The source of irrational authority, on the other hand, is always power over people. This power can be physical or mental, it can be realistic or only… - Erich Fromm

هذا الفقدان للذاتية لا يزال يزيد من طابع الارغام على التطابق, انه يعني ان الانسان لا يستطيع ان يتأكد من نفسه الا اذا عاش حسبما يتوقع الآخرون. واذا لم نعش حسب هذه الصورة فاننا لا نخاطر فحسب بالاستهجان والعزلة المتزايدة, بل نخاطر بفقد ذاتية شخصيتنا التي تعني تعرض سلامتنا العقلية للخطر.

"It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health. Just as there is a "folie a deux" there is a folie a millions. The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane."

While everybody tries to be as close as possible to the rest, everybody remains utterly alone, pervaded by the deep sense of insecurity, anxiety and guilt which always results when human separateness cannot be overcome. Our civilization offers many palliatives which help people to be consciously unaware of this aloneness: first of all the strict routine of bureaucratized, mechanical work, which helps people to remain unaware of their most fundamental human desires, of the longing for transcendence and unity. Inasmuch as the routine alone does not succeed in this, man overcomes his unconscious despair by the routine of amusement, the passive consumption of sounds and sights offered by the amusement industry; furthermore by the satisfaction of buying ever new things, and soon exchanging them for others. Modern man is actually close to the picture Huxley describes in his Brave New World: well fed, well clad, satisfied sexually, yet without self, without any except the most superficial contact with his fellow men, guided by the slogans which Huxley formulated so succinctly, such as: “When the individual feels, the community reels”; or “Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today,” or, as the crowning statement: “Everybody is happy nowadays.” Man’s happiness today consists in “having fun.” Having fun lies in the satisfaction of consuming and “taking in” commodities, sights, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, movies — all are consumed, swallowed.