Will Americans submit to despotism in an urge to escape from freedom? Erich Fromm saw it coming
Will Americans submit to despotism in an urge to “escape from freedom”? Erich Fromm saw it coming
Pioneering psychologist Erich Fromm explained the rise of Hitler with an analysis that seems way too relevant now
Conor Lynch Saturday, Feb 25, 2017 05:00 AM CST
Shortly after the election, Yale historian Timothy Snyder, who recently said that we have “at most a year to defend the Republic,” wrote a chilling article in Slate narrating Adolf Hitler’s unexpected rise to power — without once saying his name — to draw parallels with our current historical situation, and to highlight how the German people quickly fell in line once Hitler had consolidated power and established his totalitarian regime.
One of the many brilliant Jewish intellectuals to flee from Germany after Hitler’s rise, philosopher and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm attempted to explain the shocking spread of totalitarianism in his lifetime with his influential and urgent 1941 book, “Escape from Freedom.” This classic investigation into the psychology of authoritarianism can help elucidate some of what is happening today.
The danger of the increasingly authoritarian Trump administration is heightened by the growing number of Americans who are now prepared to support a strongman if it means restoring, as it were, “primary ties” that once provided “security and a feeling of belonging and of being rooted somewhere.”
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/25/will-americans-submit-to-despotism-in-an-urge-to-escape-from-freedom-erich-fromm-saw-it-coming/
