Editing Erich Fromm (section)

==Political ideas and activism==
Fromm's best known work, ''[[Escape from Freedom]]'', focuses on the human urge to seek a source of authority and control upon reaching a freedom that was thought to be an individual's true desire. Fromm's critique of the modern political order and [[Capitalism|capitalist system]] led him to seek insights from [[Middle Ages|medieval]] [[feudalism]]. In ''Escape from Freedom'', he discerned a certain value in the lack of individual freedom, rigid structure, and obligations required of the members of medieval society:

{{blockquote| What characterizes medieval in contrast to modern society is its lack of individual freedom…But altogether a person was not free in the modern sense, neither was he alone and isolated.  In having a distinct, unchangeable, and unquestionable place in the social world from the moment of birth, man was rooted in a structuralized whole, and thus life had a meaning which left no place, and no need for doubt… There was comparatively little competition.  One was born into a certain economic position which guaranteed a livelihood determined by tradition, just as it carried economic obligations to those higher in the social hierarchy.<ref>Fromm, Erich "Escape from Freedom" New York: Rinehart & Co., 1941, p. 41 – 42</ref> }}

The culmination of Fromm's social and political philosophy came in his 1955 book ''[[The Sane Society]]'', which argued in favor of a [[Humanism|humanistic]] and [[democratic socialism]]. Building primarily upon the early works of [[Karl Marx]], Fromm sought to re-emphasise the ideal of freedom, missing from most Soviet Marxism and more frequently found in the writings of [[Libertarian socialism|libertarian socialists]] and liberal theoreticians. Fromm's brand of socialism rejected both [[Capitalism|Western capitalism]] and [[Soviet communism]], which he saw as dehumanizing, and which resulted in the virtually universal modern phenomenon of [[Marx's theory of alienation|alienation]]. 

Fromm became one of the founders of [[Marxist humanism|socialist humanism]], promoting the early writings of Marx and his humanist messages to the US and Western European public. He engaged with a Christian-Marxist intellectual dialogue group organized by [[Milan Machovec]] and others in 1960s [[Communist Czechoslovakia]].<ref name=Žďárský>Žďárský, Pavel (2011). ''[https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/35237 Milan Machovec a jeho filosofická antropologie v 60. letech XX. století]'' [Milan Machovec and His Philosophical Anthropology in the 1960s]. Prague: Charles University, Faculty of Education, Department of Civic Education and Philosophy. Dissertation, supervised by {{ill|Anna Hogenová|cs}}.</ref>

In the early 1960s, Fromm published two books dealing with Marxist thought (''[[Marx's Concept of Man]]'' and ''Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter with Marx and Freud''). In 1965, working to stimulate the Western and Eastern cooperation between Marxist humanists, Fromm published a series of articles entitled ''Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium''.  In 1966, the [[American Humanist Association]] named him Humanist of the Year.

For a period, Fromm was also active in U.S. politics. He joined the [[Socialist Party of America]] in the mid-1950s, and did his best to help them provide an alternative viewpoint to [[McCarthyist]] trends in some US political thought. This alternative viewpoint was best expressed in his 1961 paper ''May Man Prevail? An Inquiry into the Facts and Fictions of Foreign Policy''. However, as a co-founder of [[Peace Action|SANE]], Fromm's strongest political activism was in the international [[peace movement]], fighting against the [[nuclear arms race]] and U.S. involvement in the [[Vietnam War]]. After supporting Senator [[Eugene McCarthy]]'s losing bid for the [[1968 Democratic National Convention|Democratic presidential nomination]], Fromm more or less retreated from the American political scene, although he did write a paper in 1974 entitled ''Remarks on the Policy of Détente'' for a hearing held by the [[U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]]. Fromm was awarded the [[Nelly Sachs Prize]] in 1979.