The Sane Society - by Erich Fromm

I started re-reading Sane Society. It is such a mystical experience to read this at this point of my life, having read @Tagore and @Adler. I am able to understand @Fromm more deeply. And it is fascinating to see how their thoughts align. Perhaps the idea of @Jung’s collective unconscious is at play here! Here is the notes from today’s reading -

The human condition in modern society

The human condition is defined by man’s effort of reconciliation of the dialectical tension between his biological needs and his distinctive human characteristics of his inherent nature of the following three aspects:

• self awareness
• reason
• imagination

The reconciliation of this tension is at the nib of the human condition.

@Fromm says -

The problem of human existence is unique in the whole of nature : he has fallen out of nature, as it were, and is still in it;
he is partly divine, partly animal; partly infinite, partly finite. The necessity to find ever-new solutions for this contradictions in his existence, to find ever-higher forms of unity with nature, his fellow men and himself, is the source of all psychic forces which motivates man, of all his passions, affects and anxieties.

Maintaining the same ethos, @Tagore says -

What is important of all is that man has attained his realization in a more subtle body outside his physical system. He misses himself when isolated; he finds his own larger and truer self in his wide human relationship. His multicellular body is born and it dies; his multi-personal humanity is immortal. In this ideal of unity he realizes the eternal in his life and the boundless in his love. The unity becomes not a mere subjective idea, but an energizing truth.

Taking about @Fromm’s 3 facets of humanity (self-awareness, reason and imagination) that makes him special, @Tagore reflects later -

This faculty of our luminous imagination which in its higher stage is special to man. It offers, us that vision of wholeness which for the biological necessity of physical survival is superfluous; its purpose is to arouse in us the sense of perfection which is our true sense of immortality. For perfection dwells ideally in Man the Eternal.

And here both @Fromm and @Tagore, in unison proclaims the man’s departure from the nature and his quest for unity with nature, and fellow men, in an effort to reconcile this departure.

@Fromm sums up the essential needs of man as the -

The need for relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, the need for a sense of identity and the need for a frame of orientation and devotion.

The human needs

Relatedness vs narcissism

As was proclaimed by @Tagore, man strives to find his multi-personal humanity tearing apart from his biological multi-cellular body. @Fromm goes deeper into observing that Man’s need for relatedness with the other living beings is a consequence of this being torn apart from the primary union with nature. This innate need of man for relatedness is not seen as a product of nature. Rather it is found to be the product of parting way from nature.

@Fromm goes further and differentiates between false and true relatedness. For @Fromm, the true relatedness is @Love. This relatedness is @symmetrical, as also confounded by @Adler. Fromm says love is essentially symmetrical, based on equality and respect, in contrast to the sadistic or masochistic relationships in which the subjectivity of of the other (sadist), or one’s own (masochist), is denied.

This focus on subjectivity, and imagination as the tenet of this symmetry is refreshing!

Transcendence & creativeness vs destructiveness

Here @Fromm talks about man’s drive to transcend nature by defying to be a mere subject to the passive role of the creature, to assert himself. This assertion can be creative or destructive. @Fromm says -

Creation and destruction, love and hate, are not two instincts which exist independently. They are both answers to the same need for transcendence., and the will to destroy must rise when the will to create cannot be satisfied.

Perhaps due to this reason, humanity agrees to annihilate decades of old relationships and bonds, when their innate subjectivity is denied and not acknowledged; when they lose their sense of agency, and are considered more of a passive creature. This drive is articulated by @Tagore as the drive to create - Truth, Beauty and Goodness. And this drives creativity in man. And when such creativity is stifled and is not possible, man becomes destructive as per @Fromm.

But interestingly @Fromm reconciles both this drives as man’s defiance to be a mere passive creature of nature, and his quest of transcendence.