Workshop Session 15: Psychological Immunity

In this session we finished our discussion of Chapter 6, covering the sections on “Natural Immunization” and “Understanding.” Specific topics included:

• the psychological phenomena of adaption that develop after years under pathocratic rule

• how these mechanisms promote survival, negotiation, and the eventual dissolution of pathocracy

• Lobaczewski’s experience of immunization in reference to two of his arrests, separated by 17 years

• immunity means that pathocratic terror ceases to have a freezing effect – it is seen as routine buffoonery

• the manner in which people under pathocracy are able to co-govern, i.e. through interpersonal skillful suggestion and influence on receptive members of the Party

• how the social bonds that develop between normal people are stronger than those in many non-pathocratic countries

• how previous social divisions and classes become largely irrelevant – previously combative classes come to see each other as all in it together, united against a common enemy

• the new unity is rooted in a shared common humanity; the pathocracy is united in a shared psychopathology

• despite this “classless society” of a sort, excellence is still recognized and respected, a kind of natural aristocracy

• how constant mental effort unleashes genius and creativity

• how does this map to Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration?

• the tendency to turn to “counter-history” to understand the present and how we got here

• the dangers of foreign influence and political/economic forms on nations emerging from out of pathocracy

• low-level chronic neurosis as a mass response to pathocracy, as well as suppressed emotion that leaks out in inappropriate ways

• “It’s all so tiresome.”

• Theoretical ponerology as a means of providing artificial immunity for those who haven’t experienced pathocracy for themselves.

• …and more!

Next week we will discuss Chapter 7: “Psychology and Psychiatry under Pathocratic Rule,” pages 271-284.