Alienation and human insecurity: contemporary challenges and the relevance of Erich Fromm

Abstract                          

For trying to understand and respond to the rises in felt insecurity that are recorded worldwide, this paper suggests connecting to alienation theory and the work of existential-humanist social psychologist Erich Fromm. Fromm connected a conceptualization of alienation with diagnoses of human divorce from Nature and of a ‘fear of freedom’ that leads to nostalgic authoritarianism and/or self-defeating strivings for exclusionary existential homes. Section 3 outlines his work. Section 4 presents concepts of alienation. Alienation theories concern socially caused separations of persons from important aspects of a meaningful and rewarding human life. We note three ideal-type traditions: conservative, linking alienation to rapid social change and loss of familiar cultural ‘homes’; liberal, viewing alienation as a loss of individual autonomy, volition or control; and third, a more broadly based humanism, in which alienation is seen as arrested human flourishing. Fromm augmented this third strand, which also draws from but deepens the conservative and liberal strands. Section 5 considers Marx’s theme of human alienation from Nature, later extended by Fromm and some political ecology. Necrophilic estrangement from Nature, treated only as a store to be looted and a bin to absorb wastes, leads to environmental and civilizational crises. Fromm considered how forms of psychological alienation inhibit effective response, plus ideas for transcending the alienation. He introduced a concept of ‘biophilia’, affection for life and Nature, which has been taken up in work on biophilic design. He advocated restructurings of society to strengthen relatedness with the natural world and with other people. What this concretely entails constitutes much of the agenda for human security research. Undermining the efforts towards reorientation in human-Nature relations is resistance fed by mis- and dis-information. Section 6.1 argues that themes in alienation theory help us understand the ‘demand’ and ‘supply’ sides for mis- and dis-information. Section 6.2 more broadly illustrates regressive responses to the tensions of freedom and modernity, in the work of conservative alienation theorist Frank Furedi, in effect an anti-Fromm. Furedi asserts that contemporary alienation is driven by, first, reaction against a patronizing ‘culture of fear’, including in relation to climate change, and second by lack of identity security, due to the weakening of national and cultural boundaries. The paper contrasts appeals for a national home, as declared essential base for existential security, and calls for global and biophilic solidarity as essential bases for longer-run human survival. Section 6 concludes and reviews contributions from Fromm that appear relevant for human security and human development analysts.

Keywords

Alienation, insecurity, Erich Fromm, fear, metabolic rift, biophilia, ‘home’, misinformation.

Click here to access this working paper