Have you considered the reverse of your idea? Perhaps the problem with politics is simply narcissism and mental illness.
Most people, when they have lost a race or can’t get into an event, aren’t humiliated. Often they are depressed or disappointed, but humiliation is something you feel when you are treated as a lesser human, like the victims of Abu Ghraib or rape, not someone who loses a race or can’t have something they want.
And many, many celebrities are roasted. It is a sign of celebrity. But they don’t respond by sociopathically immiserating others.
People who are narcissists think this way. And yes, Obama is not a healthy mind. Charming undoubtedly, but not healthy. No healthy mind could survive murdering innocents at his level and remain glib and chatty.
The problem isn’t the humiliation, it is the profoundly fragile psych of our leaders. When you play the humiliation card, you make it our fault, when it is not. It is either their fault or the fault of the adults in their lives who humiliated them as children.
I think the point you raised about homicide is important. There’s a sense in which getting revenge on your political opponent by making a comeback and beating him is a substitute for just trying to kill him, which for most of human history was probably the norm, and in some places still is. I totally agree our motivations are complicated, but feeling the need to take revenge due to being wronged or publicly humiliated has got to be one of the most powerful motivators of all.
Re: norms against humiliation, I think the Talmud almost equates the act of humiliating others with murder.
This story about Obama and Trump at that dinner has come up many times in my mind. I wonder. I would not dismiss that a public humiliation played a role but add to that racism and I think it makes a lot more sense. That and fragile masculinity. Your examples of a reaction to humiliation by the humiliated person are all males.
100%. I was going to say a different kind of person would have been able to laugh at being roasted, but when men with fragile egos are even jokingly called out (for their own bad behavior, mind you), they seek revenge because they can't just let an insult go. Wars have been started over less. It's embarrassing and dangerous.
Are men with fragile egos different from fighters, men who are willing to scrap at the drop of a hat? They are highly prized in sport. And believe me they are not fragile.
I suppose my viewpoint is based on mostly anecdotal experiences. You are not unfair here, or maybe as unfair as I am.
I've spent a fair bit of time in recent years studying human evolution human and esp of the female, of maternal instincs and patriarchy based publications in anthropology, primatology and sociology. There seems to be a general consensus on how matriarchy in early primate societies developed (favoured?) interdependence and cooperation to protect offspring. That does not mean women are not/less sexist or mean and women in coalition, like the bonobos, would have killed human traffickers outright and most likely did so to protect their offspring. Compare figures from the world bank/IMF that worldwide women tend to spend 90 percent of their earned income on their families, whereas men spend only 30 percent. This extends to kinship behaviour and problem solving for less desirable behaviour, such as sexism, competition for dominance, territoriality, In her book on human evolution (Eve, 2023), Cat Bohannon writes: Every power man have ever had is something women gave them. Sorry, big subject, little time.
Apart from Bohannon, I recommend publications by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy.
Thank you for these thoughts. The way you see a two sided coin of male/female fragility is not something I can agree on. I have never looked at this scenario, maybe because I am a woman and I don't buy the fragility thing at all. It serves an agenda and is not reflected in human evolution according to anthropology and research on patriarchy, I rather think that the fragility stuff is a more recent concept and it is based on patriarchal thinking. Which of course has its place in human evolution, I am not judging here but admit to a bias.
One of my favorite anecdotes is that a young Abe Lincoln, armed with a God-given clever wit, would frequently humiliate people with quips, poems, and rejoinders. This backfired spectacularly when one victim of his humiliation made a credible threat against Lincoln's life. How differently history would have gone had he made good on his threat? As is, Lincoln learned a lesson that it is better to use a sharp tongue to build up good people and tear down bad ideas.
“…we aren’t altogether monsters”…some are more than others. There are those that stay up nights thinking about their cruelty toward others and there are those who revel in it. I recall my first great humiliation. It was junior high (of course) and I was a skinny, knobby kneed lass which didn’t go unnoticed by our class bully. He gathered a large junior high mob to torment me at recess with a “knobby knees” song for what seemed like weeks but was probably days. The pain, anger and humiliation I felt still seems like yesterday. It must have worked because I became a leader, athlete and academic honors student. I shared this adolescent angst story with my students throughout my life. I digress; humiliation stays with us. I too recall Obama’s roast; it felt so good to witness it and felt it was greatly deserved. I’m an Obama fan but the price for that small moment of torment has greatly exceeded its value.
The first example that came to my mind after reading the first paragraph isn't from politics but from sports: Michael Jordan. It seems he internalized every perceived slight and used them to become the greatest basketball player of all time.
My initial completely uninformed guess is that the type of person that has the ambition and obsessiveness to rise to the top of his or her field is often hyperaware of status and may be quick to feel humiliation. In this framework, there will always be some source of humiliation that can be woven into the person's rise. And even if that specific event hadn't happened, there would be some other event that the person experienced as equally humiliating that would become their origin story.
It feels like there's a little selection bias at play with the "don't humiliate people" advice. You will tend to notice the cases where it spectacularly backfires, but it's hard to count the cases where it works. How many needless political battles, wars, or interpersonal spats have been avoided by the deterrent effect of potential humiliation?
Humiliation can be a powerful tool for establishing and maintaining societal norms if the motivation and execution are appropriately aligned. Still, the challenge is finding the right reason and degree to humiliate someone. Also, does the target have a personality that will cause them to lash out, or to be appropriately chastened? Are we trying to humiliate them for an action they took or a particular behavior that we want to change or are we targeting them for some immutable characteristic or their own perceived identity?
Properly deployed, humiliating someone can be a genuine public service, but how often does it happen that way?
A good observation in what forces us to change. It takes an inciting event and being publically humiliated functions as an inciting event. It doesn't mean it is a good change.
Can I revise your assertion? Never ever humiliate a narcissist or a sociopath because they will absolutely come back to seek revenge…most people actually do move on, eventually…many Asian cultures practice highly effective public humiliation in that the order is protected from the behavior of the perpetrator. In individualist societies, shame has no effect long term and so all you are doing is poking a potential narcissist which is what Trump is.
My understanding is that Trump never cracked it in NYC and that he knew it, though maybe not consciously. He's so thoroughly a conman I think he cons himself in a way to make the scam go more smoothly, and that persona has eaten his life. So there's nothing there, no normal human, making him a perfect politician.
New Yorkers, the real deal, knew he was a boor, a hopeless striver, and an incompetent, pathetically plating the hell out of everything gold like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and slapping his name on stuff. There was something to be said for owning the Plaza, though, but of course he eventually blew that like everything else.
I'm very interested in the collective side of humiliation, especially as it applies in tribal and martial cultures. Mass humiliation, like the South suffered in the Civil War. They never got over it, so they decided to win by simply never giving up. They hired Trump to finish off the hated and already crippled federal government.
Have you considered the reverse of your idea? Perhaps the problem with politics is simply narcissism and mental illness.
Most people, when they have lost a race or can’t get into an event, aren’t humiliated. Often they are depressed or disappointed, but humiliation is something you feel when you are treated as a lesser human, like the victims of Abu Ghraib or rape, not someone who loses a race or can’t have something they want.
And many, many celebrities are roasted. It is a sign of celebrity. But they don’t respond by sociopathically immiserating others.
People who are narcissists think this way. And yes, Obama is not a healthy mind. Charming undoubtedly, but not healthy. No healthy mind could survive murdering innocents at his level and remain glib and chatty.
The problem isn’t the humiliation, it is the profoundly fragile psych of our leaders. When you play the humiliation card, you make it our fault, when it is not. It is either their fault or the fault of the adults in their lives who humiliated them as children.
Motivated by humility, yes.
Motivated by humiliation, no.
I think the point you raised about homicide is important. There’s a sense in which getting revenge on your political opponent by making a comeback and beating him is a substitute for just trying to kill him, which for most of human history was probably the norm, and in some places still is. I totally agree our motivations are complicated, but feeling the need to take revenge due to being wronged or publicly humiliated has got to be one of the most powerful motivators of all.
Re: norms against humiliation, I think the Talmud almost equates the act of humiliating others with murder.
This story about Obama and Trump at that dinner has come up many times in my mind. I wonder. I would not dismiss that a public humiliation played a role but add to that racism and I think it makes a lot more sense. That and fragile masculinity. Your examples of a reaction to humiliation by the humiliated person are all males.
100%. I was going to say a different kind of person would have been able to laugh at being roasted, but when men with fragile egos are even jokingly called out (for their own bad behavior, mind you), they seek revenge because they can't just let an insult go. Wars have been started over less. It's embarrassing and dangerous.
Are men with fragile egos different from fighters, men who are willing to scrap at the drop of a hat? They are highly prized in sport. And believe me they are not fragile.
I suppose my viewpoint is based on mostly anecdotal experiences. You are not unfair here, or maybe as unfair as I am.
I've spent a fair bit of time in recent years studying human evolution human and esp of the female, of maternal instincs and patriarchy based publications in anthropology, primatology and sociology. There seems to be a general consensus on how matriarchy in early primate societies developed (favoured?) interdependence and cooperation to protect offspring. That does not mean women are not/less sexist or mean and women in coalition, like the bonobos, would have killed human traffickers outright and most likely did so to protect their offspring. Compare figures from the world bank/IMF that worldwide women tend to spend 90 percent of their earned income on their families, whereas men spend only 30 percent. This extends to kinship behaviour and problem solving for less desirable behaviour, such as sexism, competition for dominance, territoriality, In her book on human evolution (Eve, 2023), Cat Bohannon writes: Every power man have ever had is something women gave them. Sorry, big subject, little time.
Apart from Bohannon, I recommend publications by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy.
Thank you for these thoughts. The way you see a two sided coin of male/female fragility is not something I can agree on. I have never looked at this scenario, maybe because I am a woman and I don't buy the fragility thing at all. It serves an agenda and is not reflected in human evolution according to anthropology and research on patriarchy, I rather think that the fragility stuff is a more recent concept and it is based on patriarchal thinking. Which of course has its place in human evolution, I am not judging here but admit to a bias.
If you want to read more about the evolutionary aspect, I recommend Frans de Waal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal#Books
also an interesting podcast conversation between de Waal and Lawrence Krauss on youtube: https://youtu.be/GQOBkaiQw8I?feature=shared
and specifically on patriarchy, Angela Saini
https://www.angelasaini.co.uk/the-patriarchs
There's an interesting conversation with Angela Saini and Rosalind Dixon (UNSW Sydney, Australia) on youtube, good listening.
https://youtu.be/WMxb35VBZIg?feature=shared
Take care,
Sabine
One of my favorite anecdotes is that a young Abe Lincoln, armed with a God-given clever wit, would frequently humiliate people with quips, poems, and rejoinders. This backfired spectacularly when one victim of his humiliation made a credible threat against Lincoln's life. How differently history would have gone had he made good on his threat? As is, Lincoln learned a lesson that it is better to use a sharp tongue to build up good people and tear down bad ideas.
“…we aren’t altogether monsters”…some are more than others. There are those that stay up nights thinking about their cruelty toward others and there are those who revel in it. I recall my first great humiliation. It was junior high (of course) and I was a skinny, knobby kneed lass which didn’t go unnoticed by our class bully. He gathered a large junior high mob to torment me at recess with a “knobby knees” song for what seemed like weeks but was probably days. The pain, anger and humiliation I felt still seems like yesterday. It must have worked because I became a leader, athlete and academic honors student. I shared this adolescent angst story with my students throughout my life. I digress; humiliation stays with us. I too recall Obama’s roast; it felt so good to witness it and felt it was greatly deserved. I’m an Obama fan but the price for that small moment of torment has greatly exceeded its value.
The first example that came to my mind after reading the first paragraph isn't from politics but from sports: Michael Jordan. It seems he internalized every perceived slight and used them to become the greatest basketball player of all time.
My initial completely uninformed guess is that the type of person that has the ambition and obsessiveness to rise to the top of his or her field is often hyperaware of status and may be quick to feel humiliation. In this framework, there will always be some source of humiliation that can be woven into the person's rise. And even if that specific event hadn't happened, there would be some other event that the person experienced as equally humiliating that would become their origin story.
It feels like there's a little selection bias at play with the "don't humiliate people" advice. You will tend to notice the cases where it spectacularly backfires, but it's hard to count the cases where it works. How many needless political battles, wars, or interpersonal spats have been avoided by the deterrent effect of potential humiliation?
Humiliation can be a powerful tool for establishing and maintaining societal norms if the motivation and execution are appropriately aligned. Still, the challenge is finding the right reason and degree to humiliate someone. Also, does the target have a personality that will cause them to lash out, or to be appropriately chastened? Are we trying to humiliate them for an action they took or a particular behavior that we want to change or are we targeting them for some immutable characteristic or their own perceived identity?
Properly deployed, humiliating someone can be a genuine public service, but how often does it happen that way?
Magnificent, Paul! Forced me to check out for the umpteenth time Xpeare's Sonnet 129, on the importance of not wasting ones shame. 🗿
A good observation in what forces us to change. It takes an inciting event and being publically humiliated functions as an inciting event. It doesn't mean it is a good change.
Every woman knows the danger inherent in humiliating a man.
Can I revise your assertion? Never ever humiliate a narcissist or a sociopath because they will absolutely come back to seek revenge…most people actually do move on, eventually…many Asian cultures practice highly effective public humiliation in that the order is protected from the behavior of the perpetrator. In individualist societies, shame has no effect long term and so all you are doing is poking a potential narcissist which is what Trump is.
we're all quite simple, aren't we? Sometimes it takes being pissed off to motivate you to do your greatest work.
I wonder if social media acts as a pressure release valve for humiliation or if it tends to make things worse…
My understanding is that Trump never cracked it in NYC and that he knew it, though maybe not consciously. He's so thoroughly a conman I think he cons himself in a way to make the scam go more smoothly, and that persona has eaten his life. So there's nothing there, no normal human, making him a perfect politician.
New Yorkers, the real deal, knew he was a boor, a hopeless striver, and an incompetent, pathetically plating the hell out of everything gold like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and slapping his name on stuff. There was something to be said for owning the Plaza, though, but of course he eventually blew that like everything else.
I'm very interested in the collective side of humiliation, especially as it applies in tribal and martial cultures. Mass humiliation, like the South suffered in the Civil War. They never got over it, so they decided to win by simply never giving up. They hired Trump to finish off the hated and already crippled federal government.
And it's working ...
Sociologist Tom Scheff (with Suzanne Retzinger) wrote a few books about the role of shame and humiliation in generating violence. Well worth a read.