SHS Web of Conferences 72, 010 23 (2019) APPSCONF-2019
https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf /20197201023
And religious conceptualizations of greed in the writing of Erich Fromm and John Chrysostom Diana Martynova1 , Elena Motovnikova1* , Igor Boichuk1 1Belgorod State National Research University, 308015, Belgorod, Russia
Abstract. In modern society, which is conceptualized as a society of mass consumption and consumer culture, the discussion about the balance of the positively stimulating role and costs of the consumer attitudes as the basis of social behavior does not stop. The greatest danger of consumerism for a person lies, however, not in the socio-economic, but in the ethicalpsychological aspect of a person’s life. This study seeks to clarify in which categories it is possible to achieve a productive understanding of the role of greed in the development of a person’s spiritual world. A comparative analysis of the reasoning of the classics of Christian and atheistic humanistic ethics makes it possible to see the specifics of the anthropological consideration of greed and draw conclusions about the relevance of educational and pedagogical support to people who have taken the path to combat this spiritual ailment.
1 Introduction The modern post-Christian secular society of market economy and consumerism culture inevitably puts a person in the contradictory position of an ever unsatisfied consumer, on the one hand, and an active participant in many communities and groups in which you need to show yourself open, generous, good companion and partner. It is impossible not to notice this contradiction between the philosophical and religious wisdom of the centuries, which speaks of greed as a mortal sin and moral deformity, and the pragmatic interest of modern civilization, in which greed is the engine of progress and the entire competitive global economy. In Russia, the acuteness of the problem is aggravated by the fact that a large part of the adult population brought up during the late Soviet period has not forgotten the ideals of communist morality, the secularized version of essentially Christian fraternity, selflessness and solidarity. The presence of a clearly defined point of reference makes the experience of competitive-individualistic relations accumulated over thirty years in various areas of Russian public and private life a convenient object of research into the effectiveness and costs of commercializing social institutions and creative activity. (сf., Kovalevskaya, 2009; Ishchenko, 2010; Farkhatdinov, 2011; Suvalko, 2013; Golovashina, 2016; Polyakov, 2016; Popova, 2016 et al.). Scientific psychology interprets the problem in terms of the dialectic of the measure and its violation: greed is seen as an exaggerated *
Corresponding author: motovnikova@bsu.edu.ru
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