To Have or To Be?
“Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.” — Eric Fromm
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and philosopher who fled the Nazi regime in Germany to settle in America.
In his book, ‘To Have or to Be’, published in 1976, Fromm put forward two inherent but contradictory motivations for living one’s life. He termed them modes of existence.
These two modes direct our attitude towards ourselves and the world around us, which determines how we think, feel, and behave.
Having
Fromm defined the mode of Having as the tendency to relate to the world in an acquisitive and controlling manner. We perceive ourselves as consumers of things.
This means you aspire to acquire as many “objects” and possessions as possible, not just to get enjoyment from the things themselves but as status symbols.
You have an external orientation of control toward people, property, money, or different types of knowledge. What you “are” is what you consume, own, and control, which Fromm saw as being destructive for individuals and society.
When it comes to learning, you want to acquire knowledge to control it, just as if it were any other material possession. You might then use that knowledge to increase your control over others or to acquire more possessions.
Similarly, you might see education as something that can be “got” by paying for a course that gives you a certificate. The certificate is the outward sign that you now “have” something.
Being
In contrast, Fromm’s mode of Being is a tendency to advance toward love, empowerment, and self-realisation.
This requires you to perceive yourself as a person who has psychological independence, the ability to control how you behave through logic, and the ability to adapt to unfolding circumstances.
If you have this tendency, you have more of an “inner” orientation that is directed towards your personality. This means you aspire to fulfil your hidden potential through things like artistic expression, your choice of profession or occupation, and the ways in which you think.
You also perceive yourself as a carrier of skills, qualities, and attributes. For example, the ability to play a musical instrument merges with your existence and is a property of you as a person, rather than a possession that can be taken away.
When it comes to learning, you want to acquire knowledge for the sake of enriching your inner self. You see education as something that becomes part of you by “being” educated.
Implications
The main difference between the two modes of existence lies in the way you invest your energy.
In Fromm’s opinion, we are too trapped in the mode of Having and need to reorient ourselves towards Being.
As an example of this, he drew attention to the way we use language and how nouns are often used more commonly than verbs.
For example, you might say, “I have an issue” or “I have insomnia.”
This use of language conveys possession of something rather than experience.
In the past, you might have been more likely to say, “I am struggling” or “I cannot sleep”, both of which convey a subjective lived experience rather than something we “have”.
In essence, Fromm thought we have transformed ourselves into a problem.
However, he also thought it goes against our common sense to challenge the sense of Having as it has become so ingrained in a top-down capitalist structure:
“In a culture in which one can speak of someone as ‘being worth a million dollars’, how can there be an alternative between having and being? On the contrary, it would seem that the very essence of being is having; that if one has nothing, one is nothing.”
He also thought Being might even be beyond language:
“Having refers to things and things are fixed and describable. Being refers to experience, and human experience is in principle not describable. What is fully describable is our persona – the mask we each wear, the ego we present – for this persona is in itself a thing. In contrast, the living human being is not a dead image and cannot be described like a thing. In fact, the living human being cannot be described at all. Indeed, much can be said about me, about my character, about my total orientation to life. This insightful knowledge can go very far in understanding and describing my own or another’s psychical structure. But the total me, my whole individuality, my suchness that is as unique as my fingerprints are, can never be fully understood, not even by empathy, for no two human beings are entirely alike.”
This quote reminded me of a discussion Danny Massaro, and I had in our recent podcast episode. In it, we discussed some different aspects of existentialism and what it is for us to have meaning and purpose in an essentially meaningless universe (it’s more fun than it sounds!).
I wonder if a Having mode of existence serves to give us a fake sense of purpose in our lives. If, for example, we acquire property and possessions, that gives us something physical we can pass on to our offspring after we die. In that sense, we will “live” on, so the process of acquiring those possessions has meaning.
But would we be better off focusing on simply Being while we’re here instead? That’s certainly a big part of what my work is about.
Points for Reflection
Is your state of mind primarily rooted in a mode of Having or Being?
I suspect both modes are not entirely distinct, and we likely have a mix at any one time. How would you weight your percentage of each at different points in your life? Has it changed much? Why is/was that?
Spend a little time thinking about the language you use in your day-to-day life. Is it more aligned with a way of Having or a way of Being? Why is that? How could you switch to a more Being-focused way of speaking and living?