How Free Is your Will?

In the early 70s, I lived in Austin where it was cool to cruise around listening to FM radio. Whenever Janis Joplin would belt out “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”, I’d turn the volume up full blast. Because the Hippie Movement had started a promo on “freedom” and everyone was looking for it. But did we really know what we were looking for?

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a German Jew who fled from Germany and the Nazi regime. Before escaping, Fromm had trained as a psychologist. He was attracted to the concept of freedom.

Says Fromm: “The immature individual, not fully developed psychologically, requires an unhealthy symbiotic bond between active and passive authoritarians—a codependency. To satisfy their insecurities, active authoritarians need to control others, and passive authoritarians need to submit to authority. To be free and independent means to be alone and afraid. Authoritarianism offers an escape from freedom.”

Furthermore, says Fromm, freedom is not just the absence of external constraints, but also the ability to act according to one’s true self and desire. However, in the process of becoming freed from authority, we are often left with feelings of hopelessness.

To eliminate uncertainty in our lives, we become conformists and abandon personal freedom for the certainty of no longer having to decide for ourselves. Conforming helps us detach ourselves from ourselves by “copying and pasting” the ideals and thoughts of others. Conformists limit their lives and expect you to do the same. And, when you don’t, you become some kind of woke enemy. If humanity can’t live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably be tempted by authoritarianism.

“Man is the only animal for who his own existence is a problem which he had to solve.” Fromm

We are all influenced by the society we live in. The best way to become free as an individual is to express ourselves. Freedom is not just the absence of external constraints, but also the ability to act according to one’s true self and desires.

Free thinking means assuming responsibility for your own thoughts instead of sponging off the thoughts of others. A strong authoritarian is appealing to insecure people who don’t want to stress themselves with critical thought.

Says Fromm: “There is only one meaning in life: the act of living it.”

True freedom is maximizing your individual potential. So to keep yourself free, it helps to practice self-expression.