GC Myers- The Angst
Alienation as we find it in modern society is almost total; it pervades the relationship of man to his work, to the things he consumes, to the state, to his fellow man, and to himself. Man has created a world of man-made things as it never existed before. He has constructed a complicated social machine to administer the technical machine he built. Yet this whole creation of his stands over and above him. He does not feel himself as a creator and center, but as the servant of a Golem, which his hands have built. The more powerful and gigantic the forces are which he unleashes, the more powerless he feels himself as a human being. He confronts himself with his own forces embodied in things he has created, alienated from himself. He is owned by his own creation, and has lost ownership of himself. He has built a golden calf, and says “these are your gods who have brought you out of Egypt”
–Eric Fromm, The Sane Society, (1956)
I have written here about being a fan of psychoanalyst and humanistic philosopher Erich Fromm. Born in Germany in 1900, Fromm fled the Nazis in the early 1930’s and settled in America where he lived until his death in 1980. His 1941 book Escape From Freedom is a classic that theorizes that though we claim to desire freedom and personal independence, the vast majority of us run from responsibilities required in freedom, preferring to be ruled over. This is often cited as a leading factor in the rise of authoritarianism, then and now.
Fifteen years after Escape From Freedom, Fromm wrote The Sane Society which warned of the threat posed by the growth of booth technology and capitalism that was taking place around the world, but most particularly here in the USA, in the 1950’s. As expressed in the passage at the top, Fromm saw it creating an environment in which alienation experienced by the individual is pervasive in our society. The new technologies of automation and mass-communication were purported to make our lives easier and safer, to give us more leisure time that would unite and bond us. Fromm saw it doing exactly the opposite, writing:
…Man has lost his central place, that he has been made an instrument for the purposes of economic aims, that he has been estranged from, and has lost the concrete relatedness to, his fellow men and to nature, that he has ceased to have a meaningful life. I have tried to express the same idea by elaborating on the concept of alienation and by showing psychologically what the psychological results of alienation are; that man regresses to a receptive and marketing orientation and ceases to be productive; that he loses his sense of self, becomes dependent on approval, hence tends to conform and yet to feel insecure; he is dissatisfied, bored, and anxious, and spends most of his energy in the attempt to compensate for or just to cover up this anxiety. His intelligence is excellent, his reason deteriorates and in view of his technical powers he is seriously endangering the existence of civilization, and even of the human race.
Moving nearly 70 years into the future, Fromm’s observations here seem to be spot on. I might be wrong, but the last part of this paragraph could well be describing the average person today. I wonder how Fromm would respond to the world as it is now, if he would simply view it as the normal progression of his theorized behaviors from the time in which he wrote his book. Or perhaps he would even be a bit surprised at the point of progression/regression where we find ourselves now. I am not sure that he completely foresaw the speed of change and the effects that would take place with computerization and the internet. I have a feeling he might view AI as the Golem to which we might all soon be servants.
He does give some hope in how we might actually one day achieve a sane society, defining it as:
A sane society is that which corresponds to the needs of man — not necessarily to what he feels to be his needs, because even the most pathological aims can be felt subjectively as that which the person wants most; but to what his needs are objectively, as they can be ascertained by the study of man. It is our first task then, to ascertain what is the nature of man, and what are the needs which stem from this nature.
That entails, of course, determining what those universal needs might be. And that might be a problem, especially right now where those whose actions are subject only to what they want rule. Their subjective wants outweigh our objective needs.
Until there is a movement that can define our objective needs and how they might be reasonably achieved, we are destined to live out the scenario that Fromm saw back in 1956.
I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic on this. Well, that depends on any particular moment of any particular day. Pessimistically, I think the coming weeks and months will come at us harder and faster than many of us expect, presenting us with great challenges that may test our mettle in ways most of us have never faced.
But optimistically, I think seeing that what is taking place might well have been foreseen 70 or more years ago indicates that it is part of a pattern of behavior. And once recognized, behaviors can be changed and futures altered.
If we have the willpower and the desire to do so.
I am hoping we do.
Good luck to us all…
Redtree Times 