Synopsis
The Lucifer Principle is a revolutionary work that explores the intricate relationships between genetics, human behavior, and culture to put forth the thesis that "evil" is a by-product of nature's strategies for creation and that it is woven into our most basic biological fabric.
In a sweeping narrative that moves lucidly among sophisticated scientific disciplines and covers the entire span of the earth's, as well as mankind's, history, Howard Bloom challenges some of our most popular scientific assumptions. Drawing on evidence from studies of the most primitive organisms to those on ants, apes, and humankind, the author makes a persuasive case that it is the group, or "superorganism," rather than the lone individual that really matters in the evolutionary struggle. But, Bloom asserts, the prominence of society and culture does not necessarily mitigate against our most violent, aggressive instincts. In fact, under the right circumstances the mentality of the group will only amplify our most primitive and deadly urges.
In Bloom's most daring contention he draws an analogy between the biological material whose primordial multiplication began life on earth and the ideas, or "memes," that define, give cohesion to, and justify human superorganisms. Some of the most familiar memes are utopian in nature - Christianity or Marxism; nonetheless, these are fueled by the biological impulse to climb to the top of the hierarchy. With the meme's insatiable hunger to enlarge itself, we have a precise prescription for war.
Biology is not destiny; but human culture is not always the buffer to our more primitive instincts we would like to think it is. In these complex threads of thought lies the Lucifer Principle, and only through understanding its mandates will we be able to avoid the nuclear crusades that await us in the twenty-first century.
Reviews
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.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
This exploration of the roots of violence in human society finds a villain in biology: not in the genetic urge that drives each organism to reproduce, but in the forces that create larger ``superorganisms'' that seek to perpetuate themselves. Bloom (whose credentials range from cancer research at Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Research Institute to experimental graphics, programmed learning, and founding a public relations firm that represented many well-known rock artists) draws on an impressive range of historical, anthropological, and biological research to support his thesis. (The 333 pages of text are followed by an additional 117 pages of notes and bibliography.) From this massive body of material, he arrives at a conclusion that such philosophers as Hobbes would find congenial: Aggression is not an aberrant force in society, but its very foundation. From Caesar to Khomeini, Bloom finds that those who have lead great nations are propagators of memes--the core bodies of a culture's key ideas that are the ideological equivalent of genes. History is not so much the contest of armies as of memes, and a strong meme drives out the weak as surely as the genes of an alpha male in a chimpanzee herd dominate those of his lesser competitors. While Bloom often gives cogent analyses of the currents of history, his thesis has an unfortunate potential for being warped to the service of chauvinism and racism. His attempts to draw lessons for the future (with comments on the predatory nature of Muslim society or the inability of African nations to transcend their tribal memes) are dubious at best, and potentially inflammatory at worst. And his ideas are often developed more by example than by exploration of their deeper consequences. Bloom's basic thesis is thought-provoking and often full of valuable insight; it is unfortunate that the implications he derives from it are so likely to encourage the worst aspects of human nature to come to the fore. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Pop-culture Renaissance man Bloom-former PR agent for the likes of Prince, writer for Omni magazine, and so on-seeks to explain why civilizations rise and fall, why nations go to war, and why violence and aggression don't disappear with the ascendancy of culture. Big task. The "Lucifer Principle" is based on the metaphors of the "meme" (ideas that arise across cultures and epochs) and "the pecking order" (from chickens to nations, and all in between). This sort of slippery extrapolation is at once cleverly neat and maddeningly suspicious, and the pitfalls of trying to unite animal biology, genetics, cultural history, anthropology, and philosophy are apparent in that sundry causes and effects are all lumped together as equals: rats in a cage do this, "primitive" cultures do that, Sumerians did a third thing, so therefore we do this. The 800 footnotes are symptomatic: sources range from the Information Please Almanac to a textbook on surgical nursing and a sprinkling of audiobooks. This book falls somewhere between Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (LJ 12/87) and John Naisbitt's Megatrends (LJ 10/1/82). For general audiences.
Mark L. Shelton, Worcester, Mass.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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. Bonnie Smothers
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
