Narcissism and the Dynamics of Evil
D. McManaman
The first step to
appreciating the subtleties of evil is to begin at the most basic level of
philosophical inquiry, the philosophy of being.
Evil, as St. Augustine
is, is good insofar
as it is.
When we speak of good
food, for example, we mean much more than that it simply tastes good. We mean that is good for us. Such food promotes the fullness of our
being. Food that is bad for us brings
about a corruption or
deficiency of health. Aristotle wrote
that the good is that which all things desire.[1] This, despite
appearances, is
congruent with the notion that the "good" is fullness of being; for
all things desire first and foremost their
own perfection, that
is, all things desire "to be" and "to be" most fully. Good and being are the same thing. Evil
is thus a lack of due being. It is a
deficiency, a corruption, a privation, a lack of something that should be
there.
Consider a deformity
of any kind. What is physically deformed
lacks something that it ought to have. A
bird that has one wing suffers from a physical evil and as a result cannot fly,
that is, it cannot function as it belongs to a bird to function.
Moral evil is also a
lack, a deficiency, or a privation, but one far more complicated than physical
evil. For everyone understands the
nature of a bird, and so it is immediately obvious that a one winged bird is
deformed. But in order to understand moral evil, it is necessary to
understand the basic requirements of the natural moral law, and unless one
understands these, moral evil is not always easy to spot.
Moral evil is primarily about a disordered will; for only a being with intellect and will is
a moral agent. That is why
irrational animals are not treated as moral agents and held responsible for
what they do. They literally don't
"know any better". A good
will, however, is one that "wills the good". This
is what love is: willing the good of another (benevolence). But there are
a number of goods that are specifically human, intelligible, and basic, that
is, sought for their own sake and not for the sake of some other end. Such
basic intelligible human goods include human life, the knowledge and
contemplation of truth, the experience and contemplation of beauty, leisure,
marriage, harmony between oneself and others, oneself and God, and harmony
within oneself (integrity). The
moral life has to do fundamentally with our relationship to the entire network
of these human goods. Basic human goods
are aspects of human persons, and so a good will is one that is open to the
entire network of human goods in oneself and in others, that is, wherever there
is an instance of human being.
An evil action is one
that involves a will that is incompatible with openness to the complete
integration of basic human goods. Such a
will is evil, because it is deficient, or lacking an order that it ought to
have. For example, justice is the
constant will to render to another due.
An unjust act involves a refusal to render another his due, such as the
truth, or property, or reverence of his life, etc. Or, consider the act of treating another as a
means to
an end. In this case, a basic human good is treated
as an instrumental good. The life of the
other is subordinated to my own and is reduced to a means to my own ends. In other words, I treat my own life as an
end, to be revered for its own sake, but I treat another's life as a
means. But what is due to another is
that he be treated in a way that respects his status as equal in dignity to
myself. I willingly refuse that
equality, thus failing to render that debt.
Just as a bird is
good insofar as it has being, but suffers from a physical evil insofar as it
lacks what ought to be there (i.e., another wing), so too an evil will is good
insofar as it has being, but is evil in its deficiency. And since a moral agent is what he wills, we
do not say that a person suffers from a moral evil as we might suffer from a
physical evil. Rather, a person who
commits moral evil is evil. Only moral
agents can be evil.
And so evil is
parasitic. Its host is always a
good. And since evil is a kind of
non-being or nothingness, pure evil is
impossible. Pure evil would be completely nothing, and
nothing is not evil; it simply 'is not'.
Evil is a privation that requires a subject in which to inhere. St.
Augustine
...there is nothing
of what we call evil, if there be nothing good.
But a good which is wholly without evil is a perfect good. A good, on the other hand, which contains evil,
is a faulty or imperfect good; and there can be no evil where there is no
good. From all this we arrive at the
curious result: that since every being, so far as it is a being, is good, when
we say that a faulty being is an evil being, we just seem to say that which is
good is evil, and that nothing but what is good can be evil, seeing that every
being is good, and that no evil can exist except in a being. Nothing can be
evil except something
which is good.[2]
The Making of a
Narcissist
Human persons engage
in a kind of self-making whenever they make choices. The reason is that we are what we will. It was Sartre who said that existence
precedes essence, and that we determine our essence by our absolutely free
choices. [3] Only if we substitute the word "essence" with
"character" is Sartre correct.
There is a relationship between choosing (doing) and becoming
(being). We are (character) what we
choose. Nothing is more intimately our
own than our character, which is determined by nothing other than our free and
self-determined choices. And since evil
is a privation, a kind of non-being or nothingness, the more one makes morally
evil choices, the "less" one becomes.
In other words, choosing moral evil, such as treating another or others
as a means to an end, brings about shrinkage, a lessening of the self. If perpetuated and unrepented, such de-creation
leads to a kind of self-loathing;
for there is less of
oneself to love--just as the more one severs pieces of one's face with a knife,
the more unsightly he becomes and the more horrified he is as he beholds his
reflection in a mirror.[4]
Beauty is also a
property of being. To be more fully is
to be more beautiful. But disease or
corruption involves a deprivation of beauty.
What is morally noble is beautiful (kalon), but what is morally evil is
ignoble and morally unsightly. That is
why one who commits to injustice or who gives himself to evil for the sake of
ends that are good becomes morally unsightly to himself, as well as to those
who see him as he is. He becomes ugly. Hence, the self-loathing that is part and
parcel of the depraved.
Another property of
moral evil, concomitant to self-loathing is egotism. Consider that injustice is the freely willed
decision not to render to another his due, whether it is truth, property,
liberty, impartial treatment, or reverence of his life. The golden rule is a traditional formulation
of the requirement of fairness: do unto others what you would have others do
unto you, or, do not do to others what you yourself dislike. Injustice is precisely a failure
to love another as
another self. The unjust man treats
himself with a degree of partiality, and he fails to recognize the other's
status as a person equal in dignity, to be treated as an end in himself. The unjust man has thereby established a
degree of egotism within himself; for he has made himself larger than another,
at least in his own eyes and according to his own behavior. As Vladimir Solovyov writes: "The basic falsehood and evil of egoism
lie ... in the fact that, ascribing to himself in all justice an absolute
significance, he unjustly refuses to others this same significance. Recognizing
himself as a center of life (which as a matter of fact he is), he relegates
others to the circumference of his own being and leaves them only an external
and relative value."[5]
This egotism can be
relatively mild, or it can reach pathological proportions. For there is a fundamental difference between
the sinner and the one who sins.
Everyone sins, but not everyone is given over to sin, that is, not
everyone loves sin. Some have made a
commitment to do battle against their own tendency to sin, while others have
simply surrendered to a life that places the self at the center. The refusal to behold one's own moral
unsightliness--and thus the refusal of repentance and moral growth--brings
about a conflict that demands resolution.
Such a person is aware of his own moral deficiency and loathes himself
accordingly. The degree of his
self-loathing corresponds to the degree of his depravity. At the same time, though, he has surrendered
to an egotism that is part and parcel of an unjust character. The egotist that he has become cannot
tolerate the awareness of his unsightly ignobility. This conflict has to be resolved because he has
a radical need for affirmation. Like all
beings, he naturally desires to be most fully, and so he desires the fullness
of the good--it is just that he will not choose in accordance with what he
really desires. The need for affirmation
persists nonetheless. And affirmation is
the natural and proper response to what is genuinely good. The problem is that he cannot affirm
himself--he beholds his depravity and sees others as far less unsightly, which
of course spawns envy--, yet his egotism demands affirmation all the more and
to a much greater extent and intensity.
The greater his moral depravity, the greater and more unbearable is this
fundamental conflict. He either beholds
his corruption or repents of the choices that brought it about, or he turns his
gaze from it and commits to creating an image, a reflection, a false self that
others will be able to affirm.
He cannot allow
others to see what he sees in himself, for they will reject him. What they see will be as repulsive to them as
it is to himself. So he must create a
highly likable and acceptable image that will procure the affirmation he
requires for himself, an affirmation that he can only get from others who do
not know him as he really is. Thus
begins the fundamental lie of the self-loathing egotist. For an image is a reflection. One can only see a reflection if it is
mirrored in some way. The egotist must
see his reflection through the eyes of others, and so others become a means to
his own affirmation, a means to his own conviction that he really exists. For the deeply depraved have created a void, nothingness
in the heart of their character. But a
person cannot detect the presence of nothingness. Hence, the egotist desperately needs to be
convinced of his own existence. He needs
to feel that he is. If he will not
achieve this through the pursuit of virtue, he will do so through the
affirmation, praise, and adulation of others, or through their fear of
him. But what others affirm (or fear) is
not the true self of the egotist. He
cannot show his true self, for he does not know who or what it is. His true self is fractured, dilapidated, and
in pieces. Thus, it is only a reflection
that they affirm.
The habit of treating
a human person as a means to an end has a kind of universal scope to it. One person is a particular instance of a
basic intelligible human good. Just as I
come to know the nature of all human persons by coming to understand a
particular instance of humanity (for all have the same nature), so too, my
ability to treat one individual human being as a means to an end amounts to a
willingness to treat all human persons as a means to an end. And so wherever the egotist appears to be
treating another as an end in himself, such behavior is only appearance. At its roots, it is utilitarian and
fundamentally a kind of manipulation.
The more intense the
conflict between the experience of his nothingness and his emerging egotism,
the more radical his
manipulation of
others. The more intelligent the
egotist, the more able he is to hide his depravity by means of a clever
reflection, and thus the more able he is to successfully convince others that
they are loved and revered for their own sake.
The longer he persists in his depravity, the more deeply he falls into
the void that is decreated by the choices he continues to make. From a purely moral point of view, this is
how the narcissistic character disordered are created.[6] They are self-created, or better yet,
self-decreated, and then re-created, although what is re-created is not a self,
but a reflection or an image. The
greater the opposition between his depravity or moral nothingness (and thus
self-loathing) and his egotism (his injustice and his regard for others as mere
instruments of his own gratification), the more pathological his narcissism,
and thus the more grandiose and fantastic his reflected or false self.[7]
The narcissist is
incapable of love; for his narcissism is the fruit of his refusal to revere
others for their own sake, that is, to love others as another self, equal in
dignity to himself.[8] His refusal to
love barred him from loving himself because he became depleted and less lovable
to himself. What he loves is the false
self he has created and that he needs to see reflected in the affirmation and
comportment of others. Such people are
aptly referred to as narcissists.
According to the ancient Greek myth, the nymph Echo fell in love with
Narcissus. She died of a broken heart
after being spurned by him. As a result,
Narcissus was punished by the gods for his callousness: the gods made him fall
in love with his own image.
He would live till he
saw himself. Eventually, he caught sight
of his reflection in the water, became enthralled with his image and refused to
leave the spot. He died of languor and
turned into a flower. As Alexander Lowen
interprets this myth, if Narcissus could say I love you, Echo would repeat
those words and he would feel loved. The
inability to say "I love you" is precisely what identifies the
narcissist. [9]
And since he is
incapable of truly loving another as another self, all his relationships with
others are perverted, twisted, and abusive; for to use a person is to abuse a
person, and everyone in his life, without exception, is nothing more than a
means of procuring affirmation, adulation, and admiration, or if that isn't
possible, fear. [10] For it isn't the self that the narcissist loves, but his
reflection.
Characteristics of
the Narcissist
The narcissist is
calculating. He is utilitarian through
and through. He refuses obedience to the
basic requirements of the
Natural moral law,
for obedience implies that there is something larger than himself of which he
is not the measure, but which measures him.
Such a notion, however, is incompatible with the very thrust of his
character. He has become the
measure. He is calculating for the sake
of procuring power; for it is power that allows him the control he needs to
protect himself from exposure and from his having to face his own
finitude. Power allows him to more
easily procure a supply of narcissistic fuel.
His entire life has become a struggle to procure this fuel, or what
Samuel Vaknin calls narcissistic supply, [11] and he will employ the most
devious means at his disposal to get it.
And if, by some misfortune, he should come into a position of power, we
can expect his style of leadership to be thoroughly Machiavellian.
There is no better
insight into the workings of the mind of the morally depraved and narcissistic
leader than what is provided in chapter 18 of Machiavelli's The Prince. The principal characteristic of such a leader
is not prudence, but craft:
Every one admits how
praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and
not with craft. Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who
have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known
how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome
those who have relied on their word.[12]
Because such persons
have depleted their character so profoundly through choices contrary to the norms
of reason, they approach the bestial level and will even begin to see
themselves as such. For beasts are not
governed by the natural moral law, but by the law of power. The narcissistic leader is fundamentally
bestial in his rule, but he cannot appear that way without exposing his true
colors, and exposure is his greatest fear.
And so he must employ craft and know when to "avail himself of the
beast". Machiavelli writes:
. it is necessary for
a prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the man. .A
prince, therefore, being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to
choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself against
snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is
necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves.
Those who rely simply on the lion do not understand what they are about.
Therefore a wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when such observance
may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it
exist no longer. [13]
Such a person, by
virtue of his Olympian egotism, always regards others as inferior to
himself. Everyone is a simpleton in his
eyes. What helps afford him this
illusion is that most people are unsuspecting and are unaware of the degree to
which they are being taken advantage of, used and abused. This unawareness is not due to a general lack
of intelligence in people, but to their own tendency to project their own range
of normalcy onto others. Hence, their
disinclination to suspect someone so profoundly depraved to be in their midst,
carrying on an existence that is fundamentally and thoroughly a lie. But the character disordered conveniently
regards this trait as evidence of intellectual inferiority and will take a
twisted delight in the knowledge that they have so many fooled.
But it is necessary
to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender
and dissembler; and men
are so simple, and so
subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find
someone who will allow himself to be deceived.[14]
When it is a question
of evil, it is precisely the element of disguise that people tend to
overlook. We are wont to assume that
evil, character disorder, profound moral depravity, psychopathy, pathological
narcissism, etc., are easy to detect and that such people can only intimidate
and inspire fear upon a first encounter.
But this is only the case with those not intelligent enough to disguise
their depravity, like the common criminal.
The most dangerous among us are those intelligent enough to appear as
paragons of virtue.
.it is unnecessary
for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very
necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to
have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have
them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and
to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you
may be able and know how to change to the opposite.. a prince ought to take
care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with
the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears
him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is
nothing more
necessary to appear
to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye
than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in
touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you
are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, which
have
the majesty of the
state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes,
which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result. ... he will be praised by everybody because
the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it;
and in the world there are only the vulgar, ...[15]
With respect to evil,
there still exists a sort of half-baked Platonism in the attitudes of many
people, for there is a common assumption that if a person is knee deep in
depravity, either he does not know any better or is under the influence of
environmental and psychological determinants he has no control over. But there is a distinction between
intellectual and moral virtue. Morality
is in the will. It is very possible to
have a brilliant mind, but at the same time a wicked and depraved will. The most dangerous predators among us are
ingeniously veiled. They carefully
surround themselves with people entirely unlike themselves, that is, with
deeply empathic human beings who wish to please others, who are slow to judge,
who are excessively tolerant and who have an eye for the good to be found in
others. They know how to exploit to
their own advantage such character traits.
It is their association with such
People that maximizes
their chances of perpetuating the facade and keeping themselves from exposure.
The narcissist
despises community and emotional intimacy, and so they are profoundly
lonely. On the one hand, they like their
loneliness, because they can attribute it to their uniqueness and superior
nature. But as human persons who have a
radical need for others, they cannot tolerate their loneliness. This conflict is a source of chronic anguish;
for loneliness is hell, and yet, as Sartre would say, "hell is other
people" ("l'enfer, c'est les autres").
Man is a person, from
the Latin persona (through sound). He
longs to express himself, to communicate himself to others, whether depraved or
not. Just as those who contemplate the
marvelous or the beautiful cannot hold themselves but will cry out in praise of
what they behold, so too the depraved cannot help but on occasion burst out and
spit their bile, thus providing others a momentary glimpse of their interior
rot. Moments such as these are clues
that must be
stored in the memory
and, like disparate pieces of a puzzle, assembled later in order to acquire a
more complete picture, which will be a horror to behold, or an experience of
terror--if the narcissist discovers that he has been found out by
you.[16]. The clues, in isolation, will
suggest only minor imperfections or character flaws. But taken together over a number of years,
they suggest something much more ominous.
The inconsistencies evident in the behavior of the narcissist--prior to
his discovery--should never be simply accepted, only to be forgotten. Rather, one must ponder the inconsistencies
in behavior until they become consistent, that is, until the apparently
inconsistent behavior acquires an intelligible narrative that rings true.
Some pathological
narcissists are so clever that certain people will simply never be able to
penetrate the disguise, no matter what has been pointed out to them. One reason they are so successful is that
they have come to believe their own lies.
They have convinced themselves that the facade is not a lie. What helps to establish this conviction,
among other things, is a commitment to a cause--a genuinely good cause. But after a few years of observation, one
discovers that the narcissist's devotion to the cause is one sided and not
grounded in a commitment to the principles underlying the
cause, because after
a time the inconsistency of the morality of the depraved becomes
noticeable. His behavior, in other
words, is not principled. And he will
despise any individual or institution that expounds a consistent ethics,
because it exposes his own inconsistent and arbitrary one and is a constant
reminder of his own self-deception.
It cannot be emphasized enough just how much we
typically underestimate the depravity of the pathological narcissist who
operates behind a facade of respectability and altruism. We cannot forget that they have a desperate
fear of exposure, that someone might catch a long enough glimpse at the rot
that lies within and raise the awareness of others, thus threatening the power
structure that took years of careful planning to erect. That is why the
Pathological narcissist is a long term plotter, like the
brilliant chess player who plans ten or more moves ahead. It is almost impossible for anyone to uncover
the complex and multi-layered schemes of such a person unless one is entirely
aware of the depths of his depravity and the level of his intelligence. Knowing the one without the other leaves one
ever open to being perpetually deceived.
The awareness that
others have seen contradictory aspects of him is a constant source of anxiety
for the narcissist in a position of authority.
And he is aware of the limits of human perspectives and that community
has the power to enlarge individual points of view. When people talk with one another, they begin
to acquire a much larger perspective on things, that is, they begin to see a
bigger picture. The pathological
narcissist who is in a leadership role cannot afford to have people talking
amongst themselves and sharing stories.
So he will go to great lengths and carefully contrive very devious and
underhanded schemes to keep people divided.
He will sow division among colleagues by planting lies about one person
to another, and another about someone else.
This can be a successful strategy because no one expects a highly
intelligent adult to be carrying on like a scheming eight year old child or an
emotionally disturbed adolescent. And
since most of us avoid confrontation, it is much easier to believe the liar.
Pathological
narcissists succeed for a time because of the extreme resonance of their
personality structure. As Samuel Vaknin
writes: "Narcissists appear to be
unpleasantly deliberate... They are too human, or too inhuman, or too modest,
or too haughty, or too loving, or too cold, or too empathic, or too strong, or
too industrious, or too casual, or too enthusiastic, or too indifferent, or too
courteous, or too abrasive." [17] He is an enigma, at least prior to his
exposure. One can't help but reason that
he's an outstanding citizen, leader, priest, court judge, teacher, etc.
or he's the most
morally depraved individual you are going to meet for a long while. And very few of us expect to discover such a
depth of depravity in well dressed professional adults. So we naturally conclude the former. For he is careful not to show opposite
extremes to one and the same person, especially if that person is someone he
needs. The majority in his immediate
environment will see his "too good" side only. Should anyone no longer be needed, or should
one happen to become a threat to his facade, such a one is likely to get a
taste of the narcissist's vindictive nature, even one who has been a close
"friend" to him for a number of years--a narcissist's loyalty is
paper thin, for he is incapable of genuinely intimate friendships [18]. But only the targeted victim will see his
vindictive nature, or a small few. He is
careful to keep this side of himself from others, for it is an inconsistency that
might expose him. So adept is he at this
narrowly focused persecution, in fact, that any attempt by the victim to tell
another will in all probability make him (the victim) appears as if he is
losing his mind.
The narcissist takes
advantage of every opportunity to favor a person who is down and in need--as
long as the prospects that he will be of use later on are good. Such favors might include providing
employment, personal counseling, boosting one's confidence, flattery, listening
and being sympathetic (at least apparently), etc. Such opportunities supply the narcissist in a
number of ways. Primarily, they ensure
loyalty for the day that will inevitably arrive, the day when his personal
edifice crumbles and he finally falls into the pit he has dug for his enemies
over the years. Such a loyal following
makes it all the more difficult for anyone to depose him. They also have the added advantage of helping
him to persuade himself that he is good and that perhaps the gnawing awareness
of that damp and dark cellar at the heart of his character was only a passing
fancy. Furthermore, they provide a sense
of superiority in that others depend upon him in order to be the persons they
have become. When someone finally comes
to realize that he is a treacherous and exploitative fraud--which is
inevitable--, who is going to believe such a person when so many have been
directly benefited by the accused?
Gratitude makes it easier to excuse his "faults" or minor
character flaws, and that is about all
That the clues will
suggest in isolation--and most people have poor memories.
The depraved and
pathological narcissist is very ready to forgive the faults of others, not
because he is loving and merciful, but rather because he is indifferent. In fact, inordinate leniency is typical of
narcissists. They are either vindictive
or lenient, but rarely just. Leniency,
which is a vice, is hard to distinguish from mercy or clemency, so it enables
him to feel virtuous, and it also helps perpetuate the appearance of moral
purity. Moreover, leniency provides
another opportunity to ensure loyalty.
But ultimately, the
pathological narcissist is indifferent to injustice and its victims. As St. Thomas Aquinas argues, the more
excellent a person is, the more he is prone to anger (S.T. I-II, 47, 3). But the narcissist experiences no righteous
indignation. He only rages against the
person who is a threat to his charade and/or who refuses to cooperate with his
underhanded schemes. But he will not be
incensed at injustice. [19]
Courage is the mean
between recklessness and cowardliness.
Here, narcissists are also at both extremes, never in the mean. Indeed, they are often bold or inordinately
daring. Their inflated sense of
superiority propels them to recklessness; for they are subject to fantasies of
omnipotence and unequalled brilliance, and they feel that they are above the
law. And it is this sense of superiority
that allows them to underestimate the intelligence and determination
of their
adversaries.[20] But they are not brave;
they are cowards at heart. They do not
lack the courage to gaze upon the dilapidated specter of their true selves, nor
can they bear to look into the eyes of one who has discovered their true
nature. They inspire terror only because
we recognize that the inhibitions that govern the impulses of normal healthy
persons are completely lacking in the pathological narcissist. They are psychopaths. [21]. the terror
they inspire is a
source of narcissistic supply that contributes to their sense of existing,
which they need to counter the sense of their own nothingness, created by their
immoral and unrepented
choices.
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