Malevolent Transformation: Limits and Extensions

SULLIVAN'S PROPOSAL FOR A TRANFORMATION of a felt "need for tender cooperation" to an enactment of malevolent behavior toward the very person from whom tenderness is desired runs something as follows: By virtue of prolonged repetitive experience in being rebuffed when tenderness was solicited, one eventually takes it for granted that all such future overtures will be met by similar rebuffs. Wishing, reasonably, to cut his losses such a person attempts to foreclose future rebuff by attacking pre-emptively, rejecting before being rejected, preserving thereby some small measure of pride at the cost of virtually guaranteeing rejection itself. As Sullivan puts it, "he beats them to it, " engendering "the attitude that one really lives among enemies."1

We know these people at their most blatant by the hostile winds which they push before themselves, by the chronic chip on the shoulder, by the itching for a fight, at their most subtle by their chronic contempt veiled as cynicism, sarcasm, hauteur, derogation. In their younger days they were the meanest kids on the block, specialists in bullying and vandalism. It is indeed an old story which must include all the spoilers in history, from Cain to the humorous variations on "Keep your damn lawn mower!"

The ubiquity of this turn toward malevolence, in all its variations, is beyond question. There are, however, two aspects of Sullivan's formulation which I find not fully satisfying as an account of the strong cases of malevolence. First, do we in fact experience ourselves or others on occasions of malice as privately desiring tenderness, affection, friendship, or love, despairing of receiving it, and in consequence attacking the very person toward whom we secretly feel such desire? I think not. When I am angry, vengeful, resentful, hateful, or occupied with thoughts of hurting or maligning others I am all too clear, often painfully so, about the unambiguous quality