excerpts from the book
Political Ponerology
a science on the nature of evil
adjusted for political purposes
by Andrew M. Lobaczewski
Red Pill Press, 2006, paperback
p7
Miyamoto Musashi
Aspire to be like Mt. Fuji, with such
a broad and solid foundation that the strongest earthquake cannot
move you, and so tall that the greatest enterprises of common
men seem insignificant from your lofty perspective. With your
mind as high as Mt Fuji you can see all things clearly. And you
can see all the forces that shape events; not just the things
happening near to you.
p7
Macrosocial Evil: large-scale evil that overtakes whole societies
and nations, and has done so again and again since time immemorial.
p8
When man contemplates history, as it is, he is forced to realize
that he is in the iron grip of an existence that seems to have
no real care or concern for his pain and suffering. Over and over
again, the same sufferings fall upon mankind multiplied millions
upon millions of times over millennia. The totality of human suffering
is a dreadful thing.(I could write until the end of the world
using oceans of ink and forests of paper and never fully convey
this Terror.) The beast of arbitrary calamity has always been
with us. For as long as human hearts have pumped hot blood through
their too-fragile bodies and glowed with the inexpressible sweetness
of life and yearning for all that is good and right and loving,
the sneering, stalking, drooling and scheming beast of unconscious
evil has licked its lips in anticipation of its next feast of
terror and suffering.
p10
Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door (2005)
Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience,
none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you
do, no limiting sense of concern for the 2) well-being of strangers,
friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame,
not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish,
lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.
And pretend that the concept of responsibility
is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without
question, like gullible fools.
Now add to this strange fantasy the ability
to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is
radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes
that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact
that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.
You are not held back from any of your
desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others
for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre,
so completely outside of their personal experience, that they
seldom even guess at your condition.
In other words, you are completely free
of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just
as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible
to the world.
You can do anything at all, and still
your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept
in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered...
If you are born at the right time, with
some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for
whipping up other peoples hatred and sense of deprivation, you
can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With
enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can
sit back safely and watch in satisfaction ....
How will you live your life?
What will you do with your huge and secret
advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people
(conscience)?
The answer will depend largely on just
what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the
same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some
people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease
of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions.
Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted,
and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are
violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated
by blood lust and those who have no such appetites ....
Provided you are not forcibly stopped,
you can do anything at all.
If you are born at the right time, with
some access to family fortune, and'") you have a special
talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation,
you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people.
With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and
you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction ....
Crazy and frightening - and real, in about
4 percent of the population ....
The prevalence rate for anorexic eating
disorders is estimated a 3.43 percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic,
and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial
personality. The high-profile disorders classed as schizophrenia
occur in only about 1 percent of [the population] - a mere quarter
of the rate of antisocial personality - and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer in the
United States, considered "alarmingly high," is about
40 per 100,000 - one hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial
personality.
The high incidence of sociopathy in human
society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live
on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically
traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain
our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our
self-esteem, our very peace on earth.
Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing
about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of
violent psychopathy - murderers, serial killers, mass murderers
- people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over,
and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death
by our legal system.
We are not commonly aware of, nor do we
usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among
us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against
whom our formal legal system provides little defense
Most of us would not imagine any correspondence
between conceiving an ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying
to one's boss about a coworker. But the psychological correspondence
is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and profound, the link
is the absence of the inner mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally
speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral, unethical,
neglectful, or selfish.
Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat
the last piece of cake in the kitchen, All let alone what we would
feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another
person.
Those who have no conscience at all are
a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or
merely ruthless social snipers.
The presence or absence of conscience
is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence,
race, or even gender.
What differentiates a sociopath who lives
off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience
stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron - or what
makes the difference between an ordinary bully and a / sociopathic
murderer - is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect,
blood lust, or simple opportunity.
What distinguishes all of these people
from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where
there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions.
p13
Psychopathy may be characterized ... as involving a tendency towards
both dominance and coldness... [Psychopathic] individuals are
prone to anger and irritation and are willing to exploit others.
They are arrogant, manipulative, cynical, exhibitionistic, sensation-seeking,
Machiavellian, vindictive, and out for their own gain... they
attribute love and status to themselves, seeing themselves as
highly worthy and important, but prescribe neither love nor status
to others, seeing them as unworthy and insignificant. This characterization
is clearly consistent with the essence of psychopathy as commonly
described.
p14
Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door (2005)
Psychopaths, like anyone else, are born
with different basic likes and dislikes and desires, which is
why some of them are doctors and presidents and others are petty
thieves or rapists.
p15
criminologist Georgette Bennett
[Business crimes] account for nearly 30%
of case filings in U.S. District Courts - more than any other
category of crime. The combined burglary, mugging and other property
losses induced by the country's street punks come to about $4
billion a year. However, the seemingly upstanding citizens in
our corporate board rooms and the humble clerks in our retail
stores bilk us out of between $40 and $200 billion a year.
p15
William Krasner
The Psychopaths Favorite Playground: Business
Relationships by Ken Magid and Carole A. McKelvey
Our society is fast becoming more materialistic,
and success at any cost is the credo of many businessmen. The
typical psychopath thrives in this kind of environment and is
seen as a business "hero".
p16
The truth, when twisted by good liars, can always make an innocent
person look bad, especially if the innocent person is honest and
admits his mistakes.
p17
If a person is a liar, swearing an oath means nothing to that
person. However, swearing an oath acts strongly on a serious,
truthful witness... the advantage is placed on the side of the
liar.
p17
The psychopath is a predator. If we think about the interactions
of predators with their prey in the animal kingdom, we can come
to some idea of what is behind the "mask of sanity"
of the psychopath. Just as an animal predator will adopt all kinds
of stealthy functions in order to stalk their prey, cut them out
of the herd, get close to them, and reduce their resistance, so
does the psychopath construct all kinds of elaborate camouflage
composed of words and appearances lies and manipulations - in
order to "assimilate" their prey.
p17
The psychopath enjoys making others suffer. Just as normal humans
enjoy seeing other people happy, or doing things that make other
people smile, the psychopath enjoys the exact opposite.
p31
Ponerology reveals itself to be a new branch of science born out
of historical need and the most recent accomplishments of medicine
and psychology... it studies the causal components and processes
of the genesis of evil, regardless of the latter's social scope.
p61
During good times, people progressively lose sight of the need
for profound reflection, introspection, knowledge of others, and
an understanding of life's complicated laws.
p62
During "good" times, the search for truth becomes uncomfortable
because it reveals inconvenient facts. It is better to think about
easier and more pleasant things... In such times, the capacity
for logical and disciplined thought, born of necessity during
difficult times, begins to fade. When communities lose the capacity
for psychological reason and moral criticism, the processes of
the generation of evil are intensified at every social scale,
whether individual or macrosocial, until everything reverts to
"bad" times.
p63
Suffering, effort, and mental activity during times of imminent
bitterness lead to a progressive, generally heightened, regeneration
of lost values, which results in human progress.
p63
When bad times arrive and people are overwhelmed by an excess
of evil, they must gather all their physical and mental strength
to fight for existence and protect human reason.
p73
Every person in the span of his life, and particularly during
childhood and youth, assimilates psychological material from others
through mental resonance, identification, imitation, and other
communicative means, thereupon transforming it to build his own
personality and world view. If such material is contaminated by
pathological factors and deformities, personality development
shall also be deformed. The product will be a person unable to
understand correctly either himself and others, normal human relations
and morals; he develops into a person who commits evil acts with
a poor feeling of being faulty.
p90
[Psychopaths] learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early
as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of
other individuals similar to them. They also become conscious
of being different from the world of those other people surrounding
them. They view us from a certain distance, like a para-specific
variety... They become experts in our weaknesses and sometimes
effect heartless experiments. The suffering and injustice they
cause inspire no guilt within them, since such reactions from
others are simply a result of their being different and apply
only to "those other people.
p121
When a ponerogenic process encompasses a society's entire ruling
class, or nation, or when opposition from normal people is stifled
- as a result of the mass character of the phenomenon, or by using
spellbinding means and physical compulsion, including censorship
- we are dealing with a macrosocial ponerologic phenomenon.
p124
During "happy times" of peace dependent upon social
injustice, children of the privileged classes learn to repress
from their field of consciousness the uncomfortable ideas suggesting
that they and their parents are benefiting from injustice against
others. Such young people learn to disqualify and disparage the
moral and mental values of anyone whose work they are using to
over-advantage... They grow up o be somewhat hysterical adults
who ... thereupon transmit their hysteria to the next generation,
which then develops these characteristics to an even greater degree.
p129
Every society worldwide contains individuals whose dreams of power
arise very early. They are generally discriminated against in
some way by society, which uses a moralizing interpretation with
regard to their failings and difficulties, although these individuals
are rarely guilty of them in the precise terms of morality. They
would like to change this unfriendly world into something else.
Dreams of power also represent overcompensation for the feeling
of humiliation... A significant and active proportion of this
group is composed of individuals with various deviations who imagine
this better world in their own way.
p131
The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is now well known
to have been a hoaxed attribution to Jews. However, the contents
of the Protocols are clearly not "hoaxed ideas" since
a reasonable assessment of the events in the United States over
the past 50 years or so gives ample evidence of their application
in order to bring about the current Neoconservative administration
[Bush/Cheney]. . Anyone who wishes to understand what has happened
in the U.S. needs to read the Protocols to understand that some
group of deviant individuals took them to heart. The document,
"Project For A New American Century" produced by the
Neoconservatives reads as if it had been inspired by the same
schizoidal worldview. [Editor's note]
p136
Pathocracy [is] a system of government ... wherein a small pathological
minority takes control over a society of normal people.
p137
In a pathocracy, all leadership positions, (down to village headman
and community cooperative managers, not to mention the directors
of police units, and special services police personnel, and activists
in the pathocratic party) must be filled by individuals with corresponding
psychological deviations, which are inherited as a rule. However,
such people constitute a very small percentage of the population
and this makes them more valuable to the pathocrats. Their intellectual
level or professional skills cannot be taken into account, since
people representing superior abilities are even harder to find.
After such a system has lasted several years, one hundred percent
of all the cases of essential psychopathy are involved in pathocratic
activity; they are considered the most loyal, even though some
of them were formerly involved on the other side in some way.
Under such conditions, no area of social
life can develop normally, whether in economics, culture, science,
technology, administration, etc. Pathocracy progressively paralyzes
everything. Normal people must develop a level of patience beyond
the ken of anyone living in a normal man's system just in order
to explain what to do and how to do it to some obtuse mediocrity
of a psychological deviant who has been placed in charge of some
project that he cannot even understand, much less manage. This
special kind of pedagogy - instructing deviants while avoiding
their wrath - requires a great deal of time and effort, but it
would otherwise not be possible to maintain tolerable living conditions
and necessary achievements in the economic area or intellectual
life of a society. Even with such efforts, pathocracy progressively
intrudes everywhere and dulls everything.
Those people who initially found the original
ideology attractive eventually come to the realization that they
are in fact dealing with something else that has taken its place
under the old name. The disillusionment experienced by such former
ideological adherents is bitter in the extreme. Thus, the pathological
minority's attempts to retain power will be threatened by the
society of normal people, whose criticism keeps growing.
Therefore, to mitigate the threat to their
power, the pathocrats must employ any and all methods of terror
and exterminatory policies against individuals known for their
patriotic feelings and military training; other, specific "indoctrination"
activities such as those we have presented are also utilized.
Individuals lacking the natural feeling of being linked to normal
society become irreplaceable in either of these activities. Again,
the foreground of this type of activity is occupied by cases of
essential psychopathy, followed by those with similar anomalies,
and finally by people alienated from the society in question as
a result of racial or national differences.
The phenomenon of pathocracy matures during
this period: an extensive and active indoctrination system is
built, with a suitably refurbished ideology constituting the vehicle
or Trojan horse for the purpose of pathologizing the thought processes
of individuals and society. The goal- forcing human minds to incorporate
pathological experiential methods and thought-patterns, and consequently
accepting such rule - is never openly admitted. This goal is conditioned
by pathological egotism, and the possibility of accomplishing
it strikes the pathocrats as not only indispensable, but feasible.
Thousands of activists must therefore participate in this work.
However, time and experience confirm what a psychologist may have
long foreseen: the entire effort produces results so very limited
that it is reminiscent of the labors of Sisyphus. It only results
in producing a general stifling of intellectual development and
deep-rooted protest against affront-mongering "hypocrisy".
The authors and executors of this program are incapable of understanding
that the decisive factor making their work difficult is the fundamental
nature of normal human beings - the majority.
The entire system of force, terror, and
forced indoctrination, or, rather, pathologization, thus proves
effectively unfeasible, which causes the pathocrats no small measure
of surprise. Reality places a question mark on their conviction
that such methods can change people in such fundamental ways so
that they can eventually recognize this pathocratic kind of government
as a "normal state".
During the initial shock, the feeling
of social links between normal people fade. After that has been
survived, however, the overwhelming majority of people begin to
manifest their own phenomenon of psychological immunization. Society
simultaneously starts collecting practical knowledge on the subject
of this new reality and its psychological properties.
Normal people slowly learn to perceive
the weak spots of such a system and utilize the possibilities
of more expedient arrangement of their lives. They begin to give
each other advice in these matters, thus slowly regenerating the
feelings of social links and reciprocal trust. A new phenomenon
occurs: separation between the pathocrats and the society of normal
people. The latter have an advantage of talent, professional skills,
and healthy common sense. They therefore hold certain very advantageous
cards. The pathocracy finally realizes that it must find some
modus vivendi or relations with the majority of society: "After
all, somebody's got to do the work for us."
There are other needs and pressures felt
by the pathocrats, especially from outside. The pathological face
must be hidden from the world somehow, since recognition of the
deviant rulership by world opinion would be a catastrophe. Ideological
propaganda alone would then be an inadequate disguise. Primarily
in the interests of the new elite and its expansionary plans,
a pathocratic state must maintain commercial relations with the
countries of normal man. The pathocratic state aims to achieve
international recognition as a certain kind of political structure;
and it fears recognition in terms of a true clinical diagnosis.
All this makes pathocrats tend to limit
their measures of terror, subjecting their propaganda and indoctrination
methods to a certain cosmetology, and to accord the society they
control some margin of autonomous activity, especially regarding
cultural life. The more liberal pathocrats would not be averse
to giving such a society a certain minimum of economic prosperity
in order to reduce the irritation level, but their own corruption
and inability to administer the economy prevents them from doing
so.
And so, with the above considerations
being brought to the forefront of pathocratic attention, this
great societal disease continues to run its course through a new
phase: methods of activity become milder, and there is coexistence
with countries whose structure is that of normal man.
p139
In the pathocratic country, the active structure of government
rests in the hands of psychopathic individuals, and essential
psychopathy plays a starring role, especially during the dissimulative
phase. However, individuals with obvious pathological traits must
be removed from certain areas of activity: namely, political posts
with international exposure, where such personalities could betray
the pathological contents of the phenomenon. Individuals with
obvious pathological traits are also limited in their ability
to exercise diplomatic functions or to become fully cognizant
with the political situations of the countries of normal man.
Therefore, the persons selected for such positions are chosen
because they have thought-processes more similar to the world
of normal people; in general, they are sufficiently connected
to the pathological system to provide a guarantee of loyalty.
p140
Pathocracy is a disease of great social movements followed by
entire societies, nations, and empires. In the course of human
history, it has affected social, political, and religious movements,
as well as the accompanying ideologies, characteristic for the
time and the ethnological conditions, and turned them into caricatures
of themselves.
p141
Defining the moment at which a movement has been transformed into
something we can call a pathocracy as a result of the ponerogenic
process is a matter of convention. The process is temporally cumulative
and reaches a point of no return at some particular moment. Eventually,
however, internal confrontation with the adherents of the original
ideology occurs, thus finally affixing the seal of the pathocratic
character of the phenomenon. Nazism most certainly passed this
point of no return, but was prevented from all-out confrontation
with the adherents of the original ideology because the Allied
armies smashed its entire military might.
p143
Psychopaths are conscious of being different from normal people.
That is why the "political system" inspired by their
nature is able to conceal this awareness of being different. They
wear a personal mask of sanity and know how to create a macrosocial
mask of the same dissimulating nature.
... Pathocrats know that their real ideology
is derived from their deviant natures, and treat the "other"
- the masking ideology - with barely concealed contempt. And the
common people eventually begin to perceive this.
... The pathological social structure
gradually covers the entire country, creating a "new class"
within that nation. This privileged class of deviants feels permanently
threatened by the "others", i.e. by the majority of
normal people. Neither do the pathocrats entertain any illusions
about their personal fate should there be a return to the system
of normal man.
A normal person deprived of privilege
or high position will go about finding and performing some work
which will earn him a living; but pathocrats never possessed any
solid practical talent, and the time frame of their rule eliminates
any residual possibilities of adapting to the demands of normal
work. If the laws of normal man were to be reinstated, they and
theirs could be subjected to judgment, including a moralizing
interpretation of their psychological deviations; they would be
threatened by a loss of freedom and life, not merely a loss of
position and privilege. Since they are incapable of this kind
of sacrifice, the survival of a system which is the best for them
becomes a moral imperative.
p146
The biological, psychological, moral, and economic destruction
of the majority of normal people becomes, for the pathocrats,
a "biological" necessity. Many means serve this end,
starting with concentration camps and including warfare with an
obstinate, well-armed foe who will devastate and debilitate the
human power thrown at him, namely the very power jeopardizing
pathocrats rule: the sons of normal man sent out to fight for
an illusionary "noble cause." Once safely dead, the
soldiers will then be decreed heroes to be revered in paeans,
useful for raising a new generation faithful to the pathocracy
and ever willing to go to their deaths to project it.
Any war waged by a pathocratic nation
has two fronts, the internal and the external. The internal front
is more important for the leaders and the governing elite, and
the internal threat is the deciding factor where unleashing war
is concerned. In pondering whether to start a war against the
pathocratic country, other nations must therefore give primary
consideration to the fact that such a war can be used as an executioner
of the common people whose increasing power represents incipient
jeopardy for the pathocracy.
p223
Zbigniew Bzrezinski, while singing words of praise for the manuscript
[of this book - Political Ponerology] and saying he would see
it published, in fact did his best, successfully, to see the book
did not get into print.
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