Some Thoughts On Erich Fromm

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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RonPrice
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Some Thoughts On Erich Fromm

Post by RonPrice »

CREDO AND COMMENT

The year I began my travelling-pioneering experience, 1962, Erich Fromm, American psychoanalyst and prolific writer in the field of existential psychology, stated his 'credo' in his book Beyond the Chains of Illusions. I have written some of his Credo below since it was consistent with my views back in 1962. I have commented on some of his Credo expressing views that have remained part of my beliefs during this pioneering venture spanning, as it does now, more than 50 years.


"The most important factor for the development of the individual is the structure and the values of the society into which he has been born." Given this fact, my role as a Baha'i has been to spend my life trying to build the kind of society fit for human beings to be born into. For, as Fromm says in his Credo, "society has both a furthering and an inhibiting function. Only in cooperation with others, and in the process of work, does man develop his powers, only in the historical process do humans create themselves. Only when the aims of individuals, the aims of the heterogeneous and plethora of sub-groups within any one society become harmonious with and consistent within the fabric of the inevitably pluralistic wider society and, in recent decades, with the aims of humanity in this new phase of the planetization of humankind will society cease to cripple man and to further evil. This, of course, is no easy matter. Indeed, the very nature and meaning of the statements I have made here are immensely complex and not subject to simplistic answers.

In attempting to transform society, Fromm underestimated the need for individuals to adapt to their society. This adaptive process is slow and arduous work and, for Baha'is, it takes place in the context of action toward goals using a map provided by the Founders of their religion and the legitimate successors.

"I believe that every man represents humanity. We are different as to intelligence, health and talents. Yet we are all one. We are all saints and sinners, adults and children, and no one is anybody's superior or judge." So writes Fromme. It is obvious, I might add here, somewhat parenthetically, that talent is not spread equally among all indivuals. To put this another way: equality is a chimera, an illusion. As Fromm goes on, "We have all been awakened with the Buddha, we have all been crucified with Christ, and we have all killed and robbed with Genghis Khan, Stalin, and Hitler. Man's task in life is precisely the paradoxical one of realizing his individuality and at the same time transcending it and arriving at the experience of universality. Only the fully developed individual self can drop the ego." Perhaps this is one way of defining the nature of 'Abdu'l-Baha and His life’s achievement(1844-1921). -Ron Price, Pioneeering Over Four Epochs, 9 October 2002.

There is much truth here, Erich.

I must thank you for your wonderful

and illuminating books, enriching

my life as they have, approximating

the jewelled wisdom of this lucid Faith

that I set out with in '62 when I moved

to Dundas and began to pray in those

back streets on cold Canadian afternoons,

read from His sweet-scented streams

and taste of the fruits of His tree

in those years when my father's white hair

blew in the wind for the last time,

my mother was driven to the end of her tether

and that charisma became institutionalized

at the apex of this wondrous Order.

Erich Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusions, Simon and Schuster, NY, 1962, pp.174-182.



Ron Price

9 October 2002
married for 47 years, a Baha'i
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Some Thoughts On Erich Fromm

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

RonPrice wrote:In attempting to transform society, Fromm underestimated the need for individuals to adapt to their society. This adaptive process is slow and arduous work and, for Baha'is, it takes place in the context of action toward goals using a map provided by the Founders of their religion and the legitimate successors.

"I believe that every man represents humanity. We are different as to intelligence, health and talents. Yet we are all one. We are all saints and sinners, adults and children, and no one is anybody's superior or judge." So writes Fromme. It is obvious, I might add here, somewhat parenthetically, that talent is not spread equally among all indivuals. To put this another way: equality is a chimera, an illusion. As Fromm goes on, "We have all been awakened with the Buddha, we have all been crucified with Christ, and we have all killed and robbed with Genghis Khan, Stalin, and Hitler. Man's task in life is precisely the paradoxical one of realizing his individuality and at the same time transcending it and arriving at the experience of universality. Only the fully developed individual self can drop the ego."
Hi Ron, could you expand on the tensions between "adapting to society" with nobody being a "superior or judge" and the spiritual elitism strongly implied by the idea of following actual Founders and Successors who pioneered these maps in the first place, even against the ruling ideas at the time? Also I try to understand how this rhymes with Fromme's preference for more rigid social structures like medieval feudalism or caste systems where a human could be more securely rooted in hierarchies of values. Wouldn't those societies become hostile to any change over time, as to protect its own structure and house of identity cards?

And I wonder how you see Fromm's definition of love as "interpersonal creative capacity rather than an emotion". How does this manifest practically, this creative capacity?
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