Psychoanalyst and social theorist Erich Fromm’s 1941 Escape from Freedom (published in the United Kingdom as The Fear of Freedom) is in some ways the fruit of Fromm’s research on the authoritarian personality in Weimar Germany and his “interpretative questionnaire” studying the German working class. According to Escape from Freedom, freedom can be frightening, and people have a tendency to sacrifice their freedom in order to abdicate responsibility for their lives or societies. Although most people today would probably profess to value freedom, freedom is often understood as mere protection of individual rights. However, freedom for Fromm is not only “negative freedom”, i.e., freedom from intrusion by external authorities, but also “positive freedom,” i.e., freedom to actualize one’s potential and to be an agent of change in one’s world a freedom that depends both or one’s own internal capacity to act as well as the opportunities provided by one’s society. Fear of positive freedom may lead people to yield even their negative freedoms to tyrannical authorities. Fromm saw fascism as the product of an “escape from freedom,” an attempt to shirk choice and agency through submission to power.

Fromm points out that there are two understandings of normality or health: the ability to function well in society and the ability to grow and reach happiness (p. 159). These two meanings counteract each other in real life, because some smoothly functioning societies make achieving self-realization and happiness much harder. Fromm calls such societies “neurotic”; an individual who seems well-adjusted to such a society may be less healthy than an individual whom that society popularly identifies as “neurotic.” Fromm developed this theme further in his critique of 1950s American culture, The Sane Society (1955). According to Fromm, 1950s America claimed to be remarkably “sane” yet was rife with unhealthy levels of conformity and the rise of a new “marketing” character type, a person of marked shallowness, an “artificial smile” and phony laughter, and a barely conscious despair, yet whom others in society regarded as popular and successful due to their economic success and their ability to “win friends and influence people”. (See entry on “Productive/Nonproductive Frame of Orientation (Fromm).”)

As an individual matures and is separated from the primary bonds that once gave him or her security, the individual “faces the world outside...as a completely separate entity” and must overcome the “unbearable state of powerlessness and aloneness” that inevitably follows (Fromm 1972, p. 161). Fromm identifies two possible responses to this crisis of aloneness: to achieve “positive freedom” – in which the individual can respond “spontaneously to the world in love and work, in the genuine expression of his emotions, sensuous, and intellectual capacities: he can thus become one again with man, nature, and himself” – or to give up this freedom (p. 161). By ceding freedom, the individual overcomes “his loneliness by eliminating the gap that has arisen between his individual self and the world” (p. 161). However, separateness can never be eliminated entirely, and the proper objective is to become a “productive” individual in relationship to the other. (Here Fromm is clearly influenced not only by his psychoanalytic training but by the philosophical tradition of German idealism and G.W.F. Hegel’s ideal of achieving “unity in difference.”) Because the self always exists in some degree of separateness from the world, the attempt to escape from freedom never results in true happiness. Fromm goes on to discuss the “mechanisms” of escape from freedom.

Fromm identifies three “mechanisms of escape”: authoritarianism, destructiveness, and automaton conformity. Each escape mechanism represents a limited, instead of a productive or loving, relationship to the external world. Authoritarianism seeks to merge with some other through a symbiotic power relationship, destructiveness seeks to annihilate the other, and automaton conformity seeks to disappear into the group. Each is a mechanism of psychological survival that fails to give due consideration to the reality of the self, the other, or both.

Authoritarianism

The authoritarian cedes freedom by symbiotically “fusing…with somebody or something outside oneself in order to acquire the strength which the individual self is lacking” (Fromm 1972, p. 163). In Escape from Freedom, Fromm seems to identify authoritarianism with sadomasochism, seeing masochism and sadism as two aspects of a single neurosis.

According to Fromm, masochists are characterized by “feelings of inferiority, powerlessness, individual insignificance” and are dependent on real or imagined outside powers to make decisions for them (Fromm 1972, p. 163). The masochist experiences life as “something overwhelmingly powerful, which they cannot master or control” (p. 164). Striving to be small and weak, masochists rely on outside powers (other people, institutions, nature, or God) in order to feel whole.

On the surface, sadism seems quite different from masochism. Sadists wish to make others dependent in order to (1) have absolute power over them, (2) exploit them, or (3) to see and make them suffer. Notice that Fromm does not hold that all sadists desire to make others suffer. The power relationship, rather than pain, defines the sadist and masochist. Although sadists may appear stronger than masochists, sadists are dependent on their objects of control, whom they need in order to feel more powerful and less alone. Although sadists may exploit others or wish to see them suffer, sadists may do so unconsciously by rationalizing it as love or caring (Fromm 1972, p. 166). In this “over-caring,” the sadist may give the object of his or her domination everything, except the right to be independent and free.

Fromm rejects the view that sadism or masochism is a natural instinct. He acknowledges that many people “from Hobbes to Hitler” have believed that humans are naturally aggressive (Fromm 1972, p. 168). Sigmund Freud interpreted adult sadomasochism as resulting from fixation on a naturally sadomasochistic stage of childhood (Fromm 1972, pp. 168, 170). However, Fromm challenged Freud’s view and Alfred Adler’s interpretation of masochism as tied to natural childhood feelings of inferiority, agreeing instead with Wilhelm Reich that the masochist’s chief aim is not pain and agreeing with Karen Horney that the sexual aspect of masochism is only the effect, not the cause, of masochistic tendencies (p. 172). In addition to the “masochistic perversion” which sexualizes pain, Fromm identifies a “moral masochism,” in which the tendency is to suffer mentally, by submitting to a higher “moral” authority (sometimes in the form of an “internal authority,” i.e., superego) and accepting shame and humiliation as just punishment (pp. 169, 189).

Sadism and masochism exist together. Fromm writes, “People are not sadistic or masochistic, but there is a constant oscillation between the active and the passive side of the symbiotic complex” (Fromm 1972, p. 180). Both sadism and masochism unconsciously compensate for feelings of aloneness, powerlessness, and insignificance, thus “escaping” the problems posed by freedom. According to Fromm, the masochist reasons in this way:

As long as I struggle between my desire to be independent and strong and my feeling of insignificance or powerlessness I am caught in a tormenting conflict. If I can succeed in reducing my individual self to nothing, if I can overcome the awareness of my separateness as an individual, I may save myself from the conflict. (p. 174)

Thus, the masochist temporarily escapes the burden of freedom by ceding decision-making power to the authority.

Fromm holds that fascism was most appealing to those with authoritarian, i.e., sadomasochistic personalities (p. 186). Exploited and mistreated subordinates may develop sadomasochistic tendencies, as they feel unable to rebel or express outrage and thus must repress their feelings of hostility toward the powerful. Other authoritarians may respond to the dilemma through a seemingly paradoxical defiance of authority and may even appear to be radically antiauthoritarian, until their rebellion’s underlying motivations become clear (p. 192).

The authoritarian or sadomasochistic personality is pessimistic and fatalist. The authoritarian does not believe in human potential and believes in only two, predetermined, categories of people: the deserving powerful and the undeserving powerless. Although authoritarians may have ideals, such as “duty,” “destiny,” or obedience to the will of God, Fromm argues that at its core, authoritarianism is relativistic and nihilistic, lacking any true “faith” (p. 194). True “faith” for Fromm is “the secure confidence in the [future] realization of what now exists only as potentiality,” a confidence that the authoritarian lacks, seeing each person as permanently situated in his or her given category (p. 194).

Destructiveness

While authoritarianism needs an object to control or submit to, destructiveness seeks to eliminate its object. Nearly anything, including the self in the case of suicide, can serve as an object for destructiveness (Fromm 1972, p. 203). Like authoritarianism, destructiveness is characterized by dependency, with the destructive personality needing to find rationalizations for its acts of destruction. Although almost anything can serve as a rationalization, it does take energy to keep up belief in these false rationalizations.

Not all acts involving destruction are manifestations of “destructiveness” as a neurotic escape mechanism. Legitimate self-defense, for example, is not evidence of destructiveness. (Fromm returns to the theme of non-neurotic destruction in his late work The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. See this volume’s entry on “Benign Aggression (Fromm).”) Neurotic destructiveness is caused by feelings of powerlessness and anxiety (“feeling…threatened by the world outside” and the stifling of life opportunities or potential; Fromm 1972, p. 204). The destructive personality takes vengeance on the world for its own unlived life. Like authoritarianism, destructiveness is not “natural” or biologically determined (contra Freud’s “death drive”) (p. 205). Instead, Fromm believes neurotic destructiveness is produced by a range of social forces. In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, destructiveness often arose from the repression of sensuous desires. As puritanical repression decreased, people still had “unlived lives” to avenge due to other factors, including economic poverty (pp. 207–208). Thus, fascism is fueled not only by authoritarian tendencies (more prominent among the petite bourgeoisie, according to Fromm, drawing on his study of class and authoritarianism in Weimar Germany) but also by destructive tendencies (more prominent according to Fromm among the blue-collar working class) (p. 208). (Today Fromm’s work on the authoritarian personality and fascism, which was continued in certain respects by his Frankfurt School colleagues in their 1940s studies of anti-Semitism, is being revisited, as some scholars and activists attempt to understand a reemergence of “right-wing authoritarian populism” in the United States with the election of Donald Trump and in parts of Europe where far-right movements have gained ground.)

Automaton Conformity

Automaton conformity, the third “mechanism of escape,” is widespread, with most people in modern society participating in it to some extent. Rather than seeking to dominate or destroy, the “automaton” merges with the crowd. Losing individuality, one “adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns, [becoming] exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be” (Fromm 1972, p. 209). Through conformity, one’s separateness from the world seems to disappear, and one feels less alone and anxious, gaining strength in joining with the millions of other automatons around him or her (p. 209). Modern culture supposedly values individuality and most people believe they are true individuals, but for many, this belief is an illusion maintained by rationalizations. Fromm gives the example of hypnotic suggestion. If an idea is introduced under hypnosis, one will take it to be one’s own and intensely defend it and rationalize it. Similarly, in everyday life, much of our thinking is “pseudo-thinking.” Fromm believes we often get most of “our” opinions subconsciously from other sources, such as advertising, parents, teachers, and the media. Political opinions, choices of career, marriages, and other major decisions are often entered into with the false belief that one is making one’s own choices, while unconsciously one is driven by the opinions of others. Critical thinking, or genuine thinking, may be suppressed early in life, most likely when children start noticing an inconsistency between their parents’ behaviors and the values they profess and when the children cannot protest this inconsistency (or are not allowed to) (pp. 216–217).

To determine whether someone’s beliefs are truly his/her own or the product of automaton conformity, one’s psychological motivation, not the explicit content of the belief, is key: “not what is thought, but how it is thought” (p. 218). One’s thoughts, motives, feelings, and will may not be what one believes them to be. One may feel a certain way because he or she is expected to feel that way by society, but one may still believe the feeling to be genuine, having become so accustomed to adopting the attitudes of others that one is unaware of the process occurring. The same occurs with regard to the will:

Most people are convinced that as long as they are not overtly forced to do something by an outside power, their decisions are theirs, and that if they want something, it is they who want it. But this is one of the great illusions we have about ourselves. A great number of our decisions are not really our own, but are suggested to us from the outside; we have succeeded in convincing ourselves that it is we who have made the decision, whereas we have actually conformed with expectations of others, driven by fear of isolation and by more direct threats to our life, freedom, and comfort. (p. 223)

Through this process, one succumbs to the internal and external pressures about what one is “supposed” to do or “has” to do. In order to maintain the belief in oneself as a subject and true individual, one must then repress genuine feelings, beliefs, and wishes, replacing the “genuine self” by a “pseudo-self.” This “automatization of the individual” leads to increased helplessness and insecurity, making the individual ready to submit to new authorities (p. 230).

Conclusion

Fromm’s three “mechanisms of escape” are expanded and take a variety of forms in his subsequent and more developed work. His later concepts of necrophilia and the authoritarian “rebel” are closely tied to his early work on escapes on freedom (Fromm 1973, pp. 325ff.; Fromm 1963, pp. 125–126). Although Escape from Freedom warns that modern industrial societies are more prone to the rise of fascism than their citizens would like to admit, the book coincides with Fromm’s wider, profoundly hopeful oeuvre. It is not only possible to surmount the desire to escape from freedom, according to Fromm, but it is possible to articulate some of the characteristics of the healthy individual (the “productive character”) and to work to create societies in which the productive character can flourish.