x. Modern man, freed from the bonds of pre-individualistic society, which simultaneously gave him security and limited him, has not gained freedom in the positive sense of the realization of his individual self; that is, the expression of his intellectual, emotional and sensuous potentialities. Freedom, though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated and, thereby, anxious and powerless. This isolation is unbearable and the alternatives he is confronted with are either to escape from the burden of this freedom into new dependencies and submission, or to advance to the full realization of positive freedom which is based upon the uniqueness and individuality of man.
9. Society has not only a suppressing function- although it has that too- but it has also a creative function.
10. In the Northern European countries, from the sixteenth century on, man developed an obsessional craving to work which had been lacking in a free man before that period.
14. He has to eat and drink, and therefore he has to work; and this means he has to work under the particular conditions and in the ways that are determined for him by the kind of society into which he is born. Both factors, his need to live and the social system, in principle are unalterable by him as an individual, and they are the factors which determine the development of those other traits that show greater plasticity.
15. To feel completely alone and isolated leads to mental disintegration just as physical starvation leads to death.
This lack of relatedness to values, symbols, patterns, we may call moral aloneness and state that moral aloneness is as intolerable as the physical aloneness, or rather that physical aloneness becomes unbearable only if it implies also moral aloneness.
Religion and nationalism, as well as any custom and any belief however absurd and degrading, if it only connects the individual with others, are refuges from what man most dreads: isolation.
17. Unless he belonged somewhere, unless his life had some meaning and direction, he would feel like a particle of dust and be overcome by his individual insignificance.
Human nature is neither a biologically fixed and innate sum total of drives nor is it a lifeless shadow of cultural patterns to which it adapts itself smoothly; it is the product of human evolution but it also has certain inherent mechanisms and laws. There are certain factors in man's nature which are fixed and unchangeable: the necessity to satisfy the physiologically conditioned drives and the necessity to avoid isolation and moral aloneness.
18. Man, the more he gains freedom in the sense of emerging from the original oneness with man and nature and the more he becomes an 'individual', has no choice but to unite himself with the world in the spontaneity of love and productive work or else to seek a kind of security by such ties with the world as destroy his freedom and the integrity of his individual self.
19. The growing process of the emergence of the individual from his original ties, a process which we may call 'individuation', seems to have reached its peak in modern history in the centuries between the Reformation and the present.
24. Spontaneous relationship to man and nature, a relationship that connects the individual with the world without eliminating his individuality. This kind of relationship- the foremost expressions of which are love and productive work- are rooted in the integration and strength of the total personality and are therefore subject to the very limits that exist for the growth of the self.
39. The masses who did not share the wealth and power of the ruling group had lost the security of their former status and had become a shapeless mass, to be flattered or to be threatened-but always to be manipulated and exploited by those in power.
40. All human relationships were poisoned by this fierce life-and-death struggle for the maintenance of power and wealth. Solidarity with one's fellowmen- or at least with the members of one's own class- was replaced by a cynical detached attitude; other individuals were looked upon as 'objects' to be used and manipulated, or they were ruthlessly destroyed if it suited one's own ends.
49. A spirit of restlessness began to pervade life towards the end of the Middle Ages. The concept of time in the modern sense began to develop. Minutes became valuable. ... Too many holidays began to appear as a misfortune. Time was so valuable that one felt one should never spend it for any purpose which was not useful. Work became increasingly a supreme value.
52. The individual is freed from the bondage of economic and political ties. He also gains in positive freedom by the active and independent role which he has to play in the new system. But simultaneously he is freed from those ties which used to give him security and a feeling of belonging. Life has ceased to be lived in a closed world the centre of which was man; the world has become limitless and at the same time threatening. By losing his fixed place in a closed world man loses the answer to the meaning of his life; the result is that doubt has befallen him concerning himself and the aim of life. He is threatened by powerful supra-personal forces, capital and the market. His relationship to his fellow men, with everyone a potential competitor, has become hostile and estranged; he is free- that is, he is alone, isolated, threatened from all sides. Not having the wealth or the power which the Renaissance capitalist had, and also having lost the sense of unity with men and the universe, he is overwhelmed with a sense of his individual nothingness and helplessness.
67. The modern attempts to silence the doubts, whether they consist in a compulsive striving for success, in the belief that unlimited knowledge of facts can answer the quest for certainty, or in the submission to a leader who assumes the responsibility for 'certainty'- all these solutions can only eliminate the awareness of doubt. The doubt itself will not disappear as long as man does not overcome his isolation and as long as his place in the world has not become a meaningful one in terms of his human needs.
78. The individual has to be active in order to overcome his feeling of doubt and powerlessness. This kind of effort and activity is not the result of inner strength and self-confidence; it is a desperate escape from anxiety.
80. It seems that for some groups of medieval society work was enjoyed as a realization of productive ability; that many others worked because they had to and felt this necessity was conditioned by pressure from the outside. What was new in modern society was that men came to be driven to work not so much by external pressure but by an internal compulsion, which made them work as only a very strict master could have made people do in other societies.
There is no other period in history in which free men have given their energy so completely for the one purpose: work.
84. 'Conscience' is a slave driver, put into man by himself. It drives him to act according to wishes and aims which he believes to be his own, while they are actually the internalization of external social demands. It drives him with harshness and cruelty, forbidding him pleasure and happiness, making his whole life the atonement for some mysterious sin.
87. The social process, by determining the mode of life of the individual, that is, his relation to others and to work, moulds his character structure; new ideologies- religious, philosophical, or political- result from and appeal to this changed character structure and thus intensify, satisfy, and stabilize it; the newly formed character traits in their turn become important factors in further economic development and influence the social process; while originally they have developed asa reaction to the threat of new economic forces, they slowly become productive forces furthering and intensifying the new economic development.
90. Modern men become more independent, self-reliant, and critical, and he becomes more isolated, alone, and afraid.
We feel that freedom of speech is the last step in the march of victory of freedom. We forget that, although freedom of speech constitutes an important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what 'he' thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally- that is, for himself- which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts. Again, we are proud that in his conduct of life man has become free from external authorities, which tell him what to do and what not to do. We neglect the role of the anonymous authorities like public opinion and 'common sense', which are so powerful because of our profound readiness to conform to the expectations everybody has about ourselves and our equally profound fear of being different. In other words, we are fascinated by the growth of freedom from powers outside ourselves and are blinded to the fact of inner restraints, compulsions, and fears, which tend to undermine the meaning of the victories freedom has won against its traditional enemies. We therefore are prone to think that the problem of freedom is exclusively that of gaining still more freedom of the kind we have gained in the course of modern history, and to believe that the defence of freedom against such powers that deny such freedom is all that is necessary. We forget that, although each of the liberties which have been won must be defended with utmost vigour, the problem of freedom is not only a quantitative one, but a qualitative one; that we not only have to preserve and increase the traditional freedom, but that we have to gain a new kind of freedom, one which enables us to realize our own individual self, to have faith in this self and in life.
94. In the medieval system capital was the servant of man, but in the modern system it became his master. In the medieval world economic activities were a means to an end; the end was life itself, or the spiritual salvation of man. ... In capitalism economic activity, success, material gains, become ends in themselves. It becomes man's fate to contribute to the growth of the economic system, to amass capital, not for purposes of his own happiness or salvation, but as an end in itself.
In theological teaching of Lutherism and Calvinism, they had laid the ground for this development by breaking man's spiritual backbone, his feeling of dignity and pride, by teaching him that activity had to further aims outside of himself. ... of feeling his own self to be insignificant and of being ready to subordinate his life exclusively for purposes which were not his own.
96. While the principle of work for the sake of the accumulation of capital objectively is of enormous value for the progress of mankind, subjectively it has made man work for extra-personal ends, made him servant to the very machine he built, and thereby has given him a feeling of personal insignificance and powerlessness.
97. In any society the spirit of the whole culture is determined by the spirit of those groups that are most powerful in that society. This is so partly because these groups have the power to control the educational system, schools, church, press, theatre, and thereby to imbue the whole population with their own ideas; furthermore, these powerful groups carry so much prestige that the lower classes are more than ready to accept and imitate their values and to identify themselves psychologically.
100. Close observation shows that while the selfish person is always anxiously concerned with himself, he is never satisfied, is always restless, always driven by the fear of not getting enough, of missing something, of being deprived of something. He is filled with burning envy of anyone who might have more. If we observe still closer, especially the unconscious dynamics, we find that this type of person is basically not fond of himself, but deeply dislikes himself.
101. The 'self' in the interest of which modern man acts is the social self, a self which is essentially constituted by the role the individual is supposed to play and which in reality is merely the subjective disguise for the objective social function of man in society. Modern selfishness is the greed that is rooted in the frustration of the real self and whose object is the social self.
102. The word 'employer' contains the whole story; the owner of capital employs another human being as he 'employs' a machine. They both use each other for the pursuit of their economic interests; their relationship is one in which both are means to an end, both are instrumental to each other. It is not a relationship of two human beings who have any interest in the other outside of this mutual usefulness.
In contrast to a medieval artisan, the modern manufacturer is not primarily interested in what he produces; he produces essentially in order to make a profit from his capital investment.
103. Man does not only sell commodities, he sells himself and feels himself to be a commodity. ... They have to have a 'personality' if they are to sell their products or services. This personality should be pleasing, but besides that its possessor should meet a number of other requirements; he should have energy, initiative, this, that, or the other ,as his particular position may require. ... If there is no use for the qualities a person offers, he has none; just as an unsaleable commodity is valueless though it might have tis use value. Thus, the self-confidence, the 'feeling of self', is merely an indication of what others think of the person. It is not he who is convinced of his value regardless of popularity and his success on the market. If he is sought after, he is somebody; if he is not popular, he is simply nobody.
104. A man's clothes or his house were parts of his self just as much as his body. The less he felt he was being somebody the more he needed to have possessions. If the individual had no property or lost it, he was lacking an important part of his 'self' and to a certain extent was not considered to be a full=fledged person, either by others or by himself.
111. These methods of dulling the capacity for critical thinking are more dangerous to our democracy than many of the open attacks against it, and more immoral- in terms of human integrity- than the indecent literature, publication of which we publish.
113. To have a job-regardless of what kind of a job it is- seems to many all they could want of life and something they should be grateful for.
114. Kierkegaard describes the helpless individual torn and tormented by doubts, overwhelmed by the feeling of aloneness and insignificance. Nietzsche visualizes the approaching nihilism which was to become manifest in Nazism and paints a picture of a 'superman' as the negation of the insignificant, directionless individual he saw in reality.
However, this feeling of individual isolation and powerlessness as it has been expressed by these writers and as it is felt by many so-called neurotic people, is nothing the average normal person is aware of. It is too frightening for that. It is covered over by the daily routine of his activities, byt he assurance and approval he finds in his private or social relations, by success in business, by any number of distractions, by 'having fun', 'making contacts', 'going places'. But whistling in the dark does not bring light. Aloneness, fear, and bewilderment remain.
122. Masochistic strivings: These people show a marked dependence on powers outside themselves, on other people, or institutions, or nature. They tend not to assert themselves, not to do what they want, but to submit to the factual or alleged orders of these outside forces. Often they are quite incapable of experiencing the feeling 'I want' or 'I am'. Life, as a whole, is felt by them as something overwhelmingly powerful, which they cannot master or control.
123. There are others who say things which antagonize those whom they love or on whom they are dependent, although actually they feel friendly towards them and did not intend to say those things. With such people, it almost seems as if they were following advice given them by an enemy to behave in such a way as to be most detrimental to themselves.
134. The other side is the attempt to become a part of a bigger and more powerful whole outside of oneself, to submerge and participate in it. This power can be a person, an institution, God, the nation, conscience, or a psychic compulsion. By becoming part of a power which is felt as unshakably strong, eternal, and glamorous, one participates in its strength and glory. One surrenders one's own self and renounces all strength and pride connected with it, one loses one's integrity as an individual and surrenders freedom; but one gains a new security and a new pride in the participation in the power in which one submerges.
136. Symbiosis, in this psychological sense, means the union of one individual self with another self in such a way as to make each lose the integrity of tis own self and to make them completely dependent on each other. The sadistic person needs his object just as much as the masochistic needs his.
It is always the inability to stand the aloneness of one's individual self that leads to the drive to enter into a symbiotic relationship with someone else.
144. Instead of overt authority, 'anonymous' authority reigns. It is disguised as common sense, science, psychic health, normality, public opinion. It does not demand anything except the self-evident. It seems to use no pressure but only mild persuasion.
Anonymous authority is more effective than overt authority, since one never suspects that there is any order which one is expected to follow. In external authority it is clear that there is an order and who gives it; one can fight against the authority, and in this fight personal independence and moral courage can develop. But whereas in internalized authority the command, though an internal one, remains visible, in anonymous authority both command and commander have become invisible. It is like being fired at by an invisible enemy. There is nobody and nothing to fight back against.
154. Sadism aims at incorporation of the object; destructiveness at its removal. Sadism tends to strengthen the atomized individual by the domination over others.
155. In most cases the destructive impulses, however, are rationalized in such a way that at least a few other people or a whole social group share in the rationalization and thus make it appear to be 'realistic' to the member of such a group.
158. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.
160. To put it briefly, the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be. The discrepancy between 'I' and the world disappears and with it the conscious fear of aloneness and powerlessness.
The price one pays, however, is high; it is the loss of one self.
167. In all these illustrations of pseudo thinking, the problem is whether the thought is the result of one's own thinking, that is, of one's own activity; the problem is not whether or not the contents of the thought are right.
168. The decisive point is not what is thought but how it is thought. The thought that is the result of active thinking is always new and original; original, not necessarily in the sense tat others have not thought it before, but always in the sense that the person who thinks, has used thinking asa tool to discover something new in the world outside or inside himself. Rationalizations are essentially lacking this quality of discovering and uncovering; they only confirm the emotional prejudice existing in oneself. Rationalizing is not a tool for penetration of reality but a post-factum attempt to harmonize one's own wishes with existing reality.
172. A great number of our decisions are not really our own but are suggested to us from the outside; we have succeeded in persuading ourselves that it is we who have made the decision, whereas we have actually conformed with expectations of others, driven by the fear of isolation and by more direct threats to our life, freedom, and comfort.
173. In watching the phenomenon of human decisions, one is struck by the extent to which people are mistaken in taking as 'their' decision what in effect is submission to convention, duty, or simple pressure. It almost seems that 'original' decision is a comparatively rare phenomenon in a society which supposedly makes individual decision the cornerstone of its existence.
174. Every repression eliminates parts of one's real self and enforces the substitution of a pseudo feeling for the one which has been repressed.
177. The loss of the self and its substitution by a pseudo self leave the individual in an intense state of insecurity. He is obsessed by doubt since, being essentially a reflex of other people's expectation of him, he has in a measure lost his identity. In order to overcome the panic resulting from such loss of identity, he is compelled to conform, to seek his identity by continuous approval and recognition by others. Since he does not know who he is, at least the others will know- if he acts according to their expectation.
181. It seems that nothing is more difficult for the average man to bear than the feeling of not being identified with a larger group.
207. The right to express our thoughts, however, means something only if we are able to have thoughts of our own.
210. In many instances the person is aware of merely making a gesture; in most cases, however, he loses that awareness and thereby the ability to discriminate between the pseudo feeling and spontaneous friendliness.
211. In our society emotions in general are discouraged. While there can be no doubt that any creative thinking- as well as any other creative activity- is inseparably linked with emotion, it has become an ideal to think and to live without emotions. To be 'emotional' has become synonymous with being unsound or unbalanced. By the acceptance of this standard the individual has become greatly weakened; his thinking is impoverished and flattened. On the other hand, since emotions cannot be completely killed, they must have their existence totally apart from the intellectual side of the personality; the result is the cheap and insincere sentimentality with which movies and popular songs feed millions of emotion-starved customers.
213. Some of the educational methods used today which in effect further discourage original thinking. One is the emphasis on knowledge of facts, or I should rather say on information. The pathetic superstition prevails that by knowing more and more facts one arrives at knowledge of reality. Hundreds of scattered and unrelated facts are dumped into the heads of students; their time and energy are taken up by learning more and more facts so that there is little left for thinking. To be sure, thinking without a knowledge of facts remains empty and factitious; but 'information' alone can be just as much of an obstacle to thinking as the lack of it.
215. The individual's greatest strength is based on the maximum of integration of his personality, and that means also on the maximum of transparence to himself. 'Know thyself' is one of the fundamental commands that aim at human strength and happiness.
217. 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 this new 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, his knowledge of what he wants. People tend, therefore, to get rid as soon as possible of these disturbing thoughts. They feel that they have been bothered by these questions because they were tired or depressed- and they go on in the pursuit of the aims which they believe are their own.
218. Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he ctually 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, as most people think, but one of the most difficult problems any human being has to solve.
219. The loss of the self has increased the necessity to conform, for it results in a profound doubt of one's own identity.
I am 'as you desire me'.
By conforming with the expectations of others, by not being different, these doubts about one's own identity are silenced and a certain security is gained. However, the price paid is high. Giving up spontaneity and individuality results in a thwarting of life. Psychologically the automaton, while being alive biologically, is dead emotionally and mentally. While he goes through the motions of living, his life runs through his hands like sand.
222. This freedom man can attain by the realization of his self, by being himself.
The realization of the self is accomplished not only by an act of thinking but also by the realization of man's total personality, by the active expression of his emotional and intellectual potentialities.
Positive freedom consists in the spontaneous activity of the total, integrated personality.
223. One premise for this spontaneity is the acceptance of the total personality and the elimination of the split between 'reason' and 'nature'; for only if man does not repress essential parts of his self, only if he has become transparent to himself, and only if the different spheres of life have reached a fundamental integration, is spontaneous activity possible.
Spontaneity with thinking, feeling, and acting, is the expression of selves and not of an automaton. These individuals are mostly known to us as artists. ... Certain philosophers and scientists have to be called artists too, while others are as different from them as an old-fashioned photographer from a creative painter.
225. Spontaneous activity is the one way in which man can overcome the terror of aloneness without sacrificing the integrity of his self; for in the spontaneous realization of the self man unites himself anew with the world- with man, nature, and himself.
Love is the foremost component of such spontaneity; not love as the dissolution of the self in another person, not love as the possession of another person, but love as spontaneous affirmation of others, as the union of the individual with others on the basis of the preservation of the individual self. The dynamic quality of love lies in this very polarity: that it springs from the need of overcoming separateness, that it leads to oneness-and yet that individuality is not eliminated.
Work is the other component; not work as a compulsive activity in order to escape aloneness, not work as a relationship to nature which is partly one of dominating her, partly one of worship of and enslavement by the ery products of man's hands, but work as creation in which man becomes one with nature in the act of creation. What holds true of love and work holds true of all spontaneous action, whether it be the realization of sensuous pleasure or participation in the political life of the community. It affirms the individuality of the self and at the same time it unites the self with man and nature. The basic dichotomy that is inherent in freedom- the birth of individuality and the pain of aloneness- is dissolved on a higher plane by man's spontaneous action.
226. We produce not for a concrete satisfaction but for the abstract purpose of selling our commodity; we feel that we can acquire everything material or immaterial by buying it, and thus things become ours independently of any creative effort of our own in relation to them. In the same way we regard our personal qualities and the result of our efforts as commodities that can be sold for money, prestige, and power. The emphasis thus shifts from the present satisfaction of creative activity to the value of the finished product. Thereby man misses the only satisfaction that can give him real happiness- the experience of the activity of the present moment- and chases after a phantom that leaves him disappointed as soon as he believes he has caught it- the illusory happiness called success.
If the individual realizes his self by spontaneous activity and thus relates himself to the world, he ceases to be an isolated atom; he and the world become part of one structuralized whole; he has his rightful place, and thereby his doubt concerning himself and the meaning of life disappears. This doubt sprang from his separateness and from the thwarting of life; when he can live, neither compulsively nor automatically but spontaneously, the doubt disappears. He is aware of himself as an active and creative individual and recognizes that there is only one meaning of life: the at of living itself.
229. All genuine ideals have one thing in common: they express the desire for something which is not yet accomplished but which is desirable for the purposes of the growth and happiness of the individual.
We know that poverty, intimidation, isolation, are directed against life; that everything that serves freedom and furthers the courage and strength to be oneself is for life.
233. The cultural and political crisis of our day is not due to the fact that there is too much individualism but that what we believe to be individualism has become an empty shell. The victory of freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual, his growth and happiness, is the aim and purpose of culture, in which life does not need any justification in success or anything else, and in which the individual is not subordinated to or manipulated by any power outside himself, be it the State or the economic machine; finally, a society in which his conscience and ideals are not internalisation of external demands, but are really his and express the aims that result from the peculiarity of his self.
235. Today the vast majority of the people not only have no control over the whole of the economic machine, but they have little chance to develop genuine initiative and spontaneity at the particular job they are doing. They are 'employed', and nothing more is expected from them than that they do what they are told.
All that matters is that the opportunity for genuine activity be restored to the individual.
245. The social function of education is to qualify the individual to function in the role he is to play later on in society; that is to mould his character in such a way that it approximates the social character, that his desires coincide with the necessities of his social role.
253. Social conditions influence ideological phenomena through the medium of character; character, on the other hand, is not the result of passive adaptation to social conditions but of a dynamic adaptation on the basis of elements that either are biologically inherent in human nature or have become inherent as the result of historic evolution.
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