Although the
pleasure derived from the satisfaction of genuine physiological needs and of
irrational psychic needs consists in the relief from tension, the quality of
the pleasure differs significantly. The physiologically conditioned desires
such as hunger, thirst, and so on, are satisfied with the removal of the
physiologically conditioned tension, and they reappear only when the
physiological need arises again; they are thus rhythmic in nature. The
irrational desires, in contrast, are insatiable. The desire of the envious, the
possessive, the sadistic person does not disappear with its satisfaction,
except perhaps momentarily. It is in the very nature of these irrational
desires that they can not be “satisfied.” They spring from a dissatisfaction
within oneself. The lack of productiveness and the resulting powerlessness and
fear are the root of these passionate cravings and irrational desires. Even if
man could satisfy all his wishes for power and destruction, it would not change
his fear and loneliness, and thus the tension would remain. The blessing of
imagination turns into a curse; since a person does not find himself relieved
from his fears, he imagines ever-increasing satisfactions would cure his greed
and restore his inner balance. But greed is a bottomless pit, and the idea of
the relief derived from its satisfaction is a mirage. Greed, indeed, is not, as
is so often assumed, rooted in man’s animal nature but in his mind and
imagination.
We have seen that
the pleasures derived from the fulfillment of physiological needs and neurotic
desires are the result of the removal of painful tension. But while those in
the first category are really satisfying, are normal, and are a condition for
happiness, those in the latter are at best only a temporary mitigation of need,
an indication of pathological functioning and of fundamental unhappiness. I
propose to call the pleasure derived from the fulfillment of irrational desires
“irrational pleasure” in contradistinction to “satisfaction,” which is the
fulfillment of normal physiological desires.
Erich Fromm (1947)
Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. p.188-189.
沒有留言:
張貼留言