Anxiety about freedom drives subjects to alienate themselves in things
Evidence
It is impossible to account for this without starting from an existential fact: the subject’s tendency toward alienation; the anxiety of his freedom leads the subject to search for himself in things, which is a way to flee from himself; it is so fundamental a tendency that as soon as he is weaned and separated from the Whole, the infant endeavors to grasp his alienated existence in the mirror, in his parents’ gaze. Primitive people alienate themselves in their mana, their totem; civilized people in their individual souls, their egos, their names, their possessions, and their work: here is the first temptation of inauthenticity. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 128
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes Sartre’s mauvaise foi and anticipates the ‘bad faith’ analysis central to the existentialist-feminist critique. — connects to: Psychological guilt stems from evading one’s absolute freedom through bad faith — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 71; Anguish is freedom’s self-apprehension, opposed to the serious man’s faith in external values — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 253; Even self-directed sincerity converts freedom into a thing to escape it. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 310 (+11 more)
Broader Connections
- Fear of freedom leads people to prefer security over liberty
#corroborates(0.90) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 77 - Fear of freedom masks itself as defense of the status quo
#corroborates(0.85) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 78 - Liberated middle classes found freedom anxiety-producing and sought to escape it
#corroborates(0.85) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2138