Andrew Lobaczewski - Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes Страница 24

distinguished scientific language it would behoove us to foster.

An analogy can be drawn between this conceptual language of

psychology and mathematical symbols. Very often, a single

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Greek letter stands for many pages of mathematical operations

which is instantly recognized by the mathematician.

Objective language

In the categories of psychological objectivity, cognition and

thought are based on the same logical and methodological prin-

ciples shown to be the best tool in many other areas of natural-

istic studies. Exceptions to these rules have become a tradition

for ourselves and for creatures similar to us, but they turn out to

engender more error than usefulness. At the same time, how-

ever, consistent adherence to these principles, and rejection of

additional scientific limitations, lead us toward the wide hori-

zon from which it is possible to glimpse supernatural causal-

ity. Accepting the existence of such phenomena within the

human personality becomes a necessity if our language of psy-

chological concepts is to remain an objective structure.

In affirming his own personality, man has the tendency to

repress from the field of his consciousness any associations

indicating an external causative conditioning of his world view

and behavior. Young people in particular want to believe they

freely chose their intentions and decisions; at the same time,

however, an experienced psychological analyst can track the

causative conditions of these choices without much difficulty.

Much of this conditioning is hidden within our childhood; the

memories may be receding into the distance, but we carry the

results of our early experiences around with us throughout our

lives.

The better our understanding of the causality of the human

personality, the stronger the impression that humanity is a part

of nature and society, subject to dependencies we are ever bet-

ter able to understand. Overcome by human nostalgia, we then

wonder if there is really no room for a scope of freedom, for a

Purusha9? The more progress we make in our art of under-

9 Sanskrit. A word literally meaning “man”; but bearing the mystical signifi-

cance of the “Ideal Man”, the Higher Self within. The term Purusha is often

used in the Esoteric philosophy to express the Spirit or the everlasting entita-

tive individual of a Universe, a Solar System, or of a man. Purusha comes

from the verb-root pri – to fill, to make complete, to bestow. One of the two

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SOME INDESPENSIBLE CONCEPTS

standing human causation, the better we are able to liberate the

person who trusts us from the toxic effects of conditioning,

which has unnecessarily constricted his freedom of proper

comprehension and decision making. We are thus in a position

to close ranks with our patient in a search for the best way out

of his problems. If we succumb to the temptation of using the

natural structure of psychological concepts for this purpose, our

advice to him would sound similar to the many non-productive

pronouncements he has already heard and that never quite

manage to really help him to become free of his problem.

The everyday, ordinary, psychological, societal, and moral

world view is a product of man’s developmental process within

a society, under the constant influence of innate traits. Among

these innate traits are mankind’s phylogenetically determined

instinctive foundation, and the upbringing furnished by the

family and the environment. No person can develop without

being influenced by other people and their personalities, or by

the values imbued by his civilization and his moral and relig-

ious traditions. That is why his natural world view of humans

can be neither sufficiently universal nor completely true. Dif-

ferences among individuals and nations are the product of both

inherited dispositions and the ontogenesis10 of personalities.

It is thus significant that the main values of this human

world view of nature indicate basic similarities in spite of great

divergences in time, race, and civilization. This world view

quite obviously derives from the nature of our species and the

natural experience of human societies which have achieved a

certain necessary level of civilization. Refinements based on

literary values or philosophical and moral reflections do show

differences, but, generally speaking, they tend to bring together

the natural conceptual languages of various civilizations and

eras. People with a humanistic education may therefore get the

impression that they have achieved wisdom. We shall also

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

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

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

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

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

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53

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

rived from life experience and reflections thereon.

However, a conscientious psychologist must ask the follow-

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

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

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

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

and political spheres of life?

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

view has permanent and characteristic tendencies toward de-

formation dictated by our instinctive and emotional features.

Secondly, our work exposes us to many phenomena which

cannot be understood nor described by natural language alone.

An objective scientific language able to analyze the essence of

a phenomenon thus becomes an indispensable tool. It has also

shown itself to be similarly indispensable for an understanding

of the questions presented within this book.

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

the most important reality-deforming tendencies and other

insufficiencies of the natural human world view.

Those emotional features which are a natural component of

the human personality are never completely appropriate to the

reality being experienced. This results both from our instinct

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

best tradition of philosophical and religious thought have coun-

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

rate view of reality.

The natural world view is also characterized by a similar,

emotional, tendency to endow our opinions with moral judg-

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

tendencies which are deeply rooted in human nature and socie-

tal customs. We easily extrapolate this method of comprehen-

sion onto manifestations of improper human behavior, which

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

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

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

ing to understand the psychological conditions that might be

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

ing very properly. Thus, any moralizing interpretation of minor

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SOME INDESPENSIBLE CONCEPTS

psychopathological phenomena is erroneous and merely leads

to an exceptional number of unfortunate consequences, which

is why we shall repeatedly refer to it.

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

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

has developed a world view a good deal different from that

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

means qualitatively monolithic; we will be discussing them in

greater detail in the fourth chapter.

Another essential deficiency of the natural world view is its

limited scope of applicability. Euclidean geometry would suf-

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

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

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

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

counter phenomena for which Euclidean geometry would be

insufficient. Sometime during his lifetime, virtually every per-

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

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

natural world view, he generally relies on emotion: intuition

and the pursuit of happiness. Whenever we meet a person

whose individual world view developed under the influence of

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

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

whenever some unidentified psychopathological factor comes

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

ble.

Moving further, we often meet with sensible people en-

dowed with a well-developed natural world view as regards

psychological, societal, and moral aspects, frequently refined

via literary influences, religious deliberations, and philosophi-

cal reflections. Such persons have a pronounced tendency to

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

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

take into account the fact that such a system of apprehending

human matters can also be erroneous, since it is insufficiently

objective. Let us call such an attitude the “egotism of the natu-

ral world view”. To date, it has been the least pernicious type

of egotism, being merely an overestimation of that method of

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55

comprehension containing the eternal values of human experi-

ence.

Today, however, the world is being jeopardized by a phe-

nomenon which cannot be understood nor described by means

of such a natural conceptual language; this kind of egotism thus

becomes a dangerous factor stifling the possibility of objective

counteractive measures. Developing and popularizing the ob-

jective psychological world view could thus significantly ex-

pand the scope of dealing with evil, via sensible action and

pinpointed countermeasures.

The objective psychological language, based on mature phi-

losophical criteria, must meet the requirements derived from its

theoretical foundations, and meet the needs of individual and

macrosocial practice. It should be evaluated fully on the basis

of biological realities and constitute an extension of the analo-

gous conceptual language elaborated by the older naturalistic

sciences, particularly medicine. Its range of applicability

should cover all those facts and phenomena conditioned upon

cognizable biological factors for which this natural language

has proved inadequate. It should, within this framework, allow

sufficient understanding of the contents, and varied causes, for

the genesis of the above-mentioned deviant world views.

Elaborating such a conceptual language, being far beyond

the individual scope of any scientist, is a step-by-step affair; by

means of the contribution of many researchers, it matures to the

point when it could be organized under philosophical supervi-

sion in the light of above-mentioned foundations. Such a task

would greatly contribute to the development of all bio-

humanistic and social sciences by liberating them from the

limitations and erroneous tendencies imposed by the overly

great influence of the natural language of psychological imagi-

nation, especially when combined with an excessive compo-

nent of egotism.

Most of the questions dealt with in this book are beyond the

scope of applicability of the natural language. The fifth chapter

shall deal with a macrosocial phenomenon which has rendered

our traditional scientific language completely deceptive. Un-

derstanding these phenomena thus requires consistent separa-

tion from the habits of that method of thinking and the use of

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SOME INDESPENSIBLE CONCEPTS

the most objective system of concepts possible. For this pur-

pose, it proves necessary to develop the contents, organize

them, and familiarize the readers with them as well.

At the same time, an examination of the phenomena whose

nature forced the use of such a system will render a great con-

tribution to enriching and perfecting the objective system of

concepts.

While working on these matters, the author gradually accus-

tomed himself to comprehending reality by means of this very

method, a way of thinking which turned out to be both the most

appropriate and the most economical in terms of time and ef-

fort. It also protects the mind from its own natural egotism and

any excessive emotionalism.

In the course of the above-mentioned inquiries, each re-

searcher went through his own period of crisis and frustration

when it became evident that the concepts he had trusted thus

far proved to be inapplicable. Ostensibly, correct hypotheses

formulated in the scientifically improved natural conceptual

language turned out to be completely unfounded in the light of

facts, and of preliminary statistical calculations. At the same

time, the elaboration of concepts better suited for investigated

reality became extremely complex: after all, the key to the

question lies in a scientific area still in the process of develop-

ment.

Surviving this period thus required an acceptance of and a