The Sane SocietyThe Sane Society is a continuation and extension of the brilliant psychiatric concepts Erich Fromm first formulated in Escape from Freedom; it is also, in many ways, an answer to Freud's Civilization and its Discontents. Fromm examines man's escape into overconformity and the danger of robotism in contemporary industrial society: modern humanity has, he maintains, been alienated from the world of their own creation. Here Fromm offers a complete and systematic exploration of his "humanistic psychoanalysis." In so doing, he counters the profound pessimism for our future that Freud expressed and sets forth the goals of a society in which the emphasis is on each person and on the social measures designed to further function as a responsible individual. |
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I read this book as a young man, and was impressed with the depth and perception of the material. Later, in mid life, when I was suffering from a bout of home-sickness "an overwhelming sadness"(I had migrated from Perth, Australia, to the USA, in 1962), I recalled this section of the book, and it (along with appeals to other literature*) gave me the strength to carry on. Go to page 68-69 of this on-line bbok to see this section, where Fromm describes the healthy individual, who is independent from "nature, mother, clan"
* These were Maslow, "Motivation and Personality", and a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Spring and Fall. to a young child", the latter being more relevant to the discussion of how to escape the oppressive sadness of homesickness, as follows: the poet describes the root of Margaret's sadness over the transient nature of the leaves: with great insight he ends this poem with:
"It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for"
I hypothesized that if I accepted ny own mortality, then other, lesser losses wouldn't worry me so much. After imagining my own death...funeral, etc.,and shedding real tears over this, I found that this hypothesis was right..for me.
Contents
ARE WE SANE? | 3 |
CAN A SOCIETY BE SICK?THE PATHOLOGY OF NORMALCY | 12 |
THE HUMAN SITUATIONTHE KEY TO HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS | 22 |
MANS NEEDSAS THEY STEM FROM THE CONDITIONS OF HIS EXISTENCE | 27 |
A Relatedness vs Narcississm | 30 |
B TranscendenceCreativeness vs Destructiveness | 36 |
C RootednessBrotherliness vs Incest | 38 |
D Sense of IdentityIndividuality vs Herd Conformity | 60 |
v Work | 177 |
vi Democracy | 184 |
3 ALIENATION AND MENTAL HEALTH | 191 |
VARIOUS OTHER DIAGNOSES | 209 |
TWENTIETH CENTURY | 217 |
VARIOUS ANSWERS | 233 |
AUTHORITARIAN IDOLATRY | 237 |
SUPERCAPITALISM | 240 |
E The Need for a Frame of Orientation and DevotionReason vs Irrationality | 63 |
MENTAL HEALTH AND SOCIETY | 67 |
MAN IN CAPITALISTIC SOCIETY | 78 |
THE STRUCTURE OF CAPITALISM AND THE CHARACTER OF MAN | 83 |
B NineteenthCentury Capitalism | 85 |
C TwentiethCentury Society | 103 |
2 CHARACTEROLOGICAL CHANGES | 110 |
b Alienation | 120 |
c Various Other Aspects | 152 |
ii The Principle of Nonfrustration | 164 |
iii Free Association and Free Talk | 166 |
iv Reason Conscience Religion | 169 |
SOCIALISM | 246 |
ROADS TO SANITY | 270 |
ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION | 276 |
B The Principle of Communitarian Socialism | 283 |
C SocioPsychological Objections | 286 |
D Interest and Participation as Motivation | 299 |
E Practical Suggestions | 321 |
POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION | 339 |
CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION | 343 |
SUMMARYCONCLUSION | 353 |
364 | |