Sane Society

Erich Fromm was a German thinker who wrote extensively on human condition in the modern society and on human alienation (estrangement). Human alienation manifests itself in many aspects of modern life. Overabundance of commodities and services available today have surpassed wildest of imaginations. And yet humans often feel a deep inner sense of being insatiated. A sense of loneliness and isolation continues to haunt us despite living in overpopulated cities. Human activities have created forces of unprecedented power and yet never had been that sense of helplessness as overwhelming as it is today. Technological advances have ceaselessly tried to control nature and yet we have never felt so insecure and vulnerable. Human society has created technological forces of gigantic proportions and of overwhelming capabilities and now these seem to have unleashed themselves off human control. One has very recently experienced how the death dance of an invisible virus sent the whole world in a paroxysm of fear and utter helplessness. Dangers of world wars, nuclear disasters, global warming, industrial accidents-all of human making- are threatening the very existence of human race like the mythological “Bhasmasur”.  These are the facets of contradictions inherent in today’s society and it seems the world is standing on its head, characterized by impersonal forces created by humans yet assuming autonomous power and ruling and governing lives of humans. There have been a few social scientists and philosophers who have strived to understand and explain the human condition and consciousness as it has evolved over the ages through the changes in the material world.

The human condition common with that of other animals is defined by the basic necessity to act or to work on nature to meet needs of survival. However, what separates man from other species is the fact that humans not only act on the nature but do so consciously and change it according to their designs. A spider web is akin to a fine example of weaver’s art   and a honey- bee is like an architectural design. But to quote Karl Marx “A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality”. Acting consciously and as societies, humans have developed newer and better methods of acting on nature. Society is essentially a sum total of human inter-relationships to survive and produce and the history of man is essentially the history of how these social relationships have evolved through ages (and continue to evolve). Humans have a history, animals do not.

For animals, working on nature (like food gathering, hunting or constructing a web or a beehive) is instinctive unconscious activity like breathing, not separated and not separable from their beings; whereas for humans, labor and industry is a conscious independent activity, external to their existence. The process of alienation began with the process of man losing control over his labour and fruits of his labour. In feudal society, a potter or a weaver for instance worked with his own tools, worked as and when he wanted to and the product of his labour was in his control for its disposal or usage. With industrialization and development of complex machines and tools and consequent division of labour, the work process has been so fragmented, or “rationalized” that the quality of labour has become more and more abstract, devoid of any creativity. This aspect is exemplified by division of labour based on “Time and motion study” that breaks down a product manufacturing process on a production into a series of small tasks that are cyclically performed by different workers in allotted time. (In Charlie Chaplin’s movie “Modern Times” Charlie is a worker on an assembly line, assigned to perform repetitive motion of giving half a turn of screw on a product and is hard pressed to keep with ever increasing speed of the conveyor belt. Working daily for hours performing the same action like an automaton, he not only dreams of his “half-turn motion” in his sleep, the hands often perform this action unconsciously in his wakeful hours also. He is driven to depression and when he protests, he is sent to a mental asylum). Another level of alienation is between man and man. The dominant relationship between people is through buying and selling of commodities. In fact, never has been the interconnection between people as vast and as multilayered as it is today. In this generalized commodity producing world, all commodities we buy, from a safety pin to a motor car, have labour contributions of millions of fellow human beings embodied in them. This relationship is thus impersonal through commodities, through material objects external to us.  Commodities and material things appear to have acquired mystical and human properties that make it move and circulate on its own, defining and dominating relationship between man and man. The universal commodity, money, although a mere paper or a piece of metal, with its universal exchange value, is even more powerful, bestowing all attributes to the owner irrespective of whether he or she as a human being possesses those attributes. It has human-like ability of procreation. It acts as go-between men and their wants and desires, a much sought-after “universal pimp”. Nothing escapes the power of commodity. Ideas are a million dollars’ worth; a thought is a penny’s worth. Commodity has enormous power to subjugate everything else even familial and social ties.  Nature becomes a mere background or an appendage to a holiday resort; a model becomes a mere accessory for a new car in a sales campaign. These are not psychological issues or beliefs but are real phenomenon rooted in this material world.

The history of mankind has been a history of increasing development of man as a productive being but at the same time a history of increasing alienation between man and the external world, between man and nature, between man and man.  People do defy and strive to assert their humanity with creative activities. One prime example of such defiance at a group level was the Hippie cult which tried to establish a commune culture with “back to the nature” motto based on interpersonal relations and an island of commodity-free economy. However, such islands cannot be sustained for long. Modern technology, it is often said,  has shrunk the world. A satellite TV brings the world in ones drawing room. Mobile and social networking have expanded social interactions with instant contact with several acquaintances thousands of miles apart. Yet at another and deeper level, inter personal relations are being subtly undermined by these technologies. Television telecasting “family drama” has the family members glued to TV screen, each lost in his or her personal world and relating to fictional characters and their fictional world on the screen. The modern wonder- the mobile phone- is being added with newer functions – music, internet, video, live TV and host of other features that promises to “deliver” the world at individual’s fingertips. Yet these devices ostensibly relieving individuals of monotony of an alienated world are also reinforcing alienation in another way. A defining image of today’s world is a household seated for dining, with each member busy on his or her laptop, iPod, mobile and scarcely interacting with each other, or a crowded metro compartment with bodies jostling and breaths intermingling, yet everyone lost in his or her private world with mobile earphones stuck in their ears and barely aware of each other’s existence.  

Erich Fromm probed further into the alienating aspect of modern society through a number of writings (in 50’s and 60’), of which “Escape from freedom” and “Sane Society” and “The Art of loving” are noteworthy. In “Escape from freedom”, Fromm argues that alienation signifies rupture of ties and relationships – “needs of inner being” that humans long for – with fellow humans, with environment and nature. In feudal-rural society for instance, notwithstanding its hierarchical and exploitative character, an individual was assured of his or her place in society even if it was predetermined, unalterable and unjust. One was in fact born in a given social order and was “moored” as it were. The modern society has released man from earlier social ties and made him “individualized” person. However, the estrangement or alienation pervading in the modern society made it impossible, at least difficult, for him to enter into true, spontaneous and active relationships with fellow humans. This freedom, this anxiety of being alone, this sense of being powerless and the task of making a choice therefore becomes an insufferable burden. Man desperately tries to escape from this freedom and is willing to surrender it in exchange for some sort of security and anchor. The most common recourse is what Fromm calls “automaton conformity” represented by the very common tendency to conform to a larger group, to think, to believe and to feel like others belonging to a group or class with which one identifies with. Decisions from simple ones like choosing brands of consumer goods to choosing school and career for one’s children are taken conforming to the lager group. We want our child to become a doctor or an engineer because others like us are doing the same.  The second escape route, “Authoritarianism”, is to submit to, and to be dictated by, external powers to be able to belong and to be free from the task of making a decision. These external powers could take several symbols and identities-race, religion, creed or political authoritarian system personified by dictators and cult leaders. Past and present political demagogues in Germany, Russia, China, Poland, Turkey , India are examples of authoritarian powers to which a large population blindly submit to.   Religious, pseudo-religious and even non-religious cults are another type of authoritarian systems wherein one shuts out the external world and submits to the cult father figure with mass ritualistic practices providing additional adhesive factor. The mushrooming of these cults catering to different social strata, poor and rich, and the large number of their followers has been phenomenal over the last few decades in India (and elsewhere too). These cults have grown in to big enterprises with international branches. An extreme example of utter surrender to the cult father figure was an incidence of mass suicide committed by the followers of Jim Jones a couple of decades back in the US. The third type of escape route from freedom is through destructiveness towards the world which is seen as unjust and responsible for perceived desperate or hopeless conditions. Terrorism, Regionalism, Jingoism are examples of destructiveness wherein enemies are created and identified and hate campaigns, violence, wars, genocides, cruelties are indulged in and justified in the name of religion, duty, state, etc. At an individual level, destructiveness could take forms of alcoholism, drug addiction and   extreme of self-destruction- suicide. Fromm believed that these escape routes signify surrendering one’s individuality and creativity and prevent men from being truly human. The only way, according to Fromm, to regain one’s power and one’s humanity is to take up the chance and challenge thrown by this freedom and make conscious choices based on what one’s inner feelings are and not based on what one is expected to do. The escape routes from the burden of freedom outlined above are broad tendencies and not watertight categories. Erich Fromm carried forward his analysis of “Escape from freedom” in his book “Sane Society”. Sanity in the traditional psychological meaning refers to the inability of an individual to conform to social norms with the underlying premise that the society is necessarily sane- in other words society cannot be insane that is to say insane society is a contradiction in terms.  Freud had studied the phenomenon of neurosis and attributed it to the conflict between individual’s libido- instinctive desires predominantly sexual -and restrictive norms and requirements of civilized society. He postulated that inability of conscious mind to channelize and dissipate this libido- energy in socially acceptable ways resulted in neurotic condition. While Freud sought roots of neurosis in individual abstracted from societal conditions, Fromm sought to understand what constitutes an abnormal behavior in relation to human social conditions. In “Sane Society”, Fromm argued that the basic need of humankind is being related to fellow human beings, to society. The progression of alienation or estrangement has reached its extreme in the modern society and is causing a desperate craving to break out from this condition through the escape mechanisms as elaborated in “escape from freedom”. This is the exact opposite of the fundamental human need. People who try to escape freedom render themselves incapable of experiencing genuine human relations and emotions and in the present-day society, such people constitute the majority. Those who accept the challenge of being free to choose and accept consequences of their choice, those who do not crave for security but want to tolerate insecurity, are apparently in a minority and in the traditional sense abnormal. Yet they are far from being neurotic or of disturbed mentality.  The author therefore concludes that it not possible for a sane society to thrive in the present-day environment. Fromm’s analysis of social behaviour has a very wide canvass encompasses traditional psychology, sociology, in particular modern society, culture and politics. His writing on these issues is from a deeply humanistic viewpoint and mostly analytical only lightly touching on  alternatives. One cannot turn back the clock of history and go back to pre-industrial and pastoral-feudal societies but seek solutions in the future. He does talk of need for socio-economic and politico-cultural transformation for every human being to be able to accomplish self realization, and he is equally critical of materialistic Western capitalism and Communism which he terms as totalitarian. Some of his ideas are expounded in his book “The Art of Loving” wherein he explains how one can cultivate and forge bonds of love with fellow human beings through respect, care, responsibility and knowledge. One may or may not agree fully with his analysis but it is definitely stimulating and even though written more than fifty years ago, very relevant, and perhaps more than ever before.

Later in early 70s Alvin Toffler, in his books “Future Shock” and “Third Wave” dealt with the problems of the modern word on parallel lines with different themes. He does talk of psychological and emotional disorientation caused by too rapid a change from agrarian society to industrial society and unstoppable onward march of technology to a futuristic society. He predicted the digital revolution, information overload, scientific advances in genetics, superfast communication highway, rapid rate of obsolescence of not only commodities but also skillset required to survive that will characterize the future super industrial society. This will lead to the death of nuclear family, and rise of consumerism and individualism that will pose another set of issues relating to ever changing human relationships. While Toffler analyzed societal changes more at macro level, Fromm centered his scrutiny at micro level.