Logocracy - Chapter 3b: Man, Society, State
The importance of the psychology, ponerology, and religious truth
We are faced with the necessity of entering into the limits of what for centuries has been considered spiritual cognition. Man’s subconscious sense and intellectual reflection are capable of searching for general laws of creation, pondering them, and inferring the existence of a Creator.
Chapter 3 continues with introductory material that should form the foundational principles of a logocratic state. This includes a knowledge and understanding of the subconscious and its role in human cognition, behavior, and development, as well as a mature psychological worldview, which is the basis of morality. And while many will wail and gnash teeth, it also includes a level of spiritual insight that acknowledges a supernatural (i.e. nonphysical or metaphysical) reality. He even calls this understanding “a condition for the development of clear and accurate thinking and mental hygiene.” His psychological take on atheism is pretty epic, too (but for that, you know what to do).
A basic acceptance of general religious truths has the advantage of not only being adaptable to various religions and denominations of different countries, but also of providing the overall direction of the true aims of the state. That said, Lobaczewski still argues for a separation between church and state as institutions, to avoid either state control over religion, or church control over the state. Rather, the minimalist approach to religious truth in a logocratic constitution will foster religious tolerance while allowing the demographically dominant religion to achieve a certain level of cultural dominance, as is its right.
Normal people form the great majority of societies. The properties of their natures shape social relations and are the causes of natural law and morality. Therefore, the principle of the proposed system will be that the power on which the fate of other people depends should always rest in the hands of normal people.
Next is ponerology, which will also be the subject of the next chapter. A state without knowledge of the pathological minority is doomed to forever be susceptible to the development of pathocracy. He also reintroduces that institution first suggested in Political Ponerology: a council of the wise, whose duty it would be to monitor the overall psychological state of society, engage in dialogue with religious and moral leaders, among other things.
Needless to say, this would only work if said council actually were wise. This will require a break with old and current models of elite formation, whether strict blood inheritance of the past, or the importance of wealth in the present. Such systems do not produce optimal socio-psychological structures (i.e. societies). Incidentally, Lobaczewski makes this comment about the U.S.’s social structure:
There we encounter the waste of human talents and the dissatisfaction caused by it. Pathological local substructures with characteristics similar to those mentioned above are also created.
Chapter 3b
The traditional moral and legal doctrines of Europe assumed that man is a conscious being and thus fully responsible. In so doing, they neglected to understand the rich scope of causality that operates in the human personality, as well as the fundamental role of the unconscious psychic life. Therefore, in the light of these doctrines, man became a speculative entity, which led to the harming of the actual man. However, the origins of knowledge about the human unconscious are as old as philosophical and psychological reflection. The existence of the subconscious was already inferred by Thomas Aquinas, but he did not draw further consequences from this fact. The second half of the 17th century initiated the development of this knowledge in philosophical terms (R. Cudworth 1617-88).1 Famous physicians and psychologists at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave knowledge of our subconscious the biological justification that is being developed today. This has opened the way to an ever fuller understanding of the causal conditions at work in our personalities, and even to pushing the limits of what can be understood in this way.
For the modern psychologist, the primary evidence of the existence of unconscious life is the existence of our consciousness, which is the realized product of unconscious activity. This process is finally crowned in the specifically human act of internal projection, in which the products of our association and thinking are caught up in the field of our attention and imagination, allowing us to make an internal inspection of them. How far into the depths of our psychic life conscious insight can reach is not determined in the genetic plane of nature, however. This is the result of upbringing, self-education, reflection, and thoughtfulness, characteristic of the individual human individual as well as of society. The deeper the average level of insight in a given society, the better the conditions for its self-determination and the easier it is to govern. In Poland, this level of insight has regressed alarmingly under pathocratic rule. In the U.S., for example, it is also extremely shallow, which is why it is ruled by subconscious reflexes and emotions.
Adequate discipline in the upbringing of the young, respect for parents and the elderly, moral and religious values, and periods of solitary reflection should all serve to deepen this conscious insight. The modern understanding of man, with his unconscious life and inner causality, is making its way into public consciousness, as well as into courtrooms and Christian churches. This is a prerequisite for psychological realism and for the refinement of law and morality. Therefore, a social system based on a modern understanding of man and his role in society will not only make use of the achievements of psychological knowledge, but it will also facilitate the development of this knowledge and its popularization, introducing it into schools and into the general political education of citizens. For a good understanding of the other person and of psychological phenomena is a fundamental factor of human and social culture, which facilitates the solution of many individual and public problems.
Psychology learns about man from the laws of nature, beginning with phenomena that are more easily accessible and moving towards the more subtle. Eventually, we perceive active phenomena that escape our natural method. We are faced with the necessity of entering into the limits of what for centuries has been considered spiritual cognition. Man’s subconscious sense and intellectual reflection are capable of searching for general laws of creation, pondering them, and inferring the existence of a Creator.2 The phenomenon of religious belief has existed since the prehistory of mankind, and monotheistic beliefs have always appeared as soon as mental culture reached the necessary level. No persecution, either in antiquity or modern times, has eradicated it.
At present the psychologist can study the effects which the rejection of all religious beliefs produces in the human mind. A mental blocking center appears, similar to those we encounter as a result of rejecting and pushing from the field of consciousness certain truths available to natural and psychological cognition. The thoughts of such a person must avoid everything that is associated with the blocked content. This impedes worldview development and triggers a tendency to emotional tensions. As a result of the blocked religious content, the development of the psychological worldview suffers and becomes impoverished and distorted.3 Therefore, such “atheism” limits a person’s ability to perform social functions, which a system that respects wisdom would have to reckon with. However, similar blocking effects, albeit on a smaller scale, can be produced by zealous religious attitudes based on normative archetypes learned from the years of youth.
A social system that is based on a thorough understanding of reality and on a good understanding of people should also adopt the conviction that the opening of the mind to supernatural matters is a condition for the development of clear and accurate thinking and mental hygiene. This opening of the mind, as well as the attainment of basic monotheistic beliefs which we recognize as lying within the range of logical induction, must be taken as one of the criteria of a man’s fitness for the more important duties of society. At the same time, the above reasons of a psychological nature are adequate to adopt a sufficiently skeptical attitude toward atheistic ideologies.
At the core of a very modern social system should be the acceptance of the most general religious truth, something already accessible to mature cognitive induction. Such acceptance is sufficient and conditions the correct solution of the social and political questions to which the state is called. It will also provide a healthy basis for tolerance towards and cooperation with various confessions.4 Such an approach provides the idea of logocracies with the necessary universality and adaptability to countries of different religions.
Such a minimalist approach should therefore be written into the first part of the logocratic constitution. It will also close forever the possibility of the ruler taking power over the church, which has always degraded religion, as well as to the domination of the religious system over the state, which has led in history to the politically unfortunate canonization of the state. In practice, however, the social system of a logocratic country will take on more of the content of the ruling religion, as a result of the rights of citizens to enact their beliefs. In principle, however, religious matters should remain the responsibility of the institutions set up for this purpose.
In light of the above, the relationship between the state organization and religious denominations cannot be regulated by any of the already traditional legal schemes. It is therefore necessary to work out such solutions, based on mutual respect and the natural division of duties, that would enable cooperation and discussion for the good of society as a whole. The Polish historical tradition and the findings of the Second Vatican Council should facilitate this task.5 The resolution of inherently delicate matters will be eased by the introduction of a new institution, which I will describe in Chapter 14. The reader will find more on the relationship between the Christian Church and the state in Chapter 7.
In this system, where the basic element of society will be man as he is—understood in all his aspects, from his physical needs, through the role of his instinctive substrate, his emotionality, his intelligence and its differentiation, to his aspirations for spiritual knowledge—many matters will be solved in a manner different from present traditions and based on a modern understanding of the laws of nature. In the further course of this work, among the many devices that will follow, it will be proposed to establish the institution mentioned as characteristic of the new system, whose competence will include matters of the biological and psychological life of the nation, questions of eugenics6 and ponerology, and the discussion of social and moral questions with representatives of religious denominations.
What has been said above about man and his role in society and the state applies mainly to people who are qualitatively mentally normal. In every society in the world, however, there is a small minority (a few or even up to 10%) of individuals who cannot be considered as such. Overtly mentally ill people actually create fewer social problems than those with less overt defects and aberrations who live and act among normal society. The latter usually demonstrate a variety of character anomalies. A large proportion of them exhibit a characteristic overactivity that causes serious difficulties in many areas of life, including politics.
This dramatic issue will be discussed in the next chapter on ponerology, which includes a concise summary of the necessary range of knowledge about the nature, causes, and processes of the genesis of evil. For this knowledge and its development will be indispensable in order to be able to construct a functional modern system and societal self-defense against the evils that appear on every social scale, from individual affairs to the macrosocial phenomena full of cruelty that we have had to live through.
The normal majority of society always has a natural, instinctively conditioned tendency to moralistic interpretations of the characters of people with various mental aberrations and their participation in the processes of the genesis of evil. This leads to pushing these people to the margins of social life, into poverty and into a state of conflict with society. Repressive measures applied against them cannot bring the intended effect. Then, especially among psychopathic individuals, a dream arises of a “just” social system in which they would be respected because they would have power and prosperity. Unfortunately, in our time this dream has been realized on a scale unprecedented in history. This still poorly understood phenomenon has not ceased to threaten the world further.
It often seems to people who are not trained in psychopathology that people with certain mental aberrations are extremely creative and even display traits of genius. Some psychiatrists, particularly in Germany, have also succumbed to this delusion. In so doing, they contributed to “calming” the very justified fears of many Germans about the growing Nazi movement. This allowed a psychopathic individual to become the Führer. Meanwhile, an objective approach to these issues indicates that at the root of every such anomaly lie deficits of various kinds, which become the cause of overcompensatory activity, the walking of novel or dangerous paths, and a contemptuous attitude toward normal people.
Psychological analyses indicate beyond any doubt that the personality of the normal person is mentally the richest, and his facilities are what generate natural human completeness. Normal people form the great majority of societies. The properties of their natures shape social relations and are the causes of natural law and morality. Therefore, the principle of the proposed system will be that the power on which the fate of other people depends should always rest in the hands of normal people.
Learning from the experience of the times that are passing, we will try to use the lessons of history, interpreting them in the light of modern knowledge, in order to create such a national system that will naturally inhibit the processes of the genesis of evil on every social scale. No macrosocial pathological phenomenon can be allowed to be born again, regardless of the ideology that might conceal and nourish its real nature. The prerequisite for the creation and operation of such a system is to understand people with various mental anomalies, to treat them with understanding care—at the price of certain restrictions and abandonment of their dreams of power. This should ensure the basic social order and should be facilitated by reliable knowledge, its proper dissemination, and appropriate social and state institutions.
In such a system, the attainment of the necessary knowledge of the existence and characteristics of individuals with various mental aberrations, and of their role in the processes of the genesis of evil and in the tragedies of the past, will be considered a prerequisite for entrusting a person with higher social and political functions. The already proposed new institution, characteristic of such a system, will take care that an individual with mental aberrations cannot occupy the chief offices of the country. In spite of the fact that we will require conscious forbearance for less normal individuals within such a social system, and precisely because of this, the new social system will be a system of normal man.
Understanding individuals, including those whose behavior is governed by aberrant factors, is the basis for understanding society. Both often require a break from the concepts of our common psychological worldview and an objective system of concepts developed by the modern biosocial sciences. Awareness of the issues raised above and an objective approach to them have been made possible by the research efforts of past decades, which continue to advance, though often without publicity. Thus, these are premises that could not have been understood by the creators of the political doctrines of the past and their adherents. As a result, the new social system and its laws will have to differ from past arrangements in many important ways.
Understanding the complex psychological, structural, and moral relations which exist in societies and which form their active structure, interacting with known socio-creative processes, and opposing their degeneration will be the fundamental tasks of the country’s authorities. In the following chapters we shall discuss proposals for practical solutions so integrated into the totality of the new system as to achieve these legitimate aims in the most natural way possible. The leadership in the necessary progress of cognition and in the application of this for the good of society will fall to this new institution, which we shall call the “Council of the Wise.”
The basis of the life and creativity of a nation is its socio-psychological structure. This is formed spontaneously in the course of the nation’s history, as a result of natural processes of adaptation—the emergence, through the selection by society or rulers, of individuals who are talented and who represent valuable character traits. However, the same circumstances that interfere with proper professional adaptation also impede the natural development of this structure. Both the historically older social structures, based mainly on “blood” inheritance, and the contemporary ones, where conditions of wealth play first fiddle, have not led to the formation of optimally efficient structures. The task of a new and better social system will be to recreate such a structure and to improve it to a level better than ever before. On this road, the optimal creativity of society in every field should be achieved.
In countries that have fallen under the rule of pathological power, this very structure has been tragically degraded and largely replaced by a pathological structure. Its restoration, if only by artificial means, will be a necessary condition for the development of such a country’s self-government, culture, and economy. On the other hand, in countries with a conservative capitalist system, such as the USA, this structure is worthy of criticism and concern. There we encounter the waste of human talents and the dissatisfaction caused by it. Pathological local substructures with characteristics similar to those mentioned above are also created.
The considerations cited here indicate that the criteria for the quality of a social system are biosocial, psychological, and moral in nature, not economic or even based on doctrines of power. Ultimately, man’s happiness and the rich development of his personality and cultural values are primarily psychological phenomena. An important factor in man’s culture and a condition of his rational life and political decisions is the quality and richness of his psychological worldview. The same is a condition of order in a given society and its ability to coexist with other peoples.
Deficits in this very knowledge cause difficulties on every social scale. For the good development of a psychological worldview determines human moral attitudes. Psychological concepts were underdeveloped in the ancient Roman empire, especially in the later period of its existence. This left Europe with a legacy that adversely distinguishes our civilization from others. Europeans, in their legal and political thinking, have become inclined to impose certain externally derived archetypes upon man and nations. The overcoming of these old habits of understanding will prove to be one of the conditions for the good formation of a new system. Modern knowledge already provides a sufficient basis for shaping our thinking on a new basis, and the models of countries with a less Roman legal tradition, such as England or Switzerland, may be helpful in this.
Nowadays it is enough to find oneself in the USA, a great, safe, and rich country, to be surrounded by a swarm of difficulties and various obstacles on the way to righteous goals. There one can observe the ease with which foreign agents exploit the gullibility of people with a poor and formulaic psychological worldview. The politicians of this country still do not grasp the sense that should come from understanding other people, nations, and situations. American psychologists are often concerned with solving human problems that arise from a poor and formulaic psychological worldview.
The fate of a nation is not decided by one victory or one lost war. In the course of history it is determined by intellectual and moral values, the development of culture and the art of accurate thinking, the ability to understand oneself, other people, and nations, and practical knowledge and skills. So we intend to design a system in which these values will develop best.
The fate of nations is also determined by factors of a biological nature. In every human population eugenic processes take place which limit the natural growth of individuals with biopsychically incomplete characteristics. These processes often hide their biological nature under phenomena that the average person finds morally reprehensible. Nevertheless, the generational balance of these processes is an important factor in tilting the fate of nations toward vitality or degeneration. Modern civilization and medicine seem to be inadvertently tilting this balance to the negative side, resulting in an increasing proportion of hereditarily aberrant individuals in modern societies.
It will be one of the duties of the Council of Wise Men to study these matters and to draw appropriate conclusions and guidelines, and to discuss them with representatives of religious denominations. This should make it possible to develop an adequate eugenic awareness and morality, which should give these processes a less dramatic form and gradually tip the balance of generations to the positive side. It should be emphasized here that moral ideas, proclaimed for example by the Catholic Church, have similar effects in the field of eugenics, but on a scale which is insufficient nowadays. Supporting them from the side of biological and psychological knowledge seems to be a need of the times.
The reader may have the impression that the author, by shifting the criteria for the quality of the social system into the fields of biology, psychology, and morality, has forgotten the realistic principle that has taught since antiquity “Primum edere, deinde philosophari” [First eat, then philosophize]. Meanwhile, however, the economic situation, which of course within certain limits conditions the attainment of these fundamental values, will also be the consequence of their recognition. For economic consequences are to be found in everything that happens in society: how parents raise their children, how the teacher teaches and the scholar studies, our understanding of the personality of the other and his ways of self-realization in social life, our knowledge, practice, and self-discipline. Especially in this age of advanced technology and global exchange of products, a healthy nation of talented, educated, hardworking, and honest people can earn prosperity even living on rocky islands poor in natural goods.
Where years of pathocratic rule and foreign economic exploitation have led societies to the brink of poverty and to the exhaustion of human energy, where the reconstruction of the economy has become the prime concern, the skillful management of human strength and talents is a prerequisite for faster regeneration. But this is opposed by the organized forces of the old pathological social structure. Therefore, the reconstruction of a healthy psychological structure of society should become the goal guiding the ways of the society of normal people. This goal should be served by the quickest possible reconstruction of a healthy educational system based on general human psychological and pedagogical premises and anticipation of future conditions, as will be discussed in Chapter 20.
One can imagine times and conditions when the economic development of a well-governed logocratic country will reach a state of abundance. Then persistent work, providence, moral discipline, the development of character values, and the idea of man’s self-realization in the service of the social good will begin to seem like literary virtues, impractical and unreal, something that should not interfere with the enjoyment of life. Then especially the wealthier classes would begin to succumb to hysterics and psychological regression. Our modern system would begin to work against its own assumptions and the criteria described above. The next historical tragedy of such a nation would become a real threat.
In this case, some surplus goods would have to be given to nations struggling with poverty or natural disasters, or used for large international investments. It will also become necessary for young citizens brought up in comfort to undertake tasks requiring hardship in different conditions, certain risks, and overcoming their own egoism and egotism, while getting to know other nations and their living conditions. Faced with such a situation and danger, the Counsel of the Wise will warn the nation of the danger of mental laxity and hysterical regression of society. Then the government will take appropriate action for the benefit of other nations and the spiritual regeneration of its own.
Note: This work is a project of QFG/FOTCM and is planned to be published in book form soon.
HK: Cudworth was an English Anglican clergyman, theologian, philosopher, and one of the “Cambridge Platonists.” In The True Intellectual System of the Universe, “Cudworth ascribes dreams, and all other operations of what we call the unconscious mind to Plastic Nature [the link between divine mind and matter] manifest in the human mind. Included in these, Cudworth holds, are the most basic projection of order onto our perceptions, so that we can be capable of logical deliberation.”
HK: The most developed and modern, in my view, is Christopher Langan’s cognitive-theoretic model of the universe, which accounts for nature’s general laws and infers a Creator as a necessary logical inference within the model system.
HK: The “New Atheist” movement comes to mind here, as exemplified by individuals like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.
HK: See Christopher Langan, “Metareligion as the Human Singularity,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 14(1), 321–332. For instance: “Religions evolve in coupling with cultures, conventions, and morals that come into real-world conflict with each other and/or the state, with the result that religions themselves conflict in all of these ways. Obviously, a mass spiritual awakening requires a means of resolving these conflicts. Suggestions include segregating religions, allowing or encouraging a single religion to become everywhere dominant, playing different religions off against each other in a strategy of mutual containment, merging religions by syncretism (collecting their respective beliefs and rituals under one aegis), and eliminating religion entirely. But there is another more promising option: unifying internally consistent religions in a well-structured metareligion, i.e., a theological relationship among religions which provides their valid truth claims with logical support.”
HK: Probably a reference to Vatican II’s positions on ecumenism, non-Christian religions, and religious freedom.
HK: Lobaczewski doesn’t appear to support policies typical of the eugenics movement (such as forced sterilization), focusing rather on establishing a “eugenic morality” that would discourage certain mating choices, for example.