To Have or To Be
CevvelaTo Have or To Be
Erich Fromm · Say Yayınları · 1976
Summary
A psychoanalytic examination that divides modern humans’ relationship with the world into two basic categories: “Having” (focused on consumption, status, and material possessions) and “Being” (focused on experience, production, and growth). It explains how capitalism has transformed the human being into an object of consumption.
Quotes from Cevvela
“Tüketmek, çağımızda insan olmanın bir ön koşulu haline geldi.”
“Sahip olmak modunda, nesneler insana sahip olur.”
“Olmak modunda, paylaşmak insanın gücünü artırır, azaltmaz.”
“Bilgiyi bir mülk gibi depolamak değil, bir eylem olarak yaşamak gerekir.”
“Kendini nesnelerle tanımlayan biri, nesneleri kaybettiğinde kimliğini de kaybeder.”
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Fromm once again strikes your mind like a sledgehammer. He shakes the “become a unicorn, reach millions of dollars” culture of the entrepreneurial ecosystem to its core. Someone driven by the urge to “possess” actually corrodes their own soul. If your existence depends solely on how much you possess, you are nothing when you lose it. “To be,” on the other hand, is to refine one’s own essence, to be knowledge itself, to be action itself. This is the point where, in Cevvela’s manifesto, we state: “Being useful is not an image—it is a way of being.” It strips modern humanity—obsessed with what it projects to the outside world—bare. Your wealth is determined not by material possessions, but by your own inner depth.