Logocracy - Chapter 1: Introduction

The need for a new, doctrine-free system of government for modern times

Good fighters, not great leaders

In the Introduction to Logocracy, Lobaczewski highlights the basic features of a new sociopolitical system. Most importantly, it should be consistent with scientific knowledge—to the extent that scientific knowledge accurately reflects human nature. That is, it should not be based on “extrinsic” doctrines or theories that are incompatible with human nature. And unfortunately, the majority of political theorists on whose work our social systems are in large part based are flawed in this department. In contrast, a better form of government should harmonize with what we know of the “laws of nature.” It should work with them, not against them.

As background, this project was first inspired by Lobaczewski foreseeing the end of communist pathocracy in Poland and the eventual need for a new system of government. Then, after this came to pass, he further developed the project as Poland (and other ex-communist nations) struggled through the blind trial-and-error process of the nineties. He highlights several difficulties inherent in such conditions, including the lack of competence among the new elite (successful anti-communist dissidents, but unprepared and ill-fit for leadership).

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Introduction

The times we are living through have the character of a historical, irreversible turning-point, which is characterized by three features. First, the unprecedented development of specific sciences and their practical applications creates an entirely new quality, unknown in the history of mankind. Second, the prolonged situation of an uncertain military balance and the world threat of nuclear catastrophe appeal to common sense and to the most fundamental values. Third, the depletion of old models, mainly in the field of social systems and their ideological foundations, and the emerging feeling of the anachronism of egotistically imposed doctrines, foster a growing mood of distrust and the development of critical attitudes. There is a growing need to develop something new, a kind of scientifically justified value criteria on which to base concepts and solutions to the question of how societies, countries, and the international order should be governed.

Not counting the achievements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, more has been scientifically investigated and more inventions made in one long human lifetime than in many previous centuries of humanity. This dynamic process is presumably somewhere at its midpoint and at the peak of its momentum. Thus, it can be expected that the next generation will already begin to feel its decline, when the possibilities of easy accomplishments begin to run out. Meanwhile, the entire landscape of life on our globe is changing permanently and irreversibly, and so is our way of thinking and understanding the world.

At the same time, the development of the production of all kinds of goods and services forces nations to subject this spontaneous process to the scrutiny of well-thought-out laws and to a newly accepted stricter morality. When this wealth does not lead to happiness but to many dangers, human thought, having found support in the knowledge of the ever more subtle phenomena of nature, begins to seek new ways and finally tries to penetrate that space of difficult knowledge which for centuries has separated natural knowledge from spiritual knowledge. A new period of cognitive reflection in the field of the most general issues is on the horizon.

The prolonged, dramatic arms race has exhausted human patience in all countries, where it could be expressed and where it could not. A sense of anachronism accompanies the most modern achievements of weapons technology. In the shadow of the threat of a war that could turn into a nuclear catastrophe, all the old historical and ideological controversies lose their meaning. The desire for order and common sense has become the universal voice of the world’s peoples.

The natural end of the macrosocial pathological phenomenon that also engulfed Poland was hastened. This was achieved by the United States by means of driving the Soviet system into ever greater economic difficulties. Under these conditions, the solidarity will of the Polish people led to the recovery of formal independence.

Poland, deprived of its former cultural and politically creative layer, faced enormous difficulties, caused primarily by a lack of understanding of the nature of the passing (supposedly political) system on all sides—at home, abroad and in international institutions. Out of this, a creative plan of action failed to materialize. The author's efforts to persuade the Polish government-in-exile to prepare such a plan found no understanding in this already declining institution.

Meanwhile, the present state of international relations is in its essence a watershed of historical epochs, in which the old way of conceiving human and political reality, which led us to absurdity and over the brink of catastrophe, becomes obsolete, and a new one is born with difficulty and amidst dangers. It may seem that the old way of life of mankind, which was the history of wars, is coming to an end, and a new one is beginning to be drawn which will fulfill human desires to a greater extent. The need for a different, new order is felt universally, and its new contents begin to draw on the horizon. The sooner we engage in this process, the more independently, creatively, and with a better sense of the signs of the times, the more we will gain for our future.

In the period of the great wars of the first half of the twentieth century, the old forms of national systems collapsed, especially those that provided an easy breeding ground for militarism and autocracy. Democracy, considered the least susceptible to such degenerations, survived this crisis of systems. During this time, the democratic system demonstrated its virtues of moderation and national resilience, but also its numerous weaknesses.

A state system based on the opinion of the broad masses of society must of necessity be dominated by the common psychological worldview¹ and its deficits and naiveties, by human egoism, emotionalism and by the short-sightedness of the average man. It remains always open to demagogic activity inspired from within or from without, and exploiting the fact of the existence of people of mediocre mind and character. Such a system has proved to be of little use in defending itself against phenomena which are extremely difficult to understand in terms of natural human reason because psychopathological phenomena are present in their nature.

Before the eyes of the generation that is now passing away, macrosocial pathological phenomena developed in which a small minority, burdened with various psychological deviations, managed to seize power over nations by creating criminal systems of pathocratic imperialism. One such empire lay under the blows of the allied armies in the aftermath of World War II. The other strengthened its position by threatening to pathologize the world. Today this second empire too has lost its power and its peoples are moving amidst many difficulties towards the systems of normal man.

The feeble and naive egotism of the common psychological worldview on which democracy is excessively based has proved to be an unwitting ally of such “totalitarian” systems. For it does not allow for an understanding of their pathological nature and thus for the most expedient countermeasures.

In countries subjugated by such a system, both the structure of society created by history and a viable social and economic system are destroyed. Any state and economic system which we would like to introduce in such a country after its liberation must encounter greater difficulties of realization than would be the case in a country which has been freed from foreign rule, but where the laws of normal man were in operation. For society could not educate and recognize its outstanding men, to whom it could entrust power, because they were pushed out of sight and forced to struggle hard for their own existence and that of their families. Thus, the rapid establishment of a functioning parliament has become impossible and there is a shortage of people prepared to perform governmental functions. Under these conditions, people of the old system and other opportunists have a good chance of success.

Polish society has in its memory numerous political and organizational difficulties that followed the regaining of independence in November 1918. The nation had to go through the a rather typical course of the illness experienced by countries that have regained independence. When this society had reached a state of being able to maintain its self-government, Hitler assessed the situation rather correctly, concluding that only war could prevent the healthy and dynamic development of the Polish state. This society, however, is still capable today of learning from those events to avoid the mistakes of the past. Nevertheless, this knowledge turned out to be insufficient, because we are dealing with even more difficult-to-understand consequences of the influence of the pathocratic system, which deformed human personalities and created a pathological societal structure. Only an understanding of these phenomena, in their objective content, opens the way to prudent action.

However, a small elite of militants emerged who were not broken by blows or imprisonment and who enjoyed the respect of the vast majority of the population. These people had very good practical knowledge of the system against which they fought, but they lacked a theoretical understanding of its pathological nature and historical origins.

The militants do not recruit from people of superior ability, because they are incapable of doing so. That is why they are easily swayed by those who are cleverer, but who act in their own self-interest and that of foreign elements. Meanwhile, in order to govern the country well, one needs people who not only are honest but also have minds capable of deeply analyzing historical social and political phenomena. Therefore, it is a theoretical impossibility for such militants to be capable of producing a well-functioning government of the country for which they fought. Government such as this is an essential feature of the disease of those nations freed from foreign rule.

Under such conditions, when the socio-psychological structure of the nation has been destroyed, and it can be reconstructed only with time and great difficulty, militants are almost the only candidates for the ruling elite. However, when they took power in the now independent country, it became apparent how much their personalities had adapted to this situation of struggle against a macrosocial pathological phenomenon that was not sufficiently comprehensible to them, and how unprepared they were for creative activity and the reconstruction of normal social life. Even the most enlightened of them betray a profound lack of knowledge of the realities of the contemporary world. Habits, ties and solidarity held over from the times of struggle, suffering and their merits are transformed into justification for maintaining power and the benefits derived from it. The contemptuous attitude towards people of outstanding intellect, brought over from the times of bondage and struggle, makes it difficult for the latter to assume their rightful role in the life of society. These are further symptoms of the illness of the nations that have regained their independence by freeing themselves from pathological rule.

What, then, should be done to avoid this crisis, which is familiar both from our history and from the contemporary history of other nations that have recently regained their independence? How should we use historical experience and contemporary psychological, sociological and juridical knowledge in order to find the easiest way to create an autonomous structure of society and a system of government that can give the nation a quick and relatively painless start? How to anticipate difficulties and mistakes in order to avoid them?

In today’s circumstances, the only possible answer to this question is to make full use of the fruits of modern science. With its help we can rethink the issue and thus break with some traditions to seek constructive solutions. Thus, we need three essential elements: 1) a plan for a modern socio-political system of the state justified by historical experience and the best possible knowledge of the social sciences; 2) a plan for the implementation of such a system, including methods for reproducing a healthy social structure; and 3) the acceptance of such a plan and the cooperation of society. In spite of the fact that, contrary to such an idea, Poland has embarked on a spontaneous road of trial and error, I invite all thinking people of good will as well as experts in the social sciences, both from Poland and other countries, to join me in this work.

If we analyze the processes of the formation of social systems in various countries and over the centuries, we become conscious of the fact that in these transformations there are always at work laws present in the nature of man and in the nature of nations. We perceive the action of these laws in every social system already formed, as well as in the struggle of societies for their rights and in the formation of new political systems. It seems that every previous system, whether it has passed through historical evolution or has been overthrown by violent upheaval, has prepared the next one, which should be better grounded in natural laws, but which irrevocably continues the heritage of the previous one. This last law of nature no revolution has been able to overthrow.

These laws of transience and continuity are already familiar to historians and sociologists. Passing away finds its justification in the exhaustion of fixed systemic forms, their habitual and egotistical rigidity, and thus their detachment from those laws of nature which were their eternal basis. Continuity is a consequence of the properties of human nature, which is incapable of detaching itself completely from its own past. And societies need to re-learn those laws of nature which they have forgotten or have not sufficiently understood, if only at the cost of their own suffering. It is obvious, then, that our new system will be subject to the same laws of nature, but increasingly understood and consciously accepted. This awareness should guide us on the paths of prudence and moderation.

Science, however, still cannot explain all the laws to which these processes are subject, nor answer the very old question as to what they aim at. The reader will find a partial explanation in a concise summary in the following chapters. The religious man may be guided by a distant vision of the rulership on earth of the law of God, and it may be useful practically, as a support—in the distant future—for modern reasoning.

But what hopes can we have for a future that is nearer and more real for us? Our task will be to keep our boat sailing amidst the stormy realities of the world on an unsteady but safe course guided by wisdom towards social systems that are more and more just thanks to their conformity with the laws of nature. For this we need an ever better knowledge of these laws. Fortunately, recent years have brought progress in this field of knowledge.

We have experienced today that the laws of nature can be incorporated into the workings of a macrosocial pathological phenomenon and serve its degenerate ends. This teaches us that an age-old process of change may undergo tragic regression into deranged forms, but that nevertheless the fundamental laws of nature do not cease to operate within it. On the contrary, such a phenomenon opens before us a book of natural laws that teaches us to know them more deeply and to draw appropriate conclusions for the future. The present work is such a conclusion for the future.

If we try to grasp the essence of these laws in the common language of concepts used by reasonable people, including the language used by the modern social sciences, we encounter a number of difficulties caused by the typical deficiencies of these languages. For the description of these matters requires the use of a completely objective language, similar to that of the modern natural sciences, biology, medicine and psychology. In the light of such language and cognition, our common language is overly dominated by our instinctual reflexes, emotionally charged, and lacks sufficient understanding of biologically based psychological causality. It carries an innate tendency to moralizing interpretations. Such an interpretation with respect to phenomena that are psychopathological in their essence deprives us of the ability to understand them causally, and poisons human minds and souls in an insidious way. Every social system based on this most common way of thinking will therefore be burdened with similar defects. Our idea, therefore, will be to balance these tendencies sufficiently by means of objective cognition and reasoning.

In the meantime, sociology has developed its own conventional language intermediate between our common one and the aforementioned natural-psychological objectivity as a useful mode of scientific communication. Now, however, in this science, too, which began before modern psychology was born, there is a process of its gradual reinforcement with the objective concepts developed by the natural and biohumanistic sciences. This causes the objectivization of the language of sociology, thereby maturing to participate in the work of building a modern social system.

Recent decades have brought a rapid advance in the scientific knowledge of biological, psychological and social phenomena, which has opened the way to an objective description of those laws to which the life of every human society is subject and on which a good social system should be based. For the conditions of social existence change, but its fundamental laws remain constant or change as slowly as human nature evolves. The time is ripe, therefore, for a reliable description of the laws that govern social life, so that with sufficiently good knowledge it will be possible to construct social systems adapted to various geopolitical conditions and states of national development.

The idea also arises of elaborating principles of a social system easily adaptable to the various conditions and traditions of countries, and easily subject to evolutionary improvement as societies develop and science advances. The specific conditions of our time, the situation in which many nations have been deprived of the structure of society and organization created by history and capable of prudent and economical action, make such a work, anticipating and activating the development of science, a necessary task. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Social ideologies and constitutional concepts have always developed with an inadequate respect for human natural rights and in an effort to better subordinate social life to those laws whose existence was perceived, but without a sufficiently precise knowledge of their content. Thus social systems have developed by trial and error, not free from injustice and violence, and have achieved new values or missed the mark. The values achieved nourished human societies for a certain period of history, but then the shortcomings of the system thus achieved overcame them. Now, however, the necessary knowledge of the laws of nature and their sufficiently comprehensive description have become feasible. We are thus gaining a scientific basis for practical activity that was not available to us in past ages. We should take advantage of this benefit!

Our civilization and our law have been dominated for centuries by the influence of Roman law and administrative thinking. Rome could be called an “anti-psychological empire,” because this field of knowledge found rocky ground on the banks of the Tiber. The rule of law, which schematized the contents of the human personality, and the will of those who possessed power, regulated the affairs of human life. This ensured the ease of administration of the empire, but opened the way to the scheming exploitation of such a state of affairs. The regression of the psychological worldview always causes a moral regression of man and society, and such was the fate of the Roman Empire. The time is ripe when it is necessary to depart from Roman tradition in order to build the future on the more valuable and enduring foundations we already have or recognize.

Christianity brought the idea and need to understand one’s fellow man. For this reason, among others, it was initially so attractive, but at the same time so alien to Roman imperial civilization. Unfortunately, in the course of time it too began to adopt Hellenistic philosophical thought and Roman ways of reasoning, which contributed to the impoverishment of Christian psychological knowledge. This was later to lead to a deep crisis and disintegration of Christianity. It is only nowadays that the Catholic Church is moving too slowly and with difficulty away from this style, which contributes to the revival of the original values.

A better social system should definitely break with this tradition and deficit of our civilization. The understanding of human personality, its complexity and interpersonal diversity, as an elementary cell of societies, should become the basis for legal solutions and the construction of social institutions, active knowledge shaping social life. Modern science already allows us to find appropriate criteria in this field, and it should be deepened and, above all, popularized.

If, in the light of this modern understanding of biosocial matters, we study the history of political thought and doctrines which have influenced the formation of social systems, we must admit with some embarrassment how little understanding of these laws of nature most of their authors had. Ideologies which radically simplify the varied content of human personality and the complexity of social reality, for example, into an economic or class schema, tend to attract the uncritical and the excitable, while at the same time they suppress the voice of the majority, which is always inclined to reflect on the nature of human affairs. A better system of the future, based on an understanding of natural psychological laws and realities, should therefore have appropriately incorporated solutions that will expose the role of this more thoughtful majority, its reasonableness and sense of psychological reality.

If we reflect on those social doctrines which have played a creative rather than a partially destructive role in history, inspiring a valuable evolution of social forms, then we can see that these were the works of people endowed with an exceptionally sensitive sense and understanding of psychological realities. St. Augustine was gifted with such a talent. Let us cite here only two more examples:

This talent for understanding human qualities, values, and weaknesses was possessed by Baron Charles Louis de Montesquieu (1689-1755). Based on such psychological realism, he developed his ideas of the division of power into three independent ones, and gave rules for their mutual control. Therefore, this concept could enter into force and contribute to the formation of democratic systems. Also, it will not remain without a share in the formation of the concept of a system better than modern democracies, although modern times require more complex solutions in this area.

Our native thinker with such a talent for sensitive psychological realism was Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503-1572), from whom Montesquieu drew. Based on his understanding of people of different states, Modrzewski criticized the devices of the Polish noble republic and sought more general criteria of social justice. He therefore managed to have a significant influence on the formation of fairer state systems based on an understanding of civic duties and liberties, and to inspire the best thinkers. Unfortunately, he played the smallest role in his own homeland, for which we have paid a huge price in our history. All the more so, then, the reverberations of his thought should appear in our future, better national system.

It may also be mentioned here that Adam Smith (1723-1790), known as the founder of modern economic knowledge, was a philosopher and lecturer on ethics, seeking its independent criteria in the knowledge of human nature.

The basis of all political doctrines promulgated up to our time, however, was the common psychological worldview. This way of conceiving of man, based on our human instinctive and emotional sensitivity and our perception of reality, often refined by philosophical and religious reflection, has been the basis of wisdom throughout the ages. Today, however, we understand that it carries the already mentioned distorting tendencies and, although it is easily accepted by social opinion, it is not an objective basis for solving more difficult human and social problems.

The draft project of a social system presented in the following chapters will be, therefore, to some extent a continuation of those system-political concepts which were characterized by a richer natural understanding of man and society, but using for this purpose the contemporary achievements of detailed knowledge of at least recent years, and even the experience of the author himself. The assumption of our reasoning will also be that the coming years will bring further progress of knowledge in the field of biohumanistic and social sciences.

The better social system of the future should, by definition, be based on man’s understanding and should not impose on him any externally derived ideological doctrine or legal fiction. It will thus be a doctrine-free system. Similarly, the law of such a system should judge an intelligible being, and its Lady Justice should not be blindfolded to objective psychological and social reality. For this reality is often significantly different from the way our common worldview perceives it.

In order to realize such a goal in practice, we need knowledge of the laws of nature that have been at work since time immemorial in man and in societies, but framed in terms of modern objective knowledge. Let us therefore devote some attention to them in the next three chapters. May the reader please forgive the necessary simplifications dictated by the purpose and size of this work.

Note: This work is a project of QFG/FOTCM and is planned to be published in book form soon.

1. In Political Ponerology this was translated as “natural psychological worldview,” but this created some awkward moments in this text, e.g., when the “natural” (i.e. common) worldview is contrasted with the “natural objective” (i.e. naturalistic, or scientific) worldview.