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

criteria which can become the basis for an analogous discipline

with an enduring structure; simultaneously, this would fulfill a

burning need in today’s world.

According to contemporary understanding, effective treat-

ment of a disease becomes possible once we have apprehended

its essence, its etiological factors and their properties, and its

pathodynamic course within organisms with dissimilar biologi-

cal properties. Once such knowledge is available, finding the

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proper treatment measures generally proves a less difficult and

dangerous duty. For doctors, disease represents an interesting,

even fascinating, biological phenomenon. They often accepted

the risk of contact with the contagious pathogenic factors and

suffered losses in order to comprehend the ailment so as to be

able to heal people. Thanks to this, they achieved the possibil-

ity of etiotropic disease treatment and artificial immunization

of human organisms to disease. The doctor’s own health is thus

also better protected today; but he ought never to feel any con-

tempt for the patient or his disease.

When we are faced with a macrosocial pathological phe-

nomenon which requires us to proceed in a manner analogous

in principle to that governing contemporary medicine, espe-

cially with reference to overcoming diseases which quickly

propagate among the populations, the law demands necessary

rigorous measures which become binding upon healthy people

as well. It is also worth pointing out that people and political

organizations whose world view is leftist generally represent a

more consistent attitude in this matter, demanding such sacri-

fices in the name of the common good.

We must also be aware that the phenomenon facing us is

analogous to those diseases against which the old traditional

medicine proved inadequate. In order to overcome this state of

affairs, we must therefore utilize new means based upon an

understanding of the essence and causes of the pathocratic

phenomenon, i.e. according to principles analogous to those

governing modern medicine. The road to comprehension of the

phenomenon was also much more difficult and dangerous than

the one which should lead from such understanding to the find-

ing of naturalistically and morally justified, and properly orga-

nized, therapeutic activities. These methods are potentially

possible and feasible, since they derive from an understanding

of the phenomenon per se and become an extension thereof. In

this “disease”, as in many cases treated by psychotherapists, the

understanding alone already begins to heal human personali-

ties. The author confirmed this in practice in individual cases.

It will also appear that many known experiential results will

similarly become applicable.

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THERAPY OF THE WORLD

The insufficiency of efforts based upon the best moral val-

ues has become common knowledge after years of rebounding

as though from rubber bands. The powerful military weapons

that jeopardize all humanity can, on the other hand, be consid-

ered as indispensable as a strait-jacket, something whose use

diminishes in proportion to the improved skills governing the

behavior of those persons entrusted with the healing arts. We

need measures which can reach all people and all nations and

which can operate upon the recognized causes of great diseases

Such therapeutic measures cannot be limited to the phe-

nomenon of pathocracy. Pathocracy will always find a positive

response if some independent country is infected with an ad-

vanced state of hysterization, or if a small privileged caste op-

presses and exploits other citizens, keeping them backward and

in the dark; anyone willing to treat the world can then be

hounded, and his moral right to act be questioned. Evil in the

world, in fact, constitutes a continuum: one kind opens the door

to another, irrespective of its qualitative essence or the ideo-

logical slogans cloaking it.

It also becomes impossible to find effective means of thera-

peutic operation if the minds of people undertaking such tasks

are affected by a tendency to conversive thinking like subcon-

scious selection and substitution of data, or if some doctrine

preventing an objective perception of reality becomes manda-

tory. In particular, a political doctrine, for which a macrosocial

pathological phenomenon, in accordance with its famous ide-

ology, has become a dogma, blocks an understanding of its real

nature so well that purposeful action becomes impossible.

Anyone administering such action should undergo an appropri-

ate prior examination, or even a kind of psychotherapy, in or-

der to eliminate any tendencies toward even slightly sloppy

thinking.

Like every well-managed treatment, therapy of the world

must contain two basic demands: strengthening the overall

defensive powers of the human community and attacking its

most dangerous disease, etiotropically if possible. Taking into

account all the aspects referred to in the theoretical chapter on

ponerology, therapeutic efforts should be directed at subjecting

the operations of the known factors of the genesis of evil, as

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well as the processes of ponerogenesis itself, to the controls of

scientific and societal consciousness.

Present attempts at trusting moral data alone, no matter how

sincerely perceived, also prove inadequate as would trying to

operate solely on the basis of the data contained within this

book, ignoring the essential support of moral values. A pone-

rologist’s attitude underscores primarily the naturalistic aspects

of phenomena; nevertheless, this does not mean that the tradi-

tional ones have diminished in value. Efforts aimed at endow-

ing the life of nations with the necessary moral order should

therefore constitute a second wing, working in parallel and

rationally supported by naturalistic principles.

Contemporary societies were pushed into a state of moral

recession during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu-

ries; leading them back out is the general duty of this genera-

tion and should remain an overall backdrop to activity as a

whole. The basic position should be the intent to fulfill the

commandment of loving one’s neighbor, including even those

who have committed substantial evil, and even if this love indi-

cates taking proplylactic action to protect others from that evil.

A great therapeutic endeavor can only be affected once we do

this with the honest control of moral consciousness, moderation

of words and thoughtfulness of action. At that point, ponerol-

ogy will prove its practical usefulness in fulfilling this task.

People and values mature in action. Thus, a synthesis of tradi-

tional moral teachings and this new naturalistic approach can

only occur with reasoned behavior.

Truth is a Healer

It would be difficult to summarize here the statements of the

many famous authors on the subject of the psychotherapeutic

role of making a person aware of what has crowded his sub-

conscious, stifled within by constant painful effort, because he

feared to look an unpleasant truth in the eye, lacked the objec-

tive data to derive correct conclusions, or was too proud to

permit the awareness that he had behaved in a preposterous

fashion. In addition to being quite well understood by special-

ists, these matters have also become common knowledge to an

adequate degree.

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THERAPY OF THE WORLD

In any method or technique of analytical psychotherapy, or

autonomous psychotherapy, as T. Szasz119 called it, the guiding

operational motivation is exposing to the light of consciousness

whatever material has been suppressed by means of subcon-

scious selection of data, or given up in the face of intellectual

problems. This is accompanied by a disillusionment of substi-

tutions and rationalizations, whose creation is usually in pro-

portion to the amount of repressed material.

In many cases, it turns out that the material fearfully elimi-

nated from the field of consciousness, and frequently substi-

tuted by ostensibly more comfortable associations, would never

have had such dangerous results if we had initially mustered

the courage to perceive it consciously. We would then have

been in the position to find an independent and often creative

way out of the situation.

In some cases, however, especially when dealing with phe-

nomena which are hard to understand within the categories of

our natural world view, leading the patient out of his problems

demands furnishing him with crucial objective data, usually

from the areas of biology, psychology, and psychopathology,

and indicating specific dependencies which he was unable to

comprehend before. Instructional activity begins to dominate in

psychotherapeutic work at this point. After all, the patient

needs this additional data in order to reconstruct his disinte-

grated personality and form a new world view more appropri-

ate to reality. Only then can we go on to the more traditional

methods. If our activities are to be for the benefit of the people

who remained under the influence of pathocratic system, this

last pattern of behavior is the most appropriate; the objective

data furnished to the patients must derive from an understand-

ing of the nature of the phenomenon.

As already adduced, the author has been able to observe the

workings of such a process of making someone consciously

aware of the essence and properties of the macrosocial phe-

nomenon, on the basis of individual patients rendered neurotic

by the influence of pathocratic social conditions. In countries

119 Thomas Szasz, an American psychiatrist who has argued since the 1950s

that compulsory psychiatry is incompatible with a free society. [Editor’s

note.]

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ruled by such governments, almost every normal person carries

within him some neurotic response of varying intensity. After

all, neurosis is human nature’s normal response to being sub-

jugated to a pathological system .

In spite of the anxiety which such courageous psychothera-

peutic operations necessarily engendered on both sides, my

patients quickly assimilated the objective data they were fur-

nished, complemented them with their own experiences, and

required additional information and verification of their appli-

cations of this information. Spontaneous and creative reintegra-

tion of their personalities took place soon thereafter, accompa-

nied by a similar reconstruction of their world view. Subse-

quent psychotherapy merely continued assistance in this ever

more autonomous process and in resolving individual prob-

lems, i.e. a more traditional approach. These people lost their

chronic tensions; their perceptive view of this deviant reality

became increasingly realistic and laced with humor. Rein-

forcement of their capacity to maintain their own psychological

hygiene, self-therapy, and self-pedagogy was much better than