About
During the Cold War I was an aerospace engineer working on things like Ballistic Missile Warning Systems. I had started to get into human factors engineering when the Cold War ended, and decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Psychology. As partial compensation for a nasty experience, I got to write my Ph.D. thesis on the extremely interesting topic of narcissism, self-deception and evil. I went on to do postdoctoral studies in statistics and worked for a number of years as a research scientist in psychiatric and behavioral genetics. I am now retired, and going back to write about narcissism, self-deception and evil for a more general audience.
Featured Work
Self-Deception and Peck's Analysis of Evil
There have been a number of calls for serious scientific study of evil. One of them distinguishes between a psychopath, who has no conscience, and a subtype of narcissistic personality disorder who uses self-deception to convince themselves that the evil they do is a great good, and make themselves better able to deceive others. The theory also works at the collective level. The theory is explained and applied to Nazism and Communism.
