Project Vision 21

Recently, on my way to work, I passed by a neighbor’s house and noticed that, out front that morning, there was a huge waste container where two or three men were throwing away furniture, tools, decorations, electronic equipment, and many other items—all in good condition. The destination was obvious: the municipal landfill.

I do not know what happened in that house or within that family, but one thing became obvious to me: the objects accumulated in that home, many of them carrying great economic and sentimental value, had suddenly lost all their worth (perhaps because of a tragedy?) and ended up indignantly added to a mountain of garbage, after once having been deeply important to someone.

Later, I returned to my own home and could no longer look at the objects accumulated there over decades in the same way: from collections of books to albums of irreplaceable photographs, and from inexpensive souvenirs associated with places visited to ornaments whose only value lay in the memories attached to them.

I then asked myself whether all those material objects would also someday end up in a municipal landfill (or perhaps in a thrift store), having become obsolete, useless, or inconvenient for those who, seeing them merely as objects, could neither see nor connect with the story—or better yet, the soul—of those things.

The answer came immediately: yes. Eventually, whether I like it or not, everything I believe to be “mine” will cease to be mine, regardless of its value, history, usefulness, or benefits. In due time, for whatever reason, what we possess will no longer belong to us and, in numerous instances, will quickly be taken to the nearest landfill.

Is that what we call “living”? Working tirelessly for decades and decades to accumulate things that, in the end, are temporary and possess no value in themselves? Have we fallen so low? What have we become? The short answer: objects. That is why we are no longer human beings, but “human resources.” That is why nature is now called “natural resources.”

There is little doubt that we have dehumanized humanity and denaturalized nature. The issue is not new. Half a century ago, the influential psychoanalyst and thinker Erich Fromm analyzed in his book To Have or To Be? the consequences of a society that prefers having over being—that is, a society that prefers loving things and using people. Our society.

For Fromm, by giving priority to having over being, we forget ourselves, our inner being, and, in doing so, we forget something significant: we are all mortal. Inevitably, the day will come when all our possessions—all of them—will become useless.

Fromm proposes that the shift from having to being (on the personal, social, and economic levels) requires recovering our ability to think, feel, act, and share. In the context of today’s society, where narcissism and antipathy prevail, Fromm’s proposal seems almost unreachable.

Could it be that we are creating the landfill toward which we ourselves are heading?