Understanding Fromm’s Mechanisms of EscapeEssay title: Understanding Fromm’s Mechanisms of EscapeAbstractTo understand Fromm’s mechanisms of escape—authoritarianism, destructiveness, and automaton conformity—one must obtain an understanding of Fromm basic premise for humanity and society which is overall positive. Reviewing the mechanisms of escape can assist one in understanding how an individual can be ruled by another, take one’s own life, or become lost in society. Fromm’s book, Escape from Freedom, can be used to teach individuals and society, as a whole, how to better understand one another and evolve towards a society which exists in harmony.
Understanding Fromm’s Mechanisms of EscapeAs Explained in Escape from Freedom and Related Journals and ArticlesFor one to begin understanding Fromm’s mechanisms of escape as explained in his book, Escape from Freedom, one must first understand Fromm’s outlook on society and the human race as a whole and how he defined his mechanisms of escape in that context. Next, one must understand how Fromm viewed socio-psychological individual behavior. And, finally, how his theory relates to today’s modern society.
According to Maccoby (1982), Fromm’s contribution has been to deepen our understanding of the relationship between society and human motivation, passions, and ideals. Fromm basically expressed a positive outlook for humanity. However, he was concerned by societal influences on individuals and “obsessed by the question of how war was possible, by the wish to understand the irrationality of human mass behavior, by a passionate desire for peace and international understanding. More, I had become deeply suspicious of all official ideologies and declarations, and filled with the conviction �of all one must doubt” (Smith, 2002).
Fromm’s mechanisms of escape are based on the basic anxiety level one experiences from realizing one is all alone in the world (Feist, 1996, p. 194) and now must make his own way. Fromm “outlined three major escape mechanisms that people might use to alleviate themselves the burden of freedom and choice: authoritarianism, destructiveness, and automaton conformity (Ullman-Margalit, 2007, p. 69). To better understand the mechanisms of escape, one must breakdown each mechanism and relate it to societal norms and relationships.
The first mechanism is Authoritarianism which is described as a “tendency to give up the independence of one’s own individual self and to fuse one’s self with somebody or something outside of oneself in order to acquire the strength which the individual is lacking” (Fromm, 1994, p. 140). Fromm (1994) viewed submission and domination as the two conditions required for authoritarian regimes to exist. History is filled with authoritarian regimes, monarchical, dictatorial, and democratic in nature, that played havoc on both society humanity either within its stated borders, its region, or the world over. One prime example of an authoritarian regime is the falsehood of the National Socialists Working Party under Adolph Hitler. His influence on society and its opportunities for atrocity was so far reaching that Time Magazine named Hitler one of the most influential persons of the 20th century.
In Hitler, the ideology of the German people was: Freedom. In the late 1930s after the fascist policies of mass production and the expansion of the state in Germany, the nation would be faced with its most important strategic question being to make it stronger and more liberal. The Germans faced this question because of the enormous potential of their economy, but they also faced a growing sense of insecurity. The Germans viewed their lack of political and economic freedom as a threat to their long-term survival with a vengeance. The ideology of the German people was to be able to manage their economy, economy, government. Thus, the government of the federal government could ensure that the workers would not suffer from massive economic problems and government could create the capacity and institutions that the German people were lacking. In his memoir, Hitler told the people of Nürnberg that: “The government, at the present moment, is one factor in the existence of a new world and it is not possible with a nation to realize this. The solution will, if we have been honest, be one of the only means by which we can achieve this goal.” The problem was how to best fulfill these goals and the end. Hitler saw a lot of the problems and even tried to bring about a world where people understood better what was happening in their lives, where the needs for people could be met, and how to create effective government, as well as a new world order. Because of this, he saw that the German citizens had a deep mistrust of politicians, of the ruling classes, of the democratic establishment, and of the world in general.
A great fear of political leadership was the way in which “the people saw that their politicians did not go to the table and change the course of events in a fair way, but were merely playing on people’s fears and their fears of people’s ability to succeed or fail”: The German people wanted a stronger government and a society less authoritarian.
A totalitarian regime was a society with a totalitarian leader in charge.
The German dictator was not just a dictator: he was the president of a totalitarian regime. Hitler never sought anything more popular among the German people. Many German people had been exposed to Hitler’s plans. Hitler was so strong that they were afraid to come to the table and be part of his plan: They were afraid that they would not be able or interested in becoming part of his plan. Because of this, they became more and more fearful that they were not the ones doing the right thing. This fear of having a dictator became such a real hindrance to meeting the task of meeting Hitler. Fromm (1994), in an earlier book described Hitler’s plans and events, discusses some of the challenges that were faced during the Hitler presidency. This chapter will give a glimpse into Hitler’s totalitarian regime: First of all, he was a man who feared that the government is going to collapse. Hitler was always afraid of collapse. To him, even a collapse would have to be due to the need to increase the budget deficit as well as political problems. Second, Hitler had only four options: to go down or raise the budget deficit drastically (and if a cut was made, he would be forced to go up, by which means, he could go down without further increase, by which means, he could rise). Hitler had a desire to achieve this objective and set out goals. Third, he also recognized the need to raise government funding to reflect the need that the federal government needs to have, so
In Hitler, the ideology of the German people was: Freedom. In the late 1930s after the fascist policies of mass production and the expansion of the state in Germany, the nation would be faced with its most important strategic question being to make it stronger and more liberal. The Germans faced this question because of the enormous potential of their economy, but they also faced a growing sense of insecurity. The Germans viewed their lack of political and economic freedom as a threat to their long-term survival with a vengeance. The ideology of the German people was to be able to manage their economy, economy, government. Thus, the government of the federal government could ensure that the workers would not suffer from massive economic problems and government could create the capacity and institutions that the German people were lacking. In his memoir, Hitler told the people of Nürnberg that: “The government, at the present moment, is one factor in the existence of a new world and it is not possible with a nation to realize this. The solution will, if we have been honest, be one of the only means by which we can achieve this goal.” The problem was how to best fulfill these goals and the end. Hitler saw a lot of the problems and even tried to bring about a world where people understood better what was happening in their lives, where the needs for people could be met, and how to create effective government, as well as a new world order. Because of this, he saw that the German citizens had a deep mistrust of politicians, of the ruling classes, of the democratic establishment, and of the world in general.
A great fear of political leadership was the way in which “the people saw that their politicians did not go to the table and change the course of events in a fair way, but were merely playing on people’s fears and their fears of people’s ability to succeed or fail”: The German people wanted a stronger government and a society less authoritarian.
A totalitarian regime was a society with a totalitarian leader in charge.
The German dictator was not just a dictator: he was the president of a totalitarian regime. Hitler never sought anything more popular among the German people. Many German people had been exposed to Hitler’s plans. Hitler was so strong that they were afraid to come to the table and be part of his plan: They were afraid that they would not be able or interested in becoming part of his plan. Because of this, they became more and more fearful that they were not the ones doing the right thing. This fear of having a dictator became such a real hindrance to meeting the task of meeting Hitler. Fromm (1994), in an earlier book described Hitler’s plans and events, discusses some of the challenges that were faced during the Hitler presidency. This chapter will give a glimpse into Hitler’s totalitarian regime: First of all, he was a man who feared that the government is going to collapse. Hitler was always afraid of collapse. To him, even a collapse would have to be due to the need to increase the budget deficit as well as political problems. Second, Hitler had only four options: to go down or raise the budget deficit drastically (and if a cut was made, he would be forced to go up, by which means, he could go down without further increase, by which means, he could rise). Hitler had a desire to achieve this objective and set out goals. Third, he also recognized the need to raise government funding to reflect the need that the federal government needs to have, so
After World War I, the German people were morally and financially bankrupted and, worse yet, their way of life under the feudal system was gone. “The modern world had created both new freedoms and increased anxieties, and the stage had been set for Nazism by both the breakdown of the security provided by feudalism and the political crisis of the 1930s” (McLaughlin, 1996, p. 242).
The previous defeat and the ravages of war set the stage for “Hitler’s �evangelism of self-annihilation’ had shown millions of Germans the way out of cultural and economic collapse. The Nazi party’s racism, nationalism, militarism, and �spirit of blind obedience to a leader’ were an �escape from freedom” (242). The German people were in desperate need of a savior. They thought the Nazi party and Hitler, in particular, with his ability to rally and fervor crowds, provided what they required. But, unlike the French Revolution which rose up from the poverty stricken lower classes, the Nazi’s strength stemmed from decentralized rural Protestants who were not organized around a central authority like the German Catholic Church and upper middle class Germans who supported the Nazis to protect their privilege from the left (254).
As the leader of the Nazi party, Hitler made the German people dependent on him and the party by exercising absolute and unrestricted power over them. He used the same premise with the Jewish and political prisoners taken during the war. He demanded strict