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

gence, which conditions our perception of psychological real-

ity. We can also observe how a spellbinder’s activities “husk

out” amenable individuals with an astonishing regularity.

We shall later return to the specific relations that occur

among the spellbinder’s personality, the ideology he expounds,

and the choices made by those who easily succumb. More ex-

haustive clarification thereof would require separate study

within the framework of general ponerology, a work intended

for specialists, in order to explain some of those interesting

phenomena which are still not properly understood today.

Ponerogenic Associations

We shall give the name “ponerogenic association” to any

group of people characterized by ponerogenic processes of

above-average social intensity, wherein the carriers of various

pathological factors function as inspirers, spellbinders, and

leaders, and where a proper pathological social structure gener-

ates. Smaller, less permanent associations may be called

“groups” or “unions”.

Such an association gives birth to evil which hurts other

people as well as its own members. We could list various

names ascribed to such organizations by linguistic tradition:

gangs, criminal mobs, mafias, cliques, and coteries, which

cunningly avoid collision with the law while seeking to gain

their own advantage. Such unions frequently aspire to political

power in order to impose their expedient legislation upon so-

cieties in the name of a suitably prepared ideology, deriving

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advantages in the form of disproportionate prosperity and the

satisfaction of their craving for power.

A description and classification of such associations with a

view of their numbers, goals, officially promulgated ideologies,

and internal organizations would of course be scientifically

valuable. Such a description, effected by a perceptive observer,

could help a ponerologist determine some of the properties of

such unions, which cannot be determined by means of natural

conceptual language.

A description of this kind, however, ought not to cloak the

more factual phenomena and psychological dependencies oper-

ating within these unions. Failure to heed this warning can

easily cause such a sociological description to indicate proper-

ties which are of secondary importance, or even made “for

show” to impress the uninitiated, thereby overshadowing the

actual phenomena which decide the quality, role, and fate of

the union. Particularly if such a description is colorful litera-

ture, it can furnish merely illusory or ersatz knowledge, thus

rendering a naturalistic perception and causative comprehen-

sion of phenomena more difficult.

One phenomenon all ponerogenic groups and associations

have in common is the fact that their members lose (or have

already lost) the capacity to perceive pathological individuals

as such, interpreting their behavior in a fascinated, heroic, or

melodramatic ways. The opinions, ideas, and judgments of

people carrying various psychological deficits are endowed

with an importance at least equal to that of outstanding indi-

viduals among normal people.

The atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to

pathological individuals becomes an opening to their activities,

and, at the same time, a criterion for recognizing the associa-

tion in concern as ponerogenic. Let us call this the first crite-

rion of ponerogenesis.

Another phenomenon all ponerogenic associations have in

common is their statistically high concentration of individuals

with various psychological anomalies. Their qualitative com-

position is crucially important in the formation of the entire

union’s character, activities, development, or extinction.

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159

Groups dominated by various kinds of characteropathic in-

dividuals will develop relatively primitive activities, proving

rather easy for a society of normal people to break. However,

things are quite different when such unions are inspired by

psychopathic individuals. Let us adduce the following example

illustrating the roles of two different anomalies, selected from

among actual events studied by the author.

In felonious youth gangs, a specific role is played by boys

(and occasionally girls) that carry a characteristic deficit that is