The (In)inevitability of Freedom Pt. II: Desire to Escape

Author: Yuval Klein

Title Image: Noa Havilio

This second part of The (In)inevitability of Freedom will primarily discuss Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom. 

Escape from Freedom was written and published in 1941 by Erich Fromm, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who became an American citizen the very year of the book's conception. It is concerned with fascism, establishing a psychological basis for the then nascent antagonist. He acknowledges the socio-economic factors underpinning the ideology, but nonetheless, insists that there is a psychological phenomenon that must be described. His background is religious, studying Orthodox Judaism before becoming secular. He turned to psychoanalytic thought alongside Karen Horney, a friend and prominent neo-freudian contemporary. After the success of his seminal work, he elaborated on many of the soon-to-be-discussed themes in books such as The Art of Loving and The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (obnoxious but worthy titles).

Throughout the book, Fromm demonstrates an obsession with the mindset of gentile German citizens–to what extent they enabled the sadistic ideology of Nazism to ascend the rungs of power. One of his main contentions is that people gave up their freedom in order to relieve themselves of the anxiety that comes with it–that they were willing to give up the freedom that their ancestors fought for because it became a burden. He acknowledges that many Germans did not readily accept Nazism, but the dissidence was passive, with very little meaningful resistance occurring. The inability to fight for one’s convictions doesn’t only reflect fear of authority; the undeterred state of Nazism reflected an abject complacency among the population. Initially, the majority of citizens enabled the Nazis not because the fanaticism resonated with them; most weren’t attracted to the ideology, but accepted it in order to retain ownership of their national identity. To be a dissident of Adolf Hitler’s regime would leave the German citizen in a state of exile within their own country, left with an unbearable loneliness. The acquiescence reflects a fear of a certain kind of freedom. Solomon Asch, in his famous conformity experiment, showed that people often convince themselves of a majority’s lie. Fringe ideological dogma, if grown, can become surprisingly pervasive, and ultimately, dominant. The lie of a majority usually overwhelms the truth of a minority.

Fromm is very insistent on proclaiming human beings to be–especially those in the modern world–utterly alone. He cites the “individuation” of human beings as the cause of this: That is, the process by which a person becomes independent. When we are born, we are entirely dependent upon others. Over time, we become more “free”, and likewise, lonely. An individuated adult is essentially viewing the world as a separate entity. This gives the individual a sense of loneliness and powerlessness.

He establishes a dichotomy between positive and negative freedom. There is the negative “freedom from,” which is a freedom from constraint; conversely, there is the positive “freedom to,” which is achieved through spontaneous activity. This spontaneity entails acting and thinking without the un-authenticating effect of social inhibitions. It often exists in the expression of love, creativity, and interaction with children (little beacons of positive freedom). Economically, it is important that people are intrinsically motivated in their work, rather than being corporate commodities trying to eke out a living for themselves. The ability of a minority to capitalize on the “freedom to” is at the core of the art and innovation often attributed to the Renaissance–but in his description of the period, Fromm chooses to focus on the uprooted majority, rather than the flourishing elite. The negative “freedom from” in Western Europe during that time meant freedom from the institutions that connected people to one another.

In feudal Europe, there were rigid classes. Man was, therefore, only conscious of himself as part of a collective. However, during the renaissance, humanism insisted on the importance of individual identity. Capitalism opened up people to a world of economic possibilities as well as competition. Having been deprived of a caste, the individual then suffered a crisis of security and belonging. These people had strength in that they were autonomous, but were also weak with angst. Their isolation brought about an agonizing vulnerability and impotence, a lingering force... Fascism addressed this, and previously, religion. 

The Middle Ages are normally characterized as primitive, ruled by irrational superstitions. Idealization of it is negligible, a fringe idea held mostly by reactionary philosophers, not even by most religious believers. However, Fromm insists that the medieval socio-cultural structure had certain benefits. There was a lot of concrete individualism, which means freedom within a social context. He contrasts it with abstract freedom, which means personal dependence and freedom from external constraints. In order for freedom to be worth fighting for, worth embracing, it has to exist within some sort of social framework. In other words, freedom that is to be desired cannot exist within a vacuum. Otherwise, the individual would feel like what the character Vinz in La Haine described as “an ant lost in intergalactic space.” Fromm's description of people can be conceptualized through physics. For example, atoms and molecules try to bond with one another. In an individualistic world, people are all astray, disparate, disconnected particles forming an ominous gas.

There were other advantages to the particular time period and place. For all the pain and hardships endured during the Middle Ages, there was the Church. Religion made it all bearable because although it imposed guilt and restricted thought, it also provided a sense of cosmic love for one’s self and loved ones. Fromm attributes the protestant reformation happening in tandem with the Renaissance to the desire of “escaping” negative freedom. 

The Renaissance is an example of a “freedom to,” but that was only the case for the upper class. In their shadow, people became a “shapeless mass” without their former security, now at the disposal of despots’ whims. A vast majority of peasants became hoeriges, a people who were free but constantly indebted to the upper classes. Meanwhile, the middle class lived in a state of anxiety owed to market competition. Capitalism both freed individuals and pitted them against one another. Economically, people gained in both positive and negative freedom. They became more free to take an active role in their lives, but also losing economic ties that once brought security. Fromm says, “Life has ceased to be lived in a closed world… the world has become limitless and at the same time threatening.” The ethos of fascism lies in its closing of the open, tinting the daunting windows of opportunities. So too, protestantism.

“...a stranger is thrown into a limitless and threatening world.” This is unbearable, demanding of a cure… The protestant reformation offered an escape from freedom through complete submission to God. Fromm discusses the theology and character of the movement’s most prominent two figures, Martin Luther and John Calvin. At the core of Luther’s philosophy was humiliating the individual; through humiliation, the individual is stripped of his will and strength, left to an existence of “complete submission” to God. Calvinism is deterministic, more specifically, fatalistic. It exemplifies insignificance to the utmost, rendering will and effort to be futile. It was popular for the same reason as fascism: It allowed people to be a part of something larger than themselves, and therefore, not interact with the world as a separate entity. This psychological submission is at the core of the “protestant work ethic” too. The protestants' piety involves forfeiting their freedom in order to serve something larger than themselves. That something became capitalism. This is a connection to The End of History that I omitted from the last article (in which I briefly described the context out of which notions of civil liberties and democracy came about). The origin of early (much before industrialization) capitalism is highly specific to Western Europe, a fact that must be acknowledged before determining its universality.

Fromm posits three mechanisms of escaping freedom: authoritarianism, destructiveness, and automaton conformity. Authoritarianism consists of sadism and masochism; sadism is expressed through authoritarian leadership, while masochism through citizenry. Fromm argues that although they are opposites, they work in tandem. The root of masochism is the desire to escape the granted freedom, relinquishing one’s authority over one’s self. In all of his examples, the extent to which people do this seem to be overestimated. Although fear of an aggressor is a potent historical catalyst and tyrants aren’t necessarily driven by “sadism,” this argument isn’t baseless. To summarize his claim, the sadist’s desire to dominate paired with the masochist’s desire to be dominated make a symbiotic relationship called authoritarianism.

Without fulfillment, there can also arise a desire to destroy. While sadism manifests itself in domination of people, destruction means their violent removal. The appeal of Hollywood revenge thrillers can be attributed to this. The vigilante destroys the evil person who took away their sense of control and belonging (usually the villain does this by killing or threatening the protagonist’s loved ones), and then violence becomes a way of addressing the unbearable sense of uprootedness. Everyone has a propensity for destruction. This is usually directed towards scapegoats. Nazism employs this defense mechanism, so too do many instances of authoritarianism. 

Automaton conformity is the most common mechanism of escape. In it, one is conforming in order to become an automaton, that is, a socially accepted person who isn’t true to one’s self. Fromm claims that automatons feel emotions and think thoughts that are not their own–that the ostensibly interior properties are, in fact, outside intruders. Conformity is certainly a problem, but human thought is nuanced. No Orwellian regime nor social media platform can pry into a person’s thoughts. However, thoughts exist within a framework imposed on people by social norms, language, and so on. Mikhail Bakhtin claimed that language is relational. A thought is, therefore, in constant dialogue with the previously expressed thoughts of others. From an early age, the child goes to school and is constantly told how to think, being coerced into sublimating unacceptable behavior. They are also taught syntax and grammar. All of that is profoundly meaningful, but not to the extent Fromm laments it to be. No child is constantly being told how and what to think about their subjective experience; they are free. What Fromm calls “pseudo-thinking” exists to an extent, but his idea of most people being “pseudo-thinkers” is unrealistically cynical.

The ideas of Fromm can be harrowing, revealing a chasmic psychological reality that can be harnessed by way of violence and/or cognitive lethargy. Yet, there is optimism in the assertion of a human capacity to vanquish loneliness. The ability of people to do so remains a capricious force in history.