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

essence of the phenomenon and stimulate the moralizing inter-

pretations whose results we are already familiar with. This

would make it more difficult to find a solution to the present

dangerous situation and would similarly complicate any possi-

bilities of solving the problem of burdening society’s gene pool

with psychological anomalies with a view to future genera-

tions. These problems, however, both present and future, can

be solved if we approach them with an understanding of their

naturalistic essence and a comprehension of the nature of those

people who commit substantial evil.

Legal retribution would be a repetition of the Nuremberg er-

ror. That judgment upon war criminals could have been a

never-to-be repeated opportunity to show the world the entire

psychopathology of the Hitlerian system, with the person of the

“Fuehrer” at the head. That would have led to a faster and

deeper disabusement of the Nazi tradition in Germany. Such

conscious exposure of the operations of pathological factors on

a macrosocial scale would have reinforced the process of psy-

chological rehabilitation for Germans and the world as a whole

by means of the naturalistic categories applicable to that state

of affairs. That would also have constituted a healthy precedent

for illuminating and stifling other pathocracies’ operations.

What actually happened is that psychiatrists and psycholo-

gists succumbed all too easily to the pressures of their own

emotions and political factors, their judgments giving short

shrift to the actual pathological properties of both the majority

of the defendants and of Nazism as a whole. Several famous

individuals with psychopathic features or other deviations were

hanged or sentenced to prison terms. Many facts and data

which could have served the purposes adduced in this work

were hanged and imprisoned along with these individuals. We

can thus easily understand why pathocrats were so eager to

achieve this precise result. We are not allowed to repeat such

errors, since the results make it more difficult to comprehend

the essence of macrosocial pathological phenomena, and they

thereby limit the possibilities of stifling their internal causation.

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

293

In today’s real world situation, there is only one scientifi-

cally and morally justified solution which could remedy our

current plight of nations and also furnish a proper beginning for

solving the problem of societies’ genetic burden with a view to

the future. That would be an appropriate law based upon the

best possible understanding of macrosocial pathological phe-

nomena and their causes, which would limit pathocrats’ re-

sponsibility to those cases alone (usually of a criminal sadistic

nature) in which it is hard to accept the inability to discern the

meaning of such an act. Nothing else could enable the societies

of normal people to take over power and liberate the internal

talents which could ensure a nation’s return to normal life.

Such an act of forgiveness is in fact justified by nature,

since it is derived from a recognition of the psychological cau-

sation governing a person while committing evil, both within

the scope of our cognition and outside the area we have been

able to understand. This scope accessible to scientific cognition

increases along with progress in general knowledge; in a

pathocracy, however, the image of the phenomenon is so

dominated by causality that there is not much room left for free

choice.

We shall in fact never be in the position to evaluate the

scope of free choice with which an individual person has been

endowed. In forgiving, we subordinate our minds to the laws of

nature, to a basic extent. When we withhold judgment regard-

ing the scope of the remainder unknown to us, we subject our

mind to the discipline of refraining from entering a domain

barely accessible to our mind.

Forgiveness thus leads our reason into a state of intellectual

discipline and order, thereby permitting us to discern life’s

realia and their causative links more clearly. This makes it

easier for us to control our instinct’s vindictive reflexes and

protect our minds from the tendency to impose moralizing

interpretations upon psychopathological phenomena. This is of

course to the advantage of both individuals and of societies.

Simultaneously, and in accordance with the precepts of

great religions, forgiveness helps us enjoy supernatural order

and thereby gain the right to self forgiveness. It makes us better

able to perceive the voice within saying “do this” or “don’t do

294

THERAPY OF THE WORLD

that”. This improves our capacity for proper decision making in

thorny situations when we are lacking some necessary data. In

this extremely difficult battle, we may not renounce this assis-

tance and privilege; they may be decisive in tipping the scales

toward victory.

Nations which have long had to endure pathocratic rule are

now close to accepting such a proposition as a result of their

practical knowledge of that other reality and the characteristic

evolution of their world view. However, their motivations are

dominated by practical data which are also derived from adap-

tation to life in that divergent reality. Religious motivations

also appear; comprehension and affirmation thereof mature

under such specific conditions. Their thought process and so-

cial ethics also evidence a feel for a certain teleological mean-

ing to phenomena, in the sense of a historical watershed.

Such an act of renunciation of judicial and emotional re-

venge with regard to people whose behavior was conditioned

by psychological causation, especially certain specific heredi-

tary factors, is justified by naturalism to a significant degree.

Therefore, such naturalistic and rational principles should per-

mit the definitive decisions to mature. The intellectual effort

involved in cutting the links to a natural comprehending of the

problems of evil and a confrontation thereof with moral pre-

cepts shall bear fruit in many products of human thought.

People who have lost their ability to adapt to sensible work

for hire will have to be guaranteed tolerable living conditions

and assistance in their efforts to readapt. The costs incurred by

society with regard thereto will probably be less than those

involved with any other solution. All this will require appropri-

ate organizational efforts based on this manner of understand-

ing such matters, which will be far removed from traditional

legal practice. The promises should be made to the pathocrats,

and then kept with the honesty worthy of a society of normal

people. Such an act and its execution should therefore be pre-

pared ahead of time from the moral, legal and organizational

points of view.

Just as the idea adduced herein finds a lively response

among people familiar with the above-described macrosocial

phenomenon from experience, it insults the vengeful feelings

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

295

of numerous political émigrés who retain the old experiential

methods regarding social and moral problems. We should thus

expect more opposition from this quarter, justified by moral

indignation. Persuasive efforts should therefore be made in that

direction.