Andrew Lobaczewski - Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes

may be the ruling social system with its laws and customs

based on a more primitive tradition, or an imperialistic system

of rule. It may be, of course, simply another philosophical

movement often contaminated by the eccentricities of its foun-

der, who considers the facts to blame for not conforming to his

dialectical construct.

The Roman Empire, including its legal system and paucity

of psychological concepts, similarly contaminated the primary

homogeneous idea of Christianity. Christianity had to adapt to

coexistence with a social system wherein “ dura lex sed lex ”83,

rather than an understanding of human beings, decided a per-

son’s fate; this then led to the corruption of attempting to reach

the goals of the “Kingdom of God” by means of Roman impe-

rialistic methods.

The greater and truer the original ideology, the longer it

may be capable of nourishing and disguising from human criti-

cism that phenomenon which is the product of the specific

degenerative process. In a great and valuable ideology, the

danger for small minds is hidden; they can become the factors

of such preliminary degeneration, which opens the door to

invasion by pathological factors.

Thus, if we intend to understand the secondary ponerization

process and the kinds of human associations which succumb to

it, we must take great care to separate the original ideology

from its counterpart, or even caricature, created by the ponero-

genic process. Abstracting from any ideology, we must, by

83 The law [is] harsh, but [it is] the law.

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analogy, understand the essence of the process itself, which has

its own etiological causes which are potentially present in

every society, as well as characteristic developmental patho-

dynamics.

The Ponerization Process

Observation of the ponerization processes of various human

unions throughout history easily leads to the conclusion that the

initial step is a moral warping of the group’s ideational con-

tents . In analyzing the contamination of a group’s ideology, we

note first of all an infiltration of foreign, simplistic, and doctri-

naire contents, thereby depriving it of any healthy support for,

and trust in, the necessity of understanding of human nature.

This opens the way for invasion by pathological factors and the

ponerogenic role of their carriers.

The example of the Roman legal system vis a vis early

Christianity mentioned above, is a case in point. The Roman

imperial and legal civilization was overly attached to matter

and law, and created a legal system that was too rigid to ac-

commodate any real aspects of psychological and spiritual life.

This “earthy” foreign element infiltrated Christianity resulting

in the Catholic church adopting Imperial strategies to enforce

its system on others by violence.

This fact could justify the conviction of moralists that main-

taining a union’s ethical discipline and ideational purity is suf-

ficient protection against derailing or hurtling into an insuffi-

ciently comprehended world of error. Such a conviction strikes

a ponerologist as a unilateral oversimplification of an eternal

reality which is more complex. After all, the loosening of ethi-

cal and intellectual controls is sometimes a consequence of the

direct or indirect influence of the omnipresent factors of the

existence of deviants in any social group, along with some

other non-pathological human weaknesses.

Sometime during life, every human organism undergoes pe-

riods during which physiological and psychological resistance

declines, facilitating development of bacteriological infection

within. Similarly, a human association or social movement

undergoes periods of crisis which weaken its ideational and

moral cohesion. This may be caused by pressure on the part of

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169

other groups, a general spiritual crisis in the environment, or

intensification of its hysterical condition. Just as more stringent

sanitary measures are an obvious medical indication for a

weakened organism, the development of conscious control over

the activity of pathological factors is a ponerological indica-

tion. This is a crucial factor for prevention of tragedy during a

society’s periods of moral crisis.

For centuries, individuals exhibiting various psychological

anomalies have had the tendency to participate in the activities

of human unions. This is made possible on the one hand by

such group’s weaknesses, i.e. failure in adequate psychological

knowledge; on the other hand, it deepens the moral failings and

stifles the possibilities of utilizing healthy common sense and

understanding matters objectively. In spite of the resulting

tragedies and unhappiness, humanity has shown a certain pro-

gress, especially in the cognitive area; therefore, a ponerologist

may be cautiously optimistic. After all, by detecting and de-

scribing these aspects of the ponerization process of human

groups, which could not be understood until recently, we shall

be able to counteract such processes earlier and more effec-

tively. Again, depth and breadth of knowledge of human psy-

chological variations is crucial.

Any human group affected by the process described herein

is characterized by its increasing regression from natural com-

mon sense and the ability to perceive psychological reality.

Someone considering this in terms of traditional categories

might consider it an instance of “turning into half-wits” or the

development of intellectual deficiencies and moral failings. A

ponerological analysis of this process, however, indicates that

pressure is being applied to the more normal part of the asso-

ciation by pathological factors present in certain individuals

who have been allowed to participate in the group because the

lack of good psychological knowledge has not madated their

exclusion.

Thus, whenever we observe some group member being

treated with no critical distance, although he betrays one of the

psychological anomalies familiar to us, and his opinions being

treated as at least equal to those of normal people, although

they are based on a characteristically different view of human

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matters, we must derive the conclusion that this human group is

affected by a ponerogenic process and if measures are not

taken the process shall continue to its logical conclusion. We

shall treat this in accordance with the above described first

criterion of ponerology, which retains its validity regardless of

the qualitative and quantitative features of such a union: the

atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to pathologi-

cal individuals becomes an opening to their activities, and, at

the same time, a criterion for recognizing the association in

concern as ponerogenic.

Such a state of affairs simultaneously consists as a liminal

(watershed) situation, whereupon further damage to people’s

healthy common sense and critical moral faculties becomes

ever easier. Once a group has inhaled a sufficient dose of

pathological material to give birth to the conviction that these

not-quite-normal people are unique geniuses, it starts subject-

ing its more normal members to pressure characterized by cor-

responding paralogical and paramoral elements.

For many people, such pressure of collective opinion takes

on attributes of a moral criterion; for others, it represents a kind

of psychological terror ever more difficult to endure. The phe-

nomenon of counter-selection thus occurs in this phase of pon-

erization: individuals with a more normal sense of psychologi-

cal reality leave after entering into conflict with the newly

modified group; simultaneously, individuals with various psy-

chological anomalies join the group and easily find a way of

life there. The former feel “pushed into counter-revolutionary

positions”, and the latter can afford to remove their masks of

sanity ever more often.

People who have been thus thrown out of a ponerogenic as-

sociation because they were too normal suffer bitterly; they are

unable to understand their specific state. Their ideal, the reason

they joined the group, which constituted a part of the meaning

of life for them, has now been degraded, although they cannot

find a rational basis for this fact. They feel wronged; they

“fight against demons” they are not in a position to identify.

The fact is their personalities have already been modified to a

certain extent due to saturation by abnormal psychological

material, especially psychopathic material. They easily fall into

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171

the opposite extreme in such cases, because unhealthy emo-

tions rule their decisions. What they need is good psychologi-

cal information in order to find the path of reason and measure.

Based on a ponerologic understanding of their condition, psy-

chotherapy could provide rapid positive results. However, if

the union they left is succumbing to deep ponerization, a threat

looms over them: they may become the objects of revenge,

since they have “betrayed” a magnificent ideology.84

This is the stormy period of a group’s ponerization, fol-

lowed by a certain stabilization in terms of contents, structure,

and customs. Rigorous selective measures of a clearly psycho-

logical kind are applied to new members. So as to exclude the

possibility of becoming sidetracked by defectors, people are

observed and tested to eliminate those characterized by exces-

sive mental independence or psychological normality. The new

internal function created is something like a “psychologist”,

and it doubtless takes advantage of the above-described psy-

chological knowledge collected by psychopaths.

It should be noted that certain of these exclusionary steps

taken by a group in the process of ponerization, should have

been taken against deviants by the ideological group in the

beginning. So rigorous selective measures of a psychological

kind taken by a group is not necessarily an indicator that the

group is ponerogenic. Rather one should carefully examine

what the psychological selection is based on. If any group

seeks to avoid ponerization, it will want to exclude individuals

with any psychological dependence on subjective beliefs, rites,

rituals, drugs, and certainly those individuals that are incapable

of objectively analyzing their own inner psychological content

or who reject the process of Positive disintegration.

In a group in the process of ponerization, spellbinders take

care of “ideological purity”. The leader’s position is relatively

secure. Individuals manifesting doubt or criticism are subject to

paramoral condemnation. Maintaining the utmost dignity and

84 It should also be mentioned that the same process occurs when a psycho-

logical deviant is thrown out of a group of normal people. The way to tell the