The Pathology of Normalcy
Erich Fromm
Top 10 Best Quotes
“while there are many good points in our society, many things if one wants, to be proud of, that it is at least very questionable whether the way of life in which we live right now is more conducive to mental health or to mental illness.”
“we—the proud people who started out to dominate nature—have become slaves of the very economic machine which we created in the process. We dominated nature, but our machine dominates us. We are perhaps more dominated by the artifacts we have created with our machines, than in many cultures people are dominated by nature which they have not learned to master.”
“we are starved for any touch with that which, in most cultures, was provided for by religion or by the equivalent of religion, and with us, there is hardly anything which is worth while to mention.”
“the vast majority of people have a feeling that there is almost nothing in which they can really, concretely and not abstractly influence and participate in the affairs of society.”
“all experiences inside and outside of ourselves become abstract as commodities become in the market. We are unrelated to real experience, we are in a vacuum, we are therefore insecure, we are therefore in danger of boredom, and we are therefore in a very serious situation of mental health, which we only overcome by a routine in which we do not have to face our boredom and the emptiness of our relationship to others and to ourselves, and the abstract quality of our experiences.”
“We are confronted with the fact that today the individual citizen, practically speaking, has almost no possibility to influence events which go on. We know little. We are not asked. Decisions are made which have to be made above our heads in the kind of system which we operate, but the question is: Can means and ways be found to organize work, to organize society, to organize government in such a way that people are not handled and manipulated like automatons, but that individual citizens can have a chance to participate in decisions.”
“This attitude of buying, this religious expectation that there are endless things which we can get, and the almost orgastic pleasure in visualizing the wealth of new things you can buy, this is something which carries over in our attitude towards things other than new models. We have become consumers of everything, consumers of science, consumers of art, consumers of lectures, consumers of love, and the attitude is always the same.”
“There is a sentence in the Old Testament which I think has some reference to our situation today. It says: “And you shall be cursed because thou did not serve thy God, in joy and gladness amidst the abundance of things.” [Deuteronomium 28:47] We have an abundance of things but we serve them and without joy and gladness.”
“The idea of the responsible and well informed citizen who participates in the important decisions of the community is the central concept of democracy. But due to the quantitative increase in population and to the influence of methods of mass suggestion, the substance of democracy is weakening.”
“The average person believes that the scientist is a priest who knows all the answers and who is in direct touch with all that he wants to know, just as some people are satisfied that the priest, if he is in touch with God, if he can see him once in a while he feels he has some part in this communication with God.”
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