Characteropathies reveal a certain similar quality, if the clinical picture is not dimmed by the coexistence of other mental anomalies (usually inherited), which sometimes occur in practice.
Undamaged brain tissue retains our species’ natural psychological properties. This is particularly evident in instinctive and affective responses, which are natural, albeit often insufficiently controlled. The experience of people with such anomalies grows out of the normal human world to which they belong by nature. Thus their different way of thinking, their emotional violence, and their egotism find relatively easy entry into other people’s minds and are perceived within the categories of the natural world view. Such behavior on the part of persons with such character disorders traumatizes the minds and feelings of normal people, gradually diminishing their ability to use their common sense.
In spite of their resistance, people become used to the rigid habits of pathological thinking and experiencing. In young people, as a result, the personality suffers abnormal development leading to its malformation. They thus represent pathological, ponerogenic factors which, by their covert activity, easily engender new phases in the eternal genesis of evil, opening the door to a later activation of other factors which thereupon take over the main role.
A relatively well-documented example of such an influence of a characteropathic personality on a macro-social scale is the last German emperor, Wilhelm II. He was subjected to brain trauma at birth. During and after his entire reign, his physical and psychological handicap was hidden from public knowledge. The motor abilities of the upper left portion of his body were handicapped. As a boy, he had difficulty learning grammar, geometry, and drawing, which constitutes the typical triad of academic difficulties caused by minor brain lesions. He developed a personality with infantile features and insufficient control over his emotions, and also a somewhat paranoid way of thinking which easily sidestepped the heart of some important issues in the process of dodging problems.
{A person who is constantly abused as a child as most French people are in their schools, can end up being rather like a handicapped person who is constantly aware of his deformity. If you are told repeatedly that your work is not good enough, that you'll never amount to anything if you don't do more and more and more or shape up, if you are never acknowledged for your unique creativity, it's the same as being born with a handicap. You are given the handicap in your subconscious and constantly feel the need to overcompensate for something that is lacking in you (though it is not really lacking, you've just been told it is.)}
Militaristic poses and a general’s uniform overcompensated for his feelings of inferiority and effectively cloaked his shortcomings. Politically, his insufficient control of emotions and factors of personal rancor came into view. The old Iron Chancellor had to go, that cunning and ruthless politician who had been loyal to the monarchy and had built up Prussian power. After all, he was too knowledgeable about the prince’s defects and had worked against his coronation. A similar fate met other overly critical people, who were replaced by persons with lesser brains, more subservience, and, sometimes, discreet psychological deviations. Negative selection took place.
Many Germans were progressively deprived of their ability to use their common sense because of the impingement of psychological material of the characteropathic type, as the common people are prone to identify with the emperor, and by such, with a system of government.
A new generation grew up with deformities regarding feeling and understanding moral, psychological, social and political realities. It is extremely typical that in many German families containing a member who was psychologically not quite normal, it became a matter of honor (even excusing nefarious conduct) to hide this fact from public opinion, and even from the awareness of close friends and relatives. Large portions of society ingested psychopathological material, together with that unrealistic way of thinking wherein slogans take on the power of arguments and real data are subjected to subconscious selection.
{The following is about Germany specifically so is less useful to us here though I am leaving it for context. What is interesting to speculate about is the general hysteria in the world regarding terrorism and immigration, and to notice how this is acting on France.}
This occurred during a time when a wave of hysteria was growing throughout Europe, including a tendency for emotions to dominate and for human behavior to contain an element of histrionics. How individual sober thought can be terrorized by a behavior colored with such material was evidenced particularly by women. This progressively took over three empires and other countries on the mainland.
To what extent did Wilhelm II contribute to this, along with two other emperors whose minds also did not take in the actual facts of history and government? To what extent were they themselves influenced by an intensification of hysteria during their reigns? That would make an interesting topic of discussion among historians and ponerologists.
International tensions increased; Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. However, neither the Kaiser nor any other governmental authority in his country possessed reason. What came into play was Wilhelm’s emotional attitude and the stereotypes of thought and action inherited from the past. War broke out. General war plans prepared earlier, which had lost their topicality under the new conditions, unfolded more like military maneuvers. Even those historians familiar with the genesis and character of the Prussian state, including its ideological subjugation of individuals to the authority of king and emperor, and its tradition of bloody expansionism, intuit that these situations contained some activity of an uncomprehended fatality which eludes an analysis in terms of historical causality.
Many thoughtful persons keep asking the same anxious question: how could the German nation have chosen for a Fuehrer a clownish psychopath who made no bones about his pathological vision of superman rule? Under his leadership, Germany then unleashed a second criminal and politically absurd war. During the second half of this war, highly-trained army officers honorably performed inhuman orders, senseless from the political and military point of view, issued by a man whose psychological state corresponded to the routine criteria for being forcibly committed to psychiatric hospitalization.
Any attempt to explain the things that occurred during the first half of our century by means of categories generally accepted in historical thought leaves behind a nagging feeling of inadequacy. Only a ponerological approach can compensate for this deficit in our comprehension, as it does justice to the role of various pathological factors in the genesis of evil at every social level.
Fed for a generation on pathologically altered psychological material, the German nation fell into a state comparable to what we see in certain individuals raised by persons who are both characteropathic and hysterical. Psychologists know from experience how often such people then let themselves commit acts which seriously hurt others.
A psychotherapist needs a good deal of persistent work, skill, and prudence in order to enable such a person to regain his ability to comprehend psychological problems with more naturalistic realism and to utilize his healthy critical faculties in relation to his own behavior.
{This last indicates that people CAN recover from being subjected to characteropathic and psychopathic influences.}
The Germans inflicted and suffered enormous pain during the first World War; they thus felt no substantial guilt and even thought they had been wronged, as they were behaving in accordance with their customary habit, without being aware of its pathological causes.
The need for this state to be clothed in heroic garb after a war in order to avoid bitter disintegration became all too common. A mysterious craving arose, as if the social organism had managed to become addicted to some drug. That was the hunger for pathologically modified psychological material, a phenomenon known to psychotherapeutic experience. This hunger could only be satisfied by another similarly pathological personality and system of government. A characteropathic personality opened the door for leadership by a psychopathic individual. We shall return later in our deliberations to this pathological personality sequence, as it appears a general regularity in ponerogenic processes.
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Paranoid character disorders:
It is characteristic of paranoid behavior for people to be capable of relatively correct reasoning and discussion as long as the conversation involves minor differences of opinion. This stops abruptly when the partner’s arguments begin to undermine their overvalued ideas, crush their long-held stereotypes of reasoning, or force them to accept a conclusion they had subconsciously rejected before. Such a stimulus unleashes upon the partner a torrent of pseudo-logical, largely paramoralistic, often insulting utterances which always contain some degree of suggestion.
Utterances like these inspire aversion among cultivated and logical people, but they enslave less critical minds, e.g. people with other kinds of psychological deficiencies, who were earlier the objects of the egotistical influence of individuals with character disorders, and in particular a large part of the young.
A proletarian may perceive this to be a kind of victory over higher-class people and thus take the paranoid person’s side. However, this is not the normal reaction among the common people, where perception of psychological reality occurs no less often than among intellectuals. In sum then, the response of accepting paranoid argumentation is qualitatively more frequent in reverse proportion to the civilization level of the community in question, although it never approaches the majority. Nevertheless, paranoid individuals become aware of their enslaving influence through experience and attempt to take advantage thereof in a pathologically egotistic manner.
We know today that the psychological mechanism of paranoid phenomena is twofold: one is caused by damage to the brain tissue, the other is functional or behavioral.
Within the above-mentioned process of rehabilitation, any brain-tissue lesion causes a certain degree of loosening of accurate thinking and, as a consequence, of the personality structure. Most typical are those cases caused by an aggression in the diencephalon by various pathological factors, resulting in its permanently decreased tonal ability, and similarly of the tonus of inhibition in the brain cortex. Particularly during sleepless nights, runaway thoughts give rise to a paranoid changed view of human reality, as well as to ideas which can be either gently naive or violently revolutionary. Let us call this kind paranoid characteropathy.
In persons free of brain tissue lesions, such phenomena most frequently occur as a result of being reared by people with paranoid characteropathia, along with the psychological terror of their childhood. Such psychological material is then assimilated creating the rigid stereotypes of abnormal experiencing. This makes it difficult for thought and world view to develop normally, and the terror-blocked contents become transformed into permanent, functional, congestive centers.
Ivan Pavlov comprehended all kinds of paranoid states in a manner similar to this functional model without being aware of this basic and primary cause. He nevertheless provided a vivid description of paranoid characters and the above-mentioned ease with which paranoid individuals suddenly tear away from factual discipline and proper thought-processes. Those readers of his work on the subject who are sufficiently familiar with Soviet conditions glean yet another historical meaning from his little book. Its intent appears obvious. The author dedicated his work, with no word of inscription, of course, to the chief model of a paranoid personality: the revolutionary leader Lenin, whom the scientist knew well. As a good psychologist, Pavlov could predict that he would not be the object of revenge, since the paranoid mind will block out the egocentric associations. He was thus able to die a natural death.
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Frontal characteropathy: The frontal areas of the cerebral cortex (10A and B acc. to the Brodmann division) are virtually present in no creature except man; they are composed of the phylogenetically youngest nervous tissue. Their cyto-architecture is similar to the much older visual projection areas on the opposite pole of the brain. This suggests some functional similarity. The author has found a relatively easy way to test this psychological function, which enables us to grasp a certain number of imaginary elements in our field of consciousness and subject them to internal contemplation. The capacity of this act of internal projection varies greatly from one person to another, manifesting a statistical correlation with similar variegation in the anatomical extent of such areas. The correlation between this capacity and general intelligence is much lower. As described by researchers (Luria et al.), the functions of these areas, thought-process acceleration and coordination, seem to result from this basic function.
Damage to this area occurred rather frequently: at or near birth, especially for premature infants, and later in life as a result of various causes. The number of such perinatal brain tissue lesions has been significantly reduced due to improved medical care for pregnant women and newborns. The spectacular ponerogenic role which results from character disorders caused by this can thus be considered somewhat characteristic of past generations and primitive cultures.
{But what about vaccinations??? Diet??}
Brain cortex damage in these areas selectively impairs the above mentioned function without impairing memory, associative capacity, or, in particular, such instinct-based feelings and functions as, for instance, the ability to intuit a psychological situation. The general intelligence of an individual is thus not greatly reduced. Children with such a defect are almost normal students; difficulties emerge suddenly in upper grades and affect principally these parts of the curriculum which place burden on the above function.
The pathological character of such people, generally containing a component of hysteria, develops through the years. The non-damaged psychological functions become overdeveloped to compensate, which means that instinctive and affective reactions predominate. Relatively vital people become belligerent, risk-happy, and brutal in both word and deed. Persons with an innate talent for intuiting psychological situations tend to take advantage of this gift in an egotistical and ruthless fashion. In the thought process of such people, a short cut way develops which bypasses the handicapped function, thus leading from associations directly to words, deeds, and decisions which are not subject to any dissuasion. Such individuals interpret their talent for intuiting situations and making split-second oversimplified decisions as a sign of their superiority compared to normal people, who need to think for long time, experiencing self-doubt and conflicting motivations. The fate of such creatures does not deserve to be pondered long.
Such “Stalinistic characters” traumatize and actively spellbind others, and their influence finds it exceptionally easy to bypass the controls of common sense. A large proportion of people tend to credit such individuals with special powers, thereby succumbing to their egotistic beliefs. If a parent manifests such a defect, no matter how minimal, all the children in the family evidence anomalies in personality development.
The author studied an entire generation of older, educated, people wherein the source of such influence was the eldest sister who suffered perinatal damage of frontal centers. From early childhood, her four younger brothers assimilated pathologically altered psychological material, including their sister’s growing component of hysteria. They retained well into their sixties the deformities of personality and world view, as well as the hysterical features thus caused, whose intensity diminished in proportion to the greater difference in age.
Subconscious selection of information made it impossible for them to apprehend any critical comments regarding their sister’s character; also, such comments were capable of offending family honor.
The brothers accepted as real their sister’s pathological delusions and complaints about her “bad” husband (who was actually a decent person) and her son, in whom she found a scapegoat to avenge her failures. They thereby participated in a world of vengeful emotions, considering their sister a completely normal person whom they were prepared to defend by the most unsavory methods, if need be, against any suggestion of her abnormality. They thought normal woman were insipid and naive, good for nothing but sexual conquest. Not one among the brothers ever created a healthy family or developed even average wisdom of life.
The character development of these people also included many other factors dependent upon the time and place in which they were reared: the turn of the century, with a patriotic Polish father and German mother who obeyed contemporary custom by formally accepting her husband’s nationality, but who still remained an advocate of the militarism, and customary accepting of the intensified hysteria, which covered Europe at the time. That was the Europe of the three Emperors: the splendor of three people with limited intelligence, two of whom revealed pathological traits. The concept of “honor” sanctified triumph. Staring at someone too long was sufficient pretext for a duel. These brothers were thus raised to be valiant duelists covered with saber-scars; however, the slashes they inflicted upon their opponents were more frequent and much worse.
When people with a humanistic education pondered the personalities of this family, they concluded that the causes for this formation should be sought in contemporary time and customs. If, however, the sister had not suffered brain damage and the pathological factor had not existed (exclusionary hypothesis), their personalities would have developed more normally even during those times. They would have become more critical and more amenable to the values of healthy reasoning and humanistic contents. They would have founded better families and received more sensible advice from wives more wisely chosen. As for the evil they sowed too liberally during their lives, it would either not have existed at all, or else would have been reduced to a scope conditioned by more remote pathological factors.
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Drug-induced characteropathies: During the last few decades, medicine has begun using a series of drugs with serious side effects: they attack the nervous system, leaving permanent damage behind. {Vaccines, too???} These generally discreet handicaps sometimes give rise to personality changes which are often very harmful socially. Streptomycin proved a very dangerous drug; as a result, some countries have limited its use, whereas others have taken it off the list of drugs whose use is permitted.
The cytostatic {cancer} drugs used in treating neoplastic diseases often attack the phylogenetically oldest brain tissue, the primary carrier of our instinctive substratum and basic feelings. Persons treated with such drugs progressively tend to lose their emotional color and their ability to intuit a psychological situation. They retain their intellectual functions but become praise-craving egocentrics, easily ruled by people who know how to take advantage of this. They become indifferent to other people’s feelings and the harm they are inflicting upon them; any criticism of their own person or behavior is repaid with a vengeance. Such a change of character in a person who until recently enjoyed respect on the part of his environment or community, which perseveres in human minds, becomes a pathological phenomenon causing often tragic results.
Results similar to the above in the psychological picture may be caused by endogenous toxins or viruses. When, on occasion, the mumps proceeds with a brain reaction, it leaves in its wake a discrete pallor or dullness of feelings and a slight decrease in mental efficiency. Similar phenomena are witnessed after a difficult bout with diphtheria. Finally, polio attacks the brain, more often the higher part of the anterior horns, which was affected by the process. People with leg paresis rarely manifest these effects, but those with paresis of the neck and/or shoulders must count themselves lucky if they do not. In addition to affective pallor, persons manifesting these effects usually evidence an inability to comprehend the crux of a matter and naiveté.
We rather doubt that President F.D. Roosevelt manifested some of this latter features, since the polio virus which attacked him when he was forty caused paresis to his legs. After overcoming this, years of creative activity followed. However, it appears that his naive attitude toward Soviet policy during his last term of office had a pathological component related to his deteriorating health.
Character anomalies developing as a result of brain-tissue damage behave like insidious ponerogenic factors. As a result of the above-described features, especially the above-mentioned one they have in common, their influence easily anchors in human minds, traumatizing our psyches, impoverishing and deforming our thoughts and feelings, and limiting individuals’ and societies’ ability to use common sense and recognize a psychological or moral situation. This opens the door to other pathological characters who most frequently carry some inherited psychological deviations; they then push the characteropathic individuals into the shadows and proceed with their ponerogenic work. That is why various types of characteropathy participate during the initial periods of the genesis of evil, both on the macro-social scale and on the individual scale of human families.
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Egotism: We call egotism the attitude, subconsciously conditioned as a rule, to which we attribute excessive value to our instinctive reflex, early acquired imaginings and habits, and individual world view. Egotism fosters the domination of subconscious life and makes it difficult to accept disintegrative states, which hampers a personality’s normal evolution. This in turn favors the appearance of the above-mentioned para-appropriate reactions. An egotist measures other people by his own yardstick, treating his concepts and experiential manner as objective criteria. He would like to force other people to feel and think very much the same way he does. Egotist nations have the subconscious goal of teaching or forcing other nations to think in their own categories, which makes them incapable of understanding other people and nations or becoming familiar with the values of their cultures.
Proper rearing and self-rearing thus always aims at de-egotizing a young person or adult, thereby opening the door for his mind and character to develop. Practicing psychologists nevertheless commonly believe that a certain measure of egotism is useful as a factor stabilizing the personality, protecting it from overly facile neurotic disintegration, and thereby making it possible to overcome life’s difficulties. However rather exceptional people exist whose personality is very well integrated even though they are almost totally devoid of egotism; this allows them to understand others very easily.
The kind of excessive egotism which hampers the development of human values and leads to misjudgment and terrorization of others well deserves the title “king of human faults”.
Difficulties, disputes, serious problems, and neurotic reactions sprout up around such an egotist like mushrooms after a rainfall.
Egotist nations start wasting money and effort in order to achieve goals derived from their erroneous reasoning and overly emotional reactions. Their inability to acknowledge other nations’ values and dissimilarities, derived from other cultural traditions, leads to conflict and war.
We can differentiate between primary and secondary egotism. The former comes from a more natural process, namely the child’s natural egotism and egotizing child-rearing errors. The secondary one occurs when a formerly better de-egotized personality regresses to this state, which leads to an artificial attitude characterized by greater aggression and social noxiousness.
Excessive egotism is a constant property of the hysterical personality, whether their hysteria be primary or secondary. That is why the increase in a nations’ egotism should be attributed to the above described hysterical cycle before anything else.
If we analyze development of excessively egotistical personalities, we find some non-pathological causes, such as having been raised in a constricted and overly routine environment or by persons less intelligent than the child. However, the main reason is contamination, through psychological induction, by excessively egotistical or hysterical persons who developed this characteristic under the influence of various pathological causes. Most of the above-described deviations cause the development of pathologically egotistical personalities, among other things.
Many people with various hereditary deviations and acquired defects develop pathological egotism. For such people, forcing others in their environment, whole social groups, and, if possible, entire nations to feel and think like themselves becomes an internal necessity, a ruling concept. Some game a normal person would not take seriously becomes an often lifelong goal for them, the object of effort, sacrifices, and cunning psychological strategy. Pathological egotism derives from repressing from one’s field of consciousness any objectionable, self-critical associations referring to one’s own nature or normality. Dramatic question such as “who is abnormal here, me or this world of people who feel and think differently?” are answered in the world’s disfavor. Such egotism is always linked to a dissimulative attitude, with a Cleckley mask or some other pathological quality being hidden from consciousness, both one’s own and that of other people. The greatest intensity of such egotism can be found in the prefrontal characteropathy described above.
The importance of the contribution of this kind of egotism to the genesis of evil thus hardly needs elaboration. It is a primarily societal resource, egotizing or traumatizing others, which in turn causes further difficulties. Pathological egotism is a constant component of variegated states wherein someone who appears to be normal (although he is in fact not quite so) is driven by motivations or battles for goals a normal person considers unrealistic or unlikely. The average person asks: “What could he expect to gain by that?”. Environmental opinion, however, interprets such a situation in accordance with “common sense” and is prone to accept a “more likely” version of occurrences. Such interpretation often results in human tragedy. We should thus always remember that the principle of law cui prodest becomes illusory whenever some pathological factor enters the picture.
HELL YEAH!
