현대사회에서의 도덕적 위기와 존재와 소유의 제문제

Moral Crisis in Modern Society and the Problems of Having & Being -focusing upon E. Fromm’s social thought-

Tho purpose of this paper is to present the moral crisis in modern industrial society by illumination of Erich Fromm’s social thought. Particularly, analyzed and described the concept of ‘Having-mode’ and ‘Being-mode.’ Because two concepts are the key to understand our age and ourselves. According to E. Fromm, the Great Promise of Unlimited Progress has made a great failure. The development of economic system and economic behavior became separate from ethics and human values. In modem industrial society, the aim of life is the fulfillment of every human desire. Therefore, Having-mode is prevailed in our ordinary life. The people, living in Having-mode, shouts ‘I am what I have plus what I consume!.’ But Being is indescribable in words and is communicable only by sharing its experience. Being-mode has as its prerequisites independence, freedom, and the presence of critical reason. Its fundamental characteristic is that of being active, not in the sense of outward activity, of business, but of inner activity, the productive use of our human powers. We need a humanistic science of man as the basis for the applied science and art of social reconstruction.