Chapter 8 Fromm: Humanistic Psychoanalysis 247Necrophilia does not simply refer to behavior; it pervades a person’s entire
character. And so it was with Hitler. After he came to power, he demanded that
his enemies not merely surrender, but that they be annihilated as well. His necro-
philia was expressed in his mania for destroying buildings and cities, his orders to
kill “defective” people, his boredom, and his slaughter of millions of Jews.
Another trait Hitler manifested was malignant narcissism. He was interested
only in himself, his plans, and his ideology. His conviction that he could build a
“Thousand-Year Reich” shows an inflated sense of self-importance. He had no
interest in anyone unless that person was of service to him. His relations to women
lacked love and tenderness; he seemed to have used them solely for perverted
personal pleasure, especially for voyeuristic satisfaction.
According to Fromm’s analysis, Hitler also possessed an incestuous symbiosis,
manifested by his passionate devotion not to his real mother but to the Germanic “race.”
Consistent with this trait, he also was sadomasochistic, withdrawn, and lacking in feel-
ings of genuine love or compassion. All these characteristics, Fromm contended, did
not make Hitler psychotic. They did, however, make him a sick and dangerous man.
Insisting that people not see Hitler as inhuman, Fromm (1973) concluded his
psychohistory with these words: “Any analysis that would distort Hitler’s picture
by depriving him of his humanity would only intensify the tendency to be blind
to the potential Hitlers unless they wear horns” (p. 433).
Related Research
Although Erich Fromm’s writings are stimulating and insightful, his ideas have pro-
duced very little empirical research in the field of personality psychology. One rea-
son for this may be due to the broad approach Fromm takes. In many ways his ideas
are more sociological than psychological in that his theory deals with alienation from
culture and nature in general, two topics that are more typically covered in a sociol-
ogy class than a psychology class. This does not mean, however, that such broad
topics are not important to personality psychology. Quite the contrary, how and when
we present and market ourselves socially (think Facebook and Instagram) are clearly
tied to Fromm’s theory of “marketing character.” In addition, although broad and
sociological, estrangement from one’s culture is a topic that can be studied at the
individual level in psychological studies and can have implications for well-being.
Finally, Fromm’s ideas about authoritarianism have led to recent empirical investiga-
tions, in particular into the association between fear and authoritarian beliefs.
Testing the Assumptions of Fromm’s Marketing Character
In The Sane Society (1955), Fromm wrote critically about western cultures such
as the United States encouraging the development of the marketing character ori-
entation, which buys and sells and sees everything as a potential object of con-
sumption. If you think about it, millions of Americans’ engagement with social
media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest is a testament to our
desire to sell our very selves, to showcase our best photographs and experiences
in a marketplace of “likes” and “followers.” Fromm believed that an illusion of
individuality is promoted in such a society. We differentiate ourselves from each