The best place to start when offering a review of this unusual work is to establish the context of this book as best presented in the following passages drawn from the author’s work itself.
Page 91
“ The psychopath feels little, if any guilt. He (she) can commit the most appalling acts, yet view them without remorse…. The psychopath has a warped capacity for love. His (her) emotional relationships, when they exist, are meager, fleeting, and designed to satisfy his (her) own desires. These two last traits, guiltlessness and lovelessness, conspicuously mark the psychopath as different from other men (women).
Page 89
“ They are arrogant, manipulative, sensation-seeking, Machiavellian, vindictive and out for their own gain.”
Page 90
“The world of normal people whom they hurt is incomprehensible and hostile to them, and life for the psychopath is the pursuit of its immediate attractions, moments of pleasure, and temporary feeling of power.”
Page 88
“They learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood and they develop an awareness of the existence other individuals similar to them”
The author’s delineation of Evil could be summarized as what happens when in any given period, place or circumstance psychopathic personalities network to the service of a shared purpose, goal or cause. The end result to the larger social order can be utter devastation.
The author attempts to move the understanding of Evil forward into a scientific study. A discipline if you will. This is in contrast to leaving the understanding of Evil within a traditional religious or moral construct.
The origin of this work is in the real world experience of a group of Polish student’s of psychology subjugated to the dictates of an imposed Communist regime right on the heals of a previous Nazi occupation. Andrew Lobaczewski is the last surviving member of a secret student clique matriculating at an unidentified Polish University one year from graduating. Rather then succumbing to the distortion of their education under the rule of a newly installed communist “Professor” they decided to engage in a scientific investigation of their own design under the nose of their captors. Their investigation would be to apply their previous psychological training to objectify the nature of the Evil they themselves were now subject to.
What is the benefit this? Perhaps this book for the first time in history attempts to explain the process of how a society or nation becomes prey to a small clique of psychopathic elites. Political Ponerology is the authors label to define this historically repetitive occurrence that up till now has never been understood by the masses of normal humans who have suffered at the hands of those small percentage of the population who are by definition deficient in normal human sentiment and who share the common goal of subjugating the general population of “normal” human beings down to the level of serfs. In this work the author unmasks the reasons why and the ways and the means by which these psychopaths gain control of entire countries in an effort to fulfill their secretly held desire for power that finally grants them the fulfillment they have always craved.
Once read you will never likely to view those who seek power in the same light. The book offers a maturing of ones worldview as it pertains to the power elite.
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Historical significance makes the price acceptable as a paperback.
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2021
I have not read "Political Ponerology" as I have just opened the package containing the book however, for a paperback 2nd edition I feel it is a little pricey. Simply because I am interested in historical writings I am willing to pay the price of this document of history. It al least is more worthy than another book I purchased in the $30 odd dollar price range. I am looking forward to reading this book.
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2021
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Top reviews from other countries
Michael LR
This needs to be known
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 13, 2012itellsya
A must read in order to understand the world today.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 25, 2016R. Cardim
Escrito por um psicólogo polonês, sobre psicopatas com poder político absoluto.
Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on August 15, 2020
Mr. N. Moffatt
Vital messages, but incredibly obscure writing style
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 17, 2011
