A review by doruga
Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm

4.0

(3.5) I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I usually don't vibe with psychology theory. I find it to be a lot of academic nonsensical babble thats super western, individualistic, and with weird projections about human behavior that seem far more based on preconceived theories and hypothetical insane situations than on any real observation. Also psychology theory and books like this always strike me as kind of tending towards social darwinism no matter how much the author tries to disuade me that psychology isn't social darwinism. And, dont get me wrong, this book has plenty of all of these things I just mentioned. Like, it used as an example this insane hypothetical story about this guy that went to a party and then later had a dream about being an undercover agent in the nazi army thats then supposed to mean that he was angry at one of the german guests of the party which of course means that his frustrations with his work boss resulted in him faking happiness at the party therefore our opinions are not our own but are mostly external from us. Like THAT level of academic rhetorical bullshit hahahaha. But it had enough nuggets of great observation and interesting ideas that were enough to make me want to keep reading. I think its strange that this book claims to want to discuss "modern man" (whatever the fuck that means) and his various behaviors regarding freedom but starts that discussion with the protestant faith?? So modern man is the european christian man lol I dont know shit like that bothered me but again I did come out of this book with an overall sense of feeling grateful that I read it. Definitely learned things while reading that, for me, justified the pain of reading through the academic flowery nonsense that is such a deal breaker for me most of the time.