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

psychologist, schooled in the observation of human beings,

does not fully appreciate the role of this eternal phenomenon of

nature until he has years of professional experience.

Man’s instinctive substratum has a slightly different bio-

logical structure than that of animals. Energetically speaking, it

has become less dynamic and become more plastic, thereby

giving up its job as the main dictator of behavior. It has become

more receptive to the controls of reasoning, without, however,

losing much of the rich specific contents of the human kind.

It is precisely this phylogenetically developed basis for our

experience, and its emotional dynamism, that allow individuals

to develop their feelings and social bounds, enabling us to in-

tuit other people’s psychological state and individual or social

psychological reality. It is thus possible to perceive and under-

stand human customs and moral values. From infancy, this

substratum stimulates various activities aiming at the develop-

ment of the mind’s higher functions. In other words, our in-

stinct is our first tutor , whom we carry inside all our lives.

Proper child-rearing is thus not limited to teaching a young

person to control the overly violent reactions of his instinctual

emotionalism; it also ought to teach him to appreciate the wis-

dom of nature contained and speaking through his instinctive

endowment

This substratum contains millions of years’ worth of bio-

psychological development that was the product of species’ life

conditions, so it neither is nor can be a perfect creation. Our

well known weaknesses of human nature and errors in the natu-

ral perception and comprehension of reality have thus been

conditioned on that phylogenetic level for millennia.15

15 Konrad Lorenz: Evolution and Modification of Behavior (1965); On Ag-

gression (1966); Studies in Animal and Human Behavior , Volume I (1970);

Studies in Animal and Human Behavior, Volume II (1971); Behind the Mirror

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

61

The common substratum of psychology has made it possi-

ble for peoples throughout the centuries and civilizations to

create concepts regarding human, social, and moral matters

which share significant similarities. Inter-epochal and interra-

cial variations in this area are less striking than those differen-

tiating persons whose instinctual human substratum is normal

from those who are carriers of an instinctual bio-psychological

defect , though they are members of the same race and civiliza-

tion. It shall behoove us to return to this latter question repeat-

edly, since it has taken on a crucial importance for the prob-

lems dealt with in this book.

Man has lived in groups throughout his prehistory, so our

species’ instinctual substratum was shaped in this tie, thus con-

ditioning our emotions as regards the mining of existence. The

need for an appropriate internal structure of commonality, and

a striving to achieve a worthy role within that structure, are

encoded at this very level. In the final analysis, our self-

preservation instinct is rivaled by another feeling: the good of

society demands that we make sacrifices, sometimes even the

supreme sacrifice. At the same time, however, it is worth point-

ing out that if we love a man, we love his human instinct above

all.

Our zeal to control anyone harmful to ourselves or our

group is so primal in its near-reflex necessity as to leave no

doubt that it is also encoded at the instinctual level . Our in-

stinct, however, does not differentiate between behavior moti-

vated by simple human failure and behavior performed by indi-

viduals with pathological aberrations . Quite the contrary: we

(1973); The Natural Science of the Human Species: An Introduction to Com-

parative Behavioral Research - The Russian Manuscript (1944-1948)(1995).

Lorenz joined the Nazi Party in 1938 and accepted a university chair under

the Nazi regime. His publications during that time led in later years to allega-

tions that his scientific work had been contaminated by Nazi sympathies.

When accepting the Nobel Prize, he apologized for a 1940 publication that

included Nazi views of science, saying that “many highly decent scientists

hoped, like I did, for a short time for good from National Socialism, and

many quickly turned away from it with the same horror as I.” It seems highly

likely that Lorenz’s ideas about an inherited basis for behavior patterns were

congenial to the Nazi authorities, but there is no evidence to suggest that his

experimental work was either inspired or distorted by Nazi ideas. [Editor’s

note.]

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SOME INDESPENSIBLE CONCEPTS

instinctively tend to judge the latter more severely, harkening

to nature’s striving to eliminate biologically or psychologically

defective individuals. Our tendency to such evil generating

error is thus conditioned at the instinctual level.

It is also at this level that differences begin to occur be-

tween normal individuals, influencing the formation of their

characters, world views, and attitudes. The primary differences

are in the bio-psychical dynamism of this substratum; differ-

ences of content are secondary. For some people the sthenic16

instinct supersedes psychology; for others, it easily relinquishes

control to reason. It also appears that some people have a

somewhat richer and more subtle instinctual endowment than

others. Significant deficiencies in this heritage nevertheless

occur in only a tiny percentage of the human population; and

we perceive this to be qualitatively pathological. We shall have

to pay closer attention to such anomalies, since they participate

in that pathogenesis of evil which we would like to understand

more fully.

A more subtle structure of effect is built upon our instinc-

tual substratum, thanks to constant cooperation from the latter

as well as familial and societal child-rearing practices. With

time, this structure becomes a more easily observable compo-

nent of our personality, within which it plays an integrative

role. This higher effect is instrumental in linking us to society,

which is why its correct development is a proper duty of peda-

gogues and constitutes one of the objects of a psychotherapist’s

efforts, if perceived to be abnormally formed. Both pedagogues

and psychotherapists sometimes feel helpless, if this process of

formation was influenced by a defective instinctual substratum.

~~~

Thanks to memory, that phenomenon ever better described

by psychology, but whose nature remains partly mysterious,

man stores life-experiences and purposely acquired knowledge.

There are extensive individual variations in regard to this ca-

pacity, its quality, and its contents. A young person also looks

at the world differently from an old man endowed with a good

memory. People with a good memory and a great deal of

16 Relating to or marked by sthenia ; strong, vigorous, or active. [Editor’s

note.]

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

63

knowledge have a greater tendency to reach for the written data

of collective memory in order to supplement their own.

This collected material constitutes the subject matter of the

second psychological process, namely association; our under-

standing of its characteristics is constantly improving, although

we have not yet been able to shed sufficient light upon its nur-

turance. In spite of, or maybe thanks to, the value judgments

contributed to this question by psychologists and psychoana-

lysts, it appears that achieving a satisfactory synthetic under-

standing of the associative processes will not be possible unless

and until we humbly decide to cross the boundaries of purely

scientific comprehension.

Our reasoning faculties continue to develop throughout our

entire active lives, thus, accurate judgmental abilities do not

peak until our hair starts greying and the drive of instinct, emo-

tion, and habit begins to abate. It is a collective product derived

from an interaction between man and his environment, and

from many generations’ worth of creation and transmission.

The environment may also have a destructive influence upon

the development of our reasoning faculties. In its environment

in particular, the human mind is contaminated by conversive

thinking17, which is the most common anomaly in this process.

It is for this reason that the proper development of mind re-

quires periods of solitary reflection on occasion.

Man has also developed a psychological function not found

among animals. Only man can apprehend a certain quantity of

material or abstract imaginings within his field of attention,

inspecting them internally in order to effect further operations

of the mind upon this material. This enables us to confront

facts, affect constructive and technical operations, and predict

future results. If the facts subjected to internal projection and

inspection deal with man’s own personality, man performs an

act of introspection essential for monitoring the state of a hu-

17 Conversive thinking: using terms but giving them opposing or twisted

meanings. Examples: peacefulness = appeasement; freedom = license; initia-

tive = arbitrariness; traditional = backward; rally = mob; efficiency = small-

mindedness. Example: the words “peacefulness” and “appeasement” denote

the same thing: a striving to establish peace, but have entirely different con-

notations which indicate the speaker’s attitude toward this striving toward

peace. [Editor’s note.]

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SOME INDESPENSIBLE CONCEPTS

man personality and the meaning of his own behavior. This act

of internal projection and inspection complements our con-

sciousness; it characterizes no species other than the human.

However, there is exceptionally wide divergence among indi-

viduals regarding the capacity for such mental acts. The effi-

ciency of this mental function shows a somewhat low statistical

correlation with general intelligence.

Thus, if we speak of man’s general intelligence, we must

take into account both its internal structure and the individual

differences occurring at every level of this structure. The sub-

stratum of our intelligence, after all, contains nature’s instinc-

tual heritage of wisdom and error, giving rise to the basic intel-

ligence of life experience. Superimposed upon this construct,

thanks to memory and the associative capacity, is our ability to

effect complex operations of thought, crowned by the act of

internal projection, and to constantly improve their correctness.

We are variously endowed with these capabilities, which

makes for a mosaic of individually variegated talents.

Basic intelligence grows from this instinctual substratum

under the influence of an amicable environment and a readily

accessible compendium of human experience; it is intertwined