To Have or to Be?

Rating:
Summary: An Eye Opener
Review: Fromm describes, in very understandable terms, the eternal conflict between the desire to "have" and the desire to "be". He outlines logically that most problems humanity has is the strive for materialism. He compares things to be had as dead and qualities to be as living. Some of his insights are drawn from the Bible and show that God Himslef, by his very name, is the supreme "being", whose wish it is that man becomes like him. Fromm warns against the perils of "have" based societies, and conclusively demonstrates that "be" oriented individuals have one of the major keys to a better and more satisfying life.

Rating:
Summary: This book will change your attitude on life
Review: I've read the book twice in last year and highly recommend it. The BEING part is basically a description of the world today. Economy is booming, people are having more and more and very few are focusing on being. A very interesting part of the book is Analysis of Being and Having in different religions. The final part where Fromm points out a way to change the society so it would be concentrated on being and WELL-BEING is actually quite utopian, but the value of this book is that it shows how being and having affect our live and how we could change our life. To save the world, the big changes have to start from the level of individuals.

Rating:
Summary: This book will change your attitude on life
Review: I've read the book twice in last year and highly recommend it. The BEING part is basically a description of the world today. Economy is booming, people are having more and more and very few are focusing on being. A very interesting part of the book is Analysis of Being and Having in different religions. The final part where Fromm points out a way to change the society so it would be concentrated on being and WELL-BEING is actually quite utopian, but the value of this book is that it shows how being and having affect our live and how we could change our life. To save the world, the big changes have to start from the level of individuals.

Rating:
Summary: Got worse since then ..
Review: The author argues how the industrial society organized around the captitalistic framework has promoted a culture to want more and more and relies on people wanting more and more for achieving what it thinks is progress, disregarding in the process other wholistic goals such as true joyfulness of being, well-being of the total mankind, environment etc.

Marxism as implemented by communism is no better again due to its emphasis again on having "stuff" for every one (the author seems to think Marx essentially had it right but it is the followers such as Lenin messed up things; I personally think fundamendals of organizing a society based on equal conditions is essentially flawed; there is a far cry between equal rights and forcing equal conditions on everyone).

Another theme which the author talks of is how underdeveloped, non-white societies and cultures are different and place more emphasis on being rather than having mode. As some one who was born and brought up in India and who has lived for more than a decade in US, I think the author is a little outdated here, if he ever was right on this aspect. I can assure you the having mode is universal across the board, may be due to spread of capitalism and globalization (though I doubt it; I think even in prehistoric times, man was a hoarder of things rather than an altruistic animal living always for the good of the society)

Anyway, this book is about changing one's attitude towards how to live meaningfully without getting carried away with having and wanting more and more things .. this ultimately is the essense of being spiritual and humansitic without getting carried away with any particular formalized religious framework.

Eric Fromm writes well and you could do worse than read this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Spiritual Book
Review: The traditional question review and update by Fromm's mastery. As part of his constant and insistent understanding of the world, this book points out again that, the "to have" approach leads to first unexpectable sidedamages. It is important to understand that, a Society that put emphasis on "to have" will promote scarcity and misery. Read to believe.

Rating:
Summary: To not
Review: This is easily the worst book I have read recently, although I can see how a lot of people will like it, especially the non-realists.

It starts out mildly thought-provoking and progressively gets worst and worst. In Amazon ranking terms it starts out as a 3 and ends up as a 1 in lack of a smaller number. I hate not finishing books and I had to push myself not to abandon this one.

The worst part of the book is the ending, which is Fromm's suggestions for a "sane" society. Ironically, his described world (even though an impossibility) sounds tremendously more nightmarish and "sick" than anything Kafka ever dreamt. How is it that Fromm got to write an afterword for 1984 and at the same time completely miss the point, is beyond me.

It never fails to surpise me how certain people come to believe they have a solution to the world's problems. I believe that as time goes by, this and other Fromm books will become an example of things to avoid. In this respect, reading this book is not entirely useless, for it will increase your arsenal of arguments against similar artificial solutions proposed by similarly big-headed individuals.

Rating:
Summary: Real Fundamentalism!
Review: will you fall into the Western, mechanistic, and capitalistic mode of Having, or evolve into the perennial Being taught by those whom Fromm calls the Masters of Living? Bearing mind that the two can overlap (one has only to think of Jesus' advice to possess as though one possessed nothing), Fromm sets out the polarity well for purposes of psychological study. Ought to be taught in school...