Human Consciousness

Human Consciousness

Erich Fromm and Shirley Jackson have both written wonderful true-life affecting essays and should be awarded for them. I appreciate both stories and feel they both set tales to learn from and live by. As a combined theme for both I ‘ld say “human consciousness is more then a gift”. And read on to see what I mean.

In Erich Fromm we notice a compassionate concern for the unfolding of life. Fromm claims that "the growing process of the emergence of the individual from his original ties, a process which we may call ‘individuation,’ seems to have reached its peak in modern history in the centuries between the Reformation and the present." Of course, the beginning of change is not the cause of all our problems but it did magnify them because now the existence of humanity itself has become a problem according to the way I am reading into Fromm’s story. Then when you shift you focus towards Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, it depicts an ordinary day with anticipation of yearly appointments. Her description awakens you to a pleasant sunny day, flowers blooming, and everyone united around the town square. All are gathered to cast lots for the right to another year's meeting. From the onset, this story quickly takes you into a dismal, gloomy atmosphere.

The first hint comes in the first paragraph when they indicated that The Lottery will only take two hours and be over with in time for dinner." (78) This was one meeting no one was eager to attend.

These two stories are different from one another in text but are same in form. Fromm later on talks about animals living completely within nature and proclaims that they are guided by instinctive behavior. He continues and says humans have lost such instinctive mechanisms. This is where Jackson’s simplicity of life fall’s in. She brings up Fromm’s ideas of animals in a form of a meeting that took place. This meeting took place every year in the town square where all other happy and significant town occasions were held; it was not your usual gathering of friends, bringing covered dishes, balloons and clowns for the kids. A celebration it was not, but just the opposite. This story reveals the dark side of human nature. It's flaws, lack of compassion, selfishness and "anybody but me" attitude. If you had had the opportunity to talk with my late grandmother she would characterize it as being "set in...

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...corrupting man, set him free; it was the beginning of history. Man had to leave the Garden of Eden in order to learn to rely on his own powers and to become fully human.

Fromm offers with these comments an idealistic interpretation of the fall that leaves no place for the concept of original sin. He believes he is supported in this interpretation by the Old Testament tradition because even the prophets confirm the idea that humans have aright to be disobedient. Only after their disobedience can human beings establish a harmony between themselves, other persons, and nature through the forces of reason and love. Fromm even believes that humanity, through new acts of disobedience, has progressed in its development. This applies to humans’ spiritual as well as intellectual development because they liberate themselves from authorities that would not tolerate any new thoughts or any new freedoms for the individual.

But in the end of all this I feel that Jackson’s “The Lottery” brings up it’s main theme as being “ how traditions lose their meaning due to human forgetfulness” which links very well to Fromm’s thoughts on how humans can accept change and not know how to put it to use.