there's more to freedom than i expected
what does freedom mean to you, and are you trying to escape it? (Part I)
first, some background
Growing up, I did not have much freedom in my life. I blame this on both external and internal forces. Externally, my fate was in the hands of my community’s gross misinterpretation of religion, as well as an oppressive culture with traditionally conservative practices that were not favorable to girls and women who dared to express their individuality. Internally, I was struggling with chronic and debilitating anxiety that made any sense of agency feel completely out of reach, especially when it started to affect my physical health.
Yet if you had asked me at the time if I was free, I’m fairly certain I would have insisted that I was. My bar for freedom was low. Besides, for those of us who experienced life under authoritarian governments, it’s hard not to consider ourselves free by comparison in a country like the United States. (Some will disagree with me here, but that discussion is… beyond the scope of this post! Sorry!)
Freedom should be something that can be objectively measured, but this is unsurprisingly incredibly difficult to do—because what about the subjective feeling of freedom? That certainly seems to differ between individuals and across cultures. For example, I felt like I was losing freedom every time I traveled to certain parts of the Middle East—but to my surprise, I often hear from Arabs that they felt less free after immigrating to the United States. Of course, there are many factors at play here, but the point I want to make is that freedom can be experienced subjectively in a way that might contradict reality. And what a dangerous situation that is.
Over time, I slowly fought for my freedom and built my sense of agency. Of course, this is a never-ending process, but I can confidently say that I have objectively increased the capacity for freedom in my life. Things are a lot better now.
That being said, I’ve been exploring the topic a lot lately—reading books, observing others, reflecting on my own life and experiences—and it turns out there’s so much more to freedom than I ever could have imagined. It’s not as simple as having “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.” (And it’s certainly not as easy to maintain as we might think it is.) Some people might have the right and ability to exercise all of the above but decide against it. Yes! Some people might intentionally limit their freedom!
Erich Fromm’s book Escape from Freedom does a fantastic job explaining the concept of freedom—and why and how some people try to escape it. There are a few books I think everyone should read, and this one is easily at the top of my list. Fromm is a German Jewish psychoanalyst and philosopher who fled the Nazi regime in 1933 and settled in the United States. Escape from Freedom was published in 1941, but I promise it is just as relevant today and a must-read for those who want to better understand themselves, loved ones, and society at large.
In my first Substack post, I wrote about Fromm’s theory of why and how some ideas appeal to certain groups at specific points in time, which he also discusses in Escape from Freedom (hint: it has to do with their psychological needs). For this post, I want to focus on Fromm’s following points:
The distinction between freedom from (negative) and freedom to (positive)
The dangers of having the former type of freedom without the latter; as the title of the book suggests, in this situation, people will rely on the following mechanisms to escape their freedom:
Authoritarianism via masochism (submission) and/or sadism (domination)
Destructiveness — to be discussed in part II
Automaton conformity — to be discussed in part II
While you read this post, I hope you contemplate what freedom means to you and how, if at all, you or your loved ones might be trying to escape it.
(Note: Fortunately or unfortunately—depending on your reading preferences—there will be a lot of quotes directly from Escape from Freedom throughout this post. While writing this post, I felt like it would be a disservice to Fromm’s work to paraphrase it. Also, my goal is to get more people to read this book, so I figured it’s okay to quote often to give readers a sense of his work and writing style.)
freedom from vs. freedom to
Fromm dedicates a good chunk of Escape from Freedom to discussing the psychological primers that enabled the transition from restrictive societies (e.g., medieval Europe, feudalism) to freer ones (i.e., due to capitalism and democracy). He likens this transition to the process of individuation that children experience as they mature and gain independence from their parents (which sounds a lot like teenage angst to me):
On the one hand it is a process of growing strength and integration, mastery of nature, growing power of human reason, and growing solidarity with other human beings.
But on the other hand this growing individuation means growing isolation, insecurity, and thereby growing doubt concerning one’s own role in the universe, the meaning of one’s life, and with all that a growing feeling of one’s own powerlessness and insignificance as an individual.
— Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (pg. 35)
The transition from societies organized around authoritarian rule to ones that value freedom is without a doubt a welcome one—but it comes with challenges as well.
Fromm argues that if man gains freedom from external authoritarian rule (e.g., from a government, religious institution, etc.) but does not exercise the freedom to express his individuality and integrate himself with the world around him, he will feel burdened with an overwhelming amount of loneliness, alienation, and responsibility, and as a result he will try to find ways to escape his freedom.
Free from external rule, man must now think for himself, define his place in society, and make decisions that will determine the outcome of his life instead of outsourcing many of those decisions and their consequences to a higher authority. He is suddenly personally liable for every facet of his life. Basically: it is not easy to truly be free.
Consider how much this contrasts with restrictive societies.
Under feudalism, the class you are born into is the class you will likely die in as well; there is little opportunity to change this fate. In medieval Europe and even many countries around the world today, whatever the religious institution in power says is what you must believe—otherwise, there will be serious consequences. Gender roles, reputations, and even jobs are pre-determined under these systems.
In such societies, people are disincentivized from thinking for themselves, but in return, they are relieved of the burdens of (a) decision-making and (b) being held responsible and accountable for their lives and actions.
And here lies an important contradiction we must acknowledge to understand the problem: in such a society, man is limited, but he feels secure. He has a community of others like him, and his life is given purpose by whatever higher authority is in power. (A reminder that, whether we like it or not, there is a trade-off to everything in life.)
Freedom from the traditional bonds of medieval society, though giving the individual a new feeling of independence, at the same time made him feel alone and isolated, filled him with doubt and anxiety, and drove him into new submission and into a compulsive and irrational activity.
— Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (pg. 103; emphasis mine)
These insecurities, which are natural after man gains freedom from authoritarian rule, can be managed if individuals have the freedom to integrate themselves with mankind and nature without violating their individuality.
Even if a society has the capacity to practice freedom to, man must be willing to exercise this freedom. If he doesn’t, he will be caught in limbo between the two states of freedom—and the resulting tension can overpower him with feelings of anxiety, insignificance, and loneliness, which puts him at a higher risk of finding ways to escape his freedom.
Put differently, it’s not enough for a society to break free from authoritarian rule (freedom from). It must foster the conditions necessary to help its members become self-sufficient and express their individuality while also connecting with their peers through love and productive work. Without this (freedom to), people risk falling for authoritarianism once again, but potentially in less obvious ways (e.g., the rule of public opinion, mob mentality).
Once man is free from authoritarian rule, he gains a new self-awareness that makes him feel powerless, insecure, and alone—from there, he has two options available to him:
By one course he can progress to “positive freedom”; he can relate himself spontaneously to the world in love and work, in genuine expression of his emotional, sensuous, and intellectual capacities; he can thus become one again with man, nature, and himself, without giving up the independence and integrity of his individual self.
The other course open to him is to fall back, to give up his freedom, and to try to overcome his aloneness by eliminating the gap that has arisen between his individual self and the world.
— Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (pg. 139)
Not convinced? Consider the following scenarios which illustrate this phenomenon on a smaller scale and have likely been experienced by everyone at some point:
Restrictive scenario: working a job you hate, but it provides status, good pay and benefits, and the comfort of predictability in your life
Freedom from: quitting this job you hate and losing these benefits, but now having the option to find a better job and take control of your life
Freedom to: understanding and pursuing your passions and the things that make you feel alive
Freedom from without freedom to: being too scared to discover and pursue your passions, not wanting to give up the status or comfort of the job you hated, falling into another job you hate, chasing status to appease other people, feeling overwhelmed with and paralyzed by the decisions you have to make to feel good about your life
Restrictive scenario: having a romantic or platonic relationship with someone you dislike or who often treats you poorly, but justifying it due to low self-esteem, familiarity, fear of confrontation, and to avoid loneliness
Freedom from: cutting off this relationship despite the heartbreak and consequently having the option to pursue a healthier relationship
Freedom to: building your self-esteem and not accepting poor treatment from others, having the courage to seek out healthy relationships, healing your unhealthy tendencies
Freedom from without freedom to: doubting your value as a person and right to have healthy relationships, finding another unhealthy relationship or going back to the one you broke off to avoid loneliness, feeling guilt or doubt over your decision to leave
Given the power and influence of culture, relationship dynamics, historical context, and even our psychological conditions at any given moment, it’s clear why we would need to break down freedom into two parts. We can even think of it as a process—one in which pain is inevitable but ultimately fruitful if we navigate it correctly.
To take it a step further, our freedom is not only restricted by an external authority like a dictator, abusive parent, terrible boss, or powerful religious institution. Today, we focus so much on these threats to freedom that we dangerously forget another powerful one: ourselves. In one of my favorite passages in the book, Fromm explains this using freedom of speech as an example:
We feel that freedom of speech is the last step in the march of victory of freedom. We forget that, although freedom of speech constitutes an important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what “he” thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally—that is, for himself—which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts.
Again, we are proud that in his conduct of life man has become free from external authorities, which tell him what to do and what not to do. We neglect the role of the anonymous authorities like public opinion and “common sense,” which are so powerful because of our profound readiness to conform to the expectations everybody has about ourselves and our equally profound fear of being different.
— Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (pgs. 104–105)
Now that we (hopefully) understand the two types of freedom, we can move on to what I consider the most important part of his book: how we escape freedom.
mechanisms of escaping freedom
This section is really the reason I’m writing this post. As I read Fromm’s detailed breakdowns of the various ways people try to escape freedom, it struck me just how commonplace they are. Everywhere I turn, people are limiting their freedom because they are overwhelmed with the anxieties it produces.
For the record, this criticism is directed at me as well. My sense is that everyone is limiting his or her freedom; we just differ in how and the extent to which we do it.
Mechanism of escape #1: Authoritarianism
This mechanism is “the tendency to give up the independence of one’s own individual self and to fuse one’s self with somebody or something outside oneself in order to acquire the strength which the individual self is lacking” (pg. 140). This can happen by striving for submission (masochism) or domination (sadism).
The masochist tends to feel inferior, powerless, and individually insignificant. You will often find masochists belittling themselves; not asserting their needs or wants; unnecessarily criticizing themselves; depending on powers outside of themselves such as other people, institutions, or nature to guide their lives; and feeling as though life just happens to them instead of being something they have influence over. They are passive and compliant. They might even completely give themselves up for the sake of another person in the name of “love”. According to Fromm, “with such people, it almost seems as if they were following advice given to them by an enemy to behave in such a way as to be most detrimental to themselves” (pg. 142).
The sadist, on the other hand, will either (a) make others dependent on himself to have absolute and unrestricted power over them; (b) rule over, exploit, and use others by stealing material or immaterial (e.g., emotional or intellectual qualities) things; or (c) make others suffer physically or mentally to hurt, humiliate, or embarrass them.
These tendencies can be rationalized by feigning concern or responsibility for others. The sadist might claim that he knows what’s best for the people he seeks to dominate, or that he is so unique that others should naturally submit to him, or that he has done so much for someone that this person now owes him, or that he has been hurt and therefore can hurt others as retaliation, or that he is hurting others as a way to defend himself and loved ones against the dangers of being hurt first.
While the masochistic person’s dependence is obvious, our expectation with regard to the sadistic person is just the reverse: he seems so strong and domineering, and the object of his sadism so weak and submissive, that it is difficult to think of the strong one as being dependent on the one over whom he rules.
And yet close analysis shows that this is true. The sadist needs the person over whom he rules, he needs him very badly, since his own feeling of strength is rooted in the fact that he is the master over someone.
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (pg. 144)
Have you ever met someone so mean, controlling, and damaging that you wondered how they could possibly have a circle of seemingly close and loyal friends—until you realized that all their closest and longest-held friends were weak and incapable of defending themselves? The sadist here depends on their circle of weak friends to feel powerful and give meaning to his life. Without them, he has nothing. Fromm illustrates this phenomenon well:
A man may treat his wife very sadistically and tell her repeatedly that she can leave the house any day and that he would be only too glad if she did. Often she will be so crushed that she will not dare to make an attempt to leave, and therefore they both will continue to believe that what he says is true. But if she musters up the courage to declare the she will leave him, something quite unexpected to both of them may happen: he will become desperate, break down, and beg her not to leave him; he will say he cannot live without her, and will declare how much he loves her and so on. Usually, being afraid of asserting herself anyhow, she will be prone to believe him, change her decision and stay. At this point the play starts again.
Did he lie when he said he loved her so much that he could not live without her? As far as love is concerned, it all depends on what one means by love. As far as his assertion goes that he could not live without her, it is—of course not taking it literally—perfectly true. He cannot live without her—or at least without someone else whom he feels to be the helpless instrument in his hands.
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (pg. 145)
The sadist might be able to offer everything in the world to the object of his sadism (the person he is dominating), from material things to grand assurances of love, but he will never offer freedom and independence. Interestingly, Fromm relates this to the typical parent-child relationship, in which the parent’s attitude of domination and ownership toward the child is rationalized as natural feelings of concern and protectiveness. “The child is put into a golden cage; it can have everything provided it does not want to leave the cage” (pg. 145).
Both masochists and sadists are grappling with feelings of intense anxiety over a world that feels alien and hostile to them. Whether they appear powerless or powerful, they cannot be free, because they depend on another individual, institution, or idea in an attempt to find security. This dependence can only result in one thing: losing oneself.
To withstand the burden of freedom, the masochist can reduce himself to nothing; make himself small and helpless; seek out pain and agony; intoxicate himself with drugs and alcohol; become suicidal; or submit, with millions of others, to an ideology or strong leader. Of course, none of these are solutions to his anxiety.
For the masochist, submitting himself to a strong group means he can be part of and participate in the group’s strength and glory—despite his feelings of individual insignificance. Here we see once again a curious contradiction: in surrendering his individuality and freedom, the masochist finds security, pride, and confidence in the object he submits himself to (e.g., a person, institution, God, nation, duty, conscience, public opinion, ideology, claims of normality).
Do we not see several instances of this kind of submission to a group or ideology in a misguided attempt to find personal meaning and identity today?
The masochistic person, whether his master is an authority outside of himself or whether he has internalized the master as conscience or a psychic compulsion, is saved from making decisions, saved from the final responsibility for the fate of his self, and thereby saved from the doubt of what decision to make. He is also saved from the doubt of what the meaning of his life is or who “he” is.
These questions are answered by the relationship to the power to which he has attached himself. The meaning of his life and the identity of his self are determined by the greater whole into which the self has submerged.
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (pg. 155)
Wow! This passage gave me chills. How often do we sit back and dream of someone who can swoop in and magically take care of all our responsibilities, guiding us through life with a rulebook of what we should and shouldn’t do? What do these feelings tell us about ourselves, if not our desire to escape freedom and the burdens of individuality?
The sadist, on the other hand, deals with his feelings of isolation by seeking complete domination over another individual—and yet, similarly to the masochist, he loses the integrity of his individual self. For the sadist, his desire to be powerful, even if he is successful, is not a sign of his strength. Rather, it is a sign of his weakness: his inability to live and express himself as an individual.
The sadistic person needs his object just as much as the masochist needs his. Only instead of seeking security by being swallowed, he gains it by swallowing somebody else. In both cases the integrity of the individual self is lost. In one case I dissolve myself in an outside power; I lose myself. In the other case I enlarge myself by making another being part of myself and thereby I gain the strength I lack as an independent self. It is always the inability to stand the aloneness of one’s individual self that leads to the drive to enter into a symbiotic relationship with someone else.
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (pg. 157)
There is so much more that can be said about the authoritarian character, whether he expresses masochistic or sadistic tendencies, but since this post is already quite long, I’ll end it with this final quote from Fromm—a powerful one that I think everyone should contemplate:
The feature common to all authoritarian thinking is the conviction that life is determined by forces outside of man’s own self, his interest, his wishes.
Not only the forces that determine one’s own life directly but also those that seem to determine life in general are felt as unchangeable fate. It is fate that there are wars and that one part of mankind has to be ruled by another. It is fate that the amount of suffering can never be less than it always has been. Fate may be rationalized philosophically as “natural law” or as “destiny of man,” religiously as the “will of the Lord,” ethically as “duty”—for the authoritarian character it is always a higher power outside of the individual, toward which the individual can do nothing but submit. The authoritarian character worships the past. What has been, will eternally be. To wish or to work for something that has not yet been before is crime or madness. The miracle of creation—and creation is always a miracle—is outside of his range of emotional experience.
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (pg. 169)
final thoughts
I will discuss the second (destructiveness) and third (automaton conformity) mechanisms of escape in an upcoming post, but here I wanted to lay the foundation by defining freedom and the first, and in my opinion most important, mechanism of escape: authoritarianism via masochism and/or sadism.
Upon reflection, I realized that for a lot of my life, I exhibited more masochistic tendencies to tolerate the anxieties of life. I submitted fully to religion, and when I gave that up, I replaced it with political ideology. I was never just… me. I plan to write about this personal reflection in a future essay about identity, which I’ve been writing on and off for quite some time now.
In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts about Fromm’s definitions of freedom, masochism, and sadism!