You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Current facts justify raising the question, May Man Prevail? Mankind and its major civilizations are in serious jeopardy. It is frustrating to realize that even though the human species has moved from the Stone Age to the Atomic Age with such splendid technological proficiency, all may be lost in a destructive convulsion of infantile, irrational emotionality. Perhaps never has the struggle between reason and passion been waged with so much to be lost, the very continuation of earthly civilizations.
Fromm has addressed himself to this question using the tools of the historian, sociologist, and analyst. He notes that “The history of man is a graveyard of great cultures that come to catastrophic ends because of their incapacity for planned, voluntary reaction to challenge.” Time and again rational evaluations of facts and situations have been discarded in the face of personal, tribal, cultural, and sovereign biases. Almost always power was the final arbiter; almost always there was loss of life and distortion of human values. But there was also the regenerative