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

common phenomenon; however, it is not the single decisive

factor that determines whether an individual or a society be-

comes ill, since natural and artificial immunity as well as medi-

cal assistance may play a role as well. Similarly, psychopatho-

logical factors alone do not – themselves - decide about the

spread of evil. Other factors have parallel importance: socio-

economic conditions, and moral and intellectual deficits.

Individuals and nations that are able to endure injustice in

the name of moral values can more easily find a way out of

such difficulties without resorting to violent means. A rich

moral tradition contains the experience and reflections of cen-

turies in this regard. This book describes the role of these addi-

tional factors in the genesis of evil, which have been insuffi-

ciently understood for centuries; such explication is essential

for completing the overall picture and permitting more effec-

tive practical measures to be formulated.

Thus, emphasizing the role of pathological factors in the

genesis of evil does not minimize the responsibility of social

moral failings and intellectual deficits in contributing to the

situation. Real moral deficits and a grossly inadequate concep-

tion of human reality and psychological and moral situations

are frequently caused by some earlier or contemporary activity

on the part of pathological factors.

However, we must also acknowledge the constant, biologi-

cally determined presence within every human society of this

small minority of individuals who are carriers of qualitatively

diverse, but ponerologically active, pathological factors. Any

discussion on what came first in the process of the genesis of

evil, moral failings or the activities of pathological factors, can

thus be considered academic speculation. On the other hand,

the Bible is worth re-reading through the eyes of a ponerolo-

gist.

142

PONEROLOGY

Detailed analysis of the personality of the average normal

person nearly always reveals conditions and difficulties caused

by the effects upon him of some kind of pathological factor. If

the activity was far removed in time or space, or the factor

relatively obvious, healthy common sense is generally suffi-

cient to correct such effects. If the pathological factor remains

incomprehensible, the person has difficulty understanding the

cause of his problems; he sometimes appears to remain a life-

long slave of imaginings and patterns of behavioral response

which originated under the influence of pathological individu-

als. This is what occurred in the above-mentioned family,

where the source of pathological induction was the eldest sister

with perinatal damage of the prefrontal fields of her brain cor-

tex. Even when she obviously abused her youngest child, her

brothers attempted to interpret this in a paramoralistic manner,

a sacrifice in the name of “family honor”.

Such matters should be taught to everyone in order to facili-

tate auto-pedagogical self-monitoring. Certain outstanding

psychopathologists became convinced that developing a

healthy functional view of human reality is impossible without

factoring in psychopathological findings, are correct, a conclu-

sion difficult to accept by people who believe they have at-

tained a mature world view without such burdensome studies.

The older egotistical defenders of the natural world view have

tradition, belles-lettres, even philosophy on their side. They do

not realize that during the present time, their manner of com-

prehending life’s questions renders the battle with evil more

problematic. However, the younger generation is more familiar

with biology and psychology, and is thus more amenable to an

objective understanding of the role of pathological phenomena

in the processes of the genesis of evil.

Parallax68, often even a wide gap, frequently occurs be-

tween human and social reality, which is biological by nature

and frequently influenced by the above-mentioned refusal to

factor in psychopathological elements, as well as the traditional

perceptions of reality as taught by philosophy, ethics, and secu-

lar and canon law. This gap is easily discernible to those people

68 The difference in appearance or position of an object when viewed from

two different locations. [Editor’s note.]

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

143

whose psychological world view was formed in a manner dif-

ferent from the natural way of a normal person. Many of them

consciously and subconsciously take advantage of this weak-

ness in order to force themselves into it, along with their my-

opically-determined activities characterized by egoistical con-

cepts of self-interest. Still people, whether pathologically indif-

ferent to other peoples’ or nations’ hurts, or lacking in knowl-