ABSTRACT
The authors take part in a dialogue about the malignant narcissist in leadership (MNL). Starting with the formation of the revolutionary personality, they agree that such genetics as neglect, abuse, and soul murder drive the formation of profound narcissistic defenses that resonate culturally and culminate in destructive power. The discussants find that failed attachment and identification with the aggressor, in combination with charisma, account for the dangerousness of the MNL. The authors debate the relevance of Oedipal issues. Like Robert Waite, they explore malignant narcissism psychodynamically and delineate sexual styles of the MNL, using Henry VIII, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler as brief examples. Sexual behaviors, they find, open a window to unconscious drivers behind certain executive decisions and policies. Adding to Freud’s psychoanalytic primal horde theory the notion that primal mothers also exists, they interrogate cult relationships as remarkably similar to the power-dynamics of the primal horde, with the caveat that the MNL, filling the role of the primal father/mother, declares a special status like divinity to legitimize the use of power in exploiting followers. Totalitarians like Pol Pot and others are discussed as incapable of coming to terms with the embarrassing limitations characteristic of the human condition. Once this narcissism meets ultimate power, it results in apocalyptic destruction in the name of utopia. The horror of the rule of the MNL is delineated from terror, and the uniqueness of horror as an effect that is ubiquitous under end-stage totalitarian rule is described clinically. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now are referenced to enrich the discussion.
