Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36116 in Books
• Published on: 1993-03-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Customer Reviews

Noble indeed
Even better in context but works fine on it's own. An absolutely invigorating read - Fromm's voice speaks from the page loud and clear. Resonates with me on a deeply fundamental level and delightfully easy to translate into daily living - indeed, it is a joy to lift his thoughts from the page and see them through the prism of one's own situation.

A wonderful and necessary reminder of how alive and humane psychodynamics can be, when coupled with dedication to self actualisation. The chapter on the commercialised nature of society and commodification of individuals is unmissable.

From Freud to Zen, realistic but tentative suggestions on how to facilitate individuation in an increasingly shallow and dehumanising society - what's not to like?

To have or to be?
This book contains the missing chapters from 'To Have Or To Be', if you have read this previous work then you will welcome Fromm's advice on putting this theory into practise. The content is invaluable to anyone trying to live an "examined life". Best read in context to the previous book, hence 4 stars.

The missing chapters, advice for the human being
Fromm was clear in his insistence throughout his books that without profound structural adjustment, addressing the unconscious "social character", individuals would remain frustrated and compelled to adopt, properly understood, ill patterns of behaviour and thinking to succeed and prosper.

In specific contexts/circumstances a particular pattern of behaviour and thinking proves adaptive while in others it is maladaptive and I have always thought Fromm's unique contribution to social theory has been to question the extent to which what is presently considered adaptive corresponds not to human needs but the demands of the economy, convention and cultural setting. This perspective I feel Fromm best extolled in Man for Himself: An Enquiry into the Psychology of Ethics (Routledge Classics) and The Sane Society (Routledge Classics) and then later in To Have or to be?.

While these insights are vital and informative, Fromm's focus in these published works, his prescriptions for developing as a human being, achieving liberation from the fear of freedom and the fear of life itself, have neglected to provide any motivated individual with a clue as to what they can do to live their insight in their own personal sphere of life. This isnt uncharacteristic of a writer with a profound insight they believe provides an impetus for social change. However whether you agree with the proposals of such authors or not (there are reasonable doubts about some of Fromm's prescriptions, for instance, an appointed cultural council to root out the cultural distortions of advertising could be a substitution of new troubles for old) your sphere of concern will be drastic differently from your feasible sphere of action. Generally.

So its great to find this, Fromm's ommitted chapters from To Have or To Be? Which explain how individuals can develop as human beings. Its a book about how to realise and actualise love, reason and meaningful, productive work. What Fromm extolls here is a way of living based upon authentic self-awareness, through honest self-analysis and meditation (mindfulness). Fromm is critical as always of the easy path or short cuts to the good life offered by consumerism and the siren song of the promises of an effortless existence lived without pain. These are insights that can and should be heeded by any reader and the advice is here of how to put it all into practice in your daily life.

The book has a great comprehensive index, contents and bibliogrpahy. The chapter headings break down into On the Art of Being; Great Shams; Trivial Talk; "No Effort, No Pain"; "Antiauthoritarianism"; "To Will One Thing"; To Be Awake; To Be Aware; To Concentrate; To Meditate; Psychoanalysis and Self-Awareness; Self-Analysis; Methods of Self-Analysis; On the Culture of Having; On the Philosophy of Having; On the Psychology of Having; From Having to Well-Being.

I recommend this book to the general reader, it could and should prove helpful to anyone who really wants to live completely and develop the sort of enthusiasm necessary to be free. It is not really self-help or self-improvement, I find those topics as alienating as the next person, infact I would say this book is the antidote and alternative.