Self-sabotage, masochism and the fate of humanity

SELF-SABOTAGE, MASOCHISM AND THE FATE OF HUMANITY

Budimir Rogovoy, Ph.D. (Russia)

There are  at present the growing literature and some Internet sites  dealing with self-sabotage.
What is self-sabotage?
It is said in the Internet site http://www.selfsabotagingbehavior.com that “self-sabotage behavior is when there is no logical or rational explanation for why you can`t do the things you want to do or why you can`t have the things you want to have”.
The definition seems to be inexact. There is no rational justification of self-sabotage behavior by its presumed benefits and this gap really cannot be filled. As to the rational explanation of self-sabotage, it can in principle be provided,  and this is just the task of the present essay to develop some initial premises for such an undertaking.
Forms of self-sabotage behavior are diverse. According to a leading  expert in the field:
“We sabotage time, weight, finances, exercise programs, writing (known as Writer`s Block), education, careers, relationships, health…” (http://www.justalyce.com)
If we have beneficial aims, we may procrastinate. But the choice of our aims may be also subject to self-sabotage and then the hurry to reach these aims may be self-sabotage too.
The realm of self-sabotage behaviors includes substance addictions and criminal behaviors. (The latter are often harmful for the criminal person and as far as they preserve this quality they are also self-sabotage).
There are other terms synonymously used for ‘self-sabotage” and namely “masochism” (in a broad, unsexual sense), “internal saboteur”, “antilibidinal ego”, “psychological reversal” and some more.
The very abundance of such competitive names suggests that there is insufficient scientific elaboration of the problem.
The connotations of these synonyms are somewhat different. “Masochism” may connote not only self-sabotage behavior but also internal psychic forces directed to the harm of the masochistic person.
Such broad approach presents, in our opinion, clear heuristic benefits. Therefore in the following text we shall intermittently use the terms “self-sabotage” and “masochism” the latter including self-sabotage behaviors as its integral part.
The loss of the contacts with and of the adaptation to reality characteristic for self-sabotage behavior allows one to consider it mildly psychotic, which makes understandable why it is so difficult for a person to admit that s/he is sabotaging oneself. Who would like to think of oneself as a psychotic person?
The analogies between self-sabotage and open neuroses and psychoses induce one to suppose the play of masochistic forces in the origin and processes of these illnesses. Some psychoanalysts beginning from K.Abraham stated, indeed, that regression is the primary etiological factor in the origin of psychoses, which regression is presumably driven by masochistic forces.
There are important social implications of individual self-sabotage/masochism to which we shall now address ourselves.
When Germany began the 1st and the 2nd world wars, which both had catastrophic results for this country, there were scenes of popular exultation among the German people and rational choice could not prevail. When Japan entered the war against the USA it was done despite the presentation to the Japanese government of the well-documented report, in which the military strength of the USA was estimated to be 10 times more than the Japanese one and the prediction consequently was done of the inevitability of the defeat of Japan.
How could these and a number of similar facts be explained in any other way than as manifestations of masochism?
Social (mass) masochism may lead not only to imprudent aggressive actions, it may manifest itself in excessive passivity. A salient example from the recent history: there was just such passivity in Russia at the 90th years of the 20th century during the disintegration of this great country, which disintegration brought about much suffering to the people.
By the way, Russia manifested itself in the 20th century as a “classic” country of social masochism the latter being presumably one of the major driving forces of the Communist revolution.
This is not to deny that in many other historical situations the Russian people did manifest exceptional activity, readiness to self-sacrifice and other noble moral qualities. (These positive features may still appear under the new leadership).
Such paradoxes seem to be frequent in the field of masochism and need firm scientific explanation.
One more paradox of this kind.
S.Freud and some other psychologists described the so called “success neurosis”, which arose after an unusual success of the patient. There are some social analogies to this phenomenon of individual psychology, which were considered in brief in our paper (Rogovoy, 2004).
By the way, the fall of the powerful Roman Empire after reaching unprecedented international and internal successes at the time which the contemporaries characterized as “the golden age” – could it not be, at least partially, explained by social masochism?
Another phenomenon of presumably masochistic nature seems to be the accumulation of mistakes of absolute rulers as , e.g., Napoleon and Hitler, which mistakes after leading to much detriment of their countries caused finally defeats and fall of these rulers.
The facts of individual and social masochism are not only apparent, they are conspicuous, and the insufficiency of scientific attention to these matters may be explained by the same masochistic drive, which prevents individuals and society to fight effectively against this major evil.
And really the explanations of masochism proposed by science remain up to now generally meager and insufficient.
To explain masochism/self-sabotage by the real or internalized frustrations in childhood, as is done by some eminent psychoanalysts, may be right in some part but probably only in part. Such explanations divert scientific attention away from the vitally important paradoxical behaviors of adults (which, in our opinion, are changeable over a wide range) and the corresponding social masochistic phenomena.
The only really great achievement in the explanations of masochism remains, in our opinion, the concept of the “instinct of death” proposed by S.Freud (Freud, 1920).
This concept suggests the  fundamental importance of the issue for psychic life, it combines psychological and physiological aspects
(the latter ones will not be dwelled upon in the present paper), and it could really mobilize scientific efforts for solving this mysterious problem.
But at the same time the term is of doubtful value (at least in the English language translations) the notion  of “instinct” being too rigid because in reality man has no true animal instincts, the latter being modified, transformed, intertwined and used consciously and unconsciously for various beneficial or harmful aims. The concept of the instinct of death lacks also optimistic connotations indispensable for really fruitful scientific endeavors in this field.
This is not so much the criticism of S.Freud as of his followers,  many of whom digressed from this euristically valuable notion altogether.
And now we have no adequate understanding of the phenomena of masochism and generally no adequate psychological theory explaining the nature of man.
This is a pity especially if one takes into account the imminent global crisis of humanity. This crisis called by the two Russian authors “the Armageddon to-morrow” (Valyanski & Kalyuzhni, 2006) is quickly evolving into “the Armageddon to-day” and has distinct masochistic features in its origin and development.               
The global warming is only the beginning of the severe ecological crisis. The rise of prices for oil and gas has already triggered  an  economic crisis in the USA and other countries. The social upheavals in many countries will continue on the background of the still unreconciled opposition between the “progressive” and relatively prosperous (as yet) West (or, in the modern geopolitical configuration, the North), and other  poor and conservative, economically and culturally backward countries. The dangers of such an opposition were already shown by the masochistic suicidal terrorists in the USA and other countries.
It is irrefutably clear now that the overpopulation predicted  200 hundred years ago by T.R.Malthus (Malthus, 1798) , which prediction was given very little attention by science and society, has become intolerable. As S.Valyanski and Dm.Kalyuzhni write, “the biosphere of the Earth cannot support the existence of 6 billions of people” (Valyanski & Kalyuzhni, 2006, p.15).The transformation of the biosphere becomes inevitable and it will be accompanied by the deep transformation of mankind, possibly with its degradation or even complete extinction.
Science knows many crises of animal overpopulation, which usually ended with many oscillations of the quantity of population accompanied by the gradual restoration of the impoverished and degraded medium.
But there is a big difference from these animal crises: the present crisis of humanity was primarily called forth by the masochistic use of reason, which created possibilities to exploit the medium of existence disregarding all except immediate benefits, And this masochistic factor continues to be active.
Although many immediate ecological, economic, social , cultural and political means against the present crisis seem to be necessary, the only radical psychological means is to eradicate this masochistic use of reason and make man Homo Sapiens (=Reasonable man) in the full sense of these words.
The realization of this extremely difficult task seems yet to be possible, on the condition that masochism would not prevail in this undertaking once again.
The eminent American psychoanalyst Daniel Rancour-Laferriere says at the end of his meticulous book on the Russian masochism:
“I have no practical recommendations…it is very difficult to treat masochism under clinical conditions. A change of personal aims is needed for it.” (Rancour-Laferriere, 1995, p.237-238) (Our re-translation from the Russian translation. B.R.)
But this is already a valuable recommendation!.,
The late Orthodox priest Alexander Men wrote:
“The  will to power is the most grave impulse and the heaviest sin of humanity” (Men, 1997, p.652). It is just this will to power that has caused the modern global crisis.
The successful treatment of individual and social masochism demands the re-evaluation of the traditional theological and modern philosophical negative  anthropology as well as some extrapolations from the innovative psychotherapies, first of all from the psychotherapies of Bruno Bettelheim and Marguerite Sechahaye- cf. (Rogovoy, 1994), (Rogovoy, 1998), (Rogovoy, 2004b).
The achievements of the modern psychotherapy of self-sabotage should possibly be combined with the traditional Eastern practices of meditation and other mental and psychosomatic exercises.
No doubt all these tasks cannot be carried out by one person but cooperation of many theoretical and practical investigators helping and criticizing one another is needed.
Interested readers are asked to address our e-mail box budimir24@hotmail.com.

REFERENCES
Freud S. (1920) Beyond the Principle of Pleasure. (In German).
There are also English and Russian language translations.

Malthus T.R. (1798) An Essay on the Law of Population.

Men A.(1997) Culture, Christianity, the Church. M.:Alexander Men Foundation.(In Russian).

Rancour-Laferriere D. (1995/1996) The Slave Soul of Russia – Moral Masochism and the Cult of Suffering. NY.: New York University Press, 1995/ M.: Art-Business Center, 1996 (A Russian translation).

Rogovoy B. (1994) Gratification and Activity in Schizophrenia. Some Curative Factors in Two Dynamic Psychotherapies. In: Dynamische Psychiatrie, Muenchen, Germany, 27 Jg, #146-147, S.206-219. (In English with a German abstract)

Rogovoy B. (1998) Regressive Exacerbations in the Psychotherapy of Bruno Bettelheim. (Manuscript)

Rogovoy B.(2004a) The Trial of Satiety.(Manuscript)

Rogovoy B. (2004b) On Positive Psychic Pathology. (Manuscript)

Valyanski S., Kalyuzhni Dm.(2006) Armageddon To-Morrow, M.:AST. (In Russian)

http://www.justalyce.com

http://www.selfsabotagingbehavior.com
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11.04.11г.