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

future and participation in creating it will heal battered human

souls and bring order into thought processes. This constructive

work trains people to govern themselves under such different

conditions and knocks the weapon out of the hands of anyone

who serves evil, increasing the latter’s feeling of frustration

and an awareness that his pathological work is nearing an end.

A careful reading of this book may cause us to discern the

outlines of a creative vision of such a future societal system so

sorely needed by nations suffering under pathocratic rule; if so,

this represents a reward for the author’s effort rather than re-

sults of pure chance. Just such a vision accompanied me

throughout the period of my work on this book (although the

latter nowhere indicates a name nor any more precise details

for it), rendering assistance and proving a useful support in the

future. In some way, it is thus present on the pages and be-

tween the lines of this work.

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

307

Such a social system of the future would have to guarantee

its citizens wide scope personal freedom and an open door to

utilizing their creative possibilities in both individual and col-

lective efforts. At the same time, however, it must not indicate

the well known weaknesses manifested by a democracy in its

domestic and foreign policy. Not only should individuals’ per-

sonal interest and the common good be appropriately balanced

in such a system; they should be woven right into the overall

picture of social life at the level where an understanding of its

laws causes any discrepancy between them to disappear. The

opinion of the wide mass of the citizenry, dictated primarily by

the voices of basic intelligence and dependent upon the natural

world view, should be balanced by the skills of people who

utilize an objective cognition of reality and possess the appro-

priate training in their special areas. Appropriate and well

thought out system solutions should be used for this purpose.

The foundations for practical solutions within such an im-

proved system would contain criteria such as creating the right

conditions for enriched development of human personalities

including the psychological world view, whose societal role

has already been adduced. Individual socio-professional adap-

tation, the creation of an interpersonal network, and a healthy

active socio-psychological structure should be facilitated to the

maximum possible extent.

Structural, legal, and economic solutions should be consid-

ered in such a way that fulfilling these criteria would also open

the door for an individual’s optimal self-realization within so-

cial life, which would simultaneously be for the good of the

community. Other traditional criteria such as the dynamics of

economic development will thereupon prove secondary to these

more general values. The result of this would be the nation’s

economic development, political skill, and creative role in the

international sphere.

The priorities in terms of value criteria would thus shift

consistently in the direction of psychological, social, and moral

data. This is in keeping with the spirit of the times, but actual

execution thereof demands imaginative effort and constructive

thought in order to achieve the above-mentioned practical

308

A VISION OF THE FUTURE

goals. After all, everything begins and ends within the human

psyche.

Such a system would have to be evolutionary by nature, as

it would be based upon an acceptance of evolution as a law of

nature. Natural evolutionary factors would play an important

role therein, such as the course of cognition continually proc-

essing from more primitive and easily accessible data to more

actual, intrinsic, and subtle matters. The principle of evolution

would have to be imprinted firmly enough upon the basic phi-

losophical foundations of such a system so as to protect it con-

sistently from future revolution.

Such a social system would by nature be more resistant to

the danger of having macrosocial pathological phenomena

develop within. Its foundations would be an improved devel-

opment of the psychological world view and society’s links

structure coupled with a scientific and social consciousness of

the essence of such phenomena. This should furnish the foun-

dation for mature methods of education. Such a system should

also have built-in permanent institutions which were heretofore

unknown and whose task will be preventing the development

of ponerogenic processes within society, particularly among

governing authorities.

A “Council of Wise Men” would be an institution com-

posed of several people with extremely high general, medical,

and psychological qualifications; it would have the right to

examine the physical and psychological health of candidates