Andrew Lobaczewski - Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes
the present and are thus incapable of doing much good for the
future. Let us therefore direct our minds toward the future,
beyond the ostensibly insuperable realities of present age.
There are many advantages to be gained from constructively
planning the future, including the more distant time perspec-
tive, if we can foresee its shape and facilitate pinpointed solu-
tions. This requires that we properly analyze reality and make
correct predictions, i.e. discipline of thought so as to exclude
any subconscious data manipulation and any excessive influ-
ence from our emotions and preferences. Elaborating such an
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original vision so as to make it a reified blueprint for a new
reality is the best way to educate human minds for other simi-
larly difficult tasks in the concrete future.
This would also permit timely elimination of many differ-
ences of opinion which could later lead to violent conflicts;
these sometimes result from an insufficiently realistic apper-
ception of the present state of affairs, various pipe-dream atti-
tudes, or propaganda activities. If it is logically developed and
avoids collisions with an adequately objective understanding of
phenomena which have already been discussed in part, such a
constructive vision can come true in future reality.
Such planning should be reminiscent of a well-organized
technical project, wherein the designers’ work is preceded by
an examination of conditions and possibilities. Executing the
work also requires time-frame planning in accordance with the
appropriate technical data and the human safety factor. We
know from experience that increasing the scope and accuracy
of design activities makes their execution and utility more prof-
itable. Similarly, the more modern and inventive constructions
generally prove more effective than tradition-bound ones.
The design and construction of a new social system should
also be based upon proper distinctions of reality and should
receive appropriate elaboration in many details in order to
prove effective in execution and action. This will require aban-
doning some traditional customs of political life which allowed
human emotions and egoism to play too great a role. Creative
reasoning has become the sole and necessary solution, since it
determines real data and finds novel solutions without losing
the ability to act under real-life conditions.
The absence of such prior constructive effort would lead
both to knowledge gaps about the reality to be operated in and
to a shortage of people with the crucial preparation needed for
creating new systems. Particularly for a nation now affected by
pathocracy, when regaining the right to decide one’s own fate,
would be improvisation which is expensive and dangerous.
Violent disputes among the adherents of various structural
concepts which may often be unrealistic, immature, or outdated
because they have lost their historical significance in the mean-
time, may even cause a civil war.
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Wherever old social systems created by historical processes
have been almost totally destroyed by the introduction of state
capitalism and the development of pathocracy, that nation’s
social and psychological structure has been obliterated. The
replacement is a pathological structure reaching into every
corner of a country, causing all areas of life to degenerate and
become unproductive. Under such conditions, it proves unfea-
sible to reconstruct a social system based on outdated traditions
and the unrealistic expectations that such a structure does exist.
What is needed is a design of action which will first permit the
fastest possible reconstruction of this basic socio-psychological
structure and then allow it to participate in social life’s
autonomization process.
The past has furnished us virtually no pattern for this indis-
pensable activity, which can thus be based only upon the more
general kind of data described at the beginning of this work.
We are therefore immediately faced with the need to rely upon
modern science. At least one generation’s worth of time has
also been lost, and with it the evolution which should have
creatively transformed the old structural forms. We should thus
be guided by imaginings of what should have happened if a
given society had had the right to free development during this
time, rather than by data from the past, presently outdated,
albeit historically real.
In the meantime, many divergent ways of thinking have
taken root in those countries. Private capitalism’s world of
social institutions has become distant and hard to understand.
There is no longer anybody left who could be a capitalist or act
independently within such a system. Democracy has become an
imperfectly comprehended slogan for communicating within
the society of normal people. The workers cannot imagine the
reprivatization of great industrial plants and oppose any efforts
in that direction. They believe that rendering the country inde-
pendent would bring them participation in both management
and profits. Those societies have accepted some social institu-
tions, such as a public health service and free education
through university level. They want the operation of such insti-
tutions reformed by subordinating them to healthy common
sense and appropriate scientific criteria as well as tried –and
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true elements of valid traditions. What should be restored is the
general laws of nature which should govern societies; the struc-
tural forms should be reconstructed in a more modern manner,
which will facilitate their acceptance.
Some transformations already made are historically irre-
versible. Regaining the right to shape one’s own future would
thus create a dangerous and even tragic “system void”. A pre-
monition of such a critical situation already worries people in
those countries, stifling their will to act; this situation should be
prevented immediately. The only way is well-organized effort
in analytical and constructive thought directed toward a socie-
tal system with highly modern economic and political founda-
tions.
Nations suffering under pathocratic governments would also
participate in such a constructive effort, which would represent
excellent input to the above-mentioned general task of treating
our sick world. Undeterred in our hope that the time will soon
come when such nations will revert to normal human systems,
we should build a social system with a view to what will hap-
pen after pathocracy.
This social system will be different from and better than
anything which existed earlier. A realistic vision of a better
future and participation in creating it will heal battered human
souls and bring order into thought processes. This constructive
work trains people to govern themselves under such different
conditions and knocks the weapon out of the hands of anyone
who serves evil, increasing the latter’s feeling of frustration
and an awareness that his pathological work is nearing an end.
A careful reading of this book may cause us to discern the
outlines of a creative vision of such a future societal system so
sorely needed by nations suffering under pathocratic rule; if so,
this represents a reward for the author’s effort rather than re-
sults of pure chance. Just such a vision accompanied me
throughout the period of my work on this book (although the
latter nowhere indicates a name nor any more precise details
for it), rendering assistance and proving a useful support in the
future. In some way, it is thus present on the pages and be-
tween the lines of this work.
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Such a social system of the future would have to guarantee
its citizens wide scope personal freedom and an open door to
utilizing their creative possibilities in both individual and col-
lective efforts. At the same time, however, it must not indicate
the well known weaknesses manifested by a democracy in its
domestic and foreign policy. Not only should individuals’ per-
sonal interest and the common good be appropriately balanced
in such a system; they should be woven right into the overall
picture of social life at the level where an understanding of its
laws causes any discrepancy between them to disappear. The
opinion of the wide mass of the citizenry, dictated primarily by
the voices of basic intelligence and dependent upon the natural
world view, should be balanced by the skills of people who
utilize an objective cognition of reality and possess the appro-
priate training in their special areas. Appropriate and well
thought out system solutions should be used for this purpose.
The foundations for practical solutions within such an im-
proved system would contain criteria such as creating the right
conditions for enriched development of human personalities
including the psychological world view, whose societal role
has already been adduced. Individual socio-professional adap-
tation, the creation of an interpersonal network, and a healthy
active socio-psychological structure should be facilitated to the
maximum possible extent.
Structural, legal, and economic solutions should be consid-
ered in such a way that fulfilling these criteria would also open
the door for an individual’s optimal self-realization within so-
cial life, which would simultaneously be for the good of the
community. Other traditional criteria such as the dynamics of
economic development will thereupon prove secondary to these
more general values. The result of this would be the nation’s
economic development, political skill, and creative role in the
international sphere.
The priorities in terms of value criteria would thus shift
consistently in the direction of psychological, social, and moral
data. This is in keeping with the spirit of the times, but actual
execution thereof demands imaginative effort and constructive
thought in order to achieve the above-mentioned practical
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goals. After all, everything begins and ends within the human
psyche.
Such a system would have to be evolutionary by nature, as
it would be based upon an acceptance of evolution as a law of
nature. Natural evolutionary factors would play an important
role therein, such as the course of cognition continually proc-
essing from more primitive and easily accessible data to more
actual, intrinsic, and subtle matters. The principle of evolution
would have to be imprinted firmly enough upon the basic phi-
losophical foundations of such a system so as to protect it con-
sistently from future revolution.
Such a social system would by nature be more resistant to
the danger of having macrosocial pathological phenomena
develop within. Its foundations would be an improved devel-
opment of the psychological world view and society’s links
structure coupled with a scientific and social consciousness of
the essence of such phenomena. This should furnish the foun-
dation for mature methods of education. Such a system should
also have built-in permanent institutions which were heretofore
unknown and whose task will be preventing the development
of ponerogenic processes within society, particularly among
governing authorities.
A “Council of Wise Men” would be an institution com-
posed of several people with extremely high general, medical,
and psychological qualifications; it would have the right to
examine the physical and psychological health of candidates
before the latter are elected to the highest government posi-
tions. A negative council opinion should be hard to challenge.
That same council would serve the head of state, the legislative
authorities, and the executives regarding counsel in matters
entering its scope of scientific competence. It would also ad-
dress the public in important matters of biological and psycho-
logical life, indicating essential moral aspects. Such a council’s
duties would also include maintaining contact and discussions
with the religious authorities in such matters.
The security system for persons with various psychological
deviations would be in charge of making their life easier while
skillfully limiting their participation in the processes of the
genesis of evil. After all, such persons are not impervious to
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309
persuasion provided it is based upon proper knowledge of the
matter. Such an approach would also help progressively dimin-
ish societies’ gene pool burdens of hereditary aberrations. The
Council of Wise Men would furnish the scientific supervision
for such activities.
The legal system would be subjected to wide ranging trans-
formations in virtually every area, progressing from formulae
whose establishment was based on a society’s natural world
view and ancient tradition to legal solutions based upon an
objective apperception of reality, particularly the psychological
one. As a result, law studies would have to undergo true mod-
ernization, since the law would become a scientific discipline
sharing the same epistemological principles as all the other
sciences.
What is now called “penal” law would be superseded by
another kind of law with a completely modernized foundation
based on an understanding of the genesis of evil and of the
personalities of people who commit evil. Such law would be
significantly more humanitarian while furnishing individuals
and societies more effective protection from undeserved abuse.
