background, it was a breath of freedom. For a whole month you could talk and play whatever you wanted. The party came up with an idea: we need to cheer up. How did they know this? There has never been so much laughter at the Green Theater. People in Odessa became nice, food and taxis suddenly appeared in the city. There were no interruptions in water supply. The streets were absolutely clean, unusual for Odessa. The police made sure we washed our hands. Not life, but beauty! The city was cordoned off by troops. Kartsev, Ilchenko, and I went through observation. 300 people were taken out to sea for 6 days on a ship and tested. After these tests, the men began to talk to the nurses on a first-name basis, because it was no longer possible to speak differently. We came from Odessa to Moscow and took second place in a pop artist competition. A month and a half later we returned to Odessa, and there life had already returned to normal: dirt, trams were packed, the shops were empty. Since then, it has amazed me why, whenever a disaster occurs, there is water, electricity, food, apartments to resettle people. If all this is found, it means it exists somewhere. But where? And why then does everything disappear again? Would I like cholera to come to Odessa again? No. To defeat it, centralized power is needed. In private settings, cholera is harmful to humans. Besides, there is enough freedom now even without cholera. Mayor of Kazan Kamil Iskhakov: - Now we can say with confidence that the cholera outbreak in Kazan has been localized. Today, 186 people are being examined in hospitals, 28 of them are sick. Immediately after the discovery of Vibrio cholerae, a city headquarters to combat cholera was organized, which promptly began carrying out the necessary measures. The reservoir, which became a source of infection, was urgently disinfected and destroyed. Thanks to the coordinated actions of the sanitary and epidemiological commission, law enforcement, housing and communal services, and health authorities, within a few days it was possible to inspect more than 400 thousand residents at their place of residence in the risk zone - the Azino and Gorki microdistricts. It has now been confirmed by research that cholera was brought to Kazan from outside, and not even from Russia. Anti-epidemic measures continue today: samples are taken daily drinking water and sewage. Increased chlorination of water. Monologue by the head of the 18th infectious diseases department of the Saratov 2nd city clinical hospital, Irina Alekseevna SHIROKOVA (she worked in this department for 43 years, of which 31 years as the head of the infectious diseases department). - Our department fought cholera in the 70s, when a very serious outbreak of this disease occurred in Saratov. Even the country's leading infectious disease specialists came, and we were praised for the prompt localization of the epidemic. If an epidemic suddenly happens today, we will set up a hospital in 15 minutes. As soon as the emergency doctor makes a diagnosis, the patient, bypassing the emergency room, will immediately be admitted to our department. If the diagnosis is confirmed, the system will be installed in 5-10 minutes. The staff is prepared for the epidemic. From year to year we hold relevant seminars on the emergency regime and give lectures. Of course, not everything is smooth. Our department has 12 staff instead of 23. Only two nannies out of nine are working. But by order of the chief physician of the hospital, nurses, doctors and nannies were assigned to us from other departments, so that when cholera appears, they will come to us. As for our acquaintance with the cholera epidemic, the experience gained in the early 70s had a beneficial effect on our work today. No vaccination is required for cholera patients. The most important thing is to provide the patient with water, since the human body is dehydrated. It happens that 10-15 liters of water come out of a person - the body is desalted. In the first hour from the moment the patient is admitted for treatment, we administer the amount of fluid that he has lost. Then every 3 hours we introduce saline solutions. For any infection, including cholera, the best antibiotic is tetracycline. We have all the medications, solutions, systems. We were prepared for an outbreak of any infectious disease long before the incident in Kazan. Susanna OGANEZOVA, Saratov On Thursday, at the next meeting, the government will discuss preparations for winter in the housing and communal services sector. It is somehow not customary for us to discuss the readiness of this unfortunate farm for the summer. But it is precisely the lack of normal drinking water and the appalling state of sewage throughout Russia that lead to the periodic appearance of diseases that are shameful for a decent country. People joke about “scows full of feces,” but from year to year we are visited by the diseases of barbarism. On Wednesday, the chief sanitary doctor of Russia, Gennady Onishchenko, at a conference call at the Ministry of Emergency Situations on the problem of restoring Lensk, openly admitted: an outbreak of dysentery (64 patients over the past week) in Lensk occurred due to poor-quality drinking water. The wells are bad. Every day we are informed about new genuine or imaginary cholera patients. Cholera is not just a “disease of dirty hands,” as it is commonly called. If you want, this is part historical fate Russia. Are we facing a new cholera epidemic? How do we fight infectious diseases locally? How long will cholera remain a hot topic for the country? Let's try to figure it out. Apparently, cholera has accompanied humanity throughout its history. However, it took on the character of pestilence epidemics only in the 19th century. The medical literature contains detailed information about six pandemics (global epidemics) of cholera. 1816-1824: from India, cholera swept across Asia, Africa and entered Russia through Persia. 1828 - also from India, through the caravan routes, cholera was brought to Afghanistan, Bukhara, Orenburg, on the coast of the Black and Caspian Seas, from where it reached the upper reaches of the Volga and most provinces of Russia, and also penetrated into Europe and America. More than 40 thousand people died in Moscow alone in those years. But medicine was able to develop control measures and a special regime to reduce the danger. For the first time, special cholera hospitals were created; those who were sick were forbidden to leave the house - then it was believed that cholera was transmitted through the air. The premises were washed with “chlorine water” (bleach solution). In areas of outbreaks, quarantine measures were introduced and military cordons were set up. It was precisely this kind of quarantine that the Boldino autumn gave Pushkin in 1830. 1844-1864 - the pandemic again came from India and again reached Russia. 1865-1875 - the fourth pandemic repeated its path. In 1871, 23,290 cholera patients were registered in Moscow, of which 10,410 died. But these data are clearly incomplete, since they did not include those who died without medical assistance. 1883-1896 - the pandemic covered most Asian countries, the southern part of Europe and America. Many famous doctors of that time, in particular Anton Chekhov, took part in the fight against the epidemic. 1900-1926 - The sixth pandemic began among pilgrims to Mecca and spread throughout the world. In Russia, it was aggravated by post-revolutionary devastation, unsanitary conditions, and population migration. In the windows of ROST in 1918, a poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky appeared: “Typhoid and cholera bacilli have begun to appear. Comrades, take action! Before drinking, boil the water for about five minutes!” Scientists date the beginning of the seventh pandemic to 1961; it turned out to be the most rapid and continues to this day. The total number of cases in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), was 1.3 million; its highest was in 1970, when a cholera outbreak was registered in the USSR - in Odessa. Isolated cases of the disease or small outbreaks have been periodically recorded in recent years. 1994 - cholera outbreak in Dagestan, the number of cases exceeded 1000 people. The first group became infected at a funeral, where food for the funeral was prepared by a vibrio carrier. 1999 - an outbreak in the Primorsky Territory and Sakhalin, the number of cases was 38. 2000 - a single case of cholera in Chelyabinsk.