Thank you for that most informative exposition. Fromm is someone I keep meaning to get around to reading.

Would it not be the ultimate synthesis for humanity to discover the ethical in the ‘real’?

I have developed a candidate for that, which I call real justice. In it both the determiners and the referents of the ethic of justice are contained within material existence. That legitimately de-legitimates going outside material existence to justify violations of that ethic.

The ethic of real justice is mutual respect in effecting choices. It follows from the observation that humans have no choice but to effect choices (choose among perceived alternatives and take action towards bringing that choice to fruition). [Warren J. Samuels all but defined “social power” as the ability to effect choices.]

For co-existing, choice-effecting human beings, that process will inevitably involve other people in various instances. When that happens we must take those other human beings into account. To do that is to respect them, to recognize them as fellow human beings; to refuse to take them into account is to assert by one’s actions some status regarding ‘thee and them’ that cannot be proven to exist within the context of material existence. In the process of effecting any choice every human being must, at a minimum, refrain from, borrowing from Locke, “subjecting” any other(s) to one’s own “arbitrary will.”

Applying the ethic of real justice to the governance of governance would maximize liberty as a practical matter, reinforce political democracy, and transform any existing economy without tearing down any of its existing institutional structures — providing, among other good things, the means to eliminate unemployment, poverty, taxes, and public debt.

Now, there’s something worthy of hope — with faith and fearlessness!