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In my inbox, just before your essay, Dan, was one by Harrison Koehli of Political Ponerology substack. It echoed your own regarding the inhuman prisons we create for others of a different skin color or religion, and how that comes back to haunt us. I'd be interested in your take on it, as Koehli applies ponerological concepts to the Israel-Palestine conflicts, with Palestinians being the ones in their Gaza prison. Here's an excerpt:

"Applying this to current events, the Middle East (Israel included) is largely one big ponerogenic factory. Gaza is a ponerogenic ghetto controlled internally by a pathological network and externally by a foreign military power and all that comes along with that. Poverty, malnutrition, joblessness, socio-occupational maladaptation, daily violence, and pathocratic ideology designed to exploit conditions of misery and stoke vengeful emotions: all create ponerogenic conditions fostering the creation of multiple mental illnesses and psychopathologies, from PTSD to antisociality."

https://ponerology.substack.com/p/evil-only-comes-where-its-invited

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Well I'm ashamed to say I had to google "ponerogenic," what a freaking cool and entirely appropriate word!!

And that's an awesome Substack, thanks so much for the tip... just yeah the whole ponerogenic thing goes way beyond just Israel and Palestine - Syria is ruled by a psychopathic dictator who's tortured tens of thousands of his citizens to death, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and monarchies that routinely chop off limbs, life ain't great in Lebanon right now either.

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