Psycho-Anarchopathology of Political Careerism:

Psycho-Anarchopathology of Political Careerism:

From Authority-Oriented Politics Driven by the Cain Complex to Authority-Resistant Politics Grounded in Moral Courage

Mahmoud Sadeghi Janbehan

Translated by Maryam Sadeghi/Laya Najmaraqi 

Political Careerism as a Psycho-Anarchopathological Disorder:

An Introduction to the Psycho-Anarchopathology of Political Careerism

In dominant and long-standing political thought traditions, political careerism and statesmanship across all academic, political, and governance domains are usually regarded as rational, goal-oriented, and legitimate professions and orientations. They are considered individual/social competencies that serve security, welfare, personal/social calm, order, defense against threats, or collective progress. Without them, having an organized society would be impossible (although this is not far from reality).

However, from the perspective of Psycho-Anarchology—both psychological and political—this conception and analysis merely reproduce a form of domination-oriented rational and cognitive distortion rooted in a profound psycho-anarchopathological disorder. This disorder affects cognitive, ethical, and emotional realms, manifests in political orientations, and, more importantly, in political careerism in its precise and deep sense, flowing through interpersonal and socio-political relationships.

Within the theoretical framework of Psycho-Anarchology, political careerism is neither a necessarily natural phenomenon nor politics a necessary/ethical process or an action based on anti-authoritarian and anarchic life criteria. Contrary to the widespread notion that political action is a tool for rational societal management or justice realization, Psycho-Anarchology inverts this assumption. Politics driven by power-seeking and authority-orientation—whether institutional and organizational with technocratic forms or in everyday life—often indicates a type of disorder in the human psycho-anarchological, ethical, and existential domain, unless proven otherwise.

This disorder stems from a desire for domination and management of others, fear of freedom due to the responsibilities freedom entails, and avoidance of direct commitment to dignity and justice fields, manifesting itself through control and exercising power and domination at interpersonal/social/political levels.

This paper analyzes and dissects political careerism through the lens of psycho-anarchopathology, which neither sees such behavior as a sign of rational/ethical maturity nor as arising from a rebellious world against any source of domination, but rather as a consequence of a damaged, insecure, wounded human psyche lacking moral courage.

Archo: The Authoritarian Personality Commander in the Power-Oriented Psyche

In Psycho-Anarchology’s theoretical foundations, a central concept termed the “Archo System” (Archo)—which I have extensively written and debated within Psycho-Anarchology of Personality—is introduced as the commander, leader, and manager of personality. Archo is an internal systemic structure at the core of personality leadership, shaped from early childhood in domination-based contexts such as patriarchal families, patriarchal societies, disciplinary schools akin to barracks or prisons, domination-valued religion/culture/history, authoritarian politics, and power-oriented language. In other words, it rises from deep wounds and harms and establishes dominance.

More importantly, Archo is a necessary evil, just as states are a necessary evil (a classic anarchist notion). While detailed discussion is beyond this section, suffice it to say that each organism has a leader system; individuals with more traumatic experiences possess a sicker and more authoritarian Archo.

This internal commander does not necessarily arise from a healthy environment but is constructed and shaped from individual traumas and authoritarian social systems. Its role is to “command,” “lead the organism,” “govern internal systems and subsystems,” “suppress growth factors,” and “sanctify and insist on obedience.”

Archo in the human psyche functions like the head of state in political structure and works as a hierarchical regime leader. If Archo is diseased and dictatorial, instead of enabling ethical, free, dignity-based, and elective life, it generates and intensifies hostility, competition, submission, discipline, obedience, and dozens of other symptoms deriving from Archo-anxiety—until it is healed and fundamentally changed, making psychological health impossible.

In such a structure, we face a problematic leadership and personality disorder. Here, every political action and orientation is not a sign of healthy political behavior but an inner manifestation of the deepest existential and psychological wounds and an essential desire to dominate others through political practice and political careerism.

Undoubtedly, political thinking and political orientations are inseparable from human life.

As the commander of the psychic system for its pathological survival and domination, Archo seeks to intensify and produce psychological disorders and syndromes to satisfy its thirst for power, egocentrism, and authority-seeking. Someone psychologically humiliated or ignored by sources of domination in family or society often pursues “seizing a position of authority.”

Political careerism in such a psyche becomes a refuge for compensating historical and personal humiliation. Politics is not for justice but for healing experienced wounds. Hence, the psyche of the authority-seeking political careerist is not a healthy psyche but one internally shattered and seeking to construct a powerful image to mask inner chaos.

Political Practice: An Effort for Psycho-Anarchological Projection and Psychic Discharge in the Service of Domination

In the psycho-anarchopathological dissection of political careerism in all its forms and spheres—not necessarily political cognition, insight, analysis, or behavior in individual and social life—the process is one of projection, compensation, and soothing of internal wounded experiences in the social arena through power-seeking caused by political action. This occurs consciously (and profoundly unethically) or unconsciously (pathologically) through Archo, to prevent continuous threat, limitation, and serious organism destruction. This function manifests across all fields and can feed disorders like narcissism, from controlling teachers to authoritarian religious leaders and politicians, from strict mothers to political journalists and domineering writers.

The personality system, with Archo at its head, commands all subsystems of the organism, demanding obedience from the “inner world”—for example, threatening or requesting cognitive systems to lie, realizing it with justification and deceit, or knowing of syndromes and supporting, reinforcing, and perpetuating them through deception and denial orchestrated by Archo. This pathological and incomplete system reproduces itself publicly by commanding others, legislating for the masses, eliminating opponents, and sanctifying order and boundaries.

From this perspective, political careerism is nothing but a psycho-anarchopathological disorder disguised as social and political action.

Modern political practice, despite its freedom-loving slogans, carries a wounded psyche that perceives power as the source of security and order—a remedy for pains politics itself initially caused.

Political Careerism and Psycho-Anarchopathological Disorder: The Psycho-Anarchology Hypothesis Inversion

The dominant view assumes political action is a conscious, responsible, and rational act. Psycho-Anarchology challenges and inverts this assumption:

“Every political careerism as a profession is a kind of disorder unless proven otherwise by criteria of ethics, dignity-seeking, freedom-orientation, and justice.”

In this sense, political careerism is neither neutral nor legitimate but suspicious—a strategy to conceal wounds, stabilize domination, and reproduce Cain complexes.

Cain Complex: The Motivational Force Driving Power-Centered Political Careerism

In the systems of Psycho-Anarchology and Psycho-Anarchopathology of political careerism, religious and mythical traditions fundamentally narrate the first murder in human history: Cain kills his brother Abel. Psycho-Anarchology views this narrative not simply as a religious story but as a mythological answer to a fundamental “why”—the why of authoritarianism and domination. It interprets it as the earliest historical metaphor of the psycho-dynamics of political careerism, where power-seeking and authoritarian competition are central.

Cain, as the first political careerist, not only initiates physical violence but also establishes psychological domination, structural jealousy, deadly competition, and the first commanding domination in human history.

Based on Psycho-Anarchology, the Cain Complex is examined as a psycho-political motivational force underlying the formation of authority-centered political careerism in history and individual psyche. This complex results from lack of moral courage, death of empathy, and temptation to compensate inferiority in power arenas.

Cain as History’s First Power-Seeking Political Careerist

Psycho-Anarchology regards the Cain myth not merely as family jealousy but as the primary formulation of power pathology. Cain, confronted with Abel’s free choice, feels threatened by others’ freedom.

In response, he resorts to violence, not dialogue; exclusion, not empathy. He cannot tolerate the freedom and chosen status of another and seeks dominance and destruction. Thus, political careerism is born—the child of the killing of freedom in the power competition field.

The Psycho-Anarchological Mechanism of the Cain Complex

In the Psycho-Anarchology theoretical framework, the Cain Complex is a psycho-ethical structure including:

• Suffering from neglect and invisibility

• Outward projection of anger

• Compensating wounds through domination and elimination

• Denial of others’ freedom as a threat to self-existence

In such a structure, politics becomes a refuge for psyches intolerant of difference, freedom, and justice. Cain-ness marks the point where psyche flees from acceptance to domination and command.

Power-Centered Politics: Cain’s Contemporary Masks

In modern presidential politics, Cain’s face wears new masks:

• Liberal and so-called democratic politics that avoid justice through producing competition, hostility, greed, insatiability, individualism, consumerism, empowerment, exploitation, alienation, idol creation, actor promotion, insatiable pleasure seekers, vulgarity, war mongering, jealousy, lies, propaganda, trivialization, indifference, and so forth.

• Religious/ideological politics that enslave freedom to obedience and imitation, stripping away authenticity, acting as guardians for tighter control and permanent domination.

• Revolutionary politics, which oppose the dominating political opponent they once rebelled against, but ultimately transform into the same power-centered oppressive system.

In Psycho-Anarchology, I aim to demonstrate that whenever justice, freedom, and dignity are absent in any political behavior, the Cain Complex is active. Such a politician tries to heal their wounded psyche through “superiority display,” “controlling others,” “eliminating difference,” and “egocentrism.”

Political Careerism: Cain’s Instrument for Achieving False Inner Value

For the Cain-affected psyche, which applies to almost all politicians (unless proven otherwise), politics replaces dignity and justice. That is, experienced dignity and dynamic justice prevent political careerism, and lacking such superior traits, political careerism becomes the best alternative one can brand. This process transforms political careerism into an instrument of “meaning-making,” but not for ethical life. It is a mask for wounds. Cain-like politics is the product of incapacity for inner meaning, weakness in free living, and lack of moral courage. In such politics, power acts as psychic armor. Authority replaces ethics, control substitutes dialogue, and elimination takes the place of love.

Fear and Moral-Cognitive Submission: Roots of Authoritarian and Totalitarian Political Practice

A Psycho-Anarchopathological Analysis of Obedience and Political Careerism in Authoritarian Psychic Structures

If Cain-like political careerism results from the Cain Complex, domination, and hatred of others’ freedom, the question arises: what drives a person to accept domination, obey commands, and practice totalitarian politics? Psycho-Anarchology finds its decisive answer in fear and moral-cognitive submission.

Fear here is not a normal psychological reaction but an internalized system of existential and ethical inhibition, absence of rebellion and courage in confronting phenomena, leading to will collapse and cognitive blockage.

Submission is not a sign of rationality but a manifestation of inner dignity and moral courage collapse in face of domination, meaning the absence of dynamic cognitive and ethical possibility.

The Psychic Structure of Authoritarian Political Careerism: From Cognitive Fear to Moral Submission

1. Fear of Freedom: The Hidden Logic of Political Careerism
   At the psychic foundation of many authoritarian political careerists lies fear of freedom. Freedom, in the logic and belief of the dominated and dominator, equals danger, disorder, protest, collapse, insecurity, and disorientation. Such mentality prefers to live under inhibitory rules of hierarchical authority and command order, even if at the cost of dignity death.

In Psycho-Anarchology, fear of freedom stems from deep internal damaging and system-disordering factors—the foundational systemic presence of the state, official religion, ideology, closed society, and any form of legitimized authority. Therefore, authoritarian politics is a psychic response to psychological anxiety against the possibility of free life.

2. Moral Submission: Inability to Stand on the Border of Justice
   Moral submission happens when an individual, confronted with injustice, consciously or unconsciously prefers to remain, obey, and justify rather than resist, rebel, and cultivate moral courage.

Submission is not merely a behavioral option but a reflection of inner dignity death in the authoritarian psyche.

In this state, a person justifies submission by moralizing politics, depicting obedience as intelligence, and obedience as a sign of maturity. Psycho-Anarchology reads this logic in reverse:

“Submission is a sign of inner collapse, not rational adaptation.”

3. Cognitive Fear: Refusal of Fundamental and Rebellious Questioning
   Fear of awareness and cognition, fear of seeing what should not be seen, fear of collapsing established symbols and beliefs, fear of justice, etc., are major knots in the psychic world of the authoritarian political careerist. Totalitarian political careerists often live not with truth but with power patterns, because truth destroys their authority status.

From Psycho-Anarchology’s perspective, politics that fears questioning is a psychic defense against confronting the reality of domination and injustice. This politics lives with denial, distortion, and spectacle of truth because it lacks cognitive courage to see it.

4. Collective Submission: From Nation-Building to Party-Worship
   When fear and moral submission institutionalize collectively, they reproduce domination-based systems. People worship power instead of criticizing it. Nations, instead of human solidarity sources, become tools for excluding others. Parties replace ethics. Leaders replace conscience. In such conditions, political careerism is not only an individual disorder but a collective, cultural, and structural pathology.
5. Politics Versus Political Careerism: Courage in the Field of Fear
   Contrary to fear- and submission-based politics, Psycho-Anarchology speaks of politics grounded in courage, not obedience.

Political courage means:

• Living in the field of freedom, not behind walls of power

• Standing against injustice, not negotiating over it

• Unceasing questioning, not institutional justification

This political courage is the emancipatory form of politics—not as a power game but as moral resistance.

From Politics Without Justice and Dignity to the Thirst for Power:

A Psycho-Political Anarchopathological Perspective on Political Narcissism and Archomania (Pathological Will to Power)

In the previous sections, I have tried to demonstrate that domination-oriented politics is founded upon psychotic bases such as fear of freedom, evasion of responsibility, and lack of cognitive and ethical courage.

Now, I will examine two fundamental manifestations of the pathological desire for power:

Political Narcissism and Archomania (the pathological will to power).

These two are not necessarily merely psychological disorders or problems, but rather signs of a deep and systemic pathology in modern political engagement.

1. Manifestation of Narcissism in Political Behavior: Exhibitionism in the Mirror of Power

Narcissism reveals itself most profoundly in political behavior because power-centeredness and domination are among the most fundamental symptoms of this disorder, which become concretized in political practice. On the other hand, narcissism is not simply a personality trait but also a psychological reflection of the power structure within the individual’s psyche.

In this situation, the politician enters the political arena not for justice, freedom, or dignity, but to manifest the self in the domain of power.

Key signs of political/psychological narcissism include:

• Belief in a divine or historical mission
• Exclusive claim to truth or rights
• Need to be seen, approved, and worshiped
• Anger toward criticism and inability to accept failure
  In this state, politics turns into a “showcase of self,” and the audience is not the citizen but the “spectator of authority.”

2. Archomania: The Pathological Desire for Domination

The term Archomania (from Greek archo, meaning “to rule,” and mania) refers to a pathological desire for power, control, and domination—a kind of psycho-political disorder that drives the individual to seek mastery over others and exploit society without any limits or ethical responsibility.

According to psycho-political anarchological and clinical analysis, archomania is characterized by:

• Justifying any means to gain power
• Pleasure in dominating others, not for reform but purely for domination
• Inability to accept horizontal participation and lack of desire for equality
• Desire to construct the “subordinate Other” to legitimize one’s own position

Archomania is both an individual disorder and a reflection of pathological structures such as the state, parties, military, or even opposition groups that act in the service of pathological domination.

Political Engagement as Archomanic Behavior: The Link between Power-Centered Narcissism and Thirst for Power

In psycho-political anarchopathological explanations, political engagement is not understood as a rational and conscious act but as a symptom of a pathological system rooted in domination structures. What distinguishes this psychological problem is the link between clinical narcissism and obsessive power desire embodied in the “Arkomania” personality.

This personality’s will to command is not born from social responsibility but emerges from a deep need for control, domination, and compensation for repressed psychological complexes.

Archomania, or the psychotic-social mania for power in an anarchological context, is defined as a form of “pathological desire for domination” rooted in crises of dignity, trauma of humiliation, and collapse of cognitive courage. Behaviorally, archomanic politicians seek to reproduce power structures to maintain their psychological stability. This possessive desire for domination is a defensive mechanism against existential and psychological anxiety caused by meaninglessness, inability to accept the Other, and failure to experience authentic freedom.

In this disorder, political action is no longer a tool for justice or public good but manifests as a form of chronic psychosis, an inner goal that compensates for internal wounds. Such political action leads not to liberation but to the reproduction of chains forged by the politician himself. In this sense, archomanic politics is not a path toward mental and social health but a mechanism for stabilizing inner insecurities that manifest socially as authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and absolutism.

From the Psycho-Political Anarchological Perspective

The critique of this type of political engagement is not merely an analysis of individual psychological disorders but a recognition of defective social, cultural, and epistemic structures that make such politics possible, desirable, and even necessary.

Therefore, the treatment of this disorder is not achievable through traditional psychology alone but through reconstructing the ethical, epistemological, and life foundations of social existence based on dignity, justice, and freedom.

Sadeghi Janbehan, Mahmoud. From Politics Without Justice and Dignity to the Thirst for Power: A Psycho-Political Anarchopathological Perspective on Political Narcissism and Archomania (Pathological Will to Power). Translated by Maryam Sadeghi and Laya Najmaraqi. Accessed [2025]. 

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