A small minority of people seem to enjoy war and causing destruction just for the sake of it.

Erich Fromm described this destructive impulse as necrophilia, or love of death.

An intense state of disconnection can cause intense frustration and discontent.

Human beings seem incapable of living in peace with one another. Throughout history, most wars have been caused by disputes over territory and resources, or one nation’s (or empire’s) desire to conquer other peoples and increase its power and wealth.

However, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that some human beings actually seem to enjoy waging war. They seem to relish causing destruction and death. The psychologist Erich Fromm described this destructive impulse as necrophilia, or love of death. Whereas healthy people experience biophilia, or love of life, a small number of pathological individuals worship death and destruction.

Fromm saw Hitler as a perfect example of the “necrophilous type.” After failing to destroy his enemies, Hitler called for the destruction of Germany as a nation and finally destroyed himself.

The motto of the Spanish Nationalist movement, led by the fascist dictator Franco, was "¡Viva la muerte!" ("Long live death!"). Precisely the same attitude is conveyed by some Islamic extremist groups, such as Islamic State (ISIS), who have used the phrase "We love death more than you love life" (or variations like "as you love life").

Fromm described necrophiliacs as essentially being motivated by fear of life and of the future. As he puts it, the necrophiliac is “deeply afraid of life, because it is disorderly and uncontrollable by its very nature…He wants to return to the darkness of the womb, to the past of inorganic or subhuman existence.” 1

Dark Triad Traits and Disconnection

However, I’m not sure if Fromm’s explanation suffices. Nowadays, psychologists are more likely to describe such destructive individuals in terms of psychopathic and narcissistic traits, or in terms of a "Dark Triad" personality (a person with combined traits of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism). Such people are intensely selfish and lack empathy for others. They feel a strong drive to accumulate power and wealth, and don't care at all if other people get hurt as they climb to the top.

However, perhaps the best way to describe such people is in terms of psychological disconnection. As explained in my book DisConnected, there is a small minority of human beings who have no empathic or emotional connection to others. They exist in a state of extreme separation, as if trapped inside their own mental space. The external world is a hazy, unreal place to them.2

This extreme separation gives rise to destructive impulses. It means that "hyper-disconnected" people live in a permanent state of dissatisfaction and frustration. It’s impossible for them to experience true happiness. To a large extent, human well-being stems from a sense of connection to others and to the world around us. It comes from losing ourselves, giving ourselves way—from sharing other people’s company, losing ourselves in natural scenes or beautiful works of art or music, giving our whole attention to challenging activities (in other words, flow), helping other people, and so on.

Because they are trapped inside themselves, hyper-disconnected people can’t give themselves away. They may experience short periods of happiness after they’ve won a victory or punished an enemy. But even their happiness is toxic, stemming from pride, gloating, and schadenfreude. And their happiness always fades away quickly, returning them to their familiar sense of discontent and incompleteness.

For normal, connected people, it’s difficult to imagine how pallid and degraded hyper-disconnected people’s experience of the world is. Because they can never unmoor themselves from their own egos, the world is always a dreary place to them. They can never experience the joys of a beautiful sunset, mountain, or painting. Other people are half-real to them, too, and they can never experience the joys of love and the deep intimacy of real friendship.

This is why, ultimately, hyper-disconnected people are so destructive. They are venting their frustration, lashing out at the world because it has inflicted the suffering of separateness on them, like prisoners who scream and bang on the walls of their cell.

What can we do to protect ourselves against such people? In theory, democracy should protect us against hyper-disconnected people in power. One of the fundamental aims of democracy is to limit the power of tyrants, and even to prevent them from attaining power in the first place. But given the present aggression and destructiveness of some of the world’s democracies, it seems that the system is failing us.

1. Fromm, E. (1973/1997). The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. Pimlico.

2. Taylor, S. (2023). DisConnected: The Roots of Human Cruelty and How Connection Can Heal the World. Iff Books.

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