Research on Erich Fromm’s Thought of Consumption Alienation [埃里希•弗洛姆消费异化思想研究], Master thesis, Foreign Marxism Research, Liaoning University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China, 2012.

  • 埃里希•弗洛姆(Erich Fromm,1900-1980),弗洛伊德主义的马克思主义(1)的主要代表人物,开业长达四十余年的心理咨询师。弗洛姆毕生致力于对>人<的生存境遇的关注,对造成人的异化的现代工业社会进行了无情地揭露和有力地批判,并积极探索实现健全人格和健全社会的途径。消费异化思想就是弗洛姆社会批判理论的重要组成部分。弗洛姆对消费异化的集中论述出现在《健全的社会》(1955)以及《占有还是生存》(1976)二书中。他在《健全的社会》中首先亮明一个观点:生活于现代西方发达工业社会中的绝大多数人的精神是不健康的。一个人的精神是否健康从根本上讲不是他个人的事情,而是取决于他所在的社会结构。弗洛姆认为>精神健康<不能被定义为人通过调整自身的行为来无条件地适应他所在的社会,相反,社会应该为人的精神健康负责,为人的全面发展创造有利条件。而且,社会经济结构与人的性格之间存在着相互作用的关系,社会经济结构塑造了人的性格,人的性格反作用于社会经济结构。因此,通过分析资本主义社会性格的非生产性(即放弃自身拥有的力量和创造性潜能,以异化的方式与外界发生关联),就能揭露资本主义社会的不健全。而>异化<正是弗洛姆用来分析这些非生产性社会性格的最核心概念;>消费异化<对应的正是从20世纪中叶开始在资本主义社会中占主导地位的接受取向和市场取向两种社会性格。在后期著作《占有还是生存》中,弗洛姆从国家、政府、消费者等方面提出了许多消除消费异化的具体措施。因此,根据弗洛姆消费异化思想提出和发展演进的过程,本文的行文脉络是:首先,梳理弗洛姆消费异化思想的理论根源,归纳概括出消费异化的涵义并交待该思想产生的历史背景;其次,从社会性格的功能入手分析消费异化的成因,这也是弗洛姆消费异化思想的特色所在,同时也是本文的主要创新之处;然后,分析弗洛姆消费异化的表现形式、危害和消除消费异化的途径;最后,对弗洛姆消费异化思想进行客观评价,彰显其消费异化思想对中国社会发展的启示意义。
  • Erich Fromm (1900-1980), as a well-known representative figure of Freudianism-Marxism(1)and a psychological consultant for 40 years, dedicated his life to paying close attention to people’s living condition and the value of person. He criticized the western developed industrial society severely which makes people to alienate, and actively explored the ways to healthy personality and society. Fromm’s thought of consumption alienation plays a big role in his social critical theory. It mainly appeared in the book >The Sane Society< (1955) and >To Have or to Be< (1976). In >The Sane Society<, Fromm held the view that the vast majority of people had mental disease in the western developed industrial society. It is fundamentally not a personal thing whether a man’s spirit is healthy or not, but the thing of the social conditions. In other words, the mental health of people can not be defined as people adapt to his society unconditionally. On the contrary, the society must meet the needs of people. Fromm further pointed out that the relationship between the socio-economic structure and the personality is interactive. That is to say, socio-economic structure shaped the character of the people, and people’s character reacts to the socio-economic structure. Through the analysis of non-productive characters (to give up one’s own strength and creative potential to be associated with the outside world by the way of alienation) of capitalist society, we can see that the capitalist society is not sane. Alienation is the core concept which Fromm used to analyze these non-productive social characters and the word consumption alienation represents the receptive orientated character and the marketing orientated character which are the dominant non-productive characters of the capitalist society in the mid-20th century. In his later work “To Have or to Be”, Fromm proposed a number of specific measures to eliminate consumption alienation from the aspect of the state, government, consumers and so on. According to the evolution of Fromm’s thought of consumption alienation, in my paper below, I firstly seek the theoretical roots of this thought. I sum up the meaning and essential features of it and reveal the historical background of it. Then, I analyze the causes of consumption alienation from the analysis of social characters’ function, which is the distinguishing feature of Fromm’s thought of consumption alienation and also the innovation of my paper. After that, I analyze the manifestations, endangers of consumption alienation and the way to eliminate it. Finally, I evaluate this thought objectively and enlighten it’s value for China’s social development. [Author’s translation]

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Metadaten
Author:Liping Liu
Document Type:Dissertations
Language:Chinese
Year of first Publication:2012
Release Date:2020/11/03
Format:no copy existent / keine Kopie vorhanden
IdNo:Liu_Liping_2012
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Dissertations / Dissertationen
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Dissertations / Dissertationen
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