Ideology as invisible blinkers: A rite of passage for the young?
I exited university hampered by invisible ideological blinkers—unlike horses who tend to be aware when their vision and perception is constrained; I was not.
Many I interacted with would have noticed the constricting and warping effect of the blinkers.
A restriction of periphery hinders one’s ability to decipher necessary nuances; they are more susceptible to a myopic, black-and-white worldview/framing.
It took a long time for me to notice the blinkers, to gain a greater level of self-awareness, and realise the sorry state of affairs. (And I see many who are currently in a worse state than I was.)
Is it merely a rite of passage for the young to go through a phase like this? Is it as inevitable as a first kiss or mood swings? Particularly as they tend to be more unmoored from friends, family, and religion than in the past?
Is a version of this process/instinct an evolutionary necessity? A part of the dynamic tension between order and chaos, ossification and renewal? If we lacked this instinct as a species would human history be littered with greater or fewer atrocities, more or less progress?
Is it one of those things that people need to experience for themselves? (No explanation is likely to win over a young person who is enamoured with a utopian ideology which eviscerates complexity.)
Can it be partially explained by young people being unlikely to have a “fully developed” brain? (I have no expertise in this area, and it seems to be contested, but a heuristic of around 25–30 years-old for full—or at least significant—brain maturation seems helpful; no one would suggest a teenage brain is anything near full maturation.)
I received a glimmer into how the most heinous actions can be taken by those who exalt the utopian future above all else, and who actually believe they are operating for “the greater good.” This utopian future is only just out of reach, the ends justify the means etc.—it’ll be worth it, comrade.
I became aware that those who don’t believe they have a shadow, who think they are harmless and nice, are, perhaps, the most dangerous; you also can’t be good if you’re harmless. So whether you actually are harmless, or believe you are, neither is positive.
There’s something rather refreshing about individuals who know they are mischievous and don’t hide it, but embrace it. I’d much rather be aware that I’m not a saint, and so and so is definitely not a saint, than end up entangled with the truly predatory wolf in sheep’s clothing that intentionally conceal themselves behind a “Cleckley mask,” pretending to be a saint, with a knack for finding “useful idiots” to protect them and further their cause.
Those who appear overly saintly—particularly during first impressions—are often intentionally overcompensating to conceal the opposite reality.
I’ve recently finished reading Łobaczewski’s Political Ponerology.1 It seems to be confirming what I intuited—through first-hand experience, observing what’s going on currently, and slightly reducing my level of historical ignorance—that the young (perhaps ~under 25), including my past (and perhaps current) self, do seem especially vulnerable to becoming “useful idiots,” and are susceptible to imbuing ideologies hook, line and sinker, as the below quotes from Political Ponerology suggest:
“[Paralogical] utterances. . . enslave less critical minds. . . in particular, a large segment of the young.”
“Young people. . . always have a greater propensity for such [moralising] interpretations.”
“[Exposure to paramoralistic statements and suggestions] deprive him of his common sense. In young people this leads to long-lasting psychological difficulties that impact the development of their worldview. . . . Like all conversive phenomena, the tendency to use paramoralisms is psychologically contagious.”
Savy “deviants”2 know the power and importance of using “useful idiots.” Although Łobaczewski doesn’t use the phrase, the below excerpt aligns closely with its meaning: “They become uncritical helpers and executors of the leader’s intentions, tools in the hands of more treacherous, usually psychopathic, leaders.”
(Editor of Political Ponerology) points out in an associated footnote:“. . . all major political revolutions have used gangs of young people for this purpose (e.g., the Hitler Youth and Mao’s Red Guards). Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg emphasized the need for youth agitation in the early 1900s; despite fellow socialist August Bebel’s efforts to tone down her writing, the German Government understood the circumlocution and in April, 1908, passed a law forbidding all persons under twenty years of age to attend political or union meetings. “All youth organizations ... were dissolved, and all youth agitation remained illegal until the revolution of 1918” (Wolfe, Three Who Made, p. 600). —Ed.”
Could the young be fairly described as the “most useful idiots”? The vigour and idealism of youth fanning the flames of the deviants’ goals most effectively and reliably? Emboldened and willing to die for the cause, whether figuratively or literally?
This susceptibility helps to explain why universities are such effective incubators of ideologies, which can prey on the young rather than guide them and develop their critical thinking skills. Could this partially justify and explain the quote below from
’ tour-de-force—A Prophecy of Evil: Tolkien, Lewis, and Technocratic Nihilism:“But tellingly, in [C.S. Lewis’s] That Hideous Strength the greatest wrath—a fiery, Sodom and Gomora like destruction—is ultimately reserved not for the N.I.C.E. and its monsters, but for the university and its academics.”
The below quote from Political Ponerology helps to explain the one above:
“The strongest assimilation of pathological material and influence of the above-mentioned ways of behaviour occur during adolescence and the ensuing period of mental maturation. Thus the input of decent people rescues the society of normal people from deeper deformations in personality development and widespread neurosis. . . .
In spite of human good will, certain paralogisms and paramoralisms, as well as cognitive materialism, anchor and persevere in young minds.”
Although there may be a limit of what older individuals can do to interfere in what seems a likely path for many of the young, the bar should at least be set at not leading them down the garden path. We should emulate good mental hygiene and perhaps do our bit in guiding them towards the most effective antidote—a “ponerological immunization,” as Łobaczewski suggests. To achieve an effective global psychotherapy which could act as a protection, Łobaczewski states that “objective data in the form of a naturalistic understanding of the phenomenon constitutes the keystone material.”
With such protection the young can be savvy and be attuned to if/when their ideology of choice—which may have started of without serious ponerological infection—gets skin-suited, caricatured, and becomes pathologically deformed; armed with this “missing link” of framing, they are more likely to be able to diagnose the problem, rather than trying to apply a “normal person” lens and being confused by the dissonance. As Łobaczewski repeatedly states: Ignoti nulla est curatio morbi. (In Appendix IV—the most-recently written part of the book by Łobaczewski—this phrase is interpreted as: “Do not attempt to cure what you do not understand.”)
The impact of the internet, and probably social media in particular, in spreading ideas to the young, combined with their greater susceptibility and lack of ponerological protection, means this is a key area/battleground for the potential ponerological influence to ‘infect’ the young.
Has there been another time in human history whereby the potential for voice amplification of, and towards, the young has been higher?
Technology has drastically increased the virulence of ideas—the “woke mind virus” as an analogy has prescriptive power. Political Ponerology convinced me that it may have some clinical explanatory power, too.
Łobaczewski last corrected Political Ponerology in 1998; he deemed the radio, which seems quaint to us—almost like comparing “lad’s mags” to the degenerate online porn at our fingertips—as something of note and concern: “Unfortunately, what is being used today are real radio transmitters in the hundreds of kilowatts, as well as loyal covert agents networking our planet.” I wonder how concerned he would be about the ponerological influence latent, or perhaps more aptly, active in our digital world.
The “woke” element is less important3 than the “mind virus,” and it could easily become the “anti-woke mind virus;”
rightly highlights how a similar pathology could occur simply with “anti-” as a prefix.Using “anti-woke” as a framing to introduce the concept of ponerology, even if not described precisely or in-depth, is likely to encounter less resistance than doing so through a framing of “woke right,” as the latter will induce more knee-jerk reactions in many due to the lack of the “anti-” prefix, and therefore it will result in less understanding.
Based on
’s recent discussion with and on DarkHorse, the essential core of his use of “woke right”—the phenomenon it seems to highlight—appears to point to a similar underlying theme to Łobaczewski’s work. Quoted below is the part of the discussion which I found indicative of this:“. . . factions—some of which are bent on gathering power to themselves through Machiavellian techniques, which are very similar to the communist manipulations in their own right. And my hypothesis, which I’ve referred to for a long time as the law of intolerant factions, is that soup you’re talking about [referring to Nayna’s point] will be dominated by the ideologues unless they are identified—because the most intolerant faction through Machiavellian techniques, unless they are identified and people are hopefully brought out of that lost sense of grievance. . . . The solution to the paradox of tolerance at some level requires quarantining sufficiently intolerant views.”
The use of “quarantining” in particular echoes Łobaczewski’s motif of virus, inoculation, infection etc. And I interpret “intolerant” being used more in terms of types of actions rather than beliefs—which once again points to a core aspect of ponerological/pathological processes; and at a stretch “intolerant views” could include the differing worldview Łobaczewski identifies that “abnormal people” possess, in which both “normal” and “abnormal” people view the other as abnormal.
Even though discussions around “woke right” can get lost in the weeds and minutia, perhaps an outcome of it, combined with discussions around “anti-woke,” will be an eventual, if imperfect, understanding of a core of the ponerological/pathological phenomenon: the type of ideology is secondary to the ponerological/pathological deformation of the infected ideology.
The specific phrase used in absence of Łobaczewski’s “science of ponerology” seems to be of less importance than the phenomenon it aims to identify: the core of the iceberg supersedes its tip. (If discussions remain surface-level, in the meantime, the deviants tune into and respond to the siren call of their new home, as Łobaczewski suggests.)
Łobaczewski’s explanation of how pathocracy propagates, and the corrupting influence deviants have on others, gives credence to the use of “mind virus” to partially diagnose the issue. Think Gordon Gecko from Wall Street, and how Bud Fox is corrupted and starts corrupting others—but apply this to a global scale; perhaps most rapidly reproducing online.4
The susceptibility may be greater due to the digital world representing a sort of “zoo psychopathy for the human animal,” as Richard Grannon hypothesises. This unfit environment is hard enough to navigate for those with a “fully developed” brain who’ve taken their “ponerological immunisation.” How do teenagers stand a chance?
The quote below from Political Ponerology highlights how the digital world can act as a ‘superspreader,’ letting other nations who haven’t experienced the reality of the mesmerising ideology catch a cold when the other sneezes:
has often raised his concerns about digital anonymity in a ponerological context: “. . . anonymity literally gives the edge to the psychopaths, predators, and parasites. And this is a huge problem,” he stated on his recent podcast with .“. . . the main operational theatre for the ideology consists of nations remaining outside the ambit of the pathocracy, that naive world still prone to being mesmerized by ideologies.”
However, many would argue systems that reduce digital anonymity and aim to ‘solve’ the above issue are likely to fall into the category of “the cure is worse than the disease.” For example, potentially accelerating the march towards a ‘digital panopticon,’ and perhaps providing extra firepower for ponerological influences to exert control and censorship. As Jordan states himself on the same podcast episode a couple of minutes later: “. . . what kind of world would we define, and live in, if every blood thing that you had to say online was verified with a digital identity?”
The trade-off seems to suggest the current reality is likely better than its ‘resolution,’ which makes discernment and ponerological immunisation of the utmost importance to protect against the innumerable “ponerological mind viruses” spreading over our digital highway.
This seems a relatively novel issue. Our modern world with its globalised, digital highway and move away from tribal and native smaller groups is exceedingly more amenable to deviants—they have more avenues to infiltrate and exploit. They can manipulate algorithms and often use “useful idiots” to help develop and present a worryingly convincing “Cleckley mask.” Social media and the digital world tends to prioritise the most shocking and emotional content, which can often overlap with the most deviant—acting as a corrupting, downward spiral ad infinitum and ad absurdum.
Then you add artificial intelligence. AI models have already passed highly persuasive humans in at least one context. AI agents can be programmed by psychopaths to act psychopathically, exponentially increasing the influence and corrupting effect, particularly on the young who are more susceptible—a truly nefarious “ponerological mind virus” propagating without human limits. “. . . bad human actors could certainly use further advances in intelligence to cause mayhem,” writes
in The “AI 2027” Scenario: How realistic is it?One ‘positive’ outcome that could come from this increasingly pro-ponerological environment is the digital world becoming so noxious and untrustworthy that people decide to unplug partially or fully. I see this as likely. If the digital world resembles a Cartesian crisis, it makes sense to abandon digital as much as is feasible and re-enter the ‘analog’ world where your senses are paramount.
Another silver lining is that the digital highway provides the opportunity for greater understanding, and therefore, immunisation against the phenomenon. There appear to be an increasing number of people, perhaps the young in particular, who are being exposed to this phenomenon. Even though most won’t have the “missing link” framing and naturalistic language of Łobaczewski—which would help them identify the phenomenon and those who have (in)visible ideological/pathological blinkers on—if they follow their feeling that something is off and become aware of how using a “normal people” lens/framing doesn’t yield satisfactory results, they may end up with the correct framing, and this understanding can provide some relief and protection.
These individuals can use the digital highway positively—like Big Pharma peddling vaccines, they can do the same for the essential “ponerological immunisation.” For example, I stumbled across Harrison’s work then wanted to dig deeper, and felt it was so important that I must understand it better and share what I have learnt.
“What is of crucial importance is to fully grasp the importance of the science of ponerology and how many applications it may have for a future of peace and a humane humanity. This science permits the human mind to understand things that have been, for millennia, unintelligible: the genesis of evil.
This understanding could very well bring about a turning point in the history of civilization which, I should add, is presently on the path of self-destruction. Therefore, my request to you is: Be not shocked with the immense size of the task! Take it as a work to be gradually performed and hope that many other people will come to help, and thus progress will be assured.
It seems that, in the natural order of things, those persons who have suffered most from psychopaths or bearers of other mental abnormalities, will be those called to do this work, to accept the burden. If you do, accept also, ladies and gentleman, your fate with an open heart and humility, and always with a sense of humor. Cherish assistance from the Universal Mind and know that Great Values often grow from Great Suffering.
Rzeszów, August 24, 2006.”
—Łobaczewski’s closing remark in Political Ponerology, under the chapter heading: “Where do we go from here?”
h/t
for introducing me to Łobaczewski’s essential work through his excellent Substack publication, . He does a much better, broader, and deeper job than I possibly could in highlighting Łobaczewski’s essential work. (This essay is just my musings, borrowing heavily from Łobaczewski and hopefully not misrepresenting him too much; I have no expertise in the area, whereas Koehli’s extensive editorial footnotes in Political Ponerology highlight the breadth and depth of his knowledge.) Ponerology means the study of evil.A term used repeatedly by Łobaczewski in Political Ponerology. The term ought not be interpreted moralistically—he repeatedly highlights the futility of this approach—but rather as precise, naturalistic language, which he champions the importance of throughout. I will use the term throughout without scare quotes to aim to stay true to Łobaczewski. (Also, I’ll use this “catch-all” phrase, as although imperfect, it reduces unnecessary complexity which would occur if I introduced many of Łobaczewski’s unfamiliar terms/phrases instead.)
Although there are many facets particularly attractive under “woke” for providing protection for what Łobaczewski refers to as “deviants”—negative selection, speech constraints, demanding others assume, and even, promote your worldview—“anti-woke” could easily, and likely will, lay the groundwork for a similarly safe haven for deviants, supported by “useful idiots.”
The dialogue once Bud wises up and confronts Gordon is telling. Bud: “You fuckin’ used me!”; Gordon: “You’re walking around blind without a cane, pal.”