The Theme of Hope in Erich Fromm's Writing

Abstract

[Fromm] lives in a day when the sun has gone out of the human condition, and all his writing starts from the conviction that the life of Western man has gone desperately wrong. This sense of urgency which pervades Fromm's work has made of it an ambitious system of social criticism. ... But if Fromm's criticism runs deep, it is because his hopes run high. He thinks that man today has everything within his grasp - if he will reach out for it. In this, too, Fromm seems a man of the twentieth century, which has not known where to draw the bounds of human life. (J. H. Schaar 1961.) lt is true that Fromm hoped; but it is not true that his hopes ran high, nor that he believed everything is within man's grasp. Unfortunately, Schaar failed to comprehend the essence of Fromm's theme of hope. The quality of hope was centrally important to Fromm, and he attempted to describe it with great care. An understanding of his meaning of hope is essential also to an understanding of his style of writing. I will first comment on his style of writing and then highlight his ideas about what hope is, about hope as an essential quality of the structure of aliveness, about shattered hope, and about the vital relationship between suffering and hope. Fromm wrote most often in the spirit of the prophet mode. Central to the prophet's message is messianic hope or messianic vision. This messianic vision rests upon the tension between what existed and what was becoming, was yet to be. This vision, or that which is hoped for, may not be realized in one's lifetime, yet one must expect the messiah every day. Hope is thus paradoxical. It is neither passive waiting, nor is it an unrealistic forcing of circumstances that cannot occur. Fromm uses the metaphor of the crouched tiger, which will jump only when the moment for jumping has come. Die Qualitat der Hoffnung war fur Fromm von zentraler Bedeutung. Hoffnung ist ein unerlasliches Element der Struktur des Lebens, der Dynamik des menschlichen Geistes. Aber so wie die Hoffnung immer zum Leben gehort, so gehoren auch Enttauschung und Verzweiflung, die Kehrseite der Hoffnung, dazu. Fromm beschreibt sehr treffend den Kampf zwischen Hoffnung und Verzweiflung, wie er in den biblischen Psalmen zum Ausdruck kommt. Das Ergebnis eines solchen Kampfes kann entweder eine vertiefte Bejahung des Lebens sein oder eine Verhartung des Herzens, die zu Destruktivitat und Gewalt fuhrt.