Erich Fromm (1900–1980)

I have always found the way men think to be (over)bootstrapped by how other people think; and it plays in their extravagant displays of "thoughts"... perhaps, in honest desperation to seek independent thinking without being left behind. It's not always boastful.
Meanwhile, women - under freedom, mostly - get ridiculed for their desire to transcend the world by creating and caring for their own creations.
It takes an honest, intelligent man like Erich Fromm to be so confident in speaking about show more the way he perceives the world to think and feel. Without much interpretation, I can now easily spot internalized misogyny in all men when I look at my previous interactions: they always have a take on the transcendence of those around them; and it's never supportive in the direction of celebrating creations. It's either gloomy, opportunistic, or insecure.

I wish I picked up this book instead of learning about "types of men" through other books that study their attachment to the world, and emotional honesty.
It's inevitable that they are attached, and emotionally honest.
It's inevitable that they are also extremely unaware of their own subjectivity, and think it's unrelated to everything in their lives.

"Automatons. NPCs. Robots." are terms to de-humanize, created by those who view themselves as that: men and the people they managed to bend to their will. show less

"Man for Himself" might be a good book, but it is also, in some ways, a limited and dated one. It seems written in the shadow of twentieth-century totalitarianisms, and Fromm's confidence in Freudian ideas about the structure of the subconscious and in psychology's ability to produce real, testable knowledge about the human personality may seem misplaced to modern readers. Also, while it certainly can't be said that Fromm is a communist, his criticisms of the capitalist system left me show more wondering exactly what sort of economic system might meet his approval. His introduction of the "marketing" orientation as a new twentieth century personality type seems like a product of its time.

Despite all this, "Man for Himself" seems like an honest, and occasionally successful, attempt to accommodate psychological insights into older, philosophically-oriented models of human personality. At the same time, Fromm's focus on "productivity" reminds readers that our psychological makeup isn't just a question of the contents of some unseen subconscious but something directly connected with our living conditions and our life choices. His summings up of historical perspectives on various ethical topics are effective, and his contention that self-creation is a constant, ongoing, lifelong process is inspiring. I suspect that readers with a background in philosophy will consider "Man for Himself" as little more than old Aristotle in new bottles, but I'd prefer to think that the way these questions are framed is important, and the author's examination of these questions in a relatively modern context is useful. Fromm is, I think, preaching to a sort of choir: readers who feel that their religious beliefs are an inextricable part of themselves are unlikely to get anything out of this one. But readers who want a fresh perspective on human psychological and ethical structures, or want an introduction to humanistic ethics, could probably do much worse. show less

Escape from Freedom? Yep. Though there is always talk of "protecting our freedoms," the fact is that freedom is a scary and challenging proposition, and there is a natural human tendency to escape the anxiety that can arise from that. As a result, we are not nearly as "free" as we may think.
Though published originally in 1941, this is disturbingly relevant:
when a certain class is threatened by new economic tendencies it reacts to this threat psychologically and ideologically; and...the show more psychological changes brought about by this reaction further the development of economic forces even if those forces contradict the economic interests of that class.

And how about:
we fail to see the danger that threatens our culture from its human basis: the readiness to accept any ideology and any leader, if only he promises excitement and offers a political structure and symbols which allegedly give meaning and order to an individual’s life. The despair of the human automaton is fertile soil for the political purposes of Fascism.
If you want to understand what's happening today, one could do worse than to turn to Erich Fromm. show less

His discussion of matriarchal vs. patriarchal societies in Oresteia and the Oedipus trilogies is worth the price of admission. Did you know that Freud was full of sh*t, and that incest has nothing to do with the Oedipus complex?