The term "evil" is one of the most useless words in the analysis of warfare. The fact of the matter is that most nations that wage war do so in the name of "goodness." War is conceived as a good thing because it is undertaken in the name of the "sacred object," one's nation.

The sacred ideal is a "releaser"--transforming violent actions--even atrocities--into forms of goodness. Everything is done in the name of a moral imperative: protecting and defending one's nation.

So the central question in the analysis of warfare is: what is the nature and meaning of this "sacred object," one's nation? But this is a place where most people don't wish to go. Nearly everyone lives within a sacred object, their own nation. And attachment to this object is often seen as an absolute. People do not wish to be a "man without a country."

So we don't know--refuse to know--what "countries" are. It's the fundamental scotoma that leads to warfare. Ranting and raving, expending gigantic military budgets, threatening to destroy the world with atom bombs, ranting and raving. It all seems so real. All in the name of a word, which ostensibly refers to a real thing. But no one knows or can define what this word refers to. A "tale told by an idiot."

Richard Koenigsberg
Summary of findings: forty years of research.