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    Fromms Search for a

    Humanistic Alternative

    R D. Pnnn*

    Some Perspectives on Humanism

    he earliest gist on humanism can be traced rom the Oldestament. From it we are given the idea that no man canclaim superiority against anybody simply based on the act that

    his ancestors were, or instance, warriors or patricians who had beencelebrated or the achievements that they had wreaked. Te rst book,Genesis, states that man is created in the image and likeness o God,and thereore all men are equal and same in dignity despite the obviousvariances in physical appearance, material wealth, power, etc.

    Te idea o humanism also has its roots in the Greek and Romantradition. Fromm relates that in Sophocles dramaAntigone, the heroine

    was ghting against a ascist emperor, Creon, because she insisted that thelaw o nature, which is the law o compassion or men, has precedenceover the law o the state; she is willing to die in order to ulll the lawo humanity when this law is contradicted by that o the state.

    During the Renaissance Period man was viewed as a universal man,the many-sided all-rounded realization o humanity in each individual.

    *Te author is currently pursuing his masterate in Philosophy at the US Graduate School.

    Humanity, the ocal point o humanism, is taken rom the Latin word hunanitas. Humanism

    is contrary to tribalism where one has condence only in the members o ones own tribe while thestranger is considered with suspicions and is not experienced as a ull human being.

    Erich Fromm, On Being Human, ed. Rainer Funk (New York: Continuum, 994).

    Ad VeritatemV. 8, N. 2 (Mr 2009)

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    Each individual was considered as the bearer o all humanity inasmuchthe essence o man, that by virtue o which man is human, is engrainedin him and his task is to uphold and unold ully the humanity within

    himsel. Such essentialism is dierent rom the antiquarian Aristoteliandenition that Man is a rational animal and hence consists o abiurcated nature, that o rationality and animality. For Fromm wenever see human nature as such; we never see man in general, yet wecan iner rom the maniold maniestations in various cultures and invarious individuals that which man has in common and which remainsconstant throughout history.

    Te essence o man is a constellation, or as

    Heidegger calls it, a conguration. In a restricted sense, this congurationpertains to mans existential dichotomy, which is one o contradictionbetween man as an animal who is within nature and between man asthe only thing in nature that has awareness o itsel.

    From eighteenth to nineteenth century Germany in particular sawthe emergence o our theoreticians whose estimations on humanismcontinue to inspire contemporary discussions.

    4 Johann Gottried von

    Herder (744-80) said that man was born eeble and needed todevelop in himsel humanity. He has reason and in the developmento this specically human quality he becomes the highest product onatural evolution. Following Herder Gottried Ephraim Lessing(79-78) considered it the task o man to realize the essence o the humanspecies, that which is specically human, i.e. his reason.Johann Wolgangvon Goethe(749-8) also said that man carries in himsel not onlyhis individuality but all humanity with all its potentialities, although

    because o the limitations o his existence he can realize only part o

    For Fromm mans nature leads to existential dichotomies. It is said that man is a reak o

    nature in that man is a part o nature yet through a gradual process oindividuation he transcends therest o nature. He is thrown in this world, most radically at birth, beyond his own choosing, and yet aswith the natural cyclical process o growth and decay he must ace the inevitable ate o sickness anddeath. His reason is also considered to be a blessing and a curse; reason has provided man with limitlesspossibilities or pushing the rontiers o knowledge, but it has also resulted in the actuality that man isthe only animal or whom his own existence is a problem which he must solve. ormented by a lack omeaning, he struggles to discover his reason or being, and so, to ll that great chasm in his existence. Butthis search is thwarted as soon as he makes an appeal to deceiving ideologies that only ensue in a brierespite rom his eeling o meaninglessness (e.g. Christian concept o immortality, which by postulatingan immortal soul denies the tragic ate that mans lie ends with death). [Fromm, Te Revolution of Hope:oward a Humanized echnology, st ed. (New York: Perennial LibraryHarper & Row, 974), 6; c.Florentino . imbreza, Alternative to a Dead God (Manila: DLSU Press, 00), -]

    4Fromm, On Being Human, 67f.

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    these potentialities. Man must not seek universality by kowtowing withthe scruples o the multitude in order to eel a sense o attachment; hemust as it were sever hisprimary tieswhich gives him security yet at the

    same time constrains his reedom, and strive or individuation. KarlMarx (88-88) or his part said that man reies his independenceonly i he appropriates his maniold being in an all-inclusive way. Allhis human relations to the worldseeing, hearing, smelling, tasting,touching, thinking, observing, eeling, desiring, acting, lovingin short,all the organs o his individuality are the appropriations o humanreality.

    He loathes private property or it has made people too gripped

    with habitual acquisition and consumption o material thingshenceohavingas opposed to being6so much so that they ail to take heed

    to what is more primal or man, that is, his quest or rootedness andauthenticity notwithstanding all articialities and mendaciousness thatare ecund in this world.

    Now, what is Fromms conception o human nature, and so, ohumanism? For Fromm the human being is at once part o humannature and yet transcends the rest o nature; reason drives us to endlessstriving or new solutions to the problems which ever-developing needsconront.

    7Te human lie is one ounavoidable disequilibrium in which

    there can be no return to pre-human state o harmony with nature but

    Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, qtd. in Fromm, Marxs Concept of

    Man, trans. .B. Bottomore, Milestones o Toughts in the History o Ideas (New York: FrederickUnger Publishing Co., 96), 8.

    6In o Have or to Be?Fromm distinguishes two undamental modes o existence: having and

    being (976). Te nature o having mode ollows rom the nature o private property. In such modeall that matters or the person is acquisition o property and his incontrovertible right to keep what hehas acquired; in this sense, we may conjecture that it is a synergy o symbiosis and withdrawal insoaras one has the tendency to amass things irrespective o his/her actual need and declines in proferingwhat he has taken and collected. It is expressed by the ormula I [subject] have X [object] and I am= what I have and what I consume: the subject and the object have become insoluble and used into asingle identity, so that the I cannot be known disjointedly but must always be attached and attributedwith something. It and I have become things; one has itbecause he has the orce to make it his.Conversely, the it has the I because his [Is] sense o identity rests upon his havingit.

    On the other hand, the mode o being has as its requirements independence, reedom andpresence o critical reason. It involves the productive use o ones human powers reed rom the decoyo dominating/subjugating others and compulsive acquisition. [See Fromm, o Have or o Be?, WorldPerspectives 0 (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 976)].

    7See also Fromm,Marxs Concept of Man, ch. 4. His most enthusiastic interpretation o Marxs

    view o human essence and its alienation comes in a paper delivered in Paris in May 968, MarxsContribution to the Knowledge o Man, published in Te Crisis of Psychoanalysis(New York: Fawcett,970), Ch. .

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    and dictators in various regions who shall pare down the rights o thosethey have outranked through orce, and hence, ar rom ushering inreedom to and humanization they will stie mans creativity and

    encourage conormism and orthodoxy instead o realizing his ownidentity.

    As the oregoing are unsatisactory

    this calls us to consider

    the humanist-activist alternative. Tis entails the humanization o thesystem in such a way that it could serve the purpose o mans well-beingand growth through revolutionary changes brought about graduallyby united peoples movements which are motivated by a love o live(biophilia).

    Tree general conditions must be complied with i such alternativeis to be ecacious in altering our present lot. First, a development onon-productive orientation

    4must occur which conicts with the

    requirements o human nature. Second, there must be awareness o thepresence o suering and repression, that is, that which is shut out anddissociated rom our conscious personality which includes among others,repressed rational passions, repressed eelings o aloneness and utility andrepressed longing or love and productivity.

    Awareness means waking

    up to something that one has elt or sensed without orceul thinking;it is an active process stemming rom the recesses o ones mind, i.e.rom a sel-reerential knowledge o ones psychic processes, and not apassive process o listening, agreeing and contradicting. With particularreerence to social organization awareness must embrace knowledgenot o isolated and ractionated eatures but o the whole system; alleatures that we discern are merely parts o the entire system and are as

    it were merely symptoms o the very root cause o the problem o social

    C. Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 4th ed. (New York: Avon Books, 966).

    Related to this, Fromm mentions that there are deceptive alternatives which have been ofered

    by numerous social theorists: ) the suggestion o returning to the pre-industrial age or accepting thesociety o the megamachine; ) expropriation o all property or accepting the totalitarian managerialsociety; ) choosing between a theistic religion such as Christianity or idolatric materialism; and 4)choosing between realism (which means automation uncontrolled by decisions based on human values)and utopianism (which banks on unreal and unreliable goals insoar as they have not and cannot berealized). Real alternative must spring rom the syndrome thought-knowledge-imagination-hope whichenables man to see the real possibilities.

    4In humanistic psychoanalysis this orientation results in the development o irrational passions,

    especially o incestuous, destructive and exploitative strivings. Tere are our types o non-productiveorientation or Fromm, viz. receptive, exploitative, hoarding, and marketing, the rst two o which ismarked bysymbiosiswhilst the last two bywithdrawal. C. Fromm,Man for Himself, 4-60.

    Fromm, Te Sane Society(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston), 44.

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    pathology. Lastly, we must deracinate elements that uel and constantlyreproduce neurotic structures by amending our practice o dehumanizinglie. Generally, this can be done by changing ones realistic lie situation,

    system o values and ideals, so that they urther rather than block mansstriving or a renewed existence. Indeed, this condition is the culminationo Fromms humanist-activist alternative, the only real alternative whichman ought to take.

    In the eld o social organization this alternative points to humanistindustrialismas opposed to a bureaucratized industrial system whichis guided by the goals o power, prestige and pleasure, programmed by

    the principles o maximal production and minimal riction and as suchdehumanizes manwhich requires decentralization, sel-managementand individual responsible activity in all elds. Tis requires, o course,legislation and constitutional amendments as well as a certain degreeo centralization o administration o property (instead oexpropriationwhich is practiced in many Communist countries where actors oproduction are under the management o the States bureaucracy) guidedby the principles o optimum value or mans development. In theeld o psycho-spirituality such alternative requires a renewed rameo orientation in which the goal o lie is the ull realization o manspowers/creative energies, the transcendence o the niteness o ones egoand the armation not only o onesel but o all that has lie instead orelegating onesel to a necrophilous and xated mechanical/push-buttonlie which leads to alienation.

    Beore the very elusive project o humanizing society is expatiated it

    is germane to briey clariy that there had been three reorm movementswhich antedated communitarian socialism or socialist humanismFromms real alternativewhich had utterly allen at in their crusadeor various grounds;

    6those historical events, their pitalls in particular,

    will caution us to reroute on our path to attain a truly enlightenedhumanist alternative. Te rst, Judeo-Christianity, has preached spiritualrenewal whilst neglecting the changes in the social order without which

    spiritual renewal must remain ineective or the majority o the people.Te second, which commenced during the Age o Enlightenment, placed

    6C. Sane Society, 8-9.

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    a great premium on the discovery o truth through the observation onature rather than through the study o authoritative sources, such asthe Bible; people came to assume that through a judicious use o reason,

    an unending progress would be possibleprogress in knowledge,in technical achievement, and even in moral values. Following thephilosophy o Locke, the 8th century empirical theoreticians believedthat knowledge is not innate, but comes only rom experience andobservation guided by reason. Trough proper education, humanityitsel could be altered, its nature changed or the better. In the realm opolitics, there was a united stand in support o tolerance, the rule o law,

    social welare, and secular education. Te state was viewed as a crucialinstrument or the realization o the peoples ideals, as long as the rulerrespected reason and natural law. Tis period preached political equality,yet its ault lied in its ailure to see that political equality could not leadto the realization o the brotherhood o man i it was not accompaniedby a undamental change in the socio-economic organization. Te lastmovement pertains to mainstream Marxist-Leninist socialism whicharose in Russia and spread across some countries in Latin America,

    Eastern Europe and East and West Asia and Arica. While it posed itselas antithetical to the abstractication, commodication and alienationindividuals are living through in capitalist societies with its introductiono social and economic changes, Fromm admits that it has not oereda better alternative or humanity because it orwent the necessity o theinner changes in human beings (characterological change), withoutwhich any economic reorm can never lead to a good society.

    Fromm maintains in several o his writings that the real humanistalternative must consist in the promotion o processes and structures thatare consonant with a more humane and productive lie. Tey operateon three levels: rst, everyday life; second, political institutions withinexisting states; and third, the merging One World.

    Everyday Life

    For Fromm, as or Marx, to produce was part o the human essence,although in modern society work was normally a stultiying experience.For the manual worker, de-skilling has destroyed interest in the processo work, engendering a socially patterned syndrome o pathology

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    social purpose.7

    His suggestion oface-to-face groups in the workplaceto decide on conditions and working practices appears to have beeninspired by the autogestion movement in France and the workers sel-

    management system in Yugoslavia.8

    Interestingly, despite the dicultiesaced by the workers movements since Fromm made these appeals,trade unions have tended to broaden their endeavors to tackle sexism,racism, bullying, environmental damage, and health and saety issues.Te weakening o collective bargaining which has accompanied post-Fordism has nevertheless raised issues about the treatment o individualsand particular groups o workers which have provided unions with new

    opportunities to oppose the power o autocratic management. In theties Fromm had anticipated the development o super capitalismwith an extension o competition into the workplace itsel through thewidespread introduction o incentives such as perormance-relate payand bonuses.

    9But he continues to see enduring signicance o trade

    union activity in responding to the changing work environment anddeending the dignity o labor.

    A second issue o everyday lie which interested Fromm was thesocial eect o the consumption process. In the world o advertisingand marketing he saw the manipulation o needs and the impositiono conormity, but he also saw the possibility o contesting the powero the major corporations. With great oresight he supported the worko consumer movements. Te consumer movement has attempted torestore the customers critical ability, dignity, and sense o signicance,and thus operates in a direction similar to the trade union movements.

    0

    Although the development o capitalism brings with it an impulse tomeet whatever desires are present in society, Fromm points out thatthere has always been regulation or prohibition o certain products,sometimes rom concern with bodily harm but oten on the basis ovestigial remnants o the Puritan morality.

    What Fromm would like

    to see is the advancement o lie-urthering rather than lie-denying

    7Id., Revolution of Hope, -.8

    Ibid., ; see also Sane Society, 06-. In the oreword he comments that the Yugoslavmodel ofered possibilities or widespread adoption (Fromm, Sane Society, xiii).

    9Fromm, Revolution of Hope, 40-6.

    0Id., Te Fear of Freedom (London: Routledge, 997), .

    Id., Revolution of Hope, 7.

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    consumption. His suggestion that a group o experts (psychologists,sociologists, economists and consumers) could study consumption toestablish which products were humane and which were not now appears

    somewhat nave,

    but the subsequent development o independentgroups which promote such critical scrutiny is right in line with Frommsattitude to making consumption a site o struggle. His championing othe revolution o the consumer

    against the domination by industry

    anticipates some o the successul challenges to corporate capital that havesince taken place. Ultimately, concludes Fromm, sane consumption onlybecomes possible when we curb the right o corporations to determine

    their production solely on the basis o prot and expansion.

    4

    Short othat, however, the struggle over consumption can reveal the irrationalityo the global system o production and reects a new desire to overcomepassivity. So, the struggles against the oil giants and the big agriculturalproducers (e.g. in Mindanao and Luzon regions) help to question thelogic o accumulation and promote awareness o the limitations ocorporate power. Fromm calls or consumer strikes to unleash thepotential o the humanist-minded consumers and to assert a genuine

    democratic impulse in an active and non-alienated ashion.

    A third aspect o everyday lie which Fromm identies as playinga key role in the struggle to transorm values is eminism, or womensliberation as it was known to him. Deriding Freuds conception owomen as little more than castrated men, Fromm categorizes womenas a class exploited by men in all patriarchal societies, requiring anideology to explain their domination as natural.

    6His position was not

    merely a response to second-wave eminism, or as early as 94 hehad written critically o the damaging aspects o patricentric psychicstructures. Focusing on the nineteenth-century work on matriarchyby J. J. Bachoen, Fromm relates patriarchy to the maintenance oclass society and concludes that matricentric psychic structures are,implicitly, socialist. Bachoen viewed matriarchal society as democratic,sexually open, and without private property, in which maternal love and

    Ibid., 0.

    Ibid., .

    4Fromm, Sane Society, 7.

    Ibid., 77.

    6Fromm, Crisis of Psychoanalysis, 9-4.

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    compassion were the dominant moral principles and injury to anotherwas the gravest oense.

    7According to Fromm, this harmonized with the

    Marxist stress on the meeting o all material needs through democratic

    social control and the promise o a lie o happiness residing in theharmonious unolding o ones personality.

    8Returning to the theme,

    Fromm relates the signicance o the idea o the matriarchate to thedevelopment o the womens revolution which was attempting to makea reality o the Enlightenment idea o the equality o all people.

    9In o

    Have or o Be?he argues that the reedom o women rom patriarchaldomination is a undamental actor in the humanization o society

    and concludes that i the womens movement can identiy its role andunction as an anti-power then women will have a decisive inuence inthe battle or a new society (976, 86-8). Fromm perceives patriarchy asa distortion o human essence and eminism as a path to the achievemento true humanization, an equality o recognition and respect. o be ananti-power is to acknowledge the sources and congurations o socialpower and or Fromm this is rooted in control o the means o productionand administration.

    Democratic Institutions

    Moving onto the second level o social participation considered byFromm, his work on renewing political democracy is more signicant inprinciple than in the practical detail o his suggestions and interventions.However, it is important to note that he was prepared to engage inmainstream political activity even i it ell well short o his ideal o

    democratic socialism. Here the contrast with Herbert Marcuse could notbe clearer, or the latter disapproved o any involvement with establishedpolitics, prompting Fromm to accuse him o a lack o concern withpolitics. Fromms ideas or renewing democratic politics rst appearbriey in Te Sane Society. He largely accepts the gloomy conclusions oJoseph Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracythat mostcitizens in modern western democracies were passive, apathetic and

    possessed little power over decision-making. o counter this, Fromm7

    Ibid., 90.8

    Ibid., 08.9

    Ibid., 80. Fromm makes it clear that he avors a ruitul synthesis between matriarchal andpatriarchal principles rather than simply the elimination o the latter.

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    suggests something like a return to the old own Meetings o the earlyUSA, in face-to-face groups which are well-inormed and are capableo directly inuencing the decisions made by the centrally elected

    parliamentary executive. Such groups might meet monthly and comprisesay, 00 citizens, based on areas or workplaces and hopeully composed opeople rom a variety o social backgrounds.

    40Tese ideas are developed

    urther and in greater detail in Te Revolution o Hope, in which hesuggests that the equivalent o the own Meetings could become anocial part o the decision-making process at state and ederal level. Withparticular attention to USA, he also suggests a National Council called

    the Voice o American Conscience comprising 0 good Americans todiscuss the major issues o the day and issue recommendations. Tesemajor issues could be discussed at a lower level by Clubs o between 00and 00 people, and by small Groups o about people.

    4Te general

    idea was or a more participatory polity in which orums would serve asan educative as well as a deliberative unction, in order to counter thepower o vested interests. Te chie problem is how such an initiativecould get o the ground, and there is no obvious answer: Fromm tried

    to take the idea orward by having a card inserted in each copy oTeRevolution o Hopewhich asked readers who they would nominate orthe National Council and whether they would be prepared to participatein a Club or a Group.

    4However, democratic orums historically have

    tended to ourish only in revolutionary moments, and the recurringaspiration towards greater participation needs to look or new orms. Onesuch development would be through more proportional representation

    and the involvement o non-party organizations in the political process.Another would beparticipation through on-line personal computers, i.e.,Internet, and it is to Fromms credit that he identied the democraticpotential o computerization as early as 968.

    4

    40Fromm, Sane Society, 4-.

    4 In o Have or o Be?he suggests a Supreme Cultural Council (see page 89). See also Revolutionof Hope, -6.

    4Fromm did not enclose a pre-paid envelope on the grounds that even the rst small step

    requires the initiative at least to address to address the envelope yoursel and spend the money or astamp. Te response is not known.

    4Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 96, 08, .

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    One World: Toward Human Solidarity

    Te ultimate level o political activity which concerns Frommis the international or global level. In a certain speech he arguedthat the globalization o industrial production and new methods ocommunication means that One World is coming into existence and itis probably the most revolutionary event in the history o mankind.

    44

    Te question he poses is whether the One Worldwill be a livable one ora giant battleeld. He developed much energy in the ties and sixtiesto supporting the cause o nuclear disarmament and arguing or dtenteor relaxation o hostility between the superpowers.

    4oday, however, it

    is perhaps the issues o global inequality and the power o nationalismwhich are most relevant. On global inequality, Fromm argues or theredistribution o resources rom the afuent countries to the poorercountries. For this to happen, the having mode must be greatly weakenedand a sense o solidarity, o caring (not o pity), must emerge.

    46But this

    is not just a pious hope. He points to the oil price hike o 97-4 andthe Vietnam War as assertions o the rights o ormer colonized states tochallenge their exploitation and oppression by the dominant powers. Terecent past has been rich in words about global redistribution and poorin eective intervention, but it is clear that an issue which was marginalin Fromms lietime will be o major signicance in the new century.

    he principal ideological obstacle to the development o aharmonious global society in Fromms view is tribalism, a eeling that wehave the condence only in those who belong to our tribe, who eat thesame ood, sing the same songs, and speak the same language. Nationalism

    in the modern orm o tribalism, through which we project all the evilin us on the stranger, and in so doing we lose touch with humanity. Aspart o his personal Credo appended to Beyond the Chains o Illusions,he expressed his belie that the One World will become truly humanonly i a New Man comes into being, ree o tribal loyalties, who eelshimsel to be a citizen o the world whose loyalty is to the human raceand to lie.

    47In Te Sane Societyhe issues an unequivocal denunciation

    44Id., A New Humanism as a Condition or the One World, On Being Human, 6.

    4C. Id., Te Case or Unilateral Disarmament, Disobedience and Other Essays, ch. 8.

    46Id., Escape from Freedom, 8; Sane Society, -4.

    47Id., Beyond the Chains of Illusions: My Encounter with Freud and Marx, ed. Ruth Nanda Anshen,

    Credo Perspective Series (New York: Simon & Schuster, 96), 78.

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    o nationalism, describing it as our orm o incest, idolatry and insanity,with patriotism as its cult. He laments the unparalleled power o outrageshown against those who have the temerity to deny that they love their

    country or unthinkingly supports its war eort, and complains that thisnationalist rage is oten conducted under the rationalization o solidarity.He argues that, on the contrary, human solidarity can be ound onlywhen nationalism has been transcended; only when we develop ourlove and reason urther than we have done so ar can we build a worldbased on human solidarity and justice and thereby transorm it into atruly human home.

    48Te persistence o warlike nationalism in violent

    conicts in central Arica (e.g. in countries like Mozambique, Angola,Ethiopia, Republic o Congo, etc. where manslaughter is irreversibly invogue) indicate the strength o the problem identied by Fromm, butin movements towards the development o supra-national entities likethe European Union and Association o Southeast Asian Nations andorums such as global summits there is at least the chance that theseconicts can be ameliorated.

    Conclusion

    Fromms combination o social psychology, humanistic ethics anddemocratic socialist politics oers a powerul alternative to and protestagainst the postmodernist rejection o essentialism. Fromm is, withoutdoubt, an essentialist, operating with a strong adherence to socialism, buthis work on the productive character and the goal o the being modeconveys a sense o liberated expression which is wholly consonant with

    the widest variety o cultural identities. Indeed, it is one o the strengthso his work that he draws rom ethical sources rom ancient times to thepresent century and rom a variety o religions and civilizations in orderto demonstrate the remarkable endurance o the common attachmentto reedom, justice, and solidarity.

    Fromm outlines a progressive political strategy which promotes aradical change o values away rom instrumentality, possessiveness and

    acquisitiveness and towards social responsibility and respect or people.Te social action which aids this change includes both old and new social

    48Id., Sane Society, 60.

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    movements, the struggle or reorms as well as direct protest. For example,Fromm endorsed the signicance o trade union activity in strugglingor worker participation in management and the reduction o working

    hours, as well as day-to-day struggles on issues such as discrimination andbullying. He was one o the rst social theorists to identiy the radicalpotential o new social movements, particularly those concerned withenvironmentalism and eminism. He lent support to reorms which, inthe case o the basic income scheme, eradicate the causes o insecuritywhich too oten push people to reactionary responses or to despair. Heidentied the emergence o the One World in an era o globalization

    which begs or global political solutions to the problems o war and peace,production and distribution, and sustainability. Ultimately, Fromm heldast to the idea that socialism is the only political movement which hasthe capacity to retain the hope o human liberation, the establishmento new moral values, and the realization o human solidarity. But herecognized the weaknesses o previous orms o socialism, particularlyin neglecting the visualization o a better world. In calling or theprolieration o designs, studies and experiments to bridge the gap

    between what is necessary and what is possible, he insisted that themodel o the new society be determined by the requirements o the un-alienated, being-oriented individual. In raising this big questions owhy we live the way we do and how we might live dierently and better,Fromms work resolutely opposes the creeping atalism o contemporarysocial and political lie.

    ReferencesHabermas, Jrgen. Autonomy and Solidarity: Interviews with Jrgen Habermas. Edited and

    introduced by Peter Dews. London and New York: Verso, 99.Fromm, Erich. Te Art o Being. London: Continuum, 99.. Beyond the Chains o Illusion: My Encounter with Freud and Marx. Credo Perspective

    Series. Planned and edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen. New York: Simon & Schuster,96.

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