arrived." In other cases, there is an underlying feeling of powerlessness that produces a need to be in complete control over a helpless person. Sadists and rapists are like this. Joseph Stalin, dictator of Russia, was a famous example; he enjoyed torturing political prisoners; he killed millions of his own people (when they opposed his policies); he had wives of his own loyal aides sent to prison (the aides didn't protest); he enjoyed being deceptive and totally unpredictable. In milder forms, chauvinists may also be hostile, e.g. the male who puts down his wife and demands she attend to his every need; the angry, threatening, autocratic boss or teacher who enjoys seeing the worker or student break into a cold sweat.Boredom is another source of hostility, according to Fromm. When life loses its meaning because we are only a cog in a wheel, our reaction to the senselessness and helplessness is anger. We feel cheated; we had hoped for more in life; the powerlessness hurts. Hurting others or making them mad is ways of proving one still has power, a means of showing "I'm somebody.” Fromm rejected the instinctivist thesis of Freud, which states that human capacities for aggression and for love are strictly biological potentials. The idea of one’s fear for freedom has already been discussed. Fromm also postulated that when an individual’s self-actualizing or growth tendencies are thwarted, his or her destructive urges are intensified. The more the drive to live, to grow, to become fully what his or her nature promises are blocked, the greater the intensification of his or her destructiveness or aggressive tendency. Fromm proposed that certain personalities are essentially evil because they are nicrophilous, literally lovers of death. The opposite, healthy personality is termed biophilous, meaning literally lover of life and growth. For Fromm, the necrophilous orientation is the basis of evil and a truly malignant form of h...
