Erich Fromm wrote Fear of Freedom[1] as a German psychologist with traditional Jewish heritage reflecting on the environment that gave rise to horror of the authoritarian Nazi regime that he escaped. It was a book, not a GFX song.
Part of his thesis was based on insights into the insecure situation of humiliated post first world war Germany, with the Weimar Republic ineffectual as its people lived through hyperinflation and then the depression. It’s people were ripe for the seduction of a demagogue offering salvation. This insecurity ran deeper into history with the reformation for the catholic church taking away safe membership of the one church and replacing it with expectations of the protestant work ethic. This in turn became more problematic with the rise of globalised businesses and the collapse of the guilds. The working-class men could no longer follow their fathers into the guilds and turn up on Sundays knowing their place in this world and the next was secure.
Children like to be tucked in safe at night knowing that their parents are in control. Many people are not comfortable with the idea that the organising principals of life rests on chaos. They prefer to think someone or thing is in control. They want absolute truths and are drawn to narratives of good vs evil and salvation though a hero on their side. Conspiracy feels better than chaos, all you need to do is pick a side.
Fromm describes the Authoritarian character as one who seeks strong relationships of dominance or submission to compensate for feelings of insecurity. Sadomasochism is really a thing eh? Some people need to know where they stand. Think the school yard bully crying when someone unexpected stood up to them and exposed their weakness. They are seduced by the feeling of power running in petty gangs. They seek a saviour to feel part of strength.
Here we are again in an environment of changing uncertainty with the planet getting hotter, the farce of trickledown economics exposed as privilege pisses on the poor, inequity grows, gig economy supplanting award protected wages and now we have Covid 2019 instead of Spanish Flu 1919.
Hannah Arrent[2] grew up in a secular family and escaped Nazi Germany as the antisemitic net closed. She initially worked to help other refugees move through Paris then fled to America as, the current Tasmanian Senator, Eric Abets’ great uncle Otto headed the Nazi occupation there. Her famous phase ‘Banality of Evil’ came from observing the feeble spirit of Adolf Eichmann during his trial where he claimed mindlessness and just doing what he was told. She had little time for ‘intellectuals’ because as a profession they fabricate ideas and thus can fabricate ideas to justify anything. She was also very critical of Hobbes’s conception of the modern state as set out in his seminal work ‘Leviathan’ believing his conception laid the foundation for the mechanistic, reductionistic and dehumanised politics. Her concern in the 50’s over mechanisation and the potential of the leviathan like computer machines being created would no doubt be even greater with the algorithms of social media shaping today’s politics.
So here we are. Some things old mixing with some things new. A year ago, about the time these songs were first taking shape, a friend said ‘we are going back to the dark ages’ as we talked about the extent to which misinformation is flooding some people’s conception of the world and people coalesced into virtual villages. Isolated hamlets relying on gossip and rumour to make sense of the world, enthralled by tales of the evils of foreigners and witches seeking to destroy them.
Here we are.
The thread will be picked up as it weaves through other songs/essays in this data drop.
For now goto the clip below and have a dance while checking out the iconography.
Dealing with the heavy stuff is futile without the joy of living.
[1] Erich Fromm – Fear of freedom also interview The Mike Wallace Interview: Erich Fromm (1958-05-25) [2] Hannah Arendt – The Human Condition also interview
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