La patología de la normalidad Quotes

“I wonder sometimes whether a person has to become insane these days in order to feel certain things. Lessing once said, “Who doesn’t become insane over certain things, has no sanity to lose,”
― Erich Fromm, La patología de la normalidad

“Der Anpassungstheorie liegen folgende Annahmen zugrunde: 1. Jede Gesellschaft als soche ist normal; 2. seelisch krann ist, wer von dem von der Gesellschaft favorisierten Persönlichkeitstyp abweicht; 3. das Gesundheitswesen im Bereich von Psychiatrie udn Psychotherapie verfolgt das Ziel, den einzelnen auf das Niveau des Durchschnittschmenschen zu bringen, unabhängig davon, ob dieser blind ist oder nicht blind.”
― Erich Fromm, La patología de la normalidad

“Mai întâi, se consideră că fiecare societate este, ca atare, normală și, în al doilea rând, că boala mentală este o deviere de la tiparul de personalitate dorit de societate; în al treilea rând, se spune că scopul igienei mentale - scopul psihiatriei, al psihoterapiei - este să îl muleze pe om pe tiparul mediu de personalitate, indiferent dacă majoritatea e cea oarbă sau dacă individul este cel orb. Ceea ce contează e ca el să fie asaptat și ca ei să nu fie deranjați.”
― Erich Fromm, La patología de la normalidad

“Dacă ne înttebăm ce vrem să spunem prin sănătate mentală, trebuie să diferențiem între două concepte de bază care sunt în continuare în uz, dar care adesea nu sunt clar diferenŧiate, deși distincția este foarte clară. Unul dintre concepte este de natură socială, relativistă. El este echivalent cu starea psihică pe care o are majoritatea societăŧii. Sănătatea mentală ar fi deci adaptarea la modurile de viață din societatea actuală, indiferent dacă această societate este ca atare sănătoasă sau nebună. Tot ce contează este dacă persoana se adaptează sau nu.”
― Erich Fromm, La patología de la normalidad

“Întregul sentiment al valorii unui individ - dacă e să-i spunem individ - depinde de cât de vandabil este acesta, dacă există sau nu cerere pentru el. Din acest motiv percepția sa de sine și încrederea sa interioară nu depind niciodată de aprecierea calităților sale reale și concrete, a inteligenței, onsetității, integrității, umorului, a orice este el, ci depind de felul în care el reușește (sau nu) să se vândă pe sine. De aceea el este mereu nesigur, mereu dependent de succes și devine deosebit de temător dacă nu are perspectiva succesului previzibil.”
― Erich Fromm, La patología de la normalidad

“The idea of the responsible and well informed citizen who participates in the important decisions of the community is the central concept of democracy. But due to the quantitative increase in population and to the influence of methods of mass suggestion, the substance of democracy is weakening.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“We are confronted with the fact that today the individual citizen, practically speaking, has almost no possibility to influence events which go on. We know little. We are not asked. Decisions are made which have to be made above our heads in the kind of system which we operate, but the question is: Can means and ways be found to organize work, to organize society, to organize government in such a way that people are not handled and manipulated like automatons, but that individual citizens can have a chance to participate in decisions.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“the vast majority of people have a feeling that there is almost nothing in which they can really, concretely and not abstractly influence and participate in the affairs of society.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“Any person who becomes aware even for a moment, of the fundamental, essential aloneness of himself as an individual, must feel insecure.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“There is a sentence in the Old Testament which I think has some reference to our situation today. It says: “And you shall be cursed because thou did not serve thy God, in joy and gladness amidst the abundance of things.” [Deuteronomium 28:47] We have an abundance of things but we serve them and without joy and gladness.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“all experiences inside and outside of ourselves become abstract as commodities become in the market. We are unrelated to real experience, we are in a vacuum, we are therefore insecure, we are therefore in danger of boredom, and we are therefore in a very serious situation of mental health, which we only overcome by a routine in which we do not have to face our boredom and the emptiness of our relationship to others and to ourselves, and the abstract quality of our experiences.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“This attitude of buying, this religious expectation that there are endless things which we can get, and the almost orgastic pleasure in visualizing the wealth of new things you can buy, this is something which carries over in our attitude towards things other than new models. We have become consumers of everything, consumers of science, consumers of art, consumers of lectures, consumers of love, and the attitude is always the same.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“we are starved for any touch with that which, in most cultures, was provided for by religion or by the equivalent of religion, and with us, there is hardly anything which is worth while to mention.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“The average person believes that the scientist is a priest who knows all the answers and who is in direct touch with all that he wants to know, just as some people are satisfied that the priest, if he is in touch with God, if he can see him once in a while he feels he has some part in this communication with God.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“we—the proud people who started out to dominate nature—have become slaves of the very economic machine which we created in the process. We dominated nature, but our machine dominates us. We are perhaps more dominated by the artifacts we have created with our machines, than in many cultures people are dominated by nature which they have not learned to master.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy

“while there are many good points in our society, many things if one wants, to be proud of, that it is at least very questionable whether the way of life in which we live right now is more conducive to mental health or to mental illness.”
― Erich Fromm, The Pathology of Normalcy