I am going to file this under “Books that have had the biggest impact on my life”. However, the entry relates to the topic of this blog in that I believe the fear of freedom or escape from freedom is a Sense-Making activity. The following is a bit of a personal account of my Sense-Making journey along my phenomenological horizon.
My decision to apply for admission to the PhD program at the School of Library & Information Management at Emporia State University was finalized upon reading Erich Fromm’s Fear of Freedom for a second time in the fall of 2000. I had bought a copy at a used book store some twenty years earlier and reading it then was a tremendous influence in my journey away from a conservative evangelical Christian upbringing. In that first reading of Fromm I found permission and courage to question the authority of the powerful institutions and individuals that I allowed control of my life at that time. I was inspired to shed an understanding of faith as nothing more than “the compulsive quest for certainty” and a reaction against doubt to embrace an understanding of faith as an “expression of an inner relatedness to mankind and affirmation of life” (p. 66). This was a giant step for someone who all his life had been made to attend worship services three times a week, whose family life revolved around religion, and who many a night put off sleep as long as possible for fear that the end of the world was imminent.
At the time of this first reading I was in seminary preparing for a career in the ministry, which, truth be told, was not something that I really wanted to do with my life, but that is another story. Reading Fromm, however, made me resolve that my role as a clergy person would always be to communicate hope rather than fear, grace rather than judgment, and to express my own doubts and questions so that others might feel free to do the same.
By the time I had given the book a second reading I had switched career paths from local church ministry, completed a Master of Library Science degree, and was working as an administrator at Emporia State University directing the distance education program for the School of Library & Information Management. I had decided in 1992 to pursue a career in librarianship out of the realization that libraries had always provided a sanctuary for me throughout my life. Every time that my family had moved to a new community one of my first objectives was to locate the library and get a card. The library was a wonderful place where the loneliness of being the new kid and the isolation of feeling different because of religion could be overcome for a while. According to Fromm, loneliness and isolation are the two things humans fear the most and will do anything to avoid even to the point of willfully sacrificing freedom.
By the time I finished reading Fromm for the second time I had a greater appreciation for the power of libraries as something more than sanctuaries, but rather as powerful tools for the kind of freedom that Fromm was writing about. For Fromm, freedom is the solidarity with life that comes only with being at peace with ones individuality. When one is not at peace with their individuality, they suffer from loneliness and isolation, which leads to a willingness to sacrifice individuality to the authority of whoever or whatever can make the loneliness and isolation go away. Fromm writes about solidarity as a “spontaneous relationship to man and nature, a relationship that connects the individual with the world without eliminating his individuality. This kind of relationship – the foremost expressions of which are love and productive work – are rooted in the integration and strength of the total personality and are therefore subject to the very limits that exist for the growth of the self” (p. 24). Within this context, the library is not a sanctuary from loneliness and isolation for its place, but it is a tool to achieve solidarity and freedom for the information and knowledge that it makes available.
Encouraging, promoting and enabling freedom from fear is a primary goal in my life. Using information and creating knowledge to cast light on those who generate, manipulate, and benefit from fear through the abuse of power can happen in various ways such as investigative reporting, teaching, and more. I prefer the library and I seek to champion the information literacy skills and freedom of access that it offers and defends.
The postings that will be made to this blog, and my goal is to post at least once per week, will speak to the themes of freedom, individuality, solidarity, critical thinking, doubt, faith, power, authority, and more based on my experiences and observations from the various intersections of time and space that I pass through along my phenomenological horizon. Keep trekkin’.
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