THE PATHOLOGY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES?

Steven James Bartlett

 

With the high value that we commonly place on the uniqueness, unusual intelligence, and innovative capacity of our species, we are prone to forget or to deny that Homo sapiens has been, and continues to be, an often harmful creature—harmful both to our fellow human beings (as in wars, genocides, revolutions, ethnic and religious persecution, and other forms of cruelty) and to the other inhabitants of the planet. Not only is our species frequently the source of harm in these ways, but it has become increasingly clear to biologists, ethologists, and environmentalists that H. sapiens is exercising its destructiveness on a global scale. (See “The Ecological Pathology of Man”; for a copy click here). We do this in several ways: through overpopulation that crowds out other species and destroys biodiversity, creates as yet unmanageable waste and pollution, and results in human crowding in cities and ghettos; through global warming; and through depletion of natural resources (perhaps foremost among them, depletion of fresh water).

Beyond these shortcomings, however, are others that are more profound and serious. They concern psychologically normal predispositions to inflict harm and suffering on others for a wide variety of reasons and motivations. People whom we judge to be psychologically normal perpetrate—when conditions are right, which they all-too-often are—a wide range of harmful acts.

We are accustomed, indeed habituated, to believe that human evil comes about when the psychology of an individual or a whole people becomes twisted, even psychotic. We accordingly believe that the Nazi leaders, who brought about so much suffering and death, were walking human monsters. And yet the majority, when tested by clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, were found to be psychologically normal. They were most often good family men; they were patriotic; some were lovers of classical music and fine art; they were faithful to their close friends; they were often self-sacrificing; they loved their children. —They possessed, in short, many of the qualities we associate with psychological normality. The Nazi leaders, moreover, were often highly intelligent, with IQ scores significantly above normal. Based on the Nazi example, among many others that we see throughout human history, it has become very clear that being psychologically normal and having high intelligence do not prevent people from engaging in atrocities.

Even knowing these two things, we know something very important: that we face the need to look elsewhere—beyond normality and beyond mere IQ—for standards of good psychological health. This is the subtitle of my book, Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health, whose purpose reflects the wish to improve the ability of people to think and behave in good rather than destructive ways. Readers interested in “looking elsewhere” can click here for more information about the study.

It is anathema—objectionable to some people, and perhaps offensive to others—to consider that psychologically normal human beings may not be the pinnacle of goodness, but that they instead may harbor predispositions that justify a diagnosis of pathology in a non-metaphorical sense. To object to or feel offended by such an idea would be to have a knee-jerk reaction that a moment’s reflection will put to rest: We cannot begin to solve serious problems as long as we refuse to recognize that they are problems. Physical medicine cannot treat diseases unless they are recognized to be sources of harm, that is, true pathologies. It is no different in psychiatry and clinical psychology where there is a need to identify problems of living, disorders, or dysfunctions, for which effective treatments can be developed.

The study of  the topic of human evil has taken many forms in the literature. Often, human evil is discussed within a religious framework; at other times, evil is considered to be an idea that is socially relative to the values of different societies, whose mores may be fundamentally different. Most often in the literature about human evil, we see authors who attribute human evil to single, specific, easily comprehended causes: For example, human evil is sometimes attributed to the tendency of people to depersonalize others (treating them as mere objects), or else evil may be attributed to expressions of prejudice and ideological commitment, or to competition for scarce land and resources. The list of single, unifactorial, causes could be continued almost indefinitely: Yet another cause is human narcissism; still another, pseudospeciation (thinking one’s own group to be special, and all others of little or no value), and of course another identified cause is a social value system that emphasizes warfare and dominance, etc., etc.

All of these single-cause explanations of human evil are inadequate and short-sighted because human pathology stems from a variety of contributing causes.

Few researchers have been willing to place the human species under the analytical microscope of clinical diagnostic reflection in an effort to discover what it is about our species that leads it to assume a preeminent role as a creature of such aggressive and destructive attitudes and behavior.

Below is a short description of what is, to my knowledge, the only serious, comprehensive, multifactorial study of human pathology—that is, a study of the varied causes that lead psychologically normal human beings to become genuine pathogens: pathogenic to others of their species, to other species, and to the world environment itself.

Such a study of course does not diminish the many wonderful accomplishments that human beings have brought about, but it does temper our uncritical admiration for our species by recognizing that the great majority of our species’ outstanding creative accomplishments have been the result of the efforts of the comparative few, of relatively rare, highly individual, original minds. It is the great majority of the human population, the population that is typical and characteristically human, that the following study focuses on.

The Pathology of Man

A Study of Human Evil

The Pathology of Man is the first comprehensive study of the psychology and epistemology of human evil, long urged by leading psychiatrists and psychologists, including Freud, Jung, Menninger, Fromm, and Peck. The book breaks new ground by offering a clear, empirically based, and theoretically sound understanding of human evil as a widespread, real, non-metaphorical pathology. With deliberate and thorough scholarship the author proposes a new framework-relative theory of disease and justifies the provocative thesis that human evil should be classified as a pathology which is not a deviation from an accepted norm, but rather is a normal state. This break with tradition provides the necessary psychological foundation for the familiar concept of the banality of human evil, a foundation which in the past it has lacked.

The Pathology of Man inaugurates a new approach to the study of mankind. For the first time the science of pathology is applied to the human species, directing attention to mankind’s role as a true pathogen: The human species is shown to be auto-pathological in many ways, as well as pathological in its effects upon global biodiversity.

The Pathology of Man also lays the foundation for two new areas of study, the phenomenology of hatred and the psychology of moral intelligence.