Mental delusions and ideologies

They are not so different as we might think.

Mar 07, 2025

Q: What is the difference between an ideology and the delusions of those with mental disorders?

A: The number of people who believe it.

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The main theme of my Substack and book series is understanding the origins and causes of human material progress. I am, however, very interested in forces that undermine current and future material progress. In particular, I am interested in political ideologies.

I believe that:

To promote a better world (particularly human material progress), we need to first understand the world.
The most significant barrier to our understanding of the world is our own preconceived biases.
Ideology is the mother of all preconceived biases.
Therefore, ideology is one of the primary threats to promoting future progress.

Let’s take a look at one famous individual to see what we can learn.

Ted Kaczynski, more commonly known as the “Unabomber,” has always fascinated me. One of the key questions that comes up from his example is: “Was Ted Kaczynski an inspired intellectual who invented a new ideology, or did he suffer from a mental disorder?” For most people, the answer stems from the extent that they agree with Kaczynski’s vision. Those who agree with him see him as an inspired intellectual, while those who disagree with him view him as a madman.

I think that the true answer is “Both.”

Ted Kaczynski was clearly extremely intelligent. He graduated from high school at age 15 and was a National Merit finalist. Kaczynski was accepted into the Harvard mathematics program at age 16 and eventually earned a PhD in Mathematics at Michigan. Kaczynski also wrote many high-level mathematics articles, which are far above my ability to comprehend. At age 25, Kaczynski became the youngest assistant professor in the history of UC Berkeley. Ted Kaczynski was very likely in the top 1% of intelligence.

But throughout his life, Ted Kaczynski had a very difficult time getting along with other people: whether it be friends, family, fellow students, and pupils. The pattern of behavior of someone with mental disorders was there long before he started his bombing campaign.

Some claim that Kaczynski’s mental problems started when he voluntarily participated in an intense long-term psychology experiment run by Harvard. Some allege that the experiment was part of the CIA’s MKUltra project. The experiment would no doubt be regarded as extremely unethical today, particularly for a 17-year-old participant.

I believe that Kaczynski was selected for participation because he had the symptoms of a mental disorder. The experiment had far more volunteers than participants, and each volunteer took a written evaluation. Only those who gave the “correct” answers were allowed to participate.

I believe that the test was a psychological screening looking for those that likely already had a mental disorder. The experiment likely exacerbated his pre-existing mental condition, but I seriously doubt that it created Kaczynski’s mental disorder.

I believe that Ted Kaczynski was a very intelligent man who suffered from a serious mental disorder. To explain his perception of the world, Kaczynski invented a new political ideology (most likely by cobbling together many existing ideologies). The alternative would have been accepting the fact that he suffered from an uncurable mental disorder. That reality was simply too difficult to embrace, so Kaczynski invented reasons why society was causing his suffering.

I believe that Ted Kaczynski shares much in common with:

Those who invent new ideologies
The leaders of radical ideological movements or political parties. By “radical,” I mean views that are the furthest from the rest of society.
Those who support radical ideologies well into their adulthood (many youths are initially attracted to radical ideologies, but then drop out as they gain more life experience)
Those who are most active in support of radical ideologies, for example, participate regularly in street demonstrations.

I believe that in another cultural context, Ted Kaczynski could have supported Communism, National Socialism, Fascism, Jacobinism, Islamic Jihad or one of a myriad of other radical ideologies. The exact ideology that Ted Kaczynski advocated was far from inevitable.

It seems likely that virtually every intelligent person with a serious mental disorder invents reasons why the problem is something other than their own mental disorder. The vast majority of rationalizations are dismissed by others as the ravings of a deluded person.

Only a very tiny portion of those systems of thought caught on with the larger population, but those that did have done great harm to society. Rather than society punishing self-destructive and anti-social behaviors, a significant portion of society either tolerates or valorizes them as for the greater good. The more persuasive the ideology, the greater the destruction.

Most persons with serious mental disorders would have their own private delusion that no one else believed. Or they might hitch themselves to an existing political ideology or religion to explain their dilemmas.

But not Ted Kaczynski. The fact that he was a very intelligent man with a serious mental disorder made it inevitable that he would search for answers to his inability to perceive the world as others do. I think for men of great intelligence and creativity, they are likely to create their own unique world view.

Now that does not mean that each very intelligent person with a mental disorder, you have one new political ideology or religion. As my initial Q&A at the top of the article suggests, the person still needs to convince other people that his private mental delusions are a unique insight into reality that others have not discovered.

I believe that for every very intelligent person with a mental disorder that succeeds in founding a new ideology, there are thousands who fail. The difference is in how appealing the mental delusion is to other people. The intellectual must sculpt their terminology and argumentation in a way that seems plausible to others given their cultural, material, and social circumstances.

A person like Ted Kaczynski would have a strong personal incentive to convince others that his viewpoint was a penetrating analysis of the human condition and not just a mental delusion. While interacting with others, he would likely try differing terminology and lines of argumentation. If he were really intuitive and persistent, Kaczynski would read books by thinkers who had similar views and then cobble them together into a unique world view.

Of course, Ted Kaczynski took it much further. Starting in 1978, Kaczynski started an 18-year bombing campaign. It was this bombing campaign that made Kaczynski famous. Those violent acts led to the widespread publicity of his 35,000-word manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future.

An ideology is born (albeit one that has a relatively narrow following).

You can read more of my articles on the dangers of ideology:

If you enjoyed reading this series of articles, you might also be interested in reading my “From Poverty to Progress” book series:

But isn’t Ted Kaczynski unique?

Is this a unique story, or is Ted Kaczynski just an exaggerated version of a common story?

Despite the obvious difference that Ted Kaczynski engaged in a violent letter bombing campaign, I think that there are strong parallels between him and other founders (and followers) of radical ideologies.

As evidence for this, I would recommend Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky. Johnson examines the personal lives of some of history’s most respected intellectuals, including a number who invented new ideologies, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, and Noam Chomsky. He found a common thread running through their personal lives:

An inability to earn an income to support themselves.
Poor relations with their parents.
Difficulty keeping long-term friends
Very distant relations with their children (if they have any).
Projected views about what they want for society that conflicted with their actual behavior towards individual humans.
Strong tendencies to egotism and self-promotion.

Of course, none of this is proof of mental disorders, but it does fit with the classic definition of a mental disorder from What is Mental Disorder? by Derek Bolton:

a pattern of behavior or mental function that significantly impairs personal functioning or causes considerable distress.

In addition to being invented by those with mental disorders, I believe radical ideologies target those with mental disorders. The reason is the same: the radical ideologies explain the suffering that a person with mental disorders by blaming society for those problems rather than confronting the far more disturbing conclusion that they have an incurable mental disorder.

I believe that most radical ideologies of both the Left and the Right:

Were created by very intelligent individuals with serious mental disorders. The most likely candidate for their mental disorder is anti-social disorder.
For the specific purpose of:
- rationalizing their self-destructive and anti-social behaviors
- moralizing those behaviors as being necessary for a higher cause.
- blaming society or certain demographic groups for how they feel
- sabotaging the ability of parents, peer pressure, and law enforcement to deal with their self-destructive and anti-social behaviors.

Belief systems affect behavior

Mental disorders are primarily caused by genetics, but the behaviors that are exhibited by those with mental disorders are heavily affected by the beliefs of society and its institutions. Societies can have ideologies and religions that:

Soothe those with mental disorders, often with the belief in a God or gods
Focus the blame on something other than society or material conditions, often a supernatural being
Enable parents, peer pressure, and law enforcement to punish self-destructive and anti-social behaviors.

Ideologies and religions often give moral credibility to institutions that keep those with mental disorders from getting into positions of power. In many cases, societies do terrible things to those with mental disorders, but the overall effect is to protect society from the worst behaviors.

Radical ideologies have the opposite effect. Rather than soothing mental disorders, radical ideologies aggravate mental disorders. I have come to believe that ideologies are the intellectual rationalizations of non-rational human psychology, and radical ideologies are the intellectual rationalizations of mental disorders.

And those belief systems can dominate society

And when believers of those radical ideologies take over the government and seek to impose their beliefs on the rest of society, look out! Now all of society is wrapped up in the madness. The behavior of those with mental disorders is normalized, and the behavior of those without mental disorders is deemed suspect. All of society must now adapt to the desires of those with the loosest connection to material reality.

This is what Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Łobaczewski calls “pathocracy” (rule by those with mental disorders). Łobaczewski was a dissident under the Polish Communist regime who believed three things:

Totalitarian regimes are “pathocracies” where those with dangerous mental disorders dominate society. The upper and middle rungs of the regimes adopt an ideological mask to legitimize predatory behavior. Without the ideological mask, everyone would realize that the ruling elite were dangerous social predators.
Those social predators are kept in power by creating the illusion of group consensus through fear. When everyone is afraid, they will falsify their own preferences to keep from being a target of the regime. This social pressure is every bit as powerful as the threat of execution, torture or imprisonment.
The combination of targeted attacks on open dissidents, a strong ideological system that promotes morality, and preference falsification by the majority enables a small minority of dangerous social predators to control a much larger group of people who disagree with them.

Let’s hope that you never live in such a society.

You can read more of my articles on the dangers of ideology: