PATHOCRACY
The Genesis of the Phenomenon
The time-cycle sketched in Chapter III was referred to as hysteroidal
because the intensification or diminution of a society’s hysterical
condition can be considered its chief measurement. It does not, of course,
constitute the only quality subject to change within the framework of
certain periodicity. The present chapter shall deal with the phenomenon
which can emerge from the phase of maximal intensification of hysteria.
Such a sequence does not appear to result from
any relatively constant laws of history; quite the contrary, some additional
circumstances and factors must participate in such a period of a society’s
general spiritual crisis and cause its reason and social structure to
degenerate in such a way as to bring about the spontaneous generation of
this worst disease of society. Let us call this societal disease phenomenon
“pathocracy”; this is not the first time it has emerged during the history
of our planet.
It appears that this phenomenon, whose causes also appear to be potentially
present in every society, has its own characteristic process of genesis,
only partially conditioned by, and hidden within, the maximal hysterical
intensity of the above-described cycle. As a result, unhappy times become
exceptionally cruel and enduring and their causes impossible to understand
within the categories of natural human concepts. Let us therefore bring this
process of the origin of pathocracy closer, methodically isolating it from
other phenomena we can recognize as being conditional or even accompanying
it.
A psychologically normal, highly intelligent person called to high office
normally experiences doubts as to whether he can meet the demands expected
of him and seeks the assistance of others whose opinions he values. At the
same time, he feels nostalgia for his old life, freer and less burdensome,
to which he would like to return after fulfilling his social obligations.
Every society worldwide contains individuals whose dreams of power arise
very early as we have already discussed. They are generally discriminated
against in some way by society, which uses a moralizing interpretation with
regard to their failings 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 humiliation, 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 social
scales.
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
teleologically, 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 individual over-compensated, then an inferiority complex
would occur, the individual 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.]
However, no one has ever managed to identify it objectively because it would
hide in one of the ideologies characteristic of the respective culture and
era, developing in the 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 scientific 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 dependent upon
injustice to other individuals and nations, doctrinaire90
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 schizoidally impoverished psychological world view
does not stand out as odd during such times and is accepted as legal tender.
90 Dogmatic:
stubborn person of arbitrary or arrogant opinions who insists on theory
without regard for practicality or suitability. [Editor’s note.]
These doctrinaire individuals characteristically
manifest a certain 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 controlled pathological egotism
and the exceptional tenacity derived 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 acquaintances generally just consider them to be
eccentric, which limits their ponerogenic role. However, if they manage to
hide their own personality behind the written word, their influence 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. Frostig 91,
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
91 Peter Jacob
Frostig, 1896-1959. Professor of King John Kasimir University in Lwow, (now
Ukraine). I used his manual Psychiatria. Poland was then under pathocratic
rule and his works were removed from public libraries as “ideologically
improper”.
92 The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is now
well known to have been a hoaxed attribution to Jews. However, the contents
of the Protocols are clearly not “hoaxed ideas” since a reasonable
assessment of the events in the United States over the past 50 years or so
gives ample evidence of the application of these Protocols in order to bring
about the current Neocon administration. Anyone who wishes to understand
what has happened in the U.S. only needs to read the Protocols to understand
that some group of deviant individuals took them to heart. The document,
“Project For A New American Century”, produced by the Neoconservatives reads
as if it had been inspired by the Protocols. [Editor’s note.]
The nineteenth century, especially its latter
half, appears to have been a time of exceptional activity on the part of
schizoidal individuals, often but not always of Jewish descent. After all we
have to remember that 97 % of all Jews do not manifest this anomaly, and
that it also appears among all European nations, albeit to a markedly lesser
extent. Our inheritance from this period includes world-images, scientific
traditions, and legal concepts flavored with the shoddy ingredients of a
schizoidal apprehension of reality.
Humanists are prepared to understand that era and its legacy within
categories characterized by their own traditions. They search for societal,
ideational, and moral causes for known phenomena. Such an explanation,
however, can never constitute the whole truth, since it ignores the
biological factors which participated in the genesis of the phenomena.
Schizoidia is the most frequent factor, albeit not the only one.
In spite of the fact that the writings of schizoidal authors contain the
above described deficiency, or even an openly formulated schizoidal
declaration which constitutes sufficient warning to specialists, the average
reader accepts them not as a view of reality warped by this anomaly, but
rather as an idea to which he should consider seriously based on his
convictions and his reason. That is the first mistake.
The oversimplified pattern of ideas, devoid of psychological color and based
on easily available data, tends to exert an intense attracting influence on
individuals who are insufficiently critical, frequently frustrated as result
of downward social adjustment, culturally neglected, or characterized by
some psychological deficiencies of their own. Such writings are particularly
attractive to a hystericized society. Others who may read such writings will
be immediately provoked to criticism based on their healthy common sense,
though they also they fail to grasp the essential cause of the error: that
it emerges from a biologically deviant mind.
Societal interpretation of such writings and doctrinaire declarations breaks
down into main trifurcations, engendering divisiveness and conflict. The
first branch is the path of aversion, based on rejection of the contents of
the work due to personal motivations, differing convictions, or moral
revulsion. These reactions contain the component of a moralistic
interpretation of pathological phenomena.
The second and third branches relate to two distinctly different
apperception types among those persons who accept the contents of such
works: the critically-corrective and the pathological.
The critically-corrective approach is taken by people whose feel for
psychological reality is normal and they tend to incorporate the more
valuable elements of the work. They then trivialize the obvious errors and
fill in the missing elements of the schizoid deficiencies by means of their
own richer world view. This gives rise to a more sensible, measured, and
thus creative interpretation, but is cannot be completely free from the
influence of the error frequently adduced above.
Pathological acceptance is manifested by
individuals with psychological deficiencies of their own: diversiform
deviations, whether inherited or acquired, as well as by many people bearing
personality malformations or who have been injured by social injustice. That
explains why this scope is wider than the circle drawn by direct action of
pathological factors. Pathological acceptance of schizoidal writings or
declarations by other deviants often brutalizes the authors’ concepts and
promotes ideas of force and revolutionary means.
The passage of time and bitter experience has unfortunately not prevented
this characteristic misunderstanding born of schizoid nineteenth-century
creativity, with Marx’s works at the fore, from affecting people and
depriving them of their common sense.
If only for purposes of the above-mentioned psychological experiment, it is
good practice for developing awareness of this pathological factor by
searching the works of K. Marx for several statements with these
characteristic deficits. When such a study is conducted by several people
with varied world views, the experiment will show how a clear picture of
reality can be restored, and it becomes easier to find a common language.
Schizoidia has thus played an essential role as one of the factors in the
genesis of the evil threatening our contemporary world. Practicing
psychotherapy upon the world will therefore demand that the results of such
evil be eliminated as skillfully as possible.
The first researchers – the author and his colleagues - attracted by the
idea of objectively understanding this phenomenon initially failed to
perceive the role of characteropathic personalities in the genesis of
pathocracy. However, when we attempted to reconstruct the early phase of
said genesis, we had to acknowledge that characteropaths played a
significant role in this process.
We already know from the preceding chapter how their defective experiential
and thought patterns take hold in human minds, insidiously destroying their
way of reasoning and their ability to utilize their healthy common sense.
This role has also proved essential because their activities as fanatical
leaders or spellbinders in various ideologies open the door to psychopathic
individuals and the view of the world they want to impose.
In the ponerogenic process of the pathocratic phenomenon, characteropathic
individuals adopt ideologies created by doctrinaire, often schizoidal
people, recast them into an active propaganda form, and disseminate it with
their characteristic pathological egotism and paranoid intolerance for any
philosophies which may differ from their own. They also inspire further
transformation of this ideology into its pathological counterpart. Something
which had a doctrinaire character and circulated in numerically limited
groups is now activated at societal level, thanks to their spellbinding
abilities.
It also appears that this process tends to intensify with time; initial
activities are undertaken by persons with milder charac-teropathic features,
who are easily able to hide their aberrations from others. Paranoid
individuals then become principally active. Toward the end of the process,
an individual with frontal characteropathy and the highest degree of
pathological egotism can easily take over leadership.
As long as the characteropathic individuals play a dominant role within a
social movement affected by the ponerogenic process, the ideology, whether
doctrinaire from the outset or later vulgarized and further perverted by
these latter people, continues to keep and maintain its content link with
the original prototype. The ideology continuously affects the movement’s
activities and remains an essential justifying motivation for many. In this
phase, therefore, such a union does not move in the direction of criminal
acts on a mass scale. To a certain extent, at this stage, one can still
define such a movement or union by the name of its original ideology.
In the meantime, however, the carriers of other (mainly hereditary)
pathological factors become engaged in this already sick social movement and
proceed with the work of final transformation of the contents – both
ideological and human - of such a union in such a way that it becomes a
pathological caricature of its original ideology. This is effected under the
evergrowing influence of psychopathic personalities of various types, with
particular emphasis on the inspiration role of essential psychopathy.
Such a situation eventually engenders a wholesale showdown: the adherents of
the original ideology are shunted aside or terminated. (This group includes
many characteropaths, especially of the lesser and paranoidal varieties.)
The ideological motivations and the double talk they created then are
utilized to hide the actual new contents of the phenomenon. From this time
on, using the ideological name of the movement in order to understand its
essence becomes a keystone of mistakes.
Psychopathic individuals generally stay away from social organizations
characterized by reason and ethical discipline. After all, such
organizations are created by that other world of normal people so foreign to
them.
They hold various social ideologies in contempt,
while, at the same time, easily discerning all their actual failings.
However, once the process of poneric transformation of some human union into
its yet undefined cartoon counterpart has begun and advanced sufficiently,
they perceive this fact with almost infallible sensitivity: a circle has
been created wherein they can hide their failings and psychological
differentness, find their own modus vivendi, and maybe even realize
their youthful Utopian dream of a world where they are in power and all
those other, “normal people”, are forced into servitude.
They then begin infiltrating the rank and file
of such a movement; pretending to be sincere adherents poses no difficulty
for the psychopath, since it is second nature for them to play a role and
hide behind the mask of normal people.
The psychopaths’ interest in such movements is not an exclusive result of
their egoism and lack of moral scruples. These people have in fact been hurt
by nature and society.93
93 It is
important to note here that it is not meant that the psychopath has been
“emotionally” hurt, or that such “hurt” has contributed to their state of
being. Rather, as the author explained to me in private correspondence: “For
them you are their worst enemy. You are hurting them very painfully. For a
psychopath, revealing his real condition, tearing down his Cleckley mask,
brings the end of his self-admiration. You are threatening them with
destruction of their secret world, and bring to null their dreams of ruling
and introducing [a social system where they can rule and be served]. When
his real condition is publicly revealed, a psychopath feels like a wounded
animal. “You are partly right in finding some similarity of the essential
psychopath with the thought [processes] of a crocodile.
They are somewhat mechanical. But, are they
guilty that they have inherited an abnormal gene, and that their instinctive
substratum is different from that of the majority of the human population?
Such a person is not able to feel like a normal person, or to understand a
person bearing a normal instinctive endowment. [It is important] to try to
understand the psychopath, and have some pity for them [as you would have
pity for a crocodile and its right to exist in nature].
Limiting the role of psychopaths in
ponerogenesis, particularly in the case of the tragedies they cause women,
thus reducing their numbers, is the real aim. “Take as well in your
consideration that in the whole pool of pathological factors taking part in
ponrogenezis all kinds of psychopathies make up something less than half.
The other pathologic conditions, usually not hereditary, make up more than
other half. Stalin was not a psychopath. He was a case of frontal
characteropathy due to the damage of frontal centers (10A&B) caused be a
disease he suffered as a newborn. This produces dramaticaly dangerous
characters.” [Editor’s note.]
An ideology liberating a social class or
a nation from injustice may thus seem to them to be friendly; unfortunately
it also gives rise to unrealistic hopes that they themselves will be
liberated as well. The pathological motivations which appeared in a union at
the time it begins to be affected by the ponerogenic process strikes them as
familiar and hope-inspiring. They therefore insinuate themselves into such a
movement preaching revolution and war against that unfair world so foreign
to them.
They initially perform subordinate functions in such a movement and execute
the leaders’ orders, especially whenever something needs to be done which
inspires revulsion in others.94
Their evident zealotry and cynicism gives rise to criticism on the part of
the union’s more reasonable members, but it also earns the respect of some
its more extreme revolutionaries. They thus find protection among those
people who earlier played a role in the movement’s ponerization, and repay
the favor with compliments or by making things easier for them.
94 Here, we
cannot help but think of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld,
protégés of the neocon philosopher, Leo Strauss. Strauss evidences typical schizoidal doctrinaire characteristics.
“Like Plato, Strauss believed that
the supreme political ideal is the rule of the wise. But the rule of the
wise is unattainable in the real world. Now, according to the conventional
wisdom, Plato realized this, and settled for the rule of law. But Strauss
did not endorse this solution entirely. Nor did he think that it was Plato’s
real solution - Strauss pointed to the ‘nocturnal council’ in Plato’s Laws
to illustrate his point.
“The real Platonic solution as understood by Strauss is the covert rule of
the wise. This covert rule is facilitated by the overwhelming stupidity of
the gentlemen. The more gullible and unperceptive they are, the easier it is
for the wise to control and manipulate them. [...]
“For Strauss, the rule of the wise is not about classic conservative values
like order, stability, justice, or respect for authority. The rule of the
wise is intended as an antidote to modernity. Modernity is the age in which
the vulgar many have triumphed. It is the age in which they have come
closest to having exactly what their hearts desire - wealth, pleasure, and
endless entertainment. But in getting just what they desire, they have
unwittingly been reduced to beasts.
“Nowhere is this state of affairs more advanced than in America. And the
global reach of American culture threatens to trivialize life and turn it
into entertainment. This was [a] terrifying [...] spectre for Strauss. […]
.
“[Strauss was] convinced that liberal
economics would turn life into entertainment and destroy politics.[...]
[Strauss] thought that man’s humanity depended on his willingness to rush
naked into battle and headlong to his death. Only perpetual war can overturn
the modern project, with its emphasis on self-preservation and ‘creature
comforts.’ Life can be politicized once more, and man’s humanity can be
restored.
“This terrifying vision fits perfectly well with the desire for
honor and
glory that the neo-conservative gentlemen covet. It also fits very well with
the religious sensibilities of gentlemen. The combination of religion and
nationalism is the elixir that Strauss advocates as the way to turn natural,
relaxed, hedonistic men into devout nationalists willing to fight and die
for their God and country.
“I never imagined when I wrote my first book on Strauss that the
unscrupulous elite that he elevates would ever come so close to political
power, nor that the ominous tyranny of the wise would ever come so close to
being realized in the political life of a great nation like the United
States. But fear is the greatest ally of tyranny.”
(Shadia Drury, professor
of political theory at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan).
[Editor’s
note.]
Thus they climb up the organizational ladder,
gain influence, and almost involuntarily bend the contents of the entire
group to their own way of experiencing reality and to the goals derived from
their deviant nature. A mysterious disease is already raging inside the
union. The adherents of the original ideology feel ever more constricted by
powers they do not understand; they start fighting with demons and making
mistakes.
If such a movement triumphs by revolutionary means and in the name of
freedom, the welfare of the people, and social justice, this only brings
about further transformation of a governmental system thus created into a
macrosocial pathological phenomenon. Within this system, the common man is
blamed for not having been born a psychopath, and is considered good for
nothing except hard work, fighting and dying to protect a system of
government he can neither sufficiently comprehend nor ever consider to be
his own.
An ever-strengthening network of psychopathic and related individuals
gradually starts to dominate, overshadowing the others. Characteropathic
individuals who played an essential role in ponerizing the movement and
preparing for revolution, are also eliminated. Adherents of the
revolutionary ideology are unscrupulously “pushed into a
counter-revolutionary position”. They are now condemned for “moral” reasons
in the name of new criteria whose paramoralistic essence they are not in a
position to comprehend. Violent negative selection of the original group now
ensues. The inspirational role of essential psychopathy is now also
consolidated; it remains characteristic for the entire future of this
macrosocial pathological phenomenon.
In spite of these transformations, the pathological block of the
revolutionary movement remains a minority, a fact which cannot be changed by
propaganda pronouncements about the moral majority adhering to the new, more
glorious version of the ideology. The rejected majority and the very forces
which naively created such power to begin with, start mobilizing against the
block of psychopaths who have taken over. Ruthless confrontation with these
forces is seen by the psychopathic block as the only way to safeguard the
long-term survival of the pathological authority. We must thus consider the
bloody triumph of a pathological minority over the movement’s majority to be
a transitional phase during which the new contents of the phenomenon
coagulate.
The entire life of a society thus affected then becomes subordinated to
deviant thought-criteria and permeated by their specific experiential mode,
especially the one described in the section on essential psychopathy. At
this point, using the name of the original ideology to designate this
phenomenon is meaningless and becomes an error rendering its comprehension
more difficult.
I shall accept the denomination of pathocracy for a system of government
thus created, wherein a small pathological minority takes control over a
society of normal people. The name thus selected, above all, emphasizes the
basic quality of the macrosocial psychopathological phenomenon, and
differentiates it from the many possible social systems dominated by normal
people’s structure, custom, and law.
I tried to find a name which would more clearly designate the
psychopathological, even psychopathic quality of such a government, but I
gave up because of certain perceived phenomena (to be referred to below) and
for practical considerations (to avoid lengthening the denomination). Such a
name sufficiently indicates the phenomenon’s basic quality and also
emphasizes that the ideological cloak (or some other ideology which cloaked
similar phenomena in the past) does not constitute its essence.
When I happened to hear that a Hungarian
scientist unknown to me had already used this term, my decision was
finalized. I think this name is consistent with the demands of semantics,
since no concise term can adequately characterize such a complex phenomenon.
I shall also henceforth designate the social
systems wherein the links of normal people dominate in any way as “the
systems of normal man”.
More on the Contents of the Phenomenon
The achievement of absolute domination by pathocrats in the government of a
country cannot be permanent since large sectors of the society become
disaffected by such rule and eventually find some way of toppling it. This
is part of the historical cycle, easily discerned when history is read from
a ponerological point of view. Pathocracy at the summit of governmental
organization also does not constitute the entire picture of the “mature
phenomenon”. Such a system of government has nowhere to go but down.
In a pathocracy, all leadership positions, (down to village headman and
community cooperative managers, not to mention the directors of police
units, and special services police personnel, and activists in the
pathocratic party) must be filled by individuals with corresponding
psychological deviations, which are inherited as a rule. However, such
people constitute a very small percentage of the population and this makes
them more valuable to the pathocrats.
Their intellectual level or professional skills
cannot be taken into account, since people representing superior abilities
are even harder to find. After such a system has lasted several years, one
hundred percent of all the cases of essential psychopathy are involved in
pathocratic activity; they are considered the most loyal, even though some
of them were formerly involved on the other side in some way.
Under such conditions, no area of social life can develop normally, whether
in economics, culture, science, technology, administration, etc. Pathocracy
progressively paralyzes everything. Normal people must develop a level of
patience beyond the ken of anyone living in a normal man’s system just in
order to explain what to do and how to do it to some obtuse mediocrity of a
psychological deviant who has been placed in charge of some project that he
cannot even understand, much less manage.
This special kind of pedagogy – instructing
deviants while avoiding their wrath - requires a great deal of time and
effort, but it would otherwise not be possible to maintain tolerable living
conditions and necessary achievements in the economic area or intellectual
life of a society. Even with such efforts, pathocracy progressively intrudes
everywhere and dulls everything.
Those people who initially found the original ideology attractive eventually
come to the realization that they are in fact dealing with something else
that has taken its place under the old name. The disillusionment experienced
by such former ideological adherents is bitter in the extreme. Thus, the
pathological minority’s attempts to retain power will be threatened by the
society of normal people, whose criticism keeps growing.
Therefore, to mitigate the threat to their power, the pathocrats must employ
any and all methods of terror and exterminatory policies against individuals
known for their patriotic feelings and military training; other, specific
“indoctrination” activities such as those we have presented are also
utilized. Individuals lacking the natural feeling of being linked to normal
society become irreplaceable in either of these activities. Again, the
foreground of this type of activity is occupied by cases of essential
psychopathy, followed by those with similar anomalies, and finally by people
alienated from the society in question as a result of racial or national
differences.
The phenomenon of pathocracy matures during this period: an extensive and
active indoctrination system is built, with a suitably refurbished ideology
constituting the vehicle or Trojan horse for the purpose of pathologizing
the thought processes of individuals and society. The goal- forcing human
minds to incorporate pathological experiential methods and thought-patterns,
and consequently accepting such rule - is never openly admitted. This goal
is conditioned by pathological egotism, and the possibility of accomplishing
it strikes the pathocrats as not only indispensable, but feasible.
Thousands of activists must therefore
participate in this work. However, time and experience confirm what a
psychologist may have long foreseen: the entire effort produces results so
very limited that it is reminiscent of the labors of Sisyphus. It only
results in producing a general stifling of intellectual development and
deep-rooted protest against affront-mongering “hypocrisy”. The authors and
executors of this program are incapable of understanding that the decisive
factor making their work difficult is the fundamental nature of normal human
beings – the majority.
The entire system of force, terror, and forced indoctrination, or, rather,
pathologization, thus proves effectively unfeasible, which causes the
pathocrats no small measure of surprise. Reality places a question mark on
their conviction that such methods can change people in such fundamental
ways so that they can eventually recognize this pathocratic kind of
government as a “normal state”.
During the initial shock, the feeling of social links between normal people
fade. After that has been survived, however, the overwhelming majority of
people begin to manifest their own phenomenon of psychological immunization.
Society simultaneously starts collecting practical knowledge on the subject
of this new reality and its psychological properties.
Normal people slowly learn to perceive the weak spots of such a system and
utilize the possibilities of more expedient arrangement of their lives. They
begin to give each other advice in these matters, thus slowly regenerating
the feelings of social links and reciprocal trust. A new phenomenon occurs:
separation between the pathocrats and the society of normal people. The
latter have an advantage of talent, professional skills, and healthy common
sense. They therefore hold certain very advantageous cards.
The pathocracy finally realizes that it must
find some modus vivendi or relations with the majority of society:
“After all, somebody’s got to do the work
for us.”
There are other needs and pressures felt by the
pathocrats, especially from outside. The pathological face must be hidden
from the world somehow, since recognition of the deviant rulership by world
opinion would be a catastrophe. Ideological propaganda alone would then be
an inadequate disguise.
Primarily in the interests of the new elite and
its expansionary plans, a pathocratic state must maintain commercial
relations with the countries of normal man. The pathocratic state aims to
achieve international recognition as a certain kind of political structure;
and it fears recognition in terms of a true clinical diagnosis.
All this makes pathocrats tend to limit their measures of terror, subjecting
their propaganda and indoctrination methods to a certain cosmetology, and to
accord the society they control some margin of autonomous activity,
especially regarding cultural life. The more liberal pathocrats would not be
averse to giving such a society a certain minimum of economic prosperity in
order to reduce the irritation level, but their own corruption and inability
to administer the economy prevents them from doing so.
And so, with the above considerations being brought to the forefront of
pathocratic attention, this great societal disease continues to run its
course through a new phase: methods of activity become milder, and there is
coexistence with countries whose structure is that of normal man.
Any psychopathologist studying this phenomenon will be reminded of the
dissimulative state or phase of a patient attempting to play the role of a
normal person, hiding his pathological reality although he continues to be
sick or abnormal. Let as therefore use the term “the dissimulative phase of
pathocracy” for the state of affairs wherein a pathocratic system ever more
skillfully plays the role of a normal sociopolitical system with “different”
doctrinal institutions.
In this phase, normal people within the country ruled by pathocrats become
resistant and adapt themselves to the situation.
On the outside, however, this phase is marked by
outstanding ponerogenic activity. The pathological material of this system
can all-too-easily infiltrate into other societies, particularly if they are
more primitive, and all the avenues of pathocratic expansion are facilitated
because of the decrease of commonsensical criticism on the part of the
nations constituting the territory of expansionism.
Meanwhile, in the pathocratic country, the active structure of government
rests in the hands of psychopathic individuals, and essential psychopathy
plays a starring role, especially during the dissimulative phase.
However,
individuals with obvious pathological traits must be removed from certain
areas of activity: namely, political posts with international exposure,
where such personalities could betray the pathological contents of the
phenomenon. Individuals with obvious pathological traits are also limited in
their ability to exercise diplomatic functions or to become fully cognizant
with the political situations of the countries of normal man.
Therefore, the persons selected for such
positions are chosen because they have thought-processes more similar to the
world of normal people; in general, they are sufficiently connected to the
pathological system to provide a guarantee of loyalty.95
95 Condoleezza
Rice and Colin Powell come to mind here. [Editor’s note.]
An expert in various psychological anomalies can
nevertheless discern the discreet deviations upon which such links are
based.
Another factor to be noted is the great personal advantages accorded
to such demi-normal individuals by the pathocracy. Small wonder, then, that
such loyalty is sometimes deceptive. This applies in particular to the sons
of typical pathocrats, who of course enjoy trust because they have been
reared to allegiance since infancy; if through some happy genetic
coincidence they have not inherited pathological properties, their nature
takes precedence over nurture.
Similar needs apply to other areas as well.
The building director for a new
factory is often someone barely connected with the pathocratic system but
whose skills are essential. Once the plant is operational, administration is
taken over by pathocrats, which then often leads to technical and financial
ruin.
The army similarly needs people endowed with perspicacity and essential
qualifications, especially in the area of modern weapons and warfare.
At crucial moments, healthy common sense can
override the results of pathocratic drill. In such a state of affairs, many
people are forced to adapt, accepting the ruling system as a status quo, but
also criticizing it. They fulfill their duties amid doubts and conflicts of
conscience, always searching for a more sensible way out which they discuss
within trusted circles. In effect, they are always hanging in a limbo
between pathocracy and the world of normal people. Deficiently faithful
people have been and are a factor of the pathocratic system’s internal
weakness.
The following questions thus suggest themselves: what happens if the network
of understanding among psychopaths achieves power in leadership positions
with international exposure? This can happen, especially during the later
phases of the phenomenon. Goaded by their character, such deviant people
thirst for just that even though it ultimately conflicts with their own life
interest, and so they are removed by the less pathological, more logical
wing of the ruling apparatus. Such deviants do not understand that a
catastrophe would otherwise ensue. Germs are not aware that they will be
burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose
death they are causing.
If the many managerial positions are assumed by individuals deprived of
sufficient abilities to feel and understand the majority of other people,
and who also exhibit deficiencies in technical imagination and practical
skills - (faculties indispensable for governing economic and political
matters) - this then results in an exceptionally serious crisis in all
areas, both within the country in question and with regard to international
relations.
Within, the situation becomes unbearable even
for those citizens who were able to feather their nest into a relatively
comfortable modus vivendi. Outside, other societies start to feel the
pathological quality of the phenomenon quite distinctly. Such a state of
affairs cannot last long. One must then be prepared for ever more rapid
changes, and also behave with great circumspection.
Pathocracy is a disease of great social movements followed by entire
societies, nations, and empires. In the course of human history, it has
affected social, political, and religious movements, as well as the
accompanying ideologies, characteristic for the time and the ethnological
conditions, and turned them into caricatures of themselves.
This occurs as a result of the activities of
similar etiological factors in this phenomenon, namely the participation of
pathological agents in a pathodynamically similar process. That explains why
all the pathocracies of the world are and have been so similar in their
essential properties. Contemporaneous ones easily find a common language,
even if the ideologies nourishing them and protecting their pathological
contents from exposure differ widely.
Identifying these phenomena through history and properly qualifying them
according to their true nature and contents, not according to the ideology
in question, which succumbed to the characteristic process of
caricaturization, is a job for historians. However, it must be understood
that the primary ideology was undoubtedly socially dynamic and contained
creative elements, otherwise it would have been incapable of nurturing and
protecting the pathocratic phenomenon from recognition and criticism for
very long. It would also have been incapable of furnishing the pathological
caricature with the tools for implementing its expansionist goals on the
outside.
Defining the moment at which a movement has been transformed into something
we can call a pathocracy as a result of the ponerogenic process is a matter
of convention. The process is temporally cumulative and reaches a point of
no return at some particular moment. Eventually, however, internal
confrontation with the adherents of the original ideology occurs, thus
finally affixing the seal of the pathocratic character of the phenomenon.
Nazism most certainly passed this point of no
return, but was prevented from all-out confrontation with the adherents of
the original ideology because the Allied armies smashed its entire military
might.
Pathocracy and Its Ideology
It should be noted that a great ideology with mesmerizing values can also
easily deprive people of the capacity for self-critical control over their
behavior. The adherents of such ideas tend to lose sight of the fact that
the means used, not just the end, will be decisive for the result of their
activities. Whenever they reach for overly radical methods of action, still
convinced that they are serving their idea, they are not aware that their
goal has already changed.
The principle “the end justifies the means”
opens the door to a different kind of person for whom a great idea is useful
for purposes of liberating themselves from the uncomfortable pressure of
normal human custom. Every great ideology thus contains danger, especially
for small minds. Therefore, every great social movement and its ideology can
become a host upon which some pathocracy initiates its parasitic life.
The ideology in question may have been marked by deficits in truth and moral
criteria from the very outset, or by the effects of activities by
pathological factors.
The original, very high-minded idea, may also
have succumbed to early contamination characteristic of a particular time
and social circumstance. If such an ideology is infiltrated by foreign,
local cultural material which, being heterogeneous, destroys the original
coherent structure of the idea, the actual value may become so enfeebled
that it loses some of its attractiveness for reasonable people. Once
weakened, however, the sociological structure can succumb to further
degeneration, including the activation of pathological factors, until it has
become transformed into its caricature: the name is the same, but the
contents are different.
Differentiating the essence of the pathological phenomenon from its
contemporary ideological host is thus a basic and necessary task, both for
scientific-theoretical purposes and for finding practical solutions for the
problems derived from the existence of the above-mentioned macrosocial
phenomena.
If, in order to designate a pathological phenomenon, we accept the name
furnished by the ideology of a social movement which succumbed to
degenerative processes, we lose any ability to understand or evaluate that
ideology and its original contents or to effect proper classification of the
phenomenon, per se.
This error is not semantic; it is the keystone
of all other comprehension errors regarding such phenomena, rendering us
intellectually helpless, and depriving us of our capacity for purposeful,
practical action.
This error is based upon compatible propaganda elements of incompatible
social systems. This has, unfortunately, become much too common and is
reminiscent of the very first clumsy attempts to classify mental diseases
according to the systems of delusions manifested by the patients. Even
today, people who have not received training in this field will consider a
sick person who manifests sexual delusions to be crazy in this area, or
someone with religious delusions to be a “religious maniac”.
The author has
even encountered a patient who insisted that he had become the object of
cold and hot rays (paresthesia) on the basis of a special agreement
concluded by the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.
As early as the end of the nineteenth century, famous pioneers of
contemporary psychiatry correctly distinguished between the disease and the
patient’s system of delusions. A disease has its own etiological causes,
whether determined or not, and its own pathodynamics and symptomatics which
distinguish its nature.
Various delusional systems can become manifest
within the same disease, and similar systems can appear in various diseases.
The delusions, which have sometimes become so systemic that they convey the
impression of an actual story, originate in the patient’s nature and
intelligence, especially in the imaginations of the environment within which
he grew up. These can be disease-induced caricaturizations of his former
political and social convictions. After all, every mental illness has its
particular style of deforming human minds, producing nuanced but
characteristic differences known for some time to psychiatrists, and which
help them render a diagnosis.
Thus deformed, the world of former fantasies is put to work for a different
purpose: concealing the dramatic state of the disease from one’s own
consciousness and from public opinion for as long as possible. An
experienced psychiatrist does not attempt premature disillusionment of such
a delusional system; that would provoke the patient’s suicidal tendencies.
The doctor’s main object of interest remains the
disease he is trying to cure. There is usually insufficient time to discuss
a patient’s delusions with him unless it becomes necessary for reasons of
the safety of said patient and other people. Once the disease has been
cured, however, psychotherapeutic assistance in reintegrating the patient
into the world of normal thought is definitely indicated.
If we effect a sufficiently penetrating analysis of the phenomenon of
pathocracy and its relationship to its ideology, we are faced with a clear
analogy to the above described relationship now familiar to all
psychiatrists. Some differences will appear later in the form of details and
statistical data, which can be interpreted both as a function of the
above-mentioned characteristic style of caricaturizing an ideology,
pathocracy effects, and as a result of the macrosocial character of the
phenomenon.
As a counterpart of disease, pathocracy has its own etiological factors
which make it potentially present in every society, no matter how healthy.
It also has its own pathodynamic processes which are differentiated as a
function of whether the pathocracy in question was born in that particular
country (primary pathocracy), was artificially infected in the country by
some other system of the kind, or was imposed by force.
We have already sketched above the ponerogenesis and course of such a
macrosocial phenomenon in its primary form, intentionally refraining from
mentioning any particular ideology. We shall soon address the other two
courses mentioned above.
The ideology of pathocracy is created by caricaturizing the original
ideology of a social movement in a manner characteristic of that particular
pathological phenomenon. The above-mentioned hysteroidal states of societies
also deform the contemporary ideologies of the times in question, using a
style characteristic for them. Just as doctors are interested in disease,
the author has become primarily interested in the pathocratic phenomenon and
the analysis thereof. In a similar manner, the primary concern of those
people who have assumed responsibility for the fate of nations should be
curing the world of this heretofore mysterious disease.
The proper time will come for critical and
analytical attitudes toward ideologies which have become the “delusional
systems” of such phenomena during 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 analogy with regard to that
macrosocial pathological phenomenon, especially since, in the latter case,
mere understanding of the nature of the disease starts curing human minds
and souls.
Throughout the entire process, reasoning
approximated to the 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 disguising story concealing the new reality from people’s critical
consciousness, both inside and outside one’s nation.
The first function – a conviction outlining
methods of action - soon becomes 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 instrument
for external action to a degree even greater than in the above-mentioned
relationship between the disease and its delusional 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 macrosocial mask of the same dissimulating nature. When we
observe 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 relegated 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 essential in any ponerogenic group,
especially in the macrosocial phenomenon which is their “homeland”. This
factor of awareness simultaneously constitutes a certain qualitative
difference between the two above-mentioned relationships.
Pathocrats know
that their real ideology is derived from their deviant natures, and treat
the “other” – the masking ideology - with barely concealed contempt.
And the common people eventually begin to
perceive this as noted above.
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 masking. For practical purposes of
pathocratic expansion, other ideologies may be useful, even if they
contradict the main one and heap moral denunciation upon it. However, these
other ideologies must be used with care, refraining from official
acknowledgement 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 official contents are kept, but
another, completely different 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 suggestive 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
presented in Chapter IV. Anything which threatens pathocratic rule becomes
deeply immoral. 97 This also
applies to the concept of forgiving the pathocrats themselves; it is
extremely dangerous and thus “immoral”.
96
“Extraordinary rendition” as the nomenclature for illegally transporting
prisoners to countries where torture is practiced comes immediately to mind
as an example. [Editor’s note.]
97 Example: “You are with us, or you are
against us.” And being “against us” means that “you are a terrorist” and
thus, immoral. [Editor’s note.]
We thus have the right to invent appropriate names which would indicate the
nature of the phenomena as accurately as possible, in keeping with our
recognition and respect for the laws of the scientific methodology and
semantics.
Such accurate terms will also serve to protect
our minds from the suggestive effects of those other names and paralogisms,
including the pathological material the latter contain.
The Expansion of the Pathocracy
The world’s tendency to fasten its gaze adoringly upon its rulers has a long
tradition dating back to the times when sovereigns could virtually ignore
their subjects’ opinions. However, rulers have always been dependent upon
the social and economic situation in their country, even long ago, and even
in pathocratic systems, and the influence of various social groups has
reached their thrones by various means.
Much too common is the pattern of error which reasons that purportedly
autocratic leaders of countries affected by this pathocracy actually possess
decision-making powers in areas which they in fact do not. Millions of
people, including ministers and members of parliaments, ponder the dilemma
of whether such a ruler could not, under certain circumstances, modify his
convictions somewhat and relinquish his dreams of conquering the world; they
continue hope that this will be the eventual outcome.98
People with personal experience in such a system
may attempt to persuade them that their dreams, although decent, lack a
foundation in reality, but at the same time they sense a lack of concrete
arguments on their part. Such an explanation is in fact impossible within
the realm of the natural language of psychological concepts; only an
objective comprehension of the historical phenomenon and its essentially
deviant nature permits light to be shed upon the causes of the perennial
deceitfulness of this macrosocial pathological phenomenon.
98 This is
especially true in the present day when the leaders and parliaments of many
other countries, unhappy with the Bush Neocon administration, think that
diplomacy or new elections in the U.S. will “set things right”. They do not
understand the full nature of Pathocracy and that the psychopaths in the
shadows of this phenomenon will never relinquish control without bloodshed.
[Editor’s note.]
The actions of this phenomenon affect an entire society, starting with the
leaders and infiltrating every village, small town, factory, business, or
farm. The pathological social structure gradually covers the entire country,
creating a “new class” within that nation.
This privileged class of deviants
feels permanently threatened by the “others”, i.e. by the majority of normal
people. Neither do the pathocrats entertain any illusions about their
personal fate should there be a return to the system of normal man.
A normal person deprived of privilege or high position will go about finding
and performing some work which will earn him a living; but pathocrats never
possessed any solid practical talent, and the time frame of their rule
eliminates any residual possibilities of adapting to the demands of normal
work. If the laws of normal man were to be reinstated, they and theirs could
be subjected to judgment, including a moralizing interpretation of their
psychological deviations; they would be threatened by a loss of freedom and
life, not merely a loss of position and privilege.
Since they are incapable of this kind of
sacrifice, the survival of a system which is the best for them becomes a
moral imperative. Such a threat must be battled by means of any and all
psychological and political cunning implemented with a lack of scruples with
regard to those other “inferior-quality” people that can be shocking in its
depravity.99
99 This should be
kept firmly in mind by those who think that getting rid of George W. Bush
and the Neocons will change anything. [Editor’s note.]
In general, this new class is in the position to purge its leaders should
their behavior jeopardize the existence of such a system. This could occur
particularly if the leadership wished to go too far in compromising with the
society of normal people, since their qualifications make them essential for
production. The latter is more a direct threat to the lower echelons of the
pathocratic elite than to the leaders.
Pathocracy survives thanks to the feeling of being threatened by the society
of normal people, as well as by other countries wherein various forms of the
system of normal man persist. For the rulers, staying on the top is
therefore the classic problem of “to be or not to be.”
We can thus formulate a more cautious question:
-
Can such a system ever waive
territorial and political expansion abroad and settle for its present
possessions?
-
What would happen if such a state of affairs ensured internal
peace, corresponding order, and relative prosperity within the nation?
The
overwhelming majority of the country’s population would then make skillful
use of all the emerging possibilities, taking advantage of their superior
qualifications in order to fight for an ever-increasing scope of activities;
thanks to their higher birth rate, their power will increase.
This majority will be joined by some sons from
the privileged class who did not inherit the pathological genes. The
pathocracy’s dominance will weaken imperceptibly but steadily, finally
leading to a situation wherein the society of normal people reaches for
power. This is a nightmare vision to the psychopaths.
Thus, the biological, psychological, moral, and economic destruction of the
majority of normal people becomes, for the pathocrats, a “biological”
necessity. Many means serve this end, starting with concentration camps and
including warfare with an obstinate, well-armed foe who will devastate and
debilitate the human power thrown at him, namely the very power jeopardizing
pathocrats rule: the sons of normal man sent out to fight for an illusionary
“noble cause.” Once safely dead, the soldiers will then be decreed heroes to
be revered in paeans, useful for raising a new generation faithful to the
pathocracy and ever willing to go to their deaths to protect it.
Any war waged by a pathocratic nation has two fronts, the internal and the
external.
The internal front is more important for the
leaders and the governing elite, and the internal threat is the deciding
factor where unleashing war is concerned. In pondering whether to start a
war against the pathocratic country, other nations must therefore give
primary consideration to the fact that such a war can be used as an
executioner of the common people whose increasing power represents incipient
jeopardy for the pathocracy. After all, pathocrats give short shrift to
blood and suffering of people they consider to be not quite conspecific.
Kings may have suffered due to the death of
their knights, but pathocrats never do:
“We have a lot of people here.”
Should the situation be, or become, ripe in such
a country, however, anyone furnishing assistance to the nation will be
blessed by it; anyone withholding it will be cursed.
Pathocracy has other internal reasons for pursuing expansionism through the
use of all means possible. As long as that “other” world governed by the
systems of normal man exists, it inducts into the non-pathological majority
a certain sense of direction. The non-pathological majority of the country’s
population will never stop dreaming of the reinstatement of the normal man’s
system in any possible form.
This majority will never stop watching other
countries, waiting for the opportune moment; its attention and power must
therefore be distracted from this purpose, and the masses must be “educated”
and channeled in the direction of imperialist strivings. This goal must be
pursued doggedly so that everyone knows what is being fought for and in
whose name harsh discipline and poverty must be endured. The latter factor –
creating conditions of poverty and hardship - effectively limits the
possibility of “subversive” activities on the part of the society of normal
people.
The ideology must, of course, furnish a corresponding justification for this
alleged right to conquer the world and must therefore be properly
elaborated. Expansionism is derived from the very nature of pathocracy, not
from ideology, but this fact must be masked by ideology.100
Whenever this phenomenon has been witnessed in history, imperialism was
always its most demonstrative quality.
100 Example: the
events of September 11, 2001, undoubtedly manufactured by the Pathocracy.
[Editor’s note.]
On the other hand, there are countries with normal man’s governments wherein
the overwhelming majority of societies shudders to think a similar system
could be imposed on them. The governments of such nations thereupon do
everything they can within the framework of their possibilities and their
understanding of the phenomenon in order to contain its expansion.
The citizens of those countries would sigh with
relief if some upheaval were to replace this malevolent and incomprehensible
system with a more human, more easily understood, governmental method with
whom peaceful coexistence would be possible.
Such countries thus undertake various means of action for this purpose,
their quality depending on the possibility of understanding that other
reality. Such efforts resonate within the country, and the military power of
normal man’s countries limits the pathocracy’s possibilities of armed
maneuvers. Weakening those countries that could possibly stand against the
pathocracy, especially by utilizing the response pathocracy awakens in some
of their deviant citizens, again becomes a matter of the pathocracy’s
survival.
Economic factors constitute a non-negligible part of the motivation for this
expansionist tendency. Since the managerial functions have been taken over
by individuals with mediocre intelligence and pathological character traits,
the pathocracy becomes incapable of properly administering anything at all.
The area suffering most severely must always be whichever one requires a
person to act independently, not wasting time searching for the proper way
to behave.
Agriculture is dependent upon changing climate conditions and the
appearance of pests and plant diseases. A farmer’s personal qualities have
thus been an essential factor of success in this area, as it was for many
centuries.
Pathocracy therefore invariably brings about food shortages.
However, many countries with normal man’s systems abound in sufficiency of
industrial products and experience problems with their food surpluses and
temporary economic recessions even though the citizens are by no means
overworked. The temptation to dominate such a country and its prosperity,
that perennial imperialist motive, thus becomes even more strong in the
pathocracy. The collected prosperity of the conquered nation can be
exploited for a time, the citizens forced to work harder for paltry
remuneration.
For the moment, no thought is given to the fact
that introducing a pathocratic system within such a country will eventually
cause similar unproductive conditions; after all psychological deviance, by
definition, indicates a lack of self-knowledge in this area. Unfortunately,
the idea of conquering rich countries also motivates the minds of many poor
non-pathological fellows suffering under the pathocracy, but not
understanding why, and who would like to use this opportunity to grab
something for themselves and eat their fill of good food.
As has been the case for centuries, military power is of course the primary
means for achieving these ends. Throughout the centuries, though, whenever
history has registered the appearance of the phenomenon of pathocracy,
(regardless of the ideological cloak covering it), specific measures of
influence have also become apparent: something in the order of specific
intelligence in the service of international intrigue facilitating conquest.
This quality is derived from the above-discussed personality characteristics
inspiring the overall phenomenon; it should constitute data for historians
to identify this type of phenomenon throughout history.
People exist everywhere in the world with specifically susceptible deviant
personalities; even a faraway pathocracy evokes a resonating response in
them, working on their underlying feeling that “there is a place for people
like us there”.
Uncritical, frustrated, and abused people also exist
everywhere, and they can be reached by appropriately elaborated propaganda.
The future of a nation is greatly dependent on how many such people it
contains. Thanks to its specific psychological knowledge and its conviction
that normal people are naive, a pathocracy is able to improve its
“anti-psychotherapeutic” techniques, and pathologically egotistical as
usual, to insinuate its deviant world of concepts to others in other
countries, thus making them susceptible to conquest and domination.
The most frequently used methods include paralogistic and conversion methods
such as the projection of one’s own qualities and intention onto other
persons, social groups, or nations, paramoral indignation, and reverse
blocking. This last method is a pathocratic favorite used on the mass scale,
driving the minds of average people into a dead end because, as a result, it
causes them to search for the truth in the “golden mean” between the reality
and its opposite.101
101 This is being
very effectively used at the present time under the guise of “The War on
Terror”, a completely manufactured device that utilizes “false flag
operations” to herd people into “support camps” for the U.S. imperialist
agenda. [Editor’s note.]
We should thus point out that although various works in the area of
psychopathology contain descriptions of most of these near-hypocritical
methods, an overall summary filling the gaps observed is absent and sorely
needed. How much better it would be if the people and governments of normal
man’s countries could take advantage of such a work and behave like an
experienced psychologist, noting the reproaches heaped upon them in the
course of projection and turning around statements whose character indicate
reverse blocking. A bit of analytical cosmetics would then produce a
low-cost list of a pathocratic empire’s intentions.102
102 This is
currently being done, and quite well, by alternative news sources on the
internet, bloggers, and many “ordinary” people who can easily see what is
going on. Unfortunately, to date, no ruling party in any significant country
with the power to stand against the pathocracy of the U.S. has managed to
think that far. [Editor’s note.]
Law has become the measure of right within the countries of normal human
systems. We often forget how imperfect a creation of human minds it really
is, how dependent it is on formulations based upon data which legislators
can understand. In legal theory, we accept its regulatory nature as a given
and consequently agree that in certain cases its activities may not be quite
concurrent with human reality. Understood thus, the law furnishes
insufficient support for counteracting a phenomenon whose character lies
outside of the possibilities of the legislators’ imagination.
Quite the contrary: pathocracy knows how to take
advantage of the weaknesses of such a legalistic manner of thinking.
However, this macrosocial phenomenon’s internal actions and external
expansion are based upon psychological data. As such, regardless of how
these data are deformed within the pathocrats’ personalities, its cunning is
vastly superior to normal people’s legal systems. This makes pathocracy the
social system of the future, albeit in the shape of a caricature.
Therefore, the future for normal man belongs to social systems which are
based on an improved comprehension of man in all his psychological
variations; evolution in this direction can, among other things, ensure
greater resistance to the expansionary methods this macrosocial phenomenon
uses in its quest to dominate the world.
Pathocracy Imposed by Force
The genesis of pathocracy in any country is so lengthy a process that it is
difficult to pinpoint when it began. If we take into consideration those
historical examples which should be qualified in that regard, we will most
frequently observe the figure of an autocratic ruler whose mental mediocrity
and infantile personality finally opened the door to the ponerogenesis of
the phenomenon.
Wherever a society’s common sense is
sufficiently influential, its self-preservation instinct is able to overcome
this ponerogenic process rather early. Things are different when an active
nucleus of this disease already exists and can dominate by means of
infection or the imposition of force.
Whenever a nation experiences a “system crisis” or a hyperactivity of
ponerogenic processes within, it becomes the object of a pathocratic
penetration whose purpose is to serve up the country as booty. It will then
become easy to take advantage of its internal weaknesses and revolutionary
movements in order to impose rule on the basis of a limited use of force.
Conditions such as a great war or a country’s temporary weakness can
sometimes cause it to submit to the violence of a pathocratic neighbor
country (against their will) whose system did not exhibit such wide-scope
infirmities earlier. After forcible imposition of such a system the course
of pathologization of life becomes different; and such a pathocracy will be
less stable, its very existence dependent upon the factor of never-ending
outside force.
Let us now address the latter situation first: Brute force must first stifle
the resistance of an exhausted nation; people possessing military or
leadership skills must be disposed of, and anyone appealing to moral values
and legal principles must be silenced. The new principles are never
explicitly enunciated. People must learn the new unwritten law via painful
experience. The stultifying influence of this deviant world of concepts
finishes the job, and common sense demands caution and endurance.
This is followed by a shock which appears as tragic as it is frightening.
Some people from every social group, whether abused paupers, aristocrats,
officials, literati, students, scientists, priests, atheists, or nobodies
known to no one, suddenly start changing their personality and world view.
Decent Christians and patriots just yesterday, they now espouse the new
ideology and behave contemptuously to anyone still adhering to the old
values.
Only later does it become evident that this
ostensibly avalanche-like process has its natural limits. With time, the
society becomes stratified based on factors entirely different from the old
political convictions and social links. We already know the causes for this.
Through direct contact with the pathocracy, society simultaneously begins to
sense that its true content is different from the ideologies disseminated
earlier, while the country was still independent. This divergence is a
traumatizing factor, because it questions the value of accepted convictions.
Years must pass before the mind has adapted to the new concepts. When those
of us who have experienced this then travel to Western Europe, or especially
to the United States, people who still believe the original ideologies, the
mask that was presented by the pathocracy, strike us as being silly.
Pathocracy imposed by force arrives in a finished form, we could even call
it ripe. People observing it close up were unable to distinguish the earlier
phases of its development, when the schizoidals and characteropaths were in
charge. The need for the existence of these phases and their character had
to be reconstructed in this work on the basis of historical data.
In an imposed system, psychopathic material is already dominant; it was
perceived as something contrary to human nature, virtually bereft of the
mask of ideology rendered ever less necessary in a conquered country, but
nevertheless still masked by its incomprehensibility to people who are still
trying to think in the categories of a natural world view.
We at first perceived the old system of categories and understanding as
painfully inadequate for purposes of comprehending the reality which had
overwhelmed us. The essential objective categories we needed to classify
what we observed would not be created until many years of effort had passed.
Individuals with deviant characteristics, scattered throughout society,
however, unerringly sensed that the time had come for their dreams to come
true, the time to exact revenge upon those “others” who had abused and
humiliated them before. This violent formative process of pathocracy lasted
barely eight years or so, thereupon making a similarly escalated
transformation into the dissimulative phase.
The system functions, psychological mechanisms, and mysterious causative
links in a country upon which a quasi-political structure was imposed are
basically analogous to those of the country which gave rise to the
phenomenon. The system spreads downward until it reaches every village and
every human individual.
The actual contents and internal causes of this
phenomenon also manifest no essential difference, regardless of whether we
make our observation in the capital or in some outlying small town. If the
entire organism is sick, diagnostic biopsy tissue can be collected wherever
this can be performed most expediently.
Those who live in countries with
normal human systems attempting to understand this other system by means of
their imagination, or by penetrating the walls of the Kremlin where it is
assumed that the intentions of the highest authorities are concealed, do not
realize that this is a very onerous method to do something that can be done
more efficiently. In order to perceive the essence of the phenomenon, we can
more easily situate ourselves in a small town, where it is much easier to
peek backstage and analyze the nature of such a system.
However, some of the differences in the nature of the pathocratic phenomenon
between the originating country and the country on which it is forcibly
imposed turn out to be permanent. The system will always strike the society
that has been taken over as something foreign associated with the other
country. The society’s historical tradition and culture constitute a
connection to those strivings aimed in the direction of normal man’s
structures.
The more mature cultural formations in
particular prove the most highly resistant to the system’s destructive
activities. The subjugated nation finds support and inspiration for its
psychological and moral resistance in its own cultural, religious, and moral
traditions. These values, elaborated through centuries, cannot easily be
destroyed or co-opted by pathocracy; quite the contrary, they even embark
upon a more intensive life in the new society.
These values progressively cleanse themselves of
patriotic buffoonery, and their principal contents become more real in their
eternal meaning. If forced by necessity, the culture of the country in
question is concealed in private homes or disseminated via conspiracy;
however, it continues to survive and develop, creating values which could
not have arisen during happier times.
As a result, such a society’s opposition becomes ever more enduring, ever
more skillfully effected. It turns out that those who believed they could
impose such a system, trusting that it would then function on the
pathocracy’s autonomic mechanisms, were overly optimistic.
Imposed pathocracy always remains an alien
system to the extent that, if it should fall in the country of its birth,
its endurance within the subjugated nation would only be a matter of weeks.
Artificially Infected Pathocracy and
Psychological Warfare
If a nucleus of this macrosocial pathological phenomenon already exists in
the world, always cloaking its true quality behind an ideological mask of
some political system, it irradiates into other nations via coded news
difficult for normal people to understand, but easy to read for psychopathic
individuals.
“That’s the place for us, we now have a
homeland where our dreams about ruling those “others” can come true. We
can finally live in safety and prosperity.”
The more powerful this nucleus and the
pathocratic nation, the wider the scope of its inductive siren-call, heard
by individuals whose nature is correspondingly deviant, as though they were
superheterodyne receivers naturally attuned to the same wave-length.
Unfortunately, what is being used today is real radio transmitters in the
hundreds of kilowatts, as well as loyal covert agents of pathocracy
networking our planet.
Whether directly or indirectly, i.e. by means of deviant “agents”, this call
of pathocracy, once appropriately “decked-out”, reaches a significantly
wider circle of people, including both individuals with various
psychological deviations and those who are frustrated, deprived of the
opportunity to earn an education and make use of their talents, physically
or morally injured, or simply primitive. The scope of the response to this
call may vary in proportion, but nowhere will it represent the majority.
Nonetheless, the home-bred spellbinders who arise never take into account
the fact that they are not able to enrapture the majority.
103
103 Noticeable in
any country. In the present day, when the United States is well on the way
to becoming a full-blown pathocracy, and is thus the source of the
contamination, spellbinders for the deviant reality promote “American style”
economics and “culture,” and are even viewed by their fellow countrymen as
“America-ophiles”. Most people do not understand that the first step to
becoming part of the Global pathocracy that America is attempting to impose
on the world is to become part of the economic system as it is formulated in
America. A recent example of a country rejecting this maneuver is France’s
rejection of the European Constitution, a document focusing on the
neo-liberal transformation of the European economy along the lines of the
U.S. model. [Editor’s note.]
Various nations’ different degrees of resistance to this activity depend
upon many factors, such as prosperity and its equitable distribution, the
society’s educational level (especially that of the poorer classes), the
proportion of participation of individuals who are primitive or have various
deviations, and the current phase of the hysteroidal cycle. Some nations
have developed immunity as a result of more direct contact with the
phenomenon, something we shall discuss in the next chapter.
In countries just emerging from primeval conditions and lacking political
experience, an appropriately elaborated revolutionary doctrine reaches its
society’s autonomous substratum and finds people who treat it like
ideational reality. This also occurs in nations where an over-egoistical
ruling class defends its position by means of naively moralizing doctrines,
where injustice is rampant, or where an intensification of the hysteria
level stifles the operation of common sense.
People who have become accustomed to
revolutionary catchwords no longer watch to make sure that whoever expounds
such an ideology is a truly sincere adherent, and not just someone using the
mask of ideology to conceal other motives derived from his deviant
personality.
In addition to these spellbinders, we can find another kind of preacher of
revolutionary ideas, one whose status is basically linked to the money he
receives for his activities. However, it is unlikely that its ranks include
people who could be characterized as psychologically normal with no
reservations on the basis of the above-mentioned criteria. Their
indifference to the human suffering caused by their own activities is
derived from deficiencies in their perceived value of societal links or
their capacity to foresee the results of their activities.
In ponerogenic processes, moral deficiencies, intellectual failings, and
pathological factors intersect in a time-space causative network giving rise
to individual and national suffering.
Any war waged with psychological weapons costs only a fraction as much as
classical warfare, but it does have a cost, especially when it is being
waged simultaneously in many countries throughout the world.
People acting in the name of pathocracy’s interests may effect their
activities in parallel, under the banner of some traditional or other
ideology, or even with the assistance of a contradictory ideology battling
the traditional one. In these latter cases, the service must be performed by
individuals whose response to the call of the pathocracy is sufficiently
vehement so as to prevent the self-suggestive activities of the other
ideology they are using from weakening the links with their actual hopes for
power.
Whenever a society contains serious social problems, there will also be some
group of sensible people striving to improve the social situation by means
of energetic reforms, so as to eliminate the cause of social tension. Others
consider it their duty to bring about a moral rejuvenation of society.
Elimination of social injustice and reconstruction of the country’s morals
and civilization could deprive a pathocracy of any chance to take over. Such
reformers and moralists must therefore be consistently neutralized by means
of liberal or conservative positions and appropriately suggestive catchwords
and paramoralisms; if necessary, the best among them has to be murdered.
Psychological warfare strategists must decide rather early on which ideology
would be most efficient in a particular country because of its adaptability
to said nation’s traditions. After all, the appropriately adapted ideology
must perform the function of a Trojan horse, transporting pathocracy into
the country. These various ideologies are then gradually conformed to one’s
own original master plan. Finally, off comes the mask.
At the right time, local partisans are organized and armed, with recruits
picked from dissatisfied localities; leadership is provided by trained
officers familiar with the secret idea as well as the operative idea
concocted for propagation in the country in question. Assistance must then
be given so groups of conspirators adhering to the concocted ideology can
stage a coup d’état, whereupon an iron-fisted government is installed. Once
this has been brought about, the diversionary partisans’ activities are
stymied – they are made out to be patsies - so that the new authorities can
take credit for bringing about internal peace. Any hoodlum who cannot or
will not submit to the new decrees is “gently” invited before his former
leader and shot in the back of the head. This is the new reality.
This is how such governmental systems are born. A network of pathological
ponerogenical factors is already active, as is the inspirational role of
essential psychopathy. However, that does not yet represent a complete
picture of pathocracy. Many local leaders and adherents persist in their
original convictions which, albeit radical, strike them as serving the good
of a much larger proportion of formerly abused persons, not just a few
percent of pathocrats and the interests of a would-be world wide empire.
Local leaders continue to think along the lines of social revolution,
appealing to the political goals they truly believe in. They demand that the
“friendly power” furnish them not only the promised assistance, but also a
certain measure of autonomy they consider crucial. They are not sufficiently
familiar with the mysterious “us-and-them” dichotomy. At the same time they
are instructed and ordered to submit to the dictates of unclear ambassadors
whose meaning and purpose are hard to understand. Frustration and doubt thus
grow; their nature is ideological, nationalistic, and practical.
Conflict progressively increases, especially when wide circles of society
begin to doubt whether those people allegedly acting in the name of some
great ideology do in fact believe in it. Thanks to experience and contact
with the pathocratic nation, similarly wide circles simultaneously increase
their practical knowledge about the reality and behavioral methods of that
system. Should such a semi-colony thus achieve too much independence or even
decide to defect, too much of this knowledge could then reach the
consciousness of normal man’s countries. This could represent a serious
defeat for pathocracy.
Ever-increasing control is thus necessary until full pathocracy can be
achieved. Those leaders whom the central authorities consider to be
effectively transitional can be eliminated unless they indicate a sufficient
degree of submission. Geopolitical conditions are generally decisive in this
area. That explains why it is easier for such leaders to survive on an
outlying island than in countries bordering the empire. Should such leaders
manage to maintain a larger degree of autonomy by concealing their doubts,
they might be able to take advantage of their geopolitical position if the
conditions are amenable.
During such a phase of crisis of trust, circumspect policy on the part of
normal man’s countries could still tip the scales in favor of a structure
which may be revolutionary and leftist, but not pathocratic. However, this
is not the only missing consideration; another primary one is the lack of
objective knowledge about the phenomenon, something which would make such
policy possible. Emotional factors, coupled with a moralizing interpretation
of pathological phenomena, frequently play much too great a part in
political decision-making.
No full-fledged pathocracy can develop until the second upheaval and the
purging of its transitional leadership, which was insufficiently loyal
thereto. This is the counterpart of a showdown with the true adherents of
the ideology within the genesis of the original pathocracy, which can then
develop, due both to the appropriately imposed leaders and to the activity
of this phenomenon’s autonomous ponerogenic mechanisms.
After the initial governmental period, brutal, bloody, and psychologically
naive, such a pathocracy thereupon begins its transformation into its
dissimulative form, which has already been described in discussing the
genesis of the phenomenon and the force-imposed pathocracy. During this
period not even the most skillful outside policy can possibly undermine the
existence of such a system. The period of weakness is still to come: when a
mighty network of the society of normal people is formed.
The above lapidary description of an infectious imposition of pathocracy
indicates that this process repeats all the phases of independent
ponerogenesis condensed in time and content. Underneath the rulership of its
incompetent administrative predecessors, we can even discern a period of
hyperactivity on the part of schizoidal individuals mesmerized by the vision
of their own rule based on contempt for human nature, especially if they are
numerous within a given country. They do not realize that pathocracy will
never make their dreams come true; it will rather shunt them into the
shadows, since individuals with whom we are already familiar will become the
leaders.
A pathocracy thus generated will be more strongly imprinted upon the
subjugated country than one imposed by force. At the same time, however, it
maintains certain characteristics of its divergent content, sometimes
referred to as “ideological” although it is in fact a derivate of the
different ethnological substratum upon which its scion was grafted.
Should conditions such as a nation’s numerical
plentitude, wide extension, or geographic isolation permit independence from
the primary pathocratic nation, more measured factors and the society of
normal people will thus find some way of influencing the governmental
system, taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by the dissimulative
phase.
In the presence of advantageous conditions and skillful outside
assistance, this could lead to progressive depathologization of the system.
General Considerations
The path to comprehending the true contents of the phenomenon and its
internal causality can only be opened by overcoming natural reflexes and
emotions, and the tendency toward moralizing interpretations, followed by
assembling data elaborated in difficult everyday clinical work and
subsequent generalizations in the form of theoretical ponerology.
Such comprehension naturally also encompasses
those who would create such an inhuman system.
The problem of biological determination of the behavior of deviants is thus
sketched in all its expressiveness, showing primarily how their capacity for
moral judgments and their field of behavior selection is narrowed well below
the levels available to a normal person. The attitude of understanding even
one’s enemies is the most difficult for us humans. Moral condemnation proves
to be an obstacle along the path toward curing the world of this disease.
A result of the character of the phenomenon described in this chapter is
that no attempt to understand its nature or to track its internal causative
links and diachronic transformations would be possible if all we had at our
disposal were the natural language of psychological, social, and moral
concepts even in that partially perfected form used by the social sciences.
It would also be impossible to predict subsequent phases in the development
of this phenomenon or to distinguish its weak times and weak spots for
purposes of counteraction.
Elaboration of an appropriate and sufficiently comprehensive conceptual
language was thus indicated as essential; it required more time and effort
than studying the phenomenon itself. It has therefore become necessary to
bore readers somewhat by introducing this conceptual language in a manner
both parsimonious and adequate, which would at the same time be
comprehensible to those readers not trained in the area of psychopathology.
Anyone who wants to repair television sets instead of making them worse must
first familiarize himself with electronics, which is also beyond the ambit
of our natural conceptual language. However, upon learning to understand
this macrosocial phenomenon in the corresponding reference system, a
scientist stands in wonder as though before the open tomb of Tutankhamen for
a while before he is able to understand the living laws of the phenomenon
with ever greater speed and skill, thereupon complementing this
comprehension with a huge array of detailed data.
The first conclusion which suggested itself soon after meeting with the
“professor” introduced at the beginning of this volume, was that the
phenomenon’s development is limited by nature in terms of the participation
of susceptible individuals within a given society. The initial evaluation of
approximately 6% amenable individuals proved realistic; progressively
collected detailed statistical data assembled later were unable to refute
it.
This value varies from country to country in the
magnitude of about one percentage point upward or downward. Quantitatively
speaking, this number is broken down into 0.6% essential psychopaths, i.e.
about 1/10 of this 6 %. However, this anomaly plays a disproportionate role
compared to the numbers by saturating the phenomenon as a whole with its own
quality of thought and experience.
Other psychopathies, known as asthenic, schizoidal, anankastic,
hysterical,
et al., definitely play second fiddle although, in sum, they are much more
numerous.
Relatively primitive skirtoidal individuals become
fellow-travelers, goaded by their lust for life, but their activities are
limited by considerations of their own advantage. In non-semitic nations,
schizoidia are somewhat more numerous than essential psychopaths; although
highly active in the early phases of the genesis of the phenomenon, they
betray an attraction to pathocracy as well as the rational distance of
efficient thinking; Thus they are torn between such a system and the society
of normal people.
Persons less distinctly inclined in the pathocratic direction include those
affected by some states caused by the toxic activities of certain substances
such as ether, carbon monoxide,104
and possibly some endotoxins, under the condition that this occurred in
childhood.105
104
Considering the fact that the last attempt to impose a Pathocracy on the
global scale, Naziism, campaigned vigorously against smoking, and the
current U.S. pathocracy is also behind the global attempt to “stamp out
smoking” as a “health hazard”, all the while generously distributing
depleted uranium, a far more dangerous substance, into the environment, as
well as refusing to join any environmental preservation activities, one has
to wonder if there is not some connection here? If carbon monoxide, one of
the primary substances inhaled when smoking, actually produces a state or
condition that is a defense against the mental predations of pathocrats, no
wonder they wish to eliminate it. That also suggests that all of the
so-called “data” supporting the anti-smoking campaign is possibly “cooked”.
[Editor’s note.]
105 i.e., So-called “second hand smoke”. This
actually suggests that second hand smoke can have highly beneficial effects
on children specifically in terms of immunizing them against psychopathic
take-over! [Editor’s note.]
Among individuals carrying other indications of brain-tissue damage, only
two described types have a somewhat measured inclination, namely frontal and
paranoidal characteropaths. In the case of frontal characteropathy, this is
principally the result of an incapacity for self-critical reflection and an
incapacity for the abandonment of a dead-end street into which one has
thoughtlessly stumbled.
Paranoidal individuals expect uncritical support
within such a system. In general however, the carriers of various kinds of
brain-tissue damage lean clearly toward the society of normal people, and as
a result of their psychological problems, ultimately suffer even more than
healthy people under pathocracy.
It also turned out that the carriers of some physiological anomalies known
to physicians and sometimes to psychologists, and which are primarily
hereditary in nature, manifest split tendencies similar to schizoids. In a
similar manner, people whom nature has unfortunately saddled with a short
life and an early cancer-related death frequently indicate a characteristic
and irrational attraction for this phenomenon.
These latter observations were decisive in my
agreeing to call the phenomenon by this name, which had originally struck me
as semantically overly loose. An individual’s decreased resistance to the
effects of pathocracy and his attraction to this phenomenon appear to be a
holistic response of person’s organism, not merely of his psychological
makeup alone.
Approximately 6% of the population constitutes the active structure of the
new rulership, which carries its own peculiar consciousness of its own
goals. Twice as many people constitute a second group: those who have
managed to warp their personalities to meet the demands of the new reality.
This leads to attitudes which can already be interpreted within the
categories of the natural psychological world view, i.e. the errors we are
committing are much smaller. It is of course not possible to draw an exact
boundary between these groups; the separation adduced here is merely
descriptive in nature.
This second group consists of individuals who are, on the average, weaker,
more sickly, and less vital. The frequency of known mental diseases in this
group is at twice the rate of the national average. We can thus assume that
the genesis of their submissive attitude toward the regime, their greater
susceptibility to pathological effects, and their skittish opportunism
includes various relatively impalpable anomalies. We observe not only
physiological anomalies, but also the kinds described above at the lowest
intensity, with the exception of essential psychopathy.
The 6% group constitute the new nobility; the 12% group gradually forms the
new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is the most advantageous. Adapting
to the new conditions, not without conflicts of conscience, transforms this
latter group into both dodgers and, simultaneously, intermediaries between
the oppositional society and the active ponerological group, whom they can
talk to in the appropriate language.
They play such a crucial role within this system
that both sides must take them into account. Since their technical
capacities and skills are better than those of the active pathocratic group,
they assume various managerial positions. Normal people see them as persons
they can approach, generally without being subjected to pathological
arrogance.
So it is that only 18% of the country’s population is in favor of the new
system of government; but concerning the layer we have called the
bourgeoisie, we may even be doubtful of the sincerity of their attitudes.
This is the situation in the author’s homeland. This proportion can be
variously estimated in other countries, from 15% in Hungary to 21% in
Bulgaria, but it is never more than a relatively small minority.
The great majority of the population forms the society of normal people,
gradually creating an informal communications network. It behooves us to
wonder why these people reject the advantages conformity affords,
consciously preferring the opposing role: poverty, harassment, and
curtailment of human freedoms.
What ideals motivate them? Is this merely a
kind of romanticism representing ties to tradition and religion?
Still, so
many people with a religious upbringing change their world view to that of
the Pathocrats very quickly. The next chapter is dedicated to this question.
For the moment, let us limit ourselves to stating that a person with a
normal human instinctive substratum, good basic intelligence, and full
faculties of critical thought would have a difficult time accepting such a
compromise; it would devastate his personality and engender neurosis. At the
same time, such a system easily distinguishes and separates him from its own
kind regardless of his sporadic hesitations. No method of propaganda can
change the nature of this macrosocial phenomenon or the nature of a normal
human being. They remain foreign to each other.
The above-described subdivision into three sections should not be identified
with membership in any party, which is officially ideological but in fact
pathocratic. Such a system contains many normal people forced to join such a
party by various circumstances, and who must pretend as best they can to
represent said party’s more reasonable adherents. After a year or two of
obtusely executed instructions, they start becoming independent and
reestablishing their severed ties to society. Their former friends begin to
get the gist of their double game.
This is the situation of large numbers of the
adherents of the former ideology, which is now fulfilling its changed
function. They are also the first to protest that this system does not truly
represent their old political beliefs. We must also remember that specially
trusted people, whose loyalty to the pathocracy is a foregone conclusion due
to their psychological nature and the functions they perform, have no need
to belong to the party; they stand above it.
After a typical pathocratic structure has been formed, the population is
effectively divided – polarized - according to completely different lines
from what someone raised outside the purview of this phenomenon might
imagine, and in a manner whose actual conditions are also impossible to
comprehend for someone lacking essential specialized training.
However, an intuitive sense for these causes
gradually forms among the majority of society in a country affected by the
phenomenon. A person raised in a normal man’s system is accustomed since
childhood to seeing economic and ideological problems in the foreground,
possibly also the results of social injustice. Such concepts have proved
illusory and ineffective in a most tragic manner: the macrosocial phenomenon
has its own properties and laws which can only be studied and comprehended
within the appropriate categories.
However, in leaving behind our old natural method of comprehension and
learning to track the internal causality of the phenomenon, we marvel at the
surprising exactness with which the latter turns out to be subjected to its
own regular laws. With regard to individuals, there is always a greater
scope of some individualism and environmental influences.
In statistical analyses these variable factors
disappear and the essential constant characteristics surface. The entirety
is thus clearly subject to causative determination. This explains the
relative ease of transition from studying causation to predicting future
changes in the phenomenon. In time, the adequacy of collected knowledge has
been confirmed by the accuracy of these predictions.
Let us now take individual cases into consideration. For instance: we meet
two people whose behavior makes us suspect they are psychopaths, but their
attitudes to the pathocratic system are quite different; the first is
affirmative, the second painfully critical. Studies on the basis of tests
detecting brain tissue damage will indicate such pathology in the second
person, but not in the first; in the second case we are dealing with
behavior which may be strongly reminiscent of psychopathy, but the
substratum is different.
If a carrier of an essential psychopathy gene was a member of the decidedly
anti-communist government party before the war, he will be treated as an
“ideological enemy” during the pathocracy’s formative period. However, he
soon appears to find a modus vivendi with the new authorities and
enjoys a certain amount of tolerance. The moment when he becomes transformed
into an adherent of the new “ideology” and finds the way back to the ruling
party is only a matter of time and circumstance.
If the family of a typical zealous pathocrat produces a son who does not
inherit the appropriate gene, thanks to a happy genetic coincidence, (or he
was born from a bio-psychologically normal partner), such a son will be
raised in the corresponding youth organization, faithful to the ideology and
the party, which he joins early. By mature manhood, however, he will begin
to list toward the society of normal people.
The opposition, that world which feels and
thinks normally, becomes ever closer to him; therein he finds himself and a
set of values unknown – yet familiar - to him. A conflict eventually arises
between himself and his family, party, and environment, under conditions
which may be more or less dramatic. This starts out with critical statements
and the writing of rather naive appeals requesting changes in the party, in
the direction of healthy common sense, of course.
Such people then finally begin to do battle on
society’s side, enduring sacrifices and suffering. Others decide to abandon
their native country and wander foreign lands, lonely among people who
cannot understand them or the problems under which they were raised.
With regard to the phenomenon as whole, one can predict its primary
properties and processes of change and estimate the time at which they will
occur. Regardless of its genesis, no pathocratic activation of the
population of a country affected by this phenomenon can exceed the above
discussed boundaries set by biological factors.
The phenomenon will develop according to the patterns we have already
described, gnawing ever deeper into the country’s social fabric. The
resulting pathocratic monoparty will bifurcate from the very outset: one
wing is consistently pathological and earns nicknames such as
“doctrinarian”, “hard-headed”, “beton”, etc. The second is considered more
liberal, and in fact this is where the reverberation of the original
ideology remains alive for the longest.
The representatives of this second wing try as
hard as their shrinking powers permit to bend this strange reality into a
direction more amenable to human reason, and they do not lose complete touch
with society’s links. The first internal crisis of weakness occurs some ten
years after such a system has emerged; as a result, the society of normal
people gains a bit more freedom. During this time frame, skillful outside
action can already count on internal cooperation.
Pathocracy corrodes the entire social organism, wasting its skills and
power.
The effects of the more ideational wing of the party and its enlivening
influence upon the workings of the entire country gradually weaken. Typical
pathocrats take over all the managerial functions in a totally destroyed
structure of a nation. Such a state must be short-term, since no ideology
can vivify it. The time comes when the common masses of people want to live
like human beings again and the system can no longer resist. There will be
no great counter-revolution; a more or less stormy process of regeneration
will instead ensue.
Pathocracy is even less of a socioeconomic system than a social structure or
political system. It is a macrosocial disease process affecting entire
nations and running the course of its characteristic pathodynamic
properties.
The phenomenon changes too quickly in time for us to be able to
comprehend it in categories which would imply a certain stability, not
ruling out the evolutionary processes to which social systems are subject.
Any way of comprehending the phenomenon by imputing certain enduring
properties to it thus quickly causes us to lose sight of its current
contents. The dynamics of transformation in time is part of the nature of
the phenomenon; we cannot possibly achieve comprehension from outside its
parameters.
As long as we keep using methods of comprehending this pathological
phenomenon, which apply certain political doctrines whose contents are
heterogeneous with regard to its true nature, we will not be able to
identify the causes and properties of the disease. A prepared ideology will
be able to cloak the essential qualities from the minds of scientists,
politicians, and common people. In such a state of affairs, we will never
elaborate any causatively active methods which could stifle the phenomenon’s
pathological self-reproduction or its expansionist external influences.
Ignota nulla curatio morbi!
However, once we understand a disease’s etiological factors and their
activities as well as the pathodynamics of its changes, we find that the
search for a curative method generally becomes much easier.
Something similar applies with regard to the
macrosocial pathological phenomenon discussed above.
Previous
Back to Contents
Next