The Fear of Freedom

Abstract

THAT our world stands in flames and that no one can say with any hope of finality what in fact is happening to us are facts which are present in everyone's mind. Most of the attempts to explain the situation from recent economic and sociological causes are patently insufficient, and Dr. Fromm is wise enough to present his excellent survey with a clear eye on its necessary limitations. His analysis of the individualistic character-structure of modern man, shown in relief against the contained collectivity of the Middle Ages, is an excellent example of the value of the historical method to psychological understanding. The fundamental premises of the Gothic mind were self-evident and unquestioned. Men marched in step with their time. Their fate was laid down and contained in their community. From the Reformation onward this containing envelope was ruptured and the individual began to emerge into a world which no longer shielded him from the deep-rooted sense of his own impotence and powerlessness over and against dangers and forces he could not control. Instead of being integrated and enclosed he felt exposed and alone, and this was projected into the idea of a hostile deity whose arbitrary nature demanded indefinite and intense placatory effort. The Calvinistic conception of God and the world were the inevitable result of this ejection of medieval man from his contained paradise. The Fear of Freedom By Dr. Erich Fromm. (International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction.) Pp. xi+257. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1942.) 15s. net.