Paper Example on Society Becoming More Accepting: The Freedom We Can Achieve

Introduction

Today's society is gradually becoming a more accepting society to the difference between people. Contrary to the popular beliefs, the way of thinking that is generalized in an era and the actions of society; human beings may all be living under a similar paradigm without realizing it. Fromm's theory asserts that although human beings are influenced by their culture and by economic systems, there is an end that they must always fight for and that they can achieve: freedom. Fromm encouraged people to go beyond the iron determinism of Freud and Marx to develop something immanent to human nature itself: their freedom.

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According to Fromm, love is the only satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. The necessary conditions for the capacity to love include overcoming narcissism itself and acquiring the most objective view of the outside world only achievable using reason itself in an attitude of freedom of thought (Smith, 2020). Thus, love requires freedom, objectivity, and reason. For human beings, objectivity and reason represent half the way to mastering the art of love, but without forgetting that it is not enough to apply it to the loved one, because if they do not apply it to the rest of the world they would be doomed to failure in both directions. They have to have faith, but not irrational faith in a person or an idea where they have to submit to irrational authority, but a rational faith in their thinking and judgment, having faith in another person as a sign of trust, of the essence of their personality, of their love. At the same time, freedom in oneself is essential, because only the person who is free in themself can allow others to exercise their freedom. Having freedom requires courage, the ability to take risks, even accepting pain and disappointment.

Evaluation: Validity and Accuracy

Existentialism is a philosophical and literary current oriented to the analysis of human existence. It emphasizes the principles of freedom and individual responsibility, which must be analyzed as independent phenomena of abstract categories, whether rational, moral, or religious. For instance, Fromm's studies of the relationship between totalitarian political systems and monotheistic religions are of transcendental importance. According to Fromm, monotheistic religions educate individuals in blind obedience to a higher authority, which puts norms above any reason or discussion. Thus, man is reduced to a mere servant of an Almighty God. This masochistic mentality, acquired from childhood, would be the psychological basis that has led many men to blindly follow dictatorships at the expense of their freedom.

Existentialism groups diverse tendencies that, although they share their purpose, diverge in assumptions and conclusions (Hadler & Symons, 2018). Fromm believed that people are determined by some biological principles, just like other animals. They are born with a body, they mature, grow old, and fight for their survival. However, beyond this limit, anything is possible. If they could, for example, advance from those traditional societies of the Middle Ages to today's society, they cannot give up in this process in search of more freedoms, more rights, and greater well-being. Freedom is a complex thing to achieve, but achieving it requires cultivating individual responsibility and social respect (Atamanyuk, 2017). Alternatively, if they do not fight or escape from their freedom, they run the risk of one of these scenarios arising in the societies, which are undoubtedly not unknown to them: Authoritarianism, Destructiveness (where it includes from aggression, violence or suicide), and Automatic conformity, where the person becomes a "social chameleon", that is, assumes the color of his environment without protest.

Evaluation: Cultural Perspectives

Modern culture is deeply influenced by existentialism and can be applied to many aspects of today (Asakaviciute, 2018). One of the most existentialist aspects of today's society focuses on religion. There has been a depreciation of the mainly Catholic religion around the world. Man no longer wants to be governed by a slave morality, as Nietzsche said, he wants to feel himself in control of his own decisions, with a consequence no more serious than anguish (Mitchell, 2020). Man has left his religion behind and has begun to exist in the way that his freedom dictates. Religion is increasingly forgotten by modern culture. Existentialism is based on freedom and possibilities, that is why the human being has adopted a more liberal vision to his life. This inevitably leaves no room for religion.

Another aspect that is influenced by existentialism today, is acceptance by something different. Although this is not a general aspect of the world, there has been a tendency to accept the differences that make us individuals. A clear example of this is the increasingly strong LGBTQ + movements, the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, the feminist struggle, among others (Hadler et al., 2018; Roberts, 2019). Existentialism is based on individuality, on the freedom that defines the existence of each man.

The conditions for love, the only satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence as asserted by Fromm, are inseparably linked to the social domain, that is, as it has been said before, love must not only reside in relationships with one's family, friends, and erotic relationships but also with all those who contact us through our daily activities. However, the principles on which the capitalist society is based and the principle that must govern love are incompatible. It is, for this reason, that for love to become a social phenomenon and not an individualistic and marginal exception, radical and important changes must take place in the social structure. Although Fromm does not propose an answer to this social change, individuals must go from the omnipresence of economic interest, where the means become ends, where man is an automaton, to a society where man occupies the supreme place and the economic machine is there to serve him and not to be served, where love is not separated from social existence itself. Freedom is therefore essential for human beings becoming a more accepting society to their differences.

References

Asakaviciute, V. (2018). Cultural crisis as a decline in human existential creativity. Cultura, 15(1), 65-83.

Atamanyuk, Z. M. (2017). Understanding of freedom in the philosophy of existentialism. https://p.fisomenku.science/archive/72/1.pdf

Hadler, M., & Symons, J. (2018). World society divided: divergent trends in state responses to sexual minorities and their reflection in public attitudes. Social Forces, 96(4), 1721-1756. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soy019

Mitchell, D. (2020). Nietzsche’s Non-humanist Existentialism: Secondary Perversion and the Slave Revolt. In Sartre, Nietzsche and Non-Humanist Existentialism (pp. 73-101). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Roberts, L. L. (2019). Changing worldwide attitudes toward homosexuality: The influence of global and region-specific cultures, 1981–2012. Social science research, 80, 114-131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2018.12.003

Smith, K. (2020). Erich Fromm's' The Art of Loving': An existential, psychodynamic, and theological critique (Doctoral dissertation, University of Glasgow).