Fromm produced his first book Escape from Freedom, also known as The Fear of Freedom in 1941. In Escape from Freedom Fromm observed the growth of humans from the Middle Ages forward. As he developed his philosophy, Fromm came to define human nature as being dynamic and logical. He stressed that man had five basic needs: to have relationships, to rise above the fact that humanity is accidental, to be secure, to have identification, and to have orientation. Fromm also argued that personality is a by-product of biology and of ones culture. Fromms humanistic and holistic approach to psychoanalysis integrates psychological understanding with religious, economic, and sociological factors.
He was one of the best-known psychoanalysts during the 40s, 50s and 60s and some of his books became instant best sellers. Escape from Freedom introduced intellectuals to psychoanalysis and its relevance to understanding society, analyzing the psychology of fascism and authoritarianism. More than any other psychoanalyst, Fromm showed how the passionate need to find meaning in life was tied to our capacity for destructiveness. While Fromms work fits contemporary, postmodern thinking, after the late 1960s he fell into neglect, dismissed as superficial by the psychoanalytic establishment that he relentlessly criticized and by the new left as a bourgeois reformer. While postmodern theorists struggle to define a model that incorporates two elements, Fromm in his book Escape from Freedom has already conceived a three-dimensional psychic universe. Unique among psychoanalysts, Fromms profound grasp of the human condition was integrated with a broad understanding of socio-cultural forces as they impact on individual personality and on relationships.
The Term Paper on The Underground Railroad Runaways Freedom Escape
The Underground Railroad was any organized movement activity, designed to assist runaway slaves. "A secret method of conducting Negro slaves" (Gara 3). The railroad reached its peak in the period 1830-1865. It was known by every route the enslaved took, or attempted to take to freedom. Neither "underground" nor a "railroad, it consisted of paths and roads, through swamps and over mountains, along ...
Not limited to the psychobiology of infantile drives their derivatives, Fromm grounds his view of human development in the conquest of physical need and emotional security; in the quest for identity and satisfaction; in questions of work and love; and in the realms of religion, politics, ethics, and aesthetics; as well as psychology, sociology anthropology, and history. In the twenty-first century, psychoanalysis will be challenged to keep pace with the complexities Fromm envisioned. Escape from Freedom was written about Fascism in 1941. It is mainly an attempt by Erich Fromm to examine the psychological basis for the success of Fascist philosophy. Parts of this book read like a commentary on what has been happening in Bombay (and elsewhere in this country) in the last few months, and suggest an explanation for the sudden shift in middle-class perceptions that we have been witnessing. Fromms basic thesis is that sometimes human beings find it impossible to live with freedom. This is not an intrinsic defect of human nature.
Rather, it occurs when human beings become politically free, but are unable to decide what they should do with this freedom. Being liberated from external constraints can lead to a feeling of intense loneliness and isolation, unless one is able to channel one’s energies into a socially fulfilling and purposeful life. The inability to do this (which may be related to economic, political and cultural forces in the environment) creates a feeling of insignificance, insecurity and self-doubt. The result is a kind of desperation, which makes people seek to escape from their freedom by merging themselves with a monolithic, authoritarian structure. This solves their problem in a perverse and temporary way: not by providing the means for them to pursue a meaningful and positive life, but by taking away the freedom, which apparently caused their emotional distress. On the subject of Nazism, the specific questions which Fromm wished to examine were the psychological aspects of this ideology, which made it so attractive to a class of people, and the character of the people who became its followers. One of his first observations was that Nazisms spirit of blind obedience to a leader and of hatred against racial and political minorities, its craving for conquest and domination, its exaltation of the German people and the Nordic race had a tremendous emotional appeal for certain classes of people. This made them ardent believers in and fighters for the Nazi cause.
The Essay on Meaning to Human Life
Is there any meaning to human life? After listening to the first two lectures I gathered what I felt to be Professor Amrbosio’s definitions of the hero and the saint. I took notes and after going back through and reading them it helped me to put a few things together. He asks the question about whether or not human existence is meaningful or absurd. We live in a hostile and deadly environment so ...
The characteristics of this class which made them so susceptible to this philosophy are described as their love of the strong, hatred of the weak, their pettiness, hostility, thriftiness with feelings as well as with money … Their outlook on life was narrow, … their whole life was based on the principle of scarcityeconomically as well as psychologically..
