future and participation in creating it will heal battered human
souls and bring order into thought processes. This constructive
work trains people to govern themselves under such different
conditions and knocks the weapon out of the hands of anyone
who serves evil, increasing the latter’s feeling of frustration
and an awareness that his pathological work is nearing an end.
A careful reading of this book may cause us to discern the
outlines of a creative vision of such a future societal system so
sorely needed by nations suffering under pathocratic rule; if so,
this represents a reward for the author’s effort rather than re-
sults of pure chance. Just such a vision accompanied me
throughout the period of my work on this book (although the
latter nowhere indicates a name nor any more precise details
for it), rendering assistance and proving a useful support in the
future. In some way, it is thus present on the pages and be-
tween the lines of this work.
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
307
Such a social system of the future would have to guarantee
its citizens wide scope personal freedom and an open door to
utilizing their creative possibilities in both individual and col-
lective efforts. At the same time, however, it must not indicate
the well known weaknesses manifested by a democracy in its
domestic and foreign policy. Not only should individuals’ per-
sonal interest and the common good be appropriately balanced
in such a system; they should be woven right into the overall
picture of social life at the level where an understanding of its
laws causes any discrepancy between them to disappear. The
opinion of the wide mass of the citizenry, dictated primarily by
the voices of basic intelligence and dependent upon the natural
world view, should be balanced by the skills of people who
utilize an objective cognition of reality and possess the appro-
priate training in their special areas. Appropriate and well
thought out system solutions should be used for this purpose.
The foundations for practical solutions within such an im-
proved system would contain criteria such as creating the right
conditions for enriched development of human personalities
including the psychological world view, whose societal role
has already been adduced. Individual socio-professional adap-
tation, the creation of an interpersonal network, and a healthy
active socio-psychological structure should be facilitated to the
maximum possible extent.
Structural, legal, and economic solutions should be consid-
ered in such a way that fulfilling these criteria would also open
the door for an individual’s optimal self-realization within so-
cial life, which would simultaneously be for the good of the
community. Other traditional criteria such as the dynamics of
economic development will thereupon prove secondary to these
more general values. The result of this would be the nation’s
economic development, political skill, and creative role in the
international sphere.
The priorities in terms of value criteria would thus shift
consistently in the direction of psychological, social, and moral
data. This is in keeping with the spirit of the times, but actual
execution thereof demands imaginative effort and constructive
thought in order to achieve the above-mentioned practical
308
A VISION OF THE FUTURE
goals. After all, everything begins and ends within the human
psyche.
Such a system would have to be evolutionary by nature, as
it would be based upon an acceptance of evolution as a law of
nature. Natural evolutionary factors would play an important
role therein, such as the course of cognition continually proc-
essing from more primitive and easily accessible data to more
actual, intrinsic, and subtle matters. The principle of evolution
would have to be imprinted firmly enough upon the basic phi-
losophical foundations of such a system so as to protect it con-
sistently from future revolution.
Such a social system would by nature be more resistant to
the danger of having macrosocial pathological phenomena
develop within. Its foundations would be an improved devel-
opment of the psychological world view and society’s links
structure coupled with a scientific and social consciousness of
the essence of such phenomena. This should furnish the foun-
dation for mature methods of education. Such a system should
also have built-in permanent institutions which were heretofore
unknown and whose task will be preventing the development
of ponerogenic processes within society, particularly among
governing authorities.
A “Council of Wise Men” would be an institution com-
posed of several people with extremely high general, medical,
and psychological qualifications; it would have the right to
examine the physical and psychological health of candidates
before the latter are elected to the highest government posi-
tions. A negative council opinion should be hard to challenge.
That same council would serve the head of state, the legislative
authorities, and the executives regarding counsel in matters
entering its scope of scientific competence. It would also ad-
dress the public in important matters of biological and psycho-
logical life, indicating essential moral aspects. Such a council’s
duties would also include maintaining contact and discussions
with the religious authorities in such matters.
The security system for persons with various psychological
deviations would be in charge of making their life easier while
skillfully limiting their participation in the processes of the
genesis of evil. After all, such persons are not impervious to
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
309
persuasion provided it is based upon proper knowledge of the
matter. Such an approach would also help progressively dimin-
ish societies’ gene pool burdens of hereditary aberrations. The
Council of Wise Men would furnish the scientific supervision
for such activities.
The legal system would be subjected to wide ranging trans-
formations in virtually every area, progressing from formulae
whose establishment was based on a society’s natural world
view and ancient tradition to legal solutions based upon an
objective apperception of reality, particularly the psychological
one. As a result, law studies would have to undergo true mod-
ernization, since the law would become a scientific discipline
sharing the same epistemological principles as all the other
sciences.
What is now called “penal” law would be superseded by
another kind of law with a completely modernized foundation
based on an understanding of the genesis of evil and of the
personalities of people who commit evil. Such law would be
significantly more humanitarian while furnishing individuals
and societies more effective protection from undeserved abuse.
Of course, the operational measures would be much more
complex and more dependent upon a better understanding of
causation than could ever possibly be the case in a punitive
system. A trend toward transformations in this direction is evi-