The Object Humiliator: Theory Explained

Updated: January 28, 2021 07:14 AM EST

I read an interesting phrase recently in “Individualizing Gender and Sexuality: Theory and Practice” by Nancy J. Chodorow, “identification with the humiliator” as a term to describe the primary fragmentation and disintegration relevant to Islamic extremists, who, in the form of the suicide bomber commit a broad act of bloodshed, at the same time, committing their own suicide. Many terrorists are themselves willing to be blown up, somehow fusing their hatred with the fragmentation of self and the “humiliator.”

I’ve come to reconfigure the term to, “the object humiliator.” An “object humiliator” is an object in the field of a person’s object-relational orbit. This Object Person is an individual the subject feels threatened by in some way, that is, shamed and humiliated by. Hatred plays into this theory as it can be applied to forms of white supremacy, ethnic dominance, and the fragilities and fault lines of masculinity. In this theory, this perceived threat is tied closely with Freud’s castration complex and the “object humiliator” may have been rejected, humiliated, or shamed in some way by his parental introjects as to illicit retaliation from narcissistic injury. In males, this narcissistic injury may result in narcissistic rage and bloody revenge. The underpinnings of male self-perceptions of personal masculine failings that provoke men to acts of mass random gun violence. This male masculine desire to humiliate and shore up for themselves their male identity prevails here. Being bullied and/or marginalized at school or work, provoking feelings of impotence which are tied to feelings of femininity also tie into the male’s desire to humiliate and shame their “object humiliator” strongly linking “payback” against the individual and/or society for creating or perpetuating the hardships endured by their wounded egos. This position strongly correlates with high levels of narcissism as acts of sadism find provocation resulting from the ego threats to the narcissist. Acts of verbal sadism, physical sadism, and vicarious sadism or all three (Johnson, Plouffe, & Saklofske 2019).

In women, the “object humiliator” is an individual who may possess qualities the subject themselves are lacking. These qualities are perceived as ego threats to the narcissist and because these “object humiliators” make the subject feel humiliated, attributes connected to ‘power‘ like beauty, wealth, intelligence or social status, are attributes that the subject feels they are lacking. In turn, this makes that subject feel humiliated or threatened. These “object humiliators” then become targets in episodes of psychotic rage or targets in the psychopathic social games in which a narcissist attempts to take down his or her target through deception or, as I have said, acts of extreme violence as seen in terrorism.

Tied closely to this theory are episodes of psychosis, foreclosing of the mother in female-to-female relationships or in male relationships the foreclosing of the father in male-to-male relationships, with a form of re-doubling and surrogacy when triggered, and where power and dominance over these ego threats must be possessed at all cost. As an example, there are many women who feel insecure in the presence of youth and beauty, as these represent demonstratable forms of power, especially for narcissistic women who are “showing their age” or may feel insecure in their own identity due to primary fragmentation and disintegration of their own identity. One might consider Heinz Kohut’s quote in Forms and Transformations of Narcissism (1966):

“Although in theoretical discussions it will usually not be disputed that narcissism, the libidinal investment of the self, is per se neither pathological nor obnoxious, there exists an understandable tendency to look at it with a negatively toned evaluation as soon as the field of theory is left. Where such a prejudice exists it is undoubtedly based on a comparison between narcissism and object love, and is justified by the assertion that it is the more primitive and the less adaptive of the two forms of libido distribution.”

These women may relieve their anxieties through social games aimed at making their targets look “foolish” or “stupid” or in attempts at undermining their achievements and successes with the very conscious wish to do them harm, and too, it is important to note that the “object humiliator” is not intentionally trying to harm or hurt the subject because of their possessed attributes. Where Islamic extremists use forms of brutal violence and death to shore up their masculinity, the cruelty utilized by these female psychopaths is no less cruel. Their cruelty is just less bloody, not ending in immediate death, but rather a metaphorical annihilation or long slow torture; humiliation and shaming the victim. In this sense, the object that seems to humiliate is hated and despised and actually becomes the victim of the real Humiliator.

These “object humiliators” can be individuals who are part of marginalized ethnic groups with whom the subject may perceive as “embarrassing,” “unrefined,” or “lacking in cultural aptitude“. In this example, the subject perceives these “object humiliators” as culturally threatening and undermining to their own dominant ethnicity and social status, and image. This may, in turn, cause the subject to exclude them from the larger social group.

“Object humiliators” can be both male or female. As men who identify with their humiliator fathers or females who identify with their humiliator mothers.

Source References:
(1) John L. Oliffe, RN, PhD, Christina S. E. Han, MA, Murray Drummond, PhD, Estephanie Sta. Maria, BA, Joan L. Bottorff, PhD, and Genevieve Creighton, PhD. “Men, Masculinities, and Murder-Suicide” American Journal for Men’s Health. 2015 Nov; 9(6): 473–485. doi: 10.1177/1557988314551359

(2) Nancy J. Chodorow. (2012) “Individualizing Gender and Sexuality: Theory and Practice.” New York. Routledge. p. 121–129, Chapter 9 “Hate, Humiliation, and Masculinity.”

(3) Michelle Boullous Walker. (1998) “Philosophy of the Maternal Body: Reading Silence” New York. Routledge. p. 51–58, Chapter 3 “Reading Psychoanalysis: Psychotic texts/maternal pre-texts,” subheading “Psychosis: foreclosing the mother.”

(4) Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel. (1984) “Creativity and Perversion”. London. Free Association Books. p. 35–43, Chapter 4 “A Re-reading of ‘Little Hans”; Chapter 6 “Narcissism and Group Psychology” p. 55–65.

(5) Ryan Randa and Brittany E. Hayes. “Addressing Onset and Desistance of Bullying Behavior: Surveying Perpetrators.” Violence and Gender. Vol. 5, №2. Published Online:1 Jun 2018 https://doi.org/10.1089/vio.2017.0050 Retrieved online October 7, 2019.

(6) Kohut, H. (1966). Forms and Transformations of Narcissism. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 14(2), 243–272.

(7) Johnson, L., Plouffe, R., & Saklofske, D. (2019). Subclinical Sadism and the Dark Triad. Journal of Individual Differences, 40(3), 127–133.