Politics is concerned with the art and science of governing, while the psychology of the self is concerned with recognizing and understanding one's own sense of self and that of others. Is there a connection between these two spheres of human endeavor?
One's experience of self (or sense of self) may sometimes be enhanced via political action or circumstance. On the other hand, sometimes such political events may impair one's sense of self. It is an interactive relationship of reciprocating influences. Human action that on the surface appears to be directed toward changing a political situation may in fact be motivated by an underlying need to augment the self.
It seems obvious that the ability to govern depends on the availability and exercise of power. Less obvious is an individual self's need to possess and exercise a certain amount of power to guarantee the maintenance of its cohesion and boundaries, even its continuation as a separate and distinct self. The loss of power that is usually associated with being subjected to some feeling of helplessness is for most human beings an unbearable experience. It evokes an overwhelming desire to wipe out the offending source of the threatened helplessness.
Clinically we call this narcissistic rage, an unlimited, deadly, destructive rage that is not appeased even by the defeat and disappearance of the evoking threat. In contrast to angry hostility caused by frustration of a self's ordinary aims — a hostility that diminishes as the frustration diminishes and as the desired aims are finally achieved — narcissistic rage goes on and on and on with hardly a letup in its destructiveness, even when no further threat to the self remains.
The political arena allows many individuals to act out their narcissistic rage. At one extreme are the hatreds that groups carry for other groups that they perceive as threats to their very existence. They kill and destroy without mercy, while at the same time enjoying a feeling of righteous triumph over a threatening enemy. Think of the racial assaults and the ethnic hatreds that resulted in so much cruelty and bloodshed during the twentieth century. The most minor infractions of the order established by one group could lead to an extremist massacre of even innocent outsiders. A lynching could be precipitated by as little as an assertive look or word that was equated with a threat to authority or with sexual transgressions. The lynching mob was partially driven by an inner experience of rage in defense of a disorganized self that felt itself threatened with fragmentation by the challenge of the supposed offender.
What I have just described so dramatically is, of course, a relatively rare and extreme form of narcissistic rage. The same dynamics, however, can be observed commonly almost every day in much more subtle forms. Many political leaders are intuitively aware of the narcissistic vulnerability of large numbers of voters.
For example, currently in Britain, both major political parties, Labour and Conservative, are competing in attempting to toughen rules and regulations that would make it more difficult for asylum seekers to find refuge in the U.K. Many in the electorate would like to ban all asylum seekers. The vulnerability of the individual selves of the native Britons is such that they feel severely threatened by these alien intruders whom they imagine will take their jobs, their women, their homes, etc. This threat, of course, has little basis in reality. Their perception is based on a defensive displacement from the inner weakness of their selves.
Similar dynamic conditions occurred in Germany during the economic depression of the 1930s, following Germany's loss in World War I. The middle and lower classes felt their sense of importance and rightness threatened. In that state of a weakened self, one might easily feel enhanced and strengthened by putting on a uniform and marching to martial music under the leadership of a charismatically eloquent Führer. The Nazi movement can be seen as the narcissistic rage reaction of a whole people to their loss of national self-esteem.
With my emphasis on power and self-esteem, it might seem that I view politics as merely an exercise in gradations of narcissistic rage. Let me add that many other self motivations and their associated defenses can find expression on the stage of politics.
A certain level and kind of stimulation is needed for the development of the nervous system and specific brain functions. An infant emerges with certain needs not only for physiological provisions but also for certain psychological experiences, including creating order out of apparent chaos and assigning meaning to events. A number of vital psychological experiences are necessary for a sense of self to emerge and be maintained. Self psychology has labeled this needed input as coming from self-objects (i.e., objects that are required for the constitution of the self). We have classified self-object experiences, such as mirroring, idealizing, alter-ego, adversarial, efficacy, and vitalizing self-object experiences. Thus the inborn need to constitute a self is expressed in needs to be connected, affirmed, admired, and noticed, as well as in needs to look up to certain others, to become aware of others like oneself, to have ally-antagonists to rub up against, to be able to make a dent on the world, and to find a certain empathic resonance in selected others, especially the parents.
All these are life-long needs, and they often find expression in the political arena. The need to be noticed and affirmed may lead to self-assertion in the artistic world, but likewise in the game of politics. What great satisfaction in seeing one's photo on hundreds of posters and getting thousands of votes (mirroring self-object experiences)! An individual's self doubts may diminish by identifying with a political figure who seems fully accepted by most everybody (alter-ego self-object experiences). A person may also defend against feelings of unworthiness by an excessive self-assertion that reassures the solidity of his boundaries by confrontations (adversarial self-object experiences). Sharing the heroes of our common culture and religion (idealizing self-object experiences) contributes to a feeling of well-being. And seeing oneself as actually influencing and changing the world (efficacy self-object experiences) strengthens a person's self organization. It is not difficult to see all these motivations expressed in political thinking and action.
Ernest S. Wolf, M.D., is a graduate of the Chicago Institute, where he is a training and supervising analyst. He was one of the original collaborators with Heinz Kohut and has published a number of papers, as well as the book Treating the Self.
Narcissism, in both the good and the bad meanings of this word, as well as the defenses that early experiences make us erect against these inner strivings, remain the pivot for most of our feeling, thinking, and action throughout life. Like everything human, whether dramatic or subtle in appearance, our understanding of the relationship between politics and narcissism seems never to be complete, yet it is useful even in its imperfection.