How to Hate Yourself Without Knowing it

As you might have noticed, I’ve recently been writing on the theme of defence mechanisms as they operate in individuals and groups. I want to continue this trajectory by looking at another common defence (I’m keen to write about some of the more productive defences, particularly Sublimation, but that will have to wait a little longer). In a paper entitled “The Taboo of Virginity” Freud coined the term “narcissism of small differences.” This basically refers to that well-known experience in which we get angry and frustrated with individuals or groups who actually appear very similar to us.

The paradigmatic example, of course, is family. Indeed there’s a long list of comedies that play explicitly on how the narcissism of small differences plays out between parents and their children, or among siblings. This is a popular trope because most of know what it is to get disproportionately angry with something silly like the way our dad eats his soup, or the way our mum taps her fingers. But rather than ask why we get profoundly angry by such things we tend ignore them as much as possible. Not realising that they could be speaking to us about an issue that might, if addressed, make our lives a little more bearable and those relationships a little deeper.

The word “narcissism” is used to describe this conflict because the person who we find annoying is operating as a reflected image of ourselves. In them we are confronting/constructing/critiquing ourselves in some way.

This defence is hinted at when we reserve our greatest anger for that which appears closest to us. For instance, we might know someone who pours out attack after attack against what they themselves actually appear to be (white, male, female, British, American etc.). They strangely attack what mostly closely resembles their own actions, ethnicity, and/or temperament. Often what a person attacks is so close to what they themselves are that it is all but impossible to tell the difference between them and what they ridicule. What we bear witness to in such comedic scenes is actually an individual projecting onto some other an anger that speaks of a repressed, unresolved truth about themselves. The other who is being attacked is actually being used as a means of deflecting a truth about the attackers own feelings about themselves.

We can see this play out in a well-known joke by Emo Philips. Bearing in mind that jokes are often funniest when they reveal to us an obvious truth that we know but don’t acknowledge, it is interesting to note that the Ship of Fools website voted it to be the funniest religious joke of all time,

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”

He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”

Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.

What we see here is the narcissism of small differences expressed in an extreme way. Yet reality can often mimic satire in a disturbing way. After all, we know that people are often killed for expressing insignificant religious differences.

In Northern Ireland there are a huge variety of Presbyterian churches resulting from split after split over the smallest of disagreements. There are Non-subscribing Presbyterians, Free Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians and Evangelical Presbyterians among others. This constant separation from the heretic marks an issue within the Protestant church more generally. Something that stands in sharp contrast to the Catholic Church, which has remained broadly united over time. A contrast that was interestingly replicated in the paramilitary groups associated with Protestantism and Catholicism in N. Ireland. While the IRA remained largely united throughout The Troubles, the Loyalist “Protestant” paramilitaries split into multiple, often antagonistic, groups (UDA, UVF, UFF, LVF etc.).

The narcissism of small differences is also something prevalent, even endemic, in leftist groups. Often a small difference of emphasis, conceptualisation, or even tone, is blown up into an issue that evokes an outburst of disproportionate anger, frustration, ridicule or defensiveness.

This frenetic fighting/splitting from those who only differ from us in small ways can speak of an inability to deal with internal conflict. As the Irish comedian Dylan Moran once said, “war is the inability to have conflict.” In other words, it is what we do when we can’t face sitting in the same room with another, confronting the antagonism, and working it through.

War and “denominational” splitting are intimately intertwined. For instance, we might find ourselves attacking someone on Social Media then shutting ourselves off from them, only to later attack them again in a never-ending cycle of repetition. Both the fight and the separation are linked by the fact the object addressed is both repulsive and seductive to us. It is a disturbing mirror image that we want to smash, yet find mesmerising. This defence is effective in the short term. Both the outburst of anger and act of separation can make us feel better about ourselves, but it’s ultimately ineffective and so must be engaged in again and again (often with diminishing effect).

There are, of course, any number of legitimate reasons for anger and for separating ourselves from other groups or individuals. In my work I’m often dealing with people who are attempting to discern whether they should leave a given organisation or stay i.e. whether their leaving signals an inability to deal with conflict, or whether the differences are significant enough to make staying actually problematic (after all it is common for people to stay in abusive situations when it would be better for them to leave). It’s key here to remember the term “small differences.” We are speaking here of the situation in which people are patently fighting against what they are.

In religious terms the difference between legitimate and illegitimate separation might be illustrated in the difference between Luther breaking from the Catholic Church contrasted with a tiny inter-denominational split reminiscent of Emo Philip’s joke.

The question of whether to stay in a given situation or leave is a very real one for many of us. Just yesterday I exchanged messages with a friend who works within a religious organisation that she finds herself in conflict with. She has even gotten into trouble a few times for entertaining what the institution judges to be dangerous theological ideas. In our communication she expressed a want to work out whether she was staying in an abusive situation that would ultimately damage her, or whether what she was experiencing might be a healthy conflict that could generate positive institutional change.

Of course, in such situations the direction is often decided for us. Another friend was recently fired from her job at a religious seminary. She had begun to ask questions about the stance of the organisation and was reading books judged to be bad. While she wanted to stay and operate within the tension, the leadership finally “asked” her to leave. One of the things they said to her was, “we want you to be released into your fullest potential.” This woman knew the institution well and suspected that this was a lie similar to what a manager might say to make himself feel better when firing an employee. But she was also aware of the psychoanalytic idea that the truth is often spoken in a lie. While they may have just wanted to get rid of her, their act may well be the very thing she needed to continue her journey with fewer constraints.

We may be a victim of someone else’s narcissistic defence, but we might also be the one using it. If we find ourselves often in conflict with those who are closest to us (in relationships, political movements, or religious organisations) it can be helpful to reflect upon whether this actually reflects something that one, or both, parties are failing to address.

By facing the underlying issues we open up the possibility of either reconciliation or engaging in a healthy separation. But failure to address them means being condemned to a never-ending cycle of aggressive retreat and return.