I’m going to take a break from original posts for a while to catch up on reader feedback. I will be doing posts over the next few weeks that will address reader feedback that I never got around to responding to like I wanted.

If you ever sent me an email or had an unanswered comment on a previous post, you may see it as the subject of a new post.

This is an insight that may seem a little basic or obvious, but I try not to take anything for granted. Sometimes things I think I’m making obvious people totally miss, and things I think I didn’t make clear enough, people grasp far better than I ever originally hoped.

One such insight I’m not sure if I made clear: Shame is immature.

Remember, shame is the idea that you are fundamentally flawed, and if you do something bad, it proves that you are bad as an entity. Compare this to guilt, which says that if you do something bad, it’s not necessarily evidence that you are bad as an entity. So if a shame-based person tries to hit on a girl and gets rejected, he thinks “I’m am a reject.” If a guilt-based person tries to hit on a girl and gets rejected, he thinks “I’m a regular guy who just happened to get rejected.”

Shame is the root of narcissism and codependence. This is why being narcissists and codependents start avoiding risks and looking for easy ego-boosts, or engage in a lot of self-handicapping, because they feel their very identity is at stake with every rejection. They go into endeavors with built-in excuses ready and always holding something back or obsessed with impression management and self-presentation. Meanwhile, a guilt-based person is less likely to self-sabotage or avoid risks or look for easy ego-boosts, because he doesn’t believe his actions and failures are proof that he is fundamentally defective and inferior. Mistakes and failures are just feedback that he needs to go back to the drawing board.

If you deal with a child, you’ll notice that it’s hard to give them constructive criticism until they’re older. If you tell a kid they’ve done anything badly, they will think they are total failures, are unworthy, or are unlovable. Adults understand this, which is why they tend to over-applaud and over-praise for just about anything the child does.

As the child gets older, however, continuing to do this will stunt the child’s development because it keeps the child in a shame-based mindset. At some point the child has to learn that he can not be perfect or even good at something, and still be worthy of love and still not be defective. The child has to learn that he can be good at some aspects of a craft or task, and can be bad at other aspects of the craft or task, at the same time. Good and bad can coexist in the same entity at the same time. This is called integration.

Shame-based people have a lot of trouble integrating. This is the core of the superhuman/subhuman dichotomy and the suppression-expression paradox. Everything is either-or, all-or-nothing, black or white, one extreme or the other. One mistakes by themselves or others invalidates everything good. You also see this in how kids will tell a parent “I hate you!” when they’re mad at them, and truly believe it. And when their emotions calm down, they love the parent again like nothing ever happened. It’s hard to simultaneously be mad at someone and still love them in that moment, even while still nursing that anger. You find this same tendency in adult Cluster Bs and codependents with the phenomenon of splitting.

With kids, however, because you know you’re dealing with a child, you implicitly understand the shame-based motivations, even if you you’re not explicitly versed in the psychology of shame and use the proper psychological terms. With shame-based adults, however, we tend to assume that they’re are mature adults, and many of them wear the mask of maturity so well that we interact with them on a guilt-based levels and end up getting frustrated or burned as a result.

The point of this post is to train you to start associating shame with maturity and vice-versa. If I write about shame, I’m automatically also writing about immaturity even if I don’t explicitly state that word. And if I’m writing about maturity issues, I’m also implicitly writing about shame issues, even if I don’t use that word.  No matter how well a shame-based person knows how to go through the motions and feign maturity by following rituals and observing social rules, at the core you are dealing with someone who is emotionally a child. And conversely, if someone is immature, you have to realize that it’s not just a cute eccentricity but is also evidence that they probably have a lot of shame-based mindsets, with all the dysfunctions that accompany that.

The suppression-expression paradox simply means that the more a person or group suppresses a natural human urge, the more intense their expression of that natural urge will be once/if they ever do decide to express it.

For example, modern progressive liberals, especially of the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert generation, choose to engage in politics with a certain type of hip, snarky, cynical detachment. There have been several studies alleging that The Daily Show has an effect of causing people to distrust the whole political process, because they end up viewing Democrats as inept, pandering, and bumbling, although well-intentioned, and Republicans as evil and ill-intentioned, and as a result end up becoming cynical and disengaged in politics in general. There is a natural human urge to want to believe in something bigger than ourselves, and to elevate certain people to a heroic status that we can believe in and look up to. Because of our modern era where we get to see how the sausage is made in every area of our lives, and where nothing is too sacred to mock anymore, a whole generation of people began to suppress this natural urge to want to elevate our political leaders to a heroic, exalted status. (I know some of the more pedantic readers may chime in for me to cite proof via peer-reviewed studies or statistics that there is a human tendency to want to elevate people to an exalted, superior heroic status. I can’t do that, or more accurately, I won’t do that because I think there are more than enough historical examples in our textbooks and anecdotal examples in our everyday lives that provide proof of this. But if you want to see a great case made for this, I suggest trying Ernest Becker’s Escape from Evil)

This suppression, I believe, is exactly what caused the level of crazed, uncritical cultlike adoration of Barack Obama that we saw among this same generation of Daily Show viewers in 2008, something the Onion mocked in this video clip:

They’re over-the-top cynicism and detachment regarding politics and religion suppressed their natural urge to believe in something bigger than themselves, to give themselves over to a cause and trust in heroic figures. Natural urges that get suppressed build up pressure and start demanding release, and oftentimes once you do release them even a little bit they explode out.

It also works in reverse. Many people who are overboard when it comes to acting out any of their natural urges, when they decide to start reining those urges in they often go to the opposite extreme and go overboard in suppressing them. People who started out adoring heroic figures in politics and religion, when they dial it back, often end up becoming incredibly cynical or become proseletysing atheists. Someone who was a hardcore hedonist, when he dials it back, instead of coming to a point of moderation when it comes to vices, instead becomes a hardcore religious person, reading scripture constantly, always trying to convert others, and bringing up God all the time.  That’s why I always believe that the more fervently a person converts to religion and ascetism later in life, the more of an unrepentant hedonist they were earlier in life.

Ponder for yourself how this relates to the superhuman/subhuman dynamic.

[UPDATE: Please read the comments following this article, especially if you're planning to respond with a comment yourself.  I think there are some good comments that raise some interesting objections, and I responded with some added clarifications that I think people may find helpful. Plus any objections you plan on raising may have already been raised and addressed in the comments already. - T.]

For added context, I highly recommend that people read this series of posts on competitors versus cooperators, either before of after reading this current post you’re reading now: here, here, here, here, and here.

I think this video below is one of the best deconstructions of  ”intelligent” trolls, both the real life and the online kind.

I think a major part of trolls, or anyone who chronically courts controversy for its own sake, which people don’t realize, is that it’s someone who wants recognition, who wants acceptance, who wants love, but on some level has given up on getting it in conventional ways. So they try to troll or generate controversy, because it has at least two payoffs. First, it keeps them from being ignored. Second, since they feel on some level that they will never get the full recognition they deserve, or that people hating them is inevitable, they at least want to try to be hated on their own terms, so they can at least feel some sense of control and dominance (“See? I’m not trying to make you like me and getting rejected. I’m deliberately trying to make you hate me and it’s working! I’m in control! You’re a puppet on my string!”) It’s a form of self-handicapping.

Being an asshole on purpose is self-handicapping much like not studying and going drinking the night before a test is. When people self-handicap by not studying before a test and going out drinking, they’re afraid of themselves and others finding out they’re not smart. If they give something their all and try their hardest, holding nothing back, and still fail, they fear being exposed to themselves and others as being fundamentally defective (this is a shame issue). By not studying and going out drinking before the exam, they reserve an excuse for themselves. If they do badly, they can say “Oh, I didn’t study and I drank before the exam. If I didn’t do that, I could have done well.” If they do well, they can say “Oh, look how good I did! Can you imagine if I actually studied and didn’t drink before the exam?” And if he does study later on, it will look more impressive because of lowered standards. Someone who never usually studies buckling down and studying is far more impressive than someone who has always been an overachieving studier being seen studying yet again.

Similarly, the “asshole on purpose” guy is usually someone who has given up on being loved in a conventional way in response to a sincere, earnest, all-out effort, for whatever reason. So he self-handicaps through assholery. If he treats people like shit and they don’t like him, he can brag “Yeah, I’m such an asshole. I don’t give a fuck! I try to piss people off!” If people still like him despite his assholery, he can say “Man, look at that. I’m an asshole and people still love me. I really must be just that smart/talented/insightful. Can you imagine if I actually tried to conform to society’s norms and work within them how successful I’d be?” And because of lowered standards that come from his usual asshole ways, when he shows an effort to be nice or shows a soft, sensitive side, he gets far more props for it than a guy who is always nice and considerate. It’s like the Jerk With a Heart of Gold character trope you see in movies and TV. The jerk who does a nice thing, no matter how mundane, is so much more admired than the normally nice guy doing yet another nice thing.

I also believe this is the fantasy need some characters like Hank Moody on shows like Californication fill for viewers. I absolutely loathe Californication and the lead character Hank Moody, yet I keep finding myself hate-watching the show, because I’m always trying to figure out what the appeal is (beyond the obvious, which is the sex and nudity). One of my theories is that many people fantasize about being able to be so irresistible and intrinsically awesome that they can be utter assholes and still end up being loved for it, which to many people is a bigger sign of self-worth than being nice and being loved for it. For many shame-based people, they only act nice out of a sense of weakness, as a way to get approval and be liked. They end up viewing any form of niceness as an admission of low value, both in themselves and in other people. They only persist in being nice because they feel that’s the only option available to them to get approval, because they have such little bargaining power otherwise, maybe because they feel not attractive enough, not rich enough, not socially savvy enough, etc.

That’s why many of these same people turn into total assholes once they feel any sense of power shift in their favor in a social dynamic, like the Nice Guy who laments how his hot female friend puts him in the friend zone despite how nice he is, but becomes a jerk when he’s dealing with a fat and unattractive chick whose comparative value to him is the same as his comparative value to the hot girl friendzoning him. His niceness is totally context-dependent, coming from situations where he feels weak and unworthy. That’s also why many of these same shame-based people, both narcissists and codependents, can’t respect or reciprocate people who love them unconditionally even after knowing all their flaws or make things “too easy” for them. Because they themselves only act nice when feeling weak and out of a feeling of necessity, they project that same motivation on others who act nice and assume they must be weak and inferior too.

Anyway, returning to Californication, I think a major part of its appeal is that fantasy of having such value as to be able to afford to self-handicap via assholery. Of being able to be effortlessly cool, so naturally valuable, that even if you try to fuck things up by being an asshole and make no effort to cooperate, you still end up being loved, and when you do burn bridges it’s always on your own terms, not on anyone else’s. (I also think that’s why so many narcissists choose to be abusive to loved ones when they don’t have to. For them, being loved for being nice is something anyone can do, but being loved despite being a fuck-up or asshole is proof of being a superior being.) Also, because of the lowered standards that come from self-handicapping, any minor, mundane bit of normal humanity that Hank Moody shows is blown way out of  proportion. This is because a lot of people want to be rewarded for the most token, superficial gestures, the bare minimum.

You can see a lot of these principles at play in this article about Tucker Max that came out a while back. When you look at his childhood, you can see the abandonment that came about from his mother and how that led to him to lose faith in being loved just for being him, and why he began self-handicapping with that deliberate asshole persona.

Of course the problem with any form of self-handicapping is, even though it gets you a short-term payoff that makes you feel good at first, because what you really want deep down is conventional success, once the rush from self-sabotage wears off you realize you are no closer to your real goal, or worse, are actually farther away from it. For example, the student who always self-handicaps by not going to class, not studying, and partying hard may get a series of short term ego boosts each time he self-handicaps, but for long term conventional success he’s going to have to eventually work hard and give it his all. He can’t self-handicap forever. Sooner or later he’s going to reach a challenge where his natural gifts and half-assing won’t be enough. Similarly, the deliberate asshole, if he wants the type of deeper and more fulfilling long-term social connection he’s yearning for, he’s going to have to stop self-handicapping, show some vulnerability, and be willing to give something his all and risk failing at it.

Because deep down, despite their exteriors, deliberate assholes actually want to be approved of, recognized, respected, and loved, they just fear  deep down that they can’t get those things the conventional ways, and therefore must self-handicap, so that if they’re hated at least they’re hated on their own terms. This is why the moment a deliberate asshole, a controversy seeker, or a troll feels that he is being hated or rejected on what aren’t his own terms, he becomes incredibly thin-skinned, surprisingly so for someone who claims not to care what others think and actively courts controversy so much. That’s why I love the tweet below from Jay Smooth about Lisa Lampanelli:

“Please be offended please be offended please be offended please be offended” followed by “Why are you offended!!??” = the Lampanelli Cycle.

— jay smooth (@jsmooth995) February 20, 2013

Unfortunately, most people, when they rush from self-handicapping wears off and they realize they’re back where they started and still in pain, instead of giving up the defective coping strategy, instead choose to double down on it and self-handicap even more, which again gives a short-term emotional payoff, and again leads to no real long-term fulfillment and the return of the original pain they were trying to avoid in the first place, and the vicious cycle (circle?) continues.

Trolls and chronic controversy seekers want attention, recognition, love, and approval, but have just given up on getting them in conventional forms via conventional means. Unfortunately, the same faulty coping strategies they use to deal with this problem in the short run are the exact same ones guaranteed to exacerbate the problem in the long run.

Recommended Resources:

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If you have been reading my past few years of posts about Cluster Bs and codependents and find them interesting, and most importantly, if you personally relate at all to those posts, I highly recommend you watch the movie I’m recommending today, Young Man With A Horn. It airs tommorow (Wednesday, March 20) on the cable network Turner Classic Movies at 11:45 AM. Set your DVRs.

There is a popular archetype of the girl who chooses bad boys and jerks over good guys, but not enough attention gets paid to the guy who chooses bitches over good girls, especially when the bitch is scorching hot. But it’s far more common than people acknowledge, and this movie touches on that. It shows how a musician, played by Kirk Douglas, who has some codependent tendencies (he’s not a doormat in life generally, but does have some abandonment issues from childhood that signify he has anxious attachment issues), and the chemistry he has with a Cluster B woman, played by Lauren Bacall. The psychodynamics between the two are incredibly well-done and true to life, and I was very impressed by the screenplay as a result.

One of my favorite scenes of the movie, if not the favorite scene, is this one where the idealization has worn off and the devaluation has set it in:

Something this movie touches on, that I haven’t gone into much detail yet on the blog but plan to eventually, is how narcissists and other Cluster Bs are often consumed with envy and jealousy of their codependents, even though on the surface they never let it show. Even the codependent himself would be shocked to realize the extent to which the narcissist is jealous of them, but this jealousy is actually a major reason for much of the abuse that comes in the relationship. In this movie, Bacall’s character is a sophisticated, spoiled intellectual with all the “right” friends, all the “right” clothes, who goes to all the “right” parties and lives in all the “right” places, but because her world is so externally-defined, she has no “core” or true value system or passions. She lives her life directionlessly and in full contempt of others who do have passions and core beliefs and real human connection. Much of her disdain for Kirk Douglas’s character comes from the fact that he has a calling, has a passion for it, pursues it relentlessly without holding anything back to preserve his ego or save face, and has real human connections.

Since she is too emotionally immature and spiritually lazy to undergo the discomfort and risk needed to achieve true growth, she needs to surround herself with people she feels she can leech that energy from. What happens instead though is she just ends up trying to destroy them instead in order to feel better. She “punishes” them for having passion and not being empty like she is. Their very existence not only fails to empower her like she hopes during the idealization stage, but it starts reminding her of what a fraud she is and how she’s not as superior as she pretends to be after all, which makes her start to abuse them during the devaluation stage.

This movie is not just good because of how psychologically rich it is; it’s also a fun, well-written and well-directed movie that’s generally enjoyable to watch just for entertainment value. I’m eventually going to do a full-scale deconstruction of this movie, so I recommend you DVR and watch it now so that you won’t be lost.

Again, it airs tomorrow, Wednesday, March 20, at 11:45 AM on Turner Classic Movies.