This small book provides a preliminary understanding of the social sickness which causes otherwise normal people to abuse their fellow human beings. There seem to two conditions which appear to be needed to be met for social abuse to take place: the abuser must have some lack of control in his own life and this might be something quite mundane like not having enough funds to comply with the norms of his peer group or it can be something much more complex. The reaction to this is for some people, by no means all, to abuse a person or a group of people, who are viewed as weaker. The mere articulation of abuse puts the abuser back in control and provides him or her with comfort at the expense of the victim. The mere being in control brings relief. In certain circumstances, this has been recognised by academics as 'Zero Sum Self Esteem'. The abuse itself can be very mild and long recognised by society as, for example:'unsolicited advice' which is frequently little more than a barely concealed reprimand telling the weaker victim he is doing something badly.
This is at one end of the spectrum but at the other is war, death camps and deportation.
The weaker victims of abuse, whose blood has been shed, judging by a cursory examination of European history over the last thousand years are, in no particular order,: The Poor; Women; Jews; Christian Sects; Those with darker skin and those with a sexual orientation other than heterosexual.
This is a tragic list and, at times, causes indiscriminate killing on a regular basis just as it has in the past. The solution might be to understand and identify the lack of control which causes the abuser to do what he or she does and this little book might, possibly, be the start of the process.
