Workshop Session 8: Ponerogenic Groups

In this session we finished Chapter 4, covering the final sections on ponerogenic associations, ideologies, and macrosocial phenomena. Some specific topics included:

• ponerogenic groups, including gangs, mafias, activist movements, revolutionary parties, and ruling classes

• the role of ideology in such groups—from simple motivating ideas to grand political visions—from knitting clubs to large political movements

• two macrosocial states: hysteria and pathocracy, and how one leads to the other

• the ponerization process, or how normal groups go bad

• the ponerogenic group social structure, and how it mimics or caricatures normal social organization

• old age as a ponerogenic factor and the implications for current demographic trends

• why the populist/working class voice needs to be taken seriously—its higher resistance to elite hysteria

• and more!

For the next session, read the first sections of Chapter 5 (stopping at the beginning of “Pathocracy and Its Ideology”). For readers with the print copy, this will be pages 179-203.

The next session is scheduled for Saturday, February 3 at 12:30 pm.