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

able to execute very complex routines designed to elicit from

others support for what they want. In this way, many psycho-

paths are able to reach very high positions in life. It is only

over time that their associates become aware of the fact that

their climb up the ladder of success is predicated on violating

the rights of others. “Even when they are indifferent to the

rights of their associates, they are often able to inspire feelings

of trust and confidence.”

The psychopath recognizes no flaw in his psyche, no need

for change.

Andrew !obaczewski addresses the problem of the psycho-

path and their extremely significant contribution to our macro-

social evils, their ability to act as the éminence grise behind the

very structure of our society. It is very important to keep in

mind that this influence comes from a relatively small segment

of humanity. The other 90-some percent of human beings are

not psychopaths.

But that 90-some percent of normal people know that some-

thing is wrong! They just can’t quite identify it; can’t quite put

their finger on it; and because they can’t, they tend to think that

there is nothing they can do about it, or maybe it is just God

punishing people.

20

EDITOR’S PREFACE

What is actually the case is that when that 90-some percent

of human beings fall into a certain state, as !obaczewski will

describe, the psychopaths, like a virulent pathogen in a body,

strike at the weaknesses, and the entire society is plunged into

conditions that always and inevitably lead to horror and tragedy

on a very large scale.

The movie, The Matrix , touched a deep chord in society be-

cause it exemplified this mechanistic trap in which so many

people find their lives enmeshed, and from which they are un-

able to extricate themselves because they believe that everyone

around them who “looks human” is, in fact, just like them -

emotionally, spiritually, and otherwise.

To give an example of how psychopaths can directly affect

society at large: the “legal argument” as explicated by Robert

Canup in his work on the Socially Adept Psychopath . The legal

argument seems to be at the foundation of our society. We

believe that the legal argument is an advanced system of jus-

tice. This is a very cunning trick that has been foisted on nor-

mal people by psychopaths in order to have an advantage over

them. Just think about it for a moment: the legal argument

amounts to little more than the one who is the slickest at using

the structure for convincing a group of people of something, is

the one who is believed. Because this “legal argument” system

has been slowly installed as part of our culture, when it invades

our personal lives, we normally do not recognize it immedi-

ately. But here’s how it works.

Human beings have been accustomed to assume that other

human beings are - at the very least - trying to “do right” and

“be good” and fair and honest. And so, very often, we do not

take the time to use due diligence in order to determine if a

person who has entered our life is, in fact, a “good person”.

When a conflict ensues, we automatically fall into the legal

argument assumption that in any conflict, one side is partly

right one way, and the other is partly right the other, and that

we can form opinions about which side is mostly right or

wrong. Because of our exposure to the “legal argument” norms,

when any dispute arises, we automatically think that the truth

will lie somewhere between two extremes. In this case, applica-

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

21

tion of a little mathematical logic to the problem of the legal

argument might be helpful.

Let us assume that in a dispute, one side is innocent, honest,

and tells the truth. It is obvious that lying does an innocent

person no good; what lie can he tell? If he is innocent, the only

lie he can tell is to falsely confess “I did it”. But lying is noth-

ing but good for the liar. He can declare that “I didn’t do it”,

and accuse another of doing it, all the while the innocent per-

son he has accused is saying “I didn’t do it” and is actually

telling the truth.

The truth, when twisted by good liars, can always make an

innocent person look bad, especially if the innocent person is

honest and admits his mistakes.

The basic assumption that the truth lies between the testi-

mony of the two sides always shifts the advantage to the lying

side and away from the side telling the truth. Under most cir-

cumstances, this shift put together with the fact that the truth is

going to also be twisted in such a way as to bring detriment to

the innocent person, results in the advantage always resting in

the hands of liars - psychopaths. Even the simple act of giving

testimony under oath is a useless farce. If a person is a liar,

swearing an oath means nothing to that person. However,

swearing an oath acts strongly on a serious, truthful witness.

Again, the advantage is placed on the side of the liar.

It has often been noted that psychopaths have a distinct ad-

vantage over human beings with conscience and feelings be-

cause the psychopath does not have conscience and feelings.

What seems to be so is that conscience and feelings are related

to the abstract concepts of “future” and “others”. It is “spatio-

temporal”. We can feel fear, sympathy, empathy, sadness, and

so on because we can imagine in an abstract way, the future

based on our own experiences in the past, or even just “con-

cepts of experiences” in myriad variations. We can “see our-

selves” in them even though they are “out there” and this

evokes feelings in us. We can’t do something hurtful because

we can imagine it being done to us and how it would feel. In

other words, we can not only identify with others spatially - so

to say - but also temporally - in time.

The psychopath does not seem to have this capacity.

22

EDITOR’S PREFACE

They are unable to “imagine” in the sense of being able to

really connect to images in a direct “self connecting to another

self” sort of way.

Oh, indeed, they can imitate feelings, but the only real feel-

ings they seem to have - the thing that drives them and causes

them to act out different dramas for the effect - is a sort of

“predatorial hunger” for what they want. That is to say, they

“feel” need/want as love, and not having their needs/wants met

is described by them as “not being loved”. What is more, this

“need/want” perspective posits that only the “hunger” of the

psychopath is valid, and anything, and everything “out there”,

outside of the psychopath, is not real except insofar as it has the

capability of being assimilated to the psychopath as a sort of

“food”. “Can it be used or can it provide something?” is the

only issue about which the psychopath seems to be concerned.

All else - all activity - is subsumed to this drive.

In short, the psychopath is a predator. If we think about the

interactions of predators with their prey in the animal kingdom,

we can come to some idea of what is behind the “mask of san-

ity” of the psychopath. Just as an animal predator will adopt all

kinds of stealthy functions in order to stalk their prey, cut them

out of the herd, get close to them, and reduce their resistance,

so does the psychopath construct all kinds of elaborate camou-

flage composed of words and appearances - lies and manipula-

tions - in order to “assimilate” their prey.

This leads us to an important question: what does the psy-

chopath really get from their victims? It’s easy to see what they

are after when they lie and manipulate for money or material

goods or power. But in many instances, such as love relation-

ships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what the psy-

chopath is after. Without wandering too far afield into spiritual

speculations - a problem Cleckley also faced - we can only say

that it seems to be that the psychopath enjoys making others

suffer. Just as normal humans enjoy seeing other people happy,

or doing things that make other people smile, the psychopath

enjoys the exact opposite.

Anyone who has ever observed a cat playing with a mouse

before killing and eating it has probably explained to them-

selves that the cat is just “entertained” by the antics of the

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

23

mouse and is unable to conceive of the terror and pain being

experienced by the mouse. The cat, therefore, is innocent of

any evil intent. The mouse dies, the cat is fed, and that is na-

ture. Psychopaths don’t generally eat their victims.

Yes, in extreme cases of psychopathy, the entire cat and

mouse dynamic is carried out. Cannibalism has a long history

wherein it was assumed that certain powers of the victim could

be assimilated by eating some particular part of them. But in

ordinary life, psychopaths don’t normally go all the way, so to

say. This causes us to look at the cat and mouse scenario again

with different eyes. Now we ask: is it too simplistic to think

that the innocent cat is merely entertained by the mouse run-

ning about and frantically trying to escape? Is there something

more to this dynamic than meets the eye? Is there something

more than being “entertained” by the antics of the mouse trying

to flee? After all, in terms of evolution, why would such behav-

ior be hard-wired into the cat? Is the mouse tastier because of

the chemicals of fear that flood his little body? Is a mouse fro-

zen with terror more of a “gourmet” meal?

This suggests that we ought to revisit our ideas about psy-

chopaths with a slightly different perspective. One thing we do

know is this: many people who experience interactions with

psychopaths and narcissists report feeling “drained” and con-

fused and often subsequently experience deteriorating health.

Does this mean that part of the dynamic, part of the explanation

for why psychopaths will pursue “love relationships” and

“friendships” that ostensibly can result in no observable mate-

rial gain, is because there is an actual energy consumption?

We do not know the answer to this question. We observe,

we theorize, we speculate and hypothesize. But in the end, only

the individual victim can determine what they have lost in the

dynamic - and it is often far more than material goods. In a

certain sense, it seems that psychopaths are soul eaters or “Psy-

chophagic”.

In the past several years, there are many more psychologists

and psychiatrists and other mental health workers beginning to

look at these issues in new ways in response to the questions

about the state of our world and the possibility that there is

24

EDITOR’S PREFACE

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