Reddit reviews Escape from Freedom

Si quelqu'une voudrait un recommandation pour une livre sur cette topique, je pense que cette une, "Escape From Freedom" (Version Francais "La Peur de la liberté"), c'est un bon explication du la phénomène du nazisme et l'idéologie radical dans les Etats Unis. C'est créé après le deuxième guerre mondial, mais c'est malheureusement pertinent de nos jours.

(Je ne peu pas écrit en francais avec beaucoup compétence, désolée )

That's the most french I can manage. A brief summery of the book above (or at least my interpretation) is that, due to continual erosion of economic stability and psychological well-being by market forces, people more often than not turn to anything which could restore their belief in their own power. You cannot control or affect the market, but you can choose to participate in a group that embellishes your potency, or claims you are of a particular chosen people. This submission into a collective, ideologically motivated mass, 'restores' an existential sense of potency, but at the cost of individual liberty and freedom.

Escape from Freedom:
If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now as when first published in 1941. Few books have thrown such light upon the forces that shape modern society or penetrated so deeply into the causes of authoritarian systems. If the rise of democracy set some people free, at the same time it gave birth to a society in which the individual feels alienated and dehumanized. Using the insights of psychoanalysis as probing agents, Fromm’s work analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as witnessed by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.
www.amazon.com/Escape-Freedom-Erich-Fromm/dp/0805031499/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426473294&sr=8-1&keywords=Escape+from+Freedom

Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics
This is Yockey's famous masterpiece. It is inspired by Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West. Imperium advocates the creation of a pan-European empire governed by sound principles or 'absolute politics'. It is divided into five parts, which are concerned with History, Politics, 'Cultural Vitalism', America and the World Situation. Imperium deals with doctrinal matters as well giving a survey of the 'world situation' in the 20th century. "In this book," writes Yockey, "are the precise, organic foundations of the Western soul, and in particular, its Imperative at the present stage." "...What is written here is also for the true America, even though the effective America of the moment, and of the immediate future is a hostile America, an America of willing, mass-minded tools in the service of the Culture-distorting political and total enemy of the Western Civilization." "The mission of this generation is the most difficult that has ever faced a Western generation. It must break the terror by which it is held in silence, it must look ahead, it must believe when there is apparently no hope, it must obey even if it means death, it must fight to the end rather than submit. ...The men of this generation must fight for the continued existence of the West..." "The soil of Europe, rendered sacred by the streams of blood which have made it spiritually fertile for a millennium, will once again stream with blood until the barbarians and distorters have been driven out and the Western banner waves on its home soil from Gibraltar to North Cape, from the rocky promontories of Galway to the Urals." The book's Chicago-born author, Francis P. Yockey, was just 30 years old when he wrote Imperium in six months in a quiet village on Ireland's eastern coast. His masterpiece continues to shape the thinking and steel the will of readers around the world.

www.amazon.com/Imperium-Philosophy-Francis-Parker-Yockey/dp/061550597X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426473382&sr=1-3&keywords=IMperium

Neither Right Nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France
"Few books on European history in recent memory have caused such controversy and commotion," wrote Robert Wohl in 1991 in a major review of Neither Right nor Left. Listed by Le Monde as one of the forty most important books published in France during the 1980s, this explosive work asserts that fascism was an important part of the mainstream of European history, not just a temporary development in Germany and Italy but a significant aspect of French culture as well. Neither right nor left, fascism united antibourgeois, antiliberal nationalism, and revolutionary syndicalist thought, each of which joined in reflecting the political culture inherited from eighteenth-century France. From the first, Sternhell's argument generated strong feelings among people who wished to forget the Vichy years, and his themes drew enormous public attention in 1994, as Paul Touvier was condemned for crimes against humanity and a new biography probed President Mitterand's Vichy connections. The author's new preface speaks to the debates of 1994 and reinforces the necessity of acknowledging the past, as President Chirac has recently done on France's behalf.

http://www.amazon.com/Neither-Right-Nor-Left-Ideology/dp/0691006296/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426473460&sr=1-2&keywords=neither+left+nor+right

The Birth of Fascist Ideology
press.princeton.edu/titles/5306.html

The Birth of Fascist Ideology
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/49786/fritz-stern/the-birth-of-fascist-ideology
ternhell, a scholar well known for his specialized studies of French right-wing extremism, has extended his work to cover the rise of fascist thought in Italy. He argues -- and who would now deny it? -- that fascism began as a cultural phenomenon, a rebellion against the prevailing political culture of pre-1914 Europe; it became a political force because of the Great War. He distinguishes between fascism and National Socialism and analyzes the work of major creators of fascist thought, especially the French syndicalist Georges Sorel. He recalls that the prewar longing for an alternative to Marxism (discredited in part because the proletariat had become pacifist) and to liberal democracy was combined with a new nationalism and with visions of a new heroism, and that this mixture had captivated many intellectuals and artists. Sternhell's insistence that fascist thought was just as rigorous and coherent as Marxism and liberalism seems controversial, and his account of Mussolini's intellectual and emotional journey from socialism to fascism is persuasive. The book is not particularly original, but by emphasizing the appeals of fascism it is a timely study, given the lamentable revival of fascist fortunes.

Empire
Imperialism as we knew it may be no more, but Empire is alive and well. It is, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri demonstrate in this bold work, the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognize the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging Empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today’s Empire draws on elements of U.S. constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers. Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society—to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order. More than analysis, Empire is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today’s world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm—the basis for a truly democratic global society.

Imperialism as we knew it may be no more, but Empire is alive and well. It is, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri demonstrate in this bold work, the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognize the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging Empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today’s Empire draws on elements of U.S. constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers. Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society—to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order. More than analysis, Empire is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today’s world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm—the basis for a truly democratic global society.

www.amazon.com/Empire-Michael-Hardt/dp/0674006712

>I feel like the world needs to believe in their fairy tales because with out it we're left to be accountable for our own actions in this world.

Freedom is scary for most people.

http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Freedom-Erich-Fromm/dp/0805031499

Louis Hartz: The Liberal Tradition in America

Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies (both volumes)

Eric Fromm's Escape from Freedom

Chalmers Johnson: The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic


Hanah Arendt: Origins of Totalitarianism and On Violence

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Capitalism and Slavery

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America

INSIDE THE COMPANY: CIA DIARY

Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism

The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling

I'd be very wary of only mentioning the simultaneous rise of Communism and Nazism though. That is in essence Ernst Nolte's thesis ("The European Civil War: 1917-1945", sorry, I don't know what the book's English or German title is), and it's an apologetic and conversative interpretation, as Habermas claims. Just as relevant, if not more so, is the Great Depression which significantly bolstered the ranks of both sides. In fact, as Siegfried Kracauer explains in Murder Trials and Society (1931) (included in The Weimar Republic Sourcebook), it wasn't only political violence that increased, but violence and crime in general. "Life has recently become cheap", he says. In this sense, the need for stability is just as important a factor (Erich Fromm's thesis in Escape from Freedom).

This comment is in no way intended to undermine your excellent political summary, it's just meant to add another layer so as to avoid the Communism/Fascism European civil war argument.