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Fromm essay on disobedience
Fromm essay on disobedience
How does erich fromm's claims in disobedience relate to today
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One cannot be obedient to one’s power without being disobedient to another. In his article, “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem,” Erich Fromm argues people obey authority to feel safe. When one obeys, they become an ambiguous part of a whole, no longer accountable for actions or left on their own. In Ian Parker’s article, “Obedience,” analyzing Milgram's experiment, he claims people obey orders when there is no second option. According to Parker, if someone obeys an order, but there is no alternative, their accountability is lessoned. The two articles can speak to the tomfoolery that takes place in the motion picture, Mean Girls, which highlights a typical high school under the regime of the queen bee, Regina George, with her followers Gretchen Weiners and Karen Smith; the regime is usurped by a new girl, Cady Heron. Under the scope of Parker and Fromm, it can be argued that Gretchen was not disobeying Regina when she realigned with Cady, but actually remaining obedient to the social order of high school. Gretchen was not a helpless victim to Regina’s ruthlessness or a robotic follower. When pointing out Gretchen to Cady, Damien comments, "that's why …show more content…
Parker, however, would instead pose that Gretchen finally had a chance to disobey Regina because she had the option to follow Cady. She finally had a second, viable option, allowing her to disobey. Therefore, Parker’s logic would state that this switch of leadership is proof that Gretchen was disobedient to
More specifically, the movie A Few Good Men depicts the results of blindly obeying orders. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, also explores obedience to authority in his essay “ The Perils of Obedience”. On the other hand, Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and philosopher, focused on disobedience to authority in his essay “ Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem.” Milgram wrote about how people were shockingly obedient to authority when they thought they were harming someone else while Fromm dissected both: why people are so prone to obey and how disobedience from authoritative figures can bring beneficial changes for society. Obeying commands, even when they go against our morals, is human nature; Disobeying commands, however, is challenging to do no matter what the situation is.
Stanley Milgram’s experiment shows societies that more people with abide by the rules of an authority figure under any circumstances rather than follow their own nature instinct. With the use of his well-organized article that appeals to the general public, direct quotes and real world example, Milgram’s idea is very well-supported. The results of the experiment were in Milgram’s favor and show that people are obedient to authority figures. Stanley Milgram shows the reader how big of an impact authority figures have but fails to answer the bigger question. Which is more important, obedience or morality?
In "Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem," Erich Fromm (1963) argues that society will self-destruct without achieving freedom through disobedience. Fromm begins with analogies of Hebrew and Greek mythology showing how disobedience to a god freed humans. Using this correlation, Fromm shows freedom as a condition for disobedience, and vice- versa. Therefore, Fromm proclaims that without disobedience the human race could destroy itself within a generation.
Obedience is a widely debated topic today with many different standpoints from various brilliant psychologists. Studying obedience is still important today to attempt to understand why atrocities like the Holocaust or the My Lai Massacre happened so society can learn from them and not repeat history. There are many factors that contribute to obedience including situation and authority. The film A Few Good Men, through a military court case, shows how anyone can fall under the influence of authority and become completely obedient to conform to the roles that they have been assigned. A Few Good Men demonstrates how authority figures can control others and influence them into persuading them to perform a task considered immoral or unethical.
Regina George is a junior in high school who is described as teen royalty. As the leader of her clique referred to as “The Plastics”, she rules the school with her best friends Gretchen Weiners and Karen Smith loyally at her side. The three girls feed off of tearing the other girls in the school down and diminishing them by writing awful rumors and secrets in the “Burn Book”. With her tall and skinny physique, bright blonde hair and good-looks, she uses her sex appeal and superiority to manipulate and victimize the people around her including her family. Regina easily controls her family members. Her mother worships the ground Regina walks on and desperately looks to her for acceptance. Her ability to make other girls at school feel inferior fuels her power, as queen bee Regina is seen as the “it” girl. Everyone wants to look like her, dress like her, and be just like her. She uses her sex appeal to get any guy she wants and dangles them around everyone else to make them jealous.
“Early on, the narrative establishes that Sykes both physically and mentally torments Delia. Scolding him for scaring her by sliding across her knee a bullwhip that she thinks is a snake, Delia say...
...ng point, ‘“Mah cup is done run ovah,”’ again, another metaphorical illustration of how tired she is of being physically mistreated and mentally abused by Sykes, thus, her rage is channeled towards protecting herself and the property she has assumed through her dedication as a washwoman. Hurston makes this ever so clear as Delia shouts at Sykes, ‘“Don't think Ah'm gointuh be run 'way fum mah house neither.”’ Sykes has been unfaithful to Delia for a while now and she has finally taken the final straw. Hurston empowers Delia, through writing, “Delia said this with no signs of fear and Sykes departed from the house, threatening her, but made not the slightest move to carry out any of them.” This is an important step for Delia towards independence. Delia is no longer afraid of Sykes, however she has one more fear to overcome before she is completely free of oppression.
Deus Ex Machina is a god introduced into a play to resolve the entanglements of the plot. It is introduced to make the play flow more smoothly and logical. Real life is not very different from the play. Religion has helped the leaders to persuade the public to overcome the crisis and unite them. Christianity has been often used as a political tool in the western hemisphere. United States is a country that started from Christian roots. Public figures in United States have been using the word “God” in speech a lot since the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln, John F.Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. have used the term “God" in their speech to unite people to overcome the challenge. Religion cannot be separated from politics and is
Coming from Russia during the civil war between a collectivist party and capitalism, author Ayn Rand grew up under the exposure of communism. She strongly disagreed with the sentiment of socialism, thus moved to the U.S. to experience the capitalist system. Here, Rand’s books became critically acclaimed through her unique perspective and characters. The majority of these novels is heavy handed and are heavily laced with biases that depict her strong distaste of collectivism. In the particular novella Anthem, Rand gives a warning to readers about the dangers of depending on the ‘we’ of society.
Instead of Victoria trying to deny her actions she did not. However, Victoria tried to justify and rationalize her actions. Victoria told her daughters that they would have become destitute if Lisa’s father was going to leave. Victoria worked two jobs after Vanessa’s father left and she believed that she deserved better. Victoria goes on to say “sweetheart you were my only option” to Vanessa as if it was still right to allow a man to harm her child physically and emotionally. Victoria also stated that her mother traded her for “$10 and a fix” to let her daughter know that she was not the only one who had to do something she did not want to do. Victoria was not going to allow Vanessa to ruin her chances at being happy, even if it caused her child
Individuals often yield to conformity when they are forced to discard their individual freedom in order to benefit the larger group. Despite the fact that it is important to obey the authority, obeying the authority can sometimes be hazardous especially when morals and autonomous thought are suppressed to an extent that the other person is harmed. Obedience usually involves doing what a rule or a person tells you to but negative consequences can result from displaying obedience to authority for example; the people who obeyed the orders of Adolph Hitler ended up killing innocent people during the Holocaust. In the same way, Stanley Milgram noted in his article ‘Perils of Obedience’ of how individuals obeyed authority and neglected their conscience reflecting how this can be destructive in experiences of real life. On the contrary, Diana Baumrind pointed out in her article ‘Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience’ that the experiments were not valid hence useless.
Night is a memoir written by Elie Wiesel, a young Jewish boy, who tells of his experiences during the Holocaust. Elie is a deeply religious boy whose favorite activities are studying the Talmud and spending time at the Temple with his spiritual mentor, Moshe the Beadle. At an early age, Elie has a naive, yet strong faith in God. But this faith is tested when the Nazi's moves him from his small town.
.... She was unable to accept that he did not love her so she blamed his actions on others. For example, she believed it is Edie's fault, not Chris's, that they were "intimate", so she accused Edie of being loose and bad. Likewise, Alice was very obsessive because she continued to follow Chris wherever he went, trying to catch up with him. When love is involved in a situation it can really alter the truth.
handed her over to the crowd to let her suffer her fate. After he gave her to the “wolves” they all stood there not wanting to be the ones that starting the atrocious act.Every villager had the same thing in mind. They all wanted to get it over with so they could go home and forget about everything, but nobody said anything until someone spoke up and said,”All right, folks.”Mr. Summers said.”Let’s finish quickly.”.(Jackson pg.6) Her husband did nothing to help her out and frankly she was mad about everything screaming and shouting. Her husband and her were in an external conflict throughout the story helping strengthen the different forms of conflict. Tessie and her husband were having an external conflict as the story progressed that eventually
April 20, 1964. A day which would forever be embedded in Africa’s history. It was the day one of the most pivotal legal events of the twentieth century; The Rivonia trial took place. The accused were Nelson Mandela and 10 other members of African National Congress (ANC). This trial was a consequential element in Mandela’s long walk to freedom and it is where his famous “An Ideal I Am Prepared to Die For” speech was delivered. Nelson Mandela was not just a great politician and an inspirational pioneer, he was a man who went above and beyond for his nation, the man who moulded South Africa into what it is today. He did this first in his battle against the apartheid regime.