and often do not embrace a specific, scientific meaning. [Editor’s note.]
40
INTRODUCTION
scope of precision, almost as though they foresaw that someone
– at some point in time - might use their works in order to ex-
plain what cannot be explained, not even in the best literary
language. Had these writers not been so precise and descriptive
in their language, this author would have been unable to use
their works for his own scientific purposes.
In general, most people are horrified by such literature; in
hedonistic societies particularly, people have the tendency to
escape into ignorance or naive doctrines. Some people even
feel contempt for suffering persons. The influence of such
books can thus be partially harmful; we should counteract that
influence by indicating what the authors had to leave out be-
cause our ordinary world of concepts and imaginings cannot
contain it.
The reader will therefore find herein no bloodcurdling de-
scriptions of criminal behavior or human suffering. It is not the
author’s job to present a graphic return of material adduced by
people who saw and suffered more than he did, and whose
literary talents are greater. Introducing such descriptions into
this work would run counter to its purpose: it would not only
focus attention on some occurrences to the exclusion of many
others, but would also distract the mind from the real heart of
the matter, namely,
In tracking the behavioral mechanisms of the genesis of
evil, one must keep both abhorrence and fear under control,
submit to a passion for epistemological science, and develop
the calm outlook needed in natural history. We must never lose
sight of the objective: to trace the processes of ponerogenesis;
where they can lead and what threat they can pose to us in the
future.
This book therefore aims to take the reader by the hand into
a world beyond the concepts and imaginings he has relied on to
describe his world since childhood, in an overly egotistic way,
probably because his parents, surroundings, and the community
of his country used concepts similar to his own. Thereafter, we
must show him an appropriate selection from the world of fac-
tual concepts which have given birth to recent scientific think-
ing and which will allow him an understanding of what has
remained irrational in his everyday system of concepts.
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
41
However, this tour of another reality will not be a psycho-
logical experiment conducted upon readers’ minds for the sole
purpose of exposing the weak points and gaps in their natural
world view. Rather, it an urgent necessity due to our contempo-
rary world’s pressing problems, which we can ignore only at
our peril.
It is important to realize that we cannot possibly distinguish
the path to nuclear catastrophe from the path to creative dedica-
tion
well known concepts. Then we can come to the understanding
that the path was chosen for us by powerful forces, against
which our nostalgia for homey, familiar human concepts can be
no match. We must step beyond this world of everyday, illu-
sory thinking for our own good and for the good of our loved
ones.
The social sciences have already elaborated their own con-
ventional language which mediates between the ordinary man’s
view and a fully objective naturalistic view. It is useful to sci-
entists in terms of communication and cooperation, but it is still
not the kind of conceptual structure which can fully take into
account the biological, psychological, and pathological prem-
ises at issue in the second and fourth chapters of this book. In
the social sciences, the conventional terminology
ences, it leads to an underrated evaluation of factors which
describe the essence of political situations when evil is at the
core.
This social science language left the author and other inves-
tigators feeling helpless and scientifically stranded early in our
research on the mysterious nature of this inhuman historical
phenomenon which engulfed our nation, and still fires his at-
tempts to reach an objective understanding of it. Ultimately, I
had no choice but to resort to objective biological, psychologi-
cal, and psychopathological terminology in order to bring into
focus the true nature of the phenomenon, the heart of matter.
The nature of the phenomena under investigation as well as
the needs of readers, particularly those unfamiliar with psycho-
pathology, dictate the descriptive manner which must first in-
troduce the data and concepts necessary for further comprehen-
42
INTRODUCTION