Andrew Lobaczewski - Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes
Utterances like these inspire aversion among cultivated and
logical people, who then tend to avoid the paranoid types.
However, the power of the paranoid lies in the fact that they
easily enslave less critical minds, e.g. people with other kinds
of psychological deficiencies, who have been victims of the
egotistical influence of individuals with character disorders,
and, in particular, a large segment of young people.
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A proletarian may perceive this power to enslave to be a
kind of victory over higher-class people and thus take the para-
noid person’s side. However, this is not the normal reaction
among the common people, where perception of psychological
reality occurs no less often than among intellectuals.
In sum then, the response of accepting paranoid argumenta-
tion is qualitatively more frequent in reverse proportion to the
civilization level of the community in question, although it
never approaches the majority. Nevertheless, paranoid indi-
viduals become aware of their enslaving influence through
experience and attempt to take advantage of it in a pathologi-
cally egotistic manner.
We know today that the psychological mechanism of para-
noid phenomena is twofold: one is caused by damage to the
brain tissue, the other is functional or behavioral. Within the
above-mentioned process of rehabilitation, any brain-tissue
lesion causes a certain slackening of accurate thinking and, as a
consequence, of the personality structure. Most typical are
those cases caused by an aggression in the diencephalon37 by
various pathological factors, resulting in its permanently de-
creased tonal ability, and similarly of the tonus of inhibition in
the brain cortex. Particularly during sleepless nights, runaway
thoughts give rise to a paranoid changed view of human reality,
as well as to ideas which can be either gently naive or violently
revolutionary. Let us call this kind paranoid characteropathy.
In persons free of brain tissue lesions, such phenomena
most frequently occur as a result of being reared by people with
paranoid characteropathia, along with the psychological terror
of their childhood. Such psychological material is then assimi-
lated creating the rigid stereotypes of abnormal experiencing.
This makes it difficult for thought and world view to develop
normally, and the terror-blocked contents become transformed
into permanent, functional, congestive centers.
Ivan Pavlov comprehended all kinds of paranoid states in a
manner similar to this functional model without being aware of
this basic and primary cause. He nevertheless provided a vivid
37 The posterior division of the forebrain; connects the cerebral hemispheres
with the mesencephalon; the region of the brain that includes the epithala-
mus, thalamus, and hypothalamus. [Editor’s note.]
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description of paranoid characters and the above-mentioned
ease with which paranoid individuals suddenly tear away from
factual discipline and proper thought-processes. Those readers
of his work on the subject who are sufficiently familiar with
Soviet conditions glean yet another historical meaning from his
little book. Its intent appears obvious. The author dedicated his
work, with no word of inscription, of course, to the chief model
of a paranoid personality: the revolutionary leader Lenin,
whom the scientist knew well. As a good psychologist, Pavlov
could predict that he would not be the object of revenge, since
the paranoid mind will block out the egocentric associations.
He was thus able to die a natural death.
Lenin should nevertheless be included with the first and
most characteristic kind of paranoid personality, i.e. most
probably due to diencephalic brain damage. Vassily Gross-
man38 describes him more or less as follows:
Symptom:
Lenin was always tactful, gentle, and
polite, but simultaneously characterized
Asthenization.
by an excessively sharp, ruthless, and
Fixation and stereotypia.
brutal attitude to political opponents. He
never allowed any possibility that they
38 Vassily Grossman was a Soviet citizen, a Ukrainian Jew born in 1905. A
Communist, he became a war correspondent, working for the army paper Red
Star - a job which took him to the front lines of Stalingrad and ultimately to
Berlin. He was among the first to see the results of the death camps, and
published the first account of a death camp - Treblinka - in any language.
After the war, he seems to have lost his faith. He wrote his immense novel,
Life and Fate (Zhizn i Sudba) in the 1950s and - in the period of the Krush-
chev thaw, which had seen Alexander Solzhenitsyn allowed to publish A Day
on the Life of Ivan Denisovich - he submitted the manuscript to a literary
journal in 1960 for publication. But Solzhenitsyn was one thing, Grossman
another: his manuscript was confiscated, as were the sheets of carbon paper
and typewriter ribbons he had used to write it. Suslov, the Politbureau mem-
ber in charge of ideology, is reported as having said it could not be published
for 200 years. However, it was smuggled out on microfilm to the west by
Vladimir Voinovich, and published, first in France in 1980, then in English in
1985.
Why the 200 year ban? Because Life and Fate commits what was still, in a
‘liberal’ environment, the unthinkable sin of arguing for the moral equiva-
lence of Nazism and Soviet communism. [Editor’s note.]
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113
might be even minimally right, nor that
Pathological egotism.
he might be even minimally wrong. He
would often call his opponents huck-
Paramoralisms.
sters, lackeys, servant-boys, mercenar-
ies, agents, or Judases bribed for thirty
pieces of silver. He made no attempt to
persuade his opponents during a dis-
pute. He communicated not with them,
Spellbinding and of con-
but rather with those witnessing the
sciousness and its effects.
dispute, in order to ridicule and com-
promise his adversaries. Sometimes
such witnesses were just a few people,
sometimes thousands of delegates to a
Lack of the self- criticism.
congress, sometimes millions worth
throngs of newspaper readers.
~~~
Frontal characteropathy: The frontal areas of the cerebral
cortex (10A and B acc. to the Brodmann division) are virtually
present in no creature except man; they are composed of the
phylogenetically youngest nervous tissue. Their cyto-
architecture is similar to the much older visual projection areas
on the opposite pole of the brain. This suggests some functional
similarity. The author has found a relatively easy way to test
this psychological function, which enables us to grasp a certain
number of imaginary elements in our field of consciousness
and subject them to internal contemplation. The capacity of this
act of internal projection varies greatly from one person to
another, manifesting a statistical correlation with similar varie-
gation in the anatomical extent of such areas. The correlation
between this capacity and general intelligence is much lower.
As described by researchers (Luria et al.), the functions of
these areas, thought-process acceleration and coordination,
seem to result from this basic function.
Damage to this area occurred rather frequently: at or near
birth, especially for premature infants, and later in life as a
result of various causes. The number of such perinatal brain
tissue lesions has been significantly reduced due to improved
medical care for pregnant women and newborns. The spectacu-
lar ponerogenic role which results from character disorders
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caused by this can thus be considered somewhat characteristic
of past generations and primitive cultures.
Brain cortex damage in these areas selectively impairs the
above mentioned function without impairing memory, associa-
tive capacity, or, in particular, such instinct-based feelings and
functions as, for instance, the ability to intuit a psychological
situation. The general intelligence of an individual is thus not
greatly reduced. Children with such a defect are almost normal
students; difficulties emerge suddenly in upper grades and af-
fect principally these parts of the curriculum which place bur-
den on the above function.
The pathological character of such people, generally con-
taining a component of hysteria, develops through the years.
The non-damaged psychological functions become overdevel-
oped to compensate, which means that instinctive and affective
reactions predominate. Relatively vital people become belliger-
ent, risk-happy, and brutal in both word and deed.
Persons with an innate talent for intuiting psychological
situations tend to take advantage of this gift in an egotistical
and ruthless fashion. In the thought process of such people, a
short cut way develops which bypasses the handicapped func-
tion, thus leading from associations directly to words, deeds,
and decisions which are not subject to any dissuasion. Such
individuals interpret their talent for intuiting situations and
making split-second oversimplified decisions as a sign of their
superiority compared to normal people, who need to think for
long time, experiencing self-doubt and conflicting motivations.
The fate of such creatures does not deserve to be pondered
long.
Such “Stalinistic characters” traumatize and actively spell-
bind others, and their influence finds it exceptionally easy to
bypass the controls of common sense. A large proportion of
people tend to credit such individuals with special powers,
thereby succumbing to their egotistic beliefs. If a parent mani-
fests such a defect, no matter how minimal, all the children in
the family evidence anomalies in personality development.
The author studied an entire generation of older, educated,
people wherein the source of such influence was the eldest
sister who suffered perinatal damage of the frontal centers.
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115
From early childhood, her four younger brothers exposed to
and assimilated pathologically altered psychological material,
including their sister’s growing component of hysteria. They
retained well into their sixties the deformities of personality
and world view, as well as the hysterical features thus caused,
whose intensity diminished in proportion to the greater differ-
ence in age.
Subconscious selection of information made it impossible
for these men to apprehend any critical comments regarding
their sister’s character; also, any such comments were consid-
ered to be an offense to the family honor.
The brothers accepted as real their sister’s pathological de-
lusions and complaints about her “bad” husband (who was
actually a decent person) and her son, in whom she found a
scapegoat to avenge her failures. They thereby participated in a
world of vengeful emotions, considering their sister a com-
pletely normal person whom they were prepared to defend by
the most unsavory methods, if need be, against any suggestion
of her abnormality. They thought normal woman were insipid
and naive, good for nothing but sexual conquest. Not one
among the brothers ever created a healthy family or developed
even average wisdom of life.
The character development of these people also included
many other factors that were dependent upon the time and
place in which they were reared: the turn of the century, with a
patriotic Polish father and German mother who obeyed con-
temporary custom by formally accepting her husband’s nation-
ality, but who still remained an advocate of the militarism, and
customary acceptance of the intensified hysteria which covered
Europe at the time. That was the Europe of the three Emperors:
the splendor of three people with limited intelligence, two of
whom revealed pathological traits. The concept of “honor”
sanctified triumph. Staring at someone too long was sufficient
pretext for a duel. These brothers were thus raised to be valiant
duelists covered with saber-scars; however, the slashes they
inflicted upon their opponents were more frequent and much
worse.
When people with a humanistic education pondered the per-
sonalities of this family, they concluded that the causes for this
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formation should be sought in contemporary time and customs.
If, however, the sister had not suffered brain damage and the
pathological factor had not existed (exclusionary hypothesis),
their personalities would have developed more normally even
during those times. They would have become more critical and
more amenable to the values of healthy reasoning and humanis-
tic contents. They would have founded better families and re-
ceived more sensible advice from wives more wisely chosen.
