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In these times of polarization, it requires more than the ordinary measure of courage to feel strongly about the issues of the day and, at the same time, to be able to stand apart sufficiently to observe and to try to understand the origin and meanings of the passions racking the body politic. Even more than courage and concern are needed; a broad perspective of history, of human motivation, and group interaction is essential. This is exactly what the author has undertaken in a pithy, cogent, and moving monograph, Evil in Man. Combining his reflections as a citizen and psychoanalyst, Bychowski strikes a fair balance between what psychoanalysis has learned about aggression in the individual and in the group and what history and sociology can teach.
The author searches out the vicissitudes of aggression from instances of individual psychopathology, to motorcycle gangs, national prejudices, riots, and war. He places the data in the context of the philosophic, scientific, and religious tradition of our society. While he is mindful of the complexities of the problem, he dares to cut through the cultural rationalizations and to confront the reader with the truth of man's and society's corruptibility and weakness. He does a particular service when he emphasizes how anxiety and fear lead to hatred and destruction in the individual and the mass.