historical times. We should at present focus our attention upon
the very essence of the macrosocial pathological phenomena.
Understanding the nature of a disease is basic to any search
for the proper methods of treatment. The same applies by anal-
ogy with regard to that macrosocial pathological phenomenon,
especially since, in the latter case,
Throughout the entire process, reasoning approximated to the
204
PATHOCRACY
style elaborated by medicine is the proper method which leads
to untangling the contemporary Gordian knot.
A pathocracy’s ideology changes its function, just as occurs
with a mentally ill person’s delusional system. It stops being a
human conviction outlining methods of action and takes on
other duties which are not openly defined. It becomes a
consciousness, both inside and outside one’s nation. The first
function – a conviction outlining methods of action - soon be-
comes ineffective for two reasons: on the one hand, reality
exposes the methods of action as unworkable; on the other
hand, the masses of common people notice the contemptuous
attitude toward the ideology represented by the pathocrats
themselves. For that reason, the main operational theater for the
ideology consists of nations remaining outside the immediate
ambit of the pathocracy, since that world tends to continue
believing in ideologies. The ideology thus becomes the instru-
ment for external action to a degree even greater than in the
above-mentioned relationship between the disease and its delu-
sional system.
Psychopaths are conscious of being different from normal
people. That is why the “political system” inspired by their
nature is able to conceal this awareness of being different. They
wear a personal mask of sanity and know how to create a mac-
rosocial mask of the same dissimulating nature. When we ob-
serve the role of ideology in this macrosocial phenomenon,
quite conscious of the existence of this specific awareness of
the psychopath, we can then understand why ideology is rele-
gated to a tool-like role: something useful in dealing with those
other naive people and nations. Pathocrats must nevertheless
appreciate the function of ideology as being something essen-
tial in any ponerogenic group, especially in the macrosocial
phenomenon which is their “homeland”. This factor of aware-
ness simultaneously constitutes a certain qualitative difference
between the two above-mentioned relationships. Pathocrats
know that their
tures, and treat the “other” – the masking ideology - with
barely concealed contempt. And the common people eventually
begin to perceive this as noted above.
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
205
Thus, a well-developed pathocratic system no longer has a
clear and direct relationship to its original ideology, which it
only keeps as its primary, traditional tool for action and mask-
ing. For practical purposes of pathocratic expansion, other ide-
ologies may be useful, even if they contradict the main one and
heap moral denunciation upon it. However, these other ideolo-
gies must be used with care, refraining from official acknow-
ledgement within environments wherein the original ideology
can be made to appear too foreign, discredited, and useless.
The main ideology succumbs to symptomatic deformation,
in keeping with the characteristic style of this very disease and
with what has already been stated about the matter. The names
and
content is insinuated underneath, thus giving rise to the well
known double talk phenomenon within which the same names
have two meanings: one for initiates, one for everyone else.
The latter is derived from the original ideology; the former has
a specifically pathocratic meaning, something which is known
not only to the pathocrats themselves, but also is learned by
those people living under long-term subjection to their rule.
Doubletalk is only one of many symptoms. Others are the
specific facility for producing new names which have sugges-
tive effects and are accepted virtually uncritically, in particular
outside the immediate scope of such a system’s rule.96 We must
thus point out the paramoralistic character and paranoidal
qualities frequently contained within these names. The action
of paralogisms and paramoralisms in this deformed ideology
becomes comprehensible to us based on the information pre-
sented in Chapter IV.