Erich fromm the art of being download

The transition from an identity of having to being creates a state of enlightened psychological and spiritual happiness. Fromm observes that the modern person is less a selfreflective being than a composite of data promoted by the mass media, and he encourages us to pursue true selfawareness beyond simple political, ideological, and religious clichs. By learning to be centered in the self, the individual is less swayed by the endless pressures and dissatisfactions of the culture of consumerism.

Cart Help Sign In. Submit Search. Or rather: He is the world. A parallel peril to well-being comes from the egotism and selfishness seeded by our ownership-driven society, a culture that prioritizes having over being by making property its primary mode of existence.

Fromm writes:. A person living in this mode is not necessarily very narcissistic. Nevertheless, he wants everything for himself; has no pleasure in giving, in sharing, in solidarity, in cooperation, in love.

He is a closed fortress, suspicious of others, eager to take and most reluctant to give. Growth, he argues, requires a dual breakthrough — of narcissism and of property-driven existence. Although the first steps toward this breaking from bondage are bound to be anxiety-producing, this initial discomfort is but a paltry price for the larger rewards of well-being awaiting us on the other side of the trying transformation:.

If a person has the will and the determination to loosen the bars of his prison of narcissism and selfishness, when he has the courage to tolerate the intermittent anxiety, he experiences the first glimpses of joy and strength that he sometimes attains.

And only then a decisive new factor enters into the dynamics of the process. This new experience becomes the decisive motivation for going ahead and following the path he has charted… [An] experience of well-being — fleeting and small as it may be — … becomes the most powerful motivation for further progress….

Awareness, will, practice, tolerance of fear and of new experience, they are all necessary if transformation of the individual is to succeed. In the remainder of The Art of Being , Fromm explores the subtleties and practicalities of enacting this transformation. Complement it with legendary social scientist John W.

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Art by Jean-Pierre Weill from The Well of Being Fromm frames the inquiry: Full humanization… requires the breakthrough from the possession-centered to the activity-centered orientation, from selfishness and egotism to solidarity and altruism. He writes: It seems that nature — or if you will, the process of evolution — has endowed every living being with the wish to live, and whatever he believes to be his reasons are only secondary thoughts by which he rationalizes this biologically given impulse.

Adding to the vocabulary of gardening as a metaphor for understanding happiness and making sense of mastery , Fromm illustrates his point: This is indeed well understood by any gardener. Great job, the narrator's voice is fantastic! The philosophy inside is deep yet easy to understand Absolute masterpiece. Even though this book required for me many restarts on chapters or re-listening to grasp fully the concepts being written about, I thoroughly enjoyed.

And even though some of Freud's quoted opinions seemed a little too far fetched they did make you think on the given subject more. I enjoyed the beginning and the end of the book. It covers interesting philosophical themes and tries to show one way of living. The book has an interesting view on existentialism. If you however do not like or agree with the arguments of Freud or Marx I would still recommend this book as it is the authors own concept and conclusion but that seem to be most effected by Marx and Ferud.

I myself did not agree in many statements, conclusions and even the source of an argument I still enjoyed the book mostly as it challenged me in a few ways. The book goes into psykoanalys, it was an interesting look into a "field" and in combination to philosophy that I enjoyed. PS; how was maslow's pyramid never mentioned it would fit perfectly in many situations in thr book?

Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom! I'm honoured to have listened to such knowledge. Informative and interesting for those wishing to know more about psychology or types of personalities. Once the psychoanalysis started, while there was great deal to learn from it. The author sounded like he was too biased. There surely are great concepts in there that got me to ask some difficult questions that I don't have the answers to.

Bringing the reader back half a century, into a world of dominants, a place where progress came with pain Often still relevant, this book goes through a great review of the models of living physically and spiritually.

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Narrated by: Raymond Todd. No valid payment method on file. Add payment method. Switch payment method. We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method. Pay using card ending in. Publisher's Summary This classic work by psychologist and social philosopher Eric Fromm builds upon his previous popular book To Have or to Be? The Art of Being teaches us to avoid the tantalizing illusions of our consumer-driven world by learning to function as a whole person from a state of inner completeness or being.

The transition from an identity of having to being creates a state of enlightened psychological and spiritual happiness.