Scan barcode
homa99's review against another edition
5.0
Ideally, this book would be the canonical text on which licensing exams for politicians and leaders of industry were based.
thejdizzler's review
4.0
“It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health. Just as there is a "folie a deux" there is a folie a millions. The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”
I’ve been putting off writing this review, paradoxically because this was a very important book. Erich Fromm, here and in the other two works of his I have read, really captures the problems I have with my life and society, and earnestly attempts to generate solutions, although he himself pessimistically admits that these are unlikely to be implemented.
The central premise of this book, as perhaps hinted at by the title, The Sane Society, is an attempt to illustrate what a society based on real human needs would look like in value. In the process, Fromm defines both what he thinks the fundamental human needs are, the ways in which our society (that of the 1970s in his case) is ill-suited to these needs, and ways that we can get there from here.
Fromm starts the book with a short chapter that makes that radical (in the eyes of some) that our society is actually insane, using suicide and homicide rates in a bunch of western countries over the past hundred years to make the case that something has gone wrong spiritually. You can quibble about the statistics, talk about the arc of history bending towards justice, or point out that materially we have never been better off. All three points may be true, but it’s hard to deny, at least from the point of view of my lying eyes that something has gone wrong spiritually.
I think the first time I realized this was when I was a freshman in college. For most of my life up until that point, I had been motivated by whatever the “next step”: doing well in school, so I could take harder classes, and eventually get into the best college (MIT), or in running, so I could run in bigger, faster races, and improve my standing on the team. Although things appeared to be following the same trajectory in the first months of college, progress no longer seemed like it would continue. How could life have any meaning if my material, and hierarchical progress would not continue? When I asked my parents for advice, my mom told me that it was still important to keep working hard, so I could earn money and consume things, but also not feel guilty for not contributing to society. At the time, this answer was completely unsatisfying to me: how could consumption, which is be it’s very definition short-lived, provide long-term meaning? How could “working hard” on something that I didn’t care about, bring me joy or intellectual fulfilment?
I read The Sane Society nearly seven years after that freshman fall and conversation with my mom, and I think the book provides a cogent thesis for both her advice, and my reaction.
Fundamental human needs according to Fromm consist of not only the basic material needs as posited by Marx (food, water, shelter), but also a non-alienated existence with the freedom to influence one’s own environment, self-regard (not treating the self as an object), and the ability to enjoy the fruits of his labor. According to Fromm, both the Soviet and capitalist systems have managed to produce to cover the basic material needs of its citizens, but fail to provide a cure for alienation. Part of this is the feature both systems share in common: industrialism has made modern man alienated from the fruits of his labor. It is much more difficult to be satisfied as an assembly line worker, or even as part of the modern scientific apparatus than it was to be an artisan would made tables from start to finish, or a farmer who grew his crops from seed. Matthew Crawford talks about this topic more in his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, and the diagnosis of both him and Fromm is something that I agree with.
This is why I’m opposed to things like further automation and AI. Labor does not need to become even more alienated. Although I suppose the internet and specialization has already done a lot of the damage, I fear AI may do the same thing for knowledge work that the assembly line has done for craftmanship. No longer will you midwife an idea or a theory from conception to execution, but merely obtain fragments of your thought nearly fully formed from a computer algorithm that has done most of your thinking for you.
Critics may argue that this automation of jobs allows for greater leisure time. Not only has the historically not been the case (see the early industrial revolution), but leisure is an essentially unproductive and consumptive activity that does not lead to spiritual growth or the exercise of man’s will. Leisure activities like training for sport, language learning, or craftsmanship would count as work in Fromm’s system. Although I don’t take as strong of a stance on Fromm against leisure, I can again say from personal experience that there’s only so much relaxation and leisure that I find to be enjoyable before I want to work on something meaningful again (like writing these huge reviews)
The other shared feature of Capitalism and Soviet Communism that Fromm highlights is their conformity. The reason for this in the Soviet system is rather obvious (top-down dictatorship), but in capitalism stems from commodification of the human individual. Both in the labor and “personality” (dating) market, Fromm argues, one must conform to societal standards or risk being labeled as a defective “product” and end up being out of a job or a husband/wife.
I found this argument to be one of the most convincing critiques of capitalism that I had read/heard of. The material critiques of Marx and other 19th century socialists (i.e. that capital was exploitative and would be unable to meet people’s material needs), were proved wrong in the 20th century when the system was incentivized to produce people rich enough to become consumers. However, just paying people more doesn’t change the fact that you are paying them for their labor, meaning they are making themselves into a commodity, a thing, which cannot have anything but bad knock-on effects on the psyche.
So what do we do about all of this? How can I move past both my ideas of progress, and my mom’s consumptive mindset? Fromm basically thinks we can’t, unless we radically overall society. I’m not so sure. Two other books that I will be reviewing soon: the Illusion of Self by James Garfield and Philosophy as a Way of Life by Pierre Hadot provide alternate answers, which I will explore in later posts. But what I will say for now that I do think personal change is possible.
How I will be changing my life as a result of this book:
The Sane Society underlined something that I already knew: the collective norms of our American, western society are neither necessary, sufficient, or even good for human thriving. I’m not sure what the exact right norms are yet, but embracing the Kantian, Stoic, and Christian ethic of loving thy neighbor as thyself, and embodying meaning in work seem like good places to start.
I’ve been putting off writing this review, paradoxically because this was a very important book. Erich Fromm, here and in the other two works of his I have read, really captures the problems I have with my life and society, and earnestly attempts to generate solutions, although he himself pessimistically admits that these are unlikely to be implemented.
The central premise of this book, as perhaps hinted at by the title, The Sane Society, is an attempt to illustrate what a society based on real human needs would look like in value. In the process, Fromm defines both what he thinks the fundamental human needs are, the ways in which our society (that of the 1970s in his case) is ill-suited to these needs, and ways that we can get there from here.
Fromm starts the book with a short chapter that makes that radical (in the eyes of some) that our society is actually insane, using suicide and homicide rates in a bunch of western countries over the past hundred years to make the case that something has gone wrong spiritually. You can quibble about the statistics, talk about the arc of history bending towards justice, or point out that materially we have never been better off. All three points may be true, but it’s hard to deny, at least from the point of view of my lying eyes that something has gone wrong spiritually.
I think the first time I realized this was when I was a freshman in college. For most of my life up until that point, I had been motivated by whatever the “next step”: doing well in school, so I could take harder classes, and eventually get into the best college (MIT), or in running, so I could run in bigger, faster races, and improve my standing on the team. Although things appeared to be following the same trajectory in the first months of college, progress no longer seemed like it would continue. How could life have any meaning if my material, and hierarchical progress would not continue? When I asked my parents for advice, my mom told me that it was still important to keep working hard, so I could earn money and consume things, but also not feel guilty for not contributing to society. At the time, this answer was completely unsatisfying to me: how could consumption, which is be it’s very definition short-lived, provide long-term meaning? How could “working hard” on something that I didn’t care about, bring me joy or intellectual fulfilment?
I read The Sane Society nearly seven years after that freshman fall and conversation with my mom, and I think the book provides a cogent thesis for both her advice, and my reaction.
Fundamental human needs according to Fromm consist of not only the basic material needs as posited by Marx (food, water, shelter), but also a non-alienated existence with the freedom to influence one’s own environment, self-regard (not treating the self as an object), and the ability to enjoy the fruits of his labor. According to Fromm, both the Soviet and capitalist systems have managed to produce to cover the basic material needs of its citizens, but fail to provide a cure for alienation. Part of this is the feature both systems share in common: industrialism has made modern man alienated from the fruits of his labor. It is much more difficult to be satisfied as an assembly line worker, or even as part of the modern scientific apparatus than it was to be an artisan would made tables from start to finish, or a farmer who grew his crops from seed. Matthew Crawford talks about this topic more in his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, and the diagnosis of both him and Fromm is something that I agree with.
This is why I’m opposed to things like further automation and AI. Labor does not need to become even more alienated. Although I suppose the internet and specialization has already done a lot of the damage, I fear AI may do the same thing for knowledge work that the assembly line has done for craftmanship. No longer will you midwife an idea or a theory from conception to execution, but merely obtain fragments of your thought nearly fully formed from a computer algorithm that has done most of your thinking for you.
Critics may argue that this automation of jobs allows for greater leisure time. Not only has the historically not been the case (see the early industrial revolution), but leisure is an essentially unproductive and consumptive activity that does not lead to spiritual growth or the exercise of man’s will. Leisure activities like training for sport, language learning, or craftsmanship would count as work in Fromm’s system. Although I don’t take as strong of a stance on Fromm against leisure, I can again say from personal experience that there’s only so much relaxation and leisure that I find to be enjoyable before I want to work on something meaningful again (like writing these huge reviews)
The other shared feature of Capitalism and Soviet Communism that Fromm highlights is their conformity. The reason for this in the Soviet system is rather obvious (top-down dictatorship), but in capitalism stems from commodification of the human individual. Both in the labor and “personality” (dating) market, Fromm argues, one must conform to societal standards or risk being labeled as a defective “product” and end up being out of a job or a husband/wife.
I found this argument to be one of the most convincing critiques of capitalism that I had read/heard of. The material critiques of Marx and other 19th century socialists (i.e. that capital was exploitative and would be unable to meet people’s material needs), were proved wrong in the 20th century when the system was incentivized to produce people rich enough to become consumers. However, just paying people more doesn’t change the fact that you are paying them for their labor, meaning they are making themselves into a commodity, a thing, which cannot have anything but bad knock-on effects on the psyche.
So what do we do about all of this? How can I move past both my ideas of progress, and my mom’s consumptive mindset? Fromm basically thinks we can’t, unless we radically overall society. I’m not so sure. Two other books that I will be reviewing soon: the Illusion of Self by James Garfield and Philosophy as a Way of Life by Pierre Hadot provide alternate answers, which I will explore in later posts. But what I will say for now that I do think personal change is possible.
How I will be changing my life as a result of this book:
The Sane Society underlined something that I already knew: the collective norms of our American, western society are neither necessary, sufficient, or even good for human thriving. I’m not sure what the exact right norms are yet, but embracing the Kantian, Stoic, and Christian ethic of loving thy neighbor as thyself, and embodying meaning in work seem like good places to start.
rikkdante's review against another edition
5.0
Still very relevant, possibly even more so today, which says something about how we have evolved as societies since the 50s when it was published. It formed the base for my Master's dissertation, and opened me up to a bold and different viewpoint from which to reconsider myself and others in society. Its proposal for a reintroduction of 'ritual' time/places in our lives, so as to honour , acknowledge and allow the expression of the chaos and 'madness' that are part of every human's condition, though very embryonic is I think exactly what we desperately need today. Apart from a couple of passages which are the results of a certain cultural close-mindedness of its time (an embarrassingly demeaning paragraph about homosexuality for example...!), it's the kind of book that can still offer a lot, and that should really find a second life among all those even remotely interested in the directions we could take in the future as human societies.
akemi_666's review against another edition
2.0
Well-meaning liberal masquerades Christianity for Marxism.
I liked the part where there was absolutely no praxis towards change, as if words themselves were enough for the ｈｕｍａｎｉｓｔｉｃ technocrats of the future to follow through on.
But humanism without dialectical materialism just seems like reformism unto the same capitalist horizon.
No wonder Marcuse hated this.
I liked the part where there was absolutely no praxis towards change, as if words themselves were enough for the ｈｕｍａｎｉｓｔｉｃ technocrats of the future to follow through on.
But humanism without dialectical materialism just seems like reformism unto the same capitalist horizon.
No wonder Marcuse hated this.
morgan_blackledge's review against another edition
5.0
In the Sane Society, Fromm reiterates and expands upon his earlier works:
1. Escape From Freedom; a critical synthesis of Marx and Freud, and a treatise on what Fromm calls social psychology (but what would in my opinion be more accurately called socialist psychoanalysis).
2. Man for Himself; a treatise on modern humanistic, existential ethics, in which Fromm braids insights from Nietzsche and other existentialists into his psycho-social theory of ‘how to live’.
In the Sane Society, Fromm continues his critique of Freud for his myopic focus on individual neurosis, and lack of understanding of how social milieu, and economic and political systems effect and even shape the individual’s sense of self, feelings of well being, creative potential, values and relationships.
In a nutshell, Fromm is reiterating the idea that what Freud called neurosis, may in fact be a healthy response to a ‘sick’ system.
Fromm continues his critique of Marx for being tone deaf to the actual (rather than idealized) needs and motivations of human beings.
Fromm acknowledges that individualism is one of modernity’s great achievements, and competition and striving for innovation are innate human psychological needs.
Essentially, Fromm is claiming that forcing people into an artificially collectivistic ideology that does not fully satisfy their natural individualistic drives is the psycho-social equivalent of foot binding.
Fromm continues his critique of capitalism claiming that it objectifies and dehumanizes us by promoting the willful commodification of ourselves and others, basically reducing us to wage slaves that toil endlessly out of materialistic vanity and/or in avoidance of the pure terror of being homeless or broke and alone in old age.
But he’s not any less critical of Soviet style communism, claiming that, psychologically speaking, it’s essentially the same thing as corperate capitalism, with the only difference being that huge oppressive bureaucracy and police surveillance force consent in the USSR, where as money driven Madison Avenue manufactures consent in America via social pressure and manipulative psychological persuasion.
Fromm could be talking about 2020 in his descriptions of the psychology of media and information driven work.
Fromm keenly observes that concentrated activity is invigorating, and multitasking or non-concentrated activity is draining.
Fromm observes that, mindless daydreaming is not invigorating, but is in fact a signature of lacking connection with life and the here and now.
He continues by observing that modern informational life splits our attentions and drives us to distraction and dissociation.
Fromm seems to predict what life is like in 2020, and why mindfulness is such an important and prominent contemporary interest.
Fromm discusses life satisfaction from a psychodynamic perspective.
Fromm observes that it is common to feel satisfied on the conscious level and unconsciously repress feelings of dissatisfaction, particularly in our culture where being dissatisfied with life is highly stigmatized and elicits judgments of failure and feelings of shame.
As if you’re doing something wrong for feeling like life could be more than meaningless work and endless consumption of goods and pleasantries.
This could not be more apparent in the age of social media.
Getting right down to the point here.
For Fromm, the Sane Society is one in which psychological well being (sanity) is the focus.
Not ideology, not money, not guns, guts and god, not looking good, not being cool.
But simply sanity and wellness in mind, body, relationship and (yes) even spirit (although he’s not talking about anything supernatural, or magical when he makes allusions to the import of spiritual and religious life).
Basically, Fromm is promoting a fair (Marx), natural (Darwin), intrinsically motivated (Nietzsche) psychologically healthy (Freud) and awake (Buddha) way of being.
Fromm argues that Soviet era Communism and late century American democracy were more similar than distinct in so far as both cultures promoted a kind of oppressive, denatured, robotic conformity in its citizens.
Fromm proposes a type of decentralized, locally distributed, psychologically informed, modern European style humanitarian socialism as a third way, where by people are guaranteed a basic subsistence, education, healthcare etc. so that everyone can spend more time focused on personal exploration, growth, connection and innovation.
1. Escape From Freedom; a critical synthesis of Marx and Freud, and a treatise on what Fromm calls social psychology (but what would in my opinion be more accurately called socialist psychoanalysis).
2. Man for Himself; a treatise on modern humanistic, existential ethics, in which Fromm braids insights from Nietzsche and other existentialists into his psycho-social theory of ‘how to live’.
In the Sane Society, Fromm continues his critique of Freud for his myopic focus on individual neurosis, and lack of understanding of how social milieu, and economic and political systems effect and even shape the individual’s sense of self, feelings of well being, creative potential, values and relationships.
In a nutshell, Fromm is reiterating the idea that what Freud called neurosis, may in fact be a healthy response to a ‘sick’ system.
Fromm continues his critique of Marx for being tone deaf to the actual (rather than idealized) needs and motivations of human beings.
Fromm acknowledges that individualism is one of modernity’s great achievements, and competition and striving for innovation are innate human psychological needs.
Essentially, Fromm is claiming that forcing people into an artificially collectivistic ideology that does not fully satisfy their natural individualistic drives is the psycho-social equivalent of foot binding.
Fromm continues his critique of capitalism claiming that it objectifies and dehumanizes us by promoting the willful commodification of ourselves and others, basically reducing us to wage slaves that toil endlessly out of materialistic vanity and/or in avoidance of the pure terror of being homeless or broke and alone in old age.
But he’s not any less critical of Soviet style communism, claiming that, psychologically speaking, it’s essentially the same thing as corperate capitalism, with the only difference being that huge oppressive bureaucracy and police surveillance force consent in the USSR, where as money driven Madison Avenue manufactures consent in America via social pressure and manipulative psychological persuasion.
Fromm could be talking about 2020 in his descriptions of the psychology of media and information driven work.
Fromm keenly observes that concentrated activity is invigorating, and multitasking or non-concentrated activity is draining.
Fromm observes that, mindless daydreaming is not invigorating, but is in fact a signature of lacking connection with life and the here and now.
He continues by observing that modern informational life splits our attentions and drives us to distraction and dissociation.
Fromm seems to predict what life is like in 2020, and why mindfulness is such an important and prominent contemporary interest.
Fromm discusses life satisfaction from a psychodynamic perspective.
Fromm observes that it is common to feel satisfied on the conscious level and unconsciously repress feelings of dissatisfaction, particularly in our culture where being dissatisfied with life is highly stigmatized and elicits judgments of failure and feelings of shame.
As if you’re doing something wrong for feeling like life could be more than meaningless work and endless consumption of goods and pleasantries.
This could not be more apparent in the age of social media.
Getting right down to the point here.
For Fromm, the Sane Society is one in which psychological well being (sanity) is the focus.
Not ideology, not money, not guns, guts and god, not looking good, not being cool.
But simply sanity and wellness in mind, body, relationship and (yes) even spirit (although he’s not talking about anything supernatural, or magical when he makes allusions to the import of spiritual and religious life).
Basically, Fromm is promoting a fair (Marx), natural (Darwin), intrinsically motivated (Nietzsche) psychologically healthy (Freud) and awake (Buddha) way of being.
Fromm argues that Soviet era Communism and late century American democracy were more similar than distinct in so far as both cultures promoted a kind of oppressive, denatured, robotic conformity in its citizens.
Fromm proposes a type of decentralized, locally distributed, psychologically informed, modern European style humanitarian socialism as a third way, where by people are guaranteed a basic subsistence, education, healthcare etc. so that everyone can spend more time focused on personal exploration, growth, connection and innovation.
loppear's review
4.0
Easy reading psychological critique of consumerist capitalism from 1950s, opens with an argument against cultural relativism and for considering aspects of our own society that are neurotic. Very good middle on the alienating and idolatrous effects of modern capitalism on individuals and human relationships. Unexpectedly ends with a call for communitarian small-scale socialism as exemplified by industrial worker collectives in France & Spain.
More...