Albert Schweitzer urged the world to
“dare to look reality in the face… Man has become a superman…
But the superman with his superhuman power has not reached
the level of superhuman rationality. The more his power grows,
the more he becomes a poor man… Our consciences cannot help
but be shaken by the observation that the more we grow or become supermen,
the more inhuman we are.”

Not least importance is another factor: the relationship between humans
and nature became profoundly hostile. As “freaks of nature”,
which due to the very conditions of our existence are placed within
nature which however transcends thanks to the gift of reason,
we have attempted to solve our existential problem by renouncing
the messianic vision of harmony between humanity and nature,
subjugating it, transforming it and adapting it to our purposes,
and in the long run the subjugation has become increasingly
equivalent to destruction. Our spirit of conquest and hostility
has blinded us to the evidence that natural resources have
precise limits and may end up running out, and that nature
will rebel against human rapacity.

Industrial society is characterized by contempt for nature
as well as for all things that are not machine-made and
for all people who are not machine-makers, namely non-white ethnic groups,
with the recently acquired exceptions of Japan and China.

People today are attracted by the mechanical, by the powerful machine,
by the lifeless, and increasingly by destruction.

[…]

that is to say of our way of life, they are pathogenic and end up producing
a sick personality and therefore a sick society.

[…]

In the passage in question Marx and Engels draw attention
to the most important aspect of the use of the noun instead of the verb.
The noun “love”, which is not an abstraction indicating the activity of loving,
becomes separated from man; the man in love becomes the man of love;
love becomes a goddess, an idol into which man projects his own being in love.
And in this process of alienation he ceases to experience love,
but is only in relationship with his own ability to love through submission
to the goddess Love. Man has ceased to be an active, sentient individual
to become the alienated worshiper of an idol.

Erich Fromm – To have or to be?

Erich Fromm – Avere o Essere?