Erich Fromm: “The Market Character” and “Cybernetic Religion”
The most important change in the social character that occurred before the second half of the 20th century is crucial to understanding the nature and secret religion of modern human society. The authoritarian, obsessive, and accumulative character, which began to develop in the 16th century and continued to dominate the structure of character, at least in the middle classes of society, until the end of the 19th century, slowly gave way to a market character.
I called this phenomenon a market character because in this case, a person feels like a commodity. A living being becomes a commodity on the “personality market.” The same principle of determining value applies to both the personality market and the commodity market: personalities are sold on the former, and goods on the latter. In both cases, the value is determined by their exchange value.
Since success depends mainly on how a person sells their personality, they feel like a commodity or, rather, both a seller and a commodity. A person is not concerned with their life or happiness, but only with how suitable they are for sale.
The goal of the market character is complete adaptation in order to be needed and maintain demand for oneself under all conditions that arise on the personality market. Personalities with a market character do not even have their own “self” to rely on, unlike people in the 19th century, because their “self” constantly changes in accordance with the principle of “I am the way you need me to be.”
People with a market character are not interested (at least consciously) in philosophical or religious questions such as “why does a person live?” and “why do they adhere to one direction and not another?” They have their hypertrophied, constantly changing “self,” but no one has a “selfhood,” a core, a sense of identity. The “identity crisis” — the crisis of modern society — is caused by the fact that members of this society have become faceless instruments, whose sense of identity is based on participation in the activities of corporations or other giant bureaucratic organizations. Where there is no authentic personality, there can be no sense of identity.
People with a market character do not know how to love or hate. These “old-fashioned” emotions do not correspond to the structure of character that functions almost entirely on a rational level and avoids any feelings, both positive and negative, because they interfere with the main goal of the market character — sales and exchange — or rather, functioning in accordance with the logic of the “megamachine” of which they are a part. They do not ask any questions except one — how well they function — and their
Since people with a market character do not experience deep attachment to themselves or others, they are completely indifferent to everything, not because they are so selfish, but because their relationship to themselves and others is so fragile. This may also explain why they are not concerned about the danger of nuclear and ecological catastrophes, even though they are aware of all the data indicating such a threat.
It is amazing why modern people love to buy and consume so much, but do not value what they acquire. The most correct answer to this question lies in the phenomenon of the market character itself. The lack of attachments in people with this character makes them indifferent to things. And perhaps the only thing that has any value for them is the prestige or comfort that these things provide, rather than the things themselves. Ultimately, they are simply consumed, like friends and lovers, because there are no deep attachments to them either.
The goal of a person with a market character is to “function properly” in these circumstances, which determines their primarily rational reaction to the surrounding world. Reason in the sense of understanding is the exclusive property of Homo sapiens; manipulative intelligence as a tool for achieving practical goals is inherent in both animals and humans. Manipulative intelligence, devoid of reason, is dangerous because it makes people act in such a way that, from a rational point of view, it can be destructive for them. And the more outstanding the uncontrolled manipulative intelligence is, the more dangerous it is.
The prevalence of rational, manipulative thinking is closely linked to the atrophy of emotional life. Since emotions were not cultivated, they were considered unnecessary and viewed more as a hindrance to optimal functioning, and thus remained undeveloped and never surpassed the level of emotional development of a child. Therefore, individuals with a market character are extremely naive when it comes to the emotional side of life. They may be attracted to “emotional people,” but due to their naivety, they often cannot determine whether such people are genuine or fake.
This is why so many fraudsters and scammers succeed in the spiritual and religious spheres of life; this is why politicians who portray strong emotions are very appealing to people with a market character, and why the latter cannot distinguish a truly religious person from someone who simply demonstrates deep religious feelings.
Of course, the term “market character” is not the only term describing this type of personality. The term “alienated character” could also be used to describe it; people with this character are alienated from their work, themselves, other people, and nature. Using a psychiatric term, a person with a market character could be called schizoid, but such a term can be misleading, as a schizoid personality, living among other schizoid personalities and functioning successfully, does not experience the sense of anxiety that is characteristic of them in a more “normal” environment.
This general character structure corresponds to the “cybernetic religion” of the market character. Behind the facade of agnosticism or Christianity lies an openly pagan religion, although people do not realize it as such. This pagan religion is difficult to describe, as such a description is only possible based on what people do (and do not do), rather than on their conscious reflections on religion or the dogmas of a particular religious organization. The most striking thing at first glance is that man has turned himself into a god, because he has gained the technical ability to create a second world instead of the world that, according to traditional religion, was first created by God. This idea can be formulated differently: we have turned the machine into a god and, by serving the machine, have become like a god. It doesn’t matter which formulation we choose: what matters is that people, in a state of the highest real powerlessness, imagine that they have truly become omnipotent thanks to science and technology.
And the more isolated we become, the less emotionally we react to the surrounding world, and the more inevitable and catastrophic the end of civilization seems to us at the same time, the more harmful the influence of this new religion becomes.
We cease to be masters of technology and, on the contrary, become its slaves, and technology — once a vital element of creation — turns to us with its other face — the face of the goddess of destruction (like the Indian goddess Kali), to whom both men and women thirst to sacrifice themselves and their children. Continuing to consciously cling to the hope for a better future, cybernetic humanity closes its eyes to the fact that it has already turned into worshippers of the goddess of destruction.
