Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself.
Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.
Modern man has transformed himself into a commodity; he experiences his life energy as an investment with which he should make the highest profit, considering his position and the situation on the personality market. He is alienated from himself, from his fellow men and from nature. His main aim is profitable exchange of his skills, knowledge, and of himself, his "personality package" with others who are equally intent on a fair and profitable exchange. Life has no goal except the one to move, no principle except the one of fair exchange, no satisfaction except the one to consume.p97.
Happiness is a man's greatest achievement; it is the response of his total personality to a productive orientation toward himself and the world outside.
Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.
If you do not smile, you are judged lacking in a 'pleasing personality' - and you need to have a pleasing personality if you want to sell your services, whether as a waitress, a salesman, or a physician.
Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality. One can judge objectively to what extent a person has succeeded in his task, to what degree he has realized his potentialities. If he has failed in his task, one can recognize this failure and judge it for what it is - a moral failure.
Our main way of relating ourselves to others is like things relate themselves to things on the market. We want to exchange our own personality - or as one says sometimes, our "personality package" - for something.
The manual worker does not have to sell his personality. He doesn't have to sell his smile.
What you might call the "symbol pushers" - that is to say, all of the people who deal with figures, with paper, with men, who manipulate - to use a better or nicer word - manipulate men and signs and words. All those today have not only to sell their service, but in the bargain, they have to sell their personality, more or less. There are exceptions.
Our whole culture is based on the appetite for buying, on the idea of a mutually favorable exchange. .... For the man an attractive girl - and for the woman an attractive man - are the prizes they are after. 'attractive' usually means a nice package of qualities which are popular and sought after on the personality market. What specifically makes a person attractive depends on the fashion of the time, physically as well as mentally. ... Two persons thus fall in love when they feel they have found the best object available on the market, considering the limitations of their own exchange values.
I believe indeed that to rescue the humanist tradition of the last decades is of the utmost importance, and that Victor Serge is one of the outstanding personalities representing the socialist aspect of humanism.
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