Talk:Political ponerology

Critic

I became interested in the book, author and topic about 2 years ago, but after some thought and attempts at further internet research, must conclude that the book, if not also the author, is not "for real". This conclusion rests largely on the book's purported editor, Laura Knight-Jadczyk, who by all appearances is a charlatan of some kind, and an ineffective one at that. I suspect she is directly responsible for creating the wiki entry for this topic in the first place (it was created by "poneros" in 2008).

Her websites at www.cassiopaea.org, sott.com and quantumfuture.net are full of flakery and fakery. She expresses firm belief in her ability to communicate with aliens whom she claims to exist beyond the constellation of cassiopaea. For more corroboration of these opinions, you need only to visit one of the websites.

As such, this page will likely remain an orphan, and not develop into anything greater than it is now. Unfortunately I can't justify removing it altogether, though that might still not be a bad idea. Someone with more knowledge of wikipedia culture should take a next step, maybe. TimProof (talk) 02:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and sott.net (Signs of Our Times) isn't a reliable source either. [1], because it is a website of https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Laura_Knight_Jadczyk --AlexanderdieMaus (talk) 16:25, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

I think TimProof's decade-old perspective makes sense given what was generally visible outside of LKJ's web sites for a long time. That RationalWiki article on the book's editor (which also mentions the book in a smaller part) used to have a similar perspective, but has changed a lot in 2021, the whole thing now rewritten in much greater depth.

Back in the 00s, LKJ got started in a smaller way juxtaposing made-up and more sensationalist psychopathy claims on her sites with themes from Political Ponerology. The book is far more sober. A main example, also mentioned in the text, is that it became an iconic part of Sott.net's message that "6% are psychopaths", while Lobaczewski never claimed that 6% of people in the world are psychopaths (he put it just a little above 1/2%). LKJ may have (while knowing better) conflated psychopathy with another idea that Lobaczewski had, which in more conventional wording is roughly that 6% of people have the potential to become strongly radicalized authoritarian followers given the circumstances.

It takes original research of the kind that can't be put in a Wikipedia article to separate the message of Lobaczewski and his book from that of LKJ and her online operations, but it can in principle be done. Whoever is interested can, for a rough start, look at the part of the RW article with the psychopathy percentages table, and you'll see basically just how large the difference in mentalities has become.

As for Lobaczewski himself, there is a mid-00s Sott video interview with him featured earlier on a Sott-related blog, and then uploaded to YouTube in 2011 here. (The interviewer is Henry See, also listed as editing the book, and who later left Sott and everything related.) For the purpose of more background information on the author, it seems like something that this Wikipedia article could link to. --JoelKP (talk) 18:24, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Previous commentator does not know what he is talking about

Ignore TimProof's comments. He tries to discredit the author and his book by association with its english language editor, Laura Knight Jadczyk. Of course, if he had indeed taken the slightest interest in the book, as he says he has, and even opened it at the first page, he would have noticed that Laura Knight-Jadczyk, independently of the fact that her website is, or is not, full of fallacies (accusations which he did not substantiate), published this as a translation from the original Polish language edition. The book existed before, and does indeed exist independantly of Laura Knight-Jadczyk. There have been other translations. Yes, TimProof, the book is indeed "for real".

TimProof is strongly encouraged to stop this kind of unjustified intervention, let alone to promise that "this page will likely remain an orphan, and not develop into anything greater than it is now". Please leave that to people who will actually take the time to open the book and inquire about the author. 69.80.103.181 (talk) 00:12, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

The "neutrality" question here is important

While I agree that Laura Knigh-Jadczyk is a nut, what does this have to do with Andrzej Łobaczewski's book? She's just the editor. While we can thank her for allowing this book to see the light of day, otherwise we can ignore her. The translator, Alexandra Chciuk-Celt, is a well respected translator of numerous polish texts based at NYU. Now I don't suppose you'd take my authority as a psychologist that this is a serious book, but what is wrong with Philip Zimbardo? You can see his comment on the book here, along with a comment by a very respected historian, Ilan Pappé. Since the "discussion" that led to the "neutrality" claim is completely unfounded, I believe we should remove it forthwith. I'm not sure if I can find out how that's done, but if so, I will. DiagonalArg (talk) 11:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The neutrality question is not silly---the article in its current form is essentially a sales-pitch for the book, which sounds like an obedience-cult recruitment tool. Obedience-cultists tend to rely on credentialism and citationalism in order to make up for their lack of evidence for their positions. The sum total of the evidence for an obedience-cult's view is that the cultists are "normal" and that everyone else is "abnormal." History is replete with examples of these sorts of obedience-cults gaining power. They do it by taking advantage of vulnerable persons who have a desire to belong to something and who are often upset with prevailing economic conditions, for which they blame others rather than themselves, due to a lack of ability to accept total responsibility for their lives. A scapegoat is created and dehumanized, that is, pathologized, which then absolves the cultists from any responsibility for whatever they do to restore their cult's view of "normalcy." In their distorted world-view, they think that suppression of opposing political viewpoints is merely medicine for sick people. And if we look into the examples of Communism and National Socialism, we find that forced medical treatment for political dissidents is often a part of how those obedience-cults maintain power.

Something smells fishy here. Why remove parts of the discussion? Any attempt at censorship raises the question whether somebody has something to hide. As for he author Andrzej Łobaczewski, how come we can find his biography only on English Wikipedia - introduced, one again, by user Poneros, who also initiated the article on the book - and nowhere else, not even in the Polish version? Did he even exist? How do we know Mrs. Knigh-Jadczyk only edited the book, as opposed to authoring it? Her websites expose her as a massive flake, no doubt about it. And what's worse, the book appears to contain anti-semitic passages. Is Ponerology yet another conspiracy theory? We need to look into all of these questions. --87.188.240.38 (talk) 23:46, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

One more thing: Scholar.google.com doesn't have one single reference about Andrzej Łobaczewski. On regular Google, he mostly exists as a Polish athlete. As an author and scientist, he might very well be a figment of imagination. --87.188.240.38 (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

A well respected psychologist, Zimbardo, and a well recognized historian, Pappé, have publicly stated that this is a serious and important text; and I, as a psychologist, agree. A nut like Knigh-Jadczyk is not capable of writing such a text. Without knowing any psychology, maybe you aren't able to distinguish that. Similarly, a non-mathematician might not be able to recognized an important piece of mathematics. I don't consider this comment anything more than an argument for retaining of a page devoted to the book on wikipedia. DiagonalArg (talk) 12:26, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

@87.188.240.38: Andrzej Łobaczewski also has film camera operator credits... is it just barely possible we're seeing a name that's borne by multiple people? – _•Raven  ^.talk 23:02, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

An extremely important topic

This is an extremely important topic and I strongly encourage people to think about it! High power often attract the wrong people, but also very often change people for the worst! We just have to look at history to see how regular this pattern is, and how important it is to create political tools avoiding political abuse by design (transparency, responsibility, ethic, realism etc. are all part of the building blocks), and the most incomprehensible thing is why is this article so small, why isn't it extended to pathocracy in general! A good start would be to also analyze the effect of standard disease on historical leaders, eg Ces Malades Qui Nous Gouvernent by r Pierre Rentchnick & Pierre Accoce — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.228.180.178 (talk) 21:27, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Please don't put shopping links inside Wikipedia articles. I've removed the link. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 06:04, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Most elaborate spamming attempt ever. EllenCT (talk) 15:17, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Not really. From book (These Unhealthy People Who Govern Us, Pierre Rentchnick, Pierre Accoce) cover: "Physical and mental balance of the people with responsibilities, their wisdom, their ability to cope with extreme situations have never been more important. To protect humanity from the effects of their failures, their possible aberrations, becomes a priority." (google-assisted transl from fr:). Spam or not, the IP points at a reasonable source, and topic. (Unless the book is a conspiracy theory. I will look into.) Staszek Lem (talk) 19:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

The newer book Ces croyants qui nous gouvernent ("These Believers who Govern Us"; ther authors, similar title. Book series??) about George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin. I don't know about the rest, but the part which tells us how a former Soviet KGB functionary suddenly "saw the light" is definitely telling :-) Again, no idea about book credibility. Rentchnick is cited 3 times in de:, fr:, it: wikipedias. Accoce cited 24 times. Let me try to figure out whether his bio meets en:wp standards: my Scratch Pad. - Staszek Lem (talk) 20:33, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

This entry

This entry is still the same, but the lemma is different. There are no reliable sources for this content. --AlexanderdieMaus (talk) 16:28, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

The author was a real person... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2036552.Andrew_M_Lobaczewski --212.95.5.63 (talk) 03:56, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

See also... https://lubimyczytac.pl/autor/102013/andrzej-lobaczewski