Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes



Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for
Political Purposes

by Andrew M. Lobaczewski, Ph.D.

with commentary and additional quoted material
by Laura Knight-Jadczyk


http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski.htm
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This article is a two-parter. I should notify the reader that the
really good stuff is in the second part, so don't skip it!

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Andrew M. Lobczewski's book will be available from Red Pill Press in
the Spring of 2006.

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Andrew M. Lobaczewski, Nov. 2005



Pathocracy is a disease of great social movements followed by entire
societies, nations, and empires. In the course of human history, it has
affected social, political, and religious movements as well as the
accompanying ideologies... and turned them into caricatures of
themselves.... This occurred as a result of the ... participation of
pathological agents in a pathodynamically similar process. That
explains why all the pathocracies of the world are, and have been, so
similar in their essential properties.

....Identifying these phenomena through history and properly qualifying
them according to their true nature and contents - not according to the
ideology in question, which succumbed to the process of
caricaturization - is a job for historians. [...]

The actions of [pathocracy] affect an entire society, starting with the
leaders and infiltrating every town, business, and institution. The
pathological social structure gradually covers the entire country
creating a "new class" within that nation. This privileged class
[of pathocrats] feels permanently threatened by the "others", i.e.
by the majority of normal people. Neither do the pathocrats entertain
any illusions about their personal fate should there be a return to the
system of normal man. [Andrew M. Lobaczewski, Ph.D. (psychology);
Political Ponerology: A science on the nature of evil adjusted for
political purposes]
------------------------------------------------------------------------


The word "psychopath" generally evokes images of the barely
restrained - yet surprisingly urbane - Dr. Hannibal Lecter of
"Silence of the Lambs" fame. I will admit that this was the image
that came to my mind whenever I heard the word. But I was wrong, and I
was to learn this lesson quite painfully by direct experience. The
exact details are chronicled elsewhere; what is important is that this
experience was probably one of the most painful and instructive
episodes of my life and it enabled me to overcome a block in my
awareness of the world around me and those who inhabit it.

Regarding blocks to awareness, I need to state for the record that I
have spent 30 years studying psychology, history, culture, religion,
myth and the so-called paranormal. I also have worked for many years
with hypnotherapy - which gave me a very good mechanical knowledge of
how the mind/brain of the human being operates at very deep levels. But
even so, I was still operating with certain beliefs firmly in place
that were shattered by my research into psychopathy. I realized that
there was a certain set of ideas that I held about human beings that
were sacrosanct. I even wrote about this once in the following way:


...my work has shown me that the vast majority of people want to
do good, to experience good things, think good thoughts, and make
decisions with good results. And they try with all their might to do
so! With the majority of people having this internal desire, why the
Hell isn't it happening?


I was naïve, I admit. There were many things I did not know that I
have learned since I penned those words. But even at that time I was
aware of how our own minds can be used to deceive us.

Now, what beliefs did I hold that made me a victim of a psychopath? The
first and most obvious one is that I truly believed that deep inside,
all people are basically "good" and that they "want to do good,
to experience good things, think good thoughts, and make decisions with
good results. And they try with all their might to do so..."

As it happens, this is not true as I - and everyone involved in our
working group - learned to our sorrow, as they say. But we also learned
to our edification. In order to come to some understanding of exactly
what kind of human being could do the things that were done to me (and
others close to me), and why they might be motivated - even driven - to
behave this way, we began to research the psychology literature for
clues because we needed to understand for our own peace of mind.

If there is a psychological theory that can explain vicious and harmful
behavior, it helps very much for the victim of such acts to have this
information so that they do not have to spend all their time feeling
hurt or angry. And certainly, if there is a psychological theory that
helps a person to find what kind of words or deeds can bridge the chasm
between people, to heal misunderstandings, that is also a worthy goal.
It was from such a perspective that we began our extensive work on the
subjects of narcissism which then led to the study of psychopathy.

Of course, we didn't start out with such a "diagnosis" or label
for what we were witnessing. We started out with observations and
searched the literature for clues, for profiles, for anything that
would help us to understand the inner world of a human being - actually
a group of human beings - who seemed to be utterly depraved and unlike
anything we had ever encountered before.
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Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no
feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense
of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family
members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your
whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral
action you had taken.

And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you,
except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like
gullible fools.

Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other
people that your psychological makeup is radically different from
theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal
among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is
nearly effortless.

You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and
you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice
water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their
personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.

In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and
your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of
conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.

You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the
majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most
likely remain undiscovered.

How will you live your life?

What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the
corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?

The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be,
because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous
are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or
not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams
and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some
are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between.
There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are
motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]

Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.

If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune,
and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and
sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of
unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from
far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]

Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the
population....

The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43
percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a
fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality. The
high-profile disorders classed as schizophrenia occur in only about 1
percent of [the population] - a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial
personality - and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say
that the rate of colon cancer in the United States, considered
"alarmingly high," is about 40 per 100,000 - one hundred times lower
than the rate of antisocial personality.

The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect
on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us
who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who
constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts,
our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.

Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if
they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers,
serial killers, mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken
the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe
even put to death by our legal system.

We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger
number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not
blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides
little defense.

Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an
ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one's boss about a
coworker. But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is
chilling. Simple and profound, the link is the absence of the inner
mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a
choice we view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish.

Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the
kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and
methodically set about to hurt another person.

Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves,
whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.

The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division,
arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender.

What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from
one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a
contemporary robber baron - or what makes the difference betwen an
ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social
status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.

What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an
utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most
evolved of all humanizing functions. [Martha Stout, Ph.D., The
Sociopath Next Door] (highly recommended)
------------------------------------------------------------------------



We did not have the advantage of Dr. Stout's book at the beginning of
our research project. We did, of course, have Hare and Cleckley and
Guggenbuhl-Craig and others. There are still more that have appeared in
the past couple of years in response to the questions being formulated
by many psychologists and psychiatrists about the state of our world
and the possibility that there is some essential difference between
such individuals as George W. Bush and many so-called Neocons, and the
rest of us.

Dr. Stout's book has one of the longest explanations as to why none of
her examples resemble any actual persons that I have ever read. And
then, in a very early chapter, she describes a "composite" case where
the subject spent his childhood blowing up frogs with fire-crackers. It
is widely known that George W. Bush did this, so one naturally
wonders...

In any event, even without Dr. Stout's work, at the time we were
studying the matter, we realized that what we were learning was very
important to everyone because as the data was assembled, we saw that
the clues, the profiles, revealed that the issues we were facing were
faced by everyone at one time or another, to one extent or another. We
also began to realize that the profiles that emerged also describe
rather accurately many individuals who seek positions of power in
fields of authority, most particularly politics and commerce. That's
really not so surprising an idea, but it honestly hadn't occurred to
us until we saw the patterns and recognized them in the behaviors of
numerous historical figures, and lately including George W. Bush and
members of his administration.

Current day statistics tell us that there are more psychologically sick
people than healthy ones. If you take a sampling of individuals in any
given field, you are likely to find that a significant number of them
display pathological symptoms to one extent or another. Politics is no
exception, and by its very nature, would tend to attract more of the
pathological "dominator types" than other fields. That is only
logical, and we began to realize that it was not only logical, it was
horrifyingly accurate; horrifying because pathology among people in
power can have disastrous effects on all of the people under the
control of such pathological individuals. And so, we decided to write
about this subject and publish it on the Internet.

As the material went up, letters from our readers began to come in
thanking us for putting a name to what was happening to them in their
personal lives as well as helping them to understand what was happening
in a world that seems to have gone completely mad. We began to think
that it was an epidemic and in a certain sense, we were right; just not
in the way we thought. If an individual with a highly contagious
illness works in a job that puts them in contact with the public, an
epidemic is the result. In the same way, if an individual in a position
of political power is a psychopath, he or she can create an epidemic of
psychopathology in people who are not, essentially, psychopathic. Our
ideas along this line were soon to receive confirmation from an
unexpected source. I received an email from a Polish psychologist who
wrote as follows:
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Dear Ladies and Gentlemen.

I have got your Special Research Project on psychopathy by my
computer. You are doing a most important and valuable work for the
future of nations.[...]

I am a very aged clinical psychologist. Forty years ago I took
part in a secret investigation of the real nature and psychopathology
of the macro-social phenomenon called "Communism". The other
researchers were the scientists of the previous generation who are now
passed away.

The profound study of the nature psychopathy, which played the
essential and inspirational part in this macro-social psychopathologic
phenomenon, and distinguishing it from other mental anomalies, appeared
to be the necessary preparation for understanding the entire nature of
the phenomenon.

The large part of the work, you are doing now, was done in those
times. ...

I am able to provide you with a most valuable scientific
document, useful for your purposes. It is my book "POLITICAL
PONEROLOGY - A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political
purposes". You may also find copy of this book in the Library of
Congress and in some university and public libraries in the USA.

Be so kind and contact me so that I may mail a copy to you.

Very truly yours!

Andrew M. £obaczewski
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I promptly wrote a reply. A couple of weeks later the manuscript
arrived in the mail.

As I read, I realized that what I was holding in my hand was
essentially a chronicle of a descent into hell, transformation, and
triumphant return to the world with knowledge of that hell that was
priceless for the rest of us, particularly in this day and time when it
seems evident that a similar hell is enveloping the planet. The risks
that were taken by the group of scientists that did the research on
which this book is based are beyond the comprehension of most of us.
Many of them were young, just starting in their careers when the Nazis
began to stride in their hundred league jackboots across Europe. These
researchers lived through that, and then when the Nazis were driven out
and replaced by the Communists under the heel of Stalin, they faced
years of oppression the likes of which those of us today who are
choosing to take a stand against the Bush Reich cannot even imagine.
And so, since they were there, and they lived through it and brought
back information to the rest of us, it may well save our lives to have
a map to guide us in the falling darkness. It is in this context that I
would like to bring up how Dr. Lobczewski discusses the value of the
close and clinical study of evil in his book before we actually turn to
the subject of Ponerology:
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This new science is incalculably rich in casuist detail... It
contains knowledge and a description of the phenomenon in the
categories of the natural world-view, correspondingly modified in
accordance with the need to understand [many] matters...

The development of this familiarity with the phenomenon is
accompanied by development of communicative language, by means of which
society can stay informed and issue warnings of danger. A third
language thus appears alongside the ideological doubletalk ... in part,
it borrows names used by the official ideology in their transformed
modified meanings. In part, this language operates with words borrowed
from still more lively circulating jokes. In spite of its strangeness,
this language becomes a useful means of communication and plays a part
in regenerating societal links. ... However, in spite of efforts on the
part of literati and journalists, this language remains only
communicative inside; it becomes hermetic outside the scope of the
phenomenon, incomprehensible to people lacking the appropriate personal
experience. [...]

This new science, expressed in language derived from a deviant
reality, is something foreign to people who wish to understand this
macro-social phenomenon but think in the categories of the countries of
normal man. Attempts to understand this language produce a certain
feeling of helplessness which gives rise to the tendency of creating
ones own doctrines, built from concepts of one's own world and a
certain amount of appropriately co-opted pathocratic propaganda
material. Such a doctrine - an example would be the American
anti-Communist doctrine - makes it even more difficult to understand
that other reality. May the objective description adduced herein enable
them to overcome the impasse thus engendered.[...]

The specific role of certain individuals during such times is
worth pointing out; they participated in the discovery of the nature of
this new reality and helped others find the right path. They had a
normal nature but an unfortunate childhood, being subjected very early
to the domination of individuals with various psychological deviations,
including pathological egotism and methods of terrorizing others. The
new rulership system struck such people as a large-scale societal
multiplication of what they knew from individual experience. From the
very outset, they therefore saw this reality much more prosaically,
immediately treating the ideology in accordance with the paralogistic
stories well known to them, whose purpose was to cloak bitter reality
of their youth experiences. They soon reached the truth, since the
genesis and nature of evil are analogous irrespective of the social
scale in which it appears.

Such people are rarely understood in happy societies, but there
they became useful; their explanations and advice proved accurate and
were transmitted to others joining the network of this apperceptive
heritage. However, their own suffering was doubled, since this was too
much of a similar kind of abuse for one life to handle. ...

Finally, society sees the appearance of individuals who have
collected exceptional intuitive perception and practical knowledge in
the area of how pathocrats think and such a system of rule operates.

Some of them become so proficient in the deviant psychopath
language and its idiomatics that they are able to use it, much like a
foreign language they have learned well. Since they are to decipher the
rulership's intentions, such people thereupon offer advice to people
who are having trouble with the authorities. These usually
disinterested advocates of the society of normal people play a
irreplaceable role in the life of society. The pathocrats, however, can
never learn to think in normal human categories. At the same time, the
ability to predict the ways of reaction of such an authority also leads
to the conclusion that the system is rigidly causative and lacking in
the natural freedom of choice. [...]

I was once referred a patient who had been an inmate in a Nazi
concentration camp. She came back from that hell in such exceptionally
good condition that she was still able to marry and bear three
children. However, her child-rearing methods were so extremely
iron-fisted as to be much too reminiscent of the concentration camp
life so stubbornly per-severing in former prisoners. The children's
reaction was neurotic protest and aggressiveness against other
children.

During the mother's psychotherapy, we recalled the figures of
male and female SS officers to her mind, pointing out their
psychopathic characteristics (such people were primary recruits). In
order to help her eliminate their pathological material from her
person, I furnished her with approximate statistical data regarding the
appearance of such individuals within the population as whole. This
helped her reach a more objective view of that reality and reestablish
trust in the society of normal people. ...

Parallel to the development of practical knowledge and a
language of insider communication, other psychological phenomena take
form; they are truly significant in the transformation of social life
under pathocratic rule, and discerning them is essential if one wishes
to understand individuals and nations fated to live under such
conditions and to evaluate the situation in the political sphere. They
include people's psychological immunization and their adaptation to
life under such deviant conditions.

The methods of psychological terror (that specific pathocratic
art), the techniques of pathological arrogance, and the striding
roughshod into other people's souls initially have such traumatic
effects that people are deprived of their capacity for purposeful
reaction; I have already adduced the psychophysiological aspects of
such states. Ten or twenty years later, analogous behavior can be
recognized as well-known buffoonery and does not deprive the victim of
his ability to think and react purposefully. His answers are usually
well-thought-out strategies, issued from the position of a normal
person's superiority and often laced with ridicule. Man can look
suffering and even death in the eye with the required calm. A dangerous
weapon falls out of ruler's hands.

We have to understand that this process of immunization is not
merely a result of the above described increase in practical knowledge
of the macro-social phenomenon. It is the effect of a many-layered,
gradual process of growth in knowledge, familiarization with the
phenomenon, creation of the appropriate reactive habits, and
self-control, with an overall conception and moral principles being
worked out in the meantime. After several years, the same stimuli which
formerly caused chilly spiritual impotence or mental paralysis now
provoke the desire to gargle with something strong so as to get rid of
this filth.

It was a time, when many people dreamed of finding some pill
which would make it easier to endure dealing with the authorities or
attending the forced indoctrination sessions generally chaired by a
psychopathic character. Some antidepressants did in fact prove to have
the desired effect. Twenty years later, this had been forgotten
entirely.

When I was arrested for the first time in 1951, force,
arrogance, and psychopathic methods of forcible confession deprived me
almost entirely of my self-defense capabilities. My brain stopped
functioning after only a few days' arrest without water, to such a
point that I couldn't even properly remember the incident which
resulted in my sudden arrest. I was not even aware that it had been
purposely provoked and that conditions permitting self-defense did in
fact exist. They did almost any-thing they wanted to me.

When I was arrested for the last time in 1968, I was
interrogated by five fierce-looking security functionaries. At one
particular moment, after thinking through their predicted reactions, I
let my gaze take in each face sequentially with great attentiveness.
The most important one asked me, "What's on your mind, buster, staring
at us like that?" I answered without any fear of consequences: "I'm
just wondering why so many of you gentleman's careers end up in a
psychiatric hospital." They were taken aback for a while, whereupon the
same man exclaimed, "Because it's such damned horrible work!" "I am of
the opinion that it's the other way round", I calmly responded. Then I
was taken back to my cell.

Three days later, I had the opportunity to talk to him again,
but this time he was much more respectful. Then he ordered me to be
taken away - outside, as it turned out. I rode the streetcar home past
a large park, still unable to believe my eyes. Once in my room, I lay
down on the bed; the world was not quite real yet, but exhausted people
fall asleep quickly. When I awoke, I spoke out loud: Dear God, aren't
you supposed to be in charge here in this world!"

At that time, I knew not only that up to 1/4 of all secret
police officials wind up in psychiatric hospitals. I also knew that
their "occupational disease" is the congestive dementia formerly
encountered only among old prostitutes. Man cannot violate the natural
human feelings inside him with impunity, no matter what kind of
profession he performs. From that view-point, Comrade Captain was
partially right. At the same time, however, my reactions had become
resistant, a far cry from what they had been seventeen years earlier.

All these transformations of human consciousness and
unconsciousness result in individual and collective adaptations to
living under such systems. Under altered conditions of both material
and moral limitations, an existential resourcefulness emerges which is
prepared to overcome many difficulties. A new network of the society of
normal people is also created for self-help and mutual assistance.

This society acts in concert and is aware of the true state of
affairs; it begins to develop ways of influencing various elements of
authority and achieving goals which are socially useful. ...The opinion
that society is totally deprived of any influence upon government in
such a country is thus inaccurate. In reality, society does co-govern
to a certain extent, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing in its
attempt to create more tolerable living conditions. This, however,
occurs in a manner totally different from what happens in democratic
countries.

These processes: cognitive, psychological immunization, and
adaptation permit the creation of new interpersonal and societal links,
which operate within the scope of the large majority we have already
called the "society of normal people." These links extend discretely
into the world of the regime's middle class, among people who can be
trusted to a certain extent. ...

Exchange of information, warnings, and assistance encompasses
the entire society. Whoever is able to do so offers aid to anyone who
finds himself in trouble, often in such a way that the person helped
does not know who rendered the assistance. However, if he caused his
misfortune by his own lack of circumspect caution with regard to the
authorities, he meets with reproach, but not the withholding of
assistance.

It is possible to create such links because this new division of
society gives only limited consideration to factors such as the level
of talent or education or traditions attached to the former social
layers. Neither do reduced prosperity differences dissolve these links.
One side of this division contains those of the highest mental culture,
simple ordinary people, intellectuals, headwork specialists, factory
workers, and peasants joined by the common protest of their human
nature against the domination of a Para human experience and
governmental methods. These links engender interpersonal understanding
and fellow-feeling among people and social groups formerly divided by
economic differences and social traditions. The thought processes
serving these links are of more psychological character, able to
comprehend someone else's motivations. At the same time, the ordinary
folk retain respect for people who have been educated and represent
intellectual values. Certain social and moral values also appear, and
may prove to be permanent.

The genesis, however, of this great interpersonal solidarity
only becomes comprehensible once we already know the nature of the
pathological macro-social phenomenon which brought about the liberation
of such attitudes, complete with recognition of one's own humanity and
that of others. Another reflection suggests itself, namely how very
different these great links are from America's "competitive society...
------------------------------------------------------------------------

This work is so important that I believe that every normal human being
ought to read it for their own safety and mental hygiene. I am going to
present here some important excerpts from the book soon to be made
available in its entirety.
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Continue...

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski_2.htm

.