The Search for Self: A Psychological Inquiry into Ethics

l Fromm, a heavyweight scholar of the Frankfurt School, is a best-selling classic of humanistic ethics for more than half a century.

l A compulsory textbook to know yourself, live for yourself, and create a happy life

How to be happy? What is life?

This book is the sequel to "Escape from Freedom". It not only supplements the arguments in the previous book and proposes solutions to modern people's psychological dilemmas, but also starts from ethics and extends its tentacles to an overall view of the happy side of life. It is an important step in understanding Freud's It is one of the must-read books on Ham Theory.

Following the discussion in "Escape from Freedom": Modern people lack the psychological resources to cope with the lonely and uneasy state after individualization and socialization, so they would rather give up freedom and return decision-making power to various authorities. Fromm emphasized that personal happiness should not be sought externally, but must be based on one's own natural character and potential, and unleash creativity, so that one can reflect one's true self. At the same time, moral ethics and value judgments derived from healthy human nature will inevitably lead all mankind towards the direction of goodness and create a social civilization that benefits ourselves and others.

This book is also an important work on "personality". Fromm summarized five modern personality archetypes, including "dependence personality", "predatory personality", "hoarding personality", "market personality" and "production personality". "Character", the first four are all negative characters shaped by the negative influences of modern society in the process of socialization. Only the last one, "productive character", is an indispensable trait for a healthy life.

Fromm reiterated the value of "humanistic ethics" and clarified that the norms of social ethics should be developed based on human nature. His integration of ethics into the discussion of psychology was a major initiative. Ultimately, he relied on rationality and believed that everyone has Having the power of happiness and the ability to love others proves that "recognizing yourself, working hard to be yourself, and living for yourself" is actually the only way to achieve a beautiful life.