Disobedience
This is a critique of Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem by Eric
Fromm, written in 1963. Fromm states in his article that disobedience is what originally
set the human race on the path to thinking on their own, but obedience to authority in the
end will be what kills us all. Overall his article has several compelling reasons to believe
his theory, but it is also not completely believable for several reasons. There are several
points that are debatable and his high use of emotion alone could cause one to question
his article on a whole. Fromm being a psychoanalyst, sociologist, historian, and
philosopher may have contributed to his using the pull of emotion so much.
In his article Fromm states that history began with an act of disobedience and that
history will possibly end with an act of obedience. Adam and Eve’s disobedience caused
humans to then rely on themselves, and that until this happened humans were not able to
fully develop the ability to reason or love. Similar to Adam and Eve, other cultures also
have their own stories of how history began with disobedience. Through disobedience
man has continued to evolve spiritually and intellectually, through this enlightening was
learned that not all disobedience is a virtue and not all obedience is vice.
Fromm defines autonomous obedience or humanistic conscience as obeying
yourself, and this is not submissive. Heteronomous obedience or authoritarian
conscience is obeying a power outside your own person such as another person or society
laws, and this type of obedience is submissive. Fromm goes on to define rational and
irrational authority. He defines rational authority as being when two or...
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