Book Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The "Lucifer Principle" is freelance journalist Bloom's theory that evil-which manifests in violence, destructiveness and war-is woven into our biological fabric. A corollary is that evil is a by-product of nature's strategy to move the world to greater heights of organization and power as national or religious groups follow ideologies that trigger lofty ideals as well as base cruelty. In an ambitious, often provocative study, Bloom applies the ideas of sociobiology, ethology and the "killer ape" school of anthropology to the broad canvas of history, with examples ranging from Oliver Cromwell's reputed pleasure in killing and raping to Mao Tse-tung's bloody Cultural Revolution, India's caste system and Islamic fundamentalist expansion. Bloom says Americans suffer "perceptual shutdown" that blinds them to the United States' downward slide in the pecking order of nations. His use of concepts like pecking order, memes (self-replicating clusters of ideas), the "neural net" or group mind of the social "superorganism" seem more like metaphors than explanatory tools.



From Booklist
Author Bloom examines humankind to reveal the motivations of individuals and groups and the forces that drive history. He draws on current research in such fields as genetics, molecular biology, communications theory, and political science to develop the theory he calls the Lucifer Principle. Overall, his theory imparts a pessimistic slant to all human endeavor, past, present, and future, for his arguments are presented as immutable principles: that individuals inevitably subordinate personal interests to the group, which, in turn, functions as a superorganism, for example, street gangs, corporations, or nations; that humans instinctively strive for status in a pecking order arrangement, much like chickens or rats, and, thus, subjugating groups on the lower rungs of the ladder is instinctual. Utilizing historical examples, from the Roman Empire to Communist China, from Kamikaze pilots to terrorist bombers, Bloom pecks away at the edifice of "human kindness," "justice," and "peace." A disturbing book, but its broad generalities wear down the sharp edges of its arguments, leaving something that becomes food for thought rather than reason to despair.