Erich Fromm’s Escape From Freedom was originally released 84 years ago, yet it still holds an almost prophetic value today. Now, more than ever, people are presented with innumerable distractions as they yearn for true freedom. From mobile phones and laptops to the consequent invention of the modern internet, society today faces a crisis unknown to humans for much of the 20th century and prior. Social media continues to rapidly evolve at a blistering pace that forces society to adapt to the growing distractions. The pertinent question, as ever in history, remains: How did we get here, and where do we go from here? 

Before attempting to give a substantive answer to the question, it is imperative to understand Erich Fromm’s philosophy of negative and positive freedom. In Escape From Freedom, Fromm details two types of freedom: escape from and freedom to. In other words, humans have two mechanisms: escaping from the freedom that makes the individual feel isolated and scared, and aspiring for the freedom to chase whatever it may be that an individual feels to be true freedom. These mechanisms develop as a result of basic human life cycles. A newborn develops into a child, a child grows to be a teenager, and so on. When an individual is born, he is fully dependent on his surroundings for even the most remote chance of survival. His parents must feed him, change his diaper, and keep him from significantly harming himself. Equally as important, the individual is unaware of his own individuality at birth. Until a certain point in the child’s development, he is unaware of himself as a separate entity in the face of his surroundings—nature. These are what Fromm calls primary bonds. As one progresses through the stages of child development, he soon understands himself to be autonomous. When the stages progress further, he begins to gain the confidence and ability to do things on his own, possibly even rebelling against his parents for what he sees as the suppression of his true desires—in simpler terms, the teenager stage. The primary bonds are thus permanently and irretrievably broken. The individual, torn away from the primary bonds that secure him to his identity and provide him with peace of mind, is lost and unsure of what to do next. Isolated from a concrete identity and afraid of what is to come, he looks to an unattainable return to the level of security of identity he had at birth. Fromm believed that seeking improper secondary bonds, the bonds that attempt to quell the restlessness of the newly free individual, would foster an environment in which the individual is anything except free; instead, he believed that the individual would lose his sense of self—his individuality—and become an automaton, a robot, susceptible to a wide range of perilous influences from inescapable restlessness of the soul to the willing acceptance of fascism. 

Now, I will attempt to answer the first part of the question. How did we end up here? I must now state that, assuredly, this is no diatribe against any certain individual or group in the modern day nor is it an attempt to excoriate those with differing political opinions. This is simply an analysis of the possibilities today applied in a broad sense to what I believe is relevant to Fromm’s analysis of authoritarianism, true freedom, and the disguised suppression of those freedoms. 

So, how did we get here? There are a few avenues we can take to explain modern man’s susceptibility to give up his freedom. The first, and possibly the most obvious, is the rapid advancement of technology. This is not to say technology in totality is bad. To solely ascribe the failings of society to technology improvements made since 1941 would be foolish at best and a disingenuous rant at worst. However, as is with nearly everything created, with the good has also come the bad. Potentially most dangerous of all, much of the bad has come disguised as good. At the risk of sounding antiquated and hypocritical, social media has developed into a mouthpiece for the bad. Social media is an excellent source to keep up to date with your loved ones, quickly exchange messages with your friends, watch funny animal clips, and comment on the newest boneheaded mistake your favorite sports franchise made as you wonder what masochistic forces compelled you to choose them as a child. Unfortunately, it has also introduced negatives into the societal fabric. The bread and circuses of ancient Rome don’t hold a candle to the distractions society faces today. Similar to the growth of small businesses into large chain stores mentioned by Fromm, social media and the internet as a whole have inadvertently ripped individuality from the consumer. When small businesses grew to become large chains, the treatment of consumers changed. The individual buying his shoes from a cobbler felt personally gratified as the cobbler had to invest time to keep him interested in buying; now, the consumer instead has to turn to being one of potentially hundreds in a large department store, vying for the attention of the few clueless employees hired to tell him the shoes look fashionable in an effort to gain a commission. Social media, while undoubtedly providing good, has had a similar effect. What was once a personalized letter, a heartfelt conversation, or, at the very least, a sense of shame, has spiraled into a chaotic mass of dialogue. Whether it be the set of “keyboard warriors” willing to say whatever they wish or the influx of various opinions and thoughts, the individual has become completely overshadowed by the mob. While the ability to share one’s opinion has increased a sense of individuality, the volume in which he is able to share his opinion has drowned out the individual in a sea of thoughts. Additionally, many have felt the pressure to conform to what they see on social media, a fake utopia of the endlessly joyful, creating a class of society devoid of their own opinions. Some in that group may even still believe in their own individuality, but subconsciously they have been relegated to the acceptance of societal expectations as displayed on social media. Applying Fromm’s logic to social media poses the question: does one truly love the newest clothing trend or do they just think that they do? Social media has only exacerbated the issue.

With that in mind, I will try to address the second half of the question. That being, where do we go from here? In recent years, we have seen authoritarian regimes overthrown. Unfortunately, many remain. Besides the obvious candidates, such as Iran and North Korea, many countries form what can be described as authoritarian-by-election governments. Examples of this form of pseudo-democracy include Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. While both countries are purportedly democratic, any citizen not befallen by the propaganda will tell you that this is far from the truth. A significant reason for the recent rise of authoritarian regimes is the growing influence of misinformation. The rampant misinformation spread throughout social media has reached new heights with grave consequences. In his updated release following the reign of Hitler in Germany, Fromm discussed the psychology of Nazism and the ways in which the people slowly, or sometimes enthusiastically, gave into authoritarian rule. He argued that those possessing elements of both sadistic and masochistic tendencies were often the ones who favored authoritarian rule. In order to escape the fear of powerlessness and isolation, many lower middle class Germans, feeling slighted by the shift of the lower class’ economic rise, favored a system that allowed for their full investment of soul into the hatred of the perceived weak and admiration of the perceived strong. For authoritarianism to pervade minds and hearts, inculcating a message of hatred, there must be a target to direct that hatred toward. As touched upon earlier, social media has created a perfect storm for this through the development of “keyboard warriors” and the mass distribution of misinformation in the form of propaganda. When they are paired together, a dangerous phenomenon arises. Social media combines a group of people eager to spread hate and a vulnerable target, no matter how inaccurate the information spread may truly be. 

The solution to the perils of social media is not to do away with the platforms. Not only would this be largely unpopular on both sides of the political aisle, it would also eliminate the undeniable good that social media has provided individuals in interpersonal communication, accessible news consumption, entertainment, and economic opportunity. The solution, then, must be found in a more sensible proposition. I will try my best to offer my own in concluding this article. My solution is to give a greater emphasis to education. With the rise of misinformation, anti-intellectualism has risen proportionally. The spread of propaganda has created a cross-partisan bloc unrelentingly committed to questioning ideas political and nonpolitical for no other reason than to fit their own preconceived notions of a certain issue. Critical thinking has wholly dissipated among this group in their cloud of cult-like confirmation biases. The only way to pull society off the edge of the metaphorical cliff is to educate. The only way to form a well-educated opinion is to understand the perspectives of all parties involved regardless of personal opinion or prior bias. Let us all seek to further educate ourselves.