Manipulate Or Consume

We consume, as we produce, without any concrete relatedness to the objects with which we deal; we live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.

-- Erich Fromm (1900 - 1980), German social psychologist and humanistic philosopher, The Sane Society (1955) Ch. 5: Man in Capitalistic Society, p. 134 Sect.C.2.b "Alienation"