Political Ponerology: A Science of Evil Applied for Political Purposes

[Time for change]

“Many people believe that man is evolving; society is evolving; and that we now have control over the arbitrary evil of our environment; or at least we will have it after George Bush and his Neocons have about 25 years to fight the endless War against Terror” – Laura Knight-Jadczyk, from the Editor’s Preface to “Political Ponerology – A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes” by Andrew M. Lobaczewski


For all of my life, one of my greatest interests has been to understand the nature of human evil. And I have always believed that it is one of the most important subjects that mankind needs to understand. So thank you to fellow DUer Larry Ogg for referring me to Lobaczewski’s book on Political Ponerology (and for your ideas on how to present this information).

Laura Knight-Jadczyk, in her Editor’s Preface to “Political Ponerology”, puts today’s world in perspective:

At the social level, hatred, envy, greed and strife multiply exponentially. Crime increases faster than the population. Combined with wars, insurrections and political purges, multiplied millions across the globe are without adequate food or shelter due to political actions… The totality of human suffering is a dreadful thing…

The woeful status of today’s world, as depicted in that brief but cogent summary, is due to human evil more than it is due to any other factor. Furthermore, humanity’s historical record in dealing with human evil has been abysmal.

So we need to do much better on that score. And that is the main reason for Lobaczewski’s book. For, as Knight-Jadczyk says in her Editor’s Preface, there is a lot that can be done to combat evil, and “the very first thing we can do is learn about it”.


Descriptions and definitions of human evil

Before one can understand how evil functions at the macro-level, that is, how it affects entire societies, it is necessary to understand how it operates in individuals. There are differing opinions on this issue, but most of them have a good deal in common. Knight-Jadczyk quotes from Martha Stout, who has worked extensively with the victims of psychopaths, on this issue.

Imagine – if you can – not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.

Knight-Jadczyk expands on that description:

They can imitate feelings, but the only real feelings they seem to have… is a sort of “predatorial hunger” for what they want. All else – all activity – is subsumed to this drive. In short, the psychopath is a predator. If we think about the interactions of predators with their prey in the animal kingdom, we can come to some idea of what is behind the “mask of sanity” of the psychopath.

This leads us to an important question: what does the psychopath really get from their victims? It’s easy to see what they are after when they lie and manipulate for money or material goods or power. But in many instances… we can only say that it seems to be that the psychopath enjoys making others suffer.

Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, in “People of the Lie”, defined an evil person as someone who is totally unwilling to admit fault or to try to understand him or herself. It’s just too painful. So, in order to avoid having to do that, the evil person spends his or her whole life trying to make other people and himself see himself as he would like to be seen, rather than as he really is. That means pretending, lying, killing, or whatever it takes. Therefore, no fault of an evil person can ever be corrected because that would mean having to admit that it exists. Here is Peck’s somewhat more technical definition:

Truly evil people, on the other hand, actively rather than passively avoid extending themselves. They will take any action in their power to protect their own laziness, to preserve the integrity of their sick self. Rather than nurturing others, they will actually destroy others in this cause. If necessary, they will even kill to escape the pain of their own spiritual growth. As the integrity of their sick self is threatened by the spiritual health of those around them, they will seek by all manner of means to crush and demolish the spiritual health that may exist near them.

I define evil, then, as the exercise of political power – that is, the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion – in order to avoid extending one’s self for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth. Ordinary laziness is non-love; evil is anti-love.

The many difficulties in recognizing human evil

Various estimates in Lobaczewski’s book put the prevalence of evil individuals at somewhere between 4% and 6% of the population*, with no known differences by culture, nation, or race (but generally thought to be about ten times more prevalent in males than in females.) So, if it only occurs in a small minority of the population, that raises the question as to why whole societies come under the control of these people, thereby sustaining tremendous damage, for long periods of time. Perhaps the most important answer to that question is that relatively normal people often fail to consciously recognize evil in their midst, for several reasons:


The appearance of normality
As indicated by the title of Dr. Peck’s book on evil (People of the Lie), deception is one of the primary characteristics of evil people. It is essential to them if they are to avoid being shunned by the good majority of humanity, and some of them are quite good it. Many of them are even quite good at inspiring trust and confidence. Martha Stout continues her description of psychopaths (noted above) as follows:

Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless…. You are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience that they seldom even guess at your condition. Your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences, will most likely remain undiscovered.

Denial
Denial is a very common psychological defense mechanism that people use in order to avoid the psychological pain of having to face something that is very unpleasant to them. It is so common that all humans use it to one degree or another on occasion. But as we grow we learn to face things that were previously too difficult for us to face, and that is part of the process of emotional maturation. Mastering this process gives us the strength to face the world as it really is, rather than as we would like it to be. With regard to the denial of evil, Knight-Jadczyk notes:

Human beings have been accustomed to assume that other human beings are – at the very least – trying to “do right” and “be good” and fair and honest. And so, very often, we do not take the time to use due diligence in order to determine if a person who has entered our life is, in fact, a “good person”.

Denial also takes place at the national level. There are many things that the United States as a nation denies (i.e., things that most Americans deny). For example, we talk about concepts like freedom and democracy without full awareness of the many historical (and current) examples where we have denied these gifts to other people. Probably the most difficult thing for Americans to admit to as a nation is that their President is evil.

Looking for evil in the wrong places – class prejudice
For many, perhaps most people, evil is something you find in prisons or slums. They simply do not think of people who have money and dress nicely as being evil. But successful psychopaths do not end up in prisons or slums. They can be bankers, physicians, professionals of any stripe, politicians, even leaders of nations.

Racism, nationalism, or other isms
When evil is perpetrated on persons of other nationalities or races people often turn a blind eye, especially when it is justified by their leaders. For example, in the United States slavery was justified by the slave owners for many decades, despite the “All men are created equal” proclamation of our Declaration of Independence. More recently, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths have been justified in order to excuse our invasion and occupation of their country. Our leaders and journalists don’t justify it in any direct straight forward manner, but rather they justify it by virtue of their virtually complete silence on the matter. Or they justify it by saying such things as “We didn’t start this war”, as if hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians were responsible for the 9-11 attacks on our country. Noam Chomsky sums up this phenomenon succinctly in “What we Say Goes – Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World”:

When you conquer somebody and suppress them, you have to have a reason. You can’t just say, “I’m a son of a bitch and want to rob them”. You have to say it’s for their good, they deserve it, or they actually benefit from it. That was the attitude of the slave owners. Most of them didn’t say, “Look, I’m enslaving these people because I want easily exploitable cheap labor for my own benefit.”

Yet, when a U.S. President gives the American people an excuse for a war of aggression they buy into those rationalizations way to often.

* Scott Peck estimates a prevalence of evil of less than 20 times this amount – about 2 cases per thousand people. The difference probably has to do with the fact that Peck doesn’t classify “ordinary psychopaths” as being evil, unless they very actively seek to do substantial damage to others. This is more in line with Lobaczewski’s “essential psychopathy”, which he defines as someone whose role in the ponerogenic process is “exceptionally great”.


The effects of evil on individuals and society

For those who believe that evil people are almost always found in prisons or slums, the criminologist Georgette Bennett notes:

The consequences to the average citizen from business crimes are staggering… The combined burglary, mugging and other property losses induced by the country’s street punks come to about $4 billion a year. However, the seemingly upstanding citizens in our corporate board rooms and the humble clerks in our retail stores bilk us out of between $40 and $200 billion a year.…

But the damage goes far beyond monetary losses. Lobaczewski notes:

When (normal) human beings fall into a certain state… the psychopaths, like a virulent pathogen in a body, strike at their weaknesses, and the entire society is plunged into conditions that …. lead to horror and tragedy on a very large scale…

Whether or not or how much damage a psychopath actually does is dependent upon circumstances. Martha Stout explains:

…. If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction.

In such cases evil individuals or cabals may take control of a whole nation, and then the destruction often becomes enormous, in the form of genocides or other mass murders. James Petras explains in “Rulers and Ruled in the U.S. Empire”:

Explanations of genocides that focus on “irrational mass behavior”… overlook the central importance of elite manipulation, anchored in the state, the economy and civil society. In none of the genocides of the 20th and 21st Century were the “masses” in a position to initiate, organize and direct them, though, certainly, sectors of the lower classes carried out the policies.

Psychopaths in position of great power

My belief that George Bush and his administration are evil is not based on any single incident, but rather on a pervasive pattern. This is a man who blew up frogs when he was younger. As Governor of Texas he mocked a woman (Carla Faye Tucker) who pleaded for her life with him, mimicking her desperate pleas in discussions with other people. In the midst of a national disaster, with people dying by the thousands he sat around and partied. And then, when he finally got to New Orleans he ordered firemen to wait around and do nothing rather than save the dying people, just so that he could pose for a photo-op with them. Virtually every act of his presidency has been calculated to increase the wealth and power of his benefactors at the expense of the vast majority of Americans, many of whom have consequently been driven into poverty. He created a war that has resulted in over a million Iraqi civilian deaths and over four thousand deaths of American soldiers – and for no apparent reason other than to increase the wealth and power of his benefactors. He unilaterally decided that he is not subject to the laws of our country. And worst of all, he presides over the indefinite incarceration without charges or trial, and the torture of our prisoners of war – for no apparent reason at all.

DUers aren’t the only people who are open to acknowledging the relationship of evil to political power in their own country. The preface to “Political Ponerology” not only notes this relationship but attempts an explanation, and is not hesitant to point out the role of George W. Bush:

In the past several years, there are many more psychologists and psychiatrists and other mental health workers beginning to look at these issues in new ways in response to the questions about the state of our world and the possibility that there is some essential difference between such individuals as George W. Bush and many so-called Neocons, and the rest of us…

Dr. Stout…. describes a “composite” case where the subject spent his childhood blowing up frogs with fire-crackers. It is widely known that George W. Bush did this, so one naturally wonders...

We also began to realize that the profiles that emerged also describe rather accurately many individuals who seek positions of power in fields of authority, most particularly politics and commerce. That’s really not so surprising an idea, but it honestly hadn’t occurred to us until we saw the patterns and recognized them in the behaviors of numerous historical figures and, lately, including George W. Bush and members of his administration… Politics, by its very nature, would tend to attract more of the pathological “dominator types” than other fields. That is only logical, and we began to realize that it was not only logical, it was horrifyingly accurate; horrifying because pathology among people in power can have disastrous effects on all of the people under the control of such pathological individuals.

The origins of Lobaczewski’s “Political Ponerology”

As Laura Knight-Jadczyk and her colleagues came more and more to recognize the vast potential for psychopaths in position of political power to inflict destruction on whole societies, they published their thoughts and findings on the Internet. Consequently, they received an e-mail from Andrew Lobaczewski, of whom they had not previously known:

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen: I have got your Special Research Project on psychopathy by my computer. You are doing a most important and valuable work for the future of nations. I am a very aged clinical psychologist. Forty years ago I took part in a secret investigation of the real nature and psychopathology of the macro-social phenomenon… I am able to provide you with a most valuable scientific document, useful for your purposes. It is my book “Political Ponerology – A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes”.

Lobaczewski was just one of several scientists who took part in the research and the writing of the book. But he was the only one left alive. The reason that the book had to be researched and written in secret was that Lobaczewski and his fellow scientists were victims of one of the most evil and repressive regimes of world history. Lobaczewski describes the history of the manuscript for the book:

The original manuscript of this book went into the furnace minutes before a secret police raid in Communist Poland. The second copy, painfully reassembled by scientists working under impossible conditions of violence and repression, was sent via courier to the Vatican. Its receipt was never acknowledged – the manuscript and all valuable data lost. In 1984, the third and final copy was written from memory by the last survivor of the original researchers: Andrew Lobaczewski.…After half a century of suppression, this book is finally available.

Knight-Jadczyk describes her reaction to the receipt of Lobaczewski’s manuscript:

As I read, I realized that what I was holding in my hand was essentially a chronicle of a descent into hell, transformation, and triumphant return to the world with knowledge of that hell that was priceless for the rest of us, particularly in this day and time when it seems evident that a similar hell is enveloping the planet. The risks that were taken by the group of scientists that did the research on which this book is based are beyond the comprehension of most of us. Many of them were young, just starting in their careers when the Nazis began to stride in their hundred league jack-boots across Europe. These researchers lived through that, and then when the Nazis were driven out and replaced by the Communists under the heel of Stalin, they faced years of oppression the likes of which…. one cannot even imagine.

A few more words about Lobaczewski’s book and our need to understand its subject

What I’ve written here sets the stage for the latter part of Lobaczewski’s book, in which he describes the characteristics of pathocracies (which he defines as social movements, societies, nations or empires that are taken over by psychopaths), how they originate, and the various threats that are posed to them, among other things. I chose not to provide much detail on those issues in this post because I felt that would make it too long. If there is a fair amount of interest in this post I will follow it up with the above noted issues in a few days.

The major theme of Lobaczewski’s book is that if world civilization is to survive and thrive it must learn how to deal with evil individuals who seek its destruction. To that end, he believes that it is essential that objective scientific studies continue be pursued in order that humanity may come to recognize evil when they see it and learn how to combat it (I said something very similar to that about a year and a half ago, in a post titled “Evil Must Be Recognized for What it Is Rather than Denied”).

Along those lines, Lobaczewski believes that it is essential that we take a strictly objective and scientific view towards evil individuals rather than a moralistic attitude towards them. I’m not sure I’m capable of doing that, but I certainly do agree with him that this is a subject of monumental importance, and we need to learn much more about it.

The last paragraph of Lobaczewski’s web site sums up why he considers the subject to be of such great importance:

Morality and humanism cannot long withstand the predations of this evil. Knowledge of its nature – and its insidious effect on both individuals and groups – is the only antidote.

Knight-Jadczyk, at the end of her Editor’s Preface, puts that theme in the context of the current day:

Based on the syndrome that describes the onset of the disease (pathocracy), it seems that the United States in particular, and perhaps the entire world, will soon enter into “bad times” of such horror and despair that the Holocaust of World War II will seem like just a practice run. And so, since they were there, and they lived through it and brought back information to the rest of us, it may well save our lives to have a map to guide us in the falling darkness.

[Mnemosyne]

1. kick for the night crowd, and R! n/t

[Triana]

2. Having read Stout's book and those by Dr. Robert Hare..

....it doesn't surprise me that psychopaths exist at the highest echelons of society, government, and multinational corporations - like Exxon-Mobil, Wal-Mart, Halliburton, GE - for instance - to name a few. And of course in the oval office and the halls of our government.

When you then add into the equation tactics like those exposed in Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine - it all adds up to paint a rather grim picture of what we're up against.

Too bad - too bad - Democrats and Progressives in and running for office are so oblivious...some of them are obviously even part of 'the problem'.

[nikto]

3. Society is structured...

...to FAVOR the aggressive ones who trample over others to get what they want.

Psychopaths, with their ruthlessness and bottom-line mentality,
have a built-in advantage in many of our institutions and especially,
the dog-eat-dog world of finance and Big Business.

People like Richard Mellon Scaife, Ken (maybe not really dead?) Lay and Rupert Murdoch
are likely candidates to be psychopaths, IMO.

Normal people do not seek power over others.

Politicians DO.

That is why so many of our political class have also exhibited psychotic qualities.

And now, in a corporate-dominated society, the "psycho-dogs"
are truly in the driver's seat.

The Meek will inherit the earth only when the psychotic
power-seekers stop killing and crushing them.

And when will the psychos who run much of society stop doing that, anyway?
When DOES that day come?

I'm not seeing it.

[TahitiNut]

4. THIS is the 'best' of DU ...

... as good (essential for development of an intelligent individual perspective) as most of the mindless, slack-jawed, knuckle-dragging DRECK in GD:P is bad. Bravo.

[Time for change]

47. Thank you so much

[tomreedtoon]

5. And since they can't be cured, shouldn't they be killed?

Before I start; no, I can't afford those expensive sarcasm icons. I am not being sarcastic.

There is a danger in all this. If you declare someone a psychopath, or "possessed by the devil" in earlier terminology, there is nothing to be done for him. He might as well be killed, because neither psychiatry nor exorcism will work.

This sounds like a grand intellectual excuse for a purge.

[Time for change]

6. Lobaczewski didn't recommend anything like that

He recommends that they should receive psychological counseling, and as long as they are a danger to others they should be kept out of positions where they have the potential to harm others.

The only way we have of identifying these people is through their behavior. What is wrong with identifying people with psychopathic behavior and taking steps to prevent them from harming others?

A good example is George Bush. There was evidence of psychopathic tendencies before he was selected president. Some people were aware of those tendencies and others weren't. If we as a society were more aware of how to recognize these people, perhaps more of his aberrant behavior could have been publicized before he was selected as president, and then maybe the election wouldn't have been close enough to steal. The benefits to our country and to the world would have been enormous.

What is the alternative? Take no steps to learn more about this subject, or continue to allow these kinds of people to attain great power that allows them to ruin the life of millions? Or, do you think that type of person described in this OP doesn't exist?

[tomreedtoon]

14. So, Lobaczewski recommends the Arkham Asylum solution?

Arrest the bad guys and lock them away, while trying psychiatric treatments on them that don't work? Meanwhile, they escape or feign sanity to get released, and wreak their evil on the world again?

Oh, it's not just limited to the Batman universe, which you and The Lobe would know if you'd seen The Onion Field or a dozen other things.

You see, my contention is that Lobaczewski isn't practicing psychiatry (which is a phony profession anyway). He is practicing Witchfinder General, and he is simply declaring people witches and consigning them to the pyre in the public square. Does he have a financial interest in concerns that build asylums or sell straightjackets?

[Time for change]

15. You're making up words to put in our mouths

If you don't like Lobaczewski's suggestion that we should study this subject scientifically and that we should try to find solutions for dealing with it -- one of the most important being the ability to recognize evil when we see it -- then what is your suggestion? Or don't you think that this is an important problem?

[CanSocDem]

17. But...

"...the ability to recognize evil when we see it..."


Who gets to set the standards???

Personally, I'm so liberal I would eliminate prisons, churches, hospitals, asylums and anything else that stood in the way of the great love and creativity, with which individuals were born.

Not to say that a lot of discussion isn't needed...

[lynnertic]

22. we define the standards you're asking about. see my reply #10

for 2 examples: changing attitudes towards domestic violence and sexual harrassment in the last 20 years.

[Time for change]

38. Eliminate prisons and hospitals?

What would you do with murderers?

And what would people do when they needed treatment for serious medical conditions?

With regard to standards, as it is now, psychologists and psychiatrists are obligated to report situations where they feel that their patients are a danger to other people. Laws and prisons are needed in order to protect people from dangerous people.

Lobaczewski is not advocating imprisoning people based on psychological profiles. He is mainly advocating that we develop a better understanding of how to identify psychopaths, so that society is better able to protect themselves against them. Just the knowledge alone could go very far in helping people to deal with these things.

I do believe that we imprison far too many people in this country. But that has little or nothing to do with what I say in this post. Far better that we learn how to identify psychopaths before they do us great harm than that we lock up one time drug users IMO.

[BeHereNow]

43. By their fruits, you shall know them.

If you haven't read the book- you MUST.
BHN

[tomreedtoon]

91. The problem of evil HAS no solution.

Just as the problem of death, gravity or TV reality shows have no solution.

Perhaps you never saw enough film noir. You would have learned that there is no solution to evil, only individual responses to it - with results you must live or die with.

Anytime anyone takes on universal, massive problems with no solution, they have another agenda in mind. This is exactly like the French Revolution's Robespierre arranging The Terror to achieve "virtue," McCarthy's crusade against the "impurity" of Communism or Bush's "war on terror". It's an impossible task. It allows all kinds of excesses and mistreatment of human beings. And the person who prosecutes it wants power.

I don't care if you think this bozo is more moral than Bush. He isn't. He has the same operating principle as every demagogue in history, and I am surprised that you fell for it.

[mhatrw]

158. That's right. Drugs have a solution (The War on Drugs!). Terror has a solution. (The War on Terror!)

But there is no sense in even trying to keep psychopaths from gaining all the levers of power in a democracy.

All we are saying is give psychopaths a chance!

[jmrobins]

21. I hate to change the topic...

but psychiatry is a phony profession?? I've always been curious why people say that--can you explain?

[lynnertic]

23. I've found that opinion to be formed by people who have bad experiences w/ it

[Time for change]

26. Just my opinion

When I was in medical school I was very interested in psychiatry, so I took some elective courses in it, though I never continued on for the training necessary to become a psychiatrist.

One thing that was very evident (and disturbing) to me was the great amount of disagreement among psychiatrists concerning diagnoses. That was partially responsible for me deciding not to become a psychiatrist.

Psychiatry is not a phony profession, but it is an embryonic science -- meaning that there is a lot more that we don't know about it than what we do know about it. It is much more difficult to unlock the secrets of the human brain than it is to understand chemistry, physics, or astronomy IMO because the human brain is much more complex than those things. That is one reason IMO why some people consider it to be a phony profession.

It also may be true that the profession attracts more than its share of unstable people. I do know, for example, that the suicide rate is very high among psychiatrists. Maybe it attracts more than its share of phony people too.

Also, many or most psychiatrists tend to rely on drugs for the treatment of mental disease, much more than psychologists do, for example. Some people believe that they rely on drugs way too much, rather than devote themselves more to the more difficult work of psychotherapy.

[tomreedtoon]

90. Certainly! How many psycho killers have been cured?

How many people who hurt little girls or elderly men have ever been cured of their dysfunction? How many serial killers get off with a few assurances from psychiatrists?

More to the point, even psychiatrists admit that they have never cured anyone. "The patient cures himself," the shrink would say. "I just happened to take ten grand of his hard-earned money to sit there while he did so. And my other patient, who broke out of prison and killed twenty people...well, he just wasn't trying to cure himself. It's all his fault."

Liars, frauds and poseurs, all of them. 'Nuff said.

[Time for change]

93. Psychiatrists never cured anyone?

That's one of the most ignorant statements I've ever heard.

[mhatrw]

157. Are you for real? All the OP is saying is that to protect ourselves from

evil, the first step is to learn to identify evil people and keep them out of positions of immense power.

All you are saying is give psychopaths a chance!

[lynnertic]

10. I second Time for Change's point: dumb idea to kill them off. 1st, you'd have to hire or become one

I think it's to the Poneric's advantage* that they're such a small percentage of the population. Otherwise I think they'd kill each other off, or we'd have disasters like Enron happening every year (...waitaminute...)

I strongly disagree with Political Ponerology's concept that a psychopathic mind is an "almost human" mind. Evil human is still as human as Good human or Stupid human or Funny human. I object to dehumanization.

The answer should be, that common knowledge of the condition and the dangers -- the way we're learning to see narcissism and depression for what they are -- will allow us as a society to "select against" the behavior and personality's manifestation until it either morphs into something else or is weeded out of the gene pool.

Knowledge is empowering, and domestic policies can really change behavior on a social scale.

We're doing that now with domestic abuse policies that seem draconian, but are actually socially engineering us to reign in folks who can't control rage.

The same type of social engineering tamed the Navy after their Tailhook scandal in the early 90s. I haven't been sexually harassed by anyone in the last 18 years except a spook who retired before all that hit the fan, and I knew exactly how to tell him to crawl back under his rock.

(I knew how to do that before Tailhook because my people raise strong women, but that's not the point: the point is that the old dude slunk away quietly, where before, he may have expressed surprise at my 'feisty' attitude, at which point he would have received a slap on the face that I wouldn't have gone to jail for. Now that's progress!)

--------------
* I made up "poneric" myself = "evildoer"

[Time for change]

55. Knowledge is indeed empowering

Once they see that you can see right through them, they lose their power over you.

[BeHereNow]

41. W E L C O M E TO D U! Have you read the book? You MUST!

My jaw drops to the floor every time I turn a page.
It explains SO much.
These people are VERY real and our world has been over run by them.
They must go. Soon.

BHN

[mhatrw]

156. How about just not elected President? Or is that too much to ask?

All you are saying is give predators a chance!

[Karenina]

7. K&R!!!

[Time for change]

49. Thank you Karenina

[Karenina]

166. Na Du, I ALWAYS do that with your threads

so I have a marker to go to when I have time to read and absorb.
Right about now my head is spinning having had the time to read closely, follow the links and take in the responses of the alien lizards in our midst!

[lynnertic]

8. PWN3Rology - the study of being humbled before your betters.

Fun with a new word.

The publishers of 'political ponerology' say that they took 'ponerology' from the greek word "poneros" = evil.

I see in the references cited in OP, the word ponerology used to describe both the study and the practice of applied evil. Which is strange and confusing: a criminal isn't a criminologist, all the time anyway. They're two different vocations on different sides of the playing field.

The site ponerology.com has a corner on the word's conjugation: 'ponerogenic' and 'ponerization' even the verb 'to ponerize'

The word hasn't really caught on. Online dictionaries don't have an entry for 'ponerology' and nor do the etymology sites I checked, both of them.

Google's index shows the word 'ponerology' linked to the discussion/sale of political/psychology books. I guess you could call the genre ponegraphy.

[EOTE]

18. Thanks for the info...

I was wondering about the etymology of the word, you saved me a lot of trouble. And I guess I'm not the only one to think of the similarities to being pwn3d.

And very, very interesting post TfC. I'm very interested in what makes people evil, and while this post doesn't really shine so much light on that, it does give very interesting insight as to the mechanisms of their minds. I think about this quite often, how much of what makes a 'poneric' (Thanks Lynne) is linked back to nurture vs. nature. Whether I should show pity towards evil people, or just disdain. How there must certainly be different degrees of evil. The Discovery Channel has a very interesting show called "Most Evil" where a forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone, who obviously has an intense fascination with evil, rates various murderers and such on a scale from 1,those who kill solely in self-defense solely and have no psychopathic tendencies (doesn't seem evil at all to me) all the way to 22, psychopathic torture-murderers, with torture their primary motive. Seeing the description of the level 22 evil person most definitely brings up mental images of our current president.

Oddly enough, I can't help but think that the pervasiveness of evil in our society is at least partly perpetuated by the intense levels of anti-intellectualism that I see. How else can you account for a country allowing our current psychopath in chief to be installed for an entire two terms over competition whose largest faults were that they were intelligent? I know our terrible media has to take a sizable chunk of that blame (and perhaps they encourage the anti-intellectualism), but I still see a huge portion of our population who would rather take their chances with a tried and tested evil man rather than risk having one of them smart people occupy the highest office in the land. There are many things that I think my mind will never grasp.

[Time for change]

53. Thank you EOTE

"I still see a huge portion of our population who would rather take their chances with a tried and tested evil man rather than risk having one of them smart people occupy the highest office in the land."

Yep, isn't that so sad?

The underlying reason of course is that most of these people wouldn't recognize an evil person unless he had EVIL written all over his body. Some people are so naive.

[napoleon_in_rags]

27. lol. the word probably shouldn't catch on.

If there's one way to make evil and domination look funny, its to study it under the term "pwnerology".

[SpiralHawk]

74. "Pwned by evil? Moi? Smirk. Sneer." - Commander AWOL & VP Deferment Dickie

[lynnertic]

83. Well think about it...

... Celtic tradition holds that the only person who can control the King is the Satirist, by ridiculing him into good conduct.

Rowling's Harry Potter books teach kids to banish despair (Dementors) by evoking the emotion of love, and to banish the embodiment of their deepest fear (her version of the boogeyman) with ridicule.

[napoleon_in_rags]

92. Wow, great point. I believe you're right.

Now that I think about it. The biggest thing for control by wicked forces is fear...and if you don't fear, they can hurt you, but not control you, as Gandhi demonstrated. You may be on to something here...

[Echo In Light]

9. Several months ago I sourced her "Natural State of Psychopathy?" and took a beating for doing so

The vast majority of posters called her a quack, claiming she hasn't any "real qualifications" re the subject matter. Naturally the messenger took much abusive verbiage also i.e. tinfoil, crazy, conspiracy theorist.

Official Culture in America:
A Natural State of Psychopathy?
Laura Knight-Jadczyk

The subject of the extremely narrow point of view of most Americans as opposed to the majority of other peoples in the world came up in a conversation the other day. The people having the conversation were, as it happens, mostly American. One of them commented that Americans had been "programmed" to their point of view by mass media propaganda for a very long time and that it was simply a very normal part of American life and basically, always had been. She concluded, "Whoever denies it is either ignorant or has an agenda."

That may be so. It may be true that the "pied pipers" of denial have an agenda. But what, then, does one say or do about the ignorance of the vast majority of Americans? Why and how is it that the trap of Fascism is closing on them before their very eyes and no matter how many voices - the number is increasing every day - are raised to point out this danger, they simply do not seem to get it?

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/official_culture.htm

[lynnertic]

11. 2 points for you, the early adapter!

[Time for change]

51. So-called "qualifications" can be difficult to judge

I have spent a lot of time reviewing scientific articles submitted for publication, as part of my job. In making a decision on whether or not I think a paper should be published, so called "qualifications" is one factor to be considered, but it is a relatively minor factor. The intrinsic merits of the paper are generally much more important.

Of course, that statement is somewhat relative, and there may be situations where so-called qualifications may be more important, as when factual statements are made that only people with certain qualifications may be expected to have knowledge about.

But it seems to me that what she has to say makes a great deal of sense. What she wrote in the preface for "Political Ponerology", and what she wrote in "Official Culture in America" are the kinds of things which IMO should be judged much more on its intrinsic merits than on so-called "qualifications".

[azygous]

12. Our community rid ourselves

of one of these "evil sorts". The man was very political, devious, and rich. Any time he proposed changes or new policy and he didn't get his way, he would threaten to sue, which he ended up doing on several occasions because he had unlimited money. His ideas were almost always self-serving and extremely authoritarian, although he was sharp-minded and very intelligent.

Then I came across an article on the web about evil people and M.Scott Peck was mentioned as the premier expert in the field. I read everything Peck wrote on the subject, and I synthesized his material as it related to this person and I shamelessly passed it around to everyone in our community, including all the leaders and even the county judge. Interestingly, this man got wind of this paper and my role in it, but never sued me, and even treated me with respect, and you might even say he was fond of me, which isn't that weird given that he was a narcissist.

It gave all of us the tools to go up against this evil man, and every tedious step we managed to stay a match for him. Did I really believe way down deep we'd ever see the day when he'd be gone from our midst? I did, but I thought it would take longer than it did.

It goes to prove that if you recognize evil for what it is, learn all you can about it, you will be able to prevail. It was amazing that once people knew what they were dealing with, almost no one was skeptical about what we needed to do. And yes, some of the fight involved being "not so nice".

c

[Time for change]

20. Great story!

I believe that a central thing to keep in mind when dealing with psychopaths, which your story illustrates, is that the only thing they understand about interpersonal relationships is power. They look upon another person's good will or willingness to compromise as weakness.

I believe that what you probably did make it clear to him that you were onto him and would not stand for being manipulated any longer.

I have dealt with some extremely difficult people in my life, some whom I believed to be evil. I always start out by giving people the benefit of the doubt, considering them to be well intentioned. But when they prove to me that they're not well intentioned I adopt an entirely different way of dealing with them, and it's generally very effective. Once they learn that you won't allow yourself to be manipulated any longer they stop trying, and they fall in line. It's a very empowering experience.

But if you don't consider the possibility that some people may be be well intentioned at all, you will never identify those people.

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Very interesting. Thank you. A couple of thoughts--

First, you also need to look at Alterman's work on authoritarianism. John Dean popularized it in his Conservatives Without Conscience, But Alterman's work is also online. Essentially, Alterman distinguishes the authoritarian followers from their leaders. The two types--follower and leader--are very different in their psychological makeup.

Second, based on an integration of neuropsychology and developmental neuroanatomy with certain observations I have been able to make over a couple of decades as a forensic and Correctional psychologist, I believe that true psychopathy (which IMHO only partially overlaps with high-scoring on Hare's PCL-R, or, more accurately, loads only on one of the two factors on that scale) arises from deprivation of certain types of interactive experience with a primary caregiver in the second year of life, when portions of the right orbitofrontal cortex are developing. Specifically, the infant doesn't get the sort of "cybernetic" interaction with the mother that is necessary to learn that other people are more-or-less like him inside. This failure of experience happens at a time when a critical portion of the brain is myelinating: the so-called "social cortex."

Actually, I do think it would be possible to develop a way to correct this experiential/microanatomical deficit, but it's speculative and I won't go into it here.

[lynnertic]

24. Wow!

thanks.

[Time for change]

34. Thank you for the information

I took some elective courses in psychiatry when I was in medical school, with the thought of making a career out of it, but I decided against it.

I had never heard of primary care giver deprivation as a cause before. This is something I am very interested in -- do you have a reference that you could steer me to?

I read Dean's Conservatives without Conscience. Very interesting book, and it raised some questions in my mind. Like, how likely is it to have an authoritarian conservative who has a conscience?

[Jackpine Radical]

61. See Allan Schore and Dan Siegel on the new developmental

neuroanatomy/ROFC stuff. As for authoritarians with a conscience, I think that the follower-tyoes may have some semblance of a conscience, while the leaders are less likely to be so equipped.

Schore talks a lot about the role of the primary caregiver and the feedback loop she/he establishes with the infant as providing critical experiences while the ROFC is forming. I'll dig up better references in a bit.

Here, from Amazon:
Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self/Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self (two-volume set) by Allan N. Schore Hardcover - April 2003

The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being by Daniel J. Siegel
Hardcover - April 1, 2007

[Time for change]

78. Thank you

[arendt]

36. Interesting you think its "nurture". What about "nature"? What if those brain areas are...

genetically miswired?

The newly discovered "mirror neurons" have spawned endless pop-psychologizing. But, they do put a physical basis under the idea that part of our brain is devoted to understanding and empathizing with others.

Since they take DNA samples from anyone who comes in contact with the police these days, I guarantee that there are DNA samples from groups of psychopaths. Right now, in secret, I would bet the military is trying to come up with a test to identify sociopaths - so they can recruit these soulless killers more efficiently than they already do.

I saw a story about some Dutch psychiatrists using functional-MRI machines to see if they could detect specific differences between normal and sociopathic brains.

arendt

[Larry Ogg]

62. Hi arendt

You have some interesting comments, and I’m looking for all the genetic information that a layman can use, if you have any links.

Also see post #58 too Jackpine Radical you might find interesting, and I know you will like the video.

Thanks
Larry

[Jackpine Radical]

64. Fascinating.

We do know that psychopaths function as if "on valium--" they seem to process threats to themselves as if their worry circuitry were shut off.

A problem with all these studies, though, is how they are defining psychopaths. The usual tool is a scale developed by Robert Hare, called the Psychopathy Checklist (Revised), generally abbreviated PCL-R. The problem with this scale is that it only identifies "low-functioning" psychopaths, i.e. the ones who get caught. Ken Lay wouldn't have scored over the threshold on it because he was too smart to acquire a substantial criminal record, especially a juvenile record. We know that there are 2 factors in the PCL-R. And anyway, I'm not at all sure that we have accurately defined the underlying nature of the psychopathic personality. I need to sit down sometime and sort out my ideas and write out what I really do think about all this.

And as far as the genetic thing goes, there is not really good evidence on what is going on. It is very difficult to sort out early postnatal experiential effects from genetic ones, for example. The useual measn for doing so is twin studies, but the whole endeavor is immensely complicated by the problem of even identifying the phenotypes, without even getting to the part that involves sorting out the genetics. Overall, I suspect that some genotypes may be more susceptible to pathological environmental circumstances than others, but that the environmental pathology is a necessary releasor in producing the psychopathic phenotype.

[Laurel700]

108. Research and discuss?

Jackpine, you say "I need to sit down sometime and sort out my ideas and write out what I really do think about all this."

I'm right with you there. Would you be interested in joining a small group of researchers in a private yahoo group digging on this topic? So far, we search for material, articles, archive them, and toss ideas back and forth. We've been going through quite a bit of academic research, and we have one member who is currently doing neuro-psych research and she keeps us up to the minute on what is being said at the seminars and in the labs, what gets funded, what doesn't. We've got a few others with direct experience. Basically, just a working group with a serious goal: to crack this nut if possible.

[Larry Ogg]

58. Lobaczewski goes into great detail as to the command structure of psychopaths

The Essential psychopath is the top dog and the most powerful, its anonymity concealed. Essential was first documented by Hervey Cleckley, M.D. author of the The Mask of Sanity click on the link for full and free downloadable copy.

And then there’s the Schizoidal page 123 often confused with schizophrenic
Other psychopathy page 132-133 asthenic psychopathy: physically weak: showing marked physical weakness - of slender build: having a slender and lightly muscled build.

Skirtoid psychopathy (page 135-136) are vital, egotistical, and thick-skinned individuals who make good soldiers because of their endurance and psychological resistance.<snip> they love war / think of mercenary killers and jackals…

And then he the describes the characterpath as people who would of had a normal conscience except for being brain damaged and he describes this group as easily falling under the influence of the psychopath whom they idolize and will protect. Think of the gangbangers who will take the fall for their leader.

He also describes what he calls the Spellbinder which could be a true psychopath or a characterpath.

These are the ones that hold the group together, their the keepers of the ideologies which are stolen from normal people, and turned into something like what we see in Christian fundamentalist.

One other thing, maybe you could offer an opinion this video psychopath mri - general psychology

And thank you for your thoughts Jackpine

Larry

[Laurel700]

107. Nature vs Nurture

The nature vs nurture debate exercises our research group to no end. We have a number of professionals and academics working on it and we haven't found the smoking gun either. But I would like to point out that the main problem in dealing with psychopathy is the sample. As a rule, you could say that the only ones that get studied are the failures of the taxon. Hare et al studied mainly criminal samples; Cleckley had a completely different type of individual to work with, but still failures; and then Hare and Babiak teamed up to examine the issue of the successful psychopath, where you mainly evaluate them through the eyes and experiences of others.

Stout seems to have worked mainly with victims and some of her victims were involved with successful psychopaths, so that was a tiny aperture into the make-up of the critter. Anna Salter's work with sexual predators is something else altogether - the sexual psychopath. Then, there is Sandra Brown who has worked with both victims and perpetrators and victims whose perps never come under scrutiny any other way. Sandra is a member of one of our research groups.

What I saw when I studied "raw psychopathy," and I mean I read case after case after case, was a sort of caricature where the features were exaggerated and writ large. But it was like an art caricature. If you saw the exaggerated features, later, when you saw the real person, you could recognize him/her.

For example, NPD - and here I don't mean just narcissistic traits, but the real deal - could very well be somewhere on the spectrum of "successful psychopathy."

Then, there are the people that M. Scott Peck wrote about in his book "People of the Lie," ordinary people who clearly have no real conscience except a programmed sort of morality that they are unable to apply except by rote learning, and I think of as the "garden variety" of psychopath.

Bob Altemeyer's work on Right Wing Authoritarianism fits in there somewhere, but I'm not sure how, exactly. It needs some serious work. A year ago, almost to the day, Henry See wrote an article that included a quote from Altemeyer's book, Environment of Evil, http://www.sott.net/articles/show/129924-Environment-of... The quote is so compelling that I would like to share it here because it puts things we are experiencing daily into perspective:

Dr Bob Altemeyer, Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba, has spent much of his career researching the personality profile of what he calls Right Wing Authoritarians. He has published an overview of his research called The Authoritarians. It offers an insight into that percentage of the population that is easily swayed by the pathological types. Unfortunately, Altemeyer has not factored in the existence of psychopathy and pathocracy as important realities in society, so while he can help explain the functioning of the system, he is incapable of either explaining its origins or arriving at a solution.

But to give you an example of what a world might be were the psychopaths and their influence put into quarantine, look at his description of a simulation game that he ran on two nights, one using students who had scored very low on his RWA scale, the other, students who had scored very high.

Unauthoritarians and Authoritarians: Worlds of Difference

By now you must be developing a feel for what high RWAs think and do, and also an impression of low RWAs. Do you think you know each group well enough to predict what they'd do if they ran the world? One night in October, 1994 I let a group of low RWA university students determine the future of the planet (you didn't know humble researchers could do this, did you!). Then the next night I gave high RWAs their kick at the can.

The setting involved a rather sophisticated simulation of the earth's future called the Global Change Game, which is played on a big map of the world by 50-70 participants who have been split into various regions such as North America, Africa, India and China. The players are divided up according to current populations, so a lot more students hunker down in India than in North America. The game was designed to raise environmental awareness, and before the exercise begins players study up on their region's resources, prospects, and environmental issues.

Then the facilitators who service the simulation call for some member, any member of each region, to assume the role of team leader by simply standing up. Once the "Elites" in the world have risen to the task they are taken aside and given control of their region's bank account. They can use this to buy factories, hospitals, armies, and so on from the game bank, and they can travel the world making deals with other Elites. They also discover they can discretely put some of their region's wealth into their own pockets, to vie for a prize to be given out at the end of the simulation to the World's Richest Person. Then the game begins, and the world goes wherever the players take it for the next forty years which, because time flies in a simulation, takes about two and a half hours.

The Low RWA Game

By carefully organizing sign-up booklets, I was able to get 67 low RWA students to play the game together on October 18th. (They had no idea they had been funneled into this run of the experiment according to their RWA scale scores; indeed they had probably never heard of right-wing authoritarianism.) Seven men and three women made themselves Elites. As soon as the simulation began, the Pacific Rim Elite called for a summit on the "Island Paradise of Tasmania." All the Elites attended and agreed to meet there again whenever big issues arose. A world-wide organization was thus immediately created by mutual consent.

Regions set to work on their individual problems. Swords were converted to ploughshares as the number of armies in the world dropped. No wars or threats of wars occurred during the simulation.

An hour into the game the facilitators announced a (scheduled) crisis in the earth's ozone layer. All the Elites met in Tasmania and contributed enough money to buy new technology to replenish the ozone layer.

Other examples of international cooperation occurred, but the problems of the Third World mounted in Africa and India. Europe gave some aid but North America refused to help. Africa eventually lost 300 million people to starvation and disease, and India 100 million.

Populations had grown and by the time forty years had passed the earth held 8.7 billion people, but the players were able to provide food, health facilities, and jobs for almost all of them. They did so by demilitarizing, by making a lot of trades that benefited both parties, by developing sustainable economic programs, and because the Elites diverted only small amounts of the treasury into their own pockets. (The North American Elite hoarded the most.)

One cannot blow off four hundred million deaths, but this was actually a highly successful run of the game, compared to most. No doubt the homogeneity of the players, in terms of their RWA scores and related attitudes, played a role. Low RWAs do not typically see the world as "Us versus Them." They are more interested in cooperation than most people are, and they are often genuinely concerned about the environment. Within their regional groups, and in the interactions of the Elites, these first-year students would have usually found themselves "on the same page"--and writ large on that page was, "Let's Work Together and Clean Up This Mess." The game's facilitators said they had never seen as much international cooperation in previous runs of the simulation. With the exception of the richest region, North America, the lows saw themselves as interdependent and all riding on the same merry-go-round.

The High RWA Game

The next night 68 high RWAs showed up for their ride, just as ignorant of how they had been funneled into this run of the experiment as the low RWA students had been the night before. The game proceeded as usual. Background material was read, Elites (all males) nominated themselves, and the Elites were briefed. Then the "wedgies" started. As soon as the game began, the Elite from the Middle East announced the price of oil had just doubled. A little later the former Soviet Union (known as the Confederation of Independent States in 1994) bought a lot of armies and invaded North America. The latter had insufficient conventional forces to defend itself, and so retaliated with nuclear weapons. A nuclear holocaust ensued which killed everyone on earth--7.4 billion people--and almost all other forms of life which had the misfortune of co-habitating the same planet as a species with nukes.

When this happens in the Global Change Game, the facilitators turn out all the lights and explain what a nuclear war would produce. Then the players are given a second chance to determine the future, turning back the clock to two years before the hounds of war were loosed. The former Soviet Union however rebuilt its armies and invaded China this time, killing 400 million people. The Middle East Elite then called for a "United Nations" meeting to discuss handling future crises, but no agreements were reached.

At this point the ozone-layer crisis occurred but--perhaps because of the recent failure of the United Nations meeting--no one called for a summit. Only Europe took steps to reduce its harmful gas emissions, so the crisis got worse. Poverty was spreading unchecked in the underdeveloped regions, which could not control their population growth. Instead of dealing with the social and economic problems "back home," Elites began jockeying among themselves for power and protection, forming military alliances to confront other budding alliances. Threats raced around the room and the Confederation of Independent States warned it was ready to start another nuclear war. Partly because their Elites had used their meager resources to buy into alliances, Africa and Asia were on the point of collapse. An Elite called for a United Nations meeting to deal with the crises--take your pick--and nobody came.

By the time forty years had passed the world was divided into armed camps threatening each other with another nuclear destruction. One billion, seven hundred thousand people had died of starvation and disease. Throw in the 400 million who died in the Soviet-China war and casualties reached 2.1 billion. Throw in the 7.4 billion who died in the nuclear holocaust, and the high RWAs managed to kill 9.5 billion people in their world--although we, like some battlefield news releases, are counting some of the corpses twice.

The authoritarian world ended in disaster for many reasons. One was likely the character of their Elites, who put more than twice as much money in their own pockets as the low RWA Elites had. (The Middle East Elite ended up the World's Richest Man; part of his wealth came from money he had conned from Third World Elites as payment for joining his alliance.) But more importantly, the high RWAs proved incredibly ethnocentric. There they were, in a big room full of people just like themselves, and they all turned their backs on each other and paid attention only to their own group. They too were all reading from the same page, but writ large on their page was, "Care About Your Own; We Are NOT All In This Together."

The high RWAs also suffered because, while they say on surveys that they care about the environment, when push comes to shove they usually push and shove for the bucks. That is, they didn't care much about the long-term environmental consequences of their economic acts. For example a facilitator told Latin America that converting much of the region's forests to a single species of tree would make the ecosystem vulnerable. But the players decided to do it anyway because the tree's lumber was very profitable just then. And the highs proved quite inflexible when it came to birth control. Advised that "just letting things go" would cause the populations in underdeveloped areas to explode, the authoritarians just let things go.

Now the Global Change Game is not the world stage, university students are not world leaders, and starting a nuclear holocaust in a gymnasium is not the same thing as launching real missiles from Siberia and North Dakota. So the students' behavior on those two successive nights in 1994 provides little basis for drawing conclusions about the future of the planet. But some of what happened in this experiment rang true to me. I especially thought, "I've seen this show before" as I sat on the sidelines and watched the high RWAs create their very own October crisis.

We are facing the second scenario, not as a simulation, not as a game, but as our own future unless the knowledge needed to change society is propagated and put into practice. Frankly, I don't think there is a hope in hell that we can succeed in such a task, but ending on that note wouldn't be very helpful or encouraging. So instead, let me turn the problem around: if we are going to save ourselves, it is up to each of us to learn what we can about psychopathy and ponerology.

[Joe Chi Minh]

16. And what a fascinating post by Azygous!

[The Blue Flower]

19. People of the Lie

I read Peck's book when it first came out, and then reread it after * & co. were installed in office. I even bought copies and sent them to friends and family. I thought it was a groundbreaking psychiatric study of evil as it manifested in real-world behavior. What was interesting to me was that Peck himself then got involved in doing exorcisms, having concluded that there was no other way to deal with evil other than by spiritual means.

[Time for change]

56. I thought that "People of the Lie" was one of the most interesting books I've ever read

I agree that it was groundbreaking work.

When I read it, he said in his book that he had conducted only two exorcisms. At that time at least he considered exorcism to be a very rarely preferred method of treatment, only to be used as a last resort.

Did he change his mind about that later, after he had written the book?

He did say in his book that spiritual means are necessary for dealing with evil, but what he meant by that was spiritual counseling.

[alfredo]

25. K&R

[napoleon_in_rags]

28. Movements based on this will get shut down.

That's the first thing to know. The psychopathic power grabbing type projects his own will to power onto everybody else. (their greatest weakness is their inability to understand slackers) The result is this will be interpreted at as an attempt to use psychology to establish a "totalitarian state" where people are barred from power based on psychoanalysis. This dynamic already exists, and can be seen with scientology, with their hate of shrinks, being one of the power bases of the right.

[Time for change]

29. I think it's quite a stretch to interpret a psychiatrist's attempt to understand psychopaths

as a power grab. Lobaczewski’s purpose is the opposite of that. Having spent a large portion of his life as a victim of a totalitarian state, his major goal is to find ways to prevent that kind of thing.

Would have it been wrong to bar George Bush from power by means of publicizing his psychopathic behavior as a young man? Should people know about the character traits of the people they vote for?

[napoleon_in_rags]

35. I'm completely behind what Lobaczewski is saying.

I think it cuts to the heart with the problems of the world, and I've been thinking about this stuff for a long time. But I'm describing a trait of the psychopaths here, that they see EVERYTHING as a power grab once they are in power. The act of addressing these problems is something they will see as an attempt to dethrone them from square one, and they will begin a strategic information campaign against "psychological totalism" or some such shit immediately. You will hear Rush ranting about psychologists setting unscientific standards for who is "fit" to lead politically etc. etc.

And you're right, is a stretch, but for some reason these stretches of truth seem to gain traction with the American people again and again.

[Time for change]

37. Ok, I see what you're saying

Yes, Lobaczewski makes a big point of that in his book, though I didn't talk about that in my OP. That's why he and his cohorts had to write the book in secret. He felt, and he is probably correct, that the rulers of the totalitarian state would see a book such as his as a great threat to their power. Scott Peck made a big point of that in his book too. People of the lie have a great deal to lose once people are able to see through them and decipher what they're up to.

[napoleon_in_rags]

50. It sounds like amazing stuff, I'd like to read it myself.

Sounds like it affords us a great opportunity to look at what's really going on, but I imagine this can be scary. Do we really want to see our own role in perpetuating the cycle of predation through our belief that "everybody is good"? What happens when we throw that aside and see a world where global warming, economic depression, the health care crisis, the war in Iraq and so on aren't the results of failed policies, but are the exact intended consequences sought after: Scenarios designed to eradicate the "weak", (be them the American poor or third world countries that will bear the brunt of global warming) and give benefits to the "strong", (those who have invested in the system of predation.)

Its not a pretty vision of the world.

[mhatrw]

160. THEY LIVE!

The magic glasses that can show us exactly who is a Republican!

[alfredo]

30. The quote

[Time for change]

54. Yep

I can't read that quote without thinking of our pResident.

[alfredo]

59. I used cheney's image in the background. He's the evil behind the curtain.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

31. Please do follow up with more. Your ability to inform

and engage us with your well presented constructs is a gift. Thank you very much for sharing your talent and insight.

Recommended.

[Time for change]

48. Thank you very much -- I will do that

I love writing these things.

[mdmc]

32. interesting OP

I work in the MH field and see some of this up close...

[aldo]

33. Thanks for the post

I've been meaning to download the complete version. http://www.qfgpublishing.com/product_info.php?products_...

[Uncle Joe]

39. A most excellent read.

Thanks for the thread, Time for change.

Kicked and recommended.

[McCamy Taylor]

40. One big problem---the ultimate act of evil is labelling another person "evil".

We would not have a Holocaust or Crusades or Witch Hunts or the Inquisition or the Death Penalty or revenge killings or lynchings or pogroms if people were not able to convince themselves that other people were damned, evil, unnecessary, genetically toxic to the gene poll, dangers to society or any of a number of euphemisms which the dualists of the world use to justify their evil actions .

The truth is that there are not evil people, there are only evil acts. The ultimate act of evil is denying another person's humanity---saying that another person has no goodness about him, nothing that in any way links him to other worthwhile human beings.

I realized this at the age of 14 while reading "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" when the author described Hilter's abstinence form cigarettes, alcohol, meat and his faithful relationship with Eva Braun. Hilter considered himself a moral man and attempted to live by a moral code. He did not set up to become a story book villain.

If we are to end the suffering and wars and hatred, we must toss aside dualistic thinking and embrace nondualism---and that means accepting that "evil" is relative. Murder in self defense becomes a crime when it is done for economic reasons in times of plenty but becomes a grey issue when the murder is done to feed a starving family living under oppression.

Be very cautious of any schema that ever mentions "evil people". Otherwise, it is a well thought out post. However, I consider this a major problem that needs to be corrected.

Consider this. By condoning the death penalty in a society like ours where we teach young people to be fiercely individualistic, i.e. to judge for themselves, we are actually teaching our children to murder. For, if it is ok for society to seek revenge for some crime committed against a citizen through a ritualized murder, then a citizen will say to him or herself "That horrible person treated me so badly! He did ____ to me! He should die!" And he feels justified in taking the law into his own hands.

The only way to stop this kind of revenge killing is to say "It is never ok to kill, except in self defense."

[Time for change]

46. Lobaczewski is not talking about killing anyone

Just because Hitler demonized the Jews by saying all kinds of bad things about them, that doesn't mean that we should never say bad things about people, even when they're true. I remember for example one time saying some bad things about George Bush, and someone objected because someone had accused Clinton (Bill) of the same thing. But that's totally irrelevant. Just because George Bush lied us into war, claiming that Iraq posed an imminent danger to us, that is no reason for us to never claim that another nation poses an imminent threat to us, even if it's true.

I guess that the main point on which I disagree with you is your assertion that there is no such thing as an evil person, just evil acts. If that was so, wouldn't you expect evil acts to be randomly distributed in the population, being no more frequent in certainl individuals? But that is most certainly not the case. Why do you say there are no evil people? Is that a matter of faith, or do you have some evidence for it?

The fact that Hitler claimed to be a moral man is irrelevant. He was evil. The fact that he says otherwise is irrelevant. If a slave owner who tortures his slaves daily says that he does it for their own good, would you except that as a valid excuse? Evil people ALWAYS lie about their motives. They ALWAYS claim to be good people.

[lynnertic]

68. But... evil acts are randomly distributed in the population; everyone is guilty of evil acts.

The point was not that anyone's advocating killing but that to distinguish them, and separate them from all of us, by using labels like 'evil' and 'not quite human' is an act of evil in itself.

We are just like and can become the psychopath the book warns us about. Healthy people with conscience are supposed to be able to see that, whereas the psychopath doesn't see that. So we have capacity for spiritual growth and an ability to overcome evil tendencies that the psychopath doesn't.

A psychopath or one of Lobaczewski's 'characterpaths' may not rise above the station of killer car salesman. That doesn't make them evil.

I describe certain people as evil, not because of their makeup but because of their actions.

[Time for change]

70. I agree that evil should be classified according to one's actions

But then, how can you say that evil acts are randomly distributed in the population? I see no evidence of that. Those who commit evil acts are likely to do so again and again -- like those in the Bush administration.

[lynnertic]

71. To explain my statement,

It's called "sin" and I was avoiding use of the word.

I'm talking about lies, cheats, stealing, coveting, taking unfair advantage, sloth, avarice, purposefully hurting someone, bearing false witness, things that normal people feel and do from when they're a kid until they die.

Tell me you don't and never committed an evil act and I'll wonder if you're not one of them folks you're warning us about.

Another book that you may find interesting (and which agrees with this line of thinking) is The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo.

[Time for change]

76. Almost all of us have done some bad things in our lives

Yes, that includes me. Whether or not one would categorize those things as "evil" is a matter of terminology that we need not get into here. Suffice it to say that when I have done those things my conscience has bothered me, and I have used it as an opportunity to examine my motives and think about how I can avoid doing such things in the future. So, I believe that that's an important characteristic of me and other normal people that separates us from such people as Bush and Cheney.

My point in post # 70 is that I don't believe that evil acts are randomly distributed in the population, as some people commit them far more often than others.

[lynnertic]

81. Okay, I'll concede that point.

[EOTE]

84. Everyone sins, but not everyone is evil.

I'd argue that the bulk of people sin every day. Whether it be a lustful look at a person walking down the street or not being compl