The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors

The Isis Papers
dents in both religion and philosophy and thus, the topic of evil has found
discussants who consider themselves scientists and scientific.
The role of the psychiatric-physician or physician-scientist is to attempt
to comprehend, bringing greater clarity and insight, the total spectr~ of
human behavior, which would include the special category ofbehav1oral
phenomena recognized as evil. Further, I believe that the challenge of
modern psychiatry, like the challenge of modern physics, is to approach,
if possible, a view of the "unified field." .
Modem physics, since Albert Einstein, has sought to umte the spec~m
of forces - gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong forces - m a
unified field, viewing these separate forces as out~owt_hs from or
manifestations of a whole (a unified force field). Likew1se, modem
psychiatry should seek to discover if there is a united _behavioral ~orce
field that can explain evil as well as other dommant behav10ral
phenomena.
For the ant, the greatest evil consists of killing ants. For the h~~an
being, the greatest evil consists of the obsessional degrading and ~ill~g
of other human beings. All lesser evils are simply added to thlS (~e.,
destruction of other life forms, destruction of the planet and destruct10_n
that extends beyond planet Earth). With evil so defmed, clearl~ there lS
an overwhelming atmosphere of evil in the world. In fact, the e~tlre plan~t
exists in an atmosphere of degradation and murder. To 1gnore th1s
evidence of evil, this obsession with mass killing and death, is _only ~
participate in the establishment and the maintenance of its reahty - m
effect, to participate in evil. On the other hand, to address this obsess~on
with mass death and the degradation of human life in hopes of countenng
it is to afflrm the dignity of human beings and the universe.
Ernest Becker, in his book Escape From Evil, had the followin~ to say
about evil: "All organisms want to perpetuate themselves, co~tlnu~ to
experience and to live .... For all organisms, then, opposing and obbteraung
power is evil-it threatens to stop experience." He continues, "So w~ see
that as an organism man is fated to perpetuate himself and as a c~nsc1ous
organism he is fated to identify evil as the threat to that perpetuation. And
Neurochemical Basis for Evil
what then would be the highest development and use of those [man's]
talents? To contribute to the struggle against evil."
However, before there can be effective struggle against evil, the
following questions must be answered: 1) What are the dynamic conditions
in a society or culture that would stimulate such activity as announced
as devil worship? 2) What are the dynamics in a society and
culture wherein increasing numbers of Black males are being killed
daily/yearly at epidemic levels? 3) What are the exact causation dynamics
in a society and culture wherein the greatest percentage of its resources
are used in the development and production of instruments of death and
destruction? 4) What are the exact dynamic conditions in a power system
or culture wherein 50 million people can be destroyed in the course of
slave trade, as on the continent of Africa? 5) What are the exact dynamic
conditions in a power system or culture wherein six million Semites of
~e Je~ish religion can be destroyed deliberately or 20 million people
killed m the course of a war, such as in the Soviet Union during World
War II? 6) What are the dynamics in a society and culture in which
hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, are doomed to die of infection
with a virus that increasing numbers are concluding was deliberately
man-made?
These are questions that the psychiatrist should be motivated to answer
in the context of understanding the issue of evil, especially when it is
recalled, as stated by Thomas Mecton in his Raids on the Unspeakable
that,
~ne of the ~ost disturbing facts that carne out in the [Adolph]
Etchman trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and
pronounced him perfectly sane. We equate sanity with a sense
of justice, with humaneness, with prudence, with the capacity
to love and understand other people. We rely on the sane
people of the world to preserve it from barbarism, madness,
destruction. And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely
that sane ones who are the most dangerous. It is the sane one,
the well adapted one, who can without qualms and without
nausea aim the missiles and press the buttons that will initiate
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