Andrew Lobaczewski - Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes
performed within pathocracy’s collective madness? Judging
them in accordance with traditional legal regulations would
constitute reverting to the imposition of normal man’s force
upon psychopathic individuals, i.e. to the initial position which
engendered pathocracy to begin with. Is subjecting them to
vindictive justice worth prolonging the duration of pathocracy
for even a single year, let alone an unspecified time? Would
eliminating a certain number of psychopaths significantly di-
minish these anomalies’ burden upon society’s gene pool and
contribute toward a solution to this problem?
Unfortunately, the answer is no!
People with various psychological deviations have always
existed in every society on earth. Their way of life is always
some form of predation upon society’s economic creativity,
since their own creative capabilities are generally substandard.
Whoever plugs into this system of organized parasitism gradu-
ally loses whatever limited capacity for legal work he might
have had.
This phenomenon and its brutality are actually maintained
by the threat of legal retaliation or, even worse, of retribution
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on the part of the enraged masses. Dreams of revenge distract a
society’s attention from understanding the bio-psychological
essence of the phenomenon and stimulate the moralizing inter-
pretations whose results we are already familiar with. This
would make it more difficult to find a solution to the present
dangerous situation and would similarly complicate any possi-
bilities of solving the problem of burdening society’s gene pool
with psychological anomalies with a view to future genera-
tions. These problems, however, both present and future, can
be solved if we approach them with an understanding of their
naturalistic essence and a comprehension of the nature of those
people who commit substantial evil.
Legal retribution would be a repetition of the Nuremberg er-
ror. That judgment upon war criminals could have been a
never-to-be repeated opportunity to show the world the entire
psychopathology of the Hitlerian system, with the person of the
“Fuehrer” at the head. That would have led to a faster and
deeper disabusement of the Nazi tradition in Germany. Such
conscious exposure of the operations of pathological factors on
a macrosocial scale would have reinforced the process of psy-
chological rehabilitation for Germans and the world as a whole
by means of the naturalistic categories applicable to that state
of affairs. That would also have constituted a healthy precedent
for illuminating and stifling other pathocracies’ operations.
What actually happened is that psychiatrists and psycholo-
gists succumbed all too easily to the pressures of their own
emotions and political factors, their judgments giving short
shrift to the actual pathological properties of both the majority
of the defendants and of Nazism as a whole. Several famous
individuals with psychopathic features or other deviations were
hanged or sentenced to prison terms. Many facts and data
which could have served the purposes adduced in this work
were hanged and imprisoned along with these individuals. We
can thus easily understand why pathocrats were so eager to
achieve this precise result. We are not allowed to repeat such
errors, since the results make it more difficult to comprehend
the essence of macrosocial pathological phenomena, and they
thereby limit the possibilities of stifling their internal causation.
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In today’s real world situation, there is only one scientifi-
cally and morally justified solution which could remedy our
current plight of nations and also furnish a proper beginning for
solving the problem of societies’ genetic burden with a view to
the future. That would be an appropriate law based upon the
best possible understanding of macrosocial pathological phe-
nomena and their causes, which would limit pathocrats’ re-
sponsibility to those cases alone (usually of a criminal sadistic
nature) in which it is hard to accept the inability to discern the
meaning of such an act. Nothing else could enable the societies
of normal people to take over power and liberate the internal
talents which could ensure a nation’s return to normal life.
Such an act of forgiveness is in fact justified by nature,
since it is derived from a recognition of the psychological cau-
sation governing a person while committing evil, both within
the scope of our cognition and outside the area we have been
able to understand. This scope accessible to scientific cognition
increases along with progress in general knowledge; in a
pathocracy, however, the image of the phenomenon is so
dominated by causality that there is not much room left for free
choice.
We shall in fact never be in the position to evaluate the
scope of free choice with which an individual person has been
endowed. In forgiving, we subordinate our minds to the laws of
nature, to a basic extent. When we withhold judgment regard-
ing the scope of the remainder unknown to us, we subject our
mind to the discipline of refraining from entering a domain
barely accessible to our mind.
Forgiveness thus leads our reason into a state of intellectual
discipline and order, thereby permitting us to discern life’s
realia and their causative links more clearly. This makes it
easier for us to control our instinct’s vindictive reflexes and
protect our minds from the tendency to impose moralizing
interpretations upon psychopathological phenomena. This is of
course to the advantage of both individuals and of societies.
Simultaneously, and in accordance with the precepts of
great religions, forgiveness helps us enjoy supernatural order
and thereby gain the right to self forgiveness. It makes us better
able to perceive the voice within saying “do this” or “don’t do
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that”. This improves our capacity for proper decision making in
thorny situations when we are lacking some necessary data. In
this extremely difficult battle, we may not renounce this assis-
tance and privilege; they may be decisive in tipping the scales
toward victory.
Nations which have long had to endure pathocratic rule are
now close to accepting such a proposition as a result of their
practical knowledge of that other reality and the characteristic
evolution of their world view. However, their motivations are
dominated by practical data which are also derived from adap-
tation to life in that divergent reality. Religious motivations
also appear; comprehension and affirmation thereof mature
under such specific conditions. Their thought process and so-
cial ethics also evidence a feel for a certain teleological mean-
ing to phenomena, in the sense of a historical watershed.
Such an act of renunciation of judicial and emotional re-
venge with regard to people whose behavior was conditioned
by psychological causation, especially certain specific heredi-
tary factors, is justified by naturalism to a significant degree.
Therefore, such naturalistic and rational principles should per-
mit the definitive decisions to mature. The intellectual effort
involved in cutting the links to a natural comprehending of the
problems of evil and a confrontation thereof with moral pre-
cepts shall bear fruit in many products of human thought.
People who have lost their ability to adapt to sensible work
for hire will have to be guaranteed tolerable living conditions
and assistance in their efforts to readapt. The costs incurred by
society with regard thereto will probably be less than those
involved with any other solution. All this will require appropri-
ate organizational efforts based on this manner of understand-
ing such matters, which will be far removed from traditional
legal practice. The promises should be made to the pathocrats,
and then kept with the honesty worthy of a society of normal
people. Such an act and its execution should therefore be pre-
pared ahead of time from the moral, legal and organizational
points of view.
Just as the idea adduced herein finds a lively response
among people familiar with the above-described macrosocial
phenomenon from experience, it insults the vengeful feelings
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of numerous political émigrés who retain the old experiential
methods regarding social and moral problems. We should thus
expect more opposition from this quarter, justified by moral
indignation. Persuasive efforts should therefore be made in that
direction.
It would also be advantageous if the solution to this prob-
lem could be prepared with a view to the contemporary heri-
tage of the bio-humanistic sciences, a heritage which aims at a
similar evolution of law even though it continues to hide in the
academic world, too immature for practical realization. The
value of scientific studies in this area tends to be underrated by
conservative-minded societies. The work may be facilitated by
means of using such information with a view toward the need
for rapid preparation or updating of the law.
Our civilization’s legislations arose first from the tradition
of Roman law, then from the rights of sovereigns ruling by
“divine right”, a system which predictably defended their posi-
tion, and though they were commanding the law of grace, they
proved almost completely soulless and vengeful within today’s
conception of codified regulations. Such a state of affairs abet-
ted rather than prevented the emergence of pathological sys-
tems of force.
This explains the actual need to effect an essential break-
through and formulation of new principles derived from an
understanding of man, including enemies and evildoers.
Having emerged from great suffering and a comprehension
of its causes, such legislation will be more modern and humani-
tarian as well as more effective in the area of protecting socie-
ties from the products of ponerogenesis. The great decision to
forgive similarly derives from the most credible precepts of
eternal moral teachings, something also in accordance with
contemporary evolution in societal thought. It expresses practi-
cal concerns as well as a naturalistic comprehension of the
genesis of evil. Only such an act of mercy, unprecedented in
history, can break the age-old chain of the ponerogenic cycles
and open the door both to new solutions for perennial problems
and to a new legislative method based on an understanding of
the causes of evil.
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Such a difficult decisions therefore appear in keeping with
the signs of the times. The author believes that this precise kind
of breakthrough in the methodology of thought and action is
within the Divine Plan for this generation.
Ideologies
Just as a psychiatrist is mainly interested in disease, paying
less attention to the patient’s delusional system deforming
whatever individual reality he has, the object of global therapy
should be the world’s diseases. The deformed ideological sys-
tems which grew from historical conditions and a given civili-
zation’s weaknesses should be understood insofar as they are a
disguise, operational instrument, or Trojan horse for
pathocratic infection.
Societal consciousness should first separate these two het-
erogeneous layers of the phenomenon by means of analysis and
scientific evaluation effected upon them. Such a correct and
selective understanding should become part and parcel of all
nations’ consciousness in some appropriately accessible form.
This would correspondingly reinforce their capacity for inde-
pendent orientation within today’s complicated reality by
means of discriminating such phenomena in keeping with its
nature. This will bring about a correction in moral and world
view attitudes. Concentrating our efforts upon the pathological
phenomenon shall then produce proper understanding and suf-
ficiently complete results.
The absence of this basic discrimination in political opera-
tions is an error leading to wasted effort. We may not agree
with ideologies, since all nineteenth-century political ideolo-
gies oversimplified social reality to the point of crippling it,
even in their original form, not to mention their pathologically
deformed versions. The foreground should nevertheless be
occupied by an identification of their role within the macroso-
cial phenomenon; analysis, criticism, and even, more particu-
larly, combating them can be placed in the background. Any
discussions regarding directions needed to change social struc-
tures may be held concurrently as long as they take this basic
separation of phenomena into account. Thus corrected, social
consciousness can effect a solution to these problems more
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easily, and social groups which are intransigent today will be-
come more amenable to compromise.
Once a mentally ill person has been successfully cured of
his illness, we often try to restore the former patient to the
world of his more real convictions. The psychotherapist then
searches the delusionally caricaturized world for the primeval
and always more sensible contents, thereupon building a bridge
right over the period of madness to a now healthy reality. Such
