Opinion (Erich Fromm, psychoanalyst): “The collective orientation of society beginning from the 16^th century gradually passed to a marketing orientation where a person feels that he is a commodity.

“Success depends on how a person sells his personality, he isn’t concerned about life and happiness him but only how suitable he is for sale. The goal of the marketing orientation is to maintain the demand for himself. People don’t have a self because it is changing all the time according to the principle, “I am as you need me to be.” They are not interested in such questions as, “What is a person living for?” Their ego is changing all the time and suppresses this feeling. The members of society become faceless machines, their feeling of identity is based upon active affiliation with organizations.

“People with a marketing orientation don’t know how to love or to hate because emotions are a disruption to sales and trade, to advancement on the bureaucratic ladder. They don’t experience deep affection towards themselves or others, so the danger of nuclear or ecological disaster doesn’t concern them. They love to buy and consume, but don’t value what they acquire. Lack of communication makes them indifferent towards objects. Importance is only in the value and comfort provided by the objects and not the objects themselves. They use friends and lovers without deep communication.

“The goal is to function properly, causing a rational response to the surrounding world. The dominance of rational thought is associated with the degeneration of emotional life. Feelings are considered to be a disturbance to optimal functioning and remain undeveloped. So people with a marketing orientation are terribly naïve regarding the emotional side of life. This is the reason that so many con men are so successful in the spiritual areas of life and politicians who express strong emotions attract people. We have stopped being the masters of technology, we have become its slaves, and technology turns towards us with the face of the goddess of destruction. We yearn to sacrifice ourselves and our children to her.”

My Comment: The next stage of our development is awareness of the shortcomings of the present stage and overcoming them, a state that will be the opposite of the previous state, a search for the true self and a true realization of unity with others, meaning outside of the self, with others, like seeds in the ground. In this manner we need to recognize that the full realization of one’s true self is possible only in unity with others, “within” others, and not individually, “outside of others.”
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