THE NARCISSISTIC WOUND
…AND EXISTENTIAL ENVY
Existential Envy
In a previous article, I discussed the combination of godlike arrogance and the vengeful attitude of tyrannical personalities who try to justify the viciousness of their assertion of authority with an act of supposed revenge in favor of the people. In reality, the viciousness comes from a deep but secret resentment against the victim caused by what is called a Narcissistic Wound—a wound voluntarily or involuntarily inflicted by the victim in the brittle, vulnerable ego of the narcissist tyrant.[1] Normally, the offense takes place years before the tyrant has become a tyrant. When it happens, the victim is unaware of insulting the person who will eventually become a tyrant because the insult is his very existence.
The insult results from what the German philosopher Max Scheler called “existential envy”—envy directed not at things the victims have but at what they are, something nobody can take away from them.
In Scheler’s words:
“…it is a great error to think that envy—along with covetousness, ambition, and vanity—is a motive force in the development of civilization. Envy does not strengthen the acquisitive urge; it weakens it. It leads to resentment when the coveted values cannot be acquired and lie in the sphere we compare ourselves to others. The most powerless envy is also the most terrible. Therefore, existential envy, directed against the other person’s very nature, is the most vital source of ressentiment. It is as if it whispers continually:
“I can forgive everything, but not that you are
—that you are what you are
—that I am not what you are
—indeed that I am not you.”[2]
Existential envy is essentially destructive to both the envied and the envious. The envied will always be in danger because being impotent to quench his envy by taking away things from him, the envious will turn to damage him. The envious will always suffer. He will never satisfy his envy, even if he kills the envied victim, because his memory will survive. This form of envy strips the tyrant of his being, for the existence of the envied victim is felt to be a “pressure,” a “reproach,” an unbearable humiliation.’[3] For this reason, the envied victim should not be just killed. His corpse must be desecrated, his memory must be defiled, his legacy negated, his achievements called ridiculous, and his wealth must be stolen for seven generations before and after him.
People who do not understand what existential envy is frequently misinterpret the motivations of narcissistic tyrants. A tyrant with existential envy against someone else could expropriate his house or that of a close relative, for example. Still, he will do it not because he covets the house but because he wants to inflict damage on the envied victim.
Many do not understand the viciousness of the attacks, which may go against relatives and children. This is a direct result of the envious’ impotence to eliminate the suffering that the very existence or memory of the envied causes in him.
The Impotence
The punishment for envy is envy itself, and the worst envy in this and other respects is existential envy because it is inexhaustible. Some narcissistic persons who always wanted to receive respect without having to do anything to be respected and then strive for their entire lives to be powerful as a proxy for being respected feel stripped of their very existence if they see someone who is respectable, even if he is not powerful. Their envy explodes when they realize that power does not bring along respect. The more they inflict pain on their unsuspecting victims, the more frustrated they become because showing viciousness may make people fear them but not transform fear into respect. Instead, it brings contempt.
The realization that destroying the envied does not kill them but enhances their ability to command respect brings more existential envy and frustration. The respect that Hector commanded in history was not destroyed by Achilles when he dragged his corpse around Troy. On the contrary, Hector, a human who was killed by an almost invincible semi-god who took advantage of his superpowers to kill him, passed to history as the great hero who, knowing that the other was virtually unbeatable in a one-to-one confrontation, dared to fight against him. Hector was even more respected after Achilles killed him and even more when this showed his hatred dragging his corpse. Power does not bring about respect. Abused power brings about contempt.
There are multiple examples of this familiar script.
Putin has had a long-standing inferiority complex, personally, and has transferred it to the feeling of inferiority that Russia has traditionally felt relative to the West. He is trying to vent the first, concealing it behind the second, and has used this to propel his political ambitions. He wants to recreate the Russian Empire of yesteryear, but bigger, and become the third great figure in Russian history, comparable only with Ivan the Great and Stalin. He thinks he would be even greater than these two because he would unify the two stories of Russia as a Tsardom and a communist state. Yet, a much smaller country, Ukraine, is destroying his identity in two ways: militarily, denying him an easy victory, and morally, denying him the worldwide respect that Putin was looking for in the only language he knows, that of rough violence.
The worst injury his brittle ego has suffered, however, was inflicted on him by a man who, being under his power, had no imposing battalions like the Ukrainians under his command and who, even when a prisoner, showed the difference between power and respectability: Alexei Navalny. Putin assassinated Navalny as the culmination of a process of abuse of power. As in many of his assassinations, Putin retained deniability regarding his direct responsibility for Navalny’s death but simultaneously let it be known that he was the assassin because he enjoys the sense of unbridled power. Yet, the very assassination of Navalny brought back his feeling of impotence. He assassinated Navalny but did not kill him. Navalny survives in the hearts and minds of all the citizens of the world who admire and respect him—something that Putin will never attain.
Many other tyrants abuse their power to satisfy their existential envy, which does not make the news. But people under their boot know who they are.
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Manuel Hinds is a Fellow at The Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University. He shared the Manhattan Institute's 2010 Hayek Prize. He is the author of four books, the last one being In Defense of Liberal Democracy: What We Need to Do to Heal a Divided America. His website is manuelhinds.com
[1] Manuel Hinds, Tyrannical Personalities: Hubris and Nemesis in Current Despots, Substack, April 1, 2024, https://manuelhinds.substack.com/p/tyrannical-personalities
[2] Max Scheler, Ressentiment, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 30.
[3] Max Scheler, Ressentiment, Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 30.