Do modern people really want freedom or do they feel fear in front of it?
"The Fear of Freedom" by Erich Fromm remains a timeless and prophetic book about what is happening today, but also about what may follow, as freedom is increasingly restricted by the intensity of economic, social, political, and religious totalitarianism.
In this iconic work, Fromm initially explains how revolutionary changes in economic and social organization, the excessive power of capital, and the economic crisis increase the feelings of uncertainty, loneliness, and insignificance of modern man, while the threat of war strengthens the fear. He then focuses on the individual's defense mechanisms, which are simultaneously their mechanisms of escape from freedom: totalitarianism, the tendency towards destruction, and conformity.
And if for the unsuspecting citizen conformity is harmless, for Fromm it is of great importance: within the framework of this "solution", to which the majority of society's members resort, man ceases to be himself and fully adopts the type of personality imposed on him by cultural standards, public opinion, common sense.
Thus, the conscious fears of loneliness and uncertainty are dealt with by integrating into the whole. However, in this way, the individual pays the price for distancing themselves from true, positive freedom, which consists of spontaneous activity.