As a result, she may end up with leftover funds and the need to decide where to allocate them. As is only fitting, she has expressed interest in donating them to organizations that focus on electoral reforms and voting rights. Her website currently says that she will be accumulating a list of potential recipients and then there will be a vote – appropriately held in ranked choice fashion – in which those who donated to the initiative can decide which organizations will receive funds.

I have quite strong feelings about who should be among those to receive these funds. So I wrote a letter to Stein’s organization expressing them. Here is what I wrote:

Back in 2003, I learned about Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). I instantly recognized it as one of the key reforms needed to make most other reforms possible and to ever allow third parties to have any success in our country. I became so passionate about this that I coordinated a campaign that, in 2004, ultimately ended up passing IRV for city elections in Ferndale, Michigan.

You can see the site from our campaign at http://www.firv.org

I had never run such a campaign and didn’t know much about how to do it at the time. Luckily the folks at what was then called the Center for Voting and Democracy – now called Fairvote (http://www.fairvote.org) – allowed me to attend a conference they were holding in Washington, D.C. free of charge. There I learned everything I needed to bring back home and make our campaign a success and also made tons of valuable connections. Fairvote also helped fund our campaign and even sent someone from their organization out to Michigan to meet with us.

Unfortunately, despite the measure passing, IRV is still not implemented in Ferndale due to some technicalities.

See: https://www.systemsthinker.com/blog/2013/10/ferndale-failure-implement-irv/

But the campaign was a great help in spreading the word about IRV to many people and was instrumental in my evolution as an activist and more.

I’ve written quite a lot about election reform myself, helping to continue to spread the word:

See: https://www.systemsthinker.com/politics/polissues/electionreform.shtml

Other groups over the years have reached out to me as they tried to pass their own measures. And all of this was made possible by Fairvote.

12 years later, I remain a HUGE fan of Fairvote and I remain in touch with them. I believe they are not only the best election reform organization in America, but one of the most important non-profits of any kind in the country. Their Executive Director, Rob Richie, is a fantastic guy. And they also have Krist Novoselic, the former Nirvana bassist, bringing some notoriety to them, as well, as their Chair.

Not only do I think Fairvote deserves a great share of any leftover recount money, but I think it would be a travesty for them not to receive it. Nobody has been fighting harder or better for longer than them for Instant Runoff Voting/Ranked Choice Voting, as well as proportional representation. They support so many local campaigns around the country. Please make sure they get some of those recount funds. It’s a no-brainer!

One final note: As contentious as this election season was, one unequivocally inspiring outcome was that Maine became the first state in the nation to adopt Ranked Choice Voting. And, as always seems to be the case when progress is made in this area, Fairvote was deeply involved, supporting and promoting the campaign.

It is one of my biggest regrets that I didn’t create it sooner, even years ago, although perhaps I just couldn’t have really done so yet at that time.

Now that it is finally launched, I consider it one of the most important things I’ve ever done in the history of this website and my involvement in the online world.

And now I want to announce it – along with some background information about how it came into being and what I learned in the process – to you, my readers, as well as to the world.

The Newsletter/Email List: A Crucial Feature

I started this website in 2003.

Over the years since, as new website features and functionalities popped onto the scene, I adapted this site to patch on and incorporate those that I found useful once I learned about them.

For example, in 2007, as WordPress became more and more established, I added this blog section to the site to take advantage of some of its benefits.

When sharing tools became increasingly popular, I added the buttons you see in the sidebar and at the ends of some pieces on the site to let people easily share pages they find worthwhile via their social media or social bookmarking accounts or by email.

One feature that I learned a lot more about in the last few years is the newsletter/email list option. This is a feature that allows people to subscribe, usually by submitting their name and/or email address through a form on your website, so that you can then send them information directly by email, whether on a regular basis or at specific times when you have news or updates to offer or both.

(Note: Some of you reading this are subscribed to receive updates on posts or comments as they are added to this blog. Among those that are, some have chosen to receive these updates by email. The newsletter feature that I’m describing is separate from, in addition to, and much more in-depth than that blog subscription service.)

Many of the people I look to as experts and really trust when it comes to advice about operating on the web run a newsletter. And I’ve been subscribed to many of their newsletters over time.

I learned from them about how important it is to offer this feature. Many of them focus heavily on their newsletters and even call it central to what they do because of the various beneficial activities that it allows you to carry out, including:

• Capturing, in a sense, some portion of the traffic that flows through your website, rather than simply losing access to those visitors forever once they leave your site
• Offering special content, unavailable to anyone else, to those that subscribe
• Sharing information with subscribers over time in a more strategically sequenced fashion
• Instantly contacting many interested people with announcements when you have new projects or events about which to inform them

Carrying out all of these activities, if done well, builds relationships with your subscribers over time, strengthening the connections and communication channels between you and them, and increasing the likelihood of all sorts of mutually beneficial opportunities arising.

And, using the proper services, you can automate much of this ongoing communication process very efficiently.

The email newsletter also offers several more benefits, such as:

• Reducing your reliance on fickle traffic sources, such as Google, that can dry up at any time as algorithms change and rankings of your pages drop. Once you’ve built a strong email list with committed subscribers, that cannot be taken away from you even if Google or other traffic sources never send you another visitor.
• Providing a means by which to direct visitors that may have only seen part of your website, through links in relevant emails, to other parts of your site. This generates repeat visitors and awakens these visitors to valuable content they may otherwise not have discovered.

And there are still more benefits of the email newsletter that I could discuss, both for the person operating the newsletter and for the subscribers – a true win-win situation.

From the trusted experts, I not only learned how important it is to run a newsletter, but I also learned how it could be done.

It Was Finally Time

There was a point a few years ago where I was so convinced of the crucial importance of the newsletter/email list service that I was advising others about how indispensable the feature was for their online efforts and business. I even told them it was the most important asset they would have. I insisted that they create a newsletter and build their list and they had tremendous success with it.

Yet I still didn’t create one myself, at least not for this, my main website.

Why not?

Because, for a couple of reasons, I just didn’t feel ready.

One reason is that I knew it would require more work and energy than I was prepared to redirect from other endeavors toward this one at that time.

But, looking back, I now realize that the more important reason is that there were some philosophical issues that I still needed to resolve in my own mind before I could create the content that I really wanted subscribers to receive – the content that I’m now able to create.

The timing just wasn’t right yet.

But every day, I saw that people came to my site, enjoyed it for a while, and then left. A handful would email me and get in touch. But most, even if they enjoyed the material, would never make contact again.

Glancing over my site’s past web statistics, I realized that I had had hundreds of thousands of visitors since I began tracking analytics well and who knows how many more before that. How many of them would have liked to stay in touch – might have remained in touch now for years – but had simply lost connection with me and my work because I didn’t offer them a way to subscribe? How many opportunities of all kinds had never materialized due to the lack of this feature?

It started to eat away at me how wasteful it was that I wasn’t offering an easy way for those readers that found value in my work to stay in touch, build a stronger relationship and receive more information over time. It got so frustrating that I eventually stopped looking at my analytics anymore because I started seeing them as a running tally of lost opportunities flowing through our fingers because there was no mechanism in place to bring them to fruition.

Finally, I reached the tipping point and couldn’t put it off anymore.

So in April of this year, I finally started working on putting together my own email newsletter subscription service for SystemsThinker.com.

(Note: The rest of this post goes into detail about the process that went into setting up my newsletter and what I learned in that process, including tips that might help others wishing to set one up, before describing the content of my newsletter emails and offering you the chance to subscribe. If you simply want to subscribe, at any time, you can just do so using any of the forms on the site. Look in the top left of my sidebar or scroll down to the box at the end of this post.

Or just subscribe using this form directly below.)

Choosing an Email Service Provider

The first order of business in creating the newsletter was picking a company through which to gather and store my subscribers’ contact information and deliver my emails to them. I did a ton of research on the subject. I could write an entire post about this decision-making process and what I learned in the course of it. And I will share a little insight into some of the email service providers (ESP’s) I considered later in this post.

But, in the end, for a variety of reasons, my initial choice was to start with the free 30-Day trial from GetResponse.

Creating the Initial Emails

The next task was putting together the initial set of emails, including the email subscribers receive when they first sign up asking them to confirm their subscription and the first batch of autoresponders – emails delivered automatically at specific points after someone subscribes – beginning with the email welcoming them to the list once confirmed. I wanted to make sure to have content for a number of weeks already prepared in the pipeline before anyone signed up.

I worked extremely hard to make all of these emails the best I could make them. I really put my heart and soul and sweat into this first batch of emails for my subscribers and, as a result, I believe some of the best writing I’ve ever done, and the best expression of what is behind my work and my worldview, is represented in them. Toward the end of this write-up, I’ll talk more about the specific content that is in these emails that you receive when you subscribe.

Newsletter Setup and Challenges

With the initial emails written, it was time to properly enter all of this content into and complete the setup of my GetResponse account. Unfortunately, this process was plagued by quite a lot of technical difficulty. I could write another entire post about these difficulties which would be very detailed and complex. But just to give a basic explanation, the problems mainly had to do with this:

Due to the nature of my email content, there are a number of text elements – bullet lists, numbered lists, blockquotes, etc. – that I need to use in formatting my emails. When I used these elements, they would show up properly when I would test viewing the emails in most email clients (e.g., Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) and on most devices (e.g., desktop computers, tablets, iPhones, Android phones, etc.). But for each element there were one or two clients or devices on which the formatting would be flawed.

It’s hard to even explain how frustrating the situation became. GetResponse’s support staff was almost completely unable to help me resolve any of these problems. I spent most of my free 30-Day trial fighting with them trying to get straight answers. This is when I first reached out to some email specialists, both directly and through an email design forum, to try to receive some assistance from them. But I was simply unable to get these problems fixed at that point.

Because I went through such an ordeal interacting with their support staff, GetResponse agreed to give me a second free month in which to try to get my emails working correctly. But even with that extra month, I still couldn’t solve all the issues holding me up and they still couldn’t help me. Suffice it to say, my summer of 2014 will be remembered as a nightmarish montage of fruitless encounters with GetResponse’s support that left me unable to move forward with launching my newsletter – the newsletter I was already so regretful of not launching sooner.

As I went through this maddening summer, I came across, as well as talked with, several other people that also had similar terrible experiences with GetReponse’s support.

It got so bad that, at one point, I deleted everything from my GetResponse account and attempted to switch email service providers.

Trying Other Email Providers

Determined to find a better service, I went back to researching the other email service companies again.

I played with an account on MailChimp.

I went to AWeber at one point and even entered a lot of my data there, planning on switching to use them long-term. But, unfortunately, AWeber couldn’t offer certain features that I really wanted.

I eventually reached out to some more email specialists for advice. After talking with them about the issues I was having and considering all the factors, I realized that I simply couldn’t do what I really wanted to do with my newsletter anywhere but with GetResponse.

Returning to GetResponse

So, in September, finally committed/resigned to making the best of things using their service, I ended up re-entering all of my information and settings back into my GetResponse account.

Completing the Setup

Finally, after a huge ordeal – and I do mean huge – complete with more fighting with GetResponse’s support staff, more reaching out to email specialists and, above all, learning a bunch of email coding myself, I managed, through enormous amounts of testing, testing, testing, to figure out ways to format all of the text elements I needed to use so that they would look correct on the various email clients and devices. It was tormenting for a few months getting to that point, but, at last, I had everything essential sorted out and, for all the challenges encountered throughout the process, I was actually pretty happy with the result.

Publishing the Initial Signup Forms on my Website = Launch!

Now that the initial newsletter content itself was all up to my standards and ready to be delivered, it was time to provide a way for my website visitors to subscribe to the email list and receive that content. First, several weeks ago, I just put in place the forms you see at the top left of my sidebar. (Perhaps at some point this layout will change, but, as of this writing, you should see them there.)

The moment I put those forms in place, opening signup to the public, the newsletter could be considered officially launched.

I’ll never forget waking up the next day to see that my first subscriber had signed up. It was a great milestone for me.

Additional Signup Forms

Once the newsletter was in motion, I wanted to provide my visitors with additional opportunities to notice the ability to subscribe and to easily do so. So I added another subscription form to the resource box that, as of this writing, you’ll see at the bottom of many articles and posts on my site. I also added forms to a few other locations.

The creation of the resource box was another surprisingly challenging ordeal. It took a lot of work, as well as learning a little bit more website coding that I hadn’t really done before, to get it laid out so that it looked consistent across various web browsers on various devices.

But, after all that work was done, everything was in place for the time being.

My Newfound Expertise about Email Lists/Newsletters

Having survived this often exciting, often terribly frustrating, process, I’ve become very informed about the whole world of email lists and newsletters.

I thought I’d share a little about what I’ve learned for those interested in it or considering starting or working on their own email newsletter. If this doesn’t interest you, feel free not to read this section and to just skip to the next section to learn about the specifics of my newsletter, including what it offers and how you can join.

I’ve studied the entire process by which several of the most successful online personalities, including the ones whose opinions I respect and trust the most, run their newsletter systems.

I’ve become even more aware of how important these subscription features are and of the amazing potential they have for accelerating the emergence of all the benefits of online interactions. I’d call them, in some ways, the holy grail of the online world.

I’ve learned quite a bit about the various email service providers available and tried several of them. So I know many of the pros and cons and strange quirks of a lot of them (and they all have pros and cons and strange quirks – none of them work perfectly for the purposes of every user.) I’m willing to share about that.

Below are just a few comments about each of the providers with which, after this process, I’m most familiar. For disclosure’s sake, the links to each are affiliate links so if you use them, and eventually choose to become a paying customer, I will receive a small commission, which is very appreciated (though the service will not cost you any more than it would otherwise have.)

One nice thing is that most of these providers offer a free or extremely cheap trial period. So, if you are interested, you can try any or all of them out without much, if any, initial cost to you.

GetResponse

Again, this is the provider I ultimately ended up using for this website’s newsletter. I can sum up GetResponse simply: amazing features at wonderfully affordable prices with terrible support. And I know I’m not alone in my views about any of these three aspects.

So, if your particular campaign calls for the features that they offer, I recommend GetResponse. But I can only do so with the caveat that you need to be aware that you might, when possible, have to fix some of the problems that arise yourself or find someone to help you do so. Over the last several months, I’ve figured out how to fix the issues that were posing the greatest roadblocks in my own newsletter campaign – issues that GetResponse’s support staff either could not or would not fix or tell me how to fix. But it took a lot of time and energy to resolve them.

My needs were kind of extensive. So, if your newsletter is simpler than mine, perhaps you won’t face as many challenges with GetResponse as I have. And if you do run into problems using GetResponse, depending on which ones they are, I might be able to help.

Maybe in the future, GetResponse will improve their support. But that can’t be relied upon. So you have to take the poor support into account in making your decision.

Given the quality of their product and the fact that I think they have the best prices around, especially for what you get, I can hesitantly recommend them provided that you go into the situation fully informed and know that I may be able to offer you advice if you need it.

As of this writing, GetResponse offers a 30-Day free trial that does not even require a credit card.

AWeber

The best part about AWeber is that it has been carefully designed to be very user-friendly. The worst part about AWeber is the same. In their zeal to make their product simple for less technically-savvy users, and to protect those users from even the possibility of becoming confused by the presence of certain advanced features, they have removed the capability for sophisticated users to customize their newsletters in more complex ways.

I know of some very successful online personalities that use AWeber to run their email newsletters. AWeber even served me well on a project that I ran for another website on which I worked some years back. So it can certainly meet your needs if you run a basic newsletter.

On this particular newsletter for SystemsThinker.com, however, I needed some features that AWeber couldn’t offer. But if you have relatively basic, straightforward needs, AWeber is a fine choice for you.

As of this writing, AWeber offers a month-long trial for just $1.

MailChimp

Overall, MailChimp looks to me like a reasonably good choice for many people. I know a few people that use MailChimp and really like it. Like AWeber, MailChimp didn’t offer some features that I wanted on this particular newsletter and that GetResponse did offer. But for many people, MailChimp’s features will be more than sufficient.

One thing that stood out to me about MailChimp is that there seem to be more email specialists that are familiar with customizing it than with any other provider I considered. So if you do need help with your MailChimp account or newsletter, you will find a lot of capable people that you can turn to.

As of this writing, MailChimp not only offers a free trial, but you can sign up for a Forever Free account. With this account, you can send up to 12,000 emails a month to a list of up to 2000 subscribers at no cost. There are certain features that you can only use once you are a paying customer. But the Forever Free account can be a very nice way to start a newsletter and get it off the ground with no up-front expenses.

Others

Some of the others ESP’s out there that you can consider, and that other people I know about use, but which I never actually tried myself, include:

• Constant Contact – They offer a 60-Day free trial.
• Vertical Response

And if you want a comprehensive system that includes a larger suite of sales and marketing tools along with the email service at a much higher price, most people I know use:

• InfusionSoft

If you look into these providers, do your research on the features they offer, how they calculate your total number of subscribers in order to determine your billing price, how easily you can import users if you switch to them from another provider and all sorts of other issues worth knowing about.

I’ve learned from my experience and from talking to and reading about it as described by others that coding emails in such a way that they work properly and consistently in the various email clients and on the various devices out there is incredibly difficult. I have gained a lot of respect for the email designers and coders that do this often painfully tedious work. It is so much more difficult than coding for the web where everything is a lot more standardized across browsers and devices. Only someone who has attempted this feat of making emails that are widely compatible can truly appreciate how maddening it can be.

I compiled a rolodex of some really skilled email specialists that can help people optimize their lists and their email coding. I will keep their names on hand in case anyone needs them.

I became familiar with some great resources like Litmus and Email on Acid that many of these specialists and others use to efficiently test to see how their emails will look on the various email clients and on the various devices. (Some of the services actually offer such an email testing service as a built-in feature in their regular user accounts. For example, GetResponse has a preview function based on Litmus available for users at no extra charge – just one of the features I really like that led me to ultimately stick with them.)

I also discovered the Litmus Community Discussions forum, one of the few places where one can ask very technical questions about email design and coding and have them considered by a number of specialists at once.

I’ve learned a lot of tricks of the trade that people use to attract newsletter subscribers.

I’ve also learned about the types of content that can be shared in the email newsletter format and the different ways it can be structured.

I don’t use all of the possible methods that I’ve learned about in this site’s newsletter. I run it the way that I want to and that I feel is optimal, which means that I pick and choose what is comfortable to me and what I feel is appropriate for the purposes of my audience. But I have gotten a glimpse of a lot of the ways that other people run their newsletters, so I can share some of the possibilities with anyone interested.

I hope that, in addition to considering subscribing to my email list, you’ll consider starting or working on your own and that this information can help you take your first steps or take your next steps toward improving what you’ve already started. Know that you can get in touch if you’d like any help with it.

What Do You Receive When You Sign Up for My Newsletter?

So, having said all of that about email newsletters in general, let’s talk about my newsletter – the SystemsThinker.com Newsletter – and what it offers.

Again, for all of the challenges I encountered during the setup process, I’m actually quite pleased with the result.

Right now, the newsletter goes out regularly about once a week. Once in a while, I may send out important announcements or updates, in addition. But the number of emails will always remain relatively small.

But I try to make each email count. Each one is substantial..

The emails contain content that isn’t available on the website, but only for newsletter subscribers. Some emails may discuss topics that are also discussed on the website, but even in those cases, the topics are covered in ways that add to the understanding provided by the material on the website. Other emails discuss topics not really discussed on the website at all.

The emails introduce and explore some of the key concepts, principles, phenomena, resources, techniques, methods, fields of study and ways of looking at the world that I’ve found most important and useful. Some of these may be ones that you have never heard about before. Others may be familiar, but we’ll take a deeper look at them. All of them have had a significant impact on my life. And a few of them, just by themselves, have drastically changed my life.

In some of the emails, I also provide background on the experiences and dynamics that have driven my quest for greater understanding and shaped my worldview and way of thinking. I think that some of you, who are on or have been on a similar quest, will relate and that the email content will put some of the insights that I share into context.

A wide range of material is covered from a systems perspective in these emails. But I’d say that, beyond the focus on systems science, the areas of exploration most commonly relate to personal development, psychology, philosophy and relationships.

I try in each email to prompt some consideration of how the content relates to various situations that arise in life and of how it may apply, in particular, to areas of your life.

While I know that not every email’s content will hit home with every reader, I hope that, for each of you, at least some of them will really satisfy your curiosity and make a difference in your life.

The goals of the newsletter, as I see them, are, ultimately, to:

• Help you make greater sense, from a number of angles, of yourself, your relationships and why people and the world work as they do
• Provoke new realizations and creativity
• Bring to your attention tools that enable responses that can optimize health and sustainability
• Expand the channels of communication and dialogue between myself and my readers for those of you that would enjoy that.

As I said earlier, I’ve put my heart and soul and sweat into writing the first batch of these emails. And I plan to continue doing that over time. They take a lot of work to create and a long time to get set up completely. I don’t write the quick, brief emails that many people do in their newsletters. These are really meaningful, in-depth emails with a lot of information in them. And I believe they contain some of my best work.

The Newsletter’s First Weeks

The first several weeks of the newsletter’s life have been great. I’ve had people signing up on most days and I’ve received some feedback from readers. It’s a huge relief to finally have this option in place and to know that visitors to my site that want to maintain a more regular connection with me can, after all of these years, finally do so.

The Future of the SystemsThinker.com Newsletter

I’m really excited at the potential of the newsletter over the coming years on many fronts, such as:

• Providing information to readers that makes an impact
• Building relationships
• Enabling me to keep people informed about significant news in real-time much more efficiently than I can do through this website
• Spurring all kinds of new opportunities

I’m very curious to see what ends up emerging out of it all.

So I will continue adding new emails full of quality content. I already have a whole plan of what I’d like to share for quite a while to come.

If the newsletter becomes popular enough, maybe I’ll do some fun or creative things that are only really great with a large enough audience like contests where I’ll give away something relevant and meaningful like a book to be chosen from the ones I most recommend or maybe some coaching. But we’ll see.

But, even if the newsletter attracts only a small audience, but one that is committed and very intrigued by the content, I’ll be happy.

My main hope is that the content I share will help people gain more insight and understanding.

Please Join the SystemsThinker.com Newsletter

If this sounds of value to you, give it a try.

If you’ve found any of the content on my website or discussions with me interesting and want to delve deeper into my thinking and the array of topics that I explore, this will allow me to stay in touch with you over time and provide more.

Again, for those of you already subscribed to my blog, this is a completely separate thing. The blog subscription just updates you when something is posted to my blog. This newsletter is an entirely different set of content that only people who subscribe can receive and that, unlike this blog, is not shared publicly. So even if you are subscribed to my blog, you should also subscribe to the newsletter if it interests you. (And if you’re not subscribed to my blog and want to subscribe to the newsletter, you can subscribe to the blog too if you wish.)

You can learn more about the newsletter and sign up for it on the newsletter page. Or you can just use the forms in the top left sidebar or in the resource box below this post (or wherever the forms are on the site if they’ve moved by the time you read this) to sign up.

Don’t worry. Subscribing is completely free. I won’t spam you or send out more than a reasonable number of emails (just one a week most weeks). I’ll never share your email address with anyone else. And if you change your mind later, you can always unsubscribe with a click of a button.

But I’m hoping you’ll find the content valuable enough that you’ll want to stick around and receive more for years to come.

I also hope that, if this sounds interesting, you’ll share it with others that might want to receive this content. Just refer them to the newsletter page or to this post.

Many people who knew me back in 2003 and 2004 heard endlessly from me about the wonders of IRV. I even traveled to Washington, D.C. for a conference put on by the Center for Voting and Democracy, now known as Fairvote, to learn more about how to be a better advocate for election reform.

This culminated in a campaign that I helped coordinate, and in which Fairvote helped support us, to pass a ballot proposal in Ferndale, Michigan to use Instant Runoff Voting in their elections for the mayor and city council. You can learn all about that campaign at the website we created during it, which is still available to help educate the public.

The ballot proposal, which was Proposal B on the November 2, 2004 ballot, passed with an almost 70% majority in Ferndale.

Instant Runoff Voting is an election system with many benefits, which you can read about at my page dedicated to the subject. But one of the main benefits is that it helps eliminate the “spoiler effect,” a problem that occurs in certain elections when more than two candidates run for the same office.

The spoiler effect is especially problematic when multiple candidates that share similar views run simultaneously, since they can end up splitting the votes of people that like both or all of them, allowing a person that most people actually do not like to win the election. In a situation like that, IRV is a fantastic solution – a solution we hoped Ferndale would have in place if it ever found itself in such a circumstance.

Well it is now 2013 and guess what. Back in August, I came across an article explaining that Ferndale finds itself with an upcoming mayoral election featuring more than two candidates. Not only that, but two of the candidates – former mayor Craig Covey and current mayor Dave Coulter – share extremely similar views, platforms and constituencies (not to mention sexualities, which, perhaps sadly, is the focus of that particular article). The situation is ripe for a “spoiler effect.” But, luckily IRV was passed in Ferndale almost a decade ago so this election won’t be spoiled…right?

Well, no. You see, when Proposal B passed back in 2004, there was a catch built in. City officials were worried about the cost and energy that would be required to actually implement the new election system, which requires voting machines capable of carrying it out, so they wrote into the city charter language stipulating that, even if the proposal passed, the system would only actually be implemented when they found it efficient and cost-effective to do so. Unfortunately, in almost 9 years, they have not found it so. So now Ferndale faces this highly “spoilable” election still without the election system that nearly 70% of its voters asked for and that could have saved it from this mess. And, ironically, one of the candidates who could be “spoiled” is Craig Covey who actually endorsed Proposal B during our campaign.

After talking with some people about the situation, we decided to contact Rob Richie, the Executive Director of Fairvote, and get them involved in a fact-finding mission to learn more about exactly why IRV has still not been implemented in Ferndale so as to determine how we might re-engage in our advocacy and finish the job we started back in 2004.

But, before Fairvote could even start that work, I was contacted and interviewed by Crystal Proxmire, a writer for a local paper in Ferndale. She said she was writing an article about the situation. And it turns out that, in the process of writing her article, she had already done much of the investigative work that Fairvote had been planning on doing.

Crystal’s article is entitled “IRV: What’s Missing from Ferndale’s Election” and it was just published a few days ago in a couple of places, including:

• Oakland County 115
• The Daily Tribune

I recommend people who are interested read it because Crystal has done a great job of bringing us up to date about the various sides of this story that once played such a large part in my life and has now resurfaced.

I’m told another article on the subject may be written for the Detroit Free Press soon. If that article does come out, I’ll update this post with the link here.

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.

One night, I was talking with a friend about ponerology. Specifically, we were discussing the problems posed when pathological people attain positions of power. Right as our discussion was happening, I checked Yahoo’s home page and there, on one of the more mainstream sites on the web, was a top headline, complete with an image, entitled “Why your boss might be a psychopath.”

That was the last straw. I finally decided to put in the effort to document the emerging material related to the work I had done.

I could have created a place to do so on this site. But, while I’m heartened that many of its readers have expressed interest in these topics since I’ve released my series, I don’t believe this is the right place to do that. This site features a diverse range of material and draws visitors in through a variety of angles from an interest in personality types to a taste for an eclectic assortment of insightful quotes. I know that not everyone – or perhaps even most people – that visits my site has a strong interest in the “evil” related topics.

And I myself don’t really want this, my personal site, where I try to convey that which intrigues me at each stage of my journey, to become bogged down and overrun by a non-stop barrage of that type of material.

So I started a new site to house this work. I had a couple snags early on while getting things set up, but now it’s up and running smoothly and I’m excited to share it with you.

The site is PonerologyNews.com.

PonerologyNews.com is a website devoted to promoting news and information that falls within the purview of the field of ponerology – also known as the “science of evil.” Its material includes work from a variety of disciplines from neuroscience to criminology to clinical psychology to the arts and media and beyond. And it aims to help raise awareness and educate the public about these issues.

The first post on the new site tells the story of the discussion and Yahoo headline/article that inspired its creation.

In the weeks since then, I’ve posted stories about:

• Television news coverage regarding “almost psychopaths”
• A study of how criminals distort religion to justify their crimes
• A professional athlete’s view of psychopathy in pro sports
• Research into a novel way of treating psychopathy, which has commonly been considered untreatable
• A new CBS television show based on the controversial work of an advocate of child psychopathy screening

…and much, much more!

I hope that, through documenting and offering my commentary on the gamut of ponerology-related material that is emerging daily, the site will accomplish several things:

• Continue to reinforce the importance of information associated with ponerology
• Extend readers’ knowledge about these subjects
• Provide evidence to help discern, as best we can, what is and is not true in the field
• Serve as a coordination point for the disparate people and groups with an interest in learning about and promoting ponerology – In my original writing on ponerology, I spent a lot of time discussing the fact that there are many people doing wonderful work related to the subject, but that they are doing it in a scattered fashion dispersed throughout a variety of disciplines and fields of endeavor. I also took pains to explain how powerful the solid establishment of ponerology as a discipline could be in bringing these forces together in an organized fashion to shine a light on this material and serving as a clear, steadfast reminder that the influence of the pathological must always be considered.
• Attract new audiences of people who might not be directly drawn to investigate ponerology to the field by publishing compelling stories that connect it with other interests that they have
• Draw attention to the people – from researchers to educators to activists – doing great work to increase and spread our knowledge on these important topics

…and to do all of those things in a place dedicated to that mission, rather than here on this site.

In just the first few weeks of the new site’s existence, I’ve already received some encouraging feedback on the initial batch of posts I’ve written there and had some interesting conversations catalyzed by them.

So if this topic intrigues you, please visit PonerologyNews.com

While you’re there:

• Subscribe/Follow so you’ll receive updates via RSS, Email, Twitter or Facebook
• Use our sharing tools in the sidebar to Tweet, Like, Google +, Email, etc. and let others that might be interested know about any page on the site
• Leave your questions, thoughts and ideas in the comments section of posts
• If you’d like to support this new project, you can donate through the site, as well

In addition, if you know of or come across any news or stories that you think we might want to post about on the site, please alert us to them.

I won’t hesitate to write about something related to ponerology here on this site when it is appropriate as part of a larger subject. But, for the most part, I’ll be posting most frequently about these issues on PonerologyNews.com.

As for the future of SystemsThinker.com, if there is anything you’d like to see me write more about here, please let me know. I’d love some feedback on what those of you who visit here want to hear about.

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.

I am speaking of their hilarious article, a prelude to last night’s second 2012 presidential debate, entitled:

“Nation Tunes In To See Which Sociopath More Likable This Time”

It tells the story of how voters, quite conscious that both President Obama and Mitt Romney – “like all successful politicians” – are “clinically sociopathic individuals,” simply hope that the debate will help them decide which of the two men is better at employing his sociopathic skill set to manipulate them into thinking that he possesses an “actual human conscience.”

On a serious note, although there are those that feel otherwise, I would not claim on the basis of pure speculation that either Obama or Romney is actually a sociopath or psychopath. The diagnosis of conditions like these is a substantial matter and, in real life, should not be taken lightly.

However, the Onion article bitingly reinforces some of the points I attempted to make in my series on the potential biological basis of evil, namely:

• There is little doubt that some proportion of those in positions of power – whether politicians, corporate executives or parents – do actually have conscience- and empathy-reducing conditions.
• It is very important to educate the public about these conditions and the processes by which they can influence our systems.
• It is likely – especially as the advance of technology in our extremely hierarchical systems amplifies the ability of small groups or lone individuals to do disproportionate harm – that we will be increasingly faced with challenging decisions such as whether or not to screen certain people in certain situations for the presence of these conditions

It’s not really a lighthearted subject. The influence of these conditions may well have contributed to suffering and even death for countless millions in our history. But, as the Onion has often shown over the years, sometimes satire can get a message across more concisely and powerfully than hundreds of pages of painstakingly researched and meticulously composed prose in book or essay form.

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.

My first response is that I’m very glad to see this subject discussed. I hope that those involved in debates about anarchism, statism and the proper role – if any – of government spend much more time focusing directly on this topic because I think it is what really lies at the center of most of the debates, as well as the discussion out of which the best solutions are likely to emerge.

Now, I want to address some specifics in Adam Kokesh’s response.

1. Adam takes issue with the particular wording of the question. I agree that the question is not phrased ideally. And this provides an opportunity to better phrase the question in a form that can truly focus the debate in a constructive manner. I would articulate the question like this:
   

   “What is the social structure that can optimally sustain a balance of security and freedom despite the inevitable presence of psychopaths and others with biologically-reduced capacities for empathy and/or conscience?”

   In my blog post responding to the Kokesh/The Amazing Atheist debate, I mention Logocracy as one suggestion for a starting point on that discussion.

2. Adam repeatedly – in this video and in other places – claims that we are evolving toward a stateless society simply because voluntary actions are “superior.” I think this is a somewhat flawed notion.

   To understand why, I highly recommend the book The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod.

   Throughout the pages in my series on Biological Evil, I make the point that, in evolution, there is always some incentive for predators, cheats and deceivers to arise. This then generates an incentive for effective detection and response to such threatening organisms to arise among those who value peaceful cooperation. These strategies co-evolve in a feedback cycle.

   So it is not really accurate to say, as Adam does, that one approach is “superior” to the other. They occur evolutionarily in a sort of yin/yang relationship where sometimes one takes precedence, sometimes the other takes precedence and sometimes they are in more of a balance. (Andrew M. Lobaczewki’s notion of the “hysteroidal cycle” relates to some extent.) The question, for those of us who value peaceful freedom and security, is:

   “How can we best maintain a state where the yin side of this relationship – peaceful cooperation – takes precedence while acceding to the fact that those who value exploitation and dominance will always have some incentive to rise again?”

   I highly recommend The Evolution of Cooperation because it is a scientific study of exactly what has to happen for peace and cooperation to flourish and remain sustainable given the ever-present evolutionary potential for the development of forces that threaten them. And the answer is definitely more complicated than Adam’s claim that, once we evolve voluntary societies, they cannot devolve due to their “superiority.” They certainly can devolve and, in fact, will likely devolve unless certain incentives, strategies and tactics are put into place and enforced.

   This book explains how some ingenious methods have elucidated what these incentives, strategies and tactics are.

3. Adam says that those who value peace, cooperation and non-violence will be more successful at reproducing. This is highly questionable.On my psychopathy page, I have included an entire section detailing, and describing some research on, the astounding degree to which psychopaths reproduce and spread their genes at a higher rate than others and why this is. Without a doubt, our extremely hierarchical social structures have greatly amplified this process. But it has its roots in the psychopaths’ frequent specific predilection for engaging in sexual manipulation and activity, often as a means of asserting power and domination. And psychopaths are legendary for the charisma and deceptiveness that they can bring to bear in pursuing this behavior. This combination of sexual dominance and manipulative talent is one of the major reasons that psychopaths are so dangerous.So it is not clear at all whether, even in a healthier system, psychopaths would not continue to exercise a distinct reproductive advantage.
4. Adam makes the argument that voluntaryism is the best way to deal with psychopathic tendencies.In the process of doing so, he proclaims – just as he did in his debate with The Amazing Atheist – his belief that government is the concentration of evil.In my previous blog post, I mentioned that the key question in the anarchism vs. statism debate is:
   

   Is government the concentration of evil or a protector against evil?

   And, here, yet again, Adam exemplifies a believer in the first option.

   Now, let’s say that we accept his view that, if a government is present, it will simply draw the psychopaths and other empathy- and conscience-challenged individuals into its ranks, thus developing into a pathocracy. This is a worthwhile possibility to consider and one that I discuss at length in my Biological Evil series.

   The problem is that, even if we concede this, and thus determine that we should have no government, voluntaryism isn’t really, in and of itself, a way to deal with psychopathic tendencies. Even in the context of a voluntary society, what will determine the extent to which we are protected from the harmful influence of those with reduced empathy and conscience are the specific incentives, strategies and tactics that we put into place. There is nothing inherent in voluntaryism that guarantees a successful defense against the inevitable predators, cheats and deceivers.

   Voluntary society or not, it still comes back to the research described in The Evolution of Cooperation.

   Put the right specific incentives, strategies and tactics in place and perhaps that voluntary society can flourish and sustain itself. Fail to do so and, regardless of how fervently most members of the society value the non-aggression principle, self-ownership and property rights, peaceful cooperation is likely to erode.

So where does this leave us? It opens up a lot of debate but I hope it leads to at least one area of agreement:

We could do with a great deal more education about psychopathy and other conscience- and empathy-reducing disorders, ponerology, pathocracy and the dynamics discussed in The Evolution of Cooperation. Without such education, people, whatever their stance on anarchism, statism and the proper role – if any – of government, lack the factual foundation on which to effectively engage in and resolve such debates.

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:

What I think needs to happen is that the debate needs to focus on the issue of evil itself. Where does evil come from and how should we best live in a world that is virtually guaranteed to always contain evil so as to maximize health and sustainability?

After a long and winding path, I finally zeroed in on this topic in the last couple of years. Things really took off when I learned about psychopathy and other conscience-reducing disorders and their influence, the book Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski, the field of ponerology and the concept of pathocracy. I ended up putting together some very comprehensive pages on these topics in my series regarding Biological Evil, which I spent over a year writing.

The series, and each page in it, is very long, so while I hope people will read as much of it as possible, I understand if they don’t make it through all of it.

However, there is one section from my page on psychopathy that I think so clearly focuses the Kokesh/The Amazing Atheist debate that I wanted to reiterate it here. It comes from a part of the write-up where I’m discussing protective measures that we must consider once we become conscious regarding the prevalence and influence of psychopaths and others with disorders that reduce conscience.

Limiting Access to Influential Positions

Time and again, modern power structures have proven highly vulnerable to infiltration – due to force and/or voter manipulation – by psychopathic characters. As long as we maintain such structures, it is crucial that we more effectively guard them against this occurrence. Doing so may involve a combination of education about the “mask of sanity,” fostering greater skepticism about charming figures who aim to manipulate important systems, and stricter screening and oversight of both visible and behind-the-scenes players that vie for impact on powerful institutions.

At the more radical end of the spectrum are those, including many anti-corporatists and anti-statists, who believe that the very existence of inordinately influential positions will inevitably lead, in a world harboring a significant contingent of Machiavellians, to the evolution of a pathocracy and, thus, represents an inherently untenable risk. They favor greater decentralization of power, if not outright abolition of governments and/or certain types of corporate and other institutional structures.

(NOTE: It is extremely interesting to consider how we can categorize people based on which of society’s power structures they most fear being hijacked for sinister purposes and how they believe we should respond to that potentiality.

Many “small government conservatives” are most fearful of the violations made possible when sinister forces seep into authoritarian centralized governments. Therefore, they want to reduce the size and power of those “abusive parent-like” governments. Yet, many of these same people do not seem as concerned by the transgressions made possible when those same forces seep into powerful corporate or other leadership structures.

On the other hand, many “big government liberals” seem to minimize the dangers posed by malicious infiltration of centralized governments. Instead, they are most fearful of potential violations by unethical people and entities in other sectors of society, such as regionally-institutionalized civil rights abuses and the predations of unchecked Machiavellian corporate power. These people feel that eliminating or highly decentralizing the government would represent a dangerous overreaction that would render us vulnerable because they see a strong, centralized government as the only “protective parent” powerful enough to safeguard us. If they even acknowledge the risk of government hijacking, they claim that we must simply act as constant watchdogs to ensure that its leadership is as clean and accountable as possible.

Then there are those who make less distinction between the various types of power structures and simply see large power structures of any kind as dangerously susceptible to Machiavellian hijacking. These people advocate for limiting the size and power of all such structures, whether political, corporate, religious or otherwise.)

I think this section puts the entire Kokesh/The Amazing Atheist debate into context with Kokesh, in general, playing the role of the “small government conservative” described above and The Amazing Atheist playing the “big government liberal” role, at least when we categorize them on the basis of which power structures they most fear being wielded harmfully.

I would sum up by saying that part of the problem with the debate is that it fails to clearly account for the fact that, when it comes to their ethical capacities, people are not created equally. In fact, some are created very, very differently – to the point where some credible scholars even think of them as almost a separate subspecies due to their substantial brain and genetic differences which are increasingly being discovered.

At one point, Adam does mention sociopaths. And TJ certainly alludes, without actually mentioning psychopaths or sociopaths directly, to the dangers some of these people might pose. But the topics of psychopathy and sociopathy were not consciously made a central focus. I think they need to be. When we do this, we reinforce our awareness that, when speaking about what is healthy and sustainable for human beings, we must distinguish between normal people and truly ethically pathological types of people.

I hope this information provides a broader context to these discussions of what is healthy and sustainable and of the optimal role of government. And I hope people interested will take the time to read the series or at least some of the pages in it.

In particular, the page on ponerology is perhaps the most important I’ve ever written. And on the page on pathocracy is a section on Logocracy, which is the name of one author’s attempt to describe his vision of an ideal system, built around recognition of the sources of evil, that would balance protecting us from those bent on doing harm with a humane approach. It is an interesting starting point for a discussion of what might be a pragmatic social structure that can best ensure both liberty and security.

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:

This is a great and very valid question.

My first response is that you should contact the Center for Self Leadership, the home base for Internal Family Systems Therapy and its creator, Dr. Richard C. Schwartz, directly and ask them this question. They would be best suited to address it.

However, I will give you my own view.

I am a big fan of empirical data. So I do value peer-reviewed, controlled studies for the reasons that you raise here. And it is true that I have not seen those studies yet as they relate to IFS. This does not mean they aren’t out there. Perhaps they are and I just don’t know of them. And, if so, then hopefully the Center for Self Leadership could direct you to them (and you could direct me).

But, here I will answer your question to explain, why, in light of the fact that I have not seen such studies, I nonetheless think the Internal Family Systems model is valuable.

IFS is not just a method. It is a perspective and a theory on the very anatomy of the psyche. IFS is described by Richard Schwartz in Internal Family Systems Therapy as the application of systems thinking to the concept of multiplicity of mind. I believe both of these foundations of IFS are sound.

Obviously, you can tell from my site that I’m a big fan of systems thinking and the systems approach is well established.

The multiplicity of mind refers to the fact that people experience their psyche as consisting of more than one voice or state. I don’t think any of us has ever met a person that doesn’t relate to that view. Even if they haven’t consciously thought about it before, nobody is the least bit confused when we say things like “Part of me wants X, but another part fights it.” We all, on a very basic level, recognize that we experience multiplicity and certain types of interactions between the multiple parts. Now, to be clear, this is not to say that there objectively are multiple beings of any kind in there. Perhaps neuroscience will find some biological analog for this experience of multiplicity and perhaps not. But right now, this is simply about the fact that we experience things this way and that this almost universal sense of experience can be drawn upon to help us understand many situations and harnessed to help resolve them optimally.

Now, the idea that applying systems thinking to the multiplicity of mind is powerful and useful is as much a truism to me as saying that applying our knowledge of physics to various materials is useful. That doesn’t mean that any particular application is going to successfully bring about the desired outcome. If a person doesn’t understand physics well or lacks the technical skill to carry out the application, they will not generate what is desired. Similarly, a person can attempt to apply systems thinking to the multiplicity of mind with someone and fail miserably if they don’t really understand systems thinking well or if they aren’t technically skilled at doing so. But, in neither case does the failure in that instance negate the fundamental value of the approach.

I agree that we should do a great deal more study of how to best apply systems thinking to multiplicity of mind to achieve various outcomes. However, it must be noted that there are at least two important issues here that make it, in my view, very challenging to do quantitative objective studies of IFS. And, not coincidentally, the difficulties stem from some of the very things about IFS that I believe make it superior to many other approaches.

First, it is important to recognize that Internal Family Systems is really a misnomer in many ways. Schwartz began as a family therapist dealing with family systems. He then realized many of the same principles seemed to apply with individuals and developed this school of thought on how to deal with the “internal family system.” And he named the field after that latter aspect. However, he never intended this to replace the focus on the external family system. In fact, quite to the contrary, he goes on in his book to point out the importance of many levels of human systems, including government and global systems, all acting interdependently. So really the field should be simply called human systems therapy if you ask me. And Schwartz has admitted himself that the name of the field often misleads people and results in them mistakenly thinking that focusing just on an individual’s parts is sufficient. He makes very clear in his book that this is not the case.

Thus, IFS recognizes that an individual’s problem cannot necessarily be solved by working just with their internal parts. Schwartz explains that human problems must be dealt with at the level at which we have leverage, which can differ in different cases. This is simply right out of systems thinking, in which we recognize that particular problems arise from particular patterns that can involve multiple layers of influence, and that, in order to bring about results we want, we have to find the leverage point or points at which we can act efficiently and beneficially and that these leverage points may reside in any combination of those multiple layers. It is precisely because it recognizes this – unlike many reductionistic approaches that try to address individual problems without adequate regard for the many other influential systems in which the person is embedded – that I think IFS is superior.

Yet at the very same time, this makes highly formal objective studies difficult. IFS – again, unlike many other approaches – teaches us that a person’s symptoms may be primarily caused by their family or their workplace or their government. So just because we do the best that we can in addressing that person’s internal parts does not necessarily mean we will succeed in optimizing the system if the relevant constraints originate elsewhere – especially if they originate at a level we do not currently have the power to sufficiently change. So, in looking at a study involving IFS, we may not be able to interpret a failure of the individual to significantly improve as a failure of the approach itself. In fact, systems thinking may be the most useful tool we have to explain just why such therapy did not work. And it may well be because larger systems, which we are currently unable to substantially impact, are the main sources of dysfunction influencing the client.

The second challenge in doing quantitative objective research on IFS therapy is that it is tremendously – and very consciously – dependent on the state of the therapist. One of the things that makes IFS so brilliant is that – in another example of its remarkable insight into dynamics inadequately addressed by many other approaches – it recognizes that the very principles that apply in determining the health of the client apply at the very same time to the therapist and that any dysfunctions in the therapist are themselves factors that can confound the therapeutic process. However, these states are very difficult, if not impossible, to quantify. We can certainly try to quantify certain traits exhibited by the therapist during therapy, such as “equanimity,” that would seem to indicate that the therapist is in Self. But it seems almost impossible to objectively measure if the therapist is in Self. Now, the fact that we can’t measure this does not mean it does not exist (nor does it mean it does exist). So, in short, one of the absolute most important factors in determining the course of IFS therapy – the state of the therapist in regards to Self – seems to me nearly impossible to accurately measure.

So in summary, I fully agree that more research would be helpful. However, there are some aspects of IFS – in fact, some of the very aspects that I think show how truly wise it is – that make it difficult to do objective research on. Still, I think we should do the best we can to put it to the test.

But the bottom line is that, while there are infinite ways that someone can apply IFS badly, just as someone can apply physics poorly and end up with an undesirable outcome, the foundation of IFS – systems thinking applied to the multiplicity of mind – is, to me, like the foundation of physics – though perhaps not to quite as great an extent – very solid. Now how we use and build upon that foundation is another story.

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…

A Lifelong Quest for Understanding

For almost as long as I can remember, I have had a deep sense that something is wrong here – that something about our world is just absurdly “off.”

For many years, this sense remained quite vague. I simply noticed so many aspects of how our world worked that struck me as inexplicable and baffling and I could not logically understand why they played out as they did. In addition, I was similarly baffled by and unable to logically understand why – although some people seemed to be sensitive to and upset by these apparent absurdities as I was – others, even when made aware of them, seemed apathetic to, amused or, most disconcerting to me of all, pleased by them. And whatever conventional wisdom purported to explain these phenomena failed to satisfy me.

That gnawing sense of “offness” has fueled a journey that I describe in some of the pages in this group themselves. It has been a long and tortuous journey of exploration and discovery in which I have been struggling – all while remaining an evidence-based skeptic and avoiding falling prey to wild conspiracy theories – to clarify the causes of and messages embedded within that persistent experience of uneasiness, as well as the reasons for my own relative strangeness in being so bedeviled by it. The journey has been, at times, very frustrating and, at other times, exhilarating and it has brought me into contact with a wide variety of resources and people, both unknown and world-renowned, that have influenced me.

The journey has consisted of several stages. In each, my attention was primarily drawn to a certain aspect of the world relevant to my overall sense of confusion. And, by studying that aspect and then integrating what I learned with the insights gleaned in previous stages, I was able to graduate that stage having achieved a new milestone marked by a more complete understanding of the world.

Yet, after each graduation, when I applied my newly enhanced mental model in my life or in activist pursuits, the feedback that I received – though improved enough to signify that I had indeed made progress – nonetheless consisted of enough resistance to indicate that my understanding was still far from total. And I was, thus, motivated to continue on to the next stage in my quest.

One of the earliest stages of this journey, for example, focused on inquiring into the role of our culture, with its dysfunctions and unsustainability, in driving the “wrongness” that I was perceiving. But, even after gaining substantial insight into that matter, I remained unclear about exactly why the development of such a culture was so consistently supported. And I was still perplexed by the fact that, when I communicated about these topics, which I found so obviously important, few seemed interested, much less moved, by them.

A later stage focused me on studying systems that classify people according to their distinct personality types. This helped me develop, to a certain degree, an organized understanding and acceptance of how psychological variation could generate – sometimes much to my chagrin – perceptions, values and actions in many people that vastly differed from mine and those of people similar in type to me. But, even accounting for and engaging my knowledge regarding this source of diversity in personalities, I was nonetheless unable to make sense of or effect change in certain views and behaviors that I considered, at a level more fundamental than personality type, both unnecessarily common and objectively harmful.

I achieved a very significant milestone when I realized how defense mechanisms and certain personality disorders related with some of the more damaging forms of perception, value and action that I encountered. And yet, even the influence of such patterns and conditions could not fully explain the most extreme perspectives and behaviors. Confronted with them, it was clear to me that there were still other factors at play in many cases.

A Quantum Leap in Understanding: The Most Recent Milestone on My Journey

As a systems thinker, whenever I consider a complex situation, I am always trying to understand the structures, connections and features, often hidden and sometimes hidden in plain sight, of the relevant systems. With such insight, it is far easier to pinpoint the leverage points at which we can most effectively stimulate a desirable outcome. It is only after the last couple of years that I reached a milestone on my journey to clarify my sense of our world being “off” and the reasons for the relative rarity of my persistent focus on it where the core elements influential in these matters appeared evident and the identification of crucial leverage points seemed within reach.

The stage of my journey that unfolded during that period began when I was drawn to the study in earnest of psychopathy. That study led me to discover:

• The field of ponerology
• A remarkable book by a heroic man, the very writing and publication of which entailed extraordinary events, themselves constituting a thrilling story – Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes by Andrzej M. Lobaczewski (also known as Andrew M. Lobaczewski)
• The phenomenon of pathocracy

Engaging with these subjects propelled me to this latest milestone and had an enormous impact on me on multiple levels.

One way in which this most recent progress has proven so valuable is by, to a greater extent than any before it, enhancing my ability to frame what my entire journey has really been about all along. Having experienced this last stage and reached this position on my path, I can now clearly articulate that it has always fundamentally been a quest to understand and address, to the best of my ability, the reasons, often so very difficult to discern, for the prevalence of seemingly senseless and unnecessary harm, waste, destruction, neglect and, ultimately, suffering in our world. This quest has necessarily involved an attempt to discover the nature and roots of the ethical vs. the unethical and justice vs. injustice, especially as they relate to various types of structures, power arrangements and exploitation. And, perhaps even more to the point, it has forced me to confront the age-old problems of evil.

In retrospect, it makes a great deal of sense that these are the “labors” to which my quest may be boiled down. As I look back, I can see that I have always been fascinated by and driven to explore such areas. Even as a child, I was almost constantly sensitive to suffering and concerned with issues of justice and the distribution – and exercise within systems – of power. And it seems inevitable that deep concern about suffering, justice and power, followed to its logical end, will eventually raise within one questions about evil and the many forms that it can take. Yet, for much of my life, I couldn’t and wouldn’t have described my journey in those terms.

I especially would not have raised the subject of “evil” in describing it because, as a strongly rational person, I have always had trouble committing to any particular definition of what “evil” means and so I tended to avoid even using the word. But the achievement of this latest milestone brought with it an understanding that the challenge of more objectively defining evil, as difficult as it may prove, is one that merits our energies right along with – and, in fact, as an instrumental part of – the larger challenge of discovering why evil, however we define it, occurs.

In addition to more fully revealing the general theme connecting my journey’s core questions, this latest stage, like past ones, also produced answers, built upon previously attained insights, to some of the specific questions that, even after decades of searching, remained mysteries to me.

It helped me to recognize that, for anyone who values ethical behavior and justice, the most meaningful division – far more substantial and pertinent to our world’s troubles than other noted divisions – is likely the one between those with and without significant levels of empathy and conscience.

It reinforced this by teaching me more than I ever knew about the most extreme and potent example of the latter group, the psychopath.

And, perhaps most critically, it awakened me more deeply to an idea that is among the most important that I’ve ever encountered – one that may even be the single most powerful and unappreciated idea that I’ve come across in all my years of thinking and activism:

The idea that much of the evil in our world – far more than we may realize or believe – and, thus, many of its detrimental consequences may, in fact, have a profoundly biological basis

It is understandable that it took me a long time to reach this milestone. For, the dynamics that I came to see more clearly in the course of this latest stage influence systems so as to encourage the development of many confounding qualities, unexpected events and counterintuitive reactions to interventions and involve:

• A tremendous amount and variety of kinds of trauma and deception relating to identity, image, symbolism, position and structure
• An array of devious manipulative tactics that distract us from leverage points and distort our perception and inflict blind spots in alignments nearly perfect for sustaining our unconsciousness to them

They especially involve deception and manipulation effectuated via communications that twist logic and ethics in astounding ways.

And these dynamics are so ever-present that they can easily remain – like water to a fish – invisible.

Thus, it took repeated demonstration of these dynamics in a systematic way to familiarize me with them to a point from which I could see them for what they are and analyze them in any rational manner.

I am certainly not saying that my understanding is now complete or that it will not continue to evolve. There is still much to consider and many discussions must be had about this information, the questions that it raises and how to respond to it. There may well be many more stages on my journey yet to come.

But I do strongly believe that the milestone that I achieved at the climax of this most recent stage is qualitatively greater than – and is a major point of integration of – the ones that have come before it.

My Motivation for and Process of Synthesizing and Writing about My Latest Milestone Discoveries

At meaningful points along my journey of discovery, I have felt driven to synthesize and set down in writing what I have discovered both to clarify and solidify it for myself and to share it with others. In many ways, this website is a record of that process.

But, because of the exceptional impact of this last stage and especially because I believe that some of the ideas that it raised, despite their enormous implications, have not been receiving adequate attention or appreciation – and that honest education and increasing the awareness of the public are among the most vital activities in which we can, therefore, participate – I was more strongly compelled to synthesize and write in relation to this latest milestone than ever before.

I was also motivated by how strongly I related to Andrew M. Lobaczewski himself. There is a personal connection to the events that he lived through, as well as a sense of kinship inspired by his passions for seeking, documenting and publicizing an objective theory regarding evil and the causes of suffering in our world. Moreover, I greatly admire the bravery that he, as well as his colleagues, exhibited in pursuing such passions even in the face of immensely dangerous and trying conditions.

So motivated, I engaged in painstaking preparation, poring over Political Ponerology, studying it again and again, reading and rereading other related materials and even contacting some experts directly when necessary to clarify an idea.

When writing, I poured out everything I could, outlining, drafting, writing, re-writing, editing and re-editing, all with a single aim in mind: providing a very thorough review of the subjects at hand that was as polished – even if not as compact – as I could make it.

The actual direct preparation for and writing of these pages – especially since I had to focus on a number of other responsibilities simultaneously – took over a year. It was a tremendously challenging period, not only due to the work involved in this project, but due to a number of other distressing events that occurred in my life over that time. Through that intense phase, as you can imagine, my knowledge on these subjects was greatly expanded and reinforced and deeply internalized.

But, in many ways, learning this material and expressing it comprehensively in these pages – a process that called upon so much of my work and so many of my interests from decades past – was the culmination of a lifetime of living in today’s world and wondering, questioning, searching, studying, reading and writing, from numerous angles, about why it is as it is.

The Importance of This Material

I believe that the subjects discussed in these pages and especially their central theme – the need for investigation of and response to a probable biological basis of evil – are important to say the least. In fact, I think they are so important that they simply cannot be ignored by anyone who wants to truly understand the evolutionary course of our species, the history of our civilization, the forces that drive our modern world or how to bring about a better future.

But exactly why are they so important?

There are a number of reasons, including:

• They not only relate directly to the source of many of the most daunting problems plaguing human systems at every level – problems ranging from:
  • Abuse and neglect in personal relationships and families to…
  • Incompetence and corruption in workplaces, businesses, corporations, religious organizations and communities to…
  • Destructive economic cycles; detrimental policies based in philosophies of infinite growth, expansion, conquest and excessive acquisition; terrorism and war involving nation-states, governments and global institutions.

  And they not only also relate directly to the source of many of the most daunting problems plaguing our ecosystem as a whole.

  But they simultaneously relate to factors that make every other challenge we face on all of these levels more complicated and difficult to address. Thus, they are, in so many ways, leverage point issues.

• They could help actually explain, in scientific and systems thinking fashion, why some of our most stubbornly persistent unsolved problems – whose persistence through the generations has long been misleadingly rationalized – despite the investment of so much time and energy concentrated on them, elude resolution. They may do this because they focus on elucidating and accurately labeling and categorizing – in a more precise, technical and objective manner that emphasizes invaluable, if sometimes subtle, distinctions – the elements, mechanisms, patterns, processes and cycles that play a part when systems become hijacked, coopted or ill and induce various entities to contribute more or less to the generation and spread of these problems. And, in doing so, they reveal that while some harm is inevitable and some stems from misguided behavior propelled by ignorance or defense mechanisms, a great deal of it emerges, rather, out of more malicious origins.
• Even when they are unable to provide explanations, they nonetheless point the way toward wiser priorities in scholarship and practice both within and among many fields, including through advocating that:
  • Psychological knowledge play a more prominent role
  • Various sciences, as well as the tools and methods of science as a whole, be more frequently engaged in bringing to light and addressing the essential sources from which harmful activity develops
• They illuminate the crucial and complex roles of ideology and religion in all of this.
• We find ourselves in a precarious situation in a pivotal era in our history – marked by massive hierarchies, powerful technologies and somewhat fragile globalized systems – in which the potential consequences of various forms of extremism and violence on all levels, but especially on the large scale, are more and more tragic. These subjects assist us in identifying the roots of a substantial portion of the extremism and unnecessary violence that takes place.
• Their implications have most likely impacted millions of people, as well as countless non-humans.
• Ethics – the study of how we ought to live – is a most interesting and obviously valuable discipline. These subjects are especially profound in their ethical implications and relevant to many of the circumstances that give rise to the most agonizing ethical quandaries.
• They highlight the need for, as well as make possible, an array of responses from people – including not only political, religious and business leaders and professionals, but parents, activists and members of the public at large – as well as institutions in a wide variety of disciplines and areas throughout the world, many of which are mentioned explicitly in the writing and others of which the reader will realize in the course of reading.
• They call into question many dubious, yet sometimes instinctively appealing, alluring or popular philosophies, methodologies and approaches to our world’s problems purported to be capable of constructively transforming scenarios and that, absent understanding of their ramifications, might sound reasonable or feasible, but that actually, if applied in contexts for which they are not adapted, promote ineffective responses to or even counterintuitively contribute to harm.
• An integration of these subjects also consolidates, crystallizes and augments with a clarifying layer the work of many significant authors and filmmakers including that of:
  • Daniel Quinn
  • Derrick Jensen
  • Robert Hare
  • Martha Stout
  • Barbara Oakley

This material is especially important for anyone trying to make sense of our world’s suffering so as to develop effective strategies for reducing it by improving health and sustainability. For them, the ideas and facts mentioned in these pages are strategic game-changers because they fundamentally shift perspective not only on why we are so unhealthy and unsustainable in the first place – and, thus, on the mainspring of much of the trauma and victimhood experienced within our systems – but on why so many well-intentioned and apparently sensible remediation campaigns and efforts to aid or heal victims constantly fail, fall short or are sabotaged.

Without recognition of this information – lacking insight regarding biological evil and how it contributes to developments that leave us susceptible to perpetual cycles of arising, escalating, spreading and subsiding dysfunction – people working on these challenges are condemned to rely on inadequate models riddled by missing pieces. As a result, they often participate in misguided actions that further reinforce our vulnerability and play right into the hands of those who promote evil.

But with the conscious complementary integration of relevant updated modern knowledge and tools, opportunities for effective assessment of potentially dangerous situations and protective, preventative or healing interventions – sometimes based on proven working medical models commonly applied in relation to infection or cancer – become more apparent. We are able to better imagine ways to experiment with – and work through the adversity and difficult transition periods inherent in – the evolution of innovative disciplines and more resistant structures devoted to:

• Harnessing our cutting edge perspective and assets
• Assertively and consistently enforcing necessary defensive limits and boundaries
• Transcending obstacles and divisions – including the most important division within humanity

Only such entities can:

• Sufficiently account for and contain evil’s influence
• Maintain a matrix of incentives conducive to transforming vicious cycles into and continuously fueling virtuous cycles
• Bring about and support with integrity sustainably healthy systems in which we can coexist and enjoy our best possible lives
• Best ensure the balance, acceding to the constant presence of some form of evil, that long-term sustainability requires

Furthermore, these concerns could conceivably bring together more people from more divergent backgrounds, despite differences of gender, race, class, religion, nationality or pet issues, to work cooperatively on such beneficial reforms than any others.

It is interesting to note that, over the last year, as I worked on these pages, time and again my belief in the central importance of their subject matter was reaffirmed. I repeatedly encountered information and situations, whether in my personal life or in the latest world news, that, from one angle after another, related back to these topics, reinforcing their wide range of relevance and reminding me that, even in times when I was not conscious of it, they have been present all along, connected to so many events and elements in my life and the world at large. I suddenly noticed more books, films, articles, television shows and discussions focusing either indirectly or directly on these matters. All of this provided further validation and motivation that kept me going through this arduous process.

So, for all of these reasons and more, I hope that you’ll read these pages and find them, or at least parts of them, very meaningful and that what you learn will coalesce into a valuable lens through which to consider the world.

Notes on the Pages’ Writing Style

There are several characteristics of the writing on these pages itself that you will probably notice as you read. I’d like to take some time to address each of these in order to explain why I wrote the pages as I did.

Length

First of all, you will notice that these pages are quite long.

This reflects the fact that my goal in writing them – clearly – was not conciseness or brevity. It was comprehensiveness. I wanted each page, as well as the pages as a group, to be very very complete, at least touching on all of the relevant ideas that I could imagine wanting to raise – as well as the ideas, questions or challenges that I anticipated others might raise – now or in the near future.

I valued this level of completeness for a few reasons:

• This information is extremely important and it took me decades to find, accumulate and synthesize it. Yet, I could not predict how much or which aspect of it would strike a chord with and inspire any given reader. So I decided to err on the side of inclusion, making, within reason, more, rather than less, information available.This way, people most interested in the material may, just by reading these pages, leap ahead in their understanding of it nearer to the point at which I now find myself without having to walk the entire path that I did. I have long appreciated those, many of whom I acknowledge in these pages, whose work served as a similar launching pad for me.At the same time, this inclusionary approach, I hope, means that most of the wide variety of readers interested only in certain parts of the material, despite perhaps differing substantially in which parts interest each of them, will be pleased to discover that those aspects that they value are at least discussed.
• I wanted to record as much of the information as I could while it was fresh in my head.
• It is enormously relieving for me, personally, to know that all of the information is now out of my head and accessible to the heads of others so that I no longer have to rely on storing it in my own memory.

If I want to return to this material in the future and write pieces that summarize it more briefly or refer back to these pages or specific sections of them in order to highlight its connection to other concepts or phenomena, I can always do that. Given these pages as a foundation, it will not be extremely difficult to do. However, for a variety of reasons, it would have been much more difficult for me to work in the opposite order, attempting to keep these initial pages short and to then expand them into more complete versions later.

So, the pages are long and, thus, require an investment of some time to read. Don’t be surprised if it takes more than one sitting to finish any one of the pages. But, I felt that, in this case and at the present time, the benefits of comprehensiveness outweighed the costs.

Some people, when I told them how long the pages are, asked why I chose to cover the material in web pages rather than by writing a book. This is a valid question. In fact, in some ways, it may be worth approaching the pages as you would a book.

But, for two main reasons, described below, I decided to release the material in web page rather than book form:

• I don’t believe enough previously unpublished ideas are involved to merit a new book. Little of what fills these pages consists of fundamentally original material. This is clear since, almost incessantly, on every page, I link to, reference and credit other works from which I learned nearly all of this information and one of the pages is actually a review of someone else’s book. With this work, I am simply doing what I customarily do – connecting and awakening, synthesizing the work of others that has impacted me and that I believe deserves greater attention and promoting it, in my own voice, to try to catalyze change. While this could be accomplished through releasing a sort of annotated anthology or aggregation style book, in this case it seemed to me more sensible to simply refer people through the web directly to the original sources where appropriate.
• The relatively recent development of the Internet has catalyzed a number of communication enhancements – free round-the clock worldwide availability of information, accessibility of data to search engines and their users, efficient linking of related resources and more. The emergence of these features and capabilities, previously only imagined, has been so revolutionary that it not only, as I mention in some of these pages, arouses hopes that the urgent messages perhaps crucial to our very survival will spread as far and as fast as they must to prompt indicated emergent change in time. It is also what enabled me to happen upon much of this material at such a young age – or, quite conceivably, ever – and, in fact, as you will learn when you read the story, what made the publication of Political Ponerology finally possible at all. Publishing this material on my website positions it better than would publication in a book to benefit from these powerful advantages of Internet technology.

Redundancy

A second characteristic that you will notice as you read these pages is that they contain, especially among the latter three pages introduced in the next section, all of which were inspired very directly by the same book, a good deal of redundancy.

This attribute, like their length, reflects my desire for the pages to be comprehensive, as well as my desire to facilitate as diverse a range of readers as possible in finding them. Motivated by these desires, I decided to write several pages, all very closely related and, for the most part, referencing the same third-party resources, about this subject matter so that:

• I could explore in ample depth each aspect of the material
• While doing so at the cost of the resulting overlap in their content – with its attendant drawbacks – each page could stand on its own, allowing readers in search of an extensive understanding of any one page’s particular focus to obtain it, for the most part, if they wished, by reading that page alone
• Readers might arrive at the material via numerous slightly disparate angles

As a result of this decision, people that read several of these pages will, along with acquiring some new insights from each, rehash a substantial amount of information that, in order to lend completeness to each page for the sake of those who read only it, was included on multiple pages. They will also be reintroduced, on most of the pages, to the story of my journey, described, in part, earlier, through various versions covering different combinations of its stages in somewhat different ways. And some material will be reiterated more than once even on the same page. For example, the summary section of the first page introduced below consists of a detailed review that, while presenting useful context for and analysis of the rest of the page, does, at times, repeat its prior contents.

Academic Language

Third, you will notice that some of the writing in these pages is quite academic in style.

This is because, although the pages’ subject matter is so widely relevant and meaningful to a popular audience, it does involve scientific and medical information that is technical in nature. Indeed, one of the points that I strive to drive home in these pages is that, in order to more objectively understand these subjects, we must begin to speak of them in a more technical manner. So, while certain parts of the pages are written in a more personal or easily digestible fashion, other parts, as dictated by the material, are quite academic and this is as it must be.

I realize that some readers may not deem all of these characteristics of the writing discussed so far ideal. The pages may be tedious to read, at times, and perhaps this was not the most elegant way that the material could have been presented. But it is as it is by design. Hopefully, the benefits of this design outweigh the costs and readers, aware of the tradeoffs that were made and the intentions that impelled them, will discover that the value of the information itself spurs them to forgive any imperfections in the quality of this particular presentation.

Objective and Subjective Perspectives

The final characteristic of these pages’ writing that I’d like to mention is that it integrates elements of both an objective and subjective perspective. In some sections or passages, for instance, I relate hard scientific research data in a straightforward manner. In others, I express my own or someone else’s viewpoint on a topic, thereby connecting it with my or their experiences and with a variety of concepts and fields that I or they appreciate. And, in still others, I employ the two perspectives simultaneously. I hope that this approach assists the reader in accessing the material from diverse standpoints and renders the writing more unique and distinctive.

There are certainly other works available – though not yet nearly enough in my estimation – that cover any and all of these topics. Some do so from a primarily objective perspective, some from the subjective perspectives of a range of different people and some combine objective and subjective perspectives as I do in these pages. I introduce, reference and link to many of these works throughout the writing for readers who wish to examine them.

But, in these pages, I share the material in my way and in my style.

Introduction of the Pages

So now, without much further adieu, I want to link to and introduce the four pages themselves, each with a rundown of its contents.

These introductions are then followed, in the subsequent sections, by:

• Some recommendations regarding why you may wish to read all four of the pages, which pages to read if you choose not to read them all and why and the order in which to read them
• Some comments on what I hope you take away from reading these pages
• Some short final thoughts on what drove me in writing them

• What precisely psychopathy is
• How psychopathy relates with and differs from sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)
• How psychopathy is diagnosed and measured
• The surprising prevalence and ubiquity – in all sectors and at all levels of our social systems – of psychopaths
• Psychopaths’ ruthless activities and tremendous deceptive abilities
• How psychopaths have historically increased the relative frequency of their genes and disproportionately spread their influence, contributing to, as well as exploiting – in mutually reinforcing fashion – the particular, increasingly vulnerable and hazardous shape and structure of modern civilization’s hierarchical institutions
• Evolutionary perspectives on whether psychopaths, lacking traits so basic to – and crucial to the long-term survival of – humanity as conscience and empathy and exhibiting fundamentally abnormal perceptual and emotional responses, are human beings with defects or a valuable alternative life strategy or perhaps predators or a subspecies branching off from other humans
• The biological basis of psychopathy, including its genetics and the neurological characteristics of brain structure and function – sometimes akin to those seen in patients with brain injuries – associated with the condition
• An exploration of:
  • How, given that psychopathy and related disorders demand specialized, often counterintuitive approaches, we might try to effectively reduce and promote recovery from their detrimental impact on many levels and through the generations
  • The progress already being made in and resources increasingly available to support these endeavors
  • The ethical dilemmas, controversy and resistance raised by such considerations

It covers:

• Many profound questions regarding the nature and origins of various forms of harm in our world, including about:
  • The existence, definition, sources, factors enabling and consequences of evil
  • The role of evil in our world’s harm
  • What our strategic response to harm and evil in our world should optimally be
• Why many remain entrenched in certain common or traditional perspectives on these questions, despite such perspectives’ perpetual failure to adequately address them, and too rarely consider – or even outright avoid – provocative modern viewpoints
• Why it is so crucial, at this point in our evolution and history and in the progression of our social structures and technologies – at which a race is ongoing between those intent on applying science and its fruits in ways that increase vs. reduce suffering – that we take the enormously meaningful step of investing in the establishment of a modern, innovative and integrative discipline, devoted to studying evil from a scientific perspective, that would:
  • Apply our most up to date knowledge and tools in seeking to better understand this timeless topic
  • Develop means of communicating more precisely, objectively and technically about the relevant issues
• What ponerology is, the basic story of Andrew M. Lobaczewski and his creation of Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, and how I discovered them
• A general overview of Political Ponerology and Lobaczewski’s theories – developed through his participation in secret scientific investigations, spurred by the rise of oppressive governments in mid-20th century Europe, into the roots of harmful behavior – which are conveyed in it, regarding the dynamics of:
  • Evil
  • The historically repeating cyclic process by which evil arises – known as ponerogenesis – and falls in interconnecting fashion on all levels of human systems
  • The state in which evil culminates, pathocracy
• Efforts to break out of the ponerogenic cycle and develop logocracies – human systems specifically equipped to resist pathocracy and, thus, capable of sustainably supporting health and future evolution
• An overview of the implications – in terms of responsibilities, opportunities, priorities and strategy – that Lobaczewski’s ideas, if correct, would have for study, work and other activity in many disciplines, areas and sectors of society upon which we rely to maintain systems’ health even in the presence of evil
• Other works that, in examining the topic of harm in our world from an objective scientific perspective, relate to ponerology, thus complementing Lobaczewski’s work and often, by providing further evidence supportive of his particular theories, corroborating it
• The importance of and measures likely involved in more solidly establishing and promoting the discipline of ponerology, the various forces and categories of people that may support and oppose attempts to do so and the potentially beneficial contributions that the field could make to our future

• A recap of how I discovered ponerology and Political Ponerology
• A review of the story of Andrew M. Lobzczewski, his initiation into covert studies of the causes and dynamics of corrupt oppressive government and his creation and publication of Political Ponerology
• A brief review of what ponerology is and the various questions about evil that it seeks, from a scientific perspective, to address
• Pathocracy – the phenomenon that Lobaczewski calls “the great disease,” which is likely the most damaging manifestation of evil and is the concept at the heart of not only Political Ponerology, but Lobaczewski’s notion of ponerology as a whole – including:
  • What pathocracy is and the background information required to understand it
  • A detailed overview of the similar multi-stage processes, analogous to those associated with certain common physical diseases, by which pathocracies – in a cyclic historical pattern – arise, function, maliciously inflict often unrecognized or denied consequences and self-destruct, all the while mutually reinforcing each other at all levels of human systems
  • Works that, in addition to Political Ponerology, also touch directly on the subject of pathocracy and its workings at different combinations of system levels
  • The factors, dynamics, manipulative tactics and methods of control involved in diminishing systems’ resistance against ponerogenesis and, thus, rendering them vulnerable to pathocracy
  • Pathocracies’ demographic makeup, deceptive nature and activities, exploitation of ideology, religion and war and suppression and abuse of science, especially in the areas of psychology and psychiatry
  • The often traumatic experience of life under the influence of pathocracies and the mechanisms and players involved in recovery from it
  • My personal responses to learning about pathocracy, including how it related with and helped to more clearly explain various concepts and phenomena in the world that I had previously recognized and experienced
  • How pathocracy may have played a role in the rise, dysfunction and unsustainability of civilization itself
  • The case for pathocracy’s reality, significant frequency and substantial – and possibly increasing – degree of detrimental impact
  • The case for greater scientific investigation – building upon that of Lobaczewski and his colleagues and ideally facilitated and supported by a flourishing field of ponerology – into these and many other aspects of pathocracy, including how to improve our capacity to detect its signs and symptoms at various stages in its progression and how to optimally prevent, reduce or respond to it
  • The extensive implications that pathocracy, if real and consequential, would have for:
    • Our understanding of the world
    • Our responsibilities, opportunities, priorities and strategy in disciplines and areas of activity ranging from:
      • How we categorize people, groups and ideologies to…
      • How we communicate to…
      • The philosophies and methodologies that we employ as we engage in therapy, activism and reform to…
      • Religion and religious communities, which relate with such complexity with pathocracy
• How people of conscience, by bravely coming together to support a number of particular suggested and deliberately conceived actions, can galvanize efforts to:
  • Constructively work through resistance posed by a variety of people and groups motivated by a range of concerns and forces, both conscious and unconscious, well-intended and malicious
  • Elevate the status of the field of ponerology
  • Complement insufficiently protective, often misguided and sometimes ages-old traditional and instinctive mindsets and reactions with effective pragmatic approaches that are:
    • Based on continuously enhanced, modern ponerologic insight and psychological and scientific wisdom
    • Focused on leverage points
  • Ultimately foster healing and the emergence of new forms of human systems that are:
    • Fortified by critical thinking
    • Abundant in adaptive mechanisms that maintain them sufficiently immune to the development of pathocracy
    • Capable of sustaining an optimal coexistence in which their members can experience their best possible life together for generations to come

This page offers the most detailed account of:

• My experience and thoughts as I discovered, perused, re-discovered and then more fully read Political Ponerology
• Andrew M. Lobaczewski’s life, participation in secret investigations of government oppression and the sacrifices made as he struggled to finally publish a book that would bring the lessons learned in those investigations to light
• Political Ponerology‘s compelling message and highly technical, in-depth descriptions – often invoking the language of and analogies to medical and physical phenomena – of:
  • The most important division within humanity
  • The process of ponerogenesis
  • How ponerogenesis – as it progresses through various stages and reaches its culmination in pathocracies that eventually meet their downfall – drives much of the destruction and harm perpetually emanating from human systems on all levels
  • How pathocracies in different guises, each adapted to its particular context, have emerged throughout history
  • Why we so often fail to adequately recognize or account for these ponerologic events and how our resulting ineffective responses enable further exploitation and harm to occur
• How a more objective, scientific, pragmatic approach, complementing traditional approaches, can lead us to:
  • Preempt or metabolize resistance on the part of some
  • Develop more effective, advanced and ingenious solutions and strategies, tailored precisely for the tasks of breaking – as well as immunizing systems against – ponerogenic cycles themselves
  • Transform a world characterized by increasingly potent ponerologic threats, which underlie much of its injustice, to one full of sustainable, creatively constructive, sufficiently pathocracy-resistant human systems supportive of continued evolution

This page also offers a point-by-point overview of the many other subjects covered in Political Ponerology related to:

• The various forms of psychopathology relevant to ponerology and their impact in the world
• The factors that render a system more vulnerable to ponerogenesis and the potential to evaluate the state of a system in regard to those factors in order to assess its level of ponerologic risk
• The mechanisms and tactics – including the myriad forms of strategic exploitation of ideology, communication and war – involved in each of the archetypal stages of the ponerologic process in systems and through history
• The stereotypical traumatic effects experienced when pathological people engage with these mechanisms and tactics in pursuit of their abusive goals
• Why different people respond so very differently to encounters with the pathological
• The makeup and workings of pathocracy
• The complex interplay between religion and pathocracy
• How resistance to pathocracy develops

Furthermore, the page covers:

• Consideration, in great detail, of the implications that Lobaczewski’s work has and the measures that it calls for in a variety of sectors and areas of activity
• How Political Ponerology‘s ideas resonated with many of my previous experiences and realizations
• Some of the concerns put forth by myself and others about the book’s suspect claims, shortcomings, imperfections in both content and style and potential to be appropriated by malicious parties in the service of undesirable ends
• Some responses addressing those concerns and why none of them, in any case, should ultimately detract from the most important legacies of Lobaczewski and the many others who sacrificed as he did, namely:
  • Pioneering the promotion and application of ponerology
  • Laying the groundwork and advocating for a vigorous approach, based in a scientific epistemology, to studying and communicating about questions involving harm, suffering and evil – an approach which continues to spread, through the work of many researchers, authors, filmmakers and others to this day and which, in light of new developments and technologies, should continue to spread well into the future

Reading Recommendations

If you are strongly interested in this material or if you start reading and are intrigued, then I certainly hope you’ll read all of the pages. Even though, as mentioned, they – especially the pages on ponerology and pathocracy and the review of Political Ponerology – often overlap in content, still each considers the subject matter with a slightly different focus and includes a few quotes or nuggets of wisdom that struck me as compelling and that were not included in any other page. Sometimes, just reading the same idea expressed through one turn of phrase as opposed to another can bring it home more effectively. And, at the very least, exploring the material in all of these various forms will reinforce it so that it will likely be internalized better and for longer.

Once again, because the pages are long and sometimes academic, it will take some time to read them all. But, this investment of time may, throughout life, prove worthwhile and pay dividends. What these pages impart took me several decades to discover and synthesize. It has the potential, though, to shed light on countless facets of our world for many more decades than that.

And, for whatever it is worth, in the process you will also learn more about me, my interests and what inspires me.

If you decide to read all of the pages, the order in which they were introduced in the previous section is a quite reasonable one in which to do so.

I have no way of knowing how many people will wish to read all of the pages. But, I am satisfied knowing that they are all available for however many or few that is.

If you do not have the time, energy or inclination to read all of the pages, then I would suggest you read, in this order:

• The psychopathy page, which is the most unique of the pages and…
• The ponerology page, which is probably the most important of the group – or, for that matter, of all the pages I’ve written to date – touches on all of the main critical principles and best conveys how all of the other pages fit into the bigger picture

Together, these two pages will enlighten you regarding the basic relevant information and link you to other pages where appropriate

If you are only going to read one page, then the ponerology page is the one I would recommend.

However, of course, if any page jumps out at you most or seems most pertinent to you at this time, by all means dive in at that page. All of the pages sensibly interlink and refer to each other. So you really can profitably arrange your journey through them in any order that you choose.

What I Hope You Will Take Away from Reading These Pages

The information aggregated and shared in these pages obviously cannot and will not provide a final and complete answer as to why the world is as it is. There are influential factors that we may be unable, at this point or possibly ever, to identify or understand. Some of the ideas dealt with are, currently, insufficiently tested according to the standards of science and, therefore – since we are explicitly advocating for consideration of the forces at play in our world from a scientific perspective – must be further clarified and validated by additional research before we rely heavily upon them. And, as is always the case when engaging with science, alternative realizations may, if supported by newly revealed evidence, supplant these ideas – which simply represent the best educated guesses of which we are capable today – at any time.

What I can say with confidence – and one of the beliefs that I hope you will share with me after reading this work – is that the subjects addressed in these pages are important enough to merit persistent investigation and, despite, and sometimes precisely because of, our uncertainty, prudent responses in a variety of areas on all levels and scales. I have taken pains to make that case by providing corroborating data and examples from many referenced sources that demonstrate that:

• There is a high likelihood that the conditions supposed to underlie much preventable and unnecessary harm are real and surprisingly common
• The powerful positions that allow these conditions to exert significant influence are real
• Especially when these conditions and positions interconnect, they often play central roles in the tragic abuses in our systems and may contribute to the greatest threat we face
• These circumstances force us into difficult decisions about what to do or not to do – what measures or policies to enact or not to enact – to break out of and immunize ourselves against frustrating harmful cycles

To accelerate the conversation, I also lay out many proposals for how we might go about engaging in the investigation and responses for which the situation calls.

The picture painted in these pages isn’t always rosy. Some of the unpleasant probabilities that the material elucidates can be difficult to swallow. And even though the pages explore possible solutions to the problems they raise and there seems to be an encouraging increase in the generation and distribution of tools and resources devoted to and discussions focusing on these issues, sometimes even in unexpected places, it remains to be seen whether enough people will be willing to do what it takes to build the momentum to maturely, pragmatically and effectively address them, namely:

• Become conscious of the presence of these issues
• Accept what the evidence germane to the issues shows
• Focus on the issues consistently
• Move beyond both submission and vengefulness

A whole host of passive and active forces, in the forms of both internal defense mechanisms and external pressures, work against such desirable progress, discouraging many from even considering entire fields of relevant knowledge or valuing those who promote them. And even among those who truly care about these issues, there is a temptation to resign ourselves to only philosophizing about them. We will have to resolve many such complications in order to achieve a new milestone in our evolutionary history at which we can more consistently detect the elements and processes involved in and escape self-destructive patterns and wisely act in our own best interest.

However, in the face of these daunting challenges, I believe it is essential that we wrestle with this material and attract to it the attention necessary to arouse an awakening in the service of cultivating an environment in which:

• Courageous scientific and critical thinking about the origins and dynamics of suffering in our world, as well as a pro-psychological attitude, are esteemed and advanced
• We can develop social structures with the capacity to maintain these conditions and foster healthy development on a sustainable basis

And I believe that the entity that could most effectively catalyze all of this is a well-established, highly respected discipline of ponerology equipped to flourish through the generations, serving as a connection point where those knowingly and, as yet, unknowingly working on its mission – including those now unaware that such a field of study even exists – can find each other for mutual support in:

• Seeking the truth about harm and evil in our world
• Objectively confirming or invalidating and replacing the theories on these subjects of Lobaczewski and others
• Promoting their findings as widely as possible

This is a campaign whose time has come. Many people, as well as non-humans, suffered and sacrificed greatly in the course of the trek that has brought us to this point – a point at which we can access more knowledge and resources to support fundamental improvements in the world than ever before. We can honor them best by responsibly applying and building on these assets.

It would be very satisfying if I could, through my life and work:

• Contribute to stimulating, enhancing and raising the priority of the dialogue on and continued study of these issues
• Help support the rise of ponerology at a critical point in its early history when it needs all the support it can get

Therefore, after reading these pages, I hope that – in addition to a recognition that these subjects are pressing enough to demand an investment of energy and resources in investigation and response – you will come away with an appreciation for the positions that:

• Despite the substantial challenges to constructive movement toward health and sustainability, we should bravely engage in and expand the dialogue about the topics examined in these pages and the hard choices with which they confront us
• We should especially invest in building and broadly promoting the field of ponerology because it can best serve as a lasting foundation for all of the efforts in these areas that are so sorely needed, championing:
  • The application of science, critical thinking and psychological insight to the tasks of understanding and addressing harm and evil
  • The study of and experimentation with the types of social structures that encourage this

While I also hope and believe that you will gain much more from them, if you take away from reading these pages a heightened and more sensitive perception, if not an intense urge to act, in regard to these matters, I will consider the work a success.

Final Thoughts on What Drove Me in Writing These Pages

So I have endeavored here to lay out a helpful introduction to these pages. And, if I have, then you will now understand why I wrote what I wrote in the pages and why I wrote them the way that I wrote them. But, perhaps, even all of this cannot sufficiently explain my motivation. And, if that is the case, then I may simply have to explain it in words that many who write will understand:

I just had to.

I felt compelled to do it and it just emerged and everything around me continuously reinforced its doing so.

Perhaps work like this ultimately springs from the unconscious and, thus, we cannot always know the reasons why all things flow out as they do at the time of the flowing. Sometimes those reasons are revealed to us later, either on our own or through interaction with others. Other times, we never do discover exactly why. And sometimes the reasons only come to light many years later, quite possibly long after we’re gone.

Foster the Dialogue: Join in with Comments and Discussion

Although, as emphasized, I have earnestly attempted, in the pages, to explore the relevant issues as comprehensively as possible, there is of course, no chance that I could have become aware of, much less touched on, every subject related to or perspective on them or foreseen and preemptively addressed all of the responses that they may inspire in various people.

I am eager to learn what others believe, feel, think or know about these matters, as well as what, if anything, unfolds in connection with them.

The pages themselves are static and offer no space to leave comments. But questions, thoughts and stories concerning, in any way, the material covered in the pages can be left here in the comments section of this introduction page, in which I would like to see a fruitful discussion – of the very kind for which these pages so often call – emerge.

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:

As shown in the video below, Fields attended the press conference with an iPad displaying the US Treasury’s donation page. She then approached some of these millionaires and asked each to donate to the treasury individually. When they refused to make isolated donations, she claimed that is was hypocritical for them to ask wealthy Americans as a group to pay more while being unwilling to immediately do so themselves.

Fields’ argument struck me as a very instructive example of the type of toxic sophistry – structured and presented cleverly enough to fool many people, yet logically flawed – that is so commonly employed within our public discourse.

In response, I sent the following email to Michelle Fields:

I rarely bother responding to issues like this. But I just wondered your thoughts on this argument.

You say that, if the millionaires think they should be taxed more, then they should start by paying their taxes by themselves and that they are hypocrites if they don’t.

By this reasoning, do you think that stores that participate in things like Groupon should not require a threshold before the deal kicks in? On Groupon if, say, 20 people are willing to buy the deal it may not be worthwhile to the store to offer it, but if 500 buy it it is. Similarly, on a site like Kickstarter, people will pledge to donate, but ONLY if enough others are donating to make it worthwhile and for the project to become viable.

According to you this would be hypocrisy because you try to spin it as a principle. If a vendor believes in a deal being good or if a person believes in a project, they should be willing to go ahead even if not enough others are committed to it. I think this is a fallacy. The entire reason Groupon and Kickstarter are brilliant ideas is because they recognize that many things only are worthwhile and make sense when enough people commit to them. Nobody says a person is a hypocrite for wanting the commitment of others before they donate.

The proper question for these millionaires would be one of these:

1) Exactly how many other people would have to commit to also giving more of their money (or exactly how many dollars would have to be committed) for you to find it worthwhile? Does it have to be the entire country? Could there be some alternative so we can get started even without a major reform of the tax code?

2) Is there a way that we could set up certain specific projects so that a group of you could donate to particular things knowing that you have met the threshold to get something actually done?

All of this is separate from the larger debate about taxes in general. But I really think your argument about them being hypocrites is wrong. I’m not saying none of them are. They may be. But I think that the line of argument you’re making, when you consider things like Groupon and Kickstarter, for example, just doesn’t hold water.

My counterargument here revolves around a concept that is becoming increasingly popular and that is exemplified by the models of Groupon and Kickstarter. Before I knew the common technical term for it, I used to call it “contingent commitment,” but I later learned that it is known as an assurance contract (also sometimes known as a provision point mechanism). An assurance contract is a mechanism whereby a person or group commits to take a certain action, but makes that commitment contingent upon the achievement of some threshold level of simultaneous commitment from others. If that threshold – typically the collection of pledges from enough parties or for enough value to make the desired goal feasible – is reached, all parties to the contract are then bound to take their promised action. If the threshold is not reached – in other words, if the total contribution by the committed parties would still be insufficient to achieve the desired goal anyway – then the contract is not enforced and no action must be taken.

The important thing to recognize is that the reason that this model is becoming more popular and that organizations that use it, such as Groupon and Kickstarter, have become so noteworthy and successful is that it accounts for and assuages some very valid concerns among participants and donors. One of these valid concerns is wasted investment. Investing in something that may never receive enough additional investment to become viable is a risk. Taking such a risk can be noble, can demonstrate an especially strong, though isolated, example of support for a cause and can, at times, inspire enough others to follow suit to ultimately generate success. But it can also quite often lead to the loss of resources that could have, for the sake of not only the investor, but other beneficiaries, been better invested elsewhere. And, meanwhile, an assurance contract allows for many of the same benefits without the need for such a degree of risk.

Thus, it is hardly reasonable to insist that full investment without sufficient assurances of simultaneous commitment from others is our baseline for proving the sincerity of one’s commitment to a cause and that demanding somewhat greater certainty about the level of complementary support expected from others, and in turn the likelihood of achieving the desired return, before investing exposes one as a hypocrite. Yet this is precisely what Michelle Fields is insisting in regard to these tax-increase supporting millionaires.

In fact, it is not hypocritical at all, but simply sensible and wise, for these millionaires to seek assurance, before they commit to investing more of their money in improving the country, that enough others will be similarly committed to make success reasonably likely or, at least, possible.

Some of the millionaires touch on this point in their responses to Fields’ challenge shown in the video. In addition, more of them may have made the point in the portions of their responses edited out of the video.

At least one person in the comments section of Fields’ Daily Caller piece understands and emphasizes this point, as well, though he frames it quite aptly, but slightly differently, in terms of donation matching.

Nonetheless, Fields simply ignores this very valid point and continues, in writing and on television, irresponsibly leveling the hypocrisy accusation.

It only struck me later that that there is a tremendous irony in the fact that many of the more right-leaning conservatives most likely to view the millionaires’ responses to Fields as evidence of hypocrisy are themselves being hypocritical in making this accusation since they would act exactly the same way when it comes to their own investments. In considering investing in a company or a project of some kind, they would almost certainly take into account which and how many other investors, managers, big name stars and so on are also committed. Other conservatives wouldn’t label them hypocrites for withholding investment until they had some level of confidence that the project had sufficient buy-in from complementary others to even have a chance at coming to fruition.

Some may defend Fields on the grounds that the there is a difference between the assurance contract model exemplified by Groupon and Kickstarter and the model these “Patriotic Millionaires'” proposal implies. In the former case, all of the commitments are made entirely voluntarily. But, in the latter case, these millionaires aren’t calling upon their fellow wealthy citizens to voluntarily commit, but rather are asking the government to forcibly extract those complementary contributions.

This is indeed an important distinction and it merits further comment in two regards.

First, the fact that the millionaires advocate taxation at all may indicate to some a moral flaw in their characters. Those who believe that forcible taxation itself is violent and immoral can, with internal consistency, criticize the millionaires for their pro-tax position. But this is a very different criticism from the one that Michelle Fields is making. She is calling them hypocrites. And regardless of your stance on taxation, you must admit that the millionaires, far from being hypocrites, are quite willing to submit to the same taxation themselves that they advocate for others.

Second, even though Fields’ test for hypocrisy among the millionaires is, in my view, an invalid one, I believe that, because their proposed form of contract differs from a fully voluntary assurance contract, we cannot yet substantially rule out some other important and relevant forms of insincerity. Commitment to a fully voluntary assurance contract would, in my view, constitute rather solid evidence of a sincere belief in their cause. But, demanding a similar contract that involves government coercion of some potentially unwilling participants does not provide quite as reliable evidence for their integrity.

What interests me is whether these millionaires’ highest priority is, as they would surely wish us to believe, contributing to constructive solutions or if, instead, they have some ulterior motives. Are they truly most concerned about helping to improve particular aspects of our country or are they actually more concerned about, for example, receiving publicity or promoting big government and transfers of wealth from the private to the public sector for ideological reasons?

I believe that these questions could, to an extent, be answered if the millionaires were approached with the types of alternative queries that I suggested to Michelle Fields at the end of my email to her. This more ingenuous approach basically probes whether they would be as willing to support other, possibly voluntary, means of achieving similar goals as they are to support their pursuit through taxation, as long as those other means still included assurances of sufficient commitment from others. If they are sincerely most concerned with facilitating improvements in the country, then they should at least be open to fully contributing to their achievement through such alternative means. If, instead, they respond to inquiries by stubbornly refusing to consider participation in even comparably low-risk alternative strategies and appear more concerned with insisting on taxation than they are with the supposed purpose of levying those taxes, it would then raise strong suspicions about their true motives.

But note that, even though this latter case could indicate various forms of lack of integrity that should indeed trouble us, hypocrisy is likely not one of them.

Among the most important things that we can do to develop a healthier society are learning to recognize various types of fallacies that are employed in public discourse and calling them out strongly when we spot them. But carrying out these tasks alone is not enough. Just because someone attempts to support their criticism about a situation with fallacious arguments does not necessarily mean that the situation is free of corruption. Upon investigation, we may deem it to be corrupt in the very ways that were being expressed, though for different, more valid, reasons. Or we may instead discover it to be corrupt in completely different and unrelated ways. So it is always important to keep an open mind and to critically examine any situation that is called into question, even if the original questioner did so based on faulty reasoning.

Michelle Fields’ method of investigation and charge of hypocrisy in regards to the “Patriotic Millionaires” were misguided. But they brought about an excellent teachable moment – an opportunity to illustrate the need for and to practice these important skills of identifying and challenging sophistry and then following up by considering and suggesting more constructive methods of investigation.