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

which uses a moralizing interpretation with regard to their fail-

ings and difficulties, although these individuals are rarely

guilty of them in the precise terms of morality. They would like

to change this unfriendly world into something else. Dreams of

power also represent overcompensation for the feeling of hu-

miliation, the second angle in Adler’s rhombus.89 A significant

and active proportion of this group is composed of individuals

with various deviations who imagine this better world in their

own way, of which we are already familiar.

In the prior chapter, the readers have become acquainted

with examples of these deviations selected in such a way as to

permit us now to present the ponerogenesis of pathocracy and

to introduce the essential factors of this historical phenomenon

which is so difficult to understand. It has certainly appeared

many times in history, in various countries and in various so-

cial scales. However, no one has ever managed to identify it

objectively because it would hide in one of the ideologies char-

acteristic of the respective culture and era, developing in the

89 Austrian psychiatrist who rejected Sigmund Freud’s emphasis on sexuality

and theorized that neurotic behavior is an overcompensation for feelings of

inferiority. He argued that human personality could be explained teleologi-

cally, separate strands dominated by the guiding purpose of the individual’s

unconscious self ideal to convert feelings of inferiority to superiority (or

rather completeness). The desires of the self ideal were countered by social

and ethical demands. If the corrective factors were disregarded and the indi-

vidual over-compensated, then an inferiority complex would occur, the indi-

vidual becoming egocentric, power-hungry and aggressive or worse. Adler

believed that personality can be distinguished into the getting, avoiding,

ruling and socially useful types, i.e. the “rhombus”. [Editor’s note.]

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

185

very bosom of different social movements. Identification was

so difficult because the indispensable naturalistic knowledge

needed for proper classification of phenomena in this area did

not develop until our contemporary times. Thus, historians and

sociologists discern many similarities, but they possess no

identifying criteria because the latter belongs to another scien-

tific discipline.

Who plays the first crucial role in this process of the origin

of pathocracy, schizoids or characteropaths? It appears to be

the former; therefore, let us delineate their role first.

During stable times which are ostensibly happy, albeit de-

pendent upon injustice to other individuals and nations, doctri-

naire90 people believe they have found a simple solution to fix

the world. Such a historical period is always characterized by

an impoverished psychological world view, so that a schizoi-

dally impoverished psychological world view does not stand

out as odd during such times and is accepted as legal tender.

These doctrinaire individuals characteristically manifest a cer-

tain contempt with regard to moralists then preaching the need

to rediscover lost human values and to develop a richer, more

appropriate psychological world view.

Schizoid characters aim to impose their own conceptual

world upon other people or social groups, using relatively con-

trolled pathological egotism and the exceptional tenacity de-

rived from their persistent nature. They are thus eventually able

to overpower another individual’s personality, which causes

the latter’s behavior to turn desperately illogical. They may

also exert a similar influence upon the group of people they

have joined. They are psychological loners who then begin to

feel better in some human organization, wherein they become

zealots for some ideology, religious bigots, materialists, or

adherents of an ideology with satanic features. If their activities

consist of direct contact on a small social scale, their acquain-

tances generally just consider them to be eccentric, which lim-

its their ponerogenic role. However, if they manage to hide

their own personality behind the written word, their influence

90 Dogmatic: stubborn person of arbitrary or arrogant opinions who insists on

theory without regard for practicality or suitability. [Editor’s note.]

186

PATHOCRACY

may poison the minds of society on a wide scale and for a long

time.

The conviction that Karl Marx is the best example of this is

correct as he was the best-known figure of that kind. Frostig91,

a psychiatrist of the old school, included Engels and others into

a category he called “bearded schizoidal fanatics”. The famous

writings attributed to “Zionist Wise Men” at the turn of the

century begin with a typically schizoidal declaration.92 The

nineteenth century, especially its latter half, appears to have