MAN AND THE CONCEPT OF MASS SOCIETY IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF E. FROMM
Journal Title: Регіональні студії - Year 2018, Vol 12, Issue
Abstract
During the second half of the twentieth century Erich Fromm’s political philosophy was a powerful foundation for a large-scale critique of a developed industrial society. With the transition this type of society to the high-tech conditions of existence, with the increasing role of information, there is a need for a new understanding of the social criticism of E. Fromm within the current postmodern situation. In addition, from the theoretical point of view it also seems important and relevant to analyse the philosophy of E. Fromm in the broad concept of mass society. There is an urge need, within the framework of this concept, to analyse the views of E. Fromm on the role and place of a man in the conditions of the modern capitalist system, as well as his views on the possibilities and limits of human freedom. E. Fromm noticed that the “average” man in a developed society is afraid of his own freedom, since the availability of freedom also implies responsibility. To somehow avoid responsibility, a person gets rid of his own freedom, escapes from it into passivity and dissolution in the masses, controlled by stronger personalities-leaders. This leads to the formation of a mass society, which consists of a set of impersonal individuals, which E. Fromm called “authoritarian personalities”. In the concept of mass society by E. Fromm, modern man appears as a creation of a capitalist society, which imposes him to exist in narrow boundaries of market standards. Man reduces himself to the function that he performs in society, and equates himself to things that he produces and consumes in the rhythm of monotonous stability. To designate this type of person E. Fromm proposed the concept of “market personality”. The future of the society seemed to the philosopher extremely disappointing if it did not choose the way of reformism and “recovery”. For this, a man needs to give up the consumer mode of existence, based on the idea of material property, and he has to focus on the mode of being, which will help to open true self of personality, and will free it from the effects of late capitalism society. Man must fully disclose his subjectivity and creative potential, which will be the prerequisite for his release.
Authors and Affiliations
І. М. Вегеш
Keywords
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