Politics
To Have or to Be
Publisher: Continuum International, 2005, 182pp, 1st ed.
To have or to be? is one of the seminal books of the second half of the 20th century. Nothing less than a manifesto for a new social and psychological revolution to save our threatened planet, this book is a summary of the penetrating thought of Erich Fromm. His thesis is that two modes of existence struggle for the spirit of humankind: the having mode, which concentrates on material possessions, power, and aggression, and is the basis of the universal evils of greed, envy, and violence; and the being mode, which is based on love, the pleasure of sharing, and in productive activity.
Table of contents
| World perspectives - what this series means | ||
| Introduction : the great promise, its failure, and new alternatives | 1 | |
| Pt. 1 | Understanding the difference between having and being | |
| I | A first glance | 13 |
| II | Having and being in daily experience | 24 |
| III | Having and being in the Old and New Testaments and in the writings of master Eckhart | 40 |
| Pt. 2 | Analyzing the fundamental differences between the two modes of existence | |
| IV | What is the having mode? | 57 |
| V | What is the being mode? | 71 |
| VI | Further aspects of having and being | 88 |
| Pt. 3 | The new man and the new society | |
| VII | Religion, character, and society | 109 |
| VIII | Conditions for human change and the features of the new man | 137 |
| IX | Features of the new society | 141 |