E-Book Overview
This book deals with a timely topic of enduring importance. Due to the recent terrorist attacks, academics, the lay public, the media, even the U.S. president, have revived the use of the word evil, which now appears with a noticeably increased frequency in much of the daily news and commentary. Professionals particularly in the fields of psychology, sociology, and philosophy are being asked for answers to the questions, Why is there human evil? What are its causes? How are we to understand individuals who wish to inflict human suffering and destruction on as wide a scale as possible? An intense interest in the phenomenon of human evil has developed. It is expressed in the widespread concern to understand human psychology and patterns of thought that underlie human evil in all of its forms-ranging from the aggression, brutality, and destructiveness of war, genocide, and terrorism, to individual expressions of human evil in prejudice, racism, and hate crimes. This book is the first of its kind. It is a comprehensive and solid study of the multi-causal nature of a phenomenon that has been treated almost exclusively in terms of religion, myth, symbolism, moral philosophy, and ethics. The reader will find that it makes clear, specific, non-speculative, and definite answers to the questions often now raised concerning human evil.
E-Book Content
THE PATHOLOGY OF MAN A STUDY OF HUMAN EVIL ALSO BY STEVEN JAMES BARTLETT Reflexivity: A Source Book in Se!fReference When You Don't Know Where to Turn A Se!fDiagnosing Guide to Counseling and Therapy Se!fReference: Reflections on Reflexivity (co-edited with Peter Suber) Conceptual Therapy: An Introduction to Framework-Relative Epistemology Metalogic of Reference: A Stucfy in the Foundations of Possibility Validity: A Learning Game Approach to Mathematical Logic THE PATHOLOGY OF MAN A STUDY OF HUMAN EVIL by STEVEN]AMESBARTLETT with a FOREWARD by ERIC A. ZILLMER and IRVING GREENBERG Published and Distributed Throughout the World by CHARLES C THOMAS • PUBLISHER, LTD. 2600 South First Street Springfield, Illinois 62704 This book is protected by copyright. No part of it may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher. ©2005 by CHARLES C THOMAS· PUBLISHER, LTD. ISBN 0-398-07557-3 (hard) ISBN 0-398-07558-1 (paper) Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004063718 With TH 0 MAS BOOKS careful attention is given to all details of manufacturing and design. It is the Publisher's desire to present books that are satisfactory as to their physical qualities and artistic possibilities and appropriate for their particular use. TH 0 MAS BOOKS will be true to those laws of quality that assure a good name and good will. Printed in the United States ofAmerica R-3-CAMRDY Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bartlett, Steven J. The pathology of man: a study of human evil / by StevenJames Bartlett ; with a foreword by Eric A. Zillmer and Irving Greenberg. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-398-07557-3 -- ISBN 0-398-07558-1 (pbk.) 1. Good and evil--Psychological aspects. 2. Pathology. I. Title. BF789.E94B37 2005 170--dc22 2004063718 Dedicated to the few whose qualities ofperson and of mind, whose strength of conviction, courage, and aversion to cruelty, keep them from aggression, blind conformity, obedience, and complicity- FOREWORD by ERIC A. ZILLMER Carl R. Pacifico Professor of Neuropsychology, Drexel University, and author of The Questfor the NaZi Personality: A Prychological Investigation ofNazi War Criminals teven James Bartlett's The Pathology of Man marks the most comprehensive examination of human evil to date. Drawing from different fields of study, including psychology and epistemo