The Psychopathic Aggressor
In this second section, I shall examine the authoritarian syndrome which, combined with psychopathic traits and psychological disturbances, makes it possible for offenders to turn to extreme violence. The psychopathic aggressor has the following characteristics (Cotter, 2007):
Egocentricity. The psychopathic aggressor strongly denigrates his victims in order to inflate his self-esteem.
Cruelty. Cruelty is used by the psychopathic aggressor to force his victims to submit to him. This process intensifies the feeling of omnipotence he experiences as a result of his egocentricity.
Lack of remorse. The psychopathic aggressor expresses no remorse for the violence inflicted on his victims. On the contrary, a victim's suffering is proof of his dominant position and serves to increase the internal stimulation he seeks as compensation for his emotional inadequacies.
Social polarisation. The psychopathic aggressor's Weltanschauung is characterised by the idealisation of his reference groups and the denigration of stigmatised communities perceived as a threat. This Manichean socialisation reaches its full measure with the political criminal, whereas it remains at an embryonic stage with the serial killer, hindered by the intensity of his underlying psychological disturbances.
At this stage it is possible to organise our analysis of the inner world of the psychopathic aggressor in chronological sequence. The development of the authoritarian syndrome is as follows:
Appearance of emotional disturbances.
The psychopathic aggressor offsets his emotional conflicts with the authoritarian syndrome. A position of objective inferiority in everyday life is thus transformed into a position of power.
Authoritarianism causes a process of mental degeneration in the psychopathic aggressor which will be analysed in the next section.
When the development of the authoritarian syndrome is complete, the psychopathic aggressor implodes under the powerful dynamics created and loses touch with reality (see next section).
When do the first signs of the authoritarian syndrome appear? As long as a child is not capable of distinguishing in-group and out-group categories, he does not possess the analytical tools required for social polarisation and authoritarianism is too complex for him. Emotional conflicts in early childhood are therefore “pure,” i.e. non-violent, because devoid of any authoritarian dimension. It is only when newly acquired skills make him able to discern social diversity in his environment that the troubled child finds an egocentric alternative to his frustrations, that of authoritarianism (Tajfel, 1969).
In adults, authoritarian symptoms are generally limited to a subdued version I refer to as conflictual empathy, particularly in family and professional circles (Hirigoyen, 2000). Extreme authoritarianism, in the shape of a fully developed syndrome, occurs only in the most dangerous aggressors, whether acting alone (contact crime) or collectively (political crime).