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

11 Literally, the absence of knowledge. [Editor’s note.]

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

57

concentrated on a single question; succumbing to a kind of

fascination regarding its scientific value; they delved into de-

tailed inquiries. Their achievements may be present in this

work, since they understood the general mining of their work.

Others gave up in the face of scientific problems, personal

difficulties, or the fear of being discovered by the authorities,

who are highly vigilant in such matters.

Perusing this book will therefore confront the reader with

similar problems, albeit on a much smaller scale. A certain

impression of injustice may be conveyed due to the need to

leave behind a significant portion of our prior conceptualiza-

tions, the feeling that our natural world view is inapplicable,

and the expendability of some emotional entanglements. I

therefore ask my readers to accept these disturbing feelings in

the spirit of the love of knowledge and its redeeming values.

The above explanations were crucial in order to render the

language of this work more easily comprehensible to the read-

ers. The author has attempted to approach the matters described

herein in such a way as to avoid both losing touch with the

world of objective concepts and becoming incomprehensible to

anyone outside a narrow circle of specialists. We must thus beg

the reader to pardon any slips along the tightrope between the

two methods of thought. However, the author would not be an

experienced psychologist if he could not predict that some

readers will reject the scientific data adduced within this work,

feeling that they constitute an attack upon the natural wisdom

of their life-experience.

The Human Individual

When Auguste Comte12 attempted to found the new science

of sociology during the early nineteenth century, i.e. well be-

12 Auguste Comte (1798 - 1857) was a French positivist thinker who invented

the term “sociology” to name the new science made by Saint-Simon. Comte

saw a “universal law” at work in all sciences which he called the “law of

three phases”. It is for this law that he is best known in the English-speaking

world; namely, that society has gone through three phases: Theological,

Metaphysical, and Scientific. He also gave the name “Positive” to the last of

these. The other universal law he called the “encyclopedic law”. By combin-

ing these laws, Comte developed a systematic and hierarchical classification

of all sciences, including inorganic physics (astronomy, earth science and

58

SOME INDESPENSIBLE CONCEPTS

fore modern psychology was born, he was immediately con-

fronted with the problem of man, a mystery he could not solve.

If he rejected the Catholic Church’s oversimplifications of

human nature, then nothing remained except traditional

schemes for comprehending the personality, derived from well

known social conditions. He thus had to avoid this problem,

among others, if he wanted to create his new scientific branch

under such conditions.

Therefore, he accepted that the basic cell of society is the

family, something much easier to characterize and treat like an

elementary model of societal relations. This could also be ef-

fected by means of a language of comprehensible concepts,

without confronting problems which could truly not have been

overcome at the time. Slightly later, J. S. Mill13 pointed out the

resulting deficiencies of psychological cognition and the role of

the individuals.

chemistry) and organic physics (biology and for the first time, physique

sociale, later renamed sociologie). Comte saw this new science, sociology, as

the last and greatest of all sciences, one that would include all other sciences,

and which would integrate and relate their findings into a cohesive whole.

(Wikipedia)

13 John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873), an English philosopher and political

economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an

advocate of utilitarianism, the ethical theory first proposed by his godfather

Jeremy Bentham. During his time as an MP, Mill advocated easing the bur-

dens on Ireland, and became the first person in parliament to call for women

to be given the right to vote. In “Considerations on Representative Govern-

ment”, Mill called for various reforms of Parliament and voting, especially

proportional representation, the Single Transferable Vote, and the extension

of suffrage. He was godfather to Bertrand Russell. Mill argued that it is

Government’s role only to remove the barriers, such as laws, to behaviors

that do not harm others. Crucially, he felt that offense did not constitute

harm, and therefore supported almost total freedom of speech; only in cases

where free speech would lead to direct harm did Mill wish to limit it. For

example, whipping up an angry mob to go and attack people would not be