Man can only be himself when he is capable of express your innate potentialities, but this will hardly happen when your goal is to possess the greatest number of things, if you only insist on obtaining possessions you will end up becoming just another object. On the other hand, to achieve “being” you must dedicate yourself to an authentic activity that is none other than that which allows you to fully develop your capabilities.
orientation of being
Let us pay attention to the definition on which he called the orientation of being: “The way of being has as prerequisites independence, freedom and the presence of critical reason. Its fundamental characteristic is to be active, and not in the sense of an external activity, of being busy, but of an internal activity, the productive use of our faculties, talent, and the richness of the gifts that they have (although in varying degrees ) all human beings. This means renewing, growing, flowing, loving, transcending the prison of the isolated ego, being actively interested, giving.”
Fromm told us that only abandoning the way of havingwhere we cling to belongings and our ego, the way of being can emerge. To be, it is necessary to avoid selfishness and egocentrism, but for many this is difficult, giving up the orientation of having causes them anxiety, without realizing that by stopping relying on properties they can begin to fully use their strength and walk through themselves. (1)
Having in modern society
In the whirlwind of modern society, individuals tend to feel more isolated and lonelythis forces them to look for palliatives that allow them to overcome that feeling of insecurity, one of the forms generally used is accumulate an increasing number of possessions, in such a way that these objects become an extension of their own being. When these acquisitions are lost, it is as if the person lost part of his or her self and felt like an incomplete individual.
Other factors that complement possessions are prestige and power, almost as essential as the first in their palliative function. Even for those with little purchasing power, the family can be a source of prestige, within it men can fantasize with the illusion of feeling powerful, other times national pride can play an important role when considering themselves a person with prestige. .(2)
Of course, to exist, man needs to possess certain things, but he can live very well with purely functional possessions, which is how it was in the first 40,000 years of the existence of Homo Sapiens. This is the difference that Fromm stated: “The functional property is a real and existential need of man; while institutional property satisfies a pathological need, conditioned by certain socioeconomic circumstances.”
Man needs a home, food, tools, clothes, etc. They are essential issues for his biological existence, but there are other things that do more to his spiritual world that are also necessary, such as ornaments, decoration, artistic objects; These are usually proprietary but can also be considered functional.
As civilization developed, the functional property of things decreased, this is how you can have various suits, machines that avoid work, televisions, radios, books, tennis rackets, etc. All these possessions should not be different from those functional ones of primitive cultures and yet they are, the change occurs when they stop being a means for life and become a means for passive consumption or an element of status. (3)
Functional property
Fromm considered that the traditional classification of property into public and private was insufficient and lent itself to mistakes. According to his criteria, he had to greater attention should be paid to whether the property was functional and therefore not exploitative or if, on the contrary, it constituted a source for the exploitation of human beings.
Property, whether it belongs to the State or even to the workers of a factory, could lend itself to the emergence of a bureaucracy that seriously limits the possibilities of the rest of the workers. Purely functional property was not considered by Marx or other socialists as private property that should be socialized.
And delving into the explanation of what he called functional property, he pointed out that it was clear that No one should own more than what they can use rationally. This correlation between possession and use has several consequences that I detailed.
In principle, having only what can be used determines us to stay active. Greed can hardly arise when the amount of things I own is limited to the use I can make of them. It will also be rare for envy to appear because as long as I keep myself busy using what I have, I will hardly be able to control what my peers’ possessions are. And lastly, I will not be afraid of losing what I have because the functional property can be replaced quickly.(4)
Fromm in no way supported the elimination of private property, but he did see with concern the disastrous role it could play in those societies where material goods acquired greater importance than the well-being of human beings.
While in our culture the supreme goal is to have, it even seems to be suggested that the very essence of human beings is to have and that the individual who possesses nothing is nobody. What Marx strove to show is that luxury is a defect, something almost as negative as poverty itself, so the goal should be set on being much instead of facing that insatiable quest to have much.(5)
Difference between being and having
The difference between being and having is that which corresponds to a society primarily interested in people and another that gives preeminence to things. The having orientation is characteristic of Western industrial society in which the desire for profit, fame and power have become the predominant problems of life.
Even language has become an example of the existing alienation where having is the central concern, that is why “we have a problem”, “we have insomnia”, “we have a happy marriage”, everything can be turned into a possession. (6)
Fromm considered these two forms of existence, that of being and that of having, as positions regarding life and our fellow human beings. He also assigned both the category of forming two character structures whose predominance, in one sense or another, determined the thoughts, feelings and actions of human beings.
In this sense, he exemplified the way to approach different aspects of life according to these two orientations that we have been analyzing. In it learning, The way of having is expressed in students attending their classes, taking notes and learning from those notes, even by heart, with the central objective of passing the subject, which is why the content of what is received is not enriched or expanded. In the way of being, students do not attend classes with a blank mind, with a passive attitude, but rather they have thought about the problems and issues that will be addressed, they have dealt with the topic and are interested in such a way that they respond in a actively.(7)
In the way of being, people surrender to the conversation, maintaining a contagious vitality where the participants help each other to transcend egocentrism, in this way the conversation stops being an exchange of goods, whether information, knowledge or status; to become a dialogue where it does not matter who is right.(8)
In the mode of having knowledge is taken possession of, in the mode of being, knowing serves as a means for the process of thinking productively. Knowing means realizing that a good part of what is believed to be true is an illusion produced by the influence of the social world, therefore knowledge begins with the destruction of false illusions.(9)
Being and having and religious beliefs
In it way of having, Faith It consists of the possession of an answer for which there is no rational proof. Relieves the individual and avoid thinking for yourself and make decisions, that faith gives you certainty. In this way, faith becomes the support for those who want to feel safe, for those who want to obtain answers from life but who do not dare to seek them for themselves.
In it way to befaith does not consist of believing in certain ideas but rather in an inner orientation, in an attitude. Faith in oneself, in others, in Humanity, in our ability to be fully human, also implies certainty but based on each person’s experience, not on submission to an authority that imposes a certain belief.(10)
Next we will see the association that the German thinker makes between that existence based on being and some religious beliefswhich also categorically condemned the excessive ambitions of men.
One of the main themes of the Old Testament is “leave what you have, free yourself from your chains and be yourself.” Marx made famous something that was already found in the Bible, “to each according to his needs”, the right of everyone to food was established without a doubt, the children of God do not have to do anything to be fed. A commandment condemns hoarding and covetousness, the people of Israel were ordered not to save anything for the next day.(11)
He shabbat It is one of the most important concepts in the Bible and Judaism, Fromm told us that it was not for rest itself, but for rest in the sense of complete harmony between human beings and between them and nature. Nothing should be destroyed and nothing should be built, it is a day of truce in man’s struggle with the world, on the Sabbath we live as if we had nothing, without pursuing any goal other than that of being, that is, expressing our essential powers: eat, study, pray, sing, make love.
The Shabbat is a day of joy where the individual is fully himself, the Talmud calls it the anticipation of the messianic time, a day where money, property and sadness have no place. The modern Sunday is a day full of consumption and escaping from oneself. The Shabbat was the vision of a future period where property will have a secondary role, fear and war will not exist, instead expressing our essential powers will be the goal of life.
He New Testament It is even more radical in its protest against the existence of the structure of having. The first Christians were poor, despised by society, they categorically condemned wealth and power, for which they were relentlessly persecuted, Christianity was a rebellion of slaves who believed in human solidarity.
In the gospels The clear message is evident that people must free themselves from greed and the desire to possess, which means neither more nor less than they must get rid of…