I was listening to Piers Morgan’s interview with Egyptian heart and lung surgeon and comedian Bassem Youssef and the following excerpt struck me as very ponerological, which isn’t surprising given Youssef’s medical background.
Transcript followed by the timestamped video:
BY: Terrorism is a virus.
PM: Yes, I agree.
BY: It’s a virus. If a patient with a flu came to you and you’re a doctor, how can you treat that patient? How do you treat? As a doctor how do you do?
PM: Well, you’re the doctor.
BY: You give them nutrition, fluids, and rest, so the immunity of the body gets rid of the virus on its own. If I received that patient with a flu and I took a sledgehammer I was like [slamming motions], “Why are you not getting better?”, do you think that patient will get better? No, you are weakening him, you are making him worse.
However, while this way of looking at it is essentially true, it’s not quite that simple. Here are a handful of quotations from Political Ponerology touching upon the issue (emphases added):
Sometime during life, every human organism undergoes periods during which physiological and psychological resistance declines, facilitating development of bacteriological infection within. Similarly, every human association or social movement undergoes periods of crisis which weaken its ideological and moral cohesion. This may be caused by pressure on the part of other groups, a general spiritual crisis in the environment, or intensification of its hysterical condition. Just as more stringent sanitary measures are an obvious medical recommendation for a weakened organism, the development of conscious control over the activity of pathological factors is ponerological recommendation—something especially important during a society’s periods of moral crisis. (p. 162)
And so it is that the methods of counteracting evil [e.g. punishment] are being mitigated in their severity, but at the same time this social opinion is incapable of indicating other effective methods to protect the citizenry against the birth of evil and violence against citizens. This creates an ever-widening gap between the need for counteraction and the means at our disposal; as a result, many kinds of evil can develop at every social scale, whether by individuals, organized crime, or political movements. Under such circumstances, it may be understandable that some voices clamor for a return to the old-fashioned, iron-fisted methods so inimical to the development of human thought. However, this approach not only contradicts the spirit of the times; it threatens a return to tragic abuses.
Ponerology studies the nature of evil and the complex processes of its genesis, thereby opening new ways for counteracting it. It points out that evil has certain weaknesses in its structure and genesis which can be exploited to inhibit its development as well as to quickly eliminate the fruits of such development. If the ponerogenic activity of pathological factors is subjected to conscious controls of a scientific, individual, and societal nature, we can counteract evil as effectively as by means of persistent calls to respect moral values. The ancient method of the moralists and this completely new one can thus combine to produce results more favorable than an arithmetic sum of the two. Ponerology also leads to the possibilities of prophylactic behavior at the levels of individual, societal, and macrosocial evil. This new approach ought to enable societies to feel safe again, both on the level of domestic affairs and on the scale of international threats.
Methods of counteracting evil which are conditioned upon knowledge of its causation, supported by ever-increasing scientific progress, will of course be much more complex, just as the nature and genesis of evil are complex. Any allegedly fair relationship between a person’s crime and the punishment meted out, as well as the use of punishment as a panacea for combating evil, will become relics of archaic thinking, something ever more difficult to comprehend for students of history. That is why our times demand that we further develop the discipline initiated herein and undertake detailed research, especially as regards the nature of many pathological factors which take part in ponerogenesis. An appropriately ponerological reading of history is a necessary condition for understanding macrosocial ponerogenic phenomena whose duration exceeds the observational capabilities of a single person or which appear centuries apart. (pp. 174-175)
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. (p. 218)
We must also be aware that the macrosocial ponerogenic phenomenon facing us is analogous to those diseases against which the old traditional medicine proved inadequate. In order to overcome this state of affairs, we must therefore utilize new means based upon an understanding of the essence and causes of the phenomenon, i.e., according to principles analogous to those governing modern medicine. The road to comprehension of the phenomenon was also much more difficult and dangerous than the one which should lead from such understanding to the finding of naturalistically and morally justified—and properly organized—therapeutic activities. These methods are potentially possible and feasible, since they derive from an understanding of the phenomenon per se and become an extension thereof. For in this “disease,” as in many cases treated by psychotherapists, understanding alone already begins to heal human personalities. The author confirmed this in practice in individual cases. Similarly, many already-known psychotherapeutic methods could also be used this way.
The insufficiency of efforts based upon the best moral values has become common knowledge after centuries of rebounding as though from rubber bands. The powerful military weapons that jeopardize all humanity can, on the other hand, be considered as indispensable as a straitjacket, something whose use diminishes in proportion to the improved skills governing the behavior of those persons entrusted with the healing arts. We need measures which can reach all people and all nations and which can operate upon the recognized causes of great diseases. (p. 300)
The most modern and expensive weapons threatening humanity with global catastrophe are presently obsolete the very day they are produced. Why? They are the weapons of a war which must never take place, and the nations of the world pray that it never does. The history of mankind has been a history of wars, which makes it lack eternal meaning in our eyes. A new great war would represent the triumph of madness over the nations’ will to live.
At the same time, in the face of the pathocratic empire’s use of weapons of psychological warfare on a mass scale, we are confronted with a new threat and a new necessity to defend ourselves. These new weapons, no matter who uses them, must be countered by new means of defense. International reason must therefore prevail, reinforced by rediscovered moral values and naturalistic science concerning the causes and genesis of evil. The “new weapon” suggested herein kills no one; it is nevertheless capable of stifling the process of the genesis of evil within a person and activating his own curative powers. If societies are furnished an understanding of the pathological nature of evil—something they were unaware of before—they will be able to effect concerted action based on moral and naturalistic criteria.
This new method of solving eternal problems will be the most humanitarian weapon ever used in human history, as well as the only one which can be used safely and effectively. We may also hope that using such a weapon will help end centuries of warfare among nations. (p. 326)
Being raised a Catholic, it occurs to me the practice of self-monitoring induced by the traditional practice of Catholic confession already represents something of what Lobaczewski was reaching for when he speculated: "The “new weapon” suggested herein kills no one; it is nevertheless capable of stifling the process of the genesis of evil within a person and activating his own curative powers." Was Lobaczewski raised a Catholic, too? As I recall, children raised in the Catholic church are introduced to the process of self-monitoring and subsequent confession somewhere around the age of 7 or 8.
Great book! I have joined the spiritual war and am full of gratitude seeing you all on Sstack! 🚚🚜🇨🇦🇺🇸🌎❤️🙏🏼