The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was no consensus. Anyone wishing to merge the article is welcome to do so as a normal editorial action. Stifle (talk) 09:48, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For some background, the article is currently about the concept of "political ponerology" as proposed by Andrzej Łobaczewski in his book Political Ponerology (Polish: Ponerologia polityczna. Nauka o naturze zła w adaptacji do zagadnień politycznychcode: pol promoted to code: pl ). The book was published by Red Pill Press or Pilule Rouge, a publishing house owned by Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk, the leaders of a new religious group named the Fellowship of the Cosmic Mind (see here for a list of everyone on the board of directors of the Fellowship, here for proof that most of the directors of the Fellowship are involved in Quantum Future Group, here for proof that Red Pill Press/Pilule Rouge is owned by QFG; in addition, Red Pill Press's homepage shows that most of their books were written by directors of the Fellowship or otherwise related to the Fellowship, as well as having an affiliates list which only list sites affiliated with the Fellowship).
The book itself outlines an alleged phenomenon known as "pathocracy". The ideas presented in this book, however, are a deeply antisemetic, racist, and eugenicist conspiracy theory (this article explains the conspiracy theory in far better detail than I could). The publisher itself is also known for parroting conspiracy theories about Bush and the Mossad committing 9/11 and regularly platformingAleksandr Dugin, among other things.
The article doesn't mention any of this. In fact, the article promoted the so-called study of "political ponerology" as if it were a legitimate field of study rather than part of a conspiracy theory for over 14 years. The article was initially written by an editor with an undisclosed connection to the Fellowship (see WP:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_187#User:Poneros) and, before this morning, had only four sources, Two of them were the book itself, one of them was a news outlet named Signs of the Times or Sott.net, which is also owned by the Fellowship, and one of them was pages 37-40 of Kazimierz Dąbrowski's The Dynamics of Concepts, in which Dąbrowski supposedly supported Łobaczewski's assertion that he and other researchers worked together on the book in a secret research group. I managed to track down a copy of the book yesterday and found that the relevant pages did not mention anything to do with Łobaczewski, ponerology, pathocracy, or any sort of secret research group. The closest thing to that within those pages was Dąbrowski talking about negative integration and its connection to psychopathy before talking about positive disintegration. If anyone wants to verify this, we're willing to send a copy of the pages to them.
At this point, I think it'd be best to blow it up and start over, changing the article's subject to be about the book and the spread of its ideas, if we are to have an article about this at all. In its current form, there is nothing worth saving in this article. ~Red of Arctic Circle System (talk) 20:55, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I agree that it would make more sense to have an article named after and focused on the book, rather than the "field" named after it. Whether deletion and rewriting or moving and editing is best, I don't know. I'm interested in this book, but much information about it would count as original research. One source missing from Wikipedia has been a 00s video interview with Lobaczewski (the interviewer is Henry See, book co-editor, who later left the cult). I rewrote and maintain the RationalWiki article on the cult leader and cult, and note that the message of the book has been grossly distorted and abused by the cult (and in turn some other alt-right figures). In an (incomplete) essay on Political Ponerology, I give the book and its author the benefit of the doubt, summarize part of it, try to separate its message from that of the cult, and argue that it contains some valuable ideas but not a current science. I welcome further discussion on those topics, including critical, on RationalWiki or in proper places here on Wikipedia. --JoelKP (talk) 03:22, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize if this comes off as rude, but you should probably read the Overland article if you haven't already. It's a conspiracy theory through and through, and quite an antisemetic and racist one at that. It also repeats the "supermale" myth about people with XYY syndrome if I'm remembering correctly. Also the publisher of the original Polish-language version is uh... Oddly obsessed with the "Jewish question". And they also published a Polish translation of Henry Ford's The International Jew. Some company named Ostoja. Similar situation with Vide Editorial who got Brazilian fascist Olavo de Carvalho to write a foreword to it. This book is awful along with the ideas presented in it. ~Cherri of Arctic Circle System (talk) 02:07, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I did read it after seeing the link here, and it's the best critical article I've found so far, and in that way was a surprise. I've been thinking over my essay, which I linked to, and possible changes to it. Some changes are warranted; it already mentioned that Lobaczewski's psychiatry has developed along a different path since the psychiatry of the early 20th century, in some ways remaining outdated, and that bridging that gap is not done in the book; but more can be said about flaws outside outdated views on genes, for example. The most troubling new thing for me to consider is possible links to old Polish far right, which in turn brings a lot more into question. I hadn't come across information about the publisher of the Polish version before, nor (which I saw there) heard of another book being published. Much else about the book and author has seemed to look very different depending on whether you see it as a final product vs. take the idealistic message about future scientific development of a proposed field seriously, and whether or not it's applied to world events in the style of yellow journalism (as both Sott.net and at least one source criticized in the Overland article seem to me to do). --JoelKP (talk) 03:45, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think there was a third book written by him as well, though it's harder to find. Though do you mind elaborating on the "final product vs idealistic message" thing a bit? I'm not quite sure what you mean. ~Opal of Arctic Circle System (talk) 05:00, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
He was apparently also working on some new book he couldn't complete before he passed away (mentioned by Sott). On another topic, the lack of evidence elsewhere for a secret research group, I think that Sott/Fellowship/etc. would have long-since shown anything they had found in their articles, if they had anything to show, so as to boost their message. (I already had the Dabrowski book, from Bill Tillier's positivedisintegration.com, and can confirm that there's nothing there.)
To elaborate, Political Ponerology contains a good, eloquent pro-science idealism suggesting that no answers are fixed and scientific progress should be the basis for how humanity's problems are solved. That part is very nice in my view, but in the book it accompanies a very mixed bag. I think that some who like the book basically ignore, or regard as historical curiosities, the outdated psychiatric categories and ideas, and mainly find value in the psychological ideas that can be considered together with modern and more varied ideas and views. Such ideas may or may not work out for use in modern theories, but in any case don't have the problems of bigotry and related baggage which the more plainly flawed stuff does. The mixture of things in the book means different things can be made out of it. I do find it weird that Lobaczewski clung so hard to plainly outdated and flawed ideas, though.
I've updated my own essay, and whether you find something in it useful or not, now I think it has a good-enough criticism to not be misleading (I got a lot out of Glazov's Overland article). --JoelKP (talk) 01:52, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hold on, you're saying that the book was just on positivedisintegration.com for free the entire time? And we didn't have to watch WorldCat for months just to find a library copy? ~Nai of Arctic Circle System (talk) 21:29, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's not for free, but Tillier maintains an archive, with permission from the copyright holder, of scanned and OCR'ed copies of nearly all of Dabrowski's works. Currently it's $25 for all of it. I got a copy back in 2013. The link to that page doesn't stand out so much on his main page, though.
As an aside, Tillier was in contact with, but then had a falling out with, some in the Cassiopaea group back in the 00s. They wanted to work with him, but had disagreements about both psychopathy and personality development. He did not find evidence in LKJ's books for her claims of having gone through an advanced personality development. (The reason this is not mentioned in the RW article is that there's no public evidence to link to. It's in a member's area of the Cassiopaea forum.) JoelKP (talk) 22:18, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The proper Dabrowski term is Level V, or secondary integration. This is, in the teaching of the Cassiopaea group, associated with the esoteric idea of the "second birth", or becoming "man no. 5" in the (unrelated) terms of the teaching of Gurdjieff, which in earlier years was more central to the idea of the group as an "esoteric school". (This stuff is in their public forum.) LKJ claims in her books to have gone through that "second birth". Tillier finds some mystics to show traits described by Dabrowski as corresponding with his higher stages, and that's simply Dabrowskian. But mysticism doesn't make nor break a multilevel person, it just ties into overexcitabilities. The gossipy part is about Tillier looking over LKJ's works and basically dismissing her as just hysterical. JoelKP (talk) 04:04, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Ponerology. Some above have noted that the two articles don't really intersect at the current moment, but there are sources that explicitly connect the idea of the applications of this in the political domain to the remainder of ponerology. The book itself is borderline, and the material is not so fringe as to be wholly excluded from the literature (see 1 and 2, each of which cite the book as parts of their literature reviews). Rather than totally removing the article (and deleting associated redirects), and alternative to deletion of merging into the article on Ponerology would allow us to preserve the content that's been covered by RS other than the author. The concept of "pathocracy", which currently redirects to this article (and was more covered in this April 25 version of the article), also itself is covered by a variety of sources, including Psychology Today (1, 2), The Psychologist, the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Times Literary Supplement, The Conversation, and Passion killers: The art of passion killing in the age of stress and anxiety. Some of these are sharply critical of the concept of "Pathocracy", but the fact that there is so much coverage shows that there is something GNG-notable here. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 00:58, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The crux of our point wasn't that the Political ponerology article needed to be deleted for failing to meet WP:GNG, but rather that it should be deleted per WP:TNT. In its current state, there's nothing worth saving, but the book is notable. I would also like to note that the April 25th version of the article was stripped down because the only source for the "Psychopathology and politics" section was the book itself. ~Nai of Arctic Circle System (talk) 08:01, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Arctic Circle System: Per WP:TNT, if the article's content is useless (including all the versions in history) but the title might be useful, then delete the content to help encourage a new article (emphasis mine). Simply put, that was never the case for this article; its first revision contains content that is useful (i.e. who coined the term, the term's origin, and where the theory originated). As such, the WP:TNT argument holds little weight, since the essay itself does not so much as make the claim that we should delete articles based on their current state. Doing so, of course, is against deletion policy and WP:ATD-E notes that reduction of an article to a stub is actually a perfectly acceptable alternative to deletion. The reason that I advocate for a merge (WP:ATD-M) is that I think the topic of "Political ponerology" could naturally become a child article of "ponerology", but a-la-WP:PAGEDECIDE there are times when it is better to cover notable topics, that clearly should be included in Wikipedia, as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context. For now, I think merging is the way to go, though an article on the book itself might be worthwhile if someone wants to make that as well. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 16:16, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Mhawk10: Other than basic details about the book and its author, none of the revisions contained anything particularly useful. But I guess that would be beside the point if we end up deleting to merge it with the ponerology article anyway.
As for the book being borderline in terms of it being fringe and/or a conspiracy theory, from what I've read of it, the core premise seems to be that a sinister pathological minority, a majority (or at least a plurality) of whom just so happen to be Jews and people of mixed ethnicity who just so happen to follow The Protocols of the Elders of Zion infect societies and governments and destroys them from within as part of a process in which good times cause people to "progressively lose sight of the need for profound reflection, introspection, knowledge of others, and an understanding of life's complicated laws" leading to bad times which "produce experience, good sense, moderation, and a certain amount of psychological knowledge" which in turn lead back to good times. The book also states around the beginning that "The irretrievable disappearance of the second version also meant the loss of the overwhelming majority of statistical data and facts which would have been so valuable and conclusive for specialists in the field." In other words, he didn't have the vast majority of his evidence nor information on where that evidence came from and we're supposed to take him at his word. And to elaborate on the "people of mixed ethnicity" thing, he believed that people of mixed ethnicity are prone to a form of psychopathology known as skirtoidism. He supposedly got this information from Ernst Kretschmer, but there don't seem to be any other records of him expressing such an idea. He also promoted the "supermale" myth about people with XYY syndrome on page 86 of the second edition of the book, albeit not by name. The book itself was published by a cult that claims the Mossad did 9/11, another publishing company known for publishing the works of Brazilian far-right conspiracy theorist Olavo de Carvalho, and a third publishing company which published various antisemetic works, including a Polish translation of Henry Ford's The International Jew. Taking this into consideration, it reads to me like this whole "pathocracy" thing is an ableist, racist, and antisemetic conspiracy theory that was written to sound intellectual enough and appeal to existing biases against people with personality disorders enough that some mainstream sources would uncritically promote its ideas. But perhaps that's just me. I'm also not sure whether I read your post correctly or not, so I apologize if I misread it. That being said, the book, its ideas, and its perception in popular culture is notable enough to be covered on Wikipedia, though I cannot say I have a very charitable view of the subject. At this point I'm probably rambling so I'll just cut it off here. ~Cherri of Arctic Circle System (talk) 10:29, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a specialist in how wikipedia works, I usually read it, I'm surprised to have found this entry marked for deletion. Something I personally had never seen in other articles.
I have read the book, and I do not agree with the reasons presented to delete it from wikipedia. Andrew M. Lobaczewski had many problems when he emigrated to the United States, many publishers did not let him publish the book there either, the publisher that published it many years later than he would have wanted, was discarded, since many others did not want to do it.
It is slanderous that there is antisemitic content in the book. People have to read it. There is only one book written by this man as far I know. He is dead since 2008.
There is talk of genetic differences of various races, which within many other factors, cultural, historical, etc. they also intervene in that there are differences regarding the progress of the pathocracy. What are studies from other sources, but the persecution or discrimination of any race or culture is not advocated, anyone who has interpreted that has not read the book.
In any case, it seems to me an error to try to eliminate a content from Wikipedia by judging the author, by judging a small part of the book, which does not affect the general subject at all, because of the whole of the book, which is impressive.
In any case, it seems to me an error to try to eliminate a content from wikipedia by judging the author, by judging a small part of the book, which does not affect the general subject at all, for the whole of the book, which for me personally is impressive and it seems a fundamental work of inspiration and prevention of great disasters. 80.30.19.216 (talk) 08:43, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think you misunderstand what's going on. Articles are occasionally marked for deletion for the reasons listed on Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Reasons for deletion or WP:TNT (this is not an exhaustive list, though I think it's close). This is a normal part of Wikipedia's editorial process. We have no desire to eliminate coverage of the book from Wikipedia because we find its contents objectionable, and I don't think JoelKP or Mhawk10 want that either.
The reason why we're trying to get this article deleted is because from its inception it has been plagued with issues. For one thing, it was initially created by someone with an undisclosed connection to the publisher of the English, Spanish, French, Russian, German, and Dutch translations of the book (see here) who added disinformation to the article (see above). In addition, the article greatly misrepresented the subject it was covering, failing to follow WP:NPOV guidelines. It treated the ideas presented in Łobaczewski's book as if they were proven facts, omitting any and all criticism of the book, its publishers, and others who popularized his ideas. In addition, we feel that it would be more appropriate for the article to be about Political Ponerology the book rather than political ponerology the concept, as it would enable better coverage of the book, its author, its publishers, and the spread of its ideas. And as such, we feel the best way to facilitate better coverage of the subject is to delete the current incarnation of the article and rewrite it from scratch.
There is also no evidence to suggest that either Łobaczewski's or Laura Knight-Jadczyk's account of his difficulties publishing the book over the years are true. Same with his assertion that he was part of a secret research group in the first place. I should also mention that he wrote two other books, but they are not particularly relevant to this subject and they have never been published in any language other than Polish.
As for your assertion that it is slanderous to suggest that the book and its author are antisemetic, this article written by Ramon Glazov breaks explains the racism and antisemitism within the book as well as other antisemetic remarks made by its author, and criticizes the book's core ideas as well. In addition, the book has been published by a rogues' gallery of antisemetic conspiracy theorists, including Ostoja Publishing House, which publishes works in support of Polish nationalism including a Polish translation of Henry Ford's The International Jew, Vide Editorial, which is known for publishing works written by far-right conspiracy theorist Olavo de Carvalho, and Red Pill Press, which is run by a cult which claims that the Mossad did 9/11. Given all of this, I believe there is enough evidence to put forth the suggestion that the book and its ideas are antisemetic.
I drop the matter, my general incompetence over who administers this, the rules and all, puts me at a serious disadvantage. I see that the judgment of antisemitism is by association, and association with association, and association with association. It is a forced argument to discredit a person. But none of that serves as a justification for judging an author who has nothing to do with anti-Semitic positions. I think all of this reminds me of this, the topic of Goldin's law.
I will continue defending the work of Andrzej M. Łobaczewski, because to me personally it seems transcendental to explain the great misfortunes of the present times. And an issue, that of psychopathy in society, which should be studied more seriously. 80.30.19.216 (talk) 23:04, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure he regularly said stuff like "I did not know, and nobody in Poland realized, just how much influence the "security apparatus" [Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (SB) or State Security Service], with the help of Jews, had on Polish emigrants living abroad." in interviews as well. ~Red of Arctic Circle System (talk) 05:13, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have read the entire book of this deceased psychiatrist, and none of that appears. Source? Link that interview.
Next I am going to leave all the fragments of the book where the three letter word j+e+w appears, isolated or inside an other word. That word appears 7 times in the entire book of 105762 words. 2 times is the publisher, not the author. 1 time is an index.
1. Page 38 "[...]If a collection were to be made of all those books which describes the horrors of wars, the cruelties of revolutions, and the bloody deeds of political leaders and their systems, many readers would avoid such a library. Ancient works would be placed alongside books by contemporary historians and reporters.The documentary treatises on German extermination and concentration camps, and of the extermination of the Jewish Nation, furnish approximate statistical data and describe the well organized “labor” of the destruction of human life, using a properly calm language, and providing a concrete basis for the acknowledgment of the nature of evil. The autobiography of Rudolf Hoess, the commander of camps in Oswiecim (Auschwitz) and Brzezinka (Birkenau), is a classic example of how an intelligent psychopathic individual with a deficit of human emotion thinks and feels[...]"
2. Page 112. Editor's note (It's not Andrew Lobaczeski) "[...]Vassily Grossman was a Soviet citizen, a Ukrainian Jew born in 1905. A Communist, he became a war correspondent, working for the army paper Red Star - a job which took him to the front lines of Stalingrad and ultimately to Berlin. He was among the first to see the results of the death camps, and published the first account of a death camp - Treblinka - in any language. After the war, he seems to have lost his faith in him. He wrote his immense novel, Life and Fate (Zhizn i Sudba) in the 1950s and - in the period of the Krush-chev thaw, which had seen Alexander Solzhenitsyn allowed to publish A Day on the Life of Ivan Denisovich - he submitted the manuscript to a literary journal in 1960 for publication. But Solzhenitsyn was one thing, Grossman another: his manuscript was confiscated, as were the sheets of carbon paper and typewriter ribbons he had used to write it. Suslov, the Politbureau member in charge of ideology, is reported as having said it could not be published for 200 years. However, it was smuggled out on microfilm to the west by Vladimir Voinovich, and published, first in France in 1980, then in English in 1985. Why the 200 year ban? Because Life and Fate commits what was still, in a ‘liberal’ environment, the unthinkable sin of arguing for the moral equivalence of Nazism and Soviet communism.[Editor's note][...]
3. Page 124 [...]Human nature does in fact tend to be naughty, especially when the schizoids embitter other people's lives. When they become wrapped up in situations of serious stress, however, the schizoid's failings cause them to collapse easily. The capacity for thought is thereupon characteristically stifled, and frequently the schizoids fall into reactive psychotic states so similar in appearance to schizophrenia that they lead to misdiagnoses. The common factor in the varieties of this anomaly is a dull pallor of emotion and lack of feeling for the psychological realities, an essential factor in basic intelligence. This can be attributed to some incomplete quality of the instinctive substratum, which works as though founded on shifting sand. Low emotional pressure enables them to develop proper speculative reasoning, which is useful in non-humanistic spheres of activity, but because of their one-sidedness, they tend to consider themselves intellectually superior to “ordinary” people. The quantitative frequency of this anomaly varies among races and nations: low among Blacks, the highest among Jews. Estimates of this frequency range from negligible up to 3%. In Poland it may be estimated as 0.7% of population. My observations suggest this anomaly is autosomally hereditary. A schizoid's ponenological activity should be evaluated in two aspects. On the small scale, such people cause their families trouble, easily turn into tools of intrigue in the hands of clever and unscrupulous individuals, and generally do a poor job of raising children. Their tendency to see human reality in the doctrinaire and simplistic manner they consider “proper” i.e. “black or white” - transforms their frequently good intentions into bad results. However, their ponenogenic role can have macrosocial implications if their attitude toward human reality and their tendency to invent great doctrines are put to paper and duplicated in large editions. In spite of their typical deficits, or even an openly schizoidal declaration, their readers do not realize what the authors' characters are really like. Ignorant of the true condition of the author, such uninformed readers thed to interpret such works in a manner corresponding to their own nature. The minds of nnormal people tend toward corrective interpretation due to the participation of their own richer, psychological world view.[...]
4 and 5. Page 186 [...] The conviction that Karl Marx is the best example of this is correct as he was the best-known figure of that kind. Frostig 91, a psychiatrist of the old school, included Engels and others into a category he called “bearded schizoidal fanatics”. The famous writings attributed to “Zionist Wise Men” at the turn of the century begin with a typically schizoidal declaration.92 The nineteenth century, especially its latter half, appears to have been a time of exceptional activity on the part of schizoidal individuals, often but not always of Jewish descent. After all we have to remember that 97% of all Jews do not manifest this anomaly, and that it also appears among all European nations, albeit to a markedly lesser extent. Our inheritance from this period includes world-images, scientific traditions, and legal concepts flavored with the shoddy ingredients of a schizoidal apprehension of reality. Humanists are prepared to understand that era and its legacy within categories characterized by their own traditions. They search for societal, ideational, and moral causes for known phenomena. Such an explanation, however, can never constitute the whole truth, since it ignores the biological factors which participated in the genesis of the phenomena. Schizoidia is the most frequent factor, albeit not the only one.[...]
6. Page 186 Editor's note (It's not Andrew Lobaczeski) "The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is now well known to have been a hoaxed attribution to Jews. However, the contents of the Protocols are clearly not “hoaxed ideas” since a reasonable assessment of the events in the United States over the past 50 years or so gives ample evidence of the application of these Protocols in order to bring about the current Neocon administration. Anyone who wishes to understand what has happened in the U.S. only needs to read the Protocols to understand that some group of deviant individuals took them to heart. The document, “Project For A New American Century”, produced by the Neoconservatives reads as if it had been inspired by the Protocols. [Editor's note.]"
7. Page 327. Index. "[...]How interpreted by normal person, 186 Pathological acceptance of, 187 Three reactions to, 187 Schizoida, 214, 223 Schizoidia, 123, 137, 186, 188 And Jews, 186 Impose conceptual views on others, 185 Schizophrenia, 123, 124, 165,167[...]"
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.