Escape from Freedom

1941 book by Erich Fromm

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Frankfurt School
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Major works Dialectic of Enlightenment Eclipse of Reason Eros and Civilization Escape from Freedom Minima Moralia Negative Dialectics One-Dimensional Man Reason and Revolution The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere The Theory of Communicative Action "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Notable theorists Adorno Apel Benjamin Fromm Forst Grünberg Geuss Habermas Honneth Horkheimer Jaeggi Kluge Kracauer Kirchheimer Kompridis Kuhlmann Löwenthal Marcuse McCarthy Negt Neumann Offe Pollock Schmidt Sohn-Rethel Wellmer Wingert
Important concepts Advanced capitalism Antipositivism Communicative rationality Critical theory Culture industry Dialectic Legitimation crisis Non-identity Popular culture Praxis Privatism Psychoanalysis
Related topics Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory Freudo-Marxism Marxist humanism Recognition Reification Social alienation Western Marxism
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Escape from Freedom is a book by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, first published in the United States by Farrar & Rinehart^[1] in 1941 with the title Escape from Freedom and a year later as The Fear of Freedom in UK by Routledge & Kegan Paul. It was translated into German and first published in 1952 under the title Die Angst vor der Freiheit (The Fear of Freedom). In the book, Fromm explores humanity's shifting relationship with freedom, how individual freedom can cause fear, anxiety and alienation, and how many people seek relief by relinquishing freedom. He describes how authoritarianism can be a mechanism of escape, with special emphasis on the psychosocial conditions that enabled the rise of Nazism.