Problems of human alienation in society in the theories of the 20th century

Alienation (English alienation, German Entfremdung) is a social process characterized by the transformation of human activity and its results into an independent force that dominates it and is hostile to it [1].

Neo-Freudianism [2] considers interpersonal relations and socio-psychological phenomena to be the source of human alienation and self-alienation.

Followers of Freud (representatives of neo-Freudianism) believe that social and cultural influences play a leading role in the formation of a person. That is, they focus their attention on social and cultural processes. In their opinion, it is these processes that have a significant impact on the occurrence of intrapersonal conflicts of an individual. At the basis of all theoretical constructions of this direction are the concepts of the unconscious and fundamental conflict between the relationship between the individual and society. The main representatives of neo-Freudianism are Harry Sullivan, K. Horney and Erich Fromm. The leaders of neo-Freudianism are H. Marcuse, H. Jung, W. Reich, and A. Adler. A. Kardiner, F. Alexander and some other representatives of psychoanalysis are also often considered neo-Freudians. For example, after emigrating to the USA in 1932, K. Horney discovered that the basis of neurotic conflicts in patients in the New World was significantly different from that in patients in Germany and Austria. Comprehension of these facts led Horney to abandon the Freudian theory of instincts and to recognize the socio-cultural conditioning of psychopathology. Thus, neo-Freudians remained committed to the idea of ​​unconscious emotional motivation of human activity, but put forward evidence that psychopathology is relative and specific to each culture.

Freud’s ideas were widely developed in the writings of his followers. Thus, one of his closest students, Alfred Adler (1870-1937), shifted the emphasis from the sexual unconscious to the unconscious desire for power as the main drive of people, which is manifested in their behavior within the framework of the family, interpersonal relations and social group relations. Another of his students and close associates, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), developed the doctrine of the collective unconscious, which determines the behavior of social groups. Representatives of psychocultural Freudianism Karen Horney (1885-1952), Erich Fromm (1900-1980) and others, recognizing a certain role of the subconscious, including sexual instincts, in human behavior, justify the role of social factors, including social ties and relations between people, material and spiritual culture. In their opinion, the socio-cultural conditions of people’s lives largely determine the motives and content of their activities and behavior.

Thus, it can be said that representatives of neo-Freudism deviated towards a greater recognition of the role of consciousness and the influence of the social factor on the development of the personality, in contrast to Freud, who recognized only sexual energy. It must be said that the development of the problem of the unconscious made a significant contribution to the study of the structure of individual and social consciousness, dividing the area of ​​the human psyche into the sphere of the conscious and the unconscious. Neo-Freudians introduce such a concept as overcompensation. By it, they understand a special social form of reaction to feelings of inferiority. On its basis, great personalities grow up, “great people”, distinguished by exceptional abilities. Yes, the wonderful career of Napoleon Bonaparte, based on this theory, is explained by the man’s attempt to compensate for his physical disadvantage – short height – at the expense of his successes.

The theory of alienation by Erich Fromm (1900-1980) is recognized as the most “socialized” teaching of Neo-Freudism, who argued that the problem of alienation, which was put forward by K. Marx in the socio-economic aspect, should also be extended to the mental activity of a person. In the conditions of scientific and technical progress, a person loses connections with the world and other people. There is a person’s alienation, which E. Fromm calls “negative freedom.” A person becomes “free from everything” and therefore alienated. This condition depresses a person and causes neuroses. A person suffers under the burden of freedom, he does not want to be “free”, he wants to have certain relationships with other people, to communicate with them, but the surrounding world does not give him such an opportunity. As a result, a person becomes lonely [3].

E. Fromm emphasized the dual nature of man. On the one hand, she yearns for independence, and on the other hand, she wants to get rid of this independence, which leads to alienation. To overcome alienation, E. Fromm suggests instilling in people humanistic principles, which are based on the feeling of love. This feeling is inherent in the most developed type of human social character – spiritual, productive. The need for love involves two types of it – love for oneself and love for other people. Alienation has a detrimental effect on a person, causes neuroses, while love contributes to his recovery and, in general, to the improvement of society.

The Frankfurt School [4] is a critical theory of modern (industrial) society, a type of neo-Marxism. The main representatives: Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Walter Benjamin, Leo Leventhal, Franz Leopold Neumann, Friedrich Pollock, from the “second generation” – Jürgen Habermas, Oskar Negt. The term “Frankfurt School” is a collective name used for thinkers associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main. The representatives of critical theory themselves have never united themselves under this name.

The representatives of this school believed that the bourgeois class society had turned into a monolithic classless totalitarian system, in which the revolutionary role of transforming society passed to marginal intellectuals and outsiders.

The creative heritage of E. Fromm is the object of study by many researchers. The problem of human alienation in society, developed by E. Fromm, is partially touched upon in their writings by individual scientists – H. Wells, V. Leibin, S. Kravchenko, R. Funk, E. Telyatnikova, and others, but it deserves a more detailed consideration.

The majority of authors believe that E. Fromm entered the history of philosophy as one of the most famous representatives of neo-Freudianism, whose supporters “advocated the tendency to reform classical psychoanalysis on the basis of limiting the biologism and mechanism of Z. Freud by supplementing his doctrine with the achievements of social sciences, in particular, the social teaching of K. Marx » [5, p.16]. Some researchers claim that E. Fromm developed his own philosophical system that goes beyond the neo-Freudian trend. Undoubtedly, the thinker has many original concepts and ideas, therefore the philosopher gave the author’s justification, different from his predecessors, to the problem of human alienation.

Escape from Freedom [6] is the first book of the psychoanalyst and social psychologist Erich Fromm, which was published in 1941 by the British publishing house Farrar & Rinehart. Written in English during the author’s stay in exile in the USA. The material for writing the book was the results of the research under the “Authority and the Family” program, which was conducted by Fromm in New York.

In the book, Erich Fromm explores the nature of totalitarianism, first of all, Nazism, as a result of the internal conflict of individuality, social alienation and “escape” from freedom, which leads to the formation of an authoritarian personality.

The methodology of the book is based on the teachings of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Based on the ideas of Freudo-Marxism, Erich Fromm explains the nature of the authoritarian personality through its manifestation of sadistic and masochistic elements. This is manifested in a person’s willingness to obey those stronger than himself with the simultaneous desire for power over the weaker.

In the book, Fromm devoted a lot of attention to the study of the Reformation era, as well as Protestant theology and ethics, which played a revolutionary role in Western civilization thanks to the ideas of Martin Luther and John Calvin. Predestination, the feeling of one’s own smallness and isolation, and the feeling of fear of freedom emphasize the fact of people’s inequality, reinforces the need for hierarchy and authority.

Fromm sees the source of Nazism in man’s fear of freedom, which was inherent in him during the Middle Ages, when, thanks to capitalism, the feudal way of life was destroyed. At the same time, capitalism has not offered alternative models for imitation, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity and alienation in a person – one of the strongest fears from which a person is ready to get rid of at any cost.

The main bearers of this feeling of fear were representatives of the lower than middle class, when the foundations of their social position in society were destroyed after the First World War. According to Fromm, representatives of these lower classes are dominated by the nature of the authoritarian personality, which is indicated by a commitment to conservatism and an aversion to the emancipation of the lower classes.

Fromm also examines democracy and freedom. Modern democracy and the industrialized nation are the models he approves, but the kind of external freedom that this section of society is developing can never be fully utilized without an equivalent internal freedom. Although a person becomes free from the totalitarian influences of any class of society, he still remains under the pressure of public opinion, experts and the influence of advertising. The way to become free as an individual is to be spontaneous in our self-expression and in the way we behave. Fromm reflected this thought in his existential statement that “there is only one meaning of life: life in action.”

Forms of alienation that are characteristic of most people in capitalist society (according to E. Fromm)

Consideration of the problem of human alienation should begin with Fromm’s vision of man: “human nature is not the sum of innate, biologically fixed urges, but also not a lifeless cast from the matrix of social conditions; it is a product of historical evolution in synthesis with certain innate mechanisms and laws” [7, p. 27]. Human nature, as E. Fromm believed, is a combination of biological and social factors. Mind, self-awareness, imagination and the ability to create distinguish a person from the animal world. Even the complete satisfaction of all primary needs does not solve the problem of human existence, “the strongest passions and needs of a person are not rooted in his body, but in the specifics of his existence” [8]. According to E. Fromm, the forces that determine human behavior derive from the vital conditions of the social environment in which he lives. Society simultaneously fulfills the function of suppression and the function of creating the human personality: “human nature – human passions and anxieties – is a product of culture. Man himself is the most important achievement of continuous human efforts, which we call history” [7, p.20].

In the work “Healthy Society”, E. Fromm, without rejecting physiological needs, singled out the needs of a person that arise from his very existence and are closely related to each other: the need for affiliation, connection with the surrounding world; the need to create and overcome one’s own limitations; the need for rootedness and brotherhood; in a sense of identity and individuality as opposed to group conformity; the need for a system of orientations and for worship. Fromm believed that most people could be happy if society were healthy. A person, according to Fromm, is not as bad as it seems, but in the process of education, he loses his innate ability to love and instead of a happy life, he receives a painful existence aimed not so much at fruitfulness, but at irrational submission to the requirements of authoritarian ethics. A person does not what he wants, not what he needs, but what authority requires: the leader, customs, general ideas. As a result, he stops thinking. “IT” thinks instead of him. These are the same differing opinions and general ideas. She stops feeling, she has pseudo-feelings: she gets angry not because she is angry, but because in a given situation she is supposed to be angry, she goes to the cinema or the theater not because she likes it, but because it is believed that it is good. This is how pseudo-representations are formed. As the philosopher noted in his work “Escape from Freedom”: “the very essence of human existence is the need for connection with the surrounding world, the need to avoid loneliness” [7, p.25]. It is not about physical contact, but about connection with ideas, moral values, and social standards. Lack of affiliation, belonging to any values ​​or principles leads to moral loneliness, which is more intolerable than physical loneliness.

From the moment when a person leaves the state of unity with nature and realizes himself as a being separated from the world and other people, the social history of man begins: “the process of growing separation of the individual from primary connections – we can call this process “individualization”, – achieved of the highest level in modern times, that is, from the Renaissance to the present day” [7, p. 29]. E. Fromm called the first aspect of the process of individualization the development of personality, and the second – loneliness, the level of which is steadily increasing.

The types of society that arose in the course of historical development did not help people overcome the feeling of isolation, but, on the contrary, only exacerbated it. E. Fromm believed that the problem of alienation reached its peak with the advent of capitalist society: “alienation is the fate of an individual under capitalism. By alienation, I understand this type of life experience, when a person becomes a stranger to himself. She seems to be “removed”, separated from herself. She ceases to be the center of her own world, the master of her actions; on the contrary, these actions and their consequences subordinate her to herself, she obeys them and sometimes even turns them into a certain cult” [9, p.230]. In a capitalist society, alienation is a total, comprehensive, imbued with it, a person’s attitude to work, objects, the state, people surrounding him and himself. Man has created a wonderful world of things, and now he has become a slave to his creation.

Capitalism created, according to E. Fromm’s definition, “market personality”, and this concept is identical to “alienated personality”. This is explained by the fact that “people of this type really feel alienated – from their work, from their compatriots, from nature and even from their own self” [10, p. 230]. The thinker studied in detail the “market personality”, which is characterized by the market type of “social character”. It is appropriate to note that it is E. Fromm who developed the concept of “social character”, which is defined by the author as “the result of the interaction of the individual psyche and socio-economic formation” [10, p. 204], and is an active psychological factor in the social process, which contributes to the effective adaptation of a person to the requirements of society. In addition to the market type, E. Fromm also singled out receptive, exploitative and accumulative types of “social character”, which are equally unproductive and “do not provide for the opportunity to break out of the framework of the system, do not give a person a chance to become free, that is, to become himself, to realize himself as a person” [11].

Market “social character” is based on the fact that the individual is transformed into a commodity. As E. Fromm believed, in such a society alienation prevails both in the sphere of production and in the sphere of consumption, people are perceived and evaluated precisely as things that are sold and bought. “The principle of evaluation is the same for both the market of goods and the market of personalities: goods are sold on one, personalities on the other, and there is no more difference, from the point of view of representatives of this orientation” [11]. In this way, a person completely renounces his inner essence, the individual forms in himself those qualities that are in demand among other members of society and seeks to sell himself profitably. The body, mind and soul of a person become his capital, accordingly, a profitable, profitable investment or placement of it (capital) is his highest aspiration and goal: “an alienated person inevitably loses the sense of his own “I”, any idea of ​​​​himself as a being unique and unique. Things do not have their own “I”, and a person who has become a thing cannot have one either” [9].

Based on the scientific works of E. Fromm, according to some researchers, it is possible to single out certain forms of alienation that are characteristic of most people in a capitalist society, in particular:

“- alienation from the world, land, means of production, machines and raw materials due to the fact that private ownership of them is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people;

a person is separated from another person, since one class is alienated from another and in the labor market people are competing goods;

a man is alienated from a woman in love and marriage because their relationship is subordinated and sacrificed to the struggle for existence and position in society;

a person is alienated from himself, his aspirations are alien to reality, his ideals are far from reality, his life is devoid of creativity, purposefulness and meaning” [12, p. 204].

The source of a person’s alienation from himself should be sought not only in social conditions, but also in human nature. E. Fromm defended the idea that man’s alienation from his own essence began when he “left” the animal world. The ability to think allows a person to realize himself “as an individual creature, separated from nature and other people… Realizing his own alienation, the inevitability of diseases, old age and death, a person cannot help but feel how insignificant he is, how little he weighs in comparison with the surrounding world, with all that is not included in her “I”” [7, p. 27]. Having realized himself as a separate being, a person is also aware of his alienation and loneliness, and “experiencing alienation creates anxiety, a feeling of helplessness, creates a state of fear: the world can step on me, and I am not able to resist it” [13].

Stimulating factors in the desire to overcome alienation

Fromm believes that in the process of education, a person stops living for himself, that he cannot be himself and at the same time is afraid to fall behind the crowd. A person is torn by contradictions, and he develops a painful feeling of loneliness. The way out of this situation is rationalization. Then submission to the norms does not look like slavery, but as a manifestation of one’s own will. The individual explains to himself that he does this not because society demands it, but because he needs it himself. However, his real developmental needs are not being met. The way out of this is neurotic symptoms.

In the desire to overcome alienation, four existential needs are motivating factors: to establish connections (getting closer to another through submission, power or love), to overcome oneself (the ability to rise above one’s passive existence by building or destroying one’s own life), to feel rooted (which gives rise to a sense of stability of the world, which again becomes a native home for a person), in self-identity (“I am I, and no one another”), in the system of views (the development of a consistent, balanced view of reality). E. Fromm believed that if at least one of these needs is not satisfied, the result is a mental illness of a person.

THERE ARE. Fromm was sure that each historical period is characterized by the progressive development of individuality in accordance with people’s desire for personal freedom. However, people achieve a significant level of autonomy and freedom of choice at the cost of losing a sense of security and the appearance of a sense of personal insignificance. Overcoming the feeling of loneliness, own insignificance and alienation requires giving up personal freedom and inhibits the development of individuality. E. Fromm described several strategies of “escape from freedom”:

– authoritarianism, defined as “the tendency to combine oneself with another in order to acquire the power lost by the individual self.” The masochistic form of authoritarianism is manifested in the excessive dependence of the individual, or doom to hopelessness. Brixon’s theory of periods of ego development had a significant impact on psychology and related fields of scientific knowledge.

All directions of neo-Freudianism can be considered as an attempt to sociologize the inherently biological Freudian concept of personality. Neo-Freudians put forward fundamental problems – the internal structure of the personality, the place of the “I” in it, the mechanisms of the formation and functioning of the personality, the role of the conscious and the unconscious, the regulation of behavior and activity, the mechanisms of psychological protection of the personality, etc. In general, thanks to Freudism and neo-Freudism, psychological science has been enriched with many ideas that have not lost their significance to this day.

It is obvious that all human activity and activity is aimed at solving the main problem of alienation – achieving unity with the world and with oneself. However, according to E. Fromm, a person seeks independence and freedom, but it is freedom that contributes to alienation. The process of development of human freedom has a dialectical character: “this is also the process of human development, mastering nature, strengthening human solidarity… On the other hand, increasing individualization also means increasing isolation and insecurity. the feeling of powerlessness and worthlessness of an individual person grows” [7, p. 38]. Human existence and freedom are primarily inseparable concepts, but here we are talking about negative “freedom from something” (actions determined instinctively), and not positive “freedom for something”. In the course of historical development, man expands the boundaries of his freedom, which, however, becomes a burden for him (man); overcoming the worship of traditional gods, a person creates new idols for himself; overcoming some forms of alienation that originate from medieval society, the individual, in the conditions of capitalism, becomes even more alienated from the products of his work, from other people, and from himself. The consequence of this for a person is the loss of personal individuality and his own uniqueness as a human being. It is obvious that “freedom and human alienation are considered by E. Fromm as two poles of the same historical process of development of human civilization. human freedom is interpreted by Fromm as a complex bilateral process, which has a negative “freedom from” and a positive “freedom for” [15, p. 220]. The development of humanity, as the thinker believed, goes along the path of increasing “freedom from”, however, the greater the degree of such freedom becomes, the more dependent a person is on it. In the final result, the negative “freedom from” turns into a force that rises above the person. At the same time, alienation becomes an even more tangible and comprehensive factor of human existence, as a result of which a person loses his identity.

In his writings, E. Fromm identified and substantiated the mechanisms of “escape” from freedom. The thinker notes that when the world becomes completely alien and a person seeks to overcome the boundless feeling of powerlessness and alienation, he has two ways. The first helps a person to find a connection with the world through love and work, through the authenticity of emotions and intellectual abilities, which will lead a person to unity with the surrounding world and himself, and at the same time the integrity and independence of a person’s own “self” is preserved, this is the way to “positive » freedom. The second path leads back and involves a person’s renunciation of freedom in order to try to overcome his loneliness and the gap between his personality and the world. This is a common escape from an intolerable situation, which entails ignoring the individuality and integrity of the human self.

Let’s consider the most important, according to E. Fromm, mechanisms of escape from freedom, which have social significance; they are based on the insecurity of an alienated individual and his desire to connect with the world and people in “unproductive” ways.

The authoritarian way of escape, which is realized through sadism and masochism, is carried out as “the urge of the individual to merge his own self with someone or something external in order to obtain the power he lacks … the forms of this mechanism are manifested in the desire to dominate ( sadism) or obey (masochism)” [7, p. 119]. As Erich Fromm believed, sadism and masochism do not exist separately, and act as different sides of the same character – authoritarian. Masochism in an individual manifests itself in “the tendency to humiliate and weaken oneself, to refuse the opportunities that open before him” [7, p.119-120]. Sadism is manifested in the individual’s desire to make people dependent on him, to gain complete power over them, to exploit and use them, to make people suffer and enjoy it.

Another mechanism of escape – destructiveism (destruction), which also stems from a person’s desire to overcome powerlessness and alienation, aims at the complete destruction of the object: “destroying the world is the last, desperate attempt to prevent this world from destroying me” [7, p. 147]. Destructivism seeks strength for the lonely individual at the expense of the elimination of any external threat. Finally, escape from freedom is possible with the help of “automating conformity”, and E. Fromm called this mechanism the most common in developed industrial society. Automating conformism is realized through the rejection of one’s own self, depersonalization, submission to mass standards; the individual fully assimilates the type of personality offered to him by society and ceases to be himself, but becomes like everyone else and the way others want to see him. The fear of loneliness and powerlessness comes at the cost of losing one’s own individuality.

The complete opposite of the negative “freedom from” is the path of positive “freedom for”, which involves the realization of the human personality. E. Fromm believed that a person’s self-realization is achieved through the active manifestation of all his emotional and intellectual capabilities. According to the scientist, positive freedom consists in the spontaneous activity of a person’s integral personality: “spontaneous activity is not a forced activity imposed on an individual by his isolation and powerlessness; it is not the activity of a robot conditioned by uncritical perception of external patterns. Spontaneous activity is the free activity of the individual” [7, p. 206], which involves the elimination of the gap between reason and nature. One of its components, as E. Fromm noted, is work, not as a forced activity to get rid of loneliness, but as creativity, and it is in the act of creation that a person unites with nature: “with every spontaneous activity, the individual merges with the world. But his personality is not only preserved, but becomes stronger. Since a personality is strong only as long as it is active… The activity itself is important, not its result” [7, p. 208].

A more important and, in fact, the main component of spontaneous activity is love, which should be a voluntary union of one person with another, while preserving one’s own personality: “love grows out of the desire to overcome separation and leads to unity, but does not destroy individuality” [ 7, p. 207]. From Fromm’s point of view, the only remedy that relieves the heavy consequences of loneliness is love. Only thanks to love, a person connects with another person and through him with the whole other world. However, in the process of upbringing, a person loses the ability to love. And instead of equal relations, possible only when they are involved in the feeling of love, relations of symbiosis arise – sadomasochistic relations that lead to neurotic disorders.

Restoring the feeling of love is one of the main tasks of psychoanalytic influence. Modern society is focused on the problem of the object of love: “Whom to love, whom to believe?” Fromm suggests focusing attention on the subject of love: “Can I love?” Only in love can a person find a real and true solution to the problem of loneliness and alienation, since, according to the definition of E. Fromm, “love is an active force in a person, a force that destroys the walls that separate a person from other people, and unites her with others” [13].

The question of love has always interested people, it is the only thing that almost all people experience, which you cannot study, you cannot read in a book, which you cannot touch. Everyone’s love is different, and everyone perceives and feels it differently. Note that the philosopher distinguished certain types of love, such as fraternal love, maternal love, erotic love, love for oneself and love for God, which are important for the full development and life of an individual. Therefore, if we talk about love, the question arises: “is it art or not?” [14].

In general, Fromm conveyed the content of the book in his preface, which immediately introduces the reader to the subject, complexity and seriousness of the book. I want to highlight right away that, first of all, “The Art of Love” includes many interesting ideas and I surprisingly agree with most of these ideas, which makes me very happy. Is love an art or not? It was to this issue that E. Fromm devoted his first chapter of his work.

The majority of people consider love to be a coincidence, which I think is wrong in general. Because, for many, “the problem of love consists only in being in love, and not in loving, giving one’s love, that is, knowing how to love” [13]. Most people believe that, in fact, love is easy and not difficult, the only problem is to find a suitable object that would meet all the criteria (like a thing) and then love you back. It would be more reasonable to say that love is a harmonious combination of effort and knowledge. But many people do not even think about the fact that in order to be truly loved, you must also try to give love, and most importantly, understand that loving someone is more important than knowing that you are loved.

Also, people often cannot distinguish the feeling of being in love with the state of being in love. Fromm wrote that love must be learned, and here I agree with his point of view. After all

, when a person does not know how to love, then even so-called “real love” is doomed to not live a long life. I agree that love is an art. Undoubtedly, like any art, he needs to learn, and learn long and hard. But you need to understand (which, in my opinion, is difficult and even unrealistic for most of us: we were taught to treat love superficially, without even thinking about it, that is, in the style of “Do you love, Mykolka, your neighbor at the desk?” as a rule, we wanted to hear an affirmative answer), love is an art, and like any skill, love is not given without hard work and awareness of its importance, and only then can it be learned. But, not paying attention to all the failures in this area, the majority considers “more” true, real and important things as priorities, such as: money, success, power, fame, recognition and so on. Due to the fact that this majority of people are pragmatists, everything happens that way, because already at the very start of the journey there is a desire to see the final goal, or at least to imagine the final result. When learning to love, it is difficult to talk about it, and sometimes it is impossible. Fromm rightly writes that our modern culture and society assume that it is worthy to spend energy on studying only those things with the help of which you can get finances or recognition, and love that does not bring material benefits in the present world is a “fad”.

The next chapter of E. Fromm’s book “The Art of Love” is devoted to the theory of love. Here I would like to add that the content of the book goes beyond the description and definition of this feeling. Life is a bunch of combined factors and circumstances, because of this love cannot be separated from it and from the surrounding environment. A person by himself wants to be identical, subconsciously he does not want to be alone. People are generally very afraid of loneliness. Even those who, as they say, like to be alone, still, deep down, dream of having a loved one. And since there is still a small need to be individual, it is satisfied with the help of some distinguishing signs, such as labels on clothes, belonging to some subculture, etc. But the feeling of loneliness disappears only in love. It is love that enables two people to be both individual and not alone, two and one whole.

So, the main thing that Fromm wanted to highlight in his book is a kind of paradox, namely the desire of a person to love without being able to do it, the desire of a person to be loved, although she herself cannot give love, choosing instead of love others, in her opinion, more important , material, values. This is a phenomenon of the very definition of “love”. Fromm illuminates it as something immeasurable, something great and pure, something that a person can never fully grasp, something that must be strived for with all one’s soul.

Love should come first, above all material values. But a modern person, living in the current society, is simply unable to understand and grasp the full depth and significance of love. By setting ourselves certain “big” goals (earning money, building a career, etc.), we relegate love to the background, so to speak, make it an “accessory”, without which it would seem that you can live, but it is better with it . This is the problem of our time, it is a consequence of the rapid industrialization of our world. In today’s society, everything works “against” love. Because of this, people strive for the material and not the spiritual. However, deep down, everyone dreams of loving and being loved.

This is the phenomenon of modern love that the outstanding psychologist, psychoanalyst and philosopher Erich Fromm tried to convey to us.

Realizing oneself through work and love (spontaneous activity), a person connects with the surrounding world and overcomes loneliness and alienation. Having become part of a single whole, the individual “takes his rightful place in this world, and therefore the individual’s doubts about himself and the meaning of life disappear” [7, p. 209]. Such doubts and uncertainty are the consequences of a person’s isolation, alienation and stiffness, and are overcome with the help of spontaneous activity, “a person realizes himself as an active creative person and understands that life has only one meaning – life itself” [7, p. 209].

Positive freedom is a full-fledged realization of the individual, understood by the thinker as an unconditional recognition of the individual’s uniqueness, the organic development of which is possible only under the condition of maximum respect for the peculiarities of both others’ and one’s own personality. In this case, a person becomes the center and goal of his own life.

Brief conclusions

For E. Fromm alienation is the fatal basis of human relations. Intolerance of the burden of alienation can develop into a feeling of aggression and manifest itself either in the reactions of sadism and masochism, or in the opposite style of behavior – conformism, when people who cannot stand loneliness adapt to each other, escaping from alienation.

To overcome alienation E. Fromm suggests instilling humanistic principles in people, which are based on the feeling of love. This feeling is inherent in the most developed type of human social character – spiritual, productive. The need for love involves two types of it – love for oneself and love for other people. Alienation has a detrimental effect on a person, causes neuroses, while love contributes to his recovery and, in general, to the improvement of society.

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