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

ease phenomena because they were primarily interested in

studying questions of physical and mental hygiene, there would

be no such thing as modern medicine. Even the roots of this

health-maintenance science would be hidden in similar shad-

ows. In spite of the fact that the theory of hygiene has been

linked to medicine since its ancient beginnings, physicians

were correct in their emphasis upon studying disease above all.

They risked their own health and made sacrifices in order to

discover the causes and biological properties of illnesses and,

afterwards, to understand the patho-dynamics of the courses of

these illnesses. A comprehension of the nature of a disease, and

the course it runs, after all, enables the proper curative means

to be elaborated.

98

PONEROLOGY

While studying an organisms’ ability to fight off disease,

scientists invented vaccination, which allows organisms to

become resistant to an illness without passing through it in its

full-blown manifestation. Thanks to this, medicine conquers

and prevents phenomena which, in its scope of activity, are

considered a type of evil.

The question thus arises: could some analogous modus op-

erandi not be used to study the causes and genesis of other

kinds of evil scourging human individuals, families, and socie-

ties, in spite of the fact that they appear even more insulting to

our moral feelings than do diseases? Experience has taught the

author that evil is similar to disease in nature, although possibly

more complex and elusive to our understanding. Its genesis

reveals many factors, pathological, especially psychopathologi-

cal, in character, whose essence medicine and psychology have

already studied, or whose understanding demands further in-

vestigation in these realms.

Parallel to the traditional approach, problems commonly

perceived to be moral may also be treated on the basis of data

provided by biology, medicine, and psychology, as factors of

this kind are simultaneously present in the question as a whole.

Experience teaches us that a comprehension of the essence and

genesis of evil generally makes use of data from these areas.

Philosophical reflection alone is insufficient. Philosophical

thought may have engendered all the scientific disciplines, but

the other scientific disciplines did not mature until they became

independent, based on detailed data and a relationship to other

disciplines supplying such data.

Encouraged by the often “coincidental” discovery of these

naturalistic aspects of evil, the author has imitated the method-

ology of medicine; a clinical psychologist and medical co-

worker by profession, he had such tendencies anyway. As is

the case with physicians and disease, he took the risks of close

contact with evil and suffered the consequences. His purpose

was to ascertain the possibilities of understanding the nature of

evil, its etiological factors and to track its pathodynamics.

The developments of biology, medicine, and psychology

opened so many avenues that the above mentioned behavior

turned out to be not only feasible, but exceptionally fertile.

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

99

Personal experience and refined methods in clinical psychology

permitted reaching ever more accurate conclusions.

There was a major difficulty: insufficient data, especially in

the area of the science of psychopathies. This problem had to

be overcome based on my own investigations. This insuffi-

ciency was caused by neglect of these areas, theoretical diffi-

culties facing researchers, and the unpopular nature of these

problems. This work in general, and this chapter in particular,

contain references to research conclusions the author was either

prevented from publishing or unwilling to publish for reasons

of personal safety. Sadly, it is lost now and age prevents any

attempts at recovery. It is hoped that my descriptions, observa-

tions, and experience, here condensed from memory, will pro-

vide a platform for a new effort to produce the data needed to

confirm again what was confirmed then.

Nevertheless, based on the work of myself and others in that

past tragic time, a new discipline arose that became our beacon;

two Greek philologists - monks baptized it “PONEROLOGY”

from the Greek poneros = evil. The process of the genesis of

evil was called, correspondingly, “ponerogenesis”. I hope that

these modest beginnings will grow so as to enable us to over-

come evil through an understanding of its nature, causes, and

development.

~~~

From among 5000 psychotic, neurotic, and healthy patients,

the author selected 384 adults who behaved in a manner which

had seriously hurt others. They came from all circles of Polish

society, but mostly from a large industrial center characterized

by poor working conditions and substantial air pollution. They