An Evaulation of Erich Fromm's Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem

An Evaulation of Erich Fromm's Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem

Growing up everyone was taught what the right and wrong things to do in life were. In the essay “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem”, Erich Fromm discusses the issues of disobedience as a benefit and a doubt for mankind. I believe that Fromm has very good points and this makes for a great argument.
Fromm has good ways of letting the reader know what he is trying to say by stating simple stories to support his own thoughts on disobedience. A good example is the way he started with the first traditional story of Adam and Eve starting off the disobedience of mankind. Fromm should have backed up his thoughts by stating actual facts, since people tend to rely on numbers rather than stories.
As Fromm calmly yet scarily says, “Human history began with an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be, terminated by an act of obedience.” The disobedience Fromm is speaking of is universal in its mythological roots. He describes how Adam and Eve of Hebrew mythology achieved their own identities by disobeying God. Instead of living in “harmony with nature” they defied it and became free. Similarly, he describes how Prometheus of Greek mythology facilitated human evolution when he stole fire from the gods. Instead of relying on the gods for survival, mankind learned to create and control fire, which made him self-sufficient. According to this myth this could never have been achieved if Prometheus never disobeyed the gods. Both Adam and Eve, and Prometheus were mythological revolutionaries, who, through their disobedience, paved the way for human evolution. The consequences of their actions cannot be undone; if we spit out the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, we will still have the taste of freedom on our lips.
Fromm describes blind obedience to authority as a regression to our place in pre-history, before we learned to stand up as a species and claim our place in the food chain. The obedience he speaks of is not directly explained in his...

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