Analyzing The Roots Of Hate, Humiliation, and Masculinity In The Phenomenon Of Electronic Harassment And Targeted Individuals
In my attempts to understand my own gender and bi-sexuality (which has been repudiated by many individuals in my personal life), I turned to Amber Jacobs who incorporates Kleinian theory to help me accomplish an understanding by doing a systematic reading of many books in her bibliography “On Matricide". Although Klein is not an immediate obvious choice, if the reader wishes classical papers on female sexuality, she did write a few papers exclusively on female psychology. However, the main idea I liked to share is that, for Klein, her developmental theory considers separation from and rejection of the mother, along with turning toward or idealizing the father, a necessary developmental task for both sexes; male and female. The need to separate and individuate from this maternal force must occur, in Kleinian theory, for the individual to establish a personal and separate identity. This is what typically occurs as the formation of heterosexuality, as a compromise to the oedipal conflict and which we see as the predominant choice for most boys and girls.
What this means is that, for Klein, a paranoid schizoid splitting must take place against the mother in order to achieve the process of individuation.
Unwittingly, since this is the predominant solution, this felt need for separation and repudiation of the mother contributes to the installation of a male-dominate heterosexuality and to psychological, social, and cultural male dominance which has been symbolized in talk therapy as primacy of the phallus, the phallic world of difference, the name of the father, and so forth. In turn, this rejection and repudiation deeply affect how many women feel as mothers and how we conceptualize and blame mothers and other females. Thus, the advocated rejection of the mother and turn toward the father’s phallus primacy in idealization and over-valuation of the penis is a paranoid-schizoid solution to the felt need to separate from the mother. The demonstrated existence and effect of dynamically unconscious mental process, thoughts and feelings, and the fact that meaning comes from within as much as from without reinforces the fact that people are shaped culturally and discursively rather than creating their own psyches from within.
Therefore economics, politics and social explanations for terrorism and violence don’t give us a complete picture. Emotions like hatred and humiliation are also central. Certainly motivation, feelings, and action effect matters. Motivations can be caused by abstract matters as well as political and material conditions. Which we can analyze the Russian-Ukraine conflict and when we analyze such behaviors we label them as nationalists, anti-imperialism, or borne of religious fervor. Since maternal repudiation and idealization of the phallus is the predominant psychology (masculinities) it is a particular individual who engages in suicide missions, mass murder, torture, ethnic cleansing, or genocide. We are looking at individuals who hate, commit violence, and polarize the world into “good us and evil them.” They get personal gratification or a sense of coherence from participating in causes, connecting certain people, and disconnecting from others. All individuals internalize political and cultural belief systems. That is they internalize a certain philosophy as it pertains to virtues and laws. As such, people’s behaviors will follow from the rules they impose upon themselves. In the ideology of virtue ethics there is some idea of what a human being aught to be if they’ve internalized certain virtues and find satisfaction in adherence to laws. This then forms the background from which people go on to lead their lives from being a husband to being a professional in business. It is a very different mind set that asks, “How can I exploit the rules?” If morality is shaped by just a set of rules, and nothing else, well then that allows for people to play with them. The winner is the one who can exploit the spaces in between the rules. This is a very different conception of what a moral person should be.
Terrorism, suicide bombing, the violence of nationalism and ethnic cleansing, all, it would seem, involve a desire to humiliate a male enemy. We might also remark the psychodynamics arising from hate and humiliation in general of extreme violence like terrorism, mass murder, suicide bombing, rape, or torture (and most recently electronic torture in the phenomenon of the targeted individual) is largely carried out by men whether on an individual level or mass scale. Historically, it has been men who make war and it has been women who help heal the wounded. In general, the military in all societies have been indoctrinated with ideas of aggressive masculinity and explicit, often sexualized, deprecation of women (and more recently of gays). Women tend not to be fighters and historically and traditionally held a special relationship to peace keeping and pacifism.
The two clinical complexes in hate, humiliation and masculinity that drive and motivate extreme acts of violence is first, the paranoid schizoid splitting and projective identification (good us and evil them) and second, narcissism and humiliation. In men, these two fault lines revolve around masculine identification. First, I am not a little girl or feminine (ie: not mother). The second fault line involved individual masculinity and cultural narcissism belongs to masculine culture and the humiliation derived from more predominantly male-to-male relationships. That is, being humiliated by another male.
I might pose the question of how people are shaped discursively by electromagnetic harassment and torture? And to remark about the clandestine effects of electronic torture as belonging to a primarily masculine psychology. For when it comes to hate and humiliation, and masculinity it is the males in a social culture who deal much differently than females when it comes to such matters of hate and humiliation.
Fundamental aspects to object relations and subjectivity would reveal a primarily male-dominate orientation and who finds femininity so weak and threatening or perhaps, at the very least, finds them easy targets and easy prey.
The fact that my voice echoes most women professionals, the ones who dare speak out against the discrimination and abuses of the establishment done historically by male patriarchy is a testament to the ongoing male-dominance pervading our society. Yet, in my voice there is also paternal identification — boldly speaking against my own personal male and female abusers and against the phenomenology of feminine hatred. And yet the paranoid schizoid splitting that is part of both sexes, in felt need to separate from the “oppressive” force of mother affects each gender differently and uniquely. It is not enough to apply generic theory, we must approach each case through clinical individuality. Each case is very different. I can only speak of my individual experiences, the female oedipal triangle (mother-father-self/child) which propelled my desire for motherhood and maternity, whose heterosexuality and bi-sexuality left me desiring both men and women. It has been theorized, all girls are born bisexual and it is easier for girls to choose another female as well as a male because they identify with the post-oedipal mother-father configuration rather than a dyadic formulation which is more characteristic of men. That is to say, the repudiation of weak femininity. This dyadic formulation, leave men more at risk of fear being labeled “feminine”. Women don’t fear their femininity. The creative solution to my “sexual perversion" was to acquire a penis in order to gain autonomy from an overpowering mother and to alleviate “penis envy". The very solution lay within the bounds of motherhood. Giving birth to a male child and the nonvirulent desire for heterosexual love and separation from an overpowering mother.
In the paranoid schizoid splitting, which can re-occur in various stages of life depending on individual psychology, social surroundings, and culture, creative perversions can manifest in varied and different ways. For example, following the initial years of motherhood and separation from baby (who was now a high school student), the directed attempt at body manipulation through body building and developing upper body strength and definition for more muscular arms, a characteristic I always admired in my father. Still yet, a nonvirulent creative solution could be an androgynous dress code that would send a more corrected and bold message of my heterosexuality/bi-sexuality which I have found many people tend to find confusing. They’d rather me fit the mold of traditional femininity which makes it easier for them to acknowledge. And after all, isn’t that what women do? Make life easier for others by creating a more comfortable environment? This fact seems to be mostly true of society in general. First, society prefer traditional femininity. Second, society finds anything that visually defies traditional gender roles uncomfortable and confusing. You can be gay, just don’t look gay and most certainly don’t act gay.
So, why did I write this segway into feminine bi-sexuality? It is because these are some of the nonvirulent ways paranoid schizoid splitting can take place, both in women and men. A girl can cut her hair short and wear boy’s clothes. Or channel their aggression and anxieties in sports. There exists a small population of women who resort to traditional avenues of masculine violence. As there exists a small population of homosexuals whose content of psychology and gender, along with their prevalent unconscious fantasies, and self-other constructions, sexual sense of self, body experiences, and fantasies revolve around castrating parts of themselves. Anal-sadistic fantasies that may be coupled with violent castrating fantasies and phantsasies of “other", all generated to alleviate the stress and anxiety they feel surrounding their biological gender given at birth. The ways in which gender relates to the internal world of unconscious fantasies are varied and diverse. Suffice it to say, that the phenomenology of the narrative which is being conveyed to the electronically harassed individual being electronically targeted belongs to the anal-sadistic universe. A universe in which the perpetrator is trying to create for themselves an alternate reality via violent castrating means.
