While life is characterized by growth in a structured, functional manner, the necrophilious person loves all that does not grow, all that is mechanical. The necrophilious person is driven by the desire to transform the organic into the inorganic, to approach life mechanically, as if all living persons were things… Memory, rather than experience; having, rather than being, is what counts. The necrophilious person can relate to an object– a flower or a person– only if he possesses it; hence a threat to his possession is a threat to himself; if he loses possession he loses contact with the world… He loves control, and in the act of controlling he kills life.
————-Erich Fromm, E. (1966). The Heart of Man. New York.
The new educational standards, which are starting to be implemented and will be in place by 2014, require that nonfiction represents 50 percent of reading assignments in elementary schools, and up to 70 percent by grade 12. In an article in
The Washington Post, Lyndsey Layton explains how this removal of literature has come about:
“Proponents of the new standards, including the National Governors
