{"id":1158647,"date":"2023-07-28T06:05:10","date_gmt":"2023-07-28T06:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=142517"},"modified":"2023-07-28T06:05:10","modified_gmt":"2023-07-28T06:05:10","slug":"authoritarian-sadism-in-u-s-foreign-policy-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/07\/28\/authoritarian-sadism-in-u-s-foreign-policy-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Authoritarian Sadism in U.S. \u201cForeign Policy\u201d (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first part of this paper, Authoritarian Sadism in U.S. “Foreign Policy” (Part 1)<\/a>, Dissident Voice<\/em>, July 25, 2023, I introduced some psychoanalytic concepts and explained their application in revealing the latent motivations of high-ranking policy-makers in recent U.S. presidential administrations.\u00a0 This approach was long ago studied by the eminent political scientist Harold Lasswell, who concluded that a political leader\u2019s manifest \u201cpolicies\u201d are often a rationalization of his unresolved psychological conflicts. <\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have already examined, in relation to sadistic motivations, the personality of President Barack Obama (see: \u201cObama: \u2018I\u2019m Really Good at Killing People<\/a>\u2019,\u201d Dissident Voice, <\/em>January 2, 2022.\u00a0 Psychiatrist Justin Frank, M.D. also wrote a detailed psychoanalytic study entitled Obama on the Couch <\/em>(2011), which is full of subtle and well-stated psychoanalytic insights, especially regarding Obama\u2019s childhood.\u00a0 Still, psychoanalyst Justin Frank unconvincingly concluded that Obama was \u201cgenerally in excellent mental health.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

To my mind, his earlier book Bush on the Couch<\/em> (2004), which I will refer to here, was unflinchingly probing and perspicacious, a superb tour-de-force<\/em> in the field of psycho-political studies of presidential personalities and their often horrifically destructive \u201cpolicies.\u201d\u00a0 (Parenthetically, ex-President Bush has frequently made revealing Freudian slips during recent speaking engagements.)\u00a0 So, having already examined the case of Madeleine Albright, let us now examine the authoritarian sadism exhibited by President George W. Bush, a war criminal now almost entirely rehabilitated by the craven, mainstream media.<\/p>\n

Case-Study no. 2:\u00a0 George W. Bush<\/strong><\/p>\n

Former President George W. Bush\u2019s dreadful legacy of destruction rivals that of other modern authoritarian rulers who recklessly trampled human rights and laid waste to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.\u00a0 But were his injurious policies\u2013from willfully wrecking an entire nation (Iraq), to authorizing illegal torture (Guantanamo and the CIA\u2019s notorious black-sites), to refusing to renew the Clinton-era ban on assault weapons\u2013simply the result<\/em> of his benighted, right-wing ideology?\u00a0 Or, was this ideology in itself simply politicized cruelty: mass-murdering a purported \u201cenemy\u201d populace abroad while slashing social programs and criminalizing the poor domestically?\u00a0 Describing the emotional tenor of Nazism, journalist Ron Rosenbaum brilliantly noted that \u201can irrational hatred that can assume the guise, the mantle, of an ideological antipathy but which is primitive in the sense of being prior to ideology\u2013its source rather than its product.\u201d <\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In Dr. Frank\u2019s Bush on the Couch, <\/em>I found the chapter entitled \u201cThe Smirk\u201d lucidly revealing as to Bush\u2019s sadistic personality.\u00a0 Frank offered abundant examples of Bush\u2019s sadism and destructiveness, from his childhood pastime of blowing up frogs with firecrackers to his \u201cbranding\u201d of fraternity pledges with a red-hot coat hanger\u2013to his subsequent rubber-stamping of the execution, while governor of Texas, of a record number of death-row inmates (many never given adequate counsel for a fair trial).\u00a0 Ultimately, Dr. Frank concluded, \u201cThe sadism that motivated the war [was] evident in Bush\u2019s lack of a plan for postwar Iraq: the invasion was an end in itself.\u201d <\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

As to my usage of a concept of compensatory narcissism<\/em>\u2013often apparent in authoritarian \u201cpower-over\u201d and grandiosity\u2013Dr. Frank favored instead a blanket diagnosis of Bush as megalomaniacal<\/em>.\u00a0 Unlike Dr. Frank, who chose not to utilize the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual<\/em> of the American Psychiatric Association, I have found the section in the \u201cDSM\u201d<\/em> on Personality Disorders particularly useful (4th edition, 1994). Some fifty years ago, Freudian psychiatrists with substantial clinical experience of narcissistic and sociopathic personalities spent years seeking further clarification and consensus regarding the clinical (and actual) reality of such personality syndromes.\u00a0 Finally, a typology (subject to revision) emerged, and such can be found in the aforementioned DSM 4th edition.\u00a0 I might add that the very concept of \u201cpersonality disorders\u201d (especially, narcissistic, sociopathic, etc.) was originally derived from the early psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich\u2019s classic Character Analysis <\/em>(1933), wherein he discussed his clinical cases of pathological character-structures. <\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, in subsequently expanded editions over the past thirty years, the APA\u2013against the strong protest of the minority of psychoanalytic psychiatrists\u2013has added innumerable dubious and stigmatizing \u201cconduct disorders\u201d (and such) to the Manual (probably for commercial motives and insurance claims).\u00a0 The few psychoanalysts who have remained members of today\u2019s APA have been marginalized and largely ignored by the reigning Big Pharma bio-psychiatrists.\u00a0 (Interestingly, when psychoanalysts still exercised significant influence in the APA, the diagnostic \u201cSadistic Personality Disorder\u201d was carefully considered and briefly included in the DSM, only to be dropped later.)<\/p>\n

Returning to our evaluation of Bush, compensatory narcissistic power-displays, more popularly known as \u201cprotest masculinity,\u201d were almost constantly on exhibit in his crude threats and belligerent rhetoric as well as in his flamboyant swaggering in a flight-suit costume on board the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in May 2003 (\u201cMission Accomplished\u201d?).\u00a0 Again, fifty years ago many publicly respected psychoanalysts such as Erich Fromm might have pointed to childhood origins: a dominant and violently punitive mother (slapping and\/or neglect), and a remote, often-absent father.\u00a0 But such observations are now routinely derided, with the alternative (and potentially racist) claim that psychopathic behavior in adulthood is primarily genetic in origin.<\/p>\n

In the 1994 DSM, one finds that youthful cruelty to animals as well as substance abuse\u2013both unquestionably exhibited by Bush\u2013are predisposing factors to a possible diagnosis of \u201csociopathy\u201d (then also known as \u201cantisocial personality disorder\u201d). As president, Bush, of course, often displayed the roguish charm of the con-artist, as he gratuitously lied or invented \u201cfacts,\u201d blithely broke dozens of laws and shredded treaties, and ordered the illegal <\/em>torture of hundreds of victims, conveniently occurring in locales where U.S. laws prohibiting torture had no jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

According to the DSM (and again, I emphasize, the 1994 4th <\/em>edition), in order to be diagnosed as \u201csociopathic,\u201d an individual must exhibit at least three<\/em> of the following: \u201cfailure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors\u2026 deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying\u2026 impulsivity or failure to plan ahead\u2026 irritability and aggressiveness\u2026 reckless disregard for the safety of self or others\u2026 consistent irresponsibility\u2026[and] lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.\u201d\u00a0 This diagnostic, which has high co-morbidity with a history of alcoholism (admitted by Bush), is ultimately confirmed in cases where some evidence exists of childhood delinquency (such as bullying and cruelty toward animals).<\/p>\n

Moving on to the DSM\u2019s 1994 criteria for narcissistic disorder, at least five<\/em> of the following must apply to justify the diagnosis: \u201ca grandiose sense of self-importance\u2026 fantasies of unlimited success, power\u2026 believes that he or she is \u2018special\u2019 and unique\u2026has a sense of entitlement\u2026 is interpersonally exploitative\u2026 lacks empathy\u2026 is often envious of others\u2026 [and] shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Many highly successful individuals,\u201d the DSM entry concluded (with unintended irony?), \u201cdisplay personality traits that might be considered narcissistic.\u201d <\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

An eminent psychoanalyst, known for his careful study of personality disorders, concluded twenty years ago that the narcissistic syndrome \u201coverlaps considerably with the interpersonal style of anti-social personality\u2013so much so that narcissistic individuals are sometimes considered \u2018white-collar\u2019 psychopaths\u2026 The distinction [between the two personality diagnostics] is then unclear.\u201d <\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It is thus plausible to consider \u201cnarcissism\u201d and \u201csociopathy\u201d as points on a continuum, with fusion of traits a not unlikely outcome (especially in powerful political figures).\u00a0 I postulated as much over ten years ago in my Dissident Voice<\/em> article \u201cSociopathic Narcissism: a Political Syndrome<\/a>\u201d, October 26, 2012.\u00a0 Thus, in the year or so following Trump\u2019s \u201celection\u201d as president, I was not surprised to see numerous panic-stricken psychiatrists and political analysts suddenly warn the public of the \u201csociopathic narcissist\u201d in the White House.<\/p>\n

But can sociopathic narcissism ultimately be equated with authoritarian sadism?\u00a0 According to Dr. Frank, President Bush became a sadistic role-model, thus \u201cnormalizing\u201d the unleashing of bullying, aggressive behavior in everyday socio-political contexts.\u00a0 Bush\u2019s desire to attack Iraq and its people, under the flimsiest of pretexts, exhibited his impatiently awaited delight in cruelty: the anticipated satisfactions of not only crushing Saddam Hussein (dominating him into submission or, preferably, torturing and killing him).\u00a0 To this sociopathic narcissist, one may even speculate that exercising the power to kill hundreds of thousands of vulnerable, powerless Iraqi people\u2013without impunity\u2013 offered the ultimate, grandiose opportunity for sadistic satisfaction.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the power-hungry, highly narcissistic Madeleine Albright (discussed in the preceding Part 1) aggressively campaigned for, and attained, the position of Secretary of State.\u00a0 Ruthless and domineering, the \u201centitled\u201d Albright was impatient to crush and dominate into submission defiant opponents such as Saddam and Milosevic.\u00a0 But what of the helpless, ordinary citizens of these nations (and not forgetting Rwanda); i.e., hundreds of thousands including small children, who are by nature weak and defenseless)?\u00a0 They were all victims for the power-driven, authoritarian sadist. <\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

END NOTES<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Dissident Voice<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the first part of this paper, Authoritarian Sadism in U.S. \u201cForeign Policy\u201d (Part 1), Dissident Voice, July 25, 2023, I introduced some psychoanalytic concepts and explained their application in revealing the latent motivations of high-ranking policy-makers in recent U.S. presidential administrations.\u00a0 This approach was long ago studied by the eminent political scientist Harold Lasswell, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66536,66616,135,192,4740,31161,16156],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158647"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160241,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158647\/revisions\/1160241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}