"It was precisely that evening in Lodi that I cam to believe in myself
as an unusual person and became consumed with the ambition to do the
great things that until then had been but a fantasy."
(Napoleon Bonaparte, "Thoughts")
"They
may all e called Heroes, in as much as they have derived their purposes
and their vocation not from the calm regular course of things,
sanctioned by the existing order, but from a concealed fount, from that
inner Spirit, still hidden beneath the surface, which impinges on the
outer world as a shell and bursts it into pieces - such were Alexander,
Caesar, Napoleon ... World-historical men - the Heroes of an epoch -
must therefore be recognized as its clear-sighted ones: their deeds,
their words are the best of their time ... Moral claims which are
irrelevant must not be brought into collision with World-historical
deeds ... So mighty a form must trample down many an innocent flower -
crush to pieces many an object in its path."
(G.W.F. Hegel, "Lectures on the Philosophy of History")
"Such
beings are incalculable, they come like fate without cause or reason,
inconsiderately and without pretext. Suddenly they are here like
lightning too terrible, too sudden, too compelling and too 'different'
even to be hated ... What moves them is the terrible egotism of the
artist of the brazen glance, who knows himself to be justified for all
eternity in his 'work' as the mother is justified in her child ...
In
all great deceivers a remarkable process is at work to which they owe
their power. In the very act of deception with all its preparations, the
dreadful voice, expression, and gestures, they are overcome by their
belief in themselves; it is this belief which then speaks, so
persuasively, so miracle-like, to the audience."
(Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Genealogy of Morals")
"He
knows not how to rule a kingdom, that cannot manage a province; nor can
he wield a province, that cannot order a city; nor he order a city,
that knows not how to regulate a village; nor he a village, that cannot
guide a family; nor can that man govern well a family that knows not how
to govern himself; neither can any govern himself unless his reason be
lord, will and appetite her vassals; nor can reason rule unless herself
be ruled by God, and be obedient to Him."
(Hugo Grotius)
The
narcissistic leader is the culmination and reification of his period,
culture, and civilization. He is likely to rise to prominence in
narcissistic societies.
The malignant narcissist invents and then
projects a false, fictitious, self for the world to fear, or to admire.
He maintains a tenuous grasp on reality to start with and this is
further exacerbated by the trappings of power. The narcissist's
grandiose self-delusions and fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience
are supported by real life authority and the narcissist's predilection
to surround himself with obsequious sycophants.
The narcissist's
personality is so precariously balanced that he cannot tolerate even a
hint of criticism and disagreement. Most narcissists are paranoid and
suffer from ideas of reference (the delusion that they are being mocked
or discussed when they are not). Thus, narcissists often regard
themselves as "victims of persecution".
The narcissistic leader
fosters and encourages a personality cult with all the hallmarks of an
institutional religion: priesthood, rites, rituals, temples, worship,
catechism, mythology. The leader is this religion's ascetic saint. He
monastically denies himself earthly pleasures (or so he claims) in order
to be able to dedicate himself fully to his calling.
The
narcissistic leader is a monstrously inverted Jesus, sacrificing his
life and denying himself so that his people - or humanity at large -
should benefit. By surpassing and suppressing his humanity, the
narcissistic leader became a distorted version of Nietzsche's
"superman".
But being a-human or super-human also means being a-sexual and a-moral.
In
this restricted sense, narcissistic leaders are post-modernist and
moral relativists. They project to the masses an androgynous figure and
enhance it by engendering the adoration of nudity and all things
"natural" - or by strongly repressing these feelings. But what they
refer to as "nature" is not natural at all.
The narcissistic
leader invariably proffers an aesthetic of decadence and evil carefully
orchestrated and artificial - though it is not perceived this way by him
or by his followers. Narcissistic leadership is about reproduced
copies, not about originals. It is about the manipulation of symbols -
not about veritable atavism or true conservatism.
In short:
narcissistic leadership is about theatre, not about life. To enjoy the
spectacle (and be subsumed by it), the leader demands the suspension of
judgment, depersonalization, and de-realization. Catharsis is
tantamount, in this narcissistic dramaturgy, to self-annulment.
Narcissism
is nihilistic not only operationally, or ideologically. Its very
language and narratives are nihilistic.
Narcissism is conspicuous
nihilism - and the cult's leader serves as a role model, annihilating
the Man, only to re-appear as a pre-ordained and irresistible force of
nature. Narcissistic leadership often poses as a rebellion against the "old
ways" - against the hegemonic culture, the upper classes, the
established religions, the superpowers, the corrupt order. Narcissistic
movements are puerile, a reaction to narcissistic injuries inflicted
upon a narcissistic (and rather psychopathic) toddler nation-state, or
group, or upon the leader.
Minorities or "others" - often
arbitrarily selected - constitute a perfect, easily identifiable,
embodiment of all that is "wrong". They are accused of being old, they
are eerily disembodied, they are cosmopolitan, they are part of the
establishment, they are "decadent", they are hated on religious and
socio-economic grounds, or because of their race, sexual orientation,
origin ... They are different, they are narcissistic (feel and act as
morally superior), they are everywhere, they are defenceless, they are
credulous, they are adaptable (and thus can be co-opted to collaborate
in their own destruction). They are the perfect hate figure. Narcissists
thrive on hatred and pathological envy.
This is precisely the
source of the fascination with Hitler, diagnosed by Erich Fromm -
together with Stalin - as a malignant narcissist. He was an inverted
human. His unconscious was his conscious. He acted out our most
repressed drives, fantasies, and wishes. He provides us with a glimpse
of the horrors that lie beneath the veneer, the barbarians at our
personal gates, and what it was like before we invented civilization.
Hitler forced us all through a time warp and many did not emerge. He was
not the devil. He was one of us. He was what Arendt aptly called the
banality of evil. Just an ordinary, mentally disturbed, failure, a
member of a mentally disturbed and failing nation, who lived through
disturbed and failing times. He was the perfect mirror, a channel, a
voice, and the very depth of our souls.
The narcissistic leader
prefers the sparkle and glamour of well-orchestrated illusions to the
tedium and method of real accomplishments. His reign is all smoke and
mirrors, devoid of substances, consisting of mere appearances and mass
delusions. In the aftermath of his regime - the narcissistic leader
having died, been deposed, or voted out of office - it all unravels. The
tireless and constant prestidigitation ceases and the entire edifice
crumbles. What looked like an economic miracle turns out to have been a
fraud-laced bubble. Loosely-held empires disintegrate. Laboriously
assembled business conglomerates go to pieces. "Earth shattering" and
"revolutionary" scientific discoveries and theories are discredited.
Social experiments end in mayhem.
It is important to understand
that the use of violence must be ego-syntonic. It must accord with the
self-image of the narcissist. It must abet and sustain his grandiose
fantasies and feed his sense of entitlement. It must conform with the
narcissistic narrative.
Thus, a narcissist who regards himself as
the benefactor of the poor, a member of the common folk, the
representative of the disenfranchised, the champion of the dispossessed
against the corrupt elite - is highly unlikely to use violence at first.
The
pacific mask crumbles when the narcissist has become convinced that the
very people he purported to speak for, his constituency, his grassroots
fans, the prime sources of his narcissistic supply - have turned
against him. At first, in a desperate effort to maintain the fiction
underlying his chaotic personality, the narcissist strives to explain
away the sudden reversal of sentiment. "The people are being duped by
(the media, big industry, the military, the elite, etc.)", "they don't
really know what they are doing", "following a rude awakening, they will
revert to form", etc.
When these flimsy attempts to patch a
tattered personal mythology fail - the narcissist is injured.
Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic rage and to a
terrifying display of unbridled aggression. The pent-up frustration and
hurt translate into devaluation. That which was previously idealized -
is now discarded with contempt and hatred.
This primitive defense
mechanism is called "splitting". To the narcissist, things and people
are either entirely bad (evil) or entirely good. He projects onto others
his own shortcomings and negative emotions, thus becoming a totally
good object. A narcissistic leader is likely to justify the butchering
of his own people by claiming that they intended to kill him, undo the
revolution, devastate the economy, or the country, etc.
The
"small people", the "rank and file", the "loyal soldiers" of the
narcissist - his flock, his nation, his employees - they pay the price.
The disillusionment and disenchantment are agonizing. The process of
reconstruction, of rising from the ashes, of overcoming the trauma of
having been deceived, exploited and manipulated - is drawn-out. It is
difficult to trust again, to have faith, to love, to be led, to
collaborate. Feelings of shame and guilt engulf the erstwhile followers
of the narcissist. This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic
stress disorder.
