We are told we should not want things; we should not be possessive. In Leonard Cohen’s song “Bird on a Wire,” a beggar, “leaning on his wooden crutch,” admonishes the singer: “You should not ask for so much.” On the other hand, a “pretty woman leaning in her darkened door” cries to him, “Hey, why not ask for more?” And there we are: caught between guilt and desire. In 1976, the psychologist Erich Fromm in a best-selling book titled