“The result of this kind of influence (authoritarian effects of mass society) is twofold: one is a skepticism and cynicism towards everything which is said or printed, while the other is a childish belief in anything that a person is told with authority. This combination of cynicism and naïveté is very typical of the modern individual. Its essential result is to discourage him from doing his own thinking and deciding.”
– Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom (1941)
Matthew C. MacWilliams, the author of On Fascism: 12 Lessons from American History and a visiting research associate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, writes in 2020: “One of the important lessons Americans learned from Donald Trump’s election in 2016 – and one still difficult for some of us to process almost four years later – is just how many of our fellow citizens are predisposed to authoritarianism.”
MacWilliams found that roughly 40 percent of Americans tend to favor authority, obedience and uniformity over freedom, independence and diversity. 18 percent of Americans are highly disposed to authoritarianism, according to their answers to four simple survey questions used by social scientists to estimate this disposition. A further 23 percent or so are just one step below them on the authoritarian scale.
(Brian F. Schaffner, Matthew MacWilliams, amd Tatishe Nteta.
“Understanding White Polarization in the 2016 Vote for President:
The Sobering Role of Racism and
Sexism.” Political
Science Quarterly. Academy of Political Science. Volume
133 Number 1 2018.)
McWilliams concludes:
“When activated by fear, authoritarian-leaning Americans are predisposed to trade civil liberties for strongman solutions to secure law and order; and they are ready to strip civil liberties from those defined as the “other” – a far cry from the image of America as a country built on a shared commitment to liberty and democratic governance.”
These results explain, in part, how Trump can remain popular with his base despite any number of policies that would have been considered unconstitutional, anti-American and perhaps even criminal in the past by members of both parties.
Authoritarians in the U.S., compared with non-authoritarians, believe …
They think the country should be governed by a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress or elections.
They are more likely to support limiting the freedom of the press and agree that the media is the enemy of the people rather than a valuable independent institution.
They are also more likely to think the president should have the power to limit the voice and vote of opposition parties, while believing that those who disagree with them are a threat to our country.
American authoritarians fear diversity. They are more likely to agree that increasing racial, religious and ethnic diversity is a clear and present threat to national security.
They are more fearful of people of other races, and agree with the statement that “sometimes other groups must be kept in their place.”
Many others, led in the United States by Stanley Feldman, Marc Hetherington, Jonathan Weiler and Karen Stenner, have written for years about American authoritarianism and its activation in academic books and papers.
Let's explore how authoritarianism becomes a driving force. From the writing of Erich Fromm, we can get up-close to the phenomena. In his book, Escape From Freedom (1941), Fromm explores the the psychosocial conditions that facilitated the rise of Nazism.
Fromm And His Work
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a German-born American psychoanalyst and social philosopher who explored the interaction between psychology and society. A Jew who fled the Nazi regime in Germany in 1933 and settled in the U.S., he was one of the founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.[
By applying psychoanalytic principles to the remedy of cultural ills, Fromm believed, mankind could develop a psychologically balanced “sane society.”
In Escape From Freedom, Fromm wanted to understand and explain how and why it was that Nazism had taken hold in Germany and why so many individuals came to support Hitler. He did so with the notion of the “authoritarian character,” which is an idea that’s built on psychoanalytical grounds and, in particular, on the notion that there exist certain types of individuals who by birth, schooling, and socialization in the family and in wider society, are predisposed in a sense to authoritarian attitudes.
These people of “authoritarian character” are willing to submit to and actively support authoritarian leaders. These people get pleasure out of aspects of authoritarian rule and who can be relied upon to support forms of authoritarian rule.
In Germany at the time, certain socioeconomic and political changes – particularly the decline of this traditional middle class in the face of the monopoly capitalism of the era and hyperinflation – came on the back of the defeat of Germany in the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles, and the loss of the monarchy.
Kieran Durkin, Marie Skłodowska-Curie global fellow at University of York and a visiting scholar at University of California Santa Barbara, writes about Fromm's view of the psychosocial conditions that facilitated the rise of Nazism …
“All of this, Fromm argued, had a deep effect on this class in particular, as well as other aspects of society. It removed the traditional psychological supports and mechanisms of self-esteem for this class: The economy was destroyed, there was no esteem to be drawn from the relative possession of social status, savings had gone up in smoke, and life chances for children of families were ruined. There was no longer, he argued, anyone to look down on nor a Kaiser to look up to. They had to face a situation in which Germany after the war and after Versailles was significantly and embarrassingly weakened.
“Fromm identified what he argued were deep feelings of anxiety and powerlessness in the population, and in the lower middle class in particular, feelings which Hitler was able to capitalize upon with his authoritarian and racialized messages of love for the strong and hate for the weak – especially for those socialists and Jews guilty of the “stab in the back” that, as he argued and so many people believed, had sold Germany out to the Allies. Hitler and the Nazi movement itself was seen by Fromm to give a means of escape from these intolerable psychological burdens that were experienced on a mass basis.
“It’s important to note that the book was not just focused on fascism, but on authoritarianism in the USSR, and on aspects of what Fromm argued were authoritarianism in the US and the 'free world,' so to speak.
“This authoritarianism, Fromm said, was less overt in the U.S. and other democratic nations, but it was also more anonymous. It was pushed by public opinion, by radio, by commercials, and by other means of cultural conditioning. Because of this, it was also in a sense more insidious. The book was a criticism in general of this move in world culture toward different forms of authoritarianism. I think it speaks to the world situation at that time in particular, but also has real relevance for today.”
(Kieran Durkin. “Erich Fromm and the Mass Psychology of Fascism.” Jacobin. April 16, 2021.)
- A Real Relevance For Today
Fromm tried to understand the laws that govern society. He argued that modern society brought with it freedom, but this freedom could also be the seed of its destruction. As individuals receive a new sense of independence, they become filled with anxiety and doubt. Then, they end up getting alienated and seek a sense of security with other like-minded people.
Durkin believes the idea of the fear of freedom in particular and the way individuals set up “internal barriers” that prevent them from opening up to socialistic and humanist social relations still speaks strongly. It can help explain not only outright authoritarianism, but also sexism, racism, and xenophobia of various kinds – the very roots of authoritarian passions.
In considering how we ought to view human nature, Fromm distinguishes between rational faith in the human spirit, which is “based on the clear awareness of all relevant data,” and irrational faith, “an illusion based on our desires.” He writes:
“Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair. If one truly responds to man and his future, i.e., concernedly and 'responsibly,' one can respond only by faith or by despair. Rational faith as well as rational despair are based on the most thorough, critical knowledge of all the factors that are relevant for the survival of man. The basis of rational faith in man is the presence of a real possibility for his salvation: the basis for rational despair would be the knowledge that no such possibility can be seen.”
(Maria Popova, “Optimism and Pessimism.” www.brainpickings.org. February 13, 2017.)
Millennia after Plato’s insight into negotiating our parallel capacities for good and evil, Fromm adds:
“The statement, 'Human nature is evil,' is not a bit more realistic than the statement, 'Human nature is good.' But the first statement is much easier to make: anyone who wants to prove man’s evilness finds followers most readily, for he offers everybody an alibi for his own sins – and seemingly risks nothing. Yet the spreading of irrational despair is in itself destructive, as all untruth is; it discourages and confuses. Preaching irrational faith or announcing false Messiahs is hardly less destructive – it seduces and then paralyzes.”
(Maria Popova, “Optimism and Pessimism.” www.brainpickings.org. February 13, 2017.)
This is why cynicism is so seductive in our present culture. Fromm captures this brilliantly:
“The attitude of the majority is neither that of faith nor that of despair, but, unfortunately, that of complete indifference to the future of man. With those who are not entirely indifferent, the attitude is that of 'optimism' or of 'pessimism.'
“The optimists are the believers in the dogma of the continuous march of 'progress.' They are accustomed to identifying human achievement with technical achievement, human freedom with freedom from direct coercion and the consumer’s freedom to choose between many allegedly different commodities. The dignity, cooperativeness, kindness of the primitive do not impress them; technical achievement, wealth, toughness do…”
(Maria Popova, “Optimism and Pessimism.” www.brainpickings.org. February 13, 2017.)
Fromm argues we need to transcend this dual helplessness. It is “rational faith in man’s capacity to extricate himself from what seems the fatal web of circumstances that he has created” at the center of his philosophy of humanist radicalism.
Fromm adds:
“The situation of mankind today is too serious to permit us to listen to the demagogues – least of all demagogues who are attracted to destruction – or even to the leaders who use only their brains and whose hearts have hardened. Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed with – the love of life.”
(Erich Fromm. The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. 1973.)
To Fromm, the most precious quality has been … and still is … the love of life. Pessimists spread irrational despair that increases anxiety and doubt. Those leaders who do so are demagogues with “hardened hearts.” People who are seduced by their rhetoric become faithless and indifferent – essentially ripe for authoritarian control. Faith and love of life itself are enemies of such authoritarianism.
Fromm focuses on this human love as a permanent state of being, as opposed to the short-lived experience of "falling in love" or being helpless in the face of love.
He argues that love is the only rational answer to our need to overcome separateness, which he sees as the fundamental problem of human existence.
In his book The Art of Loving (1956), Fromm argues that the active character of true love involves four basic elements: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. Each of these is difficult to define and can differ markedly depending on the people involved and their circumstances. Fromm explains …
“Care, responsibility, respect and knowledge are mutually interdependent. They are a syndrome of attitudes which are to be found in the mature person; that is, in the person who develops his own powers productively, who only wants to have that which he has worked for, who has given up narcissistic dreams of omniscience and omnipotence, who has acquired humility based on the inner strength which only genuine productive activity can give.”
(Erich Fromm. The Art of Loving. 1956.)
Fromm concludes: “To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibility would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge” and “Knowledge would be empty if it were not motivated by concern.” Fromm believes “the most fundamental kind of love, which underlies all types of love, is brotherly love” – “the sense of responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of any other human being, the wish to further his life.”
Seen in these terms, love is hard work, but it is also the most rewarding kind of work.
“Love of the helpless, the poor and the stranger, are the beginning of brotherly love. To love ones flesh and blood is no achievement. The animal loves its young and cares for them. Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose, does love begin to unfold. Compassion implies the element of knowledge and identification. 'You know the heart of the stranger,' says the Bible, 'for you were strangers in the land of Egypt ... therefore love the stranger!'
“The greatest impediment of mankind is not disease … it is despair.”
(Erich Fromm. The Art of Loving. 1956.)
Epitaph on a Tyrant
W. H. Auden - 1907-1973
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And
the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly
like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies
and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with
laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the
streets.
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