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offers no explanation for the human experience of pleasure in the pain
of another human being . And yet we must postulate that this readiness
to direct destructiveness against a fellow creature-far beyond what is
necessary to ensure one 's own security-must have developed his–
torically .
The only psychological theory that does not turn away from the
enduring phenomenon of cruelty because of either anxiety or moral
scruples is Freud's theory of the death instinct. My inclination is to
disregard the concept of " instinct, " and to speak rather of a behavior
pattern capable of being prompted by the most diverse contemporary
circumstances (a " tendency, " according to Lample-de-Groot 's form–
ulation) . The origin of these energies that perpetually reproduce
cruelty and , at the same time , suppress feelings of empathy and guilt
remains unknown. The frustration hypothesis can do no more than
establish a temporal connection between disappointment of an
expected need gratification and aggressive reaction . Darwin 's theory of
evolution was , furthermore , never able to clarify how the strange
" abberation " of human social behavior came to be . In man , a count–
less series of short-lived norms of social organization (so-called cul–
tures) supplanted the instinctual regulations which have developed in
the animal kingdom throughout the history of the world . Meanwhile,
man has remained his own worst enemy . This contrast has come into
sharper relief since it has become possible to eradicate almost all the
important natural threats to the species . Now the species threatens
itself. The capacity, characteristic of our species , to overpower the
inhibition against murdering one 's own kind continues blindly to
operate , without fulfilling even a function of selection . The species
thus endangers its own existence as a result of its scientific progress and
concomitant skills .
In this interpretation , a phenomenon put in one perspective may
be seen as simpl y the result of scientific research , and , in such a
context , signal progress . At the same time, in another perspective, it
may be viewed as part of a destructive process, the strategy of which we
still understand only vaguely . The best known examples come from
physics: the splitting of the atom brought about enormous technical
progress , but it was immediately applied to warfare as a weapon of
untold destructive power. The computer liberates some men from
tedious labor, but it serves as a means of administration over other
men.
