As I explained in the post that introduced that series, after years of thinking about our world and the systems in which humans participate, especially from the perspective of a concern for health and sustainability, I came to the conclusion that this question and these related topics are crucial. That is why I invested over a year in preparing for and writing these pages.

They include pages covering:

• Ponerology – The field dedicated to studying “evil” from a scientific perspective
• Psychopathy
• Pathocracy - A term that describes a human system in which the power structures are run by psychopathological people and the value system is dominated by psychopathological values
• Review of the seminal book Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes. by Andrew M. Lobaczewski

Of the four, the most important and the one that encompasses all of the others is the page on ponerology.

What originally convinced me that these subjects deserved priority was the combined impact of several books that all came to my attention within a period of just a few years before I wrote the series, including:

• The Sociopath Next Door
• Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work
• Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend
• Political Ponerology

And, as I worked on it, the flow of relevant material coming to my attention only increased. During that span of over a year, I encountered an almost constant stream of articles, books, stories, news, television shows, movies, research studies, websites and other resources touching on these topics.

It was inspiring to witness the escalating attention being paid to these matters because it precipitated a realization that my own interest in them was just part of a rising consciousness of and intensifying curiosity about them throughout our society. And it was validating that many of these resources put forth information strongly supporting the merit of some of the arguments I had put forth in my writing. This affirmation helped me sustain the energy to keep going until the writings were finished.

However, while I was still busy actively writing the pages, I didn’t have time to stop and really focus on these new developments or incorporate them into the work. Had I tried to, I may never have finished. So I made a choice to only include information and resources that I had digested prior to the point at which I started working on them.

But once the series was released and shared and I’d had a chance to catch my breath, I finally had time and energy freed up to explore my interest in the more recent ponerology-related developments. And those developments continued to pop up on a regular basis.

For many months, I had in the back of my mind the idea that I should start cataloguing this emerging material for a variety of reasons ranging from a desire to further support the writing I had done to promoting these developments to those who wanted to keep up to date. But, I continued to put off doing so.

Finally, around a month ago, the universe gave me the nudge I needed, in the form of a coincidence, to take action. (more…)

Andrew M. Lobaczewski and his colleagues sacrificed and struggled for decades to carry out the work that led to Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes - their explanation of how human systems at all levels, but especially at the political level, can be hijacked by a pathological minority with conditions, such as psychopathy and others, involving reduced empathy and conscience.

I spent years studying their work and the related work of many other authors and invested over a year in conveying my own thoughts on subjects associated with ponerology.

But with one pointed headline and nine paragraphs of humor, the Onion will probably get more people thinking about this topic than all of us. (more…)

After writing and sharing this post, I did some more research and discovered a video in which Kokesh addresses this topic head-on in response to a viewer named Spencer Thiessen who has come to the conclusion that his stance on whether anarchism is feasible rests on “one simple question”:

“Is there a way that anarchy can sustainably survive the psychopathic tendencies present in human nature?”

The video is relatively short at just under 6 minutes long, so I encourage you to watch it first and then you can read my responses below. (more…)

In the debate, moderated by Professor Hip Hughes for POLIPOP, and featuring some moderate NSFW language, they trade views regarding whether government is a beneficial or harmful institution.

The debate mirrors a ton of other arguments I’ve seen between anarchists and statists in that it keeps revolving around a central issue, yet this issue is never really articulated clearly enough.

The key question is this:

Here is the question that was submitted as a comment to the previously mentioned post:

I have recently come across a therapist using this IFS model. Because I had never heard of it before, I decided to do some research on it. However, when I looked for peer-reviewed studies on it, there is very little. There are, in fact, no randomized controlled trials or any other type of research comparing IFS to other therapies (or even a waitlist control group). There are simply anecdotal case reports, which are not very useful for identifying whether or not a treatment is effective. Take the placebo effect, for example - many people will say that a pill they believe to be a novel, active medication, has helped them when in fact it is a sugar pill.

Given this information, what has made you decide that the IFS model is so worthwhile?

And here is my response:
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In fact, the book that was perhaps most influential in focusing me on and teaching me about this topic claims, in its editor’s preface, that it will be the most important book you’ll ever read. And because of the importance of the topic, it just might be right. And, in turn, the pages that I’ve written related to this topic are probably the most important that I’ve ever written.

These pages will especially be of interest to anyone with a desire to understand, broadly and/or deeply, why our world is as it is.

They will be of even more intense interest to:

• Anyone who has wondered why our world is so rife with seemingly intractable problems that we are apparently unable, despite applying our best conceived philosophies and methods, to curtail

• Those intrigued by issues of justice and injustice

But, in truth, these pages are of great relevance in many ways to all of us.

Until now, I’ve kept a tight lid on information about these pages. But now, it’s finally time to announce their release to the world!

First, however, some background…
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A couple of days later, on Neil Cavuto’s television show on Fox, I saw Michelle Fields of the The Daily Caller calling these “Patriotic Millionaires” hypocrites.

I then found this article where she insinuates the same.

Here is the basis for her charge of hypocrisy: (more…)

I wasn’t disappointed. After listening to that interview, I’ve gone on to listen to a great deal of material from Freedomain Radio in the weeks since. I find Stefan Molyneux to be an extremely intelligent thinker with an impressive breadth of knowledge who focuses on matters of central importance and articulates his ideas brilliantly. He has a deep grasp of the interconnectedness of the personal and political, and, unlike many other thinkers who exhibit what I call the “psychology gap,” Molyneux recognizes and focuses on how psychological and developmental issues color, and often are even primary, in determining our positions on events in the external world. I disagree with him on some fundamental issues and there are a few disciplines that I wish he integrated more into his approach, as I think they might influence some of his conclusions a bit (just as there are many areas in which he is far more schooled than I am). But there are also many areas of agreement and, even when we disagree, I always find his material stimulating.

In fact, his ideas were stimulating enough to provoke my last blog post, which was a response to his discussion with Neil Kiernan of V-Radio about The Venus Project, a futuristic form of community promoted in the Zeitgeist series of films. And it’s likely that in the future I’ll post more pieces promoting, building on, clarifying or responding to – whether with agreement, disagreement or both – some of his ideas and work.

Now, every Sunday at 2 PM EST, Stefan has a two hour call in show where listeners can raise just about any topic they want with him. They may question or challenge his ideas, ask for his views on world events or philosophy, or request his take on issues in their own lives. In this post, I want to clarify some Internal Family Systems-related issues raised in his call in show from last Sunday.

As the name might suggest, the Internal Family Systems Model is a psychological approach based on the idea that, just as we each have “external” families composed of a variety of family members, we each also have an analogous family of “parts” within our own psyches. Stefan is fond of cleverly referring to that internal family as the “MEcosystem.” I really like this name for it, as well.

Well, when I looked at the list of topics discussed on last week’s call in show, one of them was “The Limits of the MEcosystem.” This title intrigued me even more than most IFS discussions. In the last several years, I have been quite committed to learning about and promoting fields such as Appreciative Inquiry, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Imago Relationship Therapy and Internal Family Systems Therapy, which offer hope for – and in my experience sometimes really do deliver - surprisingly powerful constructive change through peaceful approaches. However, I have been just as concerned about there being adequate understanding and awareness of the limits of such fields’ effectiveness. For example, on my page about NVC, I took the time to add a section entitled “The Limits of Nonviolent Communication’s Effectiveness”.
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Neil Kiernan - Host of V-Radio and a proponent of The Venus Project, which is discussed in Peter Joseph’s Zeitgeist series of films and seeks to implement a Resource-Based Economy (RBE)

and

I have to say it was one of the best and most important dialogues I’ve heard of late. This is exactly the kind of discussion we desperately need more of and I hope that they will continue it. While I don’t fit snugly into either of the Molyneux or the Zeitgeist/Venus Project camps, I’ve greatly enjoyed exploring the ideas put forth by both and I find that both make valuable contributions to the dialogue about how we bring about a healthier, more sustainable future for humanity and the rest of our ecosystem.
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Today I was given a copy of an article from the February 5, 2011 Wall Street Journal by Matt Ridley entitled “A Key Lesson of Adulthood: The Need to Unlearn”. The title certainly struck me as important for two reasons.

1. The need to unlearn has been a central theme in my life. I spent much of my twenties unlearning a tremendous amount of what was fed to me as truth growing up. And through my writing, coaching, activism and promotion of the work of various change agents such as Daniel Quinn (whose book The Story of B focuses on just such an unlearning process), I have long championed the importance of being willing to question dogmatic beliefs.
2. We live in an incredibly destructive, unsustainable culture that is driven by the actions of hypocritical adults who act on the world stage in greedy, violent ways that, at home, would get their own children sent to their rooms – if not worse. So I am always fascinated to read commentary by this culture’s adults on what “adulthood” in such a society is considered to really be about.

And so I dove in. (more…)