Refund and Reparation

The Anatomy of Human Destrictiveness
© 1973 Eric Fromm
Fawcett Publications, Inc.

Part Three "The Varieties of Aggression and Destructiveness and Their
Respective Conditions"
Chapter 11 "Malignant Aggression"
Section "The Nature of Sadism"
pp. 322, 323

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I have given these examples of Stalin's sadism because they serve very
well to introduce the central issue: ~the nature of sadism~. Thus far
we have dealt descriptively with various kinds of sadistic behavior,
sexual, physical, and mental. These different forms of sadism are not
independent from each other; the problem is to find the common
element, the essence of sadism. Orthodox psychoanalysis claimed that
a particular aspect of sexuality was common to all these forms; in
the second phase of Freud's theory it was asserted that sadism was a
blending of Eros (sexuality) and the death instinct, directed outside
oneself, while masochism is a blend of eros and the death instinct,
directed toward oneself.

Against this, I propose that the core of sadism, common to all its
manifestations, is ~the passion to have absolute and unrestricted
control over a living being~, whether an animal, a child, a man, or a
woman. To force someone to endure pain or humiliation without being
able to defend himself is one of the manifestations of absolute
control, but it is by no means the only one. The person who has
complete control over another living being, makes this being into his
thing, his property, while he becomes the other being's god. Sometimes
the control can even be helpful, and in that ease we might speak of a
benevolent sadism, such as one finds in instances where one person
rules another for the other's own good, and in fact furthers him in
many ways, except that he keeps him in bondage. But most sadism is
malevolent. Complete control over another human being means crippling
him, choking him, thwarting him. Such control can have all forms and
all degrees.

Albert Camus's play, ~Caligula~, provides an example of an extreme
type of sadistic control which amounts to a desire for omnipotence.
We see how Caligula, brought by circumstances to a position of
unlimited power, gets ever-more deeply involved in the craving for
power. He sleeps with the wives of the senators and enjoys their
humiliation when they have to act like admiring and fawning friends.
He kills some of them, and those that remain still have to smile and
joke. But even all this power does not satisfy him; he wants absolute
power, he wants the impossible. As Camus has him say, "I want the
moon."

 

It is easy enough to say that Caligula is mad, but his madness is a
way of life; it is one solution of the problem of human existence,
because it serves the illusion of omnipotence, of transcending the
frontiers of human existence. In the process of trying to win
absolute power Caligula lost all contact with men. He became an
outcast by casting them out; he had to become mad because, when the
bid for omnipotence failed, he was left a lonely, impotent individual.

The case of Caligula is of course exceptional. Few people ever have
the chance to attain so much power that they can seduce themselves
into the delusion that it might be absolute. But some have existed
throughout history, up to our time; if they remain victorious, they
are celebrated as great statesmen or generals; if they are defeated,
they are considered madmen or criminals.

This extreme solution to the problem of human existence is barred to
the average person. Yet in most social systems, including ours, even
those on lower social levels can have control over somebody who is
subject to their power. There are always children, wives, or dogs
available; or there are helpless people, such as inmates of prisons,
patients in hospitals, if they are not well-to-do (especially the
mentally sick), pupils in schools, members of civilian bureaucracies.
It depends on the social structure to what degree the factual power of
superiors in each of these instances is controlled or restricted and,
hence, how much possibility for sadistic satisfaction these situations
offer. Aside from all these situations, religious and racial
minorities, as far as they are powerless, offer a vast opportunity for
sadistic satisfaction for even the poorest member of the majority.

Sadism is one of the answers to the problem of being born human when
better ones are not attainable. The experience of absolute control
over another being, of omnipotence as far as he, she, or it is
concerned, creates the illusion of transcending the limitations of
human existence, particularly for one whose real life is deprived of
productivity and joy. Sadism has essentially no practical aim; it is
not "trivial" but "devotional." ~It is transformation of impotence
into the experience of omnipotence~; it is the religion of psychical
cripples.

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