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

eras. People with a humanistic education may therefore get the

impression that they have achieved wisdom. We shall also

ultimate realities of Sankhya philosophy. The divine Self, the absolute Real-

ity, pure Consciousness. [Editor’s note.]

10 Ontogeny (also ontogenesis or morphogenesis) describes the origin and the

development of an organism from the fertilized egg to its mature form. On-

togeny is studied in developmental biology. [Editor’s note.]

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

53

continue to respect the wisdom of that “common sense” de-

rived from life experience and reflections thereon.

However, a conscientious psychologist must ask the follow-

ing questions: Even if the natural world view has been refined,

does it mirror reality with sufficient reliability? Or does it only

mirror our species’ perception? To what extent can we depend

upon it as a basis for decision making in the individual, societal

and political spheres of life?

Experience teaches us, first of all, that this natural world

view has permanent and characteristic tendencies toward de-

formation dictated by our instinctive and emotional features.

Secondly, our work exposes us to many phenomena which

cannot be understood nor described by natural language alone.

An objective scientific language able to analyze the essence of

a phenomenon thus becomes an indispensable tool. It has also

shown itself to be similarly indispensable for an understanding

of the questions presented within this book.

Now, having laid the groundwork, let us attempt a listing of

the most important reality-deforming tendencies and other

insufficiencies of the natural human world view.

Those emotional features which are a natural component of

the human personality are never completely appropriate to the

reality being experienced. This results both from our instinct

and from our common errors of upbringing. That is why the

best tradition of philosophical and religious thought have coun-

seled subduing the emotions in order to achieve a more accu-

rate view of reality.

The natural world view is also characterized by a similar,

emotional, tendency to endow our opinions with moral judg-

ment, often so negative as to represent outrage. This appeals to

tendencies which are deeply rooted in human nature and socie-

tal customs. We easily extrapolate this method of comprehen-

sion onto manifestations of improper human behavior, which

are, in fact, caused by minor psychological deficiencies. When

another individual behaves in a way that we deem to be “bad”,

we tend to make a judgment of negative intent rather than seek-

ing to understand the psychological conditions that might be

driving them, and convincing them that they are, in fact, behav-

ing very properly. Thus, any moralizing interpretation of minor

54

SOME INDESPENSIBLE CONCEPTS

psychopathological phenomena is erroneous and merely leads

to an exceptional number of unfortunate consequences, which

is why we shall repeatedly refer to it.

Another defect of the natural world view is its lack of uni-

versality. In every society, a certain percentage of the people

has developed a world view a good deal different from that

used by the majority. The causes of the aberrations are by no

means qualitatively monolithic; we will be discussing them in

greater detail in the fourth chapter.

Another essential deficiency of the natural world view is its

limited scope of applicability. Euclidean geometry would suf-

fice for a technical reconstruction of our world and for a trip to

the moon and the closest planets. We only need a geometry

whose axioms are less natural if we reach inside of an atom or

outside of our solar system. The average person does not en-

counter phenomena for which Euclidean geometry would be

insufficient. Sometime during his lifetime, virtually every per-

son is faced with problems he must deal with. Since a compre-

hension of the truly operational factors is beyond the ken of his

natural world view, he generally relies on emotion: intuition

and the pursuit of happiness. Whenever we meet a person

whose individual world view developed under the influence of

non-typical conditions, we tend to pass moral judgment upon

him in the name of our more typical world view. In short,

whenever some unidentified psychopathological factor comes

into play, the natural human world view ceases to be applica-

ble.

Moving further, we often meet with sensible people en-

dowed with a well-developed natural world view as regards

psychological, societal, and moral aspects, frequently refined

via literary influences, religious deliberations, and philosophi-

cal reflections. Such persons have a pronounced tendency to

overrate the values of their world view, behaving as though it

were an objective basis for judging other people. They do not