Review #4 of 2023: The Sane Society by Erich Fromm

Longer and less well known than the “Art of Loving”, The Sane Society is still characteristically Erich Fromm, with his unique synthesis of Freud and Marx. The focus of the book is on Western society’s non-conduciveness to human flourishing, and potential alternate structures that could work better.

“It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health. Just as there is a “folie a deux” there is a folie a millions. The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”

I’ve been putting off writing this review, paradoxically because this was a very important book. Erich Fromm, here and in the other two works of his I have read, really captures the problems I have with my life and society, and earnestly attempts to generate solutions, although he himself pessimistically admits that these are unlikely to be implemented.