Escape from freedom (Fromm)
Fromm's argument that modern freedom from tradition leaves people isolated and anxious, and that many escape it rather than use it. He named three routes: authoritarianism (submitting to, or dominating within, a strong hierarchy), destructiveness (eliminating what you can't relate to) and automaton conformity (becoming what others expect).
What drives it
Freedom without connection is unbearable; submitting to a leader, a system or a crowd gives back certainty and belonging at the price of the self.
How it shows
Work
People who seek a strong leader or a rigid system: the employee who wants to be told exactly what to do and resents 'empowerment'; the convert to a methodology who applies it to everything; executives drawn to command-and-control cultures; the deputy who submits upward and turns tyrant downward. 'Just give me the rules.' 'He's a genius, I'd follow him anywhere.'
Relationships
Attraction to dominant partners, guru figures or high-control groups; or becoming the authority at home, with a family run on rules nobody may question.
Self
Relief when someone takes charge of your life; irritation or flatness when handed open-ended freedom.
What tells it apart
Authoritarian personality: The authoritarian personality is a measured trait cluster: submission upward, aggression downward, conventionalism. Escape from freedom is the motive behind it and also produces conformity and destructiveness; someone who melts into a progressive crowd can be escaping freedom with no authoritarian traits.
Conformity: Conformity can be brief and situational; escape from freedom is a lasting orientation, and the person goes looking for the structure.
High-control groups and thought reform: High-control groups exploit the motive; the person can show it in their job and politics without ever joining one.
A test
Give them a project with real autonomy and no template; if they quickly import a system, defer to a guru or ask you to decide, and are relieved when you do, the escape is at work.
Questions to carry
- Given real autonomy and no template, how quickly did a system, a guru or someone else's decision get brought in?
- When I have to choose with no one to follow, whom or what do I reach for first?
How strong the research is
weak. Fromm's thesis was never tested directly, but it fed the authoritarian personality research (Adorno and colleagues, 1950) and later right-wing authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1981), which is well measured and predicts preference for strong leaders, especially under threat.
Where it comes from
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, 1941 (published in Britain as The Fear of Freedom, 1942)
Sources
- Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (1941)