gestive, even if the “moral” criteria used are just an “ad hoc”
invention. Any act can thus be proved to be immoral or moral
by means of such paramoralisms utilized as active suggestion,
and people whose minds will succumb to such reasoning can
always be found.
In searching for an example of an evil act whose negative
value would not elicit doubt in any social situation, ethics
scholars frequently mention child abuse. However, psycholo-
gists often meet with paramoral affirmations of such behavior
in their practice, such as in the above-mentioned family with
the prefrontal field damage in the eldest sister. Her younger
brothers emphatically insisted that their sister’s sadistic treat-
ment of her son was due to her exceptionally high moral quali-
fications, and they believed this by auto-suggestion. Paramoral-
ism somehow cunningly evades the control of our common
sense, sometimes leading to acceptance or approval of behavior
that is openly pathological.73
Paramoralistic statements and suggestions so often accom-
pany various kinds of evil that they seem quite irreplaceable.
Unfortunately, it has become a frequent phenomenon for indi-
viduals, oppressive groups, or patho-political systems to invent
ever-new moral criteria for someone’s convenience. Such sug-
gestions often partially deprive people of their moral reasoning
and deform its development in youngsters. Paramoralism facto-
ries have been founded worldwide, and a ponerologist finds it
hard to believe that they are managed by psychologically nor-
mal people.
73 Many examples of recent years include children beaten to death by their
parents for “religious reasons”. The parents may claim that the child is demon
possessed, or that they have behaved so loosely that only beating them will
“straighten them out”. Another example is circumcision, both for boys and
girls by certain ethnic groups. The Indian custom of suttee, where the wife
climbs on the funeral pyre of her husband; or in Muslim cultures where, if a
woman is raped, it is the duty of her male family members to kill her to wipe
away the shame from the family name. All of these acts are claimed to be
“moral”, but they are not, they are pathological and criminal. [Editor’s note.]
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151
The conversive74 features in the genesis of paramoralisms
seem to prove they are derived from mostly subconscious re-
jection (and repression from the field of consciousness) of
something completely different, which we call the voice of
conscience.
A ponerologist can nevertheless indicate many observations
supporting the opinion that various pathological factors partici-
pate in the tendency to use paramoralisms. This was the case in
the above-mentioned family. When it occurs with a moralizing
interpretation, this tendency intensifies in egotists and hyster-
ics, and its causes are similar. Like all conversive phenomena,
the tendency to use paramoralisms is psychologically conta-
gious. That explains why we observe it among people raised by
individuals in whom it was developed alongside pathological
factors.
This may be a good place to reflect that true moral law is
born and exists independently of our judgments in this regard,
and even of our ability to recognize it. Thus, the attitude re-
quired for such understanding is scientific, not creative: we
must humbly subordinate our mind to the apprehended reality.
That is when we discover the truth about man, both his weak-
nesses and values, which shows us what is decent and proper
with respect to other people and other societies.
~~~
Reversive blockade: Emphatically insisting upon something
which is the opposite of the truth blocks the average person’s
mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates
of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in
the “golden mean” between the truth and its opposite, winding
up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like
this do not realize that this effect is precisely the intent of the
person who subjects them to this method. If the counterfeit of
the truth is the opposite of a moral truth, at the same time, it
simultaneously represents an extreme paramoralism, and bears
its peculiar suggestiveness.
We rarely see this method being used by normal people;
even if raised by the people who abused it; they usually only
indicate its results in their characteristic difficulties in appre-
74 See note p. 46.
152
PONEROLOGY
hending reality properly. Use of this method can be included
within the above-mentioned special psychological knowledge
developed by psychopaths concerning the weaknesses of hu-
man nature and the art of leading others into error. Where they
are in rule, this method is used with virtuosity, and to an extent
conterminous with their power.
~~~
Information selection and substitution: The existence of
psychological phenomena known to pre-Freudian philosophical
students of the subconscious bears repeating. Unconscious
psychological processes outstrip conscious reasoning, both in
time and in scope, which makes many psychological phenom-
ena possible: including those generally described as conver-
sive, such as subconscious blocking out of conclusions, the
selection, and, also, substitution of seemingly uncomfortable
premises.
We speak of blocking out conclusions if the inferential
process was proper in principle and has almost arrived at a
conclusion and final comprehension within the act of internal
projection, but becomes stymied by a preceding directive from
the subconscious, which considers it inexpedient or disturbing.
This is primitive prevention of personality disintegration,
which may seem advantageous; however, it also prevents all
the advantages which could be derived from consciously elabo-
rated conclusion and reintegration. A conclusion thus rejected
remains in our subconscious and in a more unconscious way
causes the next blocking and selection of this kind. This can be
extremely harmful, progressively enslaving a person to his own
subconscious, and is often accompanied by a feeling of tension
and bitterness.
We speak of selection of premises whenever the feedback
goes deeper into the resulting reasoning and from its database
thus deletes and represses into the subconscious just that piece
of information which was responsible for arriving at the un-
comfortable conclusion. Our subconscious then permits further
logical reasoning, except that the outcome will be erroneous in
direct proportion to the actual significance of the repressed
data. An ever-greater number of such repressed information is
collected in our subconscious memory. Finally, a kind of habit
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153
seems to take over: similar material is treated the same way