Andrew Lobaczewski - Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes
exceptionally creative role of abnormal individuals, even an
identification of human genius with the psychology of abnor-
mality. However, the one-sidedness of these theories appears to
be derived from people who were searching for an affirmation
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of their own personalities by means of such a world view. Out-
standing thinkers, discoverers, and artists have also been
specimens of psychological normality, qualitatively speaking.
After all, psychologically normal people constitute both the
great statistical majority and the real base of societal life in
each community. According to natural law, they should thus be
the ones to set the pace; moral law is derived from their nature.
Power should be in the hands of normal people. A ponerologist
only demands that such authority be endowed with an appro-
priate understanding of these less-normal people, and that the
law be based upon such understanding.
The quantitative and qualitative composition of this biopsy-
chologically deficient fraction of the population certainly varies
in time and space on our planet. This may be represented by a
single-digit percentage in some nations, in the teens in others.
Said quantitative and qualitative structure influence the entire
psychological and moral climate of the country in question.
That is why this problem should be the subject of conscious
concern. However it should also be noted that evidence sug-
gests that the dreams of power so frequently present in these
circles do not always and necessarily manifest fully in coun-
tries where this percentile has been very high. Other historical
circumstances were decisive as well.
In any society in this world, psychopathic individuals and
some of the other deviant types create a ponerogenically active
network of common collusions, partially estranged from the
community of normal people. An inspirational role of essential
psychopathy in this network appears to be a common phe-
nomenon. They are aware of being different as they obtain their
life-experiences and become familiar with different ways of
fighting for their goals. Their world is forever divided into “us
and them”; their little world with its own laws and customs and
that other foreign world of normal people that they see as full
of presumptuous ideas and customs by which they are con-
demned morally. Their sense of honor bids them to cheat and
revile that other human world and its values at every opportu-
nity. In contradiction to the customs of normal people, they feel
that breaking their promises is appropriate behavior.
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139
One of the most disturbing things about psychopaths that
normal people must deal with is the fact that they very early
learn how their personalities can have traumatizing effects on
the personalities of those normal people, and how to take ad-
vantage of this root of terror for purposes of reaching their
goals. This dichotomy of worlds is permanent and does not
disappear even if they succeed in realizing their youthful dream
of gaining power over the society of normal people. This
strongly suggests that the separation is biologically condi-
tioned.
In the psychopath, a dream emerges like some Utopia of a
“happy” world and a social system which does not reject them
or force them to submit to laws and customs whose meaning is
incomprehensible to them. They dream of a world in which
their simple and radical way of experiencing and perceiving
reality would dominate65; where they would, of course, be as-
sured safety and prosperity. In this Utopian dream, they imag-
ine that those “others”, different, but also more technically
skillful than they are, should be put to work to achieve this goal
for the psychopaths and others of their kin. “We”, they say,
“after all, will create a new government, one of justice”66. They
are prepared to fight and to suffer for the sake of such a brave
new world, and also, of course, to inflict suffering upon others.
Such a vision justifies killing people, whose suffering does not
move them to compassion because “they” are not quite con-
specific. They do not realize that they will consequently meet
with opposition which can last for generations67.
Subordinating a normal person to psychologically abnormal
individuals has severe and deforming effects on his or her per-
sonality: it engenders trauma and neurosis. This is accom-
plished in a manner which generally evades conscious controls.
Such a situation deprives the person of his natural rights: to
practice his own mental hygiene, develop a sufficiently
autonomous personality, and utilize his common sense. In the
light of natural law, it thus constitutes a kind of crime - which
65 i.e. Lying, cheating, destroying, using others, etc. [Editor’s note.]
66 For psychopaths only; injustice for everyone else. [Editor’s note.]
67 “Kill them all; God will know his own,” seems to be the method advocated
by psychopaths. [Editor’s note.]
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can appear at any social scale, in any context - although it is
not mentioned in any code of law.
We have already discussed the nature of some pathological
personalities, e.g. frontal characteropathy, and how they can
deform the personalities of those with whom they interact.
Essential psychopathy has exceptionally intense effects in this
manner. Something mysterious gnaws into the personality of an
individual at the mercy of the psychopath and is then fought
like a demon. His emotions become chilled, his sense of psy-
chological reality is stifled. This leads to de-criterialization of
thought and a feeling of helplessness, culminating in depressive
reactions which can be so severe that psychiatrists sometimes
misdiagnose them as a manic-depressive psychosis. Many peo-
ple rebel against a psychopathic domination much earlier than
such a crisis point and start searching for some way of liberat-
ing themselves from such an influence.
Many life-situations involve far less mysterious results of
other psychological anomalies upon normal people (which are
always unpleasant and destructive) and their carriers’ unscru-
pulous drives to dominate and take advantage of others. Gov-
erned by unpleasant experiences and feelings, as well as natural
egoism, societies thus have good reason to reject such people,
helping to push them into marginal positions in social life,
including poverty and criminality.
It is unfortunately almost the rule that such behavior is
amenable to moralizing justification in our natural world view
categories. Most members of society feel entitled to protect
their own persons and property and enact legislation for that
purpose. Being based on natural perception of phenomena, and
on emotional motivations instead of an objective understanding
of the problems, such laws in no way serve to safeguard the
kind of order and safety we would like; psychopaths and other
deviants merely perceive such laws as a force which needs to
be battled.
To individuals with various psychological deviations, the
social structure dominated by normal people and their concep-
tual world appears to be a “system of force and oppression”.
Psychopaths reach such a conclusion as a rule. If, at the same
time, a good deal of injustice does in fact exist in a given soci-
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
141
ety, pathological feelings of unfairness and suggestive state-
ments emanating from deviants can resonate among those who
have truly been treated unfairly. Revolutionary doctrines may
then be easily propagated among both groups, although each
group has completely different reasons for favoring such ideas.
~~~
The presence of pathogenic bacteria in our environment is a
common phenomenon; however, it is not the single decisive
factor that determines whether an individual or a society be-
comes ill, since natural and artificial immunity as well as medi-
cal assistance may play a role as well. Similarly, psychopatho-
logical factors alone do not – themselves - decide about the
spread of evil. Other factors have parallel importance: socio-
economic conditions, and moral and intellectual deficits.
Individuals and nations that are able to endure injustice in
the name of moral values can more easily find a way out of
such difficulties without resorting to violent means. A rich
moral tradition contains the experience and reflections of cen-
turies in this regard. This book describes the role of these addi-
tional factors in the genesis of evil, which have been insuffi-
ciently understood for centuries; such explication is essential
for completing the overall picture and permitting more effec-
tive practical measures to be formulated.
Thus, emphasizing the role of pathological factors in the
genesis of evil does not minimize the responsibility of social
moral failings and intellectual deficits in contributing to the
situation. Real moral deficits and a grossly inadequate concep-
tion of human reality and psychological and moral situations
are frequently caused by some earlier or contemporary activity
on the part of pathological factors.
However, we must also acknowledge the constant, biologi-
cally determined presence within every human society of this
small minority of individuals who are carriers of qualitatively
diverse, but ponerologically active, pathological factors. Any
discussion on what came first in the process of the genesis of
evil, moral failings or the activities of pathological factors, can
thus be considered academic speculation. On the other hand,
the Bible is worth re-reading through the eyes of a ponerolo-
gist.
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Detailed analysis of the personality of the average normal
person nearly always reveals conditions and difficulties caused
by the effects upon him of some kind of pathological factor. If
the activity was far removed in time or space, or the factor
relatively obvious, healthy common sense is generally suffi-
cient to correct such effects. If the pathological factor remains
incomprehensible, the person has difficulty understanding the
cause of his problems; he sometimes appears to remain a life-
long slave of imaginings and patterns of behavioral response
which originated under the influence of pathological individu-
als. This is what occurred in the above-mentioned family,
where the source of pathological induction was the eldest sister
with perinatal damage of the prefrontal fields of her brain cor-
tex. Even when she obviously abused her youngest child, her
brothers attempted to interpret this in a paramoralistic manner,
a sacrifice in the name of “family honor”.
Such matters should be taught to everyone in order to facili-
tate auto-pedagogical self-monitoring. Certain outstanding
psychopathologists became convinced that developing a
healthy functional view of human reality is impossible without
factoring in psychopathological findings, are correct, a conclu-
sion difficult to accept by people who believe they have at-
tained a mature world view without such burdensome studies.
The older egotistical defenders of the natural world view have
tradition, belles-lettres, even philosophy on their side. They do
not realize that during the present time, their manner of com-
prehending life’s questions renders the battle with evil more
problematic. However, the younger generation is more familiar
with biology and psychology, and is thus more amenable to an
objective understanding of the role of pathological phenomena
in the processes of the genesis of evil.
Parallax68, often even a wide gap, frequently occurs be-
tween human and social reality, which is biological by nature
and frequently influenced by the above-mentioned refusal to
factor in psychopathological elements, as well as the traditional
perceptions of reality as taught by philosophy, ethics, and secu-
lar and canon law. This gap is easily discernible to those people
68 The difference in appearance or position of an object when viewed from
two different locations. [Editor’s note.]
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143
whose psychological world view was formed in a manner dif-
ferent from the natural way of a normal person. Many of them
consciously and subconsciously take advantage of this weak-
ness in order to force themselves into it, along with their my-
opically-determined activities characterized by egoistical con-
cepts of self-interest. Still people, whether pathologically indif-
ferent to other peoples’ or nations’ hurts, or lacking in knowl-
edge as to what is human and decent, then find an open gate to
bulldoze their different way of life through unobliging socie-
ties.
Will we ever be able to overcome this age-old problem of
humanity sometime in the yet undetermined future, with the
assistance of the biological and psychological sciences making
progress in the study of various pathological factors participat-
ing in ponerogenic processes? That will depend on the support
of the societies in question. Scientific and societal awareness of
the role played by the above-mentioned factors in the genesis
of evil will help public opinion to elaborate an appropriate
position against evil, which will then cease to be so fascinat-
ingly mysterious. If properly modified based on an understand-
ing of the nature of phenomena, the law will permit prophylac-
tic countermeasures to the origin of evil.
