Yesterday, The Barrister at Maggie's Farm posted some thoughts about the internal conflict between freedom and security which is so often finds expression in our political life. He quoted Erich Fromm:
The great psychoanalyst and socio-political thinker Erich Fromm in his politically, psychologically and sociologically brilliant book Escape from Freedom (1941) pondered the human ambivalence towards freedom especially in the context of Fascism, but it applies to any powerful State. He notes that the concept of the "individual," and thus the notion of individual autonomy (ie individual freedom and its responsibilities and risks) arose at the end of Medieval society and was coupled with the Reformation. He asks:
In addition to the problem of the economic and social conditions which have given rise to Fascism, there is a human element which needs to be understood. It is the purpose of this book to analyse those dynamic factors in the character of modern man which made him want to give up freedom and which so widely prevail in millions of our own people.
These are the outstanding questions that arise when we look at the human aspect of freedom, the longing for submission, and the lust for power. What is freedom as a human experience? Is the desire for freedom inherent in human nature? Is it an identical experience regardless of what kind of culture a person lives in, or is it something different depending on the degree of individualism reached in a particular society? Is freedom only the absence of external pressure, or is it also the presence of something and, if so, what? What are the social and economic factors in society that make for the striving for freedom? Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from? Why is it that freedom is for many a cherished goal and for others a threat?
Because the conflict in all of us is a dynamic conflict, with the relative strength of our desire for autonomy varying in inverse proportion to the desire for regressive surrender to a powerful authority, there is always a dynamic equilibrium existing between the two trends. There are a number of reasons for concern that the dynamic equilibrium is becoming increasingly unbalanced toward the security end of the spectrum; this is not a salutary development.
As I have noted many times, when a person is anxious, or frightened, they have a tendency to regress. This can be as overt as the person who curls up into a fetal position in response to a terrible trauma and as disguised as the young adult, overwhelmed by the demands of adulthood and anxiety over their ability to function in the adult world, begin to rely on alcohol or drugs to manage their anxiety and feel, at least temporarily, more in command of themselves and "held" by the chemistry ingested. When a society is stressed, societal regression ensues; these are often dangerous times. The search for a strong leader who can protect the people, if only in fantasy, is a predisposing factor for authoritarianism, both left and right.
Perhaps the most obvious stressor that can lead to regression is economic distress. The Great Depression was one of the factors that led to the German people looking to Hitler for protection.
Yet there are other stressors, some unique to our time and place, that are problematic. As well, we have lost a significant progressive avenue through which past generations of Americans were able to turn their anxiety into action.
The most distinct and unique stressor of our time is the accelerating rate of change in our lives and the stark increase in insecurity that accompanies the changes. The idea of a technological singularity, beyond which no predictions can be made, is a fact of life that is already important for many, many people. In point of fact, technological changes threaten everyone's ability to work and maintain relationships. For the great majority of people, there is no longer any certainty that their job will still exist in five years and almost no ability to predict what kinds of changes will have altered their job beyond their recognition. Beyond that, how many people can predict with any degree of certainty what kind of health insurance they will have in 5 years; or what family structures will look like in 5 years?
As an example, consider all those whose income depends on the MSM. Their talents and abilities are rapidly becoming obsolete. Many of us who criticize the MSM may take some pleasure in their distress, but in fact, these are people who are trying to do the job for which they trained and schooled, and the rules have changed; the rug is already slowly slipping out from under their feet and they are terrified of the yank, which could come at any minute. Worse for the consumer of news, the MSM, our functional eyes and ears, are increasingly fixed on the dangers they externalize and committed to sharing their anxiety with the rest of us.
The increase in our anxiety over the relatively near future is displayed daily. Those on the Left are fearful that at any moment their civil liberties will be suspended and the dark night of fascism, if they don't think it is already here, will descend upon them. They worry about people becoming impoverished, left destitute by health care costs, falling house prices, lost jobs and the myriad other vexing issues for which no one seems to have any answers. Beyond that, in a form of externalization that is remarkable for its distance from reality, they worry about the world coming to an end via global warming, which, if real, cannot be averted, and if a phantasm, can only lead to disastrous decisions.
On the Right, the fears are different but perhaps just as overblown. We are losing our nation to the Mexicans who are bringing their dysfunctional culture to our home towns. Terrorists, who in reality have shown little ability since 9/11 to actually damage us materially, terrorize and convince some that the only reasonable response is to "nuke them" and remove the danger forever.
There are reasonable responses to many of our problems but our regression from reason to emotion precludes any such efforts succeeding in our polarized society.
Even if all of these dangers have a modicum of reality to them, the reaction is immeasurably worsened by the underlying anxiety about the future that is becoming a more prominent aspect of our rapidly changing world. The heightened anxiety is a recipe for regression and we see evidence of just such regression in the devolution of our political discourse.
A major problem, rarely noted but inseparable from our national balance between dependency and autonomy, is the closing of the frontier. On the frontier, autonomy was not only a goal, but an absolute prerequisite for survival. There was no "nanny state" on the frontier and no expectation or desire to create one. Without a frontier, those for whom the restrictions that dependency entails have no outlet and are trapped, struggling to work out their place in our increasingly interdependent society. Autonomy and independence have fewer champions and fewer role models. It is perhaps most telling that our current celebrities, who offer a rather superficial sense of a culture's zeitgeist, are infantile adolescents who mistake self-indulgence for true autonomy and Independence.
A good argument can be made that we have never lived in a safer world; most of our fears are the equivalent of the monsters in the dark who sent us running to the safety of our parent's beds at night. Unless we can find a way to find some clarity on our real dangers rather than our illusory dangers, the risk of a true disaster and the impoverishment of our autonomy that would follow increases.
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