Cruelties: Domination and Dependence
The sadomasochism of authoritarian leaders and their followers
Around the world, demonstrations against vaccine mandates have grown to impressive numbers. Individuals who fall on either side of center have joined voices crying ‘liberty’, but governments that further press dependency against the wishes of their people indicate that their objectives originate more from hostility than from responsibility. Still, there are some who embrace and idealize authoritarian leadership, to the befuddlement of those opposed. Psychologists, dramatists and propagandists all understand that perception is a determiner of behavior. But can we attribute polarized perceptions of authoritarian rule to manipulation alone? Or is there something deep in our nature that is opposed to freedom? To what should we attribute our positive transference to such leadership?
Masochism
There seems to be a common opinion that those who support authoritarianism do so because they don’t appreciate their freedoms. While that may be true, perhaps deeper in the psyche is a part that finds freedom offensive. It sounds irrational because it is. And it can be as much an obstacle to democracy as it is to psychotherapy.
In The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, psychiatrist and existential psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom observed that the dynamics of group therapy in early stages often demonstrate how people compulsively discard their independence, individuality, and democracy when they feel lost or vulnerable.
“This is by no means a clearly conscious process. The members may intellectually advocate a democratic group that draws on its own resources but nevertheless may, on a deeper level, crave dependency and attempt first to create and then destroy an authority figure. Group therapists refuse to fill the traditional authority role: they do not lead in the ordinary manner; they do not provide answers and solutions; they urge the group to explore and to employ its own resources. The members’ wish lingers, however, and it is usually only after several sessions that the group members come to realize that the therapist will frustrate their yearning for the ideal leader.”
Irvin D. Yalom - The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy.
Existential theorists understand this to be part of the human condition, and have observed that provocations of shame, fear, or uncertainty can trigger an automatic regression to a state of dependence for survival.
“The different forms which the masochistic strivings assume have one aim: to get rid of the individual self, to lose oneself; in other words, to get rid of the burden of freedom. This aim is obvious in those masochistic strivings in which the individual seeks to submit to a person or power which he feels as being overwhelmingly strong.”
“The frightened individual seeks for somebody or something to tie his self to; he cannot bear to be his own individual self any longer, and he tries frantically to get rid of it and to feel security again by the elimination of this burden: the self.”
Erich Fromm - Escape from Freedom
This could explain why the conflict between those who insist on freedom, and those who reject it often seems bigger than life. It seems as profound and desperate as any existential struggle gets.
Sadism
In Escape from Freedom, Erich Fromm observed that pleasure that is derived from hurting others is often “entirely covered up by reaction formations of over goodness or over concern for others” and that among the most frequent rationalizations is “‘I rule over you because I know what is best for you, and in your own interest you should follow me without opposition.’”
According to Fromm, there are three types of sadistic tendencies.
The first type forces others to become wholly dependent on and powerless against the sadist.
The second is characterized by exploitation, consumption, and destruction.
The third and final type of sadism he lists is the desire to inflict suffering on others - physical suffering and especially mental suffering.
In abusive relationships for example, the abuser excuses his or her behavior by claiming that it is an expression of extreme care and exceptional devotion. Tragically, some victims embrace this lie in order to remain in the addictive cycle of abuse. Sometimes they too become perpetrators to experience power and the pleasure of harming others.
“Sadism also appears frequently under the disguise of love. To rule over another person, if one can claim that to rule him is for that person’s own sake, frequently appears as an expression of love, but the essential factor is the enjoyment of domination.”
“the sadistic person quite manifestly ‘loves’ those over whom he feels power…He may think that he wishes to dominate their lives because he loves them so much. He actually ‘loves’ them because he dominates them.”
Erich Fromm - Escape from Freedom
In other words, sadists are capable of ‘love’ as long as the object of their affections remain their victims. They may believe that their behaviors are loving and convince their victims of it too. This may be a shared secret among the authoritarians, and there may be an even deeper secret that they keep from themselves.
“While the masochistic person’s dependence is obvious, our expectation with regard to the sadistic person is just the reverse: he seems so strong and domineering, and the object of his sadism so weak and submissive, that it is difficult to think of the strong one as being dependent on the one over whom he rules. And yet close analysis shows that this is true. The sadist needs the person over whom he rules, he needs him very badly, since his own feeling of strength is rooted in the fact that he is the master over someone. This dependence may be entirely unconscious.”
Erich Fromm - Escape from Freedom
Survival of the…
If the most powerful entity is the perpetrator, emulating them can seem like the path to power and an excuse to harm others in the same manner. But it’s important to remember that dependence, inauthenticity, and addiction are marks of fear, shame, and powerlessness. Though the narcopath authoritarian seems omnipotent and benevolent, the tyrant is merely a parasite. Perhaps it feeds off of human frailty. Maybe it grows by taking the strong. Whatever the case, the bottom line is still that they necessarily depend on the people more than the people necessarily depend on them. The tyrants are not as strong as they appear to be, and the people are not as weak as they fear themselves to be.