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• 2020.5, Erich Fromm

• 모성 고착: 필요를 모두 채워주던 어머니의 품으로 퇴행한다. 
• 부성 고착: 아버지와의 동일화를 통해 분열을 극복한다. 
• 죽음 지향: 주변의 모든 것을 소화하고 파괴하려는 충동.
• 자아 강화: 끊임없이 자아를 확장하고 강화한다. 

• Any society, in order to survive, must mold the character of its members in such a way that they want to do what they have to do; their social function must become internalized and transformed into something they feel driven to do, rather than something they are obliged to do.

• Well - being means, finally, to drop one’s Ego, to give up greed, to cease chasing after the preservation and the aggrandizement of the Ego, to be and to experience one’s self in the act of being, not in having, preserving, coveting, using.

• The achievement of the aim of Zen, as Suzuki has made very clear in his book, Studies in Zen, implies the overcoming of greed in all forms, whether it is the greed for possession, for fame, or for affection; it implies overcoming narcissistic self - glorification and the illusion of omnipotence. It implies, furthermore, the overcoming of the desire to submit to an authority who solves one’s own problem of existence. The person who only wants to use the discovery of the unconscious to be cured of sickness will, of course, not even attempt to achieve the radical aim which lies in the overcoming of repressedness.

• 2020.3, Erich Fromm

• the question is not whether man returns to religion and believes in God but whether he lives love and thinks truth. If he does so the symbol systems he uses are of secondary importance. If he does not they are of no importance.
• Centering the religious discussion on the acceptance or denial of the symbol God blocks the understanding of the religious problem as a human problem and prevents the development of that human attitude which can be called religious in a humanistic sense.

• While we have created wonderful things we have failed to make of ourselves beings for whom this tremendous effort would seem worthwhile .
• The threat to the religious attitude lies not in science but in the predominant practices of daily life .

• neurotic symptoms are not isolated phenomena which can be dealt with independently from moral problems.
• psychoanalysis shifted its emphasis more and more from therapy of the neurotic symptoms to therapy of difficulties in living rooted in the neurotic character. 

• love, if we mean by love a capacity for the experience of concern, responsibility, respect, and understanding of another person and the intense desire for that other person’s growth.
• man must strive to recognize the truth and can be fully human only to the extent to which he succeeds in this task. He must be independent and free, an end in himself and not the means for any other person’s purposes. He must relate himself to his fellow men lovingly. If he has no love, he is an empty shell even if his were all power, wealth, and intelligence. Man must know the difference between good and evil, he must learn to listen to the voice of his conscience and to be able to follow it.

-2019.5, Erich Fromm

까뮈는 가장 중요한 철학적 질문을 ‘인생이 살만한 가치가 있느냐 없느냐를 판단하는 것’이라고 했다. 대부분의 사람들은 삶에 대해서 철학적 질문을 하기 전에, 우선 살아간다. 그리고, 가끔 생각이 나면 그 가치를 생각한다. 

오늘날 우리들이 가진 삶의 지향은 물질적인 성취와 이를 통한 즐거움 추구에 초점이 맞춰져 있다. 서점에 가서 잘 팔리는 책들을 살펴보자. 한편으로는 좋은 학벌을 쌓아 안정된 직장에 들어갈 수 있도록 도움을 주는 학습법 및 자기 계발서들과, 돈을 저축하고 이를 재투자해서 이자수익을 얻을 수 있도록 조언해 주는 재테크, 부동산, 증권 투자서들이 있고, 다른 한편으로는 힘들게 쌓아 올린 부를 소비해서 즐거움을 얻도록 도와주는 여행지, 와인, 음식, 주택, 인테리어, 패션에 대한 책들이 있다. 오늘날 현대인이 만들어낸 사회는 거대한 생산과 소비의 순환 고리이다. 우리의 물질적 기반을 이루는 생산과 소비의 순환 고리를 넘어선 삶의 가치는 무엇일까?

이것은 무척이나 개인적인 질문이다. 어떻게 살아갈 것인가? 어떤 도덕적 원칙에 의거해서 살아갈 것인가? 에리히 프롬은 이 책에서 ‘인간중심의 도덕 Humanistic Ethic'을 이야기한다. 그것은 외부의 권위에 의한 도덕과는 구별되는, 개인의 성장과 생산성의 발현을 기반으로 하는 도덕이다. 인간은 다른 것이 수단이 되어서는 안 되고, 그 자체로 목적이 되어야 한다. 때문에 도덕적 가치의 판단 기준은 인간의 복리가 되어야 한다. 

* Humanistic ethics, in contrast to authoritarian ethics, may likewise be distinguished by formal and material criteria. Formally, it is based on the principle that only man himself can determine the criterion for virtue and sin and not an authority transcending him. Materially, it is based on the principle that “good” is what is good for man and “evil” what is detrimental to man; the sole criterion of ethical value being man’s welfare.

인간의 복리라고해서 쾌락주의자들이 이야기하는 최대한의 즐거움을 얻는 것이 아니다. 프롬이 생각한 삶의 목적은 각 개인의 잠재력을 실현하여 삶을 살아가는 것이다. 이것은 인간을 넘어선 거대한 이상을 위해 희생하는 삶을 사는 것도 아니고,  눈앞의 쾌락만을 위해 하루하루 살아가는 무의미한 삶도 아니다. 세계로부터 분리된 인간은 생산적인 활동을 통해 개인의 자율성을 보존하면서, 고립을 벗어날 수 있다. 이런 생산적인 삶을 살기 위해서는 세계의 작동 방식을 이해하고, 다른 존재에 대한 애정을 갖추어야 한다. 

* Humanistic ethics takes the position that if man is alive he knows what is allowed; and to be alive means to be productive, to use one’s powers not for any purpose transcending man, but for oneself, to make sense of one’s existence, to be human.
* The mature and productive individual derives his feeling of identity from the experience of himself as the agent who is one with his powers; this feeling of self can be briefly expressed as meaning “I am what I do.”
* Man comprehends the world, mentally and emotionally, through love and through reason. His power of reason enables him to penetrate through the surface and to grasp the essence of his object by getting into active relation with it. His power of love enables him to break through the wall which separates him from another person and to comprehend him.

하지만, 현대 사회는 인간이 주체적으로 생산적인 존재가 되는 것을 방해한다. 존재로 살게 놔두기보다는 ‘Marketing Personality’와 대량소비를 통해 생산체계의 부속품이자 소비하는 존재로 만든다.  광고와 마케팅의 기법, 주변 사람들의 의견에 휘둘리며 개인들은 내가 어떻게 하면 행복해지는 가를 고민하기보다는 사회가 권유하는 소비활동과 (소외된) 생산활동에 집중하게 된다. 

* Modern society, in spite of all the emphasis it puts upon happiness, individuality, and self-interest, has taught man to feel that not his happiness (or if we were to use a theological term , his salvation ) is the aim of life , but the fulfillment of his duty to work , or his success. Money , prestige , and power have become his incentives and ends.
* Our moral problem is man’s indifference to himself. It lies in the fact that we have lost the sense of the significance and uniqueness of the individual, that we have made ourselves into instruments for purposes outside ourselves, that we experience and treat ourselves as commodities, and that our own powers have become alienated from ourselves. We have become things and our neighbors have become things. The result is that we feel powerless and despise ourselves for our impotence.

이렇게 자신의 본성에서 소외된 삶을 살게된 현대인들은 상시적인 무력감과 우울증을 겪게 되고, 삶 자체에 대해서 공허한 느낌을 느끼게 된다. 

* There is an increasing number of people to whom everything they are doing seems futile. They are still under the spell of the slogans which preach faith in the secular paradise of success and glamour. But doubt, the fertile condition of all progress, has begun to beset them and has made them ready to ask what their real self-interest as human beings is.

실존적 질문에 답을 찾기 위해서는 ‘인간 중심의 도덕’을 기준으로 삼아야 한다. 행복한가? 생산적인 삶을 살고 있는가? 사회가 원하는 삶을 살고 있지는 않은가? 프롬의 통찰은 오늘날에도 여전히 유효하다. 오히려 그가 이 책을 썼을 때보다 사람들이 삶에서 느끼고 있는 무력감은 더 커졌을 수도 있다. 

오늘날 화제가 되고 있는 Jordan B. Peterson의 주장과 거의 유사한 맥락의 주장을 80년 전에 씌워진 에리히 프롬의 책에서 찾을 수 있다. 고전 인정!