Concept
Necrophilous character
In Fromm's characterology, beginning with The Heart of Man (1964) and expanded in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), the orientation of a person attracted to what is dead, decaying, mechanical and inorganic, who wants to turn the living into things, loves force and control, and is oriented to the past. Fromm used the word in a characterological rather than sexual sense, set it against biophilia, and held that combined with extreme narcissism and symbiotic fixation it forms the syndrome of decay.
- Introduced by
- Erich Fromm
- Key works
- 1
- Related
- Biophilia
introduced by
- Erich Fromm 1964 In The Heart of Man (1964) Fromm took the word necrophilia from its sexual sense to name a character orientation drawn to death, decay and the mechanical, and developed it further in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973).
opposed by
- Biophilia Fromm presented love of life and love of death as the two basic and opposed orientations, mixed in most people in varying proportions.