Political demonology

April 10th, 2024

I had no idea that it was a scholarly discipline. And not just encompassing one branch but many within the liberal arts— sociology, political science, history, anthropology, and theology. A quick search tells me that there are books, scholarly articles, and a variety of thinkers specializing in that subject. What might be curious is that most of those scholars are German. Or maybe that is not really such a surprise after all…

Political demonology can be described as the experience of evil principalities and powers of a personal kind in the world (quote from Karl Rahner). Now, that is something so obvious as personal experiences, that it seems strange to engage in scholarly research on that subject. Anyone at some point in his or her life would wholeheartedly agree with that statement. We all have experienced, in one way or the other, the nature of evil (of course, on many incomparable personal levels) and we all have suffered from the application of evil to our lives. Why then study and normalize it by the said research of the evil?

Is it possible to make the experience of evil defined and understood? Is it worth it? Maybe it is just a perversion of modern academia. Maybe it is just a personal quest of one scholar or the other to make a name for him/herself through an obscure controversy. Or maybe I am just asking all those questions because I don't want to find out the answers to this subject provided in a well-researched and impassioned form? I already have bottomless anger toward the evil-doers in politics and the media and society and religion. Should I now spend my time looking at it from a scientific standpoint? I think I might be afraid of what I might find there.