En Annan Verklighet

Ibland har man tur. Jag hade planerat att använda mig av Folkpartiet som det tredje exemplet på psykopatins ansikten, eftersom jag anade att de har genomgått den poneriseringsprocess som Andrew Lobaczewski beskriver i sin bok “Political Ponerology - A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes“, den process där en grupp psykopater tar över en organisation och förvrider dess ursprungliga ideologi till oigenkännlighet. Folkpartiet är långt ifrån det enda exemplet på detta bland Sveriges politiska partier, men det är ett förhållandevis aktuellt exempel med tanke på den skandal kring spioneri som avslöjades tidigare i år. Men förutom slutrapporten kring detta från Folkpartiets Etiska Kommission hade jag inte så mycket konkret att referera till, så det kändes svårt att visa det psykopatiska inslaget på ett bra sätt.

Så jag måste erkänna att jag blev smått överraskad när SVT av en ren slump visade en dokumentär tidigare ikväll där detta fenomen, poneriseringsprocessen, beskrevs i relativt tydliga ordalag, både av de som själva varit del i den och de som fallit offer för dess sjukliga attityder. I “Dokumentär inifrån: Spionskolan” får vi beskrivet för oss hur en liten grupp individer medelst negativ selektion och en “anything goes”-attityd på en relativt kort tid förvandlat ett svenskt parti till en karikatyr av dess ursprungliga form.

Lobaczewski, som studerade kommunismens framfart i Polen, beskriver denna process i boken “Political Ponerology”. Men innan vi ger oss in i detaljerna kring det han beskriver så rekommenderar jag att ni tittar igenom dokumentären. Läs dock först det inledande inlägget i denna serie samt den andra delen i min serie om Mellanösternkonflikten, där symtom på s.k. “covert aggressive personalities” beskrivs. Dessa symtom uppvisas vid ett flertal tillfällen i dokumentären, av ett flertal individer, och det är därför oerhört intressant att se dessa dokumenterade och speciellt i relation till den atmosfär som de som drabbats av poneriseringen beskriver.

Ponerisering
Vad innebär “ponerisering”? Ponerologi - studien av ondska - är den relativt nya vetenskapliga gren där ondska studeras på ett makrosocialt plan, d.v.s. det som är av intresse är inte bara hur enskilda individer beter sig, utan hur dessa som grupp kan påverka skeenden, vilket i extrema fall når den globala nivån. En poneriseringsprocess, “ponerogenesis”, är den förvandling som en grupp går igenom då den tas över av psykopatiska individer i samarbete med individer med andra patologiska störningar, såsom schizofreni. Lobaczewski förklarar principerna som följer (min förstärkning av väl valda delar):

Observation of the ponerization processes of various human
unions throughout history easily leads to the conclusion that the
initial step is a moral warping of the group’s ideational contents. In analyzing the contamination of a group’s ideology, we
note first of all an infiltration of foreign, simplistic, and doctri-
naire contents, thereby depriving it of any healthy support for,
and trust in, the necessity of understanding of human nature.
This opens the way for invasion by pathological factors and the
ponerogenic role of their carriers.

The example of the Roman legal system vis a vis early
Christianity mentioned above, is a case in point. The Roman
imperial and legal civilization was overly attached to matter
and law, and created a legal system that was too rigid to ac-
commodate any real aspects of psychological and spiritual life.
This “earthy” foreign element infiltrated Christianity resulting
in the Catholic church adopting Imperial strategies to enforce
its system on others by violence.

This fact could justify the conviction of moralists that main-
taining a union’s ethical discipline and ideational purity is suf-
ficient protection against derailing or hurtling into an insuffi-
ciently comprehended world of error. Such a conviction strikes
a ponerologist as a unilateral oversimplification of an eternal
reality which is more complex. After all, the loosening of ethi-
cal and intellectual controls is sometimes a consequence of the
direct or indirect influence of the omnipresent factors of the
existence of deviants in any social group, along with some
other non-pathological human weaknesses.

Sometime during life, every human organism undergoes pe-
riods during which physiological and psychological resistance
declines, facilitating development of bacteriological infection
within. Similarly, a human association or social movement
undergoes periods of crisis which weaken its ideational and
moral cohesion (edit: såsom att partiet går dåligt fler val i rad!). 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 indication for a
weakened organism, the development of conscious control over
the activity of pathological factors is a ponerological indication. This is a crucial factor for prevention of tragedy during a
society’s periods of moral crisis.

For centuries, individuals exhibiting various psychological
anomalies have had the tendency to participate in the activities
of human unions. This is made possible on the one hand by
such group’s weaknesses, i.e. failure in adequate psychological
knowledge; on the other hand, it deepens the moral failings and
stifles the possibilities of utilizing healthy common sense and
understanding matters objectively. In spite of the resulting
tragedies and unhappiness, humanity has shown a certain pro-
gress, especially in the cognitive area; therefore, a ponerologist
may be cautiously optimistic. After all, by detecting and de-
scribing these aspects of the ponerization process of human
groups, which could not be understood until recently, we shall
be able to counteract such processes earlier and more effec-
tively. Again, depth and breadth of knowledge of human psy-
chological variations is crucial.

Any human group affected by the process described herein
is characterized by its increasing regression from natural com-
mon sense and the ability to perceive psychological reality.
Someone considering this in terms of traditional categories
might consider it an instance of “turning into half-wits” or the
development of intellectual deficiencies and moral failings. A
ponerological analysis of this process, however, indicates that
pressure is being applied to the more normal part of the asso-
ciation by pathological factors present in certain individuals
who have been allowed to participate in the group because the
lack of good psychological knowledge has not mandated their
exclusion.

Thus, whenever we observe some group member being
treated with no critical distance, although he betrays one of the
psychological anomalies familiar to us, and his opinions being
treated as at least equal to those of normal people, although
they are based on a characteristically different view of human
matters, we must derive the conclusion that this human group is
affected by a ponerogenic process and if measures are not
taken the process shall continue to its logical conclusion. We
shall treat this in accordance with the above described first
criterion of ponerology, which retains its validity regardless of
the qualitative and quantitative features of such a union: the
atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to pathologi-
cal individuals becomes an opening to their activities, and, at
the same time, a criterion for recognizing the association in
concern as ponerogenic.

Detta beskriver väl vad som har hänt med Folkpartiet. Lobaczewski beskriver vidare hur denna process går till på följande sätt:

We shall give the name “ponerogenic association” to any
group of people characterized by ponerogenic processes of
above-average social intensity, wherein the carriers of various
pathological factors function as inspirers, spellbinders, and
leaders, and where a proper pathological social structure gener-
ates. Smaller, less permanent associations may be called
“groups” or “unions”.

Such an association gives birth to evil which hurts other
people as well as its own members. We could list various
names ascribed to such organizations by linguistic tradition:
gangs, criminal mobs, mafias, cliques, and coteries, which
cunningly avoid collision with the law while seeking to gain
their own advantage. Such unions frequently aspire to political
power in order to impose their expedient legislation upon so-
cieties in the name of a suitably prepared ideology, deriving
advantages in the form of disproportionate prosperity and the
satisfaction of their craving for power.

A description and classification of such associations with a
view of their numbers, goals, officially promulgated ideologies,
and internal organizations would of course be scientifically
valuable. Such a description, effected by a perceptive observer,
could help a ponerologist determine some of the properties of
such unions, which cannot be determined by means of natural
conceptual language.

A description of this kind, however, ought not to cloak the
more factual phenomena and psychological dependencies oper-
ating within these unions. Failure to heed this warning can
easily cause such a sociological description to indicate proper-
ties which are of secondary importance, or even made “for
show” to impress the uninitiated, thereby overshadowing the
actual phenomena which decide the quality, role, and fate of
the union. Particularly if such a description is colorful litera-
ture, it can furnish merely illusory or ersatz knowledge, thus
rendering a naturalistic perception and causative comprehen-
sion of phenomena more difficult.

One phenomenon all ponerogenic groups and associations
have in common is the fact that their members lose (or have
already lost) the capacity to perceive pathological individuals
as such, interpreting their behavior in a fascinated, heroic, or
melodramatic ways. The opinions, ideas, and judgments of
people carrying various psychological deficits are endowed
with an importance at least equal to that of outstanding indi-
viduals among normal people.

The atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to
pathological individuals becomes an opening to their activities,
and, at the same time, a criterion for recognizing the associa-
tion in concern as ponerogenic. Let us call this the first crite-
rion of ponerogenesis.

Another phenomenon all ponerogenic associations have in
common is their statistically high concentration of individuals
with various psychological anomalies. Their qualitative com-
position is crucially important in the formation of the entire
union’s character, activities, development, or extinction.

Groups dominated by various kinds of characteropathic in-
dividuals will develop relatively primitive activities, proving
rather easy for a society of normal people to break. However,
things are quite different when such unions are inspired by
psychopathic individuals. Let us adduce the following example
illustrating the roles of two different anomalies, selected from
among actual events studied by the author.

In felonious youth gangs, a specific role is played by boys
(and occasionally girls) that carry a characteristic deficit that is
sometimes left behind by an inflammation of the parotid glands
(the mumps). This disease entails brain reactions in some cases,
leaving behind a discreet but permanent bleaching of feelings
and a slight decrease in general mental skills. Similar results
are sometimes left behind after diphtheria. As a result, such
people easily succumb to the suggestions and manipulations of
a more clever individuals.

When drawn into a felonious group, these constitutionally
weakened individuals become faint-critical helpers and execu-
tors of the leader’s intentions, tools in the hands of more
treacherous, usually psychopathic, leaders. Once arrested, they
submit to their leaders’ insinuated explanations that the higher
(paramoral) group ideal demands that they become scapegoats,
taking the majority of blame upon themselves. In court, the
same leaders who initiated the delinquencies mercilessly dump
all the blame onto their less crafty colleagues. Sometimes a
judge actually accepts the insinuations.

Individuals with the above-mentioned post-mumps and
post-diphtheria traits constitute less than 1.0 % of the popula-
tion as a whole, but their share reaches 1/4 of juvenile delin-
quent groups. This represents an inspissation of the order of
30-fold, requiring no further methods of statistical analysis.
When studying the contents of ponerogenic unions skillfully
enough, we often meet with an inspissation of other psycho-
logical anomalies which also speak for themselves.

Detta beskriver återigen väl hur Folkpartiet, och framförallt av vissa individer inom partiet, har förvridits så att dess ursprungliga form förvunnit.

Ideologiska karikatyrer
När det är just organisationer med en ideologisk grund som går igenom poneriseringsprocesser beskriver Lobaczewski effekterna på ett ideologiskt plan som följer:

It is a common phenomenon for a ponerogenic association
or group to contain a particular ideology which always justifies
its activities and furnishes motivational propaganda. Even a
small-time gang of hoodlums has its own melodramatic ideology and pathological romanticism. Human nature demands that
vile matters be haloed by an over-compensatory mystique in
order to silence one’s conscience and to deceive consciousness
and critical faculties, whether one’s own or those of others.

If such a ponerogenic union could be stripped of its ideology, nothing would remain except psychological and moral
pathology, naked and unattractive. Such stripping would of
course provoke “moral outrage”, and not only among the
members of the union. The fact is, even normal people, who
condemn this kind of union along with its ideologies, feel hurt
and deprived of something constituting part of their own romanticism, their way of perceiving reality when a widely idealized group is exposed as little more than a gang of criminals.
Perhaps even some of the readers of this book will resent the
author’s stripping evil so unceremoniously of all its literary
motifs. The job of effecting such a “strip-tease” may thus turn
out to be much more difficult and dangerous than expected.

A primary ponerogenic union is formed at the same time as
its ideology, perhaps even somewhat earlier. A normal person
perceives such ideology to be different from the world of human concepts, obviously suggestive, and even primitively
comical to a degree.

An ideology of a secondarily ponerogenic association is
formed by gradual adaptation of the primary ideology to functions and goals other than the original formative ones. A certain
kind of layering or schizophrenia of ideology takes place during the ponerization process. The outer layer closest to the
original content is used for the group’s propaganda purposes,
especially regarding the outside world, although it can in part
also be used inside with regard to disbelieving lower-echelon
members. The second layer presents the elite with no problems
of comprehension: it is more hermetic, generally composed by
slipping a different meaning into the same names. Since identical names signify different contents depending on the layer in
question, understanding this “doubletalk” requires simultaneous fluency in both languages.

Average people succumb to the first layer’s suggestive insinuations for a long time before they learn to understand the
second one as well. Anyone with certain psychological deviations, especially if he is wearing the mask of normality with
which we are already familiar, immediately perceives the second layer to be attractive and significant; after all, it was built
by people like him. Comprehending this doubletalk is therefore
a vexatious task, provoking quite understandable psychological
resistance; this very duality of language, however, is a pathognomonic symptom indicating that the human union in ques-
tion is touched by the ponerogenic process to an advanced degree.

The ideology of unions affected by such degeneration has
certain constant factors regardless of their quality, quantity, or
scope of action: namely, the motivations of a wronged group,
radical righting of the wrong, and the higher values of the individuals who have joined the organization. These motivations
facilitate sublimation of the feeling of being wronged and different, caused by one’s own psychological failings, and appear
to liberate the individual from the need to abide by uncomfortable moral principles.

In the world full of real injustice and human humiliation,
making it conducive to the formation of an ideology containing
the above elements, a union of its converts may easily succumb
to degradation. When this happens, those people with a tendency to accept the better version of the ideology will tend to
justify such ideological duality.

Man pratar ibland om att de svenska politiska partierna “dras mot mitten”, och att de ursprungliga ideologiska fundamenten inte längre är heliga. Det som ger röster är det som är viktigt, och allt annat har sekundär betydelse. Detta är ett av symtomen på just denna poneriseringsprocess, som innebär att organisationen behåller sin ideologi endast till namn och yttre, medan dess inre och faktiska ideologi har förvandlats till en karikatyr av det som en gång var. I dokumentären hör vi en föredetta Folkpartist kommentera kravet på språkkunskaper hos invandrare som något helt främmande för den ideologi som Folkpartiet stod för. Detta är bara ett exempel på just denna poneriseringsprocess, och den ideologiska förvanskning som hör till.

På grund av detta är det viktigt att poängtera att det som vi ser inom Folkpartiet inte har någonting som helst att göra med dess ursprungliga ideologi, liberalismen. I en organisation med sekundär ponerisering, där alltså inte organisationens ideologi redan från början har patologisk grund, är det ett grovt fel att försöka se orsakerna till problemen genom att leta på fel ställe. Att skylla på “liberalismen” i det här fallet är alltså endast till nytta för de patologiska elementen, då det på ett effektivt sätt hindrar en förståelse för de egentliga orsakerna, och även till viss del hjälper till att underbygga en “vi och dem”-mentalitet där allt starkare protester utifrån möts med en arrogant inställning från partitoppen om att den egna filosofin är överlägsen.

Spellbinders
Ett fenomen som blir extra tydligt i dokumentären är det som Lobaczewski beskriver som “Spellbinders”:

In order to comprehend ponerogenic pathways of contagion,
especially those acting in a wider social context, let us observe
the roles and personalities of individuals we shall call “spellbinders”, who are highly active in this area in spite of their
statistically negligible number.

Spellbinders are generally the carriers of various pathological factors, some characteropathies, and some inherited anomalies. Individuals with malformations of their personalities frequently play similar roles, although the social scale of influence remains small (family or neighborhood) and does not
cross certain boundaries of decency.

Spellbinders are characterized by pathological egotism.
Such a person is forced by some internal causes to make an
early choice between two possibilities: the first is forcing other
people to think and experience things in a manner similar to his
own; the second is a feeling of being lonely and different, a
pathological misfit in social life. Sometimes the choice is either
snake-charming or suicide.

Triumphant repression of self-critical or unpleasant concepts from the field of consciousness gradually gives rise to the
phenomena of conversion thinking, or paralogistics, paramoralisms, and the use of reversion blockades. They stream so pro-
fusely from the mind and mouth of the spellbinder that they
flood the average person’s mind. Everything becomes subordinated to the spellbinder’s over-compensatory conviction that
they are exceptional, sometimes even messianic. An ideology
emerges from this conviction, true in part, whose value is supposedly superior. However, if we analyze the exact functions of
such an ideology in the spellbinder’s personality, we perceive
that it is a nothing other than a means of self-charming, useful
for repressing those tormenting self-critical associations into
the subconscious. The ideology’s instrumental role in influencing other people also serves the spellbinder’s needs.

The spellbinder believes that he will always find converts to
his ideology, and most often, they are right. However, they feel
shock (or even paramoral indignation) when it turns out that
their influence extends to only a limited minority, while most
people’s attitude to their activities remains critical, pained and
disturbed. The spellbinder is thus confronted with a choice:
either withdraw back into his void or strengthen his position by
improving the effectiveness of his activities.

The spellbinder places on a high moral plane anyone who
has succumbed to his influence and incorporated the experiential method he imposes. He showers such people with attention
and property, if possible. Critics are met with “moral” outrage.
It can even be proclaimed that the compliant minority is in fact
the moral majority, since it professes the best ideology and
honors a leader whose qualities are above average.

Such activity is always necessarily characterized by the inability to foresee its final results, something obvious from the
psychological point of view because its substratum contains
pathological phenomena, and both spellbinding and selfcharming make it impossible to perceive reality accurately
enough to foresee results logically. However, spellbinders nurture great optimism and harbor visions of future triumphs simi-
lar to those they enjoyed over their own crippled souls. It is
also possible for optimism to be a pathological symptom.

In a healthy society, the activities of spellbinders meet with
criticism effective enough to stifle them quickly. However,
when they are preceded by conditions operating destructively
upon common sense and social order; such as social injustice,
cultural backwardness, or intellectually limited rulers sometimes manifesting pathological traits, spellbinders’ activities
have led entire societies into large-scale human tragedy.

Such an individual fishes an environment or society for
people amenable to his influence, deepening their psychological weaknesses until they finally join together in a ponerogenic
union. On the other hand, people who have maintained their
healthy critical faculties intact, based upon their own common
sense and moral criteria, attempt to counteract the spellbinders’
activities and their results. In the resulting polarization of social attitudes, each side justifies itself by means of moral categories. That is why such commonsense resistance is always
accompanied by some feeling of helplessness and deficiency of
criteria.

The awareness that a spellbinder is always a pathological
individual should protect us from the known results of a moralizing interpretation of pathological phenomena, ensuring us an
objective criteria for more effective action. Explaining what
kind of pathological substratum is hidden behind a given instance of spellbinding activities should enable a modern solution to such situations.

It is a characteristic phenomenon that a high IQ generally
helps a person to be more immune to spellbinding activities
only to a moderate degree. Actual differences in the formation
of human attitudes to the influence of such activities should be
attributed to other properties of human nature. The most decisive factor in assuming a critical attitude is good basic intelligence, which conditions our perception of psychological reality. We can also observe how a spellbinder’s activities “husk
out” amenable individuals with an astonishing regularity.

En “spellbinder” är en av de främsta fästena som poneriseringsprocessen har inom ett parti, och att få bort dessa är ett första steg till att återgå till ett icke-psykopatiskt förhållningssätt. I dokumentären får vi ett tydligt exempel på just hur en “spellbinder” kan få ett järngrepp runt en organisation och ta över makten genom att sprida sitt eget sjuka synsätt neråt i hierarkin.

Många är de, psykopatins ansikten.

Negativ selektion
De som vill upp måste anpassa sig till de som står över, vilket naturligt leder till negativ selektion, att de som normalt sett skulle anses vara abnormala ges företräde till högre poster. Lobaczewski beskriver detta som följer:

An ever-strengthening network of psychopathic and related
individuals gradually starts to dominate, overshadowing the
others. Characteropathic individuals who played an essential
role in ponerizing the movement and preparing for revolution,
are also eliminated. Adherents of the revolutionary ideology
are unscrupulously “pushed into a counter-revolutionary position”. They are now condemned for “moral” reasons in the
name of new criteria whose paramoralistic essence they are not
in a position to comprehend. Violent negative selection of the
original group now ensues. The inspirational role of essential
psychopathy is now also consolidated; it remains characteristic
for the entire future of this macrosocial pathological phenomenon.

In spite of these transformations, the pathological block of
the revolutionary movement remains a minority, a fact which
cannot be changed by propaganda pronouncements about the
moral majority adhering to the new, more glorious version of
the ideology. The rejected majority and the very forces which
naively created such power to begin with, start mobilizing
against the block of psychopaths who have taken over. Ruthless confrontation with these forces is seen by the psychopathic
block as the only way to safeguard the long-term survival of
the pathological authority. We must thus consider the bloody
triumph of a pathological minority over the movement’s majority to be a transitional phase during which the new contents of
the phenomenon coagulate.

The entire life of a society thus affected then becomes subordinated to deviant thought-criteria and permeated by their
specific experiential mode, especially the one described in the
section on essential psychopathy. At this point, using the name
of the original ideology to designate this phenomenon is meaningless and becomes an error rendering its comprehension
more difficult.

På detta sätt växer den patologiska delen av partiet tills det en dag har tagits över till sådan grad att normala människor skyr verksamheten, vilket även det exemplifierades i dokumentären.

Poneriseringen är därmed komplett. Ondskan har vunnit.

Och med detta lämnar jag detta ämne. Det finns mycket mer att säga om hur politiska organisationer påverkas av denna process, och Folkpartiet är långt ifrån ensamt om att ha varit med om detta, men det första steget är alltid att diagnosticera sjukdomen. Dess möjliga tillfrisknande är en annan diskussion.

För de som vill få ytterligare förståelse för detta fenomen rekommenderar jag främst böckerna Political Ponerology av Andrew Lobaczewski samt In Sheep’s Clothing av George Simon. Den senare beskriver en form av psykopati som är förhållandevis osynlig, vilket är relevant i politiska kontexter där psykopati normalt sett har icke-våldsamma uttryck.