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

member who was psychologically not quite normal, it became

a matter of honor (even excusing nefarious conduct) to hide

this fact from public opinion, and even from the awareness of

close friends and relatives. Large portions of German society

ingested psychopathological material, together with that unreal-

istic way of thinking wherein slogans take on the power of

arguments and real data are subjected to subconscious selec-

tion.

This occurred during a time when a wave of hysteria was

growing throughout Europe, including a tendency for emotions

to dominate and for human behavior to contain an element of

histrionics. How individual sober thought can be terrorized by

a behavior colored with such material was evidenced particu-

larly by women. This progressively took over three empires

and other countries on the mainland.

To what extent did Wilhelm II contribute to this, along with

two other emperors whose minds also were incapable of taking

in the actual facts of history and government? To what extent

were they themselves influenced by an intensification of hys-

teria during their reigns? That would make an interesting topic

of discussion among historians and ponerologists.

International tensions increased; Archduke Ferdinand was

assassinated in Sarajevo. Unfortunately, neither the Kaiser nor

any other governmental authority in his country were in pos-

session of their reason. What dominated the subsequent events

was Wilhelm’s emotional attitude and the stereotypes of

thought and action inherited from the past. War broke out.

General war plans that had been prepared earlier, and which

had lost their relevance under the new conditions, unfolded

more like military maneuvers. Even those historians familiar

with the genesis and character of the Prussian state, including

its ideological subjugation of individuals to the authority of

king and emperor, and its tradition of bloody expansionism,

intuit that these situations contained some activity of an un-

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109

comprehended fatality which eludes an analysis in terms of

historical causality.36

Many thoughtful persons keep asking the same anxious

question: how could the German nation have chosen for a Fue-

hrer a clownish psychopath who made no bones about his

pathological vision of superman rule? Under his leadership,

Germany then unleashed a second criminal and politically ab-

surd war. During the second half of this war, highly-trained

army officers honorably performed inhuman orders, senseless

from the political and military point of view, issued by a man

whose psychological state corresponded to the routine criteria

for being forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Any attempt to explain the things that occurred during the

first half of our century by means of categories generally ac-

cepted in historical thought leaves behind a nagging feeling of

inadequacy. Only a ponerological approach can compensate for

this deficit in our comprehension, as it does justice to the role

of various pathological factors in the genesis of evil at every

social level.

The German nation, fed for a generation on pathologically

altered psychological material, fell into a state comparable to

what we see in certain individuals raised by persons who are

both characteropathic and hysterical. Psychologists know from

experience how often such people then let themselves commit

acts which seriously hurt others. A psychotherapist needs a

good deal of persistent work, skill, and prudence in order to

enable such a person to regain his ability to comprehend psy-

chological problems with more naturalistic realism and to util-

ize his healthy critical faculties in relation to his own behavior.

The Germans inflicted and suffered enormous damage and

pain during the first World War; they thus felt no substantial

guilt and even thought that they were the ones who had been

wronged. This is not surprising as they were behaving in ac-

cordance with their customary habit, without being aware of its

pathological causes. The need for this pathological state to be

concealed in heroic garb after a war in order to avoid bitter

36 An interesting comparison is the regime of George W. Bush and the Neo-

conservatives. It follows, almost point by point, the history of the Kaiser in

Germany. [Editor’s note.]

110

PONEROLOGY

disintegration became all too common. A mysterious craving

arose, as if the social organism had managed to become ad-

dicted to some drug. The hunger was for more pathologically

modified psychological material, a phenomenon known to psy-

chotherapeutic experience. This hunger could only be satisfied

by another similarly pathological personality and system of

government. A characteropathic personality opened the door

for leadership by a psychopathic individual. We shall return

later in our deliberations to this pathological personality se-

quence, as it appears a general regularity in ponerogenic proc-

esses.

A ponerological approach facilitates our understanding of a

person who succumbs to the influence of a characteropathic

personality, as well as comprehension of macrosocial phenom-

ena caused by the contribution of such factors. Unfortunately,

relatively few such individuals can be served by appropriate

psychotherapy. Such behavior cannot be ascribed to nations

proudly defending their sovereignty without extreme reactions.

However, we may consider the solution of such problems by

means of the proper knowledge as a vision for the future.

~~~

Paranoid character disorders : It is characteristic of para-

noid behavior for people to be capable of relatively correct

reasoning and discussion as long as the conversation involves

minor differences of opinion. This stops abruptly when the

partner’s arguments begin to undermine their overvalued ideas,

crush their long-held stereotypes of reasoning, or forces them

to accept a conclusion they had subconsciously rejected before.

Such a stimulus unleashes upon the partner a torrent of pseudo-

logical, largely paramoralistic, often insulting utterances which

always contain some degree of suggestion.

Utterances like these inspire aversion among cultivated and

logical people, who then tend to avoid the paranoid types.

However, the power of the paranoid lies in the fact that they

easily enslave less critical minds, e.g. people with other kinds

of psychological deficiencies, who have been victims of the

egotistical influence of individuals with character disorders,

and, in particular, a large segment of young people.

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111

A proletarian may perceive this power to enslave to be a

kind of victory over higher-class people and thus take the para-

noid person’s side. However, this is not the normal reaction

among the common people, where perception of psychological

reality occurs no less often than among intellectuals.

In sum then, the response of accepting paranoid argumenta-

tion is qualitatively more frequent in reverse proportion to the

civilization level of the community in question, although it

never approaches the majority. Nevertheless, paranoid indi-

viduals become aware of their enslaving influence through

experience and attempt to take advantage of it in a pathologi-

cally egotistic manner.