Erich Fromm’s Escape From Freedom is an interesting book because of the timing. It’s a book about the psychology of Nazism, by a Jewish intellectual, but it’s from 1941, which is just before news of the Holocaust got out, so it doesn’t really emphasize anti-Semitism. Instead, it begins with a history of medieval economic life and the Protestant Reformation.
The big intellectual trends of the time were Marx, Freud, and existentialism, so the idea is that the birth of individualism increased the existential burden of freedom, so we need ways of coping with angst after the death of God and traditional social relations. Authoritarianism is one of those ways, but conformity in democratic societies is a parallel danger.
Some things haven’t really changed in the meantime:
All our energy is spent for the purpose of getting what we want, and most people never question the premise of this activity: that they know their true wants. They do not stop to think whether the aims they are pursuing are something they themselves want. In school they want to have good marks, as adults they want to be more and more successful, to make more money, to have more prestige, to buy a better car, to go places, and so on. Yet when they do stop to think in the midst of all this frantic activity, this question may come to their minds: “If I do get thisnew job, if I get this better car, if I can take this trip–what then? What is the use of it all? Is it really I who wants all this? Am I not running after some goal which is supposed to make me happy and which eludes me as soon as I have reached it?” These questions, when they arise, are frightening, for they question the very basis on which man’s whole activity is built, this knowledge of what he wants…
Yet all this bespeaks a dim realization of the truth–the truth that modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants what he is supposed to want. In order to accept this it is necessary to realize that to know what one really wants is not comparatively easy, but one of the most difficult problems any human being has to solve. It is a task we frantically try to avoid by accepting ready-made goals as though they were our own…
In the course of modern history the authority of the Church has been replaced by that of the State that of the State by that of conscience, and in our era, the latter has been replaced by the anonymous authority of common sense and public opinion as instruments of conformity…We have become automatons who live under the illusion of being self-willing individuals…
The loss of the self has increased the necessity to conform, for it results in a profound doubt of one’s own identity. If I am nothing but what I believe I am supposed to be–who am “I”?
It’s in this light that we should consider Lacan’s concept of “the ethics of psychoanaysis”: Have you acted in conformity with the desire that is in you?
The canonical example is Antigone burying her brother against the king’s orders.
As a liberal newspaper, The Guardian is heavily invested in promoting liberal feminism, which pretty much by definition means teaching women to gaslight themselves. Consider the very title of a recent advice column: I want to start dating casually. How do I turn off the illogical, hopelessly romantic part of my brain?. People have to be taught to ignore their own instincts to embrace the prevailing avoidant dismissiveness.
How do I start dating casually when I know I’m going to catch feelings even if I don’t want to? My last relationship ended about a year ago and I’ve been taking time for myself and healing and all that good stuff but I now feel as though I’m ready to get back out there.
I haven’t dated casually before and I’d like to try it out, but even if I know it’s a bad idea, there’s going to be a significant part of myself that might fall in love with whoever I spend time with. How do I turn off that completely illogical, hopeless romantic part of my brain?
In other words, this person intuitively understands that sex is biologically connected with reproduction and pair bonding. Liberal feminism requires suppressing this knowledge and pretending it’s like any other recreational or labor activity, with no particular meaning. The reader wants to do what they “should” do according to others’ expectations, even though they know in their heart of hearts that they’re going to suffer from “casual dating.”
So how does the Guardian advise defending against this self-knowledge for the good of the cause?
With all respect to the hopeless romantic part of your brain, a lot of theories of love would say you’re probably not falling in love with whoever you spend time with. Not really. You’re doing something else which can be every bit as fun and destructive: getting a crush, for example, or what psychologist Dorothy Tennov called limerence – a state that “happens to us” with a “quality that defies control”.
It can be hard to tell the difference between these things and falling in love. They share a lot of the same symptoms. But it’s very important to know which you’re feeling.
Basically, attraction is partly unconscious and can therefore be ego dystonic, so they use this limerence concept to emphasize the “irrationality”, as if love is “supposed” to be rational. The rational subject is, of course, ideologically fundamental to liberalism.
It’s obvious the writer doesn’t have a well-developed theory of love.
Love isn’t, by definition, for everyone we meet. We don’t love everyone we connect with socially, or even feel attracted to. Love responds to what we know; crushes and fixations respond to what we don’t.
Sorry, religious people. There’s no universal love, according to The Guardian, whose readers surely claim to admire MLK.
When you find yourself having feelings for someone, you can ask yourself if you are responding mainly to possibility or to actuality. Does it happen with everyone? If so there’s a good chance you’re affected by things like newness and potential, rather than the person themselves.
Knowing the difference can be one part of reasoning with the hopelessly romantic part of your brain. If you know you’re reacting to the rush of possibility, that can help debunk the feeling a little. Understanding the feeling of limerence is a little like knowing you’ve eaten a weed brownie. Knowing why you’re feeling this way doesn’t stop the feeling, but at least you don’t think the walls are actually moving. You can understand it as an illusion even if you’re still experiencing it.
It’s actually a deep and interesting question how much projection and fantasy is involved in love. Lacan argued that “There are no sexual relationships”, in that sexuality is inherently solipsistic (plus technical considerations about the phallus and the Oedipus complex and blah blah blah ).
But this is misleading:
In a sense, catching feelings for every new person is a way of living in our imaginations. Another question might be: what’s wrong with what there is? Why does the fantasy of this next person seem more attractive than your current situation?
Because loneliness sucks, obviously. This is telling the reader to deny their natural attachment needs. Gee, why wouldn’t a single person want to stay single?
The basic thrust of the advice is to make the reader doubt herself as much as possible, all in the name of letting men fuck her without caring about her feelings!
Sometimes retreating into fantasy is a way of avoiding bad self-esteem – when we realise that we keep falling for others, it can suggest we’re not as comfortable with ourselves as we thought. Or sometimes we’re just bored. But the basic question is: why is the vision of a possible world around the corner more appealing than the one we’re in now, even though it comes with tremendous uncertainty?
I think it’s kinda twisted to equate the capacity to someone imperfect with low self-esteem.
Uncertainty and unpredictability are generally stressful, that’s why. Not knowing if you’re gonna die alone isn’t some kind of heroic thing; it’s just sad.
The final bit of gaslighting:
Ask yourself why exactly do you want to avoid this feeling? Dwelling on the answers might help, in the same way that habit forming is easier when we focus on why we want to develop them. Possible answers might include “it’s annoying to be so vulnerable”, “it feels too invasive of your attention”, “it makes your appraisals of yourself go through someone else’s eyes when there’s no reason to think they have a better take on things than you do”.
It’s always a little mystifying why we do things against our better judgment. If you can figure out what keeps pulling you back to these feelings, you might clear some room to resist them.
Except that identity really IS a social construction and who we are DOES depend on other people, and being in a couple DOES change your identity. Sex is a serious thing.
What’s fantastical is having a sex life without vulnerability, without the person taking up more of your life, without having to care what they think. With a little bit of self-esteem and a pep talk, you too can have emotionally desolate sex because you’re “supposed” to.
Of course the whole point of the article is to overrule the reader’s better judgment.
Resisting this kind of social pressure DOES require getting deeply in touch with oneself, beyond one’s social roles. Fromm and Lacan were right about that.