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

islands and bays, a person endowed with a better comprehen-

sion of self, other people, and the complex interdependencies

of social life becomes more independent of the various circum-

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

83

stances of life and better able to overcome situations which are

difficult to understand. At the same time, such improved

knowledge makes an individual more liable to accept his duties

toward society and to subordinate himself to the discipline

which arises as a corollary. Better informed societies also

achieve internal order and criteria for collective efforts. This

book is dedicated to reinforcing this knowledge by means of a

naturalistic understanding of phenomena, something heretofore

comprehended only by means of excessively moralistic catego-

ries of the natural world view.

In a wider perspective, a constantly improving grasp of the

laws governing social life, and its atypical secluded recesses,

must lead us to reflect upon the failings and deficiencies of

those social doctrines expounded to date, which were based on

an extremely primitive understanding of these laws and phe-

nomena. The distance is not far between such considerations

and a better understanding of the operations of these dependen-

cies in former and existing social systems; the same applies to

substantive critiques thereof. A new idea is about to be born

based upon this ever-deepening comprehension of natural laws,

namely the building of a new social system for nations.

Such a system would be better than any of its predecessors.

Building it is possible and necessary, not just some vague fu-

turistic vision. After all, a whole series of countries is now

dominated by conditions which have destroyed the structural

forms worked out by history and replaced them with social

systems inimical to creative functioning, systems which can

only survive by means of force. We are thus confronted with a

great construction project demanding wide-ranging and well-

organized work. The earlier we undertake the job, the more

time we will have to carry it out.

CHAPTER III

THE HYSTEROIDAL CYCLE

Ever since human societies and civilizations have been cre-

ated on our globe, people have longed for happy times full of

tranquility and justice, which would have allowed everyone to

herd his sheep in peace, search for fertile valleys, plow the

earth, dig for treasures, or build houses and palaces. Man de-

sires peace so as to enjoy the benefits accumulated by earlier

generations and to proudly observe the growth of future ones

he has begotten. Sipping wine or mead in the meantime would

be nice. He would like to wander about, becoming familiar

with other lands and people, or enjoy the star-studded sky of

the south, the colors of nature, and the faces and costumes of

women. He would also like to give free rein to his imagination

and immortalize his name in works of art, whether sculptured

in marble or eternalized in myth and poetry.

From time immemorial, then, man has dreamed of a life in

which the measured effort of mind and muscle would be punc-

tuated by well-deserved rest. He would like to learn nature’s

laws so as to dominate her and take advantage of her gifts. Man

enlisted the natural power of animals in order to make his

dreams come true, and when this did not meet his needs, he

turned to his own kind for this purpose, in part depriving other

humans of their humanity simply because he was more power-

ful.

Dreams of a happy and peaceful life thus gave rise to force

over others, a force which depraves the mind of its user. That is

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

85

why man’s dreams of happiness have not come true throughout

history. This hedonistic view of “happiness” contains the seeds

of misery and feed the eternal cycle whereby good times give

birth to bad times, which in turn cause the suffering and mental

effort which produce experience, good sense, moderation, and

a certain amount of psychological knowledge, all virtues which

serve to rebuild more felicitous conditions of existence.

During good times, people progressively lose sight of the

need for profound reflection, introspection, knowledge of oth-

ers, and an understanding of life’s complicated laws. Is it worth

pondering the properties of human nature and man’s flawed

personality, whether one’s own or someone else’s? Can we

understand the creative meaning of suffering we have not un-

dergone ourselves, instead of taking the easy way out and

blaming the victim? Any excess mental effort seems like point-

less labor if life’s joys appear to be available for the taking. A

clever, liberal, and merry individual is a good sport; a more

farsighted person predicting dire results becomes a wet-blanket

killjoy.

Perception of the truth about the real environment, espe-

cially an understanding of the human personality and its values,

ceases to be a virtue during the so-called “happy” times;

thoughtful doubters are decried as meddlers who cannot leave

well enough alone. This, in turn, leads to an impoverishment of

psychological knowledge, the capacity of differentiating the

properties of human nature and personality, and the ability to

mold minds creatively. The cult of power thus supplants those

mental values so essential for maintaining law and order by

peaceful means. A nation’s enrichment or involution regarding

its psychological world view could be considered an indicator

of whether its future will be good or bad.

During “good” times, the search for truth becomes uncom-

fortable because it reveals inconvenient facts. It is better to

think about easier and more pleasant things. Unconscious

elimination of data which are, or appear to be, inexpedient

gradually turns into habit, and then becomes a custom accepted

by society at large. The problem is that any thought process

based on such truncated information cannot possibly give rise

to correct conclusions; it further leads to subconscious substitu-

86

THE HYSTEROIDAL CYCLE

tion of inconvenient premises by more convenient ones,

thereby approaching the boundaries of psychopathology.

Such contented periods for one group of people - often

rooted in some injustice to other people or nations - start to

strangle the capacity for individual and societal consciousness;

subconscious factors take over a decisive role in life. Such a

society, already infected by the hysteroidal23 state, considers

any perception of uncomfortable truth to be a sign of “ill-

breeding”. J. G. Herder’s24 iceberg is drowned in a sea of falsi-

fied unconsciousness; only the tip of the iceberg is visible

above the waves of life. Catastrophe waits in the wings. In such

times, the capacity for logical and disciplined thought, born of

necessity during difficult times, begins to fade. When commu-

nities lose the capacity for psychological reason and moral

criticism, the processes of the generation of evil are intensified

at every social scale, whether individual or macrosocial, until

everything reverts to “bad” times.

We already know that every society contains a certain per-

centage of people carrying psychological deviations caused by

various inherited or acquired factors which produce anomalies

in perception, thought, and character. Many such people at-

tempt to impart meaning to their deviant lives by means of

social hyperactivity. They create their own myths and ideolo-

gies of overcompensation and have the tendency to egotisti-

cally insinuate to others that their own deviant perceptions and

the resulting goals and ideas are superior.

When a few generations’ worth of “good-time” insouciance

results in societal deficit regarding psychological skill and

moral criticism, this paves the way for pathological plotters,

23 Hysteria is a diagnostic label applied to a state of mind, one of unmanage-

able fear or emotional excesses. Here it is being used to describe “fear of

truth” or fear of thinking about unpleasant things so as to not “rock the boat”

of current contentment. [Editor’s note.]

24 Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), a theologian by training and profes-

sion, greatly influenced German letters with his literary criticism and his

philosophy of history. Along with W. Goethe and Schiller, he made Weimar

the seat of German neohumanism. His analogy of national cultures as organic

beings had an enormous impact on modern historical consciousness. Nations,

he argued, possessed not only the phases of youth, maturity, and decline but

also singular, incomparable worth. His mixture of anthropology and history

was characteristic of the age. [Editor’s note.]

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

87

snake-charmers, and even more primitive impostors to act and

merge into the processes of the origination of evil. They are

essential factors in its synthesis. In the next chapter I shall at-

tempt to persuade my readers that the participation of patho-

logical factors, so underrated by the social sciences, is a com-

mon phenomenon in the processes of the origin of evil.

Those times which many people later recall as the “good old

days” thus provide fertile soil for future tragedy because of the

progressive devolution of moral, intellectual, and personality

values which give rise to Rasputin-like eras.

The above is a sketch of the causative understanding of real-

ity which in no way contradicts a teleological25 perception of

the sense of causality. Bad times are not merely the result of

hedonistic regression to the past; they have a historical purpose

to fulfill.

Suffering, effort, and mental activity during times of immi-

nent bitterness lead to a progressive, generally heightened,

regeneration of lost values, which results in human progress.

Unfortunately, we still lack a sufficiently exhaustive philoso-

phical grasp of this interdependence of causality and teleology

regarding occurrences. It seems that prophets were more clear-

sighted, in the light of the laws of creation, than philosophers

such as E. S. Russell26, R. B. Braithwaite27, G. Sommerhoff28,

and others who pondered this question.

25 Teleology is the supposition that there is design, purpose, directive princi-

ple, or finality in the works and processes of nature, and the philosophical

study of that purpose. [Editor’s note.]

26 Russell, E.S. 1916. Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of

Animal Morphology . London: Murray. [Editor’s note.]

27 Braithwaite, R.B. (1900-1990): British philosopher best known for his

theories in the philosophy of science and in moral and religious philosophy.

Braithwaite’s work in the philosophy of the physical sciences was important

for his theories on the nature of scientific inductive reasoning and the use of

models, as well as on the use of probabilistic laws. He also applied his scien-

tific background to his studies of moral and religious philosophy, particularly

in the application of mathematical game theory. In his book Theory of Games