A society whose principles are acquisition, profit, and property produces a social character oriented around having, and once the dominant pattern is established, nobody wants to be an outsider, or indeed an outcast; in order to avoid this risk everybody adapts to the majority, who have in common only their mutual antagonism.
Interpretation
This quote critiques a society that values materialism over individual authenticity, leading to a conformist mentality.
Erich Fromm's quote highlights the consequences of a society driven by acquisition and property, suggesting that such values foster a social character that prioritizes belonging and conformity over individuality. In this environment, people may feel compelled to suppress their true selves to fit in with the majority, even if this leads to mutual antagonism among individuals. The quote serves as a warning about the dangers of materialism and the loss of authentic human connections.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech addressing the pitfalls of consumer culture during a community event.
Love, experienced thus, is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together; even whether there is harmony or conflict; joy or sadness, is secondary to the fundamental fact that two people experience themselves from the essence of their existence, that they are only one with each other by being one with themselves, rather than by fleeing from themselves.
Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.
Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.
To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern β and to take the jump and to stake everything on these values.
In times of change, learners inherit the earth
In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
I cannot think that we are useless or God would not have created us. There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say.
Wall Street is always too biased toward short-term profitability and biased against long-term growth.
And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.
God doesn't dwell in the wooden, stony or earthen idols. His abode is in our feelings, our thoughts.
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,_x000D_ _x000D_ But bad mortality o'ersways their power,_x000D_ _x000D_ How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,_x000D_ _x000D_ Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told.
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