Erich Fromm, in his remarkable book of social intellectualism, titled Escape from Freedom, defines the concept of freedom from a very lucid angle. Fromm has summoned up the paradox in which the concept of freedom demands fairly close attention on the part of the reader. Fromm has analyzed what makes man want the attainment of freedom, and what makes him want to escape it at the same time. This paper sheds light on this concept of freedom as presented by Fromm in his book. .
To understand Fromm's idea of freedom, Fromm himself suggests that one must first understand what freedom is, why people want to escape from freedom, and how they escape it. Fromm asserts that people think of freedom as freeing themselves from some sort of worldly constraint. This freedom is what man has sought in his struggle for democracy; because in democracy, man enjoys freedom of speech, freedom of writing against undesirable occurrences, freedom of raising voice against unfavorable conditions, and freedom of nearly everything. Fromm starts his book with the statement: "Modern European and American history is centered around the effort to gain freedom from the political, economic, and spiritual shackles that have bound men" (1). This democratic freedom is actually the real kind of freedom that comes in the states, and leaders throughout history have worked hard to earn it. Man has become his own master and has ruled out all laws of nature that tend to govern him. Fromm calls it the "abolition of external domination" (1), which has been the most wanted goal of man throughout history. .
Fromm further argues that freedom brings with it the condition of being less connected or isolated in society. The more we feel or become dependent and free, the less we care about other people's ideologies, and thus the more isolated we become. This is what makes freedom one of the most cherished goals for some people, when some other people view it as a threat.
