Cultivating a better citizen does not begin in government. In my view, it begins with the restoration of the family — with conversations at the dinner table, with respect for the wisdom of elders, with parents modeling critical thinking rather than outsourcing it.
It means restoring God — or at least a transcendent moral reference point — into society’s consciousness, so that conscience is anchored in something deeper than trend or tribe.
And it means building an economic system that allows families to function as families again: time together, shared responsibility, stability over perpetual hustle.
None of this is easy. Cultural repair rarely is. But if we want better citizens, we must start where citizens are first formed.
Robert, Best analysis of these three works I have seen, especially in the aggregate. Both thought provoking and depressing, sadly. I fear we are in for more -- one can see trends most every day. Wish the solution set were something more facile. I hope Desmet's "get a few people to 'just say no'" is in the cards because that is the only one that one might have a chance at organizing. Thanks for doing this -- getting philosophical is sometimes good for both writer and reader. R
Another point of view about this topic can be found in the book _Political Ponerology_ by Andrew M. Lobaczewski. When the communists took over Poland, Lobaczewski was part of a group of academics who launched an underground study to build up psychological profiles of all the members of totalitarian parties they could get data on (both communist and Nazi). In contrast to Arendt's thesis, they observed that the people at the heart of these parties were sociopaths, and had selected other people with other specific personality disorders to fulfill particular roles.
While it is true that just about everybody can be unwittingly caught up in mass evil, according to this work that is what empowers unusually exploitative people when they get sufficiently organized. There is a small fraction of the population with abnormal personalities that, when attaining positions of power and authority and working together with each other, can draw the rest of society into a profoundly evil system that leads to totalitarianism.
The lesson Lobaczewski draws from this is that the identification and vetting of such destructive personalities needs to be institutionalized to prevent them from attaining positions where they can reshape their social context to suit their own ambitions.
There is also a "Political Ponerology" substack channel run by Harrison Koehli. Koehli wrote a piece ( https://infrakshun.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ponerology-101-psychopathy-at-nuremburg.pdf ) summarizing a work that contradicted the "22 Cells" assessment. This was done by Nuremberg prison psychologist Gustav M. Gilbert, who wrote about his own observations in his 1950 book _The Psychology of Dictatorship_.
Nice review of three thinkers whose ideas continue to be relevant. In addition to speaking out, redistributing power so that it is less centralized appears to be a necessary antidote. This is well described in this article I highly comment to all interested in the subject: https://www.alilybit.com/p/a-field-guide-to-the-abuse-of-the
This writing can be a major contribution to understanding conditions we all face, worthy of wide distribution - at least for those Able to read and take it in. A lead quote to take away is the “curious, quite authentic inability to think”. A puzzler we’ve all faced in people we once felt close to.
Your essays today offer a deep dive in theories. A question that impacts my reactions is whether at this point we need to consider both macro and a micro points of focus.
One might note we have an effort to establish a totalitarian one world order still in process. The elite, some would identify as the Rothchilds, the Rockefellers, the Bilderbergers and like are promoting their rule to be administered through the UN, the WEF and with the CFR. At least according to one source, Trump clearly understands their game plan and is doing well countering it. Nonetheless, I remain concerned that he needs an understanding and support from we, our citizenry. Our majority need to agree we want to follow the process our Declaration and Constitution have set out.
Then, definitely the question of cultivating a better citizen and a better society. The poisons, intellectual and physical, that our nation has been consuming leave us in, imo, a very compromised state today. The fact our communications continue to be censored confounds needed sharing amongst the general public. The fact seems to be that our public school systems are clearly contaminating students thinking in ways that end up in students accepting and promoting totalitation answers is daunting. We seem to be years behind recognizing and curing the many pathologies.
I think we could cultivate better citizens and a better society. It will take aware, moral activists. Do we have enough of them?
Thanks so much for your analysis,
reflections and diligence in sharing them! May it mobilize many and generate our needed involvement.
Here's a good read for people to understand the characteristics of humanity that are the structure as well as tools of those who generated COVID and the response, as well as numerous other human atrocities.
Conscience-free opportunists are the true leaders of these atrocities, and 'true believers' 'captured by ideology' are middle managers at various levels.
Removing free speech gets it done and locked down.
Isolating people is the strongest tool for rolling in the tyranny.
The unique feature of WWII era Germany is that people have been able to study the methodology and publish on it.
Now we're talking! And yet the individual healing and identification of misunderstood application of thought and emotion requires inner awareness and commitment. At the base of all of this tendency towards hurtful and sometimes irreversible damage is a thorough examination of the workings of the ego. If this was easily scoped, we would be in paradise instead of illness at every turn . It is up to each and every one of us to tackle the subtle and not so subtle personality flaws. There is no one else to do the deep looking and everything is to be gained.
Solzhenitsyn wrote, “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.”
Simply put (by Jesus): sin. Sometimes it manifests itself in particularly intense ways, on a personal, national or international level. In Matthew 1:21, the name Jesus is explicitly tied to his purpose: "...you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Jesus: the only hope for the world.
Excellent synopsis of three important thinkers. The term 'conscience' appears more than once, and in my view is a fundamental key. What is the state of our individual conscience? Is the conscience something we are born with or something that develops? Both. We are born with a conscience but it can be seared to the point of ineffectiveness. Or, it can be nurtured and developed into an integral part of our being; of primary importance. How does one's conscience develop if one does not believe in the existence of God? I don't know, but am guessing that it's not good. For me, wrestling with Scripture is a conscience builder, remembering, that in matters of doctrine, when my finger is pointed at others, there are three pointing back at me.
My conclusion: Stock up on canned food, get a generator or solar & buy a shotgun. These people will not allow Trump to leave on an upbeat note, and we've seen they regard us an cannon fodder.
I read and gave away at least two hardcover copies of Desmet’s excellent analysis after watching his interview with Tucker Carson. Probably not surprising that it ruffled a few feathers worldwide.
Best in depth study imho of how any society can be duped and high intelligence might even make you easier to deceive!! Edit: Thanks for the analysis Dr Malone. A friend suggested I read Hannahs book awhile ago. Haven’t got around to it yet. 😊
Thank you so much for doing this Robert! I’ve read Arendt and Desmet but not Kelly. I agree with everyone’s comments too. It’s all true and I lean towards the importance of extended family and community. I am so blessed to have ancestors who were handloom weavers in New Monkland which is now part of Glasgow, Scotland. The extended families all worked together every day except Sundays. They would take turns to take a break and the person on break would read allowed. Sometimes it was the Bible but often classical literature. It was an essential part of their culture to read and think and discuss. Then came the steam loom. It never ceases to amaze me how “schooling” has deprived so many of authentic education; the nurturing of critical thinking skills and the importance of listening to diverse opinions and being okay with disagreement.
On the other hand I do seem to be noticing an increase in the number of sociopaths and narcissists who are incapable of empathy. Perhaps it’s a function of prolonged stress, abuse and isolation but it does make me wonder if it’s the accumulation of toxins in the brain accumulating across the generations.
Many thanks again for this post and to all those who responded. Some great thoughts to take away.
I'm so happy you provided this comparative analysis. I was trying to do so with my little ol brain, but it keeps running out of data space, and the battery, similar to how it acts in super cold weather, drains much more quickly with these troubling topics.
At the Can-Do level - recharging my battery pdq, with every encounter - Mattias Desmet advises us to, not go under, but to SPEAK often, and Sincerely, of Truths.
I certainly appreciate these efforts to study how groups have come to control populations in very unhealthy and sometimes evil ways. These are somewhat academic efforts by serious thinkers. Two questions could there be biology involved? Sometimes on the criminology claims, such as Jeffery Daimler, the thought was he had no empathy towards others, as he was cutting them up and cooking them like we do with animals. Conclusion there were cell types missing. Also I think of the vast drug trafficking in which many folks are involved showing no mercy towards others. But I guess the discussion is trying to understand folks who weren’t classified as “criminals” but rather those who controlled the masses via “ideas”.
Cultivating a better citizen does not begin in government. In my view, it begins with the restoration of the family — with conversations at the dinner table, with respect for the wisdom of elders, with parents modeling critical thinking rather than outsourcing it.
It means restoring God — or at least a transcendent moral reference point — into society’s consciousness, so that conscience is anchored in something deeper than trend or tribe.
And it means building an economic system that allows families to function as families again: time together, shared responsibility, stability over perpetual hustle.
None of this is easy. Cultural repair rarely is. But if we want better citizens, we must start where citizens are first formed.
Robert, Best analysis of these three works I have seen, especially in the aggregate. Both thought provoking and depressing, sadly. I fear we are in for more -- one can see trends most every day. Wish the solution set were something more facile. I hope Desmet's "get a few people to 'just say no'" is in the cards because that is the only one that one might have a chance at organizing. Thanks for doing this -- getting philosophical is sometimes good for both writer and reader. R
Another point of view about this topic can be found in the book _Political Ponerology_ by Andrew M. Lobaczewski. When the communists took over Poland, Lobaczewski was part of a group of academics who launched an underground study to build up psychological profiles of all the members of totalitarian parties they could get data on (both communist and Nazi). In contrast to Arendt's thesis, they observed that the people at the heart of these parties were sociopaths, and had selected other people with other specific personality disorders to fulfill particular roles.
While it is true that just about everybody can be unwittingly caught up in mass evil, according to this work that is what empowers unusually exploitative people when they get sufficiently organized. There is a small fraction of the population with abnormal personalities that, when attaining positions of power and authority and working together with each other, can draw the rest of society into a profoundly evil system that leads to totalitarianism.
The lesson Lobaczewski draws from this is that the identification and vetting of such destructive personalities needs to be institutionalized to prevent them from attaining positions where they can reshape their social context to suit their own ambitions.
Yes, familiar, have the book
There is also a "Political Ponerology" substack channel run by Harrison Koehli. Koehli wrote a piece ( https://infrakshun.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ponerology-101-psychopathy-at-nuremburg.pdf ) summarizing a work that contradicted the "22 Cells" assessment. This was done by Nuremberg prison psychologist Gustav M. Gilbert, who wrote about his own observations in his 1950 book _The Psychology of Dictatorship_.
Nice review of three thinkers whose ideas continue to be relevant. In addition to speaking out, redistributing power so that it is less centralized appears to be a necessary antidote. This is well described in this article I highly comment to all interested in the subject: https://www.alilybit.com/p/a-field-guide-to-the-abuse-of-the
This writing can be a major contribution to understanding conditions we all face, worthy of wide distribution - at least for those Able to read and take it in. A lead quote to take away is the “curious, quite authentic inability to think”. A puzzler we’ve all faced in people we once felt close to.
Your essays today offer a deep dive in theories. A question that impacts my reactions is whether at this point we need to consider both macro and a micro points of focus.
One might note we have an effort to establish a totalitarian one world order still in process. The elite, some would identify as the Rothchilds, the Rockefellers, the Bilderbergers and like are promoting their rule to be administered through the UN, the WEF and with the CFR. At least according to one source, Trump clearly understands their game plan and is doing well countering it. Nonetheless, I remain concerned that he needs an understanding and support from we, our citizenry. Our majority need to agree we want to follow the process our Declaration and Constitution have set out.
Then, definitely the question of cultivating a better citizen and a better society. The poisons, intellectual and physical, that our nation has been consuming leave us in, imo, a very compromised state today. The fact our communications continue to be censored confounds needed sharing amongst the general public. The fact seems to be that our public school systems are clearly contaminating students thinking in ways that end up in students accepting and promoting totalitation answers is daunting. We seem to be years behind recognizing and curing the many pathologies.
I think we could cultivate better citizens and a better society. It will take aware, moral activists. Do we have enough of them?
Thanks so much for your analysis,
reflections and diligence in sharing them! May it mobilize many and generate our needed involvement.
Here's a good read for people to understand the characteristics of humanity that are the structure as well as tools of those who generated COVID and the response, as well as numerous other human atrocities.
Conscience-free opportunists are the true leaders of these atrocities, and 'true believers' 'captured by ideology' are middle managers at various levels.
Removing free speech gets it done and locked down.
Isolating people is the strongest tool for rolling in the tyranny.
The unique feature of WWII era Germany is that people have been able to study the methodology and publish on it.
The evil is not at all unique.
Now we're talking! And yet the individual healing and identification of misunderstood application of thought and emotion requires inner awareness and commitment. At the base of all of this tendency towards hurtful and sometimes irreversible damage is a thorough examination of the workings of the ego. If this was easily scoped, we would be in paradise instead of illness at every turn . It is up to each and every one of us to tackle the subtle and not so subtle personality flaws. There is no one else to do the deep looking and everything is to be gained.
Solzhenitsyn wrote, “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.”
Simply put (by Jesus): sin. Sometimes it manifests itself in particularly intense ways, on a personal, national or international level. In Matthew 1:21, the name Jesus is explicitly tied to his purpose: "...you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Jesus: the only hope for the world.
Indeed! Solzhenitsyn nailed it, as he did at Harvard in 1978:
https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/a-world-split-apart
Excellent synopsis of three important thinkers. The term 'conscience' appears more than once, and in my view is a fundamental key. What is the state of our individual conscience? Is the conscience something we are born with or something that develops? Both. We are born with a conscience but it can be seared to the point of ineffectiveness. Or, it can be nurtured and developed into an integral part of our being; of primary importance. How does one's conscience develop if one does not believe in the existence of God? I don't know, but am guessing that it's not good. For me, wrestling with Scripture is a conscience builder, remembering, that in matters of doctrine, when my finger is pointed at others, there are three pointing back at me.
We have a concurrent case study available to us now with the emergent totalitarian leftist mafia which has captured Virginia.
My conclusion: Stock up on canned food, get a generator or solar & buy a shotgun. These people will not allow Trump to leave on an upbeat note, and we've seen they regard us an cannon fodder.
I read and gave away at least two hardcover copies of Desmet’s excellent analysis after watching his interview with Tucker Carson. Probably not surprising that it ruffled a few feathers worldwide.
Best in depth study imho of how any society can be duped and high intelligence might even make you easier to deceive!! Edit: Thanks for the analysis Dr Malone. A friend suggested I read Hannahs book awhile ago. Haven’t got around to it yet. 😊
Books, plural
Thank you so much for doing this Robert! I’ve read Arendt and Desmet but not Kelly. I agree with everyone’s comments too. It’s all true and I lean towards the importance of extended family and community. I am so blessed to have ancestors who were handloom weavers in New Monkland which is now part of Glasgow, Scotland. The extended families all worked together every day except Sundays. They would take turns to take a break and the person on break would read allowed. Sometimes it was the Bible but often classical literature. It was an essential part of their culture to read and think and discuss. Then came the steam loom. It never ceases to amaze me how “schooling” has deprived so many of authentic education; the nurturing of critical thinking skills and the importance of listening to diverse opinions and being okay with disagreement.
On the other hand I do seem to be noticing an increase in the number of sociopaths and narcissists who are incapable of empathy. Perhaps it’s a function of prolonged stress, abuse and isolation but it does make me wonder if it’s the accumulation of toxins in the brain accumulating across the generations.
Many thanks again for this post and to all those who responded. Some great thoughts to take away.
I'm so happy you provided this comparative analysis. I was trying to do so with my little ol brain, but it keeps running out of data space, and the battery, similar to how it acts in super cold weather, drains much more quickly with these troubling topics.
At the Can-Do level - recharging my battery pdq, with every encounter - Mattias Desmet advises us to, not go under, but to SPEAK often, and Sincerely, of Truths.
I certainly appreciate these efforts to study how groups have come to control populations in very unhealthy and sometimes evil ways. These are somewhat academic efforts by serious thinkers. Two questions could there be biology involved? Sometimes on the criminology claims, such as Jeffery Daimler, the thought was he had no empathy towards others, as he was cutting them up and cooking them like we do with animals. Conclusion there were cell types missing. Also I think of the vast drug trafficking in which many folks are involved showing no mercy towards others. But I guess the discussion is trying to understand folks who weren’t classified as “criminals” but rather those who controlled the masses via “ideas”.