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

We know today that the psychological mechanism of para-

noid phenomena is twofold: one is caused by damage to the

brain tissue, the other is functional or behavioral. Within the

above-mentioned process of rehabilitation, any brain-tissue

lesion causes a certain slackening of accurate thinking and, as a

consequence, of the personality structure. Most typical are

those cases caused by an aggression in the diencephalon37 by

various pathological factors, resulting in its permanently de-

creased tonal ability, and similarly of the tonus of inhibition in

the brain cortex. Particularly during sleepless nights, runaway

thoughts give rise to a paranoid changed view of human reality,

as well as to ideas which can be either gently naive or violently

revolutionary. Let us call this kind paranoid characteropathy .

In persons free of brain tissue lesions, such phenomena

most frequently occur as a result of being reared by people with

paranoid characteropathia, along with the psychological terror

of their childhood. Such psychological material is then assimi-

lated creating the rigid stereotypes of abnormal experiencing.

This makes it difficult for thought and world view to develop

normally, and the terror-blocked contents become transformed

into permanent, functional, congestive centers.

Ivan Pavlov comprehended all kinds of paranoid states in a

manner similar to this functional model without being aware of

this basic and primary cause. He nevertheless provided a vivid

37 The posterior division of the forebrain; connects the cerebral hemispheres

with the mesencephalon; the region of the brain that includes the epithala-

mus, thalamus, and hypothalamus. [Editor’s note.]

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description of paranoid characters and the above-mentioned

ease with which paranoid individuals suddenly tear away from

factual discipline and proper thought-processes. Those readers

of his work on the subject who are sufficiently familiar with

Soviet conditions glean yet another historical meaning from his

little book. Its intent appears obvious. The author dedicated his

work, with no word of inscription, of course, to the chief model

of a paranoid personality: the revolutionary leader Lenin,

whom the scientist knew well. As a good psychologist, Pavlov

could predict that he would not be the object of revenge, since

the paranoid mind will block out the egocentric associations.

He was thus able to die a natural death.

Lenin should nevertheless be included with the first and

most characteristic kind of paranoid personality, i.e. most

probably due to diencephalic brain damage. Vassily Gross-

man38 describes him more or less as follows:

Symptom:

Lenin was always tactful, gentle, and

polite, but simultaneously characterized

Asthenization.

by an excessively sharp, ruthless, and

Fixation and stereotypia.

brutal attitude to political opponents. He

never allowed any possibility that they

38 Vassily Grossman was a Soviet citizen, a Ukrainian Jew born in 1905. A

Communist, he became a war correspondent, working for the army paper Red

Star - a job which took him to the front lines of Stalingrad and ultimately to

Berlin. He was among the first to see the results of the death camps, and

published the first account of a death camp - Treblinka - in any language.

After the war, he seems to have lost his faith. He wrote his immense novel,

Life and Fate (Zhizn i Sudba) in the 1950s and - in the period of the Krush-

chev thaw, which had seen Alexander Solzhenitsyn allowed to publish A Day

on the Life of Ivan Denisovich - he submitted the manuscript to a literary

journal in 1960 for publication. But Solzhenitsyn was one thing, Grossman

another: his manuscript was confiscated, as were the sheets of carbon paper

and typewriter ribbons he had used to write it. Suslov, the Politbureau mem-

ber in charge of ideology, is reported as having said it could not be published

for 200 years. However, it was smuggled out on microfilm to the west by

Vladimir Voinovich, and published, first in France in 1980, then in English in

1985.

Why the 200 year ban? Because Life and Fate commits what was still, in a

‘liberal’ environment, the unthinkable sin of arguing for the moral equiva-

lence of Nazism and Soviet communism. [Editor’s note.]

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

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might be even minimally right, nor that

Pathological egotism.

he might be even minimally wrong. He

would often call his opponents huck-

Paramoralisms.

sters, lackeys, servant-boys, mercenar-

ies, agents, or Judases bribed for thirty

pieces of silver. He made no attempt to

persuade his opponents during a dis-

pute. He communicated not with them,

Spellbinding and of con-

but rather with those witnessing the

sciousness and its effects.

dispute, in order to ridicule and com-

promise his adversaries. Sometimes

such witnesses were just a few people,

sometimes thousands of delegates to a

Lack of the self- criticism.

congress, sometimes millions worth

throngs of newspaper readers.

~~~

Frontal characteropathy : The frontal areas of the cerebral

cortex (10A and B acc. to the Brodmann division) are virtually

present in no creature except man; they are composed of the

phylogenetically youngest nervous tissue. Their cyto-

architecture is similar to the much older visual projection areas

on the opposite pole of the brain. This suggests some functional

similarity. The author has found a relatively easy way to test

this psychological function, which enables us to grasp a certain

number of imaginary elements in our field of consciousness

and subject them to internal contemplation. The capacity of this

act of internal projection varies greatly from one person to

another, manifesting a statistical correlation with similar varie-

gation in the anatomical extent of such areas. The correlation

between this capacity and general intelligence is much lower.

As described by researchers (Luria et al.), the functions of

these areas, thought-process acceleration and coordination,

seem to result from this basic function.

Damage to this area occurred rather frequently: at or near

birth, especially for premature infants, and later in life as a

result of various causes. The number of such perinatal brain

tissue lesions has been significantly reduced due to improved

medical care for pregnant women and newborns. The spectacu-

lar ponerogenic role which results from character disorders

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caused by this can thus be considered somewhat characteristic

of past generations and primitive cultures.

Brain cortex damage in these areas selectively impairs the

above mentioned function without impairing memory, associa-

tive capacity, or, in particular, such instinct-based feelings and

functions as, for instance, the ability to intuit a psychological

situation. The general intelligence of an individual is thus not

greatly reduced. Children with such a defect are almost normal

students; difficulties emerge suddenly in upper grades and af-

fect principally these parts of the curriculum which place bur-