Andrew Lobaczewski - Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes
they are based on objective data. Such a view therefore be-
comes realistic, and people and problems mature in action.
Such action should not be limited to theoretical contemplations,
but rather, acquire organization and form.
In order to facilitate this, let us consider the selected ques-
tions and the draft of a new scientific discipline which would
study evil, discovering its factors of genesis, insufficiently
understood properties, and weak spots, thereby outlining new
possibilities to counteract the origin of human suffering.
CHAPTER V
PATHOCRACY
The Genesis of the Phenomenon
The time-cycle sketched in Chapter III was referred to as
hysteroidal because the intensification or diminution of a soci-
ety’s hysterical condition can be considered its chief measure-
ment. It does not, of course, constitute the only quality subject
to change within the framework of certain periodicity. The
present chapter shall deal with the phenomenon which can
emerge from the phase of maximal intensification of hysteria.
Such a sequence does not appear to result from any relatively
constant laws of history; quite the contrary, some additional
circumstances and factors must participate in such a period of a
society’s general spiritual crisis and cause its reason and social
structure to degenerate in such a way as to bring about the
spontaneous generation of this worst disease of society. Let us
call this societal disease phenomenon “pathocracy”; this is not
the first time it has emerged during the history of our planet.
It appears that this phenomenon, whose causes also appear
to be potentially present in every society, has its own character-
istic process of genesis, only partially conditioned by, and hid-
den within, the maximal hysterical intensity of the above-
described cycle. As a result, unhappy times become exception-
ally cruel and enduring and their causes impossible to under-
stand within the categories of natural human concepts. Let us
therefore bring this process of the origin of pathocracy closer,
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PATHOCRACY
methodically isolating it from other phenomena we can recog-
nize as being conditional or even accompanying it.
A psychologically normal, highly intelligent person called
to high office normally experiences doubts as to whether he
can meet the demands expected of him and seeks the assistance
of others whose opinions he values. At the same time, he feels
nostalgia for his old life, freer and less burdensome, to which
he would like to return after fulfilling his social obligations.
Every society worldwide contains individuals whose dreams
of power arise very early as we have already discussed. They
are generally discriminated against in some way by society,
which uses a moralizing interpretation with regard to their fail-
ings and difficulties, although these individuals are rarely
guilty of them in the precise terms of morality. They would like
to change this unfriendly world into something else. Dreams of
power also represent overcompensation for the feeling of hu-
miliation, the second angle in Adler’s rhombus.89 A significant
and active proportion of this group is composed of individuals
with various deviations who imagine this better world in their
own way, of which we are already familiar.
In the prior chapter, the readers have become acquainted
with examples of these deviations selected in such a way as to
permit us now to present the ponerogenesis of pathocracy and
to introduce the essential factors of this historical phenomenon
which is so difficult to understand. It has certainly appeared
many times in history, in various countries and in various so-
cial scales. However, no one has ever managed to identify it
objectively because it would hide in one of the ideologies char-
acteristic of the respective culture and era, developing in the
89 Austrian psychiatrist who rejected Sigmund Freud’s emphasis on sexuality
and theorized that neurotic behavior is an overcompensation for feelings of
inferiority. He argued that human personality could be explained teleologi-
cally, separate strands dominated by the guiding purpose of the individual’s
unconscious self ideal to convert feelings of inferiority to superiority (or
rather completeness). The desires of the self ideal were countered by social
and ethical demands. If the corrective factors were disregarded and the indi-
vidual over-compensated, then an inferiority complex would occur, the indi-
vidual becoming egocentric, power-hungry and aggressive or worse. Adler
believed that personality can be distinguished into the getting, avoiding,
ruling and socially useful types, i.e. the “rhombus”. [Editor’s note.]
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
185
very bosom of different social movements. Identification was
so difficult because the indispensable naturalistic knowledge
needed for proper classification of phenomena in this area did
not develop until our contemporary times. Thus, historians and
sociologists discern many similarities, but they possess no
identifying criteria because the latter belongs to another scien-
tific discipline.
Who plays the first crucial role in this process of the origin
of pathocracy, schizoids or characteropaths? It appears to be
the former; therefore, let us delineate their role first.
During stable times which are ostensibly happy, albeit de-
pendent upon injustice to other individuals and nations, doctri-
naire90 people believe they have found a simple solution to fix
the world. Such a historical period is always characterized by
an impoverished psychological world view, so that a schizoi-
dally impoverished psychological world view does not stand
out as odd during such times and is accepted as legal tender.
These doctrinaire individuals characteristically manifest a cer-
tain contempt with regard to moralists then preaching the need
to rediscover lost human values and to develop a richer, more
appropriate psychological world view.
Schizoid characters aim to impose their own conceptual
world upon other people or social groups, using relatively con-
trolled pathological egotism and the exceptional tenacity de-
rived from their persistent nature. They are thus eventually able
to overpower another individual’s personality, which causes
the latter’s behavior to turn desperately illogical. They may
also exert a similar influence upon the group of people they
have joined. They are psychological loners who then begin to
feel better in some human organization, wherein they become
zealots for some ideology, religious bigots, materialists, or
adherents of an ideology with satanic features. If their activities
consist of direct contact on a small social scale, their acquain-
tances generally just consider them to be eccentric, which lim-
its their ponerogenic role. However, if they manage to hide
their own personality behind the written word, their influence
90 Dogmatic: stubborn person of arbitrary or arrogant opinions who insists on
theory without regard for practicality or suitability. [Editor’s note.]
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PATHOCRACY
may poison the minds of society on a wide scale and for a long
time.
The conviction that Karl Marx is the best example of this is
correct as he was the best-known figure of that kind. Frostig91,
a psychiatrist of the old school, included Engels and others into
a category he called “bearded schizoidal fanatics”. The famous
writings attributed to “Zionist Wise Men” at the turn of the
century begin with a typically schizoidal declaration.92 The
nineteenth century, especially its latter half, appears to have
been a time of exceptional activity on the part of schizoidal
individuals, often but not always of Jewish descent. After all
we have to remember that 97 % of all Jews do not manifest this
anomaly, and that it also appears among all European nations,
albeit to a markedly lesser extent. Our inheritance from this
period includes world-images, scientific traditions, and legal
concepts flavored with the shoddy ingredients of a schizoidal
apprehension of reality.
Humanists are prepared to understand that era and its legacy
within categories characterized by their own traditions. They
search for societal, ideational, and moral causes for known
phenomena. Such an explanation, however, can never consti-
tute the whole truth, since it ignores the biological factors
which participated in the genesis of the phenomena. Schizoidia
is the most frequent factor, albeit not the only one.
In spite of the fact that the writings of schizoidal authors
contain the above described deficiency, or even an openly for-
mulated schizoidal declaration which constitutes sufficient
91 Peter Jacob Frostig, 1896-1959. Professor of King John Kasimir University
in Lwow, (now Ukraine). I used his manual Psychiatria. Poland was then
under pathocratic rule and his works were removed from public libraries as
“ideologically improper”.
92 The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is now well known to have been a
hoaxed attribution to Jews. However, the contents of the Protocols are clearly
not “hoaxed ideas” since a reasonable assessment of the events in the United
States over the past 50 years or so gives ample evidence of the application of
these Protocols in order to bring about the current Neocon administration.
Anyone who wishes to understand what has happened in the U.S. only needs
to read the Protocols to understand that some group of deviant individuals
took them to heart. The document, “Project For A New American Century”,
produced by the Neoconservatives reads as if it had been inspired by the
Protocols. [Editor’s note.]
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
187
warning to specialists, the average reader accepts them not as a
view of reality warped by this anomaly, but rather as an idea to
which he should consider seriously based on his convictions
and his reason. That is the first mistake.
The oversimplified pattern of ideas, devoid of psychological
color and based on easily available data, tends to exert an in-
tense attracting influence on individuals who are insufficiently
critical, frequently frustrated as result of downward social ad-
justment, culturally neglected, or characterized by some psy-
chological deficiencies of their own. Such writings are particu-
larly attractive to a hystericized society. Others who may read
such writings will be immediately provoked to criticism based
on their healthy common sense, though they also they fail to
grasp the essential cause of the error: that it emerges from a
biologically deviant mind.
Societal interpretation of such writings and doctrinaire dec-
larations breaks down into main trifurcations, engendering
divisiveness and conflict. The first branch is the path of aver-
sion, based on rejection of the contents of the work due to per-
sonal motivations, differing convictions, or moral revulsion.
These reactions contain the component of a moralistic interpre-
tation of pathological phenomena.
The second and third branches relate to two distinctly dif-
ferent apperception types among those persons who accept the
contents of such works: the critically-corrective and the patho-
logical.
The critically-corrective approach is taken by people whose
feel for psychological reality is normal and they tend to incor-
porate the more valuable elements of the work. They then
trivialize the obvious errors and fill in the missing elements of
the schizoid deficiencies by means of their own richer world
view. This gives rise to a more sensible, measured, and thus
creative interpretation, but is cannot be completely free from
the influence of the error frequently adduced above.
Pathological acceptance is manifested by individuals with
psychological deficiencies of their own: diversiform deviations,
whether inherited or acquired, as well as by many people bear-
ing personality malformations or who have been injured by
social injustice. That explains why this scope is wider than the
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PATHOCRACY
circle drawn by direct action of pathological factors. Pathologi-
cal acceptance of schizoidal writings or declarations by other
deviants often brutalizes the authors’ concepts and promotes
ideas of force and revolutionary means.
The passage of time and bitter experience has unfortunately
not prevented this characteristic misunderstanding born of
schizoid nineteenth-century creativity, with Marx’s works at
the fore, from affecting people and depriving them of their
common sense.
If only for purposes of the above-mentioned psychological
experiment, it is good practice for developing awareness of this
pathological factor by searching the works of K. Marx for sev-
eral statements with these characteristic deficits. When such a
study is conducted by several people with varied world views,
the experiment will show how a clear picture of reality can be
restored, and it becomes easier to find a common language.
Schizoidia has thus played an essential role as one of the
factors in the genesis of the evil threatening our contemporary
world. Practicing psychotherapy upon the world will therefore
demand that the results of such evil be eliminated as skillfully
as possible.
The first researchers – the author and his colleagues - at-
tracted by the idea of objectively understanding this phenome-
non initially failed to perceive the role of characteropathic
