The structure of evil

by Ernest Becker

The history of the science of man that I draw in these pages is based on the following assumptions, and seeks to support them: In order to understand the problem of a unified science of man today, we must go back at least to the decline of the medieval cosmology, and to the more or less decisive break from the old order that took the form of the French Enlightenment and, subsequently, the French Revolution. [...] In the second place, each rereading of history is occupied with "new" facts, even if it uses facts that have been used time and time again. [...] The specific vantage point that I use for this rereading of history II is a new, unified theory of human behavior. The theory has been very long and very slow in the making, and it is only now that it has become possible to articulate it. This means that my endeavor is a circular one, but I hope a justified, self-reinforcing circularity: a new reading of history that derives from a new theoretical understanding; and a new theoretical