Modern man has been freed from the bonds of pre-individualistic society, which simultaneously gave him security and limited him. He has not yet gained freedom in the positive sense of the realization of his individual self.
Psychologists
Erich Fromm
German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst and humanistic philosopher (1900-1980) who bridged the Frankfurt School and the neo-Freudian movement after fleeing Nazi Germany in 1934. He analysed the psychological roots of Nazism in Escape from Freedom (1941), critiqued modern alienation in The Sane Society (1955), redefined love as an active capacity in The Art of Loving (1956), and contrasted having and being modes of existence in To Have or To Be? (1976). His work shaped political psychology, humanistic ethics and critical theory through the second half of the twentieth century. Critics charge his theories with thin empirical grounding and a political tilt toward democratic socialism.
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Erich Fromm's Other Quotes
Love is not a sentiment which can be easily indulged in by anyone, regardless of the level of maturity reached by him. Love is an art, just as living is an art.
In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead; in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I?
There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world.
Related Quotes
Modernity — an unfinished project.
-- Jürgen Habermas
There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world.
-- Erich Fromm
Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt