Kant, a philosopher of the Enlightenment, point out the immaturity “laziness and
cowardice” of the people who try not to choose for themselves, hoping others to help
them. (Kant) According to Fromm’s view in his book Escape from Freedom, people
escape because they lost the former sense of control and suppression. (133) They are
afraid of the loneliness and powerlessness in social life and want an easier way in modern
society. (140)
The protagonist a person who lost control, gained freedom and fear freedom. His
father likely takes control before he is 25, telling him to keep a mole (Palahniuk 103) and
to go to university (51). But when his father wants him to get married, he finally doubts
his father and enters the stage of “freed”. Now his life belongs to himself. He can choose
the hobby he has, the product he buys, the groups he joins in, he even has the right to quit
his job.
The freedom dissatisfied him. The protagonist takes the planes, and wakes up in
different cities every day, (Palahniuk 25) doubting about if he wakes up as a different
person (33). To every place he goes, he feels “depersonalized”, not being himself
anymore. Although he shows signs of relief when he doesn’t have to work for long times,
which shows his strong will of quitting, he still believes he likes his boss and his job. Why
do he think that way? According to Fromm, he feels terribly small as a replaceable com-
ponent in his current state. He has “the tendency to give up the independence of one’s own
individual self and to fuse one’s self with somebody or something outside of oneself in
order to acquire the strength which the individual self is lacking” (141), that leads to
conformity. Conformity is losing individuality, discard freewill, and let the pseudo will
act. It does not mean people can’t choose, it means they don’t have or don’t want to use
the ability to choose. The source of conformity is the thought implanted by the authorities.
Concepts and ideas are constantly implanted to people’s mind. Recently, Jack Ma,
the boss of Alibaba, talked about the popular word “996”, 9 a.m.–9 p.m., 6 days per week.
He said publicly, “996” is a huge blessing; you only chance have chance to work in ‘996’
schedule during your youth; if you love your job, 12 hours is short; if you want to work 8
hours a day, you are not needed(GitHub) In modern society, almost everyone is instilled to
work hard or to study hard to pursue the success which might be unnecessary for oneself,
but is mandatory for the capitalists and the social machinery.