
“Around the outside of the room other beautiful women wearing little or nothing at all flitted between the infatuated, intoxicated men, sometimes luring them away for a private dance. The men would follow obediently, weighed down by lust and credit cards.”
― The Zombie Room
― The Zombie Room

“All of us--all who knew her--felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on
her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity
decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her
awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us
believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams
we used--to silence our own nightmares.”
― The Bluest Eye
her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity
decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her
awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us
believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams
we used--to silence our own nightmares.”
― The Bluest Eye

“When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life -- particularly human life -- such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may "break" a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head.
Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others-to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredectibility and originalty, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilic character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity.
Evil then, for the moment, is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.”
― People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil
Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others-to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredectibility and originalty, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilic character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity.
Evil then, for the moment, is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.”
― People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil
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