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

within a person and activating his own curative powers. If so-

cieties are furnished an understanding of the pathological na-

ture of evil, they will be able to effect concerted action based

on moral and naturalistic criteria.

This new method of solving eternal problems will be the

most humanitarian weapon ever used in human history, as well

as the only one which can be used safely and effectively. We

may also hope that using such a weapon will help end centuries

of warfare among nations.

CHAPTER X

A VISION OF THE FUTURE

If it is to bear ripe fruit, every human activity must take root

in the soil of two time frames: past and future. The past pro-

vides us knowledge and experience which teach us to solve

problems and warn us when we are about to commit errors

reminiscent of past mistakes. A realistic apperception of the

past and a sometimes painful understanding of its errors and

evils thus become necessary preconditions for building a hap-

pier future.

A similarly realistic vision of the future, complemented by

well thought out detailed data, endows our contemporary ac-

tivities with a direction and renders their goals more concrete.

Mental effort aimed at forming such a vision enables us to

overcome psychological barriers to free reason and imagina-

tion, barriers caused by egotism and survival of habits from the

past. People fixated upon the past gradually lose contact with

the present and are thus incapable of doing much good for the

future. Let us therefore direct our minds toward the future,

beyond the ostensibly insuperable realities of present age.

There are many advantages to be gained from constructively

planning the future, including the more distant time perspec-

tive, if we can foresee its shape and facilitate pinpointed solu-

tions. This requires that we properly analyze reality and make

correct predictions, i.e. discipline of thought so as to exclude

any subconscious data manipulation and any excessive influ-

ence from our emotions and preferences. Elaborating such an

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original vision so as to make it a reified blueprint for a new

reality is the best way to educate human minds for other simi-

larly difficult tasks in the concrete future.

This would also permit timely elimination of many differ-

ences of opinion which could later lead to violent conflicts;

these sometimes result from an insufficiently realistic apper-

ception of the present state of affairs, various pipe-dream atti-

tudes, or propaganda activities. If it is logically developed and

avoids collisions with an adequately objective understanding of

phenomena which have already been discussed in part, such a

constructive vision can come true in future reality.

Such planning should be reminiscent of a well-organized

technical project, wherein the designers’ work is preceded by

an examination of conditions and possibilities. Executing the

work also requires time-frame planning in accordance with the

appropriate technical data and the human safety factor. We

know from experience that increasing the scope and accuracy

of design activities makes their execution and utility more prof-

itable. Similarly, the more modern and inventive constructions

generally prove more effective than tradition-bound ones.

The design and construction of a new social system should

also be based upon proper distinctions of reality and should

receive appropriate elaboration in many details in order to

prove effective in execution and action. This will require aban-

doning some traditional customs of political life which allowed

human emotions and egoism to play too great a role. Creative

reasoning has become the sole and necessary solution, since it

determines real data and finds novel solutions without losing

the ability to act under real-life conditions.

The absence of such prior constructive effort would lead

both to knowledge gaps about the reality to be operated in and

to a shortage of people with the crucial preparation needed for

creating new systems. Particularly for a nation now affected by

pathocracy, when regaining the right to decide one’s own fate,

would be improvisation which is expensive and dangerous.

Violent disputes among the adherents of various structural

concepts which may often be unrealistic, immature, or outdated

because they have lost their historical significance in the mean-

time, may even cause a civil war.

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305

Wherever old social systems created by historical processes

have been almost totally destroyed by the introduction of state

capitalism and the development of pathocracy, that nation’s

social and psychological structure has been obliterated. The

replacement is a pathological structure reaching into every

corner of a country, causing all areas of life to degenerate and

become unproductive. Under such conditions, it proves unfea-

sible to reconstruct a social system based on outdated traditions

and the unrealistic expectations that such a structure does exist.

What is needed is a design of action which will first permit the

fastest possible reconstruction of this basic socio-psychological

structure and then allow it to participate in social life’s

autonomization process.

The past has furnished us virtually no pattern for this indis-

pensable activity, which can thus be based only upon the more

general kind of data described at the beginning of this work.

We are therefore immediately faced with the need to rely upon

modern science. At least one generation’s worth of time has

also been lost, and with it the evolution which should have

creatively transformed the old structural forms. We should thus

be guided by imaginings of what should have happened if a

given society had had the right to free development during this

time, rather than by data from the past, presently outdated,

albeit historically real.

In the meantime, many divergent ways of thinking have

taken root in those countries. Private capitalism’s world of

social institutions has become distant and hard to understand.

There is no longer anybody left who could be a capitalist or act

independently within such a system. Democracy has become an

imperfectly comprehended slogan for communicating within

the society of normal people. The workers cannot imagine the

reprivatization of great industrial plants and oppose any efforts

in that direction. They believe that rendering the country inde-

pendent would bring them participation in both management

and profits. Those societies have accepted some social institu-

tions, such as a public health service and free education

through university level. They want the operation of such insti-

tutions reformed by subordinating them to healthy common

sense and appropriate scientific criteria as well as tried –and

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true elements of valid traditions. What should be restored is the

general laws of nature which should govern societies; the struc-

tural forms should be reconstructed in a more modern manner,

which will facilitate their acceptance.

Some transformations already made are historically irre-

versible. Regaining the right to shape one’s own future would

thus create a dangerous and even tragic “system void”. A pre-

monition of such a critical situation already worries people in

those countries, stifling their will to act; this situation should be

prevented immediately. The only way is well-organized effort

in analytical and constructive thought directed toward a socie-

tal system with highly modern economic and political founda-

tions.

Nations suffering under pathocratic governments would also

participate in such a constructive effort, which would represent

excellent input to the above-mentioned general task of treating

our sick world. Undeterred in our hope that the time will soon

come when such nations will revert to normal human systems,

we should build a social system with a view to what will hap-

pen after pathocracy.

This social system will be different from and better than

anything which existed earlier. A realistic vision of a better

future and participation in creating it will heal battered human

souls and bring order into thought processes. This constructive

work trains people to govern themselves under such different

conditions and knocks the weapon out of the hands of anyone

who serves evil, increasing the latter’s feeling of frustration

and an awareness that his pathological work is nearing an end.

A careful reading of this book may cause us to discern the

outlines of a creative vision of such a future societal system so

sorely needed by nations suffering under pathocratic rule; if so,

this represents a reward for the author’s effort rather than re-

sults of pure chance. Just such a vision accompanied me

throughout the period of my work on this book (although the

latter nowhere indicates a name nor any more precise details

for it), rendering assistance and proving a useful support in the

future. In some way, it is thus present on the pages and be-

tween the lines of this work.

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307

Such a social system of the future would have to guarantee

its citizens wide scope personal freedom and an open door to

utilizing their creative possibilities in both individual and col-

lective efforts. At the same time, however, it must not indicate

the well known weaknesses manifested by a democracy in its

domestic and foreign policy. Not only should individuals’ per-

sonal interest and the common good be appropriately balanced

in such a system; they should be woven right into the overall

picture of social life at the level where an understanding of its

laws causes any discrepancy between them to disappear. The

opinion of the wide mass of the citizenry, dictated primarily by

the voices of basic intelligence and dependent upon the natural

world view, should be balanced by the skills of people who

utilize an objective cognition of reality and possess the appro-

priate training in their special areas. Appropriate and well

thought out system solutions should be used for this purpose.

The foundations for practical solutions within such an im-

proved system would contain criteria such as creating the right

conditions for enriched development of human personalities

including the psychological world view, whose societal role

has already been adduced. Individual socio-professional adap-

tation, the creation of an interpersonal network, and a healthy

active socio-psychological structure should be facilitated to the

maximum possible extent.

Structural, legal, and economic solutions should be consid-

ered in such a way that fulfilling these criteria would also open

the door for an individual’s optimal self-realization within so-

cial life, which would simultaneously be for the good of the

community. Other traditional criteria such as the dynamics of

economic development will thereupon prove secondary to these