Andrew Lobaczewski - Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes
stored.’” “A Mess in Psychiatry”, an interview with Robert van Voren, Gen-
eral Secretary of Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry, published in the Dutch
newspaper De Volkskrant on August 9, 1997.[Editor’s note.]
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to realize that this may be one of the roads via which we can
reach the crux of the matter or the nature of this macrosocial
phenomenon. The prohibitions engulf depth psychology, the
analysis of the human instinctive substratum, together with
analysis of dreams.
As already pointed out in the chapter introducing some in-
dispensable concepts, an understanding of human instinct is a
key to understanding man; however, a knowledge of said in-
stinct’s anomalies also represents a key to understanding
pathocracy.
Although used ever more rarely in psychological practice,
dream analysis shall always remain the best school of psycho-
logical thought; that makes it dangerous by nature. Conse-
quently, even research on the psychology of mate selection is
frowned upon, at best.
The essence of psychopathy may not, of course, be re-
searched or elucidated. Darkness is cast upon this matter by
means of an intentionally devised definition of psychopathy
which includes various kinds of character disorders, together
with those caused by completely different and known causes.115
This definition must be memorized not only by every lecturer
in psychopathology, psychiatrist, and psychologist, but also by
some political functionaries with no education in that area.
This definition must be used in all public appearances
whenever it is for some reason impossible to avoid the subject.
However, it is preferable for a lecturer in such areas to be
someone who always believes whatever is most convenient in
his situation, and whose intelligence does not predestine him to
delve into subtle differentiations of a psychological nature.
It is also worth pointing out here that the chief doctrine of
said system reads “Existence defines consciousness”. As such,
it belongs to psychology rather than to any political doctrine.
This doctrine actually contradicts a good deal of empirical data
indicating the role of hereditary factors in the development of
man’s personality and fate. Lecturers may refer to research on
identical twins, but only in a brief, cautious, and formal fash-
115 This is also the case in the U.S. as noted in several articles by Robert
Hare. [Editor’s note.]
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
263
ion. Considerations on this subject may, however, not be pub-
lished in print.
We return once more to this system’s peculiar psychological
“genius” and its self-knowledge. One might admire how the
above mentioned definitions of psychopathy effectively blocks
the ability to comprehend phenomena covered therein. We may
investigate the relationships between these prohibitions and the
essence of the macrosocial phenomenon they in fact mirror.
We may also observe the limits of these skills and the errors
committed by those who execute this strategy. These shortcom-
ings are skillfully taken advantage of for purposes of smug-
gling through some proper knowledge on the part of the more
talented specialists, or by elderly people no longer fearful for
their careers or even their lives.
The “ideological” battle is thus being waged on territory
completely unperceived by scientists living under governments
of normal human structures and attempting to imagine that
other reality. This applies to all people denouncing “Commu-
nism”, as well as those for whom this ideology has become
their faith.
Shortly after arriving in the U.S.A. , I was handed a news-
paper by a young black man on some street in Queens, N.Y. I
reached for my purse, but he waved me off; the paper was free.
The front page showed a picture of a young and handsome
Brezhnev decorated with all the medals he did not in fact re-
ceive until much later. On the last page, however, I found a
quite well-worked-out summary of investigations performed at
the University of Massachusetts on identical twins raised sepa-
rately. These investigations furnished empirical indications for
the important role of heredity, and the description contained a
literary illustration of the similarity of the fates of twin pairs.
How far “ideologically disorientated” the editors of this paper
must have been to publish something which could never have
appeared in the area subjected to a supposedly Communist
system.116
116 The freedom that !obaczewski noted in the U.S. in the 1980 is fast being
replaced by an almost total pathocracy. It won’t be long before such articles
are censored in U.S. newspapers as well, unless, of course, the study is “de-
signed” to prove the superiority of psychopathy. [Editor’s note.]
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In that other reality, the battlefront crosses every study of
psychology and psychiatry, every psychiatric hospital, every
mental health consultation center, and the personality of every-
one working in these areas. What takes place there: hidden
thrust-and-parry duels, a smuggling through of true scientific
information and accomplishments, and harassment.
Some people become morally derailed under these condi-
tions, whereas others create a solid foundation for their convic-
tions and are prepared to undertake difficulty and risk in order
to obtain honest knowledge so as to serve the sick and needy.
The initial motivation of this latter group is thus not political in
character, since it derives from their good will and professional
decency. Their consciousness of the political causes of the
limitations and the political meaning of this battle is raised
later, in conjunction with experience and professional maturity,
especially if their experience and skills must be used in order to
save persecuted people.
In the meantime, however, the necessary scientific data and
papers must be obtained somehow, taking difficulties and other
people’s lack of understanding into account. Students and be-
ginning specialists not yet aware of what was removed from
the educational curricula attempt to gain access to the scientific
data stolen from them. Science starts to be degraded at a worri-
some rate once such awareness is missing.
~~~
We need to understand the nature of the macrosocial phe-
nomenon as well as that basic relationship and controversy
between the pathological system and those areas of science
which describe psychological and psychopathological phenom-
ena. Otherwise, we cannot become fully conscious of the rea-
sons for such a government’s long published behavior.
A normal person’s actions and reactions, his ideas and
moral criteria, all too often strike abnormal individuals as ab-
normal. For if a person with some psychological deviations
considers himself normal, which is of course significantly eas-
ier if he possesses authority, then he would consider a normal
person different and therefore abnormal, whether in reality or
as a result of conversive thinking. That explains why such peo-
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
265
ple’s government shall always have the tendency to treat any
dissidents as “mentally abnormal”.
Operations such as driving a normal person into psycho-
logical illness and the use of psychiatric institutions for this
purpose take place in many countries in which such institutions
exist. Contemporary legislation binding upon normal man’s
countries is not based upon an adequate understanding of the
psychology of such behavior, and thus does not constitute a
sufficient preventive measure against it.
Within the categories of a normal psychological world
view, the motivations for such behavior were variously under-
stood and described: personal and family accounts, property
matters, intent to discredit a witness’ testimony, and even po-
litical motivations. Such defamatory suggestions are used par-
ticularly often by individuals who are themselves not entirely
normal, whose behavior has driven someone to a nervous
breakdown or to violent protest. Among hysterics, such behav-
ior tends to be a projection onto other people of one’s own self-
critical associations. A normal person strikes a psychopath as a
naive, smart-alecky believer in barely comprehensible theories;
calling him “crazy” is not all that far away.
Therefore, when we set up a sufficient number of examples
of this kind or collect sufficient experience in this area, another
more essential motivational level for such behavior becomes
apparent. What happens as a rule is that the idea of driving
someone into mental illness issues from minds with various
aberrations and psychological defects. Only rarely does the
component of pathological factors take part in the ponerogene-
sis of such behavior from outside its agents. Well thought out
and carefully framed legislation should therefore require testing
of individuals whose suggestions that someone else is psycho-
logically abnormal are too insistent or too doubtfully founded.
On the other hand, any system in which the abuse of psy-
chiatry for allegedly political reasons has become a common
phenomenon should be examined in the light of similar psycho-
logical criteria extrapolated onto the macrosocial scale. Any
person rebelling internally against a governmental system,
which shall always strike him as foreign and difficult to under-
stand, and who is unable to hide this well enough, shall thus
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easily be designated by the representatives of said government
as “mentally abnormal”, someone who should submit to psy-
chiatric treatment. A scientifically and morally degenerate psy-
chiatrist becomes a tool easily used for this purpose. Thus is
born the sole method of terror and human torture unfamiliar
even to the secret police of Czar Alexander II.
The abuse of psychiatry for purposes we already know thus
derives from the very nature of pathocracy as a macrosocial
psychopathological phenomenon. After all, that very area of
knowledge and treatment must first be degraded to prevent it
from jeopardizing the system itself by pronouncing a dramatic
diagnosis, and must then be used as an expedient tool in the
hands of the authorities. In every country, however, one meets
with people who notice this and act astutely against it.
The pathocracy feels increasingly threatened by this area
whenever the medical and psychological sciences make pro-
gress. After all, not only can these sciences knock the weapon
of psychological conquest right out of its hands; they can even
strike at its very nature, and from inside the empire, at that.
A specific perception of these matters therefore bids the
pathocracy to be “ideationally alert” in this area. This also ex-
plains why anyone who is both too knowledgeable in this area
and too far outside the immediate reach of such authorities
should be accused of anything that can be trumped up, includ-
ing psychological abnormality.
CHAPTER VIII
PATHOCRACY AND RELIGION
Monotheistic faith strikes a contemporary thinker primarily
as an incomplete induction derived from ontological knowl-
edge about the laws governing microcosmic and macrocosmic
material and organic and psychological life, as well as being a
result of certain encounters accessible by means of introspec-
tion. The rest complements this induction by means of items
man gains by other ways and accepts either individually or in
accordance with the dictates of his religion and creed. A sound-
less, wordless voice unconsciously awakens our associations,
reaches our awareness in the quiet of mind, and either comple-
ments or rebukes our cognition; this phenomenon is every bit
as true as whatever has become accessible to science thanks to
modern investigative methods.
In perfecting our cognition in the psychological field and at-
taining truths formerly available only to mystics, we render
ever narrower the space of nescience which until recently sepa-
rated the realm of spiritual perception from naturalistic science.
Sometime in the not too distant future, these two cognitions
will meet and certain divergences will become self evident. It
would thus be better if we were prepared for it. Almost from
the outset of my deliberations on the genesis of evil, I have
been conscious of the fact that the investigative results con-
cisely presented in this work can be used to further complete
that space which is so hard for the human mind to enter.
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The ponerological approach throws new light upon age-old
questions heretofore regulated by the dictates of moral systems
and must of necessity bring about a revision in thought meth-
ods. As a Christian, the author was initially apprehensive that
this would cause dangerous collisions with ancient tradition.
Studying the question in the light of the Scriptures caused these
apprehensions gradually to fade away. Rather, this now appears
to be the way to bring our thought processes closer to that
original and primeval method of perceiving moral knowledge.
