Liberated middle classes found freedom anxiety-producing and sought to escape it

Evidence

The middle classes sought freedom of speech and action in large part for the economic gains that this would give them, and moralized their action with the theology of freedom. But the freedom that they gained was frightening, for it deprived them of the solidary social relationships and the ideological certainty which often gave order and meaning to their lives. On occasion, then, they sought to “escape from freedom.” The older unfree order had a value which the earlier social commentators did not appreciate. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2138

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to Erich Fromm’s ‘Escape from Freedom’ thesis about the psychological costs of liberty. — connects to: Realizing one’s radical freedom produces anxiety, not liberation — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 501; Anxiety about freedom drives subjects to alienate themselves in things — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 128; The free-school failure revived the question whether most people can use freedom well — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 198
• SEED: Angle: how ‘the freedom people fought for’ often produces anxiety and nostalgia for constraint — a psychological read on modern critiques of liberty.