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

behind a certain feeling of deficiency with reference to the

possibility of perceiving certain psychological factors dis-

cerned within the nature of phenomena; the essence of these

factors remains outside the scope of their scientific experience.

A historian observing these great historical diseases is

struck first of all by their similarities, easily forgetting that all

diseases have many symptoms in common because they are

states of absent health. A ponerologist thinking in naturalistic

terms tends to doubt that we are dealing with only one kind of

societal disease, thereby leading to a certain differentiation of

forms with regard to ethnological and historical conditions.

Differentiating the essence of such states is more appropriate to

the reasoning patterns we are familiar with from the natural

sciences. The complex conditions of social life, however, pre-

clude using the method of distinction, which is similar to etio-

logical criterion in medicine: qualitatively speaking, the phe-

nomena become layered in time, conditioning each other and

transforming constantly. We should then rather use certain

abstract patterns, similar to those used in analyzing the neurotic

states of human beings.

Governed by this type of reasoning, let us here attempt to

differentiate two pathological states of societies; their essence

and contents appear different enough, but they can operate

sequentially in such a way that the first opens the door to the

second. The first such state has already been sketched in the

chapter on the hysteroidal cycle; we shall adduce a certain

number of other psychological details hereunder. The next

chapter shall be dedicated to the second pathological state, for

which I have adopted the denomination of “pathocracy”.

States of Societal Hysterization

When perusing scientific or literary descriptions of hysteri-

cal phenomena, such as those dating from the last great in-

crease in hysteria in Europe encompassing the quarter-century

preceding World War I, a non-specialist may gain the impres-

sion that this was endemic to individual cases, particularly

among woman. The contagious nature of hysterical states,

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PONEROLOGY

however, had already been discovered and described by Jean-

Martin Charcot87.

It is practically impossible for hysteria to manifest itself as a

mere individual phenomenon, since it is contagious by means

of psychological resonance, identification, and imitation. Each

human being has a predisposition for this malformation of the

personality, albeit to varying degrees, although it is normally

overcome by rearing and self-rearing, which are amenable to

correct thinking and emotional self-discipline.

During “happy times” of peace dependent upon social injus-

tice, children of the privileged classes learn to repress from

their field of consciousness the uncomfortable ideas suggesting

that they and their parents are benefitting from injustice against

others. Such young people learn to disqualify disparage the

moral and mental values of anyone whose work they are using

to over-advantage. Young minds thus ingest habits of subcon-

scious selection and substitution of data, which leads to a hys-

terical conversion economy of reasoning. They grow up to be

somewhat hysterical adults who, by means of the ways ad-

duced above, thereupon transmit their hysteria to the next gen-

eration, which then develops these characteristics to an even

greater degree. The hysterical patterns for experience and be-

havior grow and spread downwards from the privileged classes

until crossing the boundary of the first criterion of ponerology:

the atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to patho-

logical individuals.

When the habits of subconscious selection and substitution

of thought-data spread to the macrosocial level, a society tends

87 Jean-Martin Charcot (1825 - 1893) French neurologist. His work greatly

impacted the developing fields of neurology and psychology. Charcot took an

interest in the malady then called hysteria. It seemed to be a mental disorder

with physical manifestations, of immediate interest to a neurologist. He

believed that hysteria was the result of a weak neurological system which

was hereditary. It could be set off by a traumatic event like an accident, but

was then progressive and irreversible. To study the hysterics under his care,

he learned the technique of hypnosis and soon became a master of the rela-

tively new "science." Charcot believed that a hypnotized state was very

similar to a bout of hysteria, and so he hypnotized his patients in order to

induce and study their symptoms. He was single-handedly responsible for

changing the French medical community's opinion about the validity of