Erich Fromm
1 Unless man exploits others, he has to work in order to live.
However primitive and simple his method of work may be, by the very fact of production, he has risen above the animal kingdom; rightly has he been defined as \"the animal that produces.\" But work is not only an inescapable necessity for man. Work is also his liberator from nature, his creator as a social and independent being. In the process of work, that is, the molding and changing of nature outside of himself, man molds and changes himself. He emerges from nature by mastering her; he develops his powers of co-operation, of reason, his sense of beauty. He separates himself from nature, from the original unity with her, but at the same time unites himself with her again as her master and builder. The more his work develops, the more his individuality
develops. In molding nature and re-creating her, he learns to make use of his powers, increasing his skill and creativeness. Whether we think of the beautiful paintings in the caves of Southern France, the ornaments on weapons among primitive people, the statues and
temples of Greece, the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, the chairs and tables made by skilled craftsmen, or the cultivation of flowers, trees or corn by peasants--all are expressions of the creative transformation of nature by man's reason and skill.
2 In Western history, craftsmanship, especially as it developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, constitutes one of the peaks in the evolution of creative work. Work was not only a useful activity, but one which carried with it a profound satisfaction. The main features of craftsmanship have been very lucidly expressed by C. W. Mills. \"There is no ulterior motive in work other than the product being made and the processes of its creation. The details of dally work are meaningful
because they are not detached in the worker's mind from the product of the work. The worker is free to control his own working action. The craftsman is thus able to learn from his work; and to use and develop his capacities and skills in its prosecution. There is no split of work and play, or work and culture. The craftsman' s way of livelihooddetermines and infuses his entire mode of living.\"
3 3 With the collapse of the medieval structure, and the beginning of the modern mode of production, the meaning and function of work changed fundamentally, especially in the Protestantcountries. Man, being afraid of his newly won freedom, was obsessed by the need to subdue his doubts and fears by developing a feverish activity. The
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out-come of this activity, success or failure, decided his salvation, indicating whether he was among the saved or the lost souls. Work, instead of being an activity satisfying in itself and pleasurable, became a duty and an obsession . The more it was possible to gain riches by work, the more it became a pure means to the aim of wealth and success. Work became, in Max Weber's terms, the chief factor in a system of \"inner-worldly asceticism ,\" an answer to man's sense of aloneness and isolation.
4 However, work in this sense existed only for the upper and middle classes, those who could amass some capital and employ the work of others. For the vast majority of those who had only their physical
energy to sell, work became nothing but forced labor. The worker in the eighteenth or nineteenth century who had to work sixteen hours if he did not want to starve was not doing it because he served the Lord in this way, nor because his success would show that he was among the \"chosen \" ones,, but because he was forced to sell his energy to those who had the means of exploiting it. The first centuries of the modern era find the meaning of work divided into that of duty among the
middle class, and that of forced labor among those without property. 5 The religious attitude toward work as a duty, which was still so prevalent in the nineteenth century, has been changing considerably in the last decades. Modern man does not know what to do with himself, how to spend his lifetime meaningfully, and he is driven to work in order to avoid an unbearable boredom. But work has ceased to be a moral and religious obligation in the sense of the middle class attitude of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Something new has emerged. Ever-increasing production, the drive to make bigger and better things, have become aims in themselves, new ideals. Work has become alienated from the working person.
6 What happens to the industrial worker? He spends his best energy for seven or eight hours a day in producing \"something.\" He needs his work in order to make a living, but his role is essentially a passive one. He fulfills a small isolated function in a complicated and highly
organized process of production, and is never confronted with \"his\" product as a whole, at least not as a producer, but only as a consumer, provided he has the money to buy \"his\" product in a store. He is
concerned neither with the whole product in its physical aspects nor with its wider economic and social aspects. He is put in a certain place, has to carry out a certain task, but does not participate in the
organization or management of the work. He is not interested nor does he know why one produces this, instead of another commodity--what relation it has to the needs of society as a whole. The shoes, the cars, the electric bulbs, are produced by \"the enterprise,\" using the
machines. He is a part of the machine, rather than its master as an
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active agent. The machine, instead of being in his service to do work for him which once had to be performed by sheer physical energy, has become his master. Instead of the machine being the substitute for human energy, man has become a substitute for the machine. His work can be defined as the performance of acts which cannot yet be performedby machines.
7 Work is a means of getting money, not in itself a meaningful human activity. P. Drucker, observing workers in the automobile
industry, expresses this idea very succinctly \"For the great majority of automobile workers, the only meaning of the job is in the pay check, not in anything connected with the work or the product. Work appears as something unnatural, a disagreeable, meaningless and stultifying condition of getting the pay check, devoid of dignity as well as of
importance. No wonder that this puts a premium on slovenly work, on slowdowns , and on other tricks to get the same pay check with less work. No wonder that this results in an unhappy and discontented worker--because a pay check is not enough to base one's self-respect on.\"
8 This relationship of the worker to his work is an outcome of the whole social organization of which he is a part. Being \"employed,\" he is not an active agent, has no responsibility except the proper
performance of the isolated piece of work he is doing, and has little interest except the one of bringing home enough money to support himself and his family. Nothing more is expected of him, or wanted from him. He is part of the equipment hired by capital, and his role and function are determined by this quality of being a piece of equipment. In recent decades, increasing attention has been paid to the
psychology of the worker, and to his attitude toward his work, to the \"human problem of industry\"; but this very formulation is indicative of the underlying attitude; there is a human being spending most of his lifetime at work, and what should be discussed is the \"industrial problem of human beings,\" rather than \"the human problem of industry.\"
9 Most investigations in the field of industrial psychology are
concerned with the question of how the productivity of the individual worker can be increased, and how he can be made to work with less friction; psychology has lent its services to \"human engineering,\" an attempt to treat the worker and employee like a machine which runs better when it is well oiled. While Taylor was primarily concerned with a better organization of the technical use of the worker's physical powers, most industrial psychologists are mainly concerned with the manipulation of the worker's psyche The underlying idea can be
formulated like this: if he works better when he is happy, then let us make him happy, secure, satisfied, or anything else, provided it raises
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his output and diminishes friction. In the name of \" human relations,\" the worker is treated with all devices which suit values are
recommended in the interest of better relations a completely alienated person; even happiness and human with the public. Thus, for instance, according to Time magazine, one of the best-known American psychiatrists said to a group of fifteen hundred Supermarket
executives: \"It's going to be an increased satisfaction to our customers if we are happy... It is going to pay off in cold dollars and cents to
management, if we could put some of these general principles of values, human relationships, really into practice.\" One speaks of \"human
relations\" and one means the most inhuman relations, those between alienated automatons ; one speaks of happiness and means the perfect routinization which has driven out the last doubt and all spontaneity 10 The alienated and profoundly unsatisfactory character of work results in two reactions: one, the ideal of complete laziness; the other a deep-seated, though often unconscious hostility toward work and everything and everybody connected with it.
11 It is not difficult to recognize the widespread longing for the state of complete laziness and passivity. Our advertising appeals to it even more than to sex, There are, of course, many useful and labor saving gadgets . But this usefulness often serves only as a
rationalization for the appeal to complete passivity and receptivity. A package of breakfast cereal is being advertised as \"new--easier to eat.\" An electric toaster is advertised with these words: \"... the most
distinctly different toaster in the world! Everything is done for you with this new toaster. You need not even bother to lower the bread.
Power-action, through a unique electric motor, gently takes the bread right out of your fingers!\" How many courses in languages, or other subjects, are announced with the slogan\" effortless learn- ins, no more of the old drudgery.\" Everybody knows the picture of the elderly couple in the advertisement of a life-insurance company, who have retired at the age of sixty, and spend their life in the complete bliss of having nothing to do except just travel.
12 Radio and television exhibit another element of this yearning for laziness: the idea of \"push-button power\"; by pushing a button, or turning a knob on my machine, I have the power to produce music, speeches, ball games, and on the television set, to command events of the world to appear before my eyes. The pleasure of driving cars certainly rests partly upon this same satisfaction of the wish for
push-button power. By the effortless pushing of a button, a powerful machine is set in motion; little skill and effort are needed to make the driver feel that he is the ruler of space.
13 But there is far more serious and deep-seated reaction to the meaninglessness and boredom of work. It is a hostility toward work
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which is much less conscious than our craving for laziness and inactivity. Many a businessman feels himself the prisoner of his
business and the commodities he sells; he has a feeling of fraudulency about his product and a secret contempt for it. He hates his customers, who force him to put up a show in order to sell. He hates his
competitors because they are a threat; his employees as well as his superiors, because he is in a constant competitive fight with them.
Most important of all, he hates himself, because he sees his life passing by, without making any sense beyond the momentary intoxication of success. Of course, this hate and contempt for others and for oneself, and for the very things one produces, is mainly unconscious, and only occasionally comes up to awareness in a fleeting thought, which is sufficiently disturbing to be set aside as quickly as possible.
(from A Rhetorical Reader, Invention and Design,
by Forrest D. Burt and E. Cleve Want)
NOTES
1. Fromm: Erich Fromm (1900- 1980), German-born psychoanalyst, has taught at universities in the United States and Mexico. Among his many books are: Psychoanalysis and Religion ; Marx' s Concept of Man ; Escape from Freedom ; The Sane Society; and The Crisis of Psychoanalysis.
2. beautiful paintings in the caves of Southern France: referring to paintings and engravings on the rock face in the caves in France and Spain made by primitive man during the old stone age around 50,000 to 100,000 B. C.
3. C. W. Mills: author of White Collar ( 1951 ), from which this quotation is taken.
4. Protestant countries: referring to Germany, Switzerland,
Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the British Isles and Early America 5. Weber: Max Weber (1864- 1920), German sociologist, economist, and political writer. On the origin of capitalism in the West, his famous theory was as follows: Calvinism, Anabaptism, and their various
combinations consider that man's economic success, achieved by an industrious life, proves that he is a chosen child of God. These religions thus provide an impulse to build up capital and to develop a capitalistic society, as occurred especially in the United States. Lesson Eight The Worker as Creator or Machine
I . Drucker: professor Peter (Ferdinand) Drucker, American writer, teacher and management consultant, born on November 19, 1909, in Vienna, Austria;
Professor of Man agement, New York University, since 1954; Clarke profes sor of Social Science; Clairemont Graduate School, Claire mont, California, since 1971; Management Consultant (own firm), since 1945; Fellow of American
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Association for Ad vancement; Honorary Fellow of British Institute of Manage ment. Publications.The End of Economic Man (1939), The Future of Industrial Man (1942), Concept of the Corporation (1946), The New Society ( 1950), The Practice of Manage- ment (1954), Managing for Results (1964), Technology, Management and Society (1970), Manage~nent. Tasks, Re sponsibilities,
Practices (1974), The Unseen Revolution IIow Pension Fund Socialism Came to America (1976), and text books and educational films. II.
1. Man is the only animal that produces his own food and things he uses. He has to produce (or to work) in order to live.
2. In the process of work man molds and changes himself. He emerges from nature by mastering her.
3. Work was not only useful, but one which carried with it a profound
satisfaction. Even the details of daily work were meaningful because they were not detached in the worker' s mind from the product of the work. The worker used and developed his capacities and skills in the process of production. There was no split of work andplay, or work and culture.
4. Doubtful and fearful of his new freedom, man developed a feverish activity that became the index to the condition of his soul.saved and successful, or lost and unsuccessful. Work became a \"duty and an obsession\".
5. Work was a duty for the upper classes and middle classes and forced labor for the lower classes, those without prop- erty. Those who had amassed capital and employed others to work looked upon it as a duty.
6. Those who had to work long hours to keep from starving to death looked upon it as forced labor.
7. He does not care about the relation between what he pro duces and society as a Whole. \"Instead of the machine be ing the substitute for human energy, man has become a substitute for the machine.
8. Work means getting money. The job itself is \"disagree- able, meaningless and stultifying\" and places a premium on \"slovenly work\workers.
9. The chief concern is to increase individual production. Whatever increases output and lessons frictions is valued. 10. The \"ideal of complete laziness\" and \"deep-seated,
though often unconscious hostility toward work\".
1. The ideas presented in paragraph 1 are only general ones. So in paragraph 2 the author gives a more detailed explana tion of creative work by examples and a quotation of C. W. Mills' remark.
2. The definition of an ideal kind of work in paragraph 2 is provided by the use of a direct quotation of C. W. Mills' re mark of craftsmanship--one of the peaks in the evolution of creative work, esp. in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 3. The first two paragraphs are very important. The role they play in the whole essay is that they provide a contrast of how creative work develops to its
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contrary.
4. Mills emphasizes both the process and the product. Druck er cites an instance of how Fromm' s statement is true a mong automobile workers. The direct quotations give au- thority to the position Fromm is taking, a paraphrase would not provide that directness and authenticity.
5. The concerns and the objectives of industrial psychologists are to increase the productivity of workers. Their model is the machine. Fromm does not approve of this model or the activities of these industrial psychologists. He makes his attitude clear through his use of certain words and phrases --
\"manipulation of the worker's psyche\ 6. Work began to be alienated from people when it ceased to be \"an activity satisfying in itself\" and became instead \"a duty and an obsession\came with the end of the medieval age and has continued ever since. Man is now subordinated to the machines he operates, and as a result he has lost his self-respect and hates his work.
7. The method employed by the writer to develop his theme and to convince his readers may be called the method of causal analysis or just simply causation. Everything that exists and every event that takes place has a cause, and most things produce effects or results. \"The worker is no longer a creator but has become a machine\" is the effect or result as well as the theme of the text, with Fromm's sur vey of the history of people's attitude toward work serves as the causes, so it is essential to the development of his causal analysis.
8. Yes. Fromm does not employ the basic tenets of Marxism -- the existence of classes and class struggle -- to evalute and analyse the sociological problems in the United States. His basic approach is still that of a psychoanalyst, evaluat ing the psychological reaction of the worker to the working conditions and environment he finds himself in. IV.
1. Because of the fact itself that man produces, he has devel oped far beyond all other animals.
2. Work also frees man from nature and makes him into a so cial being independent of nature.
3. All the above-mentioned work shows how man has trans formed nature through his reason and skill.
4. Therefore pleasure and work went together so did the cul tural
development of the worker go hand in hand with the work he was doing.
5. Work became the chief element in a system that preached an austere and self-denying way of life. Work was the only thing that brought relief to those who felt alone and isolat ed leading this kind of ascetic life. 6. In capitalist society the worker feels estranged from or hos tile to the work he is doing. 7. Work helps the worker to earn some money; and earning money only is an activity without much significance or pur pose.
8. Just earning some money is not enough to make a worker have a proper
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respect of himself.
9. Most industrial psychologists are mainly trying to manage and control the mind of the worker.
10. Better relations with the public will yield larger profits to management. The management will earn larger profits if it has better relations with the public.
11. The fact that many gadgets are indeed useful is often used by advertisers as a more \"high-minded\" cover for what is really a vulgar, base appeal to idleness and willingness to accept things.
12. The businessman knows the quality or usefulness of his product is not what it should be. He despises the goods he produces, conscious of the deception involved.
V. See the translation of the text. VI.
1. kingdom: any one of the three divisions of the natural world
2. being : a human being : one who lives or exists, or assumed to do so 3. prosecution: the carrying on or engaging in something.
This word is more commonly used in its legal sense of con ducting legal proceedings against somebody.
4. chosen. (religious term) favored by God ; chosen by God to go to heaven after death
5. alienated, estranged, detached 6. physical: material
7. agent: a person that brings forming a certain action about a certain result by per
8. premium: an unusual or high value 9. friction : conflict, strife 10. psyche : mind
11. pay off: yield full recompense or retrun, for either good or evil 12. gadget: any small, especially mechanical contrivance or device
Ⅶ. producer, maker, manufacturer, creator, author, originator, founder, inventor, builder, grower
Ⅷ. 1. appropriateness, appropriation 2. precision, preciseness 3. subtlety, subtleness 4. preference, preferment 5. accep tance, acceptation 6. assembly, assemblage 7. absent mindedness 8. sincerity, sincereness 9. carriage 10. in heritance 11. English, England, Englishman, Englishwom an 12. ambiguity, ambiguousness 13. amassment 14. dis appointment 15. disallowance 16. physiology 17. provoca tion 18. judgement 19. understanding 20. extension
IX. 1. falsehood 2. officialdom 3. bachelorhood, bachelorship 4. womanhood 5.
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lordship 6. deanship 7. priesthood 8. kingship, kingdom 9. brotherhood 10. trusteeship 11. guardianship 12. seamanship 13. knighthood 14. duke dom 15. marksmanship 16. princedom 17. township 18. censorship 19. serfdom 20. citizenship X.
1. backward 为消极词，表达一种具有消极意义的比较，主要起 直接描述作用，如a backward mountain region。有时它也用 来指低下和无知，暗示缺乏进取心而应受指责。primitive具 有对比意味，仅指人类文化发展的早期及工业化之前的阶 段，也可指处在初级阶段或初级形态的任何一件未经加工制 造的纯净简朴的东西。correct指无差错、瑕疵，符合某种标 准。其使用普遍，不仅可用来说明真理或事实，而且还可用来 修饰口味或(服装等)样式，如the correct dress for a formal dinner。right通常可和correct互换，但常暗含对道德方面 的赞赏，如the right course of action。
2．individuality指某人区别于他人的特性、情趣、活动等。indi vidualism现常指一种意识形态(及其所体现的言行)，该意 识形态以自我为中心，把自身利益置于他人利益之前。 3．action指某一行动的完成(所完成的事)或指完成某事的 过 程，如the action of acid on metal。activity指运动的状态， 或能量的消耗。activity词义很广，可用以指个人或集体运用 身心进行的工作，该词常用来表达一些分离的、同步的或连 续的行动，如the activity of the heart，busy week filled with social activities。
4．split指使某一件物体破碎或分裂成两个或更多个部分，而 difference强调分裂的部分彼此不似或不同。 5．consequence可指以一种中立的方式所表达的简单的因果关 系，如prosperity that was the consequence of widely ex Danded governmental spending。此词更多地是指否定性的 结果或至少是在其他方面结果令人满意却又伴随有否定因 素，如arguing that the rise in lung cancers was a conse auence of cigarette。outcome充分强调对某一事物的结局 所作的唯一的、单独的结论。该词较为非正式，指事情的结局 或解答，如a tragic outcome for such a happy marriage。 6．wealth就其具体的而非抽象的含义来看，是一个含义很广 的词，可指贮藏或积蓄的、人们想要拥有的一切，尤指有经 济利益或短期价值，由个人、集体或非生命实体所使用的物 质的东西，如a man of wealth，a nation’s wealth。从广义上 来讲，wealth既可指有价值的非物体的东西，也可指极丰富的任何事物，如a wealth of experience，a wealth of learn ing。property指个人或集体合法地获取或拥有的任何一件 有价值的东西，如private property，government property。 该词可以是不动产或动产，即它可以包括被看作不动的、永 久的财富，如土地、建筑等，也可以包括被认为可动的、临时 性的财富，如珠宝、书籍、家俱等等。
7．succinct意为压缩、排除了无关细节的，用以说明文章、讲话 等简短、明白、概括，紧抓要点，如a succinct summarv of a lengthy treaties。brief用于时间的持续，其含义相对于 long，如a brief or short interval。该词也常用来强调简洁、 概括等等，如a brief view。
8．product指生长或制造的东西，这些东西或产生于自然界，或 产生于人类工业或艺术。productivity指生产力或某些东西 的大量生产。
9．psychology是一门有关精神及精神、情感过程的科学，也可 指某个人或某个群体的行为、特性、态度、思想、精神状态等 的总和，如the psychology of the adolescent。
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psyche指精 神，是精神病学上的专用术语。 10．humane是指对待人类和整个生物界及二者所处境况都要 慈悲仁爱，如a humane judge，a humane treatment of ani reals。human仅用于表达人区别于动物和自然界以及被认 为能够关注与他人沟通的任何特征。human和humane的 含义区别很大。humane可指人类所共有的高尚的态度，而 human常把软弱或失败看作具有普遍性，因而可以谅解 (人所共犯之错)。但后者也常指对他人的缺陷持灵活宽容 的态度。如：If he‘d only stop moralizing all the time and be a little bit human．
Ⅺ．1．be alienated from 2．way，method 3．obligation 4．func tl’on 5．character 6．action 7．device 8．wealth 9．inacti vl’ty 10．yearning．craving
XⅡ.1．The central idea is expressed in the opening topic sentence \"! love my lawyer\". The method used in developing the central idea is called \"causal analysis\" or \"causation\".
2. The central idea is expressed in the opening topic sentence \"Of all the forces which have tempted us to lose our sense of history, none has been more potent than television\". The me thod used in developing the central idea is called \"causal analysis\" or \"causation\".
XⅢ. Omitted.
Workers in Socialist China
On August 23, 1993, five model workers from Laohekou Golden Town Co. Ltd. were enrolled in the textile correspon- dence speciality of Laohekou TV
University. Sponsored by the company, they would study as college students with no salary reduction. Over the past years, eighteen model workers have been offered free college edueation by the Company. To rejuvenate the
enterprise by means of training personnel and improving the quality of staff and workers, the company
has made a rewarding policy of encouraging model workers ac- quiring higher education in their spare time. The policy arous es the work and study
enthusiasm of over four hundred work- ers in the company. What is popular among workers now is to learn technological knowledge and make contributions to the company. Since 1992, relying on talents to expand, its output value, profit and tax has been rising at an annual rate of 50%. At present, the company has grown into a major textile enter- prise with fixed assets of fifteen million yuan and an annual sale of more than eighty million yuan. One fourth of its prod- ucts are exported to Japan, the United States, Thailand, and Southeast Asia.
To better the overall quality of the staff members and work- ers, the company has decided to make all of them technical secondary school graduates within the coming three years.
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