The Renaissance of Humanism

Abstract

At the end of Beyond the Chains of Illusion—a book that ranks among the most personal of his works—Fromm makes a call for the “renais- sance of humanistic experience” (2006 [1962]: 128). In prose that combines Nietzschean and Heideggerian elements with the more constitutive humanistic religiosity that characterizes his own thought, he states that

if the One World is not to destroy itself, it needs a new kind of man—a man who transcends the narrow limits of his nation and who experiences every human being as a neighbour, rather than as a barbarian; a man who feels at home in the world …Until now the One Man may have been a luxury, since the One World had not emerged. Now the One Man must emerge if the One World is to live. Historically speaking, this may be a step comparable with the great revolution which was constituted by the step from the worship of many gods to One God—or the One No-God. This step was characterised by the idea that man must cease to serve idols, be they nature or the work of his own hands. (2006 [1962]: 131)