Bullies and baddies
When you believe you are a god it’s easy to act like a devil.
Think of any major league villain—Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, or the smiling Bali terrorist Amrozi. None are humble, gentle, or unassuming characters. None have low self-esteem. Without exception, whatever else might ail them, they are conceited, arrogant, convinced of their superiority and their right to control others, to do as they please, and are indifferent to the suffering of their victims. They lack empathy and feel entitled to power. On a more personal level bullies and abusers of all descriptions have the same narcissistic need to impose their will on others as a means to enhance their superiority. Aggressive people are always arrogant.
It is a common myth that most bad behaviour, from bullying, violence, delinquency, and crime is the result of low self-esteem. Traditional belief has it that some people who feel inferior, suffer self-doubt and self-hatred lash out at others in frustration. But there is no evidence that beneath their defiant exteriors aggressive and antisocial people are anxious or insecure and considerable evidence for the reverse.
Low self-esteem is associated with self-blame, depression, and victimization by others rather than aggression. Nicholas Emler from the London School of Economics reviewed the research into self-esteem and found there was no link between low self-esteem and delinquency, violence (including child or partner abuse) drug or alcohol abuse, or risk taking. On the contrary, the evidence indicates high, not low self-esteem is the more likely risk factor for such behaviours (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, The Costs and Causes of Low Self-esteem Nov 2001).
People who believe they are better that they actually are and who feel a need to inflate themselves so that their self-esteem is high but fragile and so more easily threatened, are the dangerous ones. A superiority complex is much more destructive to other people than an inferiority complex.
Professor Roy Baumiester studied violent offenders and found that an inflated self-image not based on reality and therefore vulnerable to frequent challenge, coupled with the need to protect that image at all costs, is the main cause of antisocial behaviour (Baumiester, R Evil: Inside Human Cruelty and Violence, W H Freeman & Co, NY, 1997). A grandiose self-image and a driving need to support and enhance it, is the essence of narcissism.
Professor Baumiester offers a simple but effective illustration of how and why someone with an inflated ego is so volatile and potentially dangerous. If for example, I rate myself as a 9 out of 10 and need to maintain that image of myself no matter how inaccurate it is, then anyone else’s assessment of me that is below 9 is an insult, a wound to my ego, which humiliates me and may well lead me to feel enraged and want revenge for the perceived attack upon me. If, however, I have low self-esteem and rate myself as only a 3 out of 10, then only scores of 1 or 2 are blows to my self-image and anything over 3 is a compliment, (Baumeister 1997). If I blame myself for my inadequacies I am less likely to blame others or to retaliate against them for the perceived wrongs they have done me. But the higher my opinion of myself, especially if it is not based on real accomplishment or ability, the more likely I am to have that view challenged.
Any blow to our ego feels bad. Our self-esteem plummets, we feel ashamed, miserable, defective, worthless. Some people go to extraordinary lengths to avoid such feelings and to avoid losing ‘face’.
Most homicides involve a male victim and male perpetrator and in most cases the killing results from an incident of ‘disrespect’. Death results when the one whose position, status, or person was challenged attempts to reassert himself (Baron-Cohen, Simon, The Essential Difference, Penguin, London 2003). Like some seventeenth century duellist, he is defending his ‘honour’ after an insult. Getting angry at, and attacking another, is a way of avoiding the misery of having his self-image deflated and because he is so invested in an inflated self-image, any threat to it often produces extreme or even irrational reactions.
Violence is most often a device to claim power and power-seekers want to assert their superiority not boost low self-esteem. The violent and criminal individuals that Roy Baumeister studied were motivated by pride, superiority, and high self-esteem, in other words an extreme degree of narcissism.
The violent criminal is the ultimate in self-centredness and inflicting pain or death is the ultimate expression of power and superiority. There is a high correlation between aggression and psychopathic and narcissistic personality traits because such people have egos that are so susceptible to threat.
The ‘attack’ on someone’s ego need not be personal or even real. When someone demonstrates in some way that they are more ‘special’ or superior, the narcissist feels himself to be less in comparison and therefore personally reduced by the other’s supremacy.
A friend recently sold his classic Mustang because it seemed to provoke an undue amount of resentment and vindictiveness. He finally despaired of the deliberate damage inflicted on the vehicle—gouges in the paintwork, smashed lights, snapped off aerials, broken mirrors—presumably by people who wanted to attack what they could not possess.
But such envy can be far more sinister. Mark Chapman, who murdered John Lennon in 1980 recently told a parole hearing that he shot the ex-Beatle to get attention. He felt like a nobody he said, and wanted Lennon’s fame for himself. Chapman didn’t mind that people hated him as long as he was famous. He had felt unimportant and was filled with rage that there were so many famous ‘phonies’ who were no better than he was and who didn’t deserve all the attention they got. He wanted to be ‘special’ and the attention lavished on celebrities made him feel like a ‘nothing’ in comparison. Why should he be doomed to being a nobody when John Lennon had the world at his feet? He planned the murder for three months, stewing in envy and malice. If Chapman couldn’t have John Lennon’s fame then Lennon couldn’t have it either. Chapman was driven by resentment and rage at not being, and not recognized as being, the superior person he wanted to be, along with a hatred of those the world did recognize as special and whose existence made him feel ‘less’.
Throughout history, pride, the foremost of the deadly sins and the one from which all others stem, has been recognized as central to badness. Pride transformed God’s favourite angel Lucifer into Satan, whose pride, arrogance, and high self-esteem are essential to his evilness. Satan’s overestimation of himself made him want to be God’s equal. He became evil because he couldn’t bear that anyone be above him.
Domination of others is a good way to feel superior. By dominating another, a person experiences themselves as strong and the other as weak and so they can more easily deny and avoid knowledge of their own weakness. People with high dominance and power needs frequently have narcissistic or psychopathic personalities. They are unrestrained by conscience, self-control or empathy. They are often genetically predisposed to crime, violence, and sadism. They relish putting people ‘in their place’ and teaching anyone who challenges their supremacy a lesson. Although such dangerous people make up only a small percent of the population there are hundreds of thousands of them.
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See related articles: Disordered personalities.
