Erich Fromm's philosophy and psychological theory

Escape From Freedom

One of the most essential aspects of humankind is the ability to be independent and free to make personal decisions and action, as long as they are within the laws of the society. This capability clearly separates humans from other animals. Individuals have the internal knowledge that thinking, feeling and desiring is, can and has to be controlled by their own drive. Who else determines what a person does, but that person him/herself? This is the greatest fundamental freedom, that people have the ability to create and control their own thoughts and emotions. However, psychologically, having freedom is a very difficult challenge. If someone does not have the self-confidence and self-motivation, feelings of fear, isolation, and powerlessness can arise. This, Eric Fromm states in Escape from Freedom, is the major dilemma that faces humankind. It is also what will make a society want and accept different forms of governments.

Erich Fromm was born in 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany. At the age of 14, he experienced the horror of WWI. As he became older, he wanted to understand this irrationality of human behavior and looked for the answers in Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, in his writings he thus emphasizes the unconscious, biological drives, and as well as people who are controlled by their society and its economic system. These concepts are integrated in Escape from Freedom, since he looks at the concept of societal and economic freedom from a psychological standpoint.

Since Fromm lived through WWI and this book was written at the time of WWII and the rise of Hitler and fascism, these events clearly play a role in this book as well. Unfortunately, many of the aspects he covers in the book about fascism are as relevant today as they were half a century ago.

Fromm starts by examining the facts of human nature. He describes man as a product and producer of society. He does not have to react automatically or immediately, but has the power, albeit not "infinitely malleable." Man adapts in one of two ways: static or the character remains unchanged and only a habit is adopted. For this, he uses the example of a Chinese person coming to the U.S. And using forks and knives, but not changing his overall cultural mode; and dynamic adaptation, where the person changes in character and behavior, as when a boy changes his actions because of continued discipline from a parent (14).

What makes man want to adapt? There are certain forces in his nature that are flexible, love, sadism, lust for power, and those that are an "indispensable part of human nature," that are tied to hunger, thirst, and sleep and other self-preservation factors (17). This is tied into the economic system, "because the imperative need for self-preservation forces him to accept the conditions under which he has to live." (18).

There is another need that is as strong as work -- the need "to be related to the world outside oneself, the need to avoid aloneness" (19). This is a need for belonging and being part of a community, since "man is primarily a social being." This need comes from a number of different factors, including "the fact of subjective self-consciousness, of the faculty of thinking by which man is aware of himself as an individual entity, different from nature and other people" (21). He needs to know he is alive for some reason.

The concept of awareness of one's self as a separate entity raises the idea of personal freedom. From the beginning of his existence, man is faced with various choices of action. However, this freedom has a "dialectic character," for on the one hand there is a process of growing strength and integration, mastery of nature, growing power of human reason and solidarity with others. Yet on the other hand, there is a rising sense of isolation, insecurity and doubt about one's role in the universe (35-36). The concept of individuality began in the Middle Ages with the Renaissance with a differentiation of freedom from to freedom to.

In the Renaissance, people began to see themselves in the center of the universe instead of God. The Church, which had been so much a part of their lives, was no longer providing them with the direction needed. The other crucial aspect of the Renaissance was the comparatively high development of commercial and industrial capitalism. The guilds were increasingly declining, and the international commerce and local industry grew rapidly. As the economic situation changed, so too did the psychological. People began to look at clocks and worry about the passing of time and how much work had to be done; efficiency became one of the highest moral values, and the desire for wealth a passion (58).

The individual no longer had the support of others or security. For the poor, it meant growing exploitation and impoverishment; for the peasants, economic and personal pressure; for the nobility, ruin; and for the urban middle class meant lack of economic surety or prosperity, but insecurity, isolation and anxiety (58).

Lutheranism and Calvinism arose at this time, of Reformation, and responded to this didactic of freedom and isolation to help the people cope through their teachings. They preached to people who were alone and frightened and felt powerless (86). In addition, the middle class began to feel hostile and build resentment against themselves and others, especially in moral indignation -- that those who were better would be punished by eternal suffering (96). In total, the individual was left alone and isolated, yet free -- free of the security he had earlier, the sense of belonging, and to think and act independently and do what he wanted to do, not what he was asked to do (99). However, it was only the most successful class of society that profited from the rising capitalism in terms of wealth and power. This new aristocracy could build huge amounts of money and enjoy their new freedom.

The new religions showed the middle-class individual a way to cope with his anxiety. "By fully accepting his powerlessness and the evilness for his sins, by the utmost self-humiliation, and also by unceasing effort, he could overcome his doubt and his anxiety; that by complete submission, he could be loved by God and could at least hope to belong to those whom God had decided to save" (100).

As capitalism grew, those factors that tend to weaken the individual self gained, while those strengthening the individual loss in weight. The individual's feeling of powerlessness continued to grow and his "freedom" from all traditional bonds became more pronounced and his possibilities for individual economic achievement increasingly narrow (123). Situations, such as the German inflation of 1923 and the U.S. stock market crash in 1929, as well as the war further increased feelings of insecurity and shattered hopes. The psychological effect against the vast and superior power of big enterprise, even with the support of the unions, had its impact.

Mankind is thus left in the limbo between freedom and fear of freedom. His religion is not helping him, nor is his work. What choices does he have then to escape from the burden in which freedom has placed him?

Authoritarianism. By this approach, man avoids freedom by becoming a part of another authoritarian group, either by submitting to the power of others by becoming passive and accepting or to assume the role of authoritarian and give structure to others With either method, the self-identity is lost. The two versions, masochism and sadism, both make a person feel obligated to assume a specific role and no longer has choice for personal actions. However, both try to help the person escape unbearable aloneness and powerlessness. This type of relationship does not have to be neurotic, it works for some individuals. In fact, says Fromm, it is the type of character structure to which Nazi ideology had its strongest appeal (164). In addition, there are different degrees of authoritarian relationships; they need not all be extreme.

Destructiveness. In the second approach, people either hurt themselves so no one else can (suicide is the extreme, but it can also be self-destruction through drugs, alcohol, etc.), or hurt others because of their anger and humiliation. "It is this escape from freedom that accounts for much of the indiscriminate nastiness of life -- brutality, vandalism, humiliation, vandalism, crime, terrorism...." (165).

Automaton conformity. This is an approach that is often taken in today's society. People hide with others who are like them. If one person dresses and acts like the norm, he or she will not stand out. Of course, all sense of creativity and independence of thought is gone by following what everyone else does. It is like a social chameleon, who is not alone but also not his/her real self.

Not only in social life is there the tendency of people to give in to the will and beliefs of others. There are also individuals who are so alone and isolated that they completely lose themselves in to urges, demands and expectations another(s). This completely stunts their growth and freedom. The authoritarian and the automaton psychology are seen in Nazism and democracy. Nazism is both an economic and political problem, which has to be understood on psychological grounds. During the Nazi regime in WWI and then once again in WWII, two groups of people existed: there were those who did not give any resistance, but also without supporting the cause and those who were deeply attracted to the new ideology.

This is what can happen when people try to escape their freedom. History shows with numerous examples, including Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s, and even today others throughout the world, how great the disaster can be when humans give their power to someone else. Someone like Hitler can come to power because people lose the ability to exert their own personal strength and fortitude.

In the situation with Hitler, stresses Fromm, there were two disastrous trends that are fundamental for the power of the authoritarian character: the craving for power over others and the longing for submission to an overwhelmingly strong outside power (236). His ideology resulted from a personality that included feelings of inferiority, hatred against self and life, envy of others who enjoy life and striving for sadomasochism. It was used with people who, due to a similar character structure, felt attracted and excited by his words and teachings and pleased that he was expressing their feelings and words. It was a society of power, where one person rose over another ad infinitum.

Nazism fulfilled the emotional needs of a population. "It seems that nothing is more difficult for the average man to bear than the feeling of not being identified with a larger group. However much a German citizen may be opposed to the principles of Nazism, if he has to choose between being alone and feeling that he belongs to Germany, most persons will choose the latter."

What about democracy? Is democracy threatened by fascism? Has democracy provided humankind with the "true" individualism? The Western society, notes Fromm, fosters a tendency to conform. This suppression of spontaneous feelings starts from a very young age. Although a child naturally has some rebelliousness, from an early age, he is also encouraged to have thoughts and ideas that are not his/her own. His emotions are even dictated -- he is supposed to feel a certain way when at Church or when with his relatives. Or, in the case of gender (still true today as when Fromm wrote his book), there are certain times when feelings are not supposed to be felt. A boy is told he cannot cry. A girl is told not to be too aggressive. After a while, it is easy to know what is the "true" identity, and what is the false one that is put on because of the expectations of others.

Another way of destroying the individuality, even in a democratic society, is the trivialization of world facts -- "the announcement of a bombing of a city and the death of hundreds of people is shamelessly followed or interrupted by an advertisement for soap or wine" (250). People cease to be excited, emotions become hampered and eventually a person's attitude to what is going on the world assumes the quality of flatness and indifference.

In the name of 'freedom,' life loses all structure; it is composed of many little pieces, each separate from the other and lacking any sense as a whole." The person is left with all the pieces of a puzzle without being able to put them together.

It is difficult to think that this paper was written so long ago, when it could have been written today, given this above paragraph. What would Fromm had thought to see reality shows, where it is difficult to know what is real and what is not, what is staged and what is not. How people have become blase to see death, murder, war and destruction on TV and the worst situations are summarized into sound-bites that do not hold any weight or substance. What would he have thought about quick takes on another bombing in Iraq, between the advertisements of two comedy shows?

Fromm then goes on to talk about the act of willing, and, if anything, to have too many wishes, with all the energy being spent on the purpose of getting what is wanted and most people never question this premise. "They do not stop to think whether the aims they are pursuing are something they themselves want" (or are motivated to want by outside expectations or pressures). Fromm clearly describes what today is seen even more so than in his times: conspicuous consumption.

In his book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Veblen discusses the need of the leisure class to spend money in a manner, which "serves the purpose of a favorable invidious comparison with other consumers," or, in other words, to spend money in a way to make other individuals feel poor and valueless. This may mean, today, to build the 6,000 square foot house for a family of three instead of 5,000 square feet like a neighbor. At this holiday season, the commercials are bombarding people with what they need not to keep up with the Jones but to be much better.

The Western world also emphasizes the need for conformity. "The loss of identity makes it even more imperative to conform; it means that one can be sure of oneself only if one lives up to the expectations of others. Go into most middle and high schools and there is no need to ask about conformity or the lack of it. How difficult it is for youth to look or act differently! Look at the commercials that show how people should or should not act. Unfortunately, man is starving to be different, yet this is not possible.