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A review by carnation7
الإنسان بين الجوهر والمظهر by Erich Fromm
3.0
Seems to me that Fromm makes some fairly obvious points on human nature, albeit in a concise, appealing manner. It felt nice seeing them all in one place.
He also calls for a necessary and urgent change in the way societies function and approach living - a sort of all-encompassing "change from within" which in 2021 still sounds as impossible and intimidatingly far-fetched as it did in 1976, when this book came out.
Strangely, what comforts me is that the nuclear/ecological catastrophe he considered inevitable in the 1970s still hasn't occurred. The world of today is not as bleak as he assumed the world of tomorrow would be.
It gives me hope that the humanity might be able to survive itself in the long run. :)
This hopeful observation, of course, does not invalidate the points he makes and the actions he suggests would improve on humanity. It's just that - they really do sound nearly impossible.
And they are impossible as long as we aim at imposing them on others.
They might be just nearly, barely possible - if we give them a go ourselves.
So, whoopty doopty doo, I'm off to change the world.
P.S.
I found his linguistic observations interesting. Fromm points out the all-pervasive presence of the verb to have in the language. We have friends, children, spouses, we have a good lawyer or a doctor's appointment, we have feelings for other people...
No, we haven't. But our collective unconscious seems to suggest otherwise...?
Anyway, an interesting personal observation is that the auxiliary verbs in the English, Italian and German - imperialistic languages I'm somewhat familiar with - are: to be and to have (avere/essere, essen/haben).
Whereas the auxiliary verbs in my mother tongue of Croatian, and other South Slavic languages, are: biti (to be) and htjeti (to want).
Huh. :P
He also calls for a necessary and urgent change in the way societies function and approach living - a sort of all-encompassing "change from within" which in 2021 still sounds as impossible and intimidatingly far-fetched as it did in 1976, when this book came out.
Strangely, what comforts me is that the nuclear/ecological catastrophe he considered inevitable in the 1970s still hasn't occurred. The world of today is not as bleak as he assumed the world of tomorrow would be.
It gives me hope that the humanity might be able to survive itself in the long run. :)
This hopeful observation, of course, does not invalidate the points he makes and the actions he suggests would improve on humanity. It's just that - they really do sound nearly impossible.
And they are impossible as long as we aim at imposing them on others.
They might be just nearly, barely possible - if we give them a go ourselves.
So, whoopty doopty doo, I'm off to change the world.
P.S.
I found his linguistic observations interesting. Fromm points out the all-pervasive presence of the verb to have in the language. We have friends, children, spouses, we have a good lawyer or a doctor's appointment, we have feelings for other people...
No, we haven't. But our collective unconscious seems to suggest otherwise...?
Anyway, an interesting personal observation is that the auxiliary verbs in the English, Italian and German - imperialistic languages I'm somewhat familiar with - are: to be and to have (avere/essere, essen/haben).
Whereas the auxiliary verbs in my mother tongue of Croatian, and other South Slavic languages, are: biti (to be) and htjeti (to want).
Huh. :P