Disobedience according to Erich Fromm - Essay Example

Disobedience according to Erich Fromm Introduction: Erich Fromm was one of the leading thinkers and writers of the twentieth century. Being a well known historian, philosopher and sociologist, his work cover various ranges and dimensions. He was the author of over 30 books and editor of numerous journals and collections. Among his work few well known ones were Escape from Freedom, The Art of Loving, and To Have or To Be. Summary: The essay “Disobedience is a Psychology and Moral problem” was first published in the year 1963.

It was based on critical discussion on comforts of obedience, varieties associated with it, some of which according to his view was destructive in nature and others were life affirming. The article is a clear representation of the fact that how the mankind was continuing to evolve on the basis of disobedience from its very beginning. In his writing, Fromm, first narrate the evolve of mankind, as the disobedient act of Adam and Eve was responsible for the beginning of mankind.According to his analysis , the first evidence of their disobedience was the starting of evidence and freedom.

After leaving the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were completely human and they started to live in their own power. He cited this example and mentioned that, when a man break free from the obedience bounding surrounding him. He started to live in a paradise. According to Fromm, development of intellectual thoughtprocss was only starting when any individual becomes disobedient. In his writing he also mentioned that as an act of disobedience was the beginning of the human life same way it may be the reason for the end of human history.

If the human being destroy the civilization in coming decade, then it can be considered as a act of disobedience- against the people who will be in the power. According to him. This kind of work needs courage to be oneself. Critique: Fromm mentions that obedience is a vice and disobedience is a virtue. According to him. Obedience can be described as a work of submission. Which clearly represents the abdication of autonomy. If we consider his thought in modern day’s respect we can clearly find this in the relation of teacher-student or master-slave.

The study of obedience or disobedience have to be measured in terms of rational and irrational values which can be done basis of the above two examples (Fromm, 682-684). If one considers the teacher student relationship and the master slave relation, in both cases there are degree of obedience attached to it. But in case of teacher student relation the evidence does not imply the submission. The interest of the teacher and the student generally in the same direction as the teacher wants students to perform well on the other hand student want to become established so he obey teacher’s instruction.

But in case of master slave relationship, master wants to get maximum out of slavery. The more one able to extract from slave more happy they get. While slave time to defy or disobey his master to the possible extent to ensure that there was some level of happiness in their life. Here disobedience comes with the moral aspects. As per the article written by Fromm, it was nothing but a mindset or philosophy of being safe that makes a human being obedient to the super power, it may be the ruling individual or may be a church or any other thing.

According to him, it is no matter which form of power it was, the thought process of the individual of being safe while being obedient forced them to do so . To be disobedient. One has to have courage and along with that he or she needed to have the psychology to act against the power to whom he or she was obedient for so long. The power of disobedience depended on one’s personal state of development.(Froom, 685-686). As Eric Froom mentioned in his article that “ human history began with an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience”(Froom, 683).

Although the world has moved far ahead but the ruling concept was still back in the time of stone age., where obedience was everything. The ideas related to world politics & society were still lagging behind and if the people commit suicide it will be juts because people still believe that obedience is the ultimate priority to be safe and live peace. But the main fact associated with it was people need be be disobedient in some aspects as this is a curse or offense. To see the disobedience as the offense was nothing but the moral thought process of the leader and their psychology because every good things happen with the disobediency.

If people always remain obedient then then none of the freedom war gets succeeded (Fromm, 684). Conclusion If one anlayzes the writing of Fromm, it is very clear that through his writing he clearly tried to demonstrate the positive side of disobedience. According to him, all the disobedience individual people able to perform according to their own choice and work against the obedient people. The disobedience group of people was working freely and could set up a new rule for their own life. Disobedience was a psychological and moral problem, where people always tried to be obedient to the ruling people and always want to be doing what the ruling authority like, but with the development of freedom and independence it was absolutely necessary that people must get disobedience in certain parameters to ensure that people leave freely in their country or state or province.