Name: Escape from Freedom
ISBN: 9780030084553

Escape from Freedom

Escape from Freedom is a book by the Frankfurt-born psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, first published in the United States by Farrar & Rinehart in 1941 with the title Escape from Freedom and a year later as The Fear of Freedom in UK by Routledge & Kegan Paul. It was translated into German and first published in 1952 under the title 'Die Angst vor der Freiheit' (The Fear of Freedom). In the book, Fromm explores humanity's shifting relationship with freedom, with particular regard to the personal consequences of its absence. His special emphasis is the psychosocial conditions that facilitated the rise of Nazism. )

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red-iron-pineJun 2024

> and having too many options.

I'm old enough to be able to remember when there were ~6 TV channels, and, really, only 4 of them actually worked.

You had option A, B, C, or D, and you picked on. Usually it came down to an A or B.

Now with 300 channels I get lost in choosing something, and ultimately default to something generic as background noise as opposed to actually giving it my attention.

See also: Fromm's Escape From Freedom

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mrrobot900May 2024

Escape from Freedom[1]! the meat of Fromm's thesis is that modern societies have attained a lot of "negative freedom" (i.e. freedom from necessities and/or authorities), but the corresponding growth in "positive freedom" (freedom to express oneself authentically and genuinely) has been lackluster. the result is that we become "burdened" by the responsibilities of freedom, unable to handle it without feeling overwhelmed. instead, we resort to escape mechanisms: e.g. by seeking refuge in authoritarian leaders, or by conforming to societal standards and expectations. both are detrimental, Fromm says, as they undermine individual freedom. Fromm urges that we should pay more attention to our thoughts and actions, and to be more wary of them, as they may or may not be genuine expressions of our inner selves.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Freedom

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ggpsvApr 2022

It is certainly more nuanced and complex than reducing it in terms of a persons's propensity towards good and evil. You must look into the psychosocial conditions that made Germany the breeding grounds for Nazism. Why was it appealing to the ordinary Germany citizen? I recommend reading Erich Fromm's book Escape from Freedom as he explores this at depth. Still a relevant book almost 80 years after being written — where might observe similar phenomena today?

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t8yFeb 2022

Escape From Freedom by Erich Fromm

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jazzykFeb 2022

Since we can only pick one -> "Animal Farm", no question about it. Easy read, succinctly describes human nature.

But if I could, I would supplement it with these two, because they were so prescient in describing what happened to us in the past 30 years:

Erich Fromm - "Escape From Freedom"

Aldous Huxley - "Brave New World"

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dataviz1000May 2021

Also, Erich Fromm's, a German psychoanalyst, 'Escape from Freedom' which is a social psychology treatise on the rise of Nazism published in 1941 about how people innately shirk responsibility and the relationship between a person's freedom to make decisions and how much social and personal responsibility they assume.

The book is about how Hitler came to power but what I saw was a manual on how to become a very evil person. I remember thinking halfway through the book, 'Oh, this is why negging is a very effective seduction technique.'

(I looked up the word assume to make sure I'm using it correctly here and even in its definition power and responsibility are interchangeable which makes sense because there is a relationship in our reality between power and responsibility. Strangely, Fromm didn't use the word shirk in this context, I think I get that word from Dr. Seuss' 'Horton Hears a Who'. Probably a good thing that Dr. Seuss got to me first. That is the wisdom of the Disney folks.)

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