The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil
Erich Fromm, 1964
Hitler did not kill millions on his own: thousands of ordinary people stood beside him. Erich Fromm traces where the human pull toward destruction comes from: love of the dead, an inflated “I” and a longing for the protection of “our own”. At the end he shows where the choice between good and evil is really made, and why it is so easy to miss.
Who it is for
For anyone who wants to understand where cruelty in ordinary people comes from, and to take an honest look at their own decisions. And for everyone who cares about the psychology of power, of crowds and of free choice.
The man who cannot create wants to destroy.
Wolf or sheep
Some people think humans are sheep: they obediently follow their leaders even where nothing but destruction awaits them. Others are sure that man is a wolf to man. Both sides have their arguments. Hitler did not kill millions of people on his own. Beside him stood thousands of ordinary people who killed and tortured, and many of them did it with pleasure.
Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and philosopher, wrote this book in 1964, at the height of the nuclear arms race. He was troubled by the question of why people prepare so calmly for a war that could destroy all life. He considered the answer “humans are evil by nature” dangerous: if we are all wolves to some degree, why resist the wolves?
Fromm offers a third view. Humans are neither good nor bad. In each of us there is a movement toward life and a movement toward death, and each of us, in the author's words, goes in the direction we have chosen. And the main danger to the world, Fromm believes, comes not from sadists and monsters but from the ordinary person who has ended up with enormous power.
Ahead are the many faces of violence and the three passions the author sees as the core of evil: love of the dead, an inflated “I” and a longing for the protection of “our own”. And at the end comes the book's main discovery: where the choice that later seems inevitable is really made.
Whoever cannot create starts to destroy
Fromm starts with a simple observation: violence comes in different kinds, and each kind has its own motive. The easiest to understand is reactive violence. It defends life, freedom or dignity, and it is rooted in fear. The trouble is that fear is easy to instil. Leaders convince people that an enemy threatens them, and almost any war of conquest can be passed off as defence.
One step closer to sickness stands revenge. The harm has already been done, and the violence protects nothing: it is as if it were trying to undo what has happened. The author notes that the thirst for revenge is weaker in someone who lives productively. A person busy with their own work forgets insults sooner, because their ability to create is stronger than their need to get even.
There is also violence born of shattered faith. A child hears their father lie about something important, or sees that their parents don't notice their fear. Later a friend or a teacher deceives them. After such disappointments one person becomes more independent and looks for new people they can trust. Another decides that life is evil, people are evil and they themselves are evil, and becomes a cynic.
The darkest kind in this line is compensatory violence. A human being cannot bear complete passivity: we need to change the world, not just submit to it. If out of weakness, fear or lack of skill a person cannot create anything, all that is left to them is to destroy. Creating takes strength and skill, while destroying needs no more than a knife or a fist. This is how a person takes revenge on life for having cheated them. The author recalls Camus's play “Caligula”: its hero revels in the power of the destroyer, next to which the power of the creator seems like child's play. He also recalls the Roman Colosseum, where thousands of spectators enjoyed watching people being killed.
Fear and punishment, in Fromm's view, only drive this kind of violence underground. The only cure is to develop the ability to create, to use your powers productively. From this idea you can draw a simple question to ask yourself. When anger at the world keeps building up, ask not only “who is to blame” but also “what have I long wanted to create but keep putting off”.
About the author
Erich Fromm (1900–1980) was a German-American psychoanalyst, philosopher and sociologist, the author of “Escape from Freedom” and “The Art of Loving”.
All books by this author: Erich Fromm
Terms from the book
- Hitler
- Psychoanalyst
- Biophilia
- Narcissism
- Freud
- Reactive violence: Fromm's term: violence that defends life, freedom, dignity or property, rooted in fear, whether real or instilled.
- Compensatory violence: Fromm's term: the violence of a person unable to create, which takes the place of creating and serves as a way to take revenge on life.
- Caligula: A Roman emperor of the 1st century, known for his cruelty and megalomania. Here it means the hero of Albert Camus's play of the same name.
- Camus: Albert Camus (1913–1960), a French writer and philosopher, Nobel laureate in literature, the author of the play “Caligula”.
- Colosseum: A huge amphitheatre in ancient Rome where gladiator fights and animal hunts were staged in front of the public.
- Salamanca: A city in Spain with the country's oldest university.
- Millán Astray: José Millán Astray (1879–1954), a Spanish general, founder of the Spanish Legion and a supporter of Franco.
- Unamuno: Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936), a Spanish philosopher and writer, rector of the University of Salamanca.
- Falangists: Members of the Spanish fascist party, the Falange, which backed Franco in the civil war.
- Necrophilia: In the narrow sense, a sexual perversion. Fromm uses it more broadly: an attraction to everything dead, mechanical and motionless instead of what is alive. It is the author's concept, not a diagnosis.
- Eichmann: Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962), a Nazi official who organised the deportation of Jews to the death camps. He was executed in Israel after a trial.
- Group narcissism: Fromm's term: narcissism moved from oneself onto one's group, nation, race, religion or party.
- Incestuous tie: For Fromm, not a sexual desire but a deep attachment to the mother and to whatever takes her place: family, clan, nation. It is a longing for protection and an escape from freedom and responsibility.
- Syndrome of decay: Fromm's term: the combination of love of the dead, malignant narcissism and extreme attachment to “our own”, which he considers the essence of evil.
- Syndrome of growth: Fromm's term: the combination of love of life, love of people and independence.
- Hardening of the heart: An image from the biblical story of Pharaoh. Fromm uses it for the process in which each wrong decision makes the next one easier and narrows the freedom to choose.
- Real possibilities: For Fromm, the options that can actually come true given the balance of forces, as opposed to the ones that are wished for but impossible.
All terms
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