In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
Interpretation
The quote suggests a shift in existential concerns from the absence of divine guidance to the human condition itself.
Erich Fromm's quote highlights a significant philosophical evolution over two centuries. In the nineteenth century, the death of God represented a spiritual crisis, questioning the existence of a higher power and the meaning of life. However, in the twentieth century, the focus shifts to humanity itself, suggesting that individuals feel lost, disconnected, or spiritually dead due to existential despair, loss of purpose, or societal issues. This reflects a deeper examination of human existence and highlights the necessity of finding meaning beyond traditional beliefs.
In practice
During a philosophy lecture, one could use this quote to discuss shifts in existential thought.
Love, experienced thus, is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together; even whether there is harmony or conflict; joy or sadness, is secondary to the fundamental fact that two people experience themselves from the essence of their existence, that they are only one with each other by being one with themselves, rather than by fleeing from themselves.
Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.
Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.
To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern β and to take the jump and to stake everything on these values.
In times of change, learners inherit the earth
Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter.
The problem with people who are afraid of imagination, of fantasy, is that their world becomes so narrow that I don't see how they can imagine beyond what their senses can verify. We know from science that there are entire worlds that our senses can't verify.
International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.
I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.
Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class.
Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.
Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
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