Preview

Explain Erich Fromm’s twofold meaning of human freedom.

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
351 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Explain Erich Fromm’s twofold meaning of human freedom.
Erich Fromm is a German psychologist explored human freedom. He wrote about the two folds of human freedom, which are, the freedom “from” traditional authorities such as the state and (2) the freedom “for” actualizing one’s individual destiny. In his work about the Freedom in History, Fromm argues that the people came to understand the real meaning of freedom in the 20th century. They thus fight to defend it. This is because it brings a lot of joy to the people, therefore prompting them to devise ways of maintaining it. Through his work, he tries to explain the main cause leading to the fall of the previous social order. In addition, it has led to the rise of a new generation of independent beings who are fighting for direct high-quality future. This development makes them to have a feeling of not just fulfilling their socioeconomic role in the society, but also contemplating their future
Secondly, Fromm tries to explain the way the people are Escaping freedom through his suggestions that people are successively attempting to lessen negative effects although expanded thoughts and behaviors provide them with security. He explains three forms of escaping freedom whereby he suggests that the dictatorial personality contains a sad and masochist element which gains control over the other people. Such control imposes order in the world.
The ambiguity of human freedom is especially evident when making important life choices, for example, who we want to be and how we want to live our lives. Fromm holds that although people in advanced societies have been freed from the bonds of preindividualistic society, which gave them both security and limitations, they have not gained freedom in the positive sense of realizing their individual selves. That is, they have not found an outlet for the optimal expression of their intellectual, emotional, and social potential. We have freedom to direct our lives—from the details of daily life to the more crucial choices such as our

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Erich Fromm is a distinguished German writer, who has large interests in psychology, philosophy, sociology and history. In his essay” Disobedience as a psychological and moral problem”, he discusses and compares the different kinds of obedience and disobedience, and how they can have a positive or negative impact on the human society.…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    "Ain;t No Makin' It"

    • 264 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Agency: The choices me make -and the consequences of those preferences and actions- implicated in a social world where “free” individuals are making rational decisions.…

    • 264 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Collection 2 of our textbook, the theme of Freedom is widely displayed. The idea of Freedom is present in Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Also, his speech tells us about how to fight back against the government by communication and not by the show of force. Lastly the excerpt from the graphic novel “Persepolis 2” shows us how a government can take away people’s freedom and rights. The vision of Freedom is the principal of this composition.…

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Erich Fromm’s "Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem,” he develops notions based upon the relationship of obedience and disobedience, and the different aspects that interfere with a person’s choice to go against power, and the impact that history has made on the matter. He discusses how Adam and Eve’s choice is oftentimes viewed as a means of disobeying their creator, but he takes a contradictory approach to say that without disobedience, there would be no change in the world. He also makes it a point to display the distinctions between incessantly obeying and disobeying, as well as the differentiation of obeying one’s personal reasons versus another person’s. He talks about the different aspects of obeying…

    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Freedom is probably the most important right that a person can have, but everyone in a time we forgot its value. In recent times we have appreciate acts of people or groups that wanted to take people’s freedom, by force or in their minds, a great example can be the Nazis when in 1939 starter a war, because they wanted to take away freedom from some people and exterminated. In the book Anthem we can see how the leaders of the society tried to take freedom away from people by not letting them choose by their own, taking away their thinking, destroying their minds by occulting the truth which is why you have freedom.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The idea of freedom can be seen in Collection 2 of our textbook. Freedom can be seen in the speech, “I Have A Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr, when he was speaking out to everyone about his dream to have the same rights as white men. A lack of freedom can be seen throughout the short story, “The Censors” by Luisa Valenzuela, when Juan discusses about how every letter is carefully read, which is an invasion of privacy. “Reading Lolita In Tehran” by Azar Nafisi also showed a lack of freedom, when the author discusses the lack of rights that women had to put up with.…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Freedom is believed by many to be physical. With freedom you can do what you want and say what you want without having to answer to anyone. The question is, is freedom really that simple? If so, does that mean we are all free? Reading the stories, “The Grand Inquisitor,” “Oedipus Rex,” and “The Crying of Lot 49,” have brought different perspectives on freedom.…

    • 1550 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In conclusion, people should not live without freedom, and nothing could do without it. People who have not freedom live like slaves because they forced for thing that they want to do. People want freedom; if they have not rights, they would like a bird in a cage, so they need it for choosing what they want to do, saying their ideas, and voting. Many celebrities like Mandela, and many kurdish poets mentioned freedom for their people in many…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.”…

    • 1266 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Freedom is the driving force of our society, inspiring the change and growth in our lives that grant a better present, and a prominent future. Freedom is a basic right that gives us the ability to act and express our thoughts without restrictions from internal or external forces. However, supporting a society in which there is unlimited freedom will never work in practice, meaning many limitations are present. Internal freedom is comprised of your conscience and consists of your thoughts, only to be controlled by your own personality. External freedom involves your environment, with security and social pressure being main limiting factors, clearly evident in the story “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Freedom VS Security

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Many theories and assumptions have been fabricated upon the basis of man’s desires and beliefs. H.L. Mencken wrote, “The average man does not want to be free, only to be safe.” However, this observation does not correlate with what has been witnessed over the course of contemporary society. Since the 18th century, man has sacrificed safety for a reward that is much more paramount, freedom.…

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Free Will and Leo Tolstoy

    • 354 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.” (Leo Tolstoy, 1998)…

    • 354 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it every generation.” Freedom can’t last forever. But some things make freedom last for a long time. Others, can end freedom very fast. But does freedom really “last forever?”…

    • 206 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although it sounds appealing to make one's own decision freely, it is actually an impractable goal as the society has exerted significant influence and restrictions on individuals and has shaped one's value of what they should do and what they should not do. In today's society, people are more free to make our own choices than we were before, but it is true that we canno indulge our interests at the cost of transgressing the basic rules of the society.…

    • 2278 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Naguib Mahfouz’s novel “The Thief and The Dogs” the concept of freedom is conveyed much more differently than the understanding of freedom in a modern society. This is mostly caused by the politics and economy in the era along with the understanding of honor and characteristics behaviors to gain that honor.…

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays