Fromm Personal Development Theory

Erich Fromm's attention to human being is mainly from his deep Judaic familyand education background; Freud's psychoanalysis gives him a microcosmic angle onobserving human being; while Marxian historical materialism lets him learn to inspecthuman being's development in open and dynamic society. The ideal that Frommdevelops about individual is to cultivate the "newcomer" on the basis of positiveliberty and critique reason, who owns the productive character and the mode of being.However, besides existing survival contradiction, modern capitalist society is anill-condition society in which capitalist's objective is to pursue the profit as possibleas they can. In the society, the ruling class expands the capitalism ideological form toany human being's survival corners with the help of the intermediary in socialcharacter and unconscious. Their aim is to transfer the modernist to a productive,consumptive, obedient, jointly enjoyable, unanimous "machine". Fromm refuses totake the defilade in people's real nature.He sets off from society approach and ethicsapproach on the basis of analyzing, criticizing capitalist system, exploring variousconditions which are helpful to individual development: the country should providepersonal income that guarantees dignity; the production should be from disorderindividual production to social production; the education should be developed inscientific spirit and humanity spirit, which are of equal importance; we can drawsupport from the psychoanalysis method and cultivate the loving ability. Fromm'stheory of personal development inherits and creatively interprets Max's free all-rounddevelopment theory about human being, which shows the human being's survivalvalue, expressing the viewpoint to rescue human nature to reform society and perfecthuman being, which is of great significance in using for reference to the country andindividual that are in the turning period. It is undeniable that Fromm's theory has alsosome limits: he exaggerates the importance of "The Manuscript of Economics andPhilosophy in 1844", cuts apart human being's instrument and teleological character,also ignores the decisive effect of practicing to human being's nature.