Water Maniacs [View all]

[H2O Man]

Speaking of Erich Fromm, I'd recommend his wonderful book “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness” (1973) as a guide to how Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. The book describes, in historical terms, the very nature of the Trump campaign. It also provides a valuable blueprint of how Trump – and Bannon, etc – intend to rule.

Before we discuss that book, it would seem important to look at one of Fromm's previous books, “On Disobedience: Why Freedom Means Saying 'No' to Power.” It is a collection of Fromm's essays on the topic from the early 1960s. In this book, the author describes how a society becomes vulnerable to such an authoritarian leader.

The concept of “disobedience” has a curious interpretation in western society. Western culture has been influenced by both the Hebrew and Greek concepts. Human history, according to the Hebrew mythology, began with an act of disobedience that resulted in their being expelled from harmony within the natural world. And the Greek fable of Prometheus defines human civilization as being a result of disobedience.

But before considering the power of disobedience, let's consider “obedience,” as Fromm speaks of it. He notes that there are two types of obedience: “Obedience to a person, institution, or power (heteronomous obedience) is submissive; it implies the abdication of my autonomy and the acceptence of a foreign will or judgment in place of my own. Obedience to my own reason or conviction (autonomous obedience) is not an act of submission but one of affirmation. My conviction and judgment, if authentically mine, are part of me.” (page 5)

From this, we can see how enough Americans submitted to the Trump campaign's promise to “make America great again.” Of course, the majority of voters did not support Trump. Hopefully, they will continue to say “no” to his insanity. The biggest question remains as to if they can do so in a coordinated, unified manner.

These basic ideas are, obviously, not limited to our current situation involving Donald Trump. We can apply these same concepts to other groups and individuals, including family, school, workplace, internet groups, church, etc. And there is a large range of locus on control spanning between fully internal and external in individual human beings.

To better understand this wide range, Fromm notes that we must understand how it involves the individual's conscience. There are, he explains, two distinct types: “One is the 'authoritarian conscience' which is the internalized voice of an authority whom we are eager to please and afraid of displeasing. This authoritarian conscience is what most people experience when they obey their conscience. It is also the conscience that Freud speaks of, and which he called 'Super-Ego.' This Super-Ego represents the internalized commands and prohibitions of father, accepted by son out of fear. Different from the authoritarian conscience is the 'humanistic conscience'; this is the voice present in every human being and independent from external sanctions and reward. Humanistic conscience is based on the fact that as human beings we have an intuitive knowledge of what is human an inhuman, what is conductive of life and what is destructive of life. It is the voice that calls us back to ourselves, back to our humanity.” (page 6)

Because each human life is distinct, and people's beliefs are rooted in their individual life experiences – family, education, etc – humanistic conscience provides for more than one option for individual thinking, beliefs, and values. Only authoritarian conscience holds that there is one, and only one, legitimate set of thoughts, beliefs, and values. On its surface, this is weak, because any time two people's thinking is exactly alike, it means only one is thinking. More, in practice it is tragic: for if all people thought and acted exactly alike, humanity would decay in short order.

This is not to suggest that people should disobey any and all rules of social order. Clearly, those who are incapable of following what Martin Luther King, Jr., correctly called “just laws” create problems. It is the disobedience of “unjust laws” that King advocated, including the willingness to accept the consequences nonviolently. King grasped that this form of appeal to humanistic conscience possesses the power to advance social justice.

Fromm notes that the Hebrew prophets understood history as the period of time required for people to become fully human. When humanistic conscience is shared, then humanity enters “the end of days,” which indicates the ability to live in peace with one another, and in harmony with the natural world. It does not mean that all people will think and act alike. It does mean having respect for other people having the right to identify, for themselves, what type of person they favor for representing their interests and values in “government.”