‘As soon as I have expressed something in a word’, wrote Erich Fromm, an alienation takes place, and the full experience has already been substituted for by the word. The full experience actually exists only up to the moment when it is expressed in language. This general process of cerebration is more widespread and intense in modern culture than it probably was at any time before in history … words more and more take the place of experience. Yet the person concerned is unaware of this. He thinks he sees something; he thinks he feels something; yet there is no experience except memory and
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