Paranoid Leadership

Abstract

Richard Hofstadter's astute analysis of the paranoid style in American history—from an eighteenth-century group of New England clergy who feared a massive subversion from a small European enlightenment group, the Illuminati through the many nativist movements and virulent hate groups in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, along with, one might add, the activities of right-wing extremists since the election of Barack Obama—notes the significance of the paranoid theme from the very beginnings of our political and cultural experience. Such paranoid thought that I have called the "paranoid gestalt" has since arisen in large groups and small throughout Western history, and we have seen it in other cultures as well. The traditional emphasis on projection in the psychological literature on paranoia may well cloud our appreciation for what motivates the projection, namely the interrelated issues of shame and humiliation that profoundly affect self-esteem. There is an interesting homology in this connection between the damage to an individual's self-esteem that is so important in understanding the forms of paranoia that emerge from it, and the collective experiences of shame and humiliation that serve as preconditions for the appearance of the paranoid gestalt. It is in the context of that gestalt—and I would argue, only within that context—that paranoid leadership emerges. The psychology of the group, in other words, is essential to the existence of paranoid leadership. In a sense the group finds its leaders. That fact does not preclude the interaction between the group and its leader in forging the psychological organization of the group, but I contend that the group cannot have a paranoid organization unless the group has been stressed in the ways I outline in this chapter. A leader who has a paranoid personality organization cannot impose himself or herself on the group, unless the group is predisposed toward such leadership because of its own paranoid orientations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)