Customer Reviews

To Have or To Be? (Continuum Impacts)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

To have or to be?

Well... to be, says Fromm.

In response to the materialism of our century and our propensity to reification, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm proposes a mode of living that he argues is the way out of our psychospiritual conundrum.

Within the pages of this book, one of the last before his demise, the author of the bestseller _ The Art of Loving_ describes the two modes possible--that of having and being. 20th century culture he says has developed into employing and relying on the having mode--of appropriating things and even humans for oneself. Even love has been turned into an object, when in fact no such thing exists. Only the act of loving is possible.

In contradistinction to having is being. It is a mode of active participation in life. While the misnomer 'falling in love' is touted by the world as the norm, Fromm argues that true loving is an effortful activity. While accumulating knowledge is the way of having, the being mode of knowing is a process of understanding.

Although written nearly three decades ago, Fromm's worldview continues to be the ideal. This work of his is a timeless caveat against the dehumanization of society.

Fromm is one of the classics - along with Freud, Jung, Adler. He studied psychology, philosophy and sociology, received his PhD at the age of 22, became interested in Zen Buddhism at the age of 26. One of the true geniuses.
This book was written in 1976. Fromm debates that there are two possible modes of living: one of having and of being. He points out the differences between the two and of a person living in the having mode to the one living in the being mode. He shows the differences in behavior and attitude between the two in many life's areas and experiences: studying, remembering, talking, reading, faith, love, handling authority. The less you are oriented on having, the more you are being.

I have already read twice this book in the past three years and consider re-reading it again soon. It has become part of me; everyday I remember key sentences from the book which help me make sense of my own life, attitudes, and ideas. Two notions (a) the "being" way of life as opposed to "having", and (b) "matter is in constant flux" help me let go, relieving me of my attachment to things material. Paradoxically, they also give me the courage to experience life in a more proactive way, and to accept and appreciate life as it is without trying to force events. It's a truly spiritual and healing book.

Fromm describes, in very understandable terms, the eternal conflict between the desire to "have" and the desire to "be". He outlines logically that most problems humanity has is the strive for materialism. He compares things to be had as dead and qualities to be as living. Some of his insights are drawn from the Bible and show that God Himslef, by his very name, is the supreme "being", whose wish it is that man becomes like him. Fromm warns against the perils of "have" based societies, and conclusively demonstrates that "be" oriented individuals have one of the major keys to a better and more satisfying life.

Seriously, if you are opening this book, be prepared to use your brain for real or spare yourself the trouble. First, to paraphrase a foreword from a non-English translation, you need to be aware that Fromm is the analyst, and not the sweet-sounding visionary. So, the last part of the last chapter is best served by skipping it or browsing with the smile, remembering that even great analysts sometimes can't resist the temptation to 'envision' a 'recipe'.

The rest of the book, or should I say the actual book, is pure gold, but in order to reach it you need to be prepared to simply trust the author for the duration of the book. Then turn around and if you don't start recognizing things he's talking about in real life - feel free to debate him - during the second reading. If you jump to debate him every time he crushes something you consider 'sacral' you'll just waste your time. Consider this a test of your own brain - is it really working or just being busy filtering the uneasy information.

Also, be prepared to read the book twice, even if you don't feel like debating it :-) The reason is that pretty soon you'll want to quote something from the book but you won't have an easy one-liner. To quote Fromm, you'll need to quote the idea, and ideas take a few paragraphs or even pages to be 'painted' and understood properly.

Last but not least, be aware that Fromm himself was aware of the fact that the one who is discovering or telling a new thing doesn't actually have the vocabulary to express it, so be prepared to fill in and consider it normal if some words don't sound precise or modern. For example, Fromm didn't have the vocabulary of the communication theory so he couldn't spell out loud the role of communication in human relations, but he did use the word 'affecting' in ways that will allow you to see the intrinsic human need for communication.

That is another reason why you need to be able to both trust the author on the first read and keep your own brain ready to use. It's only after you finish the book that the whole picture will start to form and connect apparently missing pieces - and you will read it the second time.

The traditional question review and update by Fromm's mastery. As part of his constant and insistent understanding of the world, this book points out again that, the "to have" approach leads to first unexpectable sidedamages. It is important to understand that, a Society that put emphasis on "to have" will promote scarcity and misery. Read to believe.

The author argues how the industrial society organized around the captitalistic framework has promoted a culture to want more and more and relies on people wanting more and more for achieving what it thinks is progress, disregarding in the process other wholistic goals such as true joyfulness of being, well-being of the total mankind, environment etc.

Marxism as implemented by communism is no better again due to its emphasis again on having "stuff" for every one (the author seems to think Marx essentially had it right but it is the followers such as Lenin messed up things; I personally think fundamendals of organizing a society based on equal conditions is essentially flawed; there is a far cry between equal rights and forcing equal conditions on everyone).

Another theme which the author talks of is how underdeveloped, non-white societies and cultures are different and place more emphasis on being rather than having mode. As some one who was born and brought up in India and who has lived for more than a decade in US, I think the author is a little outdated here, if he ever was right on this aspect. I can assure you the having mode is universal across the board, may be due to spread of capitalism and globalization (though I doubt it; I think even in prehistoric times, man was a hoarder of things rather than an altruistic animal living always for the good of the society)

Anyway, this book is about changing one's attitude towards how to live meaningfully without getting carried away with having and wanting more and more things .. this ultimately is the essense of being spiritual and humansitic without getting carried away with any particular formalized religious framework.

Eric Fromm writes well and you could do worse than read this book.

will you fall into the Western, mechanistic, and capitalistic mode of Having, or evolve into the perennial Being taught by those whom Fromm calls the Masters of Living? Bearing mind that the two can overlap (one has only to think of Jesus' advice to possess as though one possessed nothing), Fromm sets out the polarity well for purposes of psychological study. Ought to be taught in school...

First published in 1976, Erich Fromm`s To Have or to Be could easily have been written in 2009 as it is extremely relevant to our situation today.

Fromm`s main goal is to explain the two prevailing modes of human existence--the having mode and the being mode. The book opens up with an elegant comparison between the poetry of Tennyson and Basho (and their synthesis Goethe) through which Fromm powerfully reveals the dichotomy between the two modes. He then proceeds with describing how people in the being mode learn, remember, read, talk, love differently than the people in the having mode, thus further elucidating the fundamental characteristics of the two character orientations.

I personally find the chapter on Religion, Character and Society the most insightful and profound summary of the human condition in the 21st century--profits as the ultimate objective, unsustainable and destructive, mass and pathological consumerism alienating human beings from each other and themselves, inability for critical thinking due to advertising propaganda and brainwashing. Fromm is either prescient, or all this was going on, albeit on smaller scale, back in 1976.

I cannot emphasize the value of this honest,warm and humanist book enough. Its originality is truly amazing. Besides its precious message, I thought that one can get several dissertation ideas out of it. Fromm`s application of the having and being mode to analyzing poetry, his argument that as a result of the possessiveness of the having orientation, the tendency to substitute nouns for verbs has grown dramatically, his interpretation of the original sin and Adam and Eve`s expulsion from Paradise are all fascinating.

There are numerous valuable references to other sources of interest such as E.F. Shumacher`s "Small is beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered." And Marx, yes, Marx, whose ideas, Fromm claims, have been grossly perverted; D.T. Suzuki`s Buddhist texts. All these are on my to read list now.

Let me finish with one of the many beautiful insights of the book: "As long as everybody wants to have more, there must be formations of classes, there must be class war, and in global terms, there must be international war. Greed and peace preclude each other" (p.5).

I read this book, in part, for my dissertation, which is questioning psychotherapy as a commodified practice and revealing how profiting works as a guiding force in clinical practice. Like many of Fromm's other works, To Have or To Be exposes how, in the having mode of being, our phenomongical experiences are reduced to commodified experiences. Thus, we experience others as commodities, as embodiments of exchange value. Although I do not agree entirely with Fromm's thoughts in distinguishing between the Having and Being modes of existence, To Have or To Be is an invaluable resource. I suspect that the criticism of this work is not so much about the merits or realism of Fromm's position on Having and Being and his suggestions for change, but more of a matter of deflection from the anxiety produced from challenging one's way of being-in-the-world, from having-in-the-world. Of course, I could be wrong.