The Fear of Freedom

Erich Fromm

This was my favourite book from 2022. Towards the last part of the book, Fromm writes, “The cultural and political crisis of our day is not due to the fact that there is too much individualism but that what we believe to be individualism has become an empty shell“. An insightful remark for today, but here’s the kicker – this book was published in 1941! And though the book seeks an explanation of the psychological-social conditions that led to the rise of Nazism, the historical and psychological constructs it uses ends up answering a lot more. 

I have always thought that our current condition is unique because of the technological advances we have made. This book, and the quote above, has made me realise that the roots actually lie deep within us, and the conflicting nature of the freedom we have acquired with time. This movie – the confusion and anxiety at an individual and societal level- has been seen before by our species. Even before the first industrialisation, when the Medieval era mechanics started changing courtesy the Renaissance and the Reformation. 

The book begins by pointing out that several of our drives beyond hunger, thirst, sex are a result of an interaction with society. It is a cultural product, and the process is interactive – influencing each other. “Man is not only made by history – history is made by man“. As opposed to animals which more or less follow a stimulus- based strict course of action, man chooses his courses of action. He first gained freedom from the absoluteness of nature, and started making tools to gain mastery over nature. 

In the late Middle Ages, a growing individualism began across different spheres, and people began breaking free from the feudal society. But the flip side was the loss of security and solidarity with the collective. An increased feeling of strength was also accompanied by an increased sense of isolation, doubt and scepticism. When relationships no longer remained a source of security, fame became the means to silence one’s own doubts. In parallel, time and efficiency began to be seen as valuable, and the desire for wealth and material success became paramount. 

The middle class resented the new moneyed class and the Church, but felt powerless and insignificant. Luther’s system unshackled the relationship with God from the Church and gave it to the individual. But it also meant the severing of a group that collectively faced God in Church. Another facet of this was also the demolition of man’s will and pride to gain God’s grace. As time progressed, the medieval religious ethos – that the purpose of life was spiritual aims and salvation – was also lost, and man was ready to accept a role in which his life was a means to a purpose outside himself. Economic productivity. Not only were other individuals seen as objects for manipulation, his own relationship with self changed.

Fromm’s key perspective about freedom is that while we focus on “freedom from”(nature, Church etc), it can be destructive if not balanced by a “freedom to”. Our issues of only having “freedom from” result in us trying to escape via three routes. Authoritarianism, in which a person simultaneously wants to control people as well as submit to a higher power – another person or an idea. Destructiveness, in which a person tried to destroy what he cannot control. And finally Automation conformity, the most common in modern society, in which a person unconsciously internalises the beliefs and mindset of their society and think of/experience them as their own. It allows them to avoid critical reasoning and free thinking, which are likely to cause anxiety. 

Fromm then switches to using all of this background to show how the different classes in Germany were differently susceptible to Nazism. Economic positions, social prestige, generational differences all played a role, but the effects of individual and social psychology is the focus area. 

The last chapter is my favourite. Titled “Freedom and democracy”, he points out that it is not just ideas like Fascism that are a danger, but the conformity and the suppression of an individual’s true nature even in democracies is a threat. We have systematically discouraged the expression of emotions, our spontaneity. Fromm explains how spontaneous activity is the means by which we can attain “freedom to”. This is positive freedom. “There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself“. He ends by stressing that man needs to “master society and subordinate the economic machine to the purposes of human happiness, and only if he actively participates in the social process, can he overcome what now drives him into despair – his aloneness and his feeling of powerlessness”.

I cannot recommend this book enough, because it has deep insights on being human, both in the individual sense and as a society.

P.S. Pretty chuffed that a long while ago, on my blog, I had written on how we are trapped between the need to be free, and the need to belong.