On Disobedience: Why Freedom Means Saying No to Power (Resistance Library)

Human history began with an act of disobedience and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience.from On Disobedience In On Disobedience Erich Fromm writes that the authoritarian dictatorships of the 20th century produced an organization man to follow directives blindly no matter how abhorrent. At the same time a kind of conformity has arisen in western democracies only brought about by more subtle means of massive consumerism. In democracies where the power to implement irreversible destruction rests in the hands of the few the individual also needs to retain his ability to dissent and to speak no to those in power. In the face of these conformist pressures in whichever form they take modern man must seek an authentic expression in order to retain his deepest sense of self. Fromm sees both capitalism and totalitarian communism moving toward a lifedenying industrial bureaucracy and berates the one system for ignoring the other for betraying the ideals of a true