Core Theory
Antecedents in Scientific Literature on Character
Trait Structure
Defense Mechanisms
Etiological and Further Psychodynamic Remarks
Existential Psychodynamics
The Spanish dictionary from the Spanish Royal Academy—where I dictate this chapter —says concerning lust that it is a “vice consisting in the illicit use or disordered appetite for carnal pleasures,” and gives the additional meaning of “excess in certain things.”
It is the latter definition which coincides with the meaning given to the term by Ichazo in his exposition of Protoanalysis, and we may view the former., i.e. the more common sense of the term., as its derivative or corollary. I will therefore use the word “lust” to denote a passion for excess, a passion that seeks intensity, not only through sex, but in all manner of stimulation: activity, anxiety, spices, high speed, the pleasure of loud music, and so on.
Lust is mapped in the enneagram next to the upper vertex of the inner triangle, which indicates a kinship to indolence, to a sensory-motor disposition, and the predominance of cognitive obscuration or “ignorance” over “aversion” and “craving” (at the left and right corners respectively). The indolent aspect of the lusty may be under-stood not only as a feeling of not- alive-enough-except-through-over-stimulation but also in a concomitant avoidance of inwardness. We may say that the greed for ever more aliveness, characteristic of the lusty personality, is but an attempt to compensate for a hidden lack of aliveness.
Opposite to envy on the enneagram, lust may be said to constitute the upper pole of a sado-masochistic axis. The two personalities, VIII and IV, are in some ways opposites (as these terms suggest), though also similar in some regards, such as in the thirst for intensity. Also, just as a masochistic character is in some ways sadistic, there is a masochistic aspect in the character of lust; and while a sadistic character is active, a masochistic disposition is emotional: the former reaches out without guilt towards the satisfaction of its need; the latter yearns and feels guilty about its neediness.
Just as the envy-centered character is the most sensitive in the enneagram, ennea-type VIII is the most insensitive. We may envision the passion for intensity of ennea-type VIII as an attempt to seek through action the intensity that ennea-type IV achieves through emotional sensitivity, which here is not only veiled over by the basic indolence that this ennea-type shares with the upper triad of the enneagram but also by a desensitization in the service of counter- dependent self-sufficiency.
The characterological syndrome of lust is related to that of gluttony in that both are characterized by impulsiveness and hedonism. In the case of gluttony, however, impulsiveness and hedonism exist in the context of a weak, soft and tender-minded characterological context, while in lust the context is that of a strong and tough-minded character. As usual, the character stands in polar opposition to each of those connected with it by the inner ow of the enneagram: just as ennea-type II is over-feminine and sensitive, ennea-type VIII is over- masculine and insensitive; and just as ennea-type V is intra-punitive and shy, ennea-type VIII is extra-punitive and bold. In each case the transition from one to the other can be understood at the same time as a defense and a transformation of psychic energy. The antisocial personality disorder described in DSM-III may be regarded as a pathological extreme and a special instance of ennea-type VIII The broader syndrome may be better evoked through Reich’s label of “phallic narcissistic” character or Horney’s description of the vindictive personality. The word “sadistic” seems particularly appropriate in view of its position opposite the masochistic character of ennea-type IV.
As we turn from literature to the observation of character in Psychiatry and Psychology, we nd that the personality we are considering corresponds to that designated by Kurt Schneider as “explosive” (preferring this term to Kraepelin’s earlier expression “excitable”). Of these “explosive psychopaths” he tells us that they are disobedient and deant and that they are very well known in life and in clinical experience, those who “at the least provocation become enraged or even violent without any consideration; a reaction that has been appropriately called a short-cut reaction.”
In a similar vein, Scholtz describes a “moral anesthesia” of people “who know the moral laws perfectly well, but don’t feel them and because of this, do not subordinate their behavior to them.” In tracing the history of “the aggressive pattern” of personality, Millon points out that “toward the end of the XIXth century, German psychiatrists turned their attention away from the value-laden theories of the English alienists and toward what they judged to be observational research.” And at this time Koch proposed replacing the label “moral insanity” by “psychopathic inferiority.” Still this label reflected the belief of a physical basis for the syndrome. It had been already Kraepelin’s opinion in the second edition of his major work, that “the ‘morally insane’ suffer congenital defects in their ability to restrain the gratification of their immediate desires.” By the fifth edition he changed the name to “psychopathic states” and by the eighth described psychopaths as deficient in either affect or volition. Among the personality peculiarities of these he listed subtypes: the excitable, the unstable, the impulsive, the eccentric, the liars and swindlers, the anti-social and the quarrelsome.
Millon also reports that it was Birnbaum, who (in 1914), writing in Germany at the time of Kraepelin’s nal edition, was the first to suggest that “sociopathic” might be a more appropriate term for the majority of these cases. One of the most insightful pictures of the “psychopaths” or “sociopaths” has been from Cleckley, who counts among the main traits in this syndrome guiltlessness, incapacity for object love, impulsivity, emotional shallowness, superficial social charm, and inability to profit from experience.
As Millon points out, Cleckley’s contribution was significant in drawing attention to the fact that antisocial personalities are found not only in prisons, but in mainstream society “where tough hard-headed ‘realism’ is admired as an attribute necessary for survival.” In spite of this observation, I don’t see that anybody has pointed out the identity of the syndrome in question with Reich’s “phallic narcissistic” personality to which I turn now.
Reich’s description was first presented at the Vienna Psychoanalytic society in 1926 and was later included in his Character Analysis. He observes that in terms of physique this character is predominantly athletic, “hardly ever an aesthenic type,” while his behavior is never cringing, but usually arrogant, either coldly reserved or contemptuously aggressive. The “narcissistic element, stands out in the attitude towards the object, including the love object, and is always infused with more or less concealed sadistic characteristics.”
“In everyday life, the phallic narcissistic character will usually anticipate any impending attack with an attack of his own. The aggression in his character is expressed less in what he does and says than in the way he acts. Particularly he is felt to be totally aggressive and provocative by those who are not in control of their own aggression. The most pronounced types tend to achieve leading positions in life and are ill suited to subordinate positions among the rank and file … Their narcissism, as opposed to that of other character types, is expressed not in an infantile but in a blatantly self-confident way, with a flagrant display of superiority and dignity, in spite of the fact that the basis of their nature is not less infantile than that of the other types.” He observes too that “relationships with women are disturbed by the typical derogatory attitude toward the female sex.”
In Fromm’s characterology we find our ennea-type VIII under the label of the “exploitative orientation,” concerning which he observes that here the person “does not expect to receive things from others as gifts, but to take them away from others by force or cunning,” that “their attitude is colored by a mixture of hostility and manipulation” and that “one finds here suspicion and cynicism, envy and jealousy.” In the DSM III the more delinquent extreme of ennea-type VIII is found under the label of anti-social personality, for which the following diagnostic criteria are given:
Inability to sustain consistent work behavior
Lack of ability to function as a responsible parent
Failure to accept social norms with regard to lawful behavior
Inability to maintain enduring attachment to a sexual partner and promiscuity
Irritability and aggressiveness
Failure to honor financial obligations
Failure to plan ahead
Disregard for the truth as indicated by “conning” for personal prot, etc.
Recklessness
In his discussion of antisocial personality Millon recommends that “we progress beyond moral and social judgment as a basis for clinical concepts,” and in line with this he quotes in Disorders of Personality the following descriptions of criteria proposed in his formulation of the “Active Independent Personality”—which served as the initial working draft for what was ultimately labeled as “antisocial personality” by the DSM III task force.
Hostile affectivity (e.g., pugnacious, an irascible temper flares readily into arguments and attack; exhibits frequent verbally abusive and physically cruel behaviors).
Assertive self-image (e.g., proudly characterizes self as self-reliant, vigorously energetic and hard headed; values tough, competitive and power oriented life style).
Interpersonal vindictiveness (e.g., reveals satisfaction in derogating and humiliating others; contemptuous of sentimentality, social compassion and humanistic values).
Hyperthymic fearlessness (e.g., high activation level evident in impulsive, accelerated and forceful responding; attracted to and undaunted by danger and punishment).
Malevolent projection (e.g., claims that most persons are devious, controlling and punitive; justifies own mistrustful, hostile and vengeful attitudes by ascribing them to others).
In a paper read before the Association For The Advancement Of Psychoanalysis and which appeared in the American Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1948, Horney proposed to change the expression “sadistic” in reference to character and proposed a psychodynamic interpretation of “openly aggressive vindictiveness,” in contrast to self-effacing vindictiveness (ennea-type IV) and “detached vindictiveness” (ennea-type V) deviating from Freud’s sexual theory. Again we find descriptions of this character in Our Inner Conflicts and in Neurosis and Human Growth, where vindictive character is regarded as an expression of the more general “solution of mastery” or expansive solution (to which I have made reference in connection with ennea-type I). This is a way of being where the individual identifies more with his gloried self than with his despised self.
Also “the appeal of life lies in its mastery. It chiefly entails his determination, conscious or unconscious, to overcome every obstacle—in or outside himself—and the belief that he should be able, and in fact is able, to do so. He should be able to master the adversities of fate, the difficulties of a situation, the intricacies of intellectual problems, the resistances of other people, conflicts in himself. The reverse side of the necessity for mastery is his dread of anything connoting helplessness; this is the most poignant dread he has.”
In the specific form of the “expansive solution” that concerns us, Horney describes the main motivating force in life: “the need for vindictive triumph is a regular ingredient in any search for glory. Our interest therefore is not so much concerned with the existence of this need but with its overwhelming intensity. How can the idea of triumph get such a hold on an individual that he spends all his life chasing after it? Surely it must be fed by a multitude of powerful sources. But the knowledge of these sources alone does not sufficiently elucidate its formidable power. In order to arrive at a fuller understanding we must approach the problem from still another vantage point. Even though in others the impact of the need for vengeance and triumph can be poignant, it usually is kept within limits by three factors: love, fear, and self-preservation. Only if these checks are temporarily or permanently malfunctioning can the vindictiveness involve the total personality—thereby becoming a kind of integrative force as in Medea—and sway it altogether in the one direction of vengeance and triumph … it is the combination of these two processes—powerful impulse and insufficient checks—that accounts for the magnitude of vindictiveness.” As we see in the description thus far, Horney cannot omit from her interpretation the psychopathic aspect of this character: insufficient checks. It is as if the person thought that, just as he suffered in the past humiliation and limitation at the hands of tyrannical or neglectful parents, it is now for him to turn the tables and have his pleasure, even at the expense of the pain of others.
It seems that Horney, through allegiance to the concept of vindictiveness, here over- generalizes to include ennea-type IV as in her reference to Medea (an envy type) as an example. While the envious person may commit a crime of passion, the lusty one can be criminal not out of recklessness so much as out of generalized hostility, insensitivity, and as an anti-social orientation. Other than this, however, the portrait continues to t the lust type. “He is convinced that everybody at bottom is malevolent and crooked, that friendly gestures are hypocritical, that it is only wisdom to regard everyone with distrust, unless he has been proved honest. But even such proof will readily make room for suspicion at the slightest provocation.
“In his behavior towards others he is openly arrogant, often rude and offensive, although sometime this is covered with a thin veneer of civil politeness. In subtle and gross ways, with or without realizing it, he humiliates others and exploits them. He may use women for the satisfaction of his sexual needs with utter disregard for their feelings. With a seemingly naive egocentricity, he will use people as a means to an end. He frequently makes and maintains contacts exclusively on the basis of their serving his needs for triumph: people he can use as stepping stones in his career, influential women he can conquer and subdue, followers who give him blind recognition and augment his power. He is a past master in frustrating others —frustrating their small and big hopes, their needs for attention, reassurance, time, company, enjoyment. When others demonstrate against such treatment it is their neurotic sensitivity that makes them react this way.” Another expression of his vindictiveness, according to Horney, is that “he feels entitled both to having his neurotic needs implicitly respected and to being permitted his utter disregard of others’ needs or wishes. He feels entitled for instance to the unabridged expression of his unfavorable observations and criticisms but feels equally entitled never to be criticized himself.”
She goes on to comment that “whatever accounts for the inner necessity of such claims, they certainly express a contemptuous disregard for others.” When these claims are not fulfilled, they assume a punitive vindictiveness “which may run the whole gamut from irritability to sulking, to making others feel guilty, to open rages … the undiluted expression of these feelings also serves as a measure to assert his claims by intimidating others into a subdued appeasement.” Horney’s vindictive arrogant person becomes furious at himself and scolds himself for “getting soft.” The need to deny positive feelings is intimately related to the need for triumph, for “the hardening of feelings, originally a necessity for survival, allows for an unhampered growth of the drive for a triumphant mastery of life.” She does not fail to point out this personality’s characteristic self-reliance: “For a person as isolated and as hostile as he, it is of course important not to need others. Hence he develops a pronounced pride in godlike self-sufficiency.”
She elaborates on the pride in the honesty, fairness, and justice of the vindictive person. “Needless to say, he is neither honest, fair nor just and cannot possibly be so. On the contrary, if anybody is determined—unconsciously—to bluff his way through life with a disregard for truth, it is he … But we can understand his belief that he possesses these attributes to a high degree if we consider his premises. To hit back or—preferably—to hit first appears to him (logically!) as an indispensable weapon against the crooked and hostile world around him. It is nothing but intelligent, legitimate self-interest. Also, not questioning the validity of his claims, his anger, and the expression of it must appear to him as entirely warranted and ‘frank.’ “There is still another factor which greatly contributes to his conviction that he is a particularly honest person and which is important to mention. He sees around him many compliant people who pretend to be more loving, more sympathetic, more generous than they actually are. And in this regard he is indeed more honest. He does not pretend to be a friendly person; in fact he disdains doing so.”
Finally, I quote Horney’s observations on the little sympathy this kind of person has for others. “This absence of sympathy has many causes, lying in his hostility towards others and in his lacking sympathy for himself. But what perhaps contributes most to his callousness toward others is the envy of them. It is a bitter envy—not for this or that particular asset, but pervasive—and stems from his feeling excluded from life in general. And it is true that, with his entanglements, he actually is excluded from all that makes life worth living—from joy, happiness, love, creativeness, growth. If tempted to think along too neat lines, we would say here: has not he himself turned his back on life? Is he not proud of his ascetic not-wanting and not needing anything? Does he not keep warding off positive feelings of all sorts? So why should he envy others? But the fact is, he does. Naturally, without analysis his arrogance would not permit him to admit it in plain words. But as his analysis proceeds he may say something to the effect that of course everybody else is better off than he is.” Which brings us back to an earlier comment, that just as the gist of envy can be seen as repressed lust, lust may be seen as repressed envy.
Though intended to be a description of temperament rather than character, Sheldon’s Somatotonia should not be left out of this discussion, for just as cerebrotonia reaches its maximal expression in ennea-type V, somatotonia clearly finds its maximum in ennea-type VIII. “Constitutionally related to mesomorphic development (skeleton, muscles and connective tissue) somatotonia expresses the function of movement and predation,” says Sheldon.
I list below the twenty main somatotonic traits that were used by Sheldon in his research.
Assertiveness of Posture and Movement
Love of Physical Adventure
The Energetic Characteristic
Need and Enjoyment of Exercise
Love of Dominating, Lust for Power
Love of Risk and Chance
Bold Directness of Manner
Physical Courage for Combat
Competitive Aggressiveness
Psychological Callousness
Claustrophobia
Ruthlessness
Freedom from Squeamishness
General Noisiness
Over maturity of Appearance
Horizontal Mental Cleavage
Extraversion of Somatotonia
Assertiveness and Aggression under Alcohol
Need of Action When Troubled
Orientation Toward Goals and Activities of Youth
The connection between somatotonia and the lust type rearms the original idea of a constitutional factor behind psychopathic personality—though not necessarily that of the constitutional “defect.” It is easy to conjecture that the strategy of vindictive self-assertion, that is to say, sadistic character, would be implicitly preferred by one who comes into life with a constitutionally determined orientation to action and a disposition to fight.
In Jung we can recognize our ennea-type VIII under the label of the Extraverted Sensation Type, though only in its aspects of realism and lusty orientation and not in that of dominance, for Jung curiously tells us that (at least “on the lower levels”) this type who “is the lover of tangible reality, with little inclination for reflection” has “no desire to dominate.” In spite of this discrepancy, Jung’s reference to Wulfen’s description of der Genussmensch; his commentary to the effect that the type “is by no means unlovable,” on the contrary “his lively capacity for enjoyment makes him very good company”; plus his observation to the eect that conjectures beyond the concrete are of no interest to him and that the main pursuit is the intensification of sensations, leave little doubt as to the character’s identity, which is confirmed through the observation of his or her exploitativeness: “Although the object has become quite indispensable to him, yet, as something existing in its own right, it is none the less devalued. It is ruthlessly exploited and squeezed dry, since now its sole use is to stimulate sensation.”
The anti-social inclination of the extraverted sensation type is also insinuated by Jung who remarks that his easy-going attitude accepts indiscriminately everything that happens and that “although this does not by any means imply an absolute lawlessness and lack of restraint, it nevertheless deprives him of the essential restraining power of judgment.” In the domain of homeopathic medicine the remedy best fitting ennea-type VIII is Nux Vomica, made from the seed of Strychnos nux vomica, that is the natural source of strychnine. Because is has been typically prescribed for physical states of excitation and overstimulation, it has been called “temper medicine” (Tyler). Hahnemann wrote: “Nux is chiefly successful with persons of an ardent character, of an irritable, impatient temperament, disposed to anger, spite, or deception.”
Catherine R. Coulter describes the personality for which Nux Vomica is most remedial as irritable, power-driven, and prone to addiction. “Turning to the bottle in times of depression, this type can become abusive and even violent; he is the alcoholic wife-beater or child-abuser.” She reports, quoting Hahnemann, that he is “fiery and hot-tempered” and “a human powder- keg that is set o by the least spark.” He can also be “tight, testy, and agitated in manner.” She remarks that “these are the outward signs of a psychic restlessness and inability to let events move along at their own natural pace. If things are going too smoothly at home or work, he proceeds to stir them up. He constantly raises contentious issues or voices contradictory opinions.”
Particularly confirmatory of the ennea-type VIII disposition is Coulter’s observation of the type’s refusal “to even try curbing his temper… . Even the shrewd and successful businessman can forget himself completely in a petty temper outburst defying all civilized rules of behavior and acting heedless or unaware of the impression he may be making on others.”
Similarly fitting is the observation that “Nux Vomica may resort to ‘invective mixed with indelicate expressions’ (Hahnemann), or ‘profanity’ (Boenninghausen).” Also the non intellectual disposition of ennea-type VIII (shared with ennea-type IX) is echoed in the description of the Nux personality’s reluctance to concentrate, impatience, and unsuitability to intellectual work.
In regard to authority and power Coulter comments on the type’s “authoritarian nature” both in the home and in the workplace, and she adds: “But when Nux is too ambitiously pursuing his interests and trying to reach the top, he not only ‘uses’ others to raise himself up but, to gain his ends, is occasionally willing to trample underfoot those of unlike mind, or who are merely in his way.”
This discussion of Nux Vomica would not be complete, however, without remarking that the description of its associated personality also includes traits contradictory to those of ennea- type VIII. While Coulter claims that the above described traits can coexist with over-sensitivity and perfectionism, I believe that it is not the same individuals who show such traits, but that in the description of “Nux personality” these traits are observations of not only ennea-type VIII persons but also some of the angrier varieties of ennea-types I and IV. It definitely does not apply to ennea-type VIII to say that “the type’s pain threshold is extremely low” (an ennea- type IV trait) or that “his fussy, precise nature, he is never contented or satisfied and is [constantly] disturbed by his surroundings.” Particularly characteristic of ennea-type I is the following: “Nux Vomica is more likely to criticize from virtue (he is everything he accuses others of not being—organized, efficient, clear-thinking) and to be ‘reproachful’ (Hahnemann) of faults or defects that differ from his own, while being reasonably tolerant of those that are similar to his.”
Lust
Just as anger may be regarded the most hidden of passions, lust is probably the most visible, seeming an exception to a general rule that wherever there is passion, there is also taboo or injunction in the psyche against it. I say “seemingly” because even though the lusty type is passionately in favor of his lust and of lust in general as a way of life, the very passionateness with which he embraces this outlook betrays a defensiveness—as if he needed to prove to himself and the rest of the world that what everybody calls bad is not such. Some of the specific traits that convey lust, such as “intensity,” “gusto,” “contactfulness,” “love of eating,” and so on, are intimately bound to the constitutional stratum of personality. A sensory- motor disposition (the somatotonic background of lust) may be regarded as the natural soil in which lust proper is supported. Other traits, such as hedonism, the propensity to boredom when not sufficiently stimulated, the craving for excitement, impatience, and impulsiveness, are in domain of lust proper.
We must consider that lust is more than hedonism. There is in lust not only pleasure, but pleasure in asserting the satisfaction of impulses, pleasure in the forbidden and, particularly, pleasure in fighting for pleasure. In addition to pleasure proper there is here an admixture of some pain that has been transformed into pleasure: either the pain of others who are “preyed upon” for one’s satisfaction or the pain entailed by the effort to conquer the obstacles in the way to satisfaction. It is this that makes lust a passion for intensity and not for pleasure alone. The extra intensity, the extra excitement, the “spice,” comes not from instinctual satisfaction, but from a struggle and an implicit triumph.
Punitiveness
Another group of traits intimately connected to lust is that which could be labeled punitive, sadistic, exploitative, hostile. Among such traits we can find “bluntness,” “sarcasm,” “irony,” and those of being intimidating, humiliating, and frustrating. Of all characters, this is the most angry and the one least intimidated by anger.
It is the angry and punitive characteristic of ennea-type VIII Ichazo addresses in his calling the fixation of the lusty “revenge.” The word, however, has the drawback of being associated with the most overtly vindictive of the characters, ennea-type IV, whose hatefulness sometimes manifests in explicit vendettas. In this overt sense type VIII is not strikingly vindictive; on the contrary, the character retaliates angrily at the moment and gets quickly over his irritation. The revenge which is most present in ennea-type VIII is (aside from “getting even” in the immediate response) a long-term one, in which the individual takes justice in his own hands in response to the pain, humiliation, and impotence felt in early childhood. It is as if he wanted to turn the tables on the world and, after having suffered frustration or humiliation for the pleasure of others, has determined that it is now his turn to have pleasure even if it involves the pain of others. Or especially then—for in this, too, may lie revenge.
The sadistic phenomenon of enjoying the frustration or humiliation of others may be regarded as a transformation of having to live with one’s own (as a byproduct of vindictive triumph), just as the excitement of anxiety, strong tastes, and tough experiences represents a transformation of pain in the process of hardening oneself against life.
The anti-social characteristic of ennea-type VIII, like rebellion itself (in which it is embedded), may be regarded as a reaction of anger and thus a manifestation of vindictive punitiveness. The same may be said of dominance, insensitivity, and cynicism along with their derivatives. Punitiveness can be regarded as the fixation in sadistic or exploitative character —and we may credit Horney and Fromm for being ahead of their times in stressing these last- mentioned characteristics.
Rebelliousness
Though lust itself implies an element of rebellion in its assertive opposition to the inhibition of pleasure, rebellion stands out as a trait on it own, more prominent in ennea-type VIII than in any other character. Even though type VII is unconventional, the emphasis of this rebellion is intellectual. He is a person with “advanced ideas,” perhaps a revolutionary outlook, while type VIII is the prototype of the revolutionary activist. Beyond specific ideologies, however, there is in the character not only a strong opposition to authority, but also a scorn for the values enjoined by traditional education. It is in virtue of such blunt invalidation of authority that “badness” automatically becomes the way to be. Generalized rebellion against authority can usually be traced back to a rebellion in the face of the father, who is the carrier of authority in the family. Vindictive characters frequently learn not to expect anything good from their fathers and implicitly come to regard parental power as illegitimate.
Dominance
Closely related to the characteristic hostility of the ennea-type, is dominance. Hostility may be said to be in the service of dominance, and dominance, in turn, regarded as an expression of hostility. Yet, dominance also serves the function of protecting the individual from a position of vulnerability and dependency. Related to dominance are such traits as “arrogance,” “power seeking,” “need for triumph,” “putting others down,” “competitiveness,” “acting superior,” and so on. Also related to these traits of superiority and dominance are the corresponding traits of disdain and scorn for others. It is easy to see how dominance and aggressiveness are in the service of lust; particularly in a world that expects individual restraint, only power and the ability to fight for one’s wishes can allow the individual to indulge in his passion for impulse expression. Dominance and hostility stand in service of vindictiveness, as if the individual had early in life decided that it doesn’t pay to be weak, accommodating, or seductive, and has oriented himself toward power in an attempt to take justice into his hands.
Insensitivity
Also closely related to the hostile characteristic of ennea-type VIII are traits of toughness, manifest through such descriptors as “confrontativeness,” “intimidation,” “ruthlessness,” “callousness.” Such characteristics are clearly a consequence of an aggressive style of life, not compatible with fear or weakness, sentimentality or pity. Related to this unsentimental, realistic, direct, brusque, blunt quality, there is a corresponding disdain for the opposite qualities of weakness, sensitivity and, particularly, fear. We may say that a specific instance of the toughening of the psyche is an exaggerated risk-taking characteristic, through which the individual denies his own fears and indulges the feeling of power generated by his internal conquest. Risk-taking, in turn, feeds lust, for the type VII individual has learned to thrive on anxiety as a source of excitement, and rather than suffering, he has—through an implicit masochistic phenomenon—learned to wallow in its sheer intensity. Just as his palate has learned to interpret the painful sensations of a hot spice as pleasure, anxiety—and/or, rather the process of hardening oneself against it—has become, more than a pleasure, a psychological addiction, something without which life seems tasteless and boring.
Conning and Cynicism
The next two traits can be considered intimately connected. The cynical attitude to life of the exploitative personality is underscored by Fromm’s traits of skepticism, the tendency to look upon virtue as always hypocritical, distrust in the motives of others, and so on. In these traits, as in toughness, we see the expression of a way and a vision of life “red in tooth and claw.” In regard to conning and cunning, it should be said that ennea-type VIII is more blatantly deceptive than type VII, and is easily seen as a cheat, the typical “used car salesman” who knows how to bargain assertively.
Exhibitionism (Narcissism)
Ennea-type VIII people are entertaining, witty, and often charming, yet not vain in the sense of being concerned with how they appear. Their seductiveness, bragging, and arrogant claims are consciously manipulative; they are geared to gaining influence and elevation in the power and dominance hierarchy. They also constitute a compensation for exploitativeness and insensitivity, a way of buying out others or making themselves acceptable despite traits of unaccountability, violence, invasiveness, and so on.
Autonomy
As Horney has remarked, we could not expect anything other than self-reliance in one who approaches others as potential competitors or targets of exploitation. Along with the characteristic autonomy of ennea-type VIII is the idealization of autonomy, a corresponding rejection of dependency and passive oral strivings. The rejection of these passive traits is so striking that Reich postulated that phallic-narcissistic character constitutes precisely a defense against them.
Sensory-motor dominance
Beyond the concepts of lust and hedonism, rebellion, punitiveness, dominance, and power- seeking, toughness, risk taking, narcissism, astuteness, is in ennea-type VII the predominance of action over intellect and feeling, for this is the most sensory-motor of characters. The characteristic orientation of ennea-type VIII to a graspable and concrete “here and now”—the sphere of the senses and the body-sense in particular—is a lusty clutching at the present and an excited impatience toward memory, abstractions, anticipations, as well as a desensitization to the subtlety of aesthetic and spiritual experience. Concentration on the present is not simply as a manifestation of mental health as it could be in other character dispositions, but the consequence of not deeming anything real that is not tangible and an immediate stimulus to the senses.
When we consider what mechanism may be most characteristic of lusty-vindictive character, we are at rst struck by how this personality disposition gravitates in a direction opposite to the repression of instinctual life that Freud emphasized in the neurosis in general. Indeed, while the inhibition of sexuality is apparent in most characters (except in ennea-types II and to some extent VII) and the inhibition of aggression is even more generalized, it is the non-inhibition of these that characterize lusty impulsiveness. Yet in his interpretation of phallic-narcissistic character, Reich expressed the view that this whole orientation to life may be understood as being of a defensive nature: a defense against dependency and passivity. We will say that the over “masculine” type VIII strives through an excessive assertiveness and aggression to avoid a position of “feminine” powerlessness—a powerlessness that would involve submission to societal constraints and resignation in regards to his own impulses.
Also, in order to compensate for feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness evoked by his disregard of others the individual has engaged in a process of guilt denial and in a repression (in the broad sense of the term) of the super-ego rather than of the id. This rebellious turning against inhibitions in an attitude of solidarity with the intrapsychic under-dog doesn’t seem to have received a specific name in psychoanalysis, though it may be regarded as akin to denial to the extent that there is a disavowal of internalized authority and its values. Since Freud used the expression “denial” (verleugnung) mostly in connection with the disavowal of external reality, I prefer not to bring it to this discussion except metaphorically, and simply point out the need for a more specific term that denotes repression that is not of the instinctual side of conflict but of the counter-instinctual. An expression like “counter-repression” or “counter- identification” might serve the purpose—the latter particularly since rebellious traits are understandable as inverse identifications with behaviors and attitudes expected by society and the parents. The opposition of type VIII to type IV in the enneagram suggests, however, that “counter-introjection” may be even more specific for, unlike type IV, who all too regularly brings bad objects into his psyche as foreign bodies, ennea-type VIII is the opposite of one willing to swallow and is most ready to spit out what doesn’t agree with his wishes.
Equally characteristic of the ennea-type VIII manner of repressing is the specially developed capacity to keep pain out of awareness—a condition in which the person may be unaware of a high fever or of an infection in the middle ear, for instance. At the psychological level, the insensitivity to psychological discomfort of tough-minded, sadistic individuals involves a relative insensitivity to shame and explains a seeming absence of guilt. I think this also explains the typical attraction of lusty people to anxiety (and risk) which is not avoided but “sadistically” transformed into a stimulus, a source of excitement (an act of sadism against self). This characteristic elevation of the pain threshold that may be understood as the basis of both callousness, as a giving up of the expectations of love from others, and the turning against societal standards, we may call desensitization.
Remarks Constitutionally the ennea-type VIII individual tends to be mesoendomorphic, and on the whole this ego type is the most mesomorphic of all, which suggests that the individual’s “choice” of an assertive and pugnacious interpersonal style has been strongly supported by his constitution. It is also one of the most ectopenic—and a corresponding lack of cerebrotonia may be posited as the background of this highly extraversive disposition.
It is possible to imagine that the influence of genetically determined somatotonic temperament on character formation is not simple but indirect, inasmuch as a noisy child or one who is excessively vehement in his desires can easily elicit rejection or punishment which, in turn, will stimulate both self-assertion and rebellion. The following vignette illustrates such indirect effect in regard to what appears to be an inborn adventurousness: “I remember as a four year old child running on the beach toward the infinite. They searched for me in a motor boat, and found me beyond the reach of vision. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I am looking at the stars.’ Then my father beat me up.”
It may be generally said that the ennea-type VIII individual has implicitly decided to seek outside the home a better life, and it is not uncommon to find that he has left home early. A lack of care or even an actual lack of home-like environment may be a factor (as in delinquent children in areas of great poverty), and also it is my impression that violence in the home is more frequent than in the life histories of other characters, and in such cases it is easy to understand the development of insensitivity, toughening up, and cynicism.
Yet in other instances the factors leading to disappointment in parental love are not so evident, notably when one among several children manifests these characteristics and others do not. We may think that in such instances a common experience of punishment has been experienced and interpreted differently so that one brother becomes submissive in the expectation of parental love and the other, more humiliated and angry, becomes adventurous in the search for a better environment. Occasionally a factor in the development of this character is identification with another family member, as in the quotation below where pain and the same-type modeling have coincided: “Since I was little I had felt invaded. It was like the invasion of barbarians. Violently assaulted and it was my grandmother who was the boss. My grandmother was distinctly an ‘VIII,’ and I was her right eye; I was the first and the inheritor of all her story.”
In other instances the stimulus for rebellion has been a tyrannical type VI father, which is an understandable background for one who is not only rebellious but who has learned to survive through intimidation.
Though it may be broadly said that ennea-type VIII, like type V, has pessimistically given up on the search for love to the point of cynically doubting good motives and tending to perceive expression of positive feelings as sentimentalism, we may also speak, as in other characters, of a substitution of an original love wish. Just as in type I, search for love becomes a search for respect, and it is in respect that the “proof of love” is felt to be. In ennea-type VIII the “proof of love” is implicitly felt to be in the willingness of the other to be possessed, dominated, used, and—in extreme cases—beaten up. Correspondingly, all these behaviors and attitudes become, in the course of time, love substitutes.
The over-development of action in the service of struggling in a dangerous world that cannot be trusted is perhaps the fundamental way in which ennea-type VIII character fails to constitute full humanness. To elucidate further its existential interpretation we need to understand the vicious circle by which not only ontic obscuration supports lust, but lust, in its impetuous grasping of the tangible, entails an impoverishment of tender qualities and subtlety which results in a loss of wholeness and thus in a loss of being. It is as if the lusty character, in his impatience for satisfaction, shifts to an excessively concrete notion of his goal as pleasure, wealth, triumph, and so forth—only to find that this reaching, substituted for being, leaves him forever dissatisfied, craving intensity.
The situation may be explained through the paradigm of the rapist—an extrapolation of the lusty predator’s approach to life. He has given up the expectation of being wanted, to say nothing of love. He takes for granted that he will only get what he takes. As a taker, he could not succeed if he were to be concerned with the fancy of other people’s feelings. The way to be a winner is clear: to put winning before all else; likewise, the way to having one’s needs met is to forget the other. The world without others of the more anti-social ennea-type VIII, however, is no more full of true aliveness than that of the schizoid ennea-type V. Just as the schizoid misses the experience of value and being through the loss of relationship, so does the psychopath, in spite of seeming to be contactful, involved, and brimming with intense emotion.
The paradigm of rape can also serve as a background to a further discussion of the semblance of being which the sadistic type fails to know that he is pursuing. The concreteness of a wish that is excessively sensate (here an interest in sexual pleasure not coupled with an interest in relationship) is an image through which we may reflect on how the concretization of the healthy drive for relationship, far from orienting itself to the reality of the situation (as “realistic phallic-narcissists” claim), involves a blatant lack of psychological reality. The situation conveys asexualization of lust-centered personality as a result of the repression, denial, and transformation of the need for love.
Hidden as it may be behind the enthusiastic expansiveness, jollity, and seductive charm of the lusty, it is the loss of relationship, the suppression of tenderness, and the denial of the love need that result in the loss of wholeness and sense of being.
Ennea-type VIII pursues being, then, in pleasure and in the power to find his pleasure, yet through an insistence on overpowering becomes incapable of receiving—when being can only be known in a receptive attitude. By doggedly claiming satisfaction where a semblance of satisfaction can be imagined, much as Nasruddin seeks his key in the marketplace, he perpetuates an ontic deficiency that only feeds his lusty pursuit of triumph and other being substitutes.
Interesting notes:
The connection between gluttony and lust has been observed long ago, it seems, for we may read in Chaucer’s, “The Parson’s Tale” (op. cit.): “After gluttony, then comes lechery; for these two sins are such close cousins that oftentimes they will not be separated.”
According to the usual conception of the deadly sins, lust consists of an exaggerated sexuality, but according to the vision transmitted by Ichazo, the essence of lust is an exaggerated thirst for intensity, or more specifically, a thirst for intensity that is satisfied through of action and, especially, with an intensification of desires that, at the same time, militates against their satisfaction. And not only sexuality lends itself as a source of intensity, but also aggression and the same excitement of the senses when faced with stimuli such as intense noise or spicy foods.
Although in the sexual subtype the lust is mainly oriented to the erotic field, we can say that it is not simply a sexual lust, since people with this character are also impulsive in their aggression. Already as children, they were people who tended to be hyperkinetic, and interpersonally they are also possessive: they overwhelm people and excessively take over the will of their partner or their children.
It can be said that the sexual E8 are those in which the This rebellion becomes more manifest, for although Conservatives may be more antisocial, they are also more strategic, and this gives them a certain character of "wolves in sheep's clothing", as in the case of Henry VIII, who has gone to the history for his passion to do his own will to the point of rebelling against the Pope and becoming the center of the Church in England. In order to achieve this, however, he had to deal a lot with theology —something that would hardly be of interest to a sexual E8, who reveals himself to us as more visceral and passionate. Due to this characteristic viscerality and the shameless way in which the sexual E8 mocks conventional values, it can be said that it embodies for us the voice of the Dionysian, and that by becoming a defender of the enjoyment of freedom and criticism of character repressive of society, cannot fail to constitute an echo of something repressed or contained in the minds of almost everyone —and therefore, also, a sympathetic character.
Falstaff. All this can be said of Shakespeare's Falstaff, a character who appears on Enrique TV and in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and who reappears during the 19th century as the protagonist of the last of Verdi's operas. Unlike other characters Shakespeare borrowed from history, Falstaff is one who, in the theatrical tradition, represents a synthesis between the figure of vice in medieval morality plays, the parasite of Roman comedies, and the jester who makes kings laugh. with his ability to comically tell ordinarily unspeakable truths.
Falstaff is all of this: vicious, because he is a lustful man who drinks excessively, seduces as many women as he can and eats in such a way that his big belly already proclaims it; but he is also a parasite, insofar as he belongs to the category of those who do not pay for what they eat and drink, but live like the close to the powerful, like servants; in his case, the service he provides is the spectacle of his ingenuity, his sympathy and his fascinating stories. In addition, what appears as buffoonery, far from being pure entertainment, impresses as a healthy perception of the defects of kings and nobles, and also contains the virtue of things that authority traditionally prohibits — beginning with the simple enjoyment of pleasures. bodily and leisure.
Ichazo, to whom we owe the first presentation in the West of the ideas that I have developed, called the fixation corresponding to lust 'revenge', and this might seem undermined in view of the high aggressiveness of the lustful, which can be interpreted as a vengeful response to the aggressions that a child experiences during his childhood. That's how it seemed to me for a long time, but I've come to think that it would be more correct to consider rebellion rather than revenge as a more essential part of an E8, and this is what leads these characters to be called today. consider (in their most expansive form) manifestations of an 'antisocial personality disorder'.
Unlike most people, who adapt to society during childhood by becoming good children who abide by social norms without questioning them, the characteristic of the E8 is a greater faith in their natural impulses than in the voice of the authorities, and faced with such a situation, it dares to challenge not only parents and school teachers, but the culture itself or the intellectual discourse that justifies it. But, although it is common to react to this situation of certain individuals as a pathology or disorder, I cannot help but feel that it is heroic that some people are capable of rebelling before the entire world carried by great faith in their natural impulses. , according to which, what they do or feel is not bad, and that if the world insists on calling it "bad", the bad is not worse than what is called "good" - to the point that the "good" are some hypocrites.
If we say that rebellion is the most distinctive of this type, we will understand the aggressive character of such people or their antisocial attitudes as a natural thing that derives from their point of view, according to which the fundamental thing is a doubt regarding the validity of authority. with which you want to tame them.
The point of view that I expose, however, implies a social critique that is not present in the ordinary academic model of mental health as an adaptation to society, and it seems to me that this insufficient model, which does not perceive the underlying social pathology to individual neuroses, does not favor the cure of antisocials —which requires a measure of validation of his critical point of view.
Just as we speak of the El as perfectionists or of the E4 as pseudo-deprived, in the case of the E8 we can speak of rebellious or 'antisocial', but not in the sense of the DSM, which distinguishes the most problematic antisocial from those who live with fewer problems, but from many intense, strong and perhaps tough people who are not recognized as pathological in a culture little aware of universal pathology.
As in other enneatypes, three varieties of lustful can be distinguished, one of which is the most fiery, intense and aggressive, which is the sexual E8: the one most likely to present himself to the world as a villain - or as a person who is aware of his little respect for conventions and even such things as truth or fidelity.
In contrast to this sexual type, which is also somewhat histrionic, is the social E8, which often appears simply as a good person who speaks forcefully and acts with a vehement sense of protection towards the victims of injustice - and, specifically, towards the antisocials that society has collectively condemned to repudiate.
Finally, there are the tough ones. Just as in the sexual E8, possessiveness is exacerbated, which makes them tyrannical in their intimate relationships, and just as the social E8 is characterized by intense ties of 'friendship' that, considered more deeply, are actually complicity, the E8 conservationist is characterized by an impatience with any delay or frustration of his wishes, which makes him overwhelming in his demands and at the same time cruel in his ignorance of what those demands mean for others.
If we want to find an animal representation that evokes such characters, we can say that conservation E8, due to its hardness and coldness, reminds us of the crocodile (which we also use when talking about crocodile tears, referring to false demonstrations of suffering by people not very emotional), while we can compare the social E8 with the pig, which is a relatively domestic and highly intelligent animal, and the sexual E8 with the wild boar, which is a wild, untamed and dangerous pig, to which we can see the fearsome fangs.
The passion of lust denotes a passion for excess, “a passion that looks for intensity, in any stimulus: activity, anxiety, spices, high speed, music at full volume, etc” (Naranjo, Character and Neurosis). They have transformed the intensity of suffering into intensity of satisfaction, feelings, pleasure, and the battle against the abuses that they suffered.
The E8 is an excessive character, the most impulsive of the gut types. The consumption of energy, the search for intense stimuli, the attraction toward violence and risk, and the effusive manifestation of enthusiasm are typical expressions of lust. Lust is manifested through an uncontrollable tendency toward the satisfaction of impulses and needs. It is an incessant search for pleasure understood not as a submission to senses nor physical wellbeing, but rather as intense experience that returns the sensation of being alive to the individual, going beyond their barrier of toughness and insensitivity.
We could say that their passion consists of obtaining satisfaction and gratification in the here and now, like a teenager. The future doesn’t exist and the past is unnecessary. They are pragmatic and concrete; all problems must be resolved immediately (and the problem is their need to possess and get satisfaction). The wound is a received offense, an abuse: the E8 feels and lives with the conviction that they must be immediately compensated. Their interpersonal style is vengeance (fixation): they cannot leave anything open and unclosed; when they carry out vengeance, they find fulfillment again.
The origin of this character structure can be found in a childhood where they were denied the ability to be a child; they did not receive adequate care as a child neither concretely nor emotionally/psychologically. This situation of oppression and precariousness leads them to cultivate an internal aspiration to respond to violence with the same vehemence and force, while they wait for the day of final vengeance. This is a child that has had to grow up fast, who cannot submit to weakness, softness, or fragility.
They learn to fight and defend themselves and others from injustices. They feel like they may be attributed the label of a bad child. The sense of justice comes from, sometimes, a familial context where a parental figure concretely exercised physical or psychological violence, or abused their power, while other family members are perceived as a victim of this violence and in need of rescue. The compulsion to re-establish their power no matter what is clearly manifested in their relationships with others. The feeling of justice can also constitute an ideal, but we can more accurately describe it as a way of resolving pending issues. From this point of view, the relationship of friendship is one where the E8 commits to defending the people close to them with the condition that they do not interfere with their power. Power is maintaining domain and control of their territory and people that belong to them.
The E8 tends to not have a strong empathic ability. Considering that they tend to not have strong contact with their emotions, their bond with others can be very strong and intense not because they are sensitive to the needs of the other, but rather because they are moved by the compulsion to defend whoever belongs to them. Due to this lack of empathy in emotional relationships, they do not have consciousness of how they may treat their relatives and they do not worry about others’ judgements. It is very hard for them to connect with blame.
They are autonomous and may be quite arrogant. Their motivation is not to seem superior but rather get their needs satisfied. As they do not give themselves the permission to feel their emotions, they also do not allow themselves to feel physical pain, which may lead them to not take care of their body; even when they are suffering, they find satisfaction in intensity.
An intense sexuality subject to the minimum restrictions is not the only thing that gives EVIII an excessive character. The consumption of energy, a liking for intense stimuli, an attraction to violence and risks, and an effusive manifestation of enthusiasm constitute alternative expressions of lust. Apart from being intense, lustful characters are strong people; as if toughness constituted for them a form of intensity: a shield that enables them to receive the strongest blows.
Intensity and toughness would seem to be opposites. Intensity suggests life; toughness is a form of death. Although they may be opposites, the fact that they coexist reveals an intimate relationship: the intense, “Dionysian” aspect of the character may be understood as overcompensation for a secret insensitivity. The great vitality of EVIII is the expression of a passion; the demonstration of being alive on the part of someone who suffers from a kind of psychic callousness. At the same time, the search for intensity through pleasure and power leads to desensitization—since triumph demands invulnerability and desensitization with respect to the consequences that one’s own gratification has for others.
Ichazo designated the “fixation” of EVIII as revenge, coinciding in this with Karen Horney’s emphasis in her description of aggressive winners. But the revenge we are dealing with here must not be confused with the visible revenge that we usually associate with the term: it does not refer to taking revenge today because of what happened yesterday, but rather the instantaneous revenge of the person who responds to aggression with aggression, and a continuous, long-term revenge in response to the situation of childhood suffering. Just as the original frustration was linked to the weakness and relative impotence of childhood, the main strategy will subsequently be that of taking over power: having to dominate the situation, being on top, displaying strength. It is a strategy of the bully, of relying on force. While the contraphobic character seeks a power-authority that is based on ongoing blaming, here we are dealing with a power-to-do that is, in turn, based on ongoing threatening. While the tendency in EVI culminates in megalomania, resulting in the individual becoming a powerful giant, the culmination of the anxiety for power of EVIII is criminal abuse.
In my book Ennea-type Structures, I described this character somewhat picturesquely by the expression “Coming on Strong,” which alludes to an overpowering expansiveness. The idea was inspired by a caricature of a girl who makes her boyfriend fall off his chair without realizing how.
These are characters that ride roughshod over others and who are not aware most of the time that they are doing so. They simply learned very early on in life that to get things it was necessary to assert themselves and to get down to work. This excessively active character, which is such a far cry (in his or her exaggerated autonomy) from the pathology of dependent characters, is also pathological in so far as dependence is negated. Wilhelm Reich already described a “phallic-narcissistic” character. As this expression suggests, this is not only someone who is hard and lustful, but also someone with a characteristic exhibitionist tendency. However, the exhibition of power or superiority of this character differs profoundly from vanity, since it constitutes more a means at the service of practical triumph rather than practical triumph at the service of applause. No one is bothered as little by what others think of them.
The defense mechanisms of EVIII are negation—a type of negation of pain—and psychological discomfort, which I have proposed to call simply “desensitization.” The following anecdote may explain this last term. On a trip to Mexico, at dawn Nasruddin comes across a man with a dagger stuck in his chest lying in a pool of blood under the weak light of a street lamp. Somewhat alarmed, he asks him if he is suffering a lot, and the tough guy replies: “Only when I laugh, buddy.”
As far as what can be appreciated in Theophrastus’s Characters, this type must have been pretty common in the 3rd century B.C., since among the thirty characterizations in this collection, there are six descriptions that fit forms of the lustful type, many more than those that I can find matching other types of the Enneagram.
He calls one of these the “bold cynic,” and defines him as a person capable of having the cheek to do or say shameful things:
The cynic (shameless person) is a type of man who swears an oath lightly, has a bad reputation and insults the powerful. He has a vulgar character and is capable of anything. You can be sure he does not mind dancing the córdace, without being drunk and without wearing a mask in a procession.
Theophrastus’s definition of cynicism (or shamelessness) falls short in comparison to his description, as he portrays a character that not only attributes little importance to the opinions of others, but also is not upset by any pursuit, no matter how loathsome it may be. He also tells us that “he let his elderly mother die of hunger,” which shows us his lack of human feelings and generalized hostility. He likewise affirms that the cynic (or shameless person) “is arrested for robbery and spends the best part of his life in prison rather than at home,” which reflects a clear indifference to public opinion and the welfare of others. In short, his disposition is antisocial.
In this last portrait we find another important trait of the character: exhibitionism, also characteristic of EVIII.
He could be one of those who gather around themselves and convoke a circle of people and then, with a powerful, cavernous voice, apostrophize and strike up a conversation with them ... He finds no better occasion to make a show of his cynicism (shamelessness) than when there is a public feast.
Theophrastus tells us that the cynic (shameless person) “is a tavern keeper, acts as a pimp or is a tax collector” and that “he usually does the rounds of the taverns, the fishmongers’ and the salting shops, and he guards the profit he obtains from this tax collecting in his mouth.”
All this reflects a trait that Theophrastus chooses as a name for another of his characters: “the rabble’s friend.” Once more, his definition here is not as complex as the attributes that he suggests literally: a liking for associating with people of low standing and subjects who are looked down on by the refined and those who accept the law.
He tells us that “‘To be a friend of the rabble’ (a liking for wickedness) simply means an inclination for the perverse.” The character he mentions could just as well describe the cynic (shameless person), since the latter has a view of things that supposes a cynical (shameless) invalidation of the values of daily life.
If honest folk speak, he maintains that honesty is unnatural and that all men are unequal, and he recriminates those who are honest. He affirms with total tranquility that the wicked man is one who has freed himself of prejudices.
In the observation that Theophrastus makes about his defense of the oppressed, we can see something more than rebellion and cynicism (shamelessness). There is also an implicit vindictive spirit in his sense of justice and something of genuine empathy, as we shall have the opportunity to discover (in spite of the fact, from what we have seen previously, that he does not have the least empathy at all for his own mother).
Theophrastus speaks of the lack of scruples as “indifference with respect to the reputation of interest in obtaining loathsome profit,” and affords us a general image of this type in which his indifference with respect to his reputation stands out, though now in the company of profit, which, in short, is to talk of greed.
Close to this character in the portrait gallery, we find that of the “coarse” person:
Coarseness is not difficult to define; it is annoying, disagreeable mockery ... The coarse person is the type of subject who, when he finds himself among respectable women, lifts up his clothes to exhibit his genitals ... He stops in front of the barber’s or the perfume shop and tells the customers that he is going to get drunk.
Finally, we can encounter the stamp of Enneatype VIII in the “bad-mannered” type. “The bad-mannered person is one who, if asked the question: Who is this? replies: Don’t start bothering me! It is obvious that the person thus described is not only bad mannered, but also distrustful: “He tells those who show him signs of esteem and send him some kind of present that they are up to something.” He is also hostile. “He is incapable of forgiving someone who accidentally dirties his clothes, pushes him, or treads on his foot.”
Among the Italian masks we find EVIII embodied in Brighella, a fairground charlatan whose advice is that lies should be like meatballs: big.
Brighella has bright, malicious eyes under a leather mask, thick lips and a turned up mustache and is dressed in white. If my clothes are white, says Brighella, that means that I have carte blanche to do and undo as I please. And the green adornments? Ah, that’s something else altogether. The desires of my customers will always remain green: that is to say, unsatisfied. I may make promises, but another thing is keeping them. His name, Brighella Cavicchio, derives from briga, deception, trick, something not very clear, and also evokes the first two syllables of brigand. He is a character that comes down to us from the 14th century, from Upper Bergamo, reputed for its astute folk, while in Lower Bergamo are to be found simple, good-natured types, more like Arlecchino or Pulcinella, who though they cause trouble, do so with good intentions, poor devils, to get themselves out of trouble. The case of Brighella is different. He deceives others for pleasure; he is great at cooking up ruses: he makes them big and decorated like a wedding cake.
This is the way he shamelessly proclaims in the market place: I have talismans for everything, perfectly triangular stones, collected from faraway India, that safeguard from all dangers those who possess one, I also prepare magnetic dressings that cure rheumatism or liver sickness in twenty-four hours, I make lotions for the bald and magic filters for young women looking for a husband.
Brighella laughs at the people at the fair, at those sitting in the market place, at the credulous servants and their elderly masters.
To continue with the same order of characters as in the previous chapter, and dealing now with the upper zone of the Enneagram, let us examine the disturbance of love in the lustful.
If emotional indifference constitutes an unlove, it would be appropriate to speak of lustful attraction rather than lustful love as a counter-love. As a result of the thirst for intensity, the impulse of sexual union replaces rather than creates a vehicle for intimate union between people, in so far as the lustful (as Stendhal says of Don Juan) consider the opposite sex to be an enemy and only seek victories. “Don Juanish love”—Maurois reflects—”is like the taste for game. It is a necessity for activity that must necessarily be awakened by diverse objects.”
Lustful love is a love like the prototype of the original “Don Juan” (that is, the seducer) who puts his desire before the other: a love that invades, uses, abuses, exploits, which at the same time demands a love that is confirmed via submission and allowing oneself to be exploited. He finds it difficult to receive because he does not believe in what he receives. Because, in his cynical position, he does not believe in the love of the other, he has to put it to the test. He tests the love of the other, for instance, by throwing him or her off balance and observing him or her in situations of emergency, or asking the impossible, asking for pain and indulgence as a demonstration of the other’s sincerity.
Apart from the excessively domineering aspect of lustful love, there is a certain parallelism of intimate dissociation that derives from this character’s great need for autonomy. Since these are tough types who are at war with the world, it is naturally difficult to speak of love in the sense of union or relationship—except in the outer sense. They receive the love of others badly, in as much as this constitutes a defense of their own independence. They reject what they are given and deny the desire per se to receive it, since this means an invasion of their system and entails the danger of feeling weak.
The partner love of EVIII is not only invasive, excessive, and domineering, but also violent. This could hardly be otherwise, since a violent character is revealed above all in private. Apart from being punitive, demanding, and provoking, these types are anti-sentimental: they seek a concrete, non-emotional, contact-love that lasts as long as the contact; a here and now love, without commitments and with rejection of dependence, which situates the person in relation to his or her fragility, his or her insecurity.
The pseudo-amorous aspect lies in the erotic; as well as in a seduction that is like a “purchasing” of the other or indulgence in certain situations. Compassion-love is rejected because it is incompatible with the marked emphasis of needing-love. Admiring-love, however, is more present; no matter how competitive these people may be, they are able to acknowledge and admire intensely, above all in the case of strong models. Love for self, however, is the strongest; love for others takes second place, despite their being apparently antisocial beings. They are contrary to norms more than to people in particular, and there is not so much difference as might appear between Enneatypes I and VIII as far as impulses are concerned. On the one hand, aggression is highly rationalized and is perceived as serving just causes (EI); on the other, aggression is recognized as such, and a kind of reversal of values exists by means of which good is considered bad and vice versa (EVIII). But there are human ties that go beyond what would be done in the name of what is supposed to be good, and social solidarity may lead to attitudes of revenge, of calls for justice for others, comparable to taking justice into one’s own hands when it is a question of one’s own life. Love for God or for the ideal and transpersonal is the weakest of the three.
When closely observed, the apparent love for oneself of the lustful can be seen as a pseudo-love. In the domineering insatiability of the search for pleasure, the person recognizes his or her own deepest need: hunger for love itself. It is not the inner suckling child that is satisfied, but a titanic adolescent who has set the goal of obtaining what was given him or her at the time, such that his or her own force on claiming it becomes a substitute for amorous desire.
The antisocial character is only the most extreme form of a much more common character that we could simply call the rebel. We have already spoken of the lustful: intense, violent people, who do not support frustration, who demand immediate satisfaction. These are people who believe in attaining things and in taking justice into their own hands, in personal revenge rather than delegating to institutions.
This punitive character becomes very obvious at a collective level when we think of Mexican culture, with its machismo and its firearms. Mexico inherited this aspect twofold: from Moctezuma and from Hernán Cortés, from the bloodthirsty Aztecs and from the con- quistadores who rode roughshod over them. This character that is so strong, so extreme, so intense, expresses itself in two ways in the world. One is an antisocial expression per se, that would appear not to be an “ill of society,” but rather the attribute of anti-society: criminality. I would say that this declared or explicit criminal violence is a relatively lesser evil: the sign of how far social control reaches. There are people who escape from this control, who do not play by the rules. Thus, murders, robberies, rapes, terrorist acts often occur. However, all this is very far from constituting a problem comparable to mercantilism, authoritarianism, the status quo or repression. The second form of expression of the antisocial, which appears to us to be softer, is the violence in which exploitation takes place under the guise of socialness, in the bosom of institutions, sustaining a secret or explicitly exploiting power. I shall explain this through a situation from our remote past, though the symbiosis between the establishment and antisocialness is echoed today in the military-industrial-national complex.
There is a theory that the violent were the originators of masculine supremacy in our species. Many peoples have been studied, in which it is possible to reconstruct a certain progression: they become sedentary, they start to sow seeds, harvest, and have an agricultural surplus to store, and so no longer need to live day to day. Anthropologists affirm that the distribution of the agricultural surplus makes it necessary for someone to assume the function of the distributor and that primitive distributors were the most ancient chieftains. But distribution is not enough. The public treasury is something that must be looked after, and thugs surround the chieftain in order to fulfill their policing function. It is easy to imagine that in a culture in which the chieftains with an aggressive character are important the idea may arise of going to the neighboring village to take some of their provisions, particularly if there has been an affront, but also by virtue of a group spirit that enjoys fighting and exhibiting its strength. And, of course, when the danger exists of being attacked by a neighbor who thinks the same way, the contingent of guards has to be reinforced... and so we have the origin of the army.
The American anthropologist, Marvin Harris, who has collected a great deal of data on diverse cultures, cites the phrase of a native—of one of the Polynesian cultures, I believe—that is the echo of the epithet of the ancient chieftains: “great slayers of men and pigs.” The expression suggests a mentality for which the sacrificing of animals and people is more or less the same thing; the mentality of those who have the trade of slaying, the tough guys. This might be the original development of what subsequently led to innumerable outrages in the history that we know.
Nowadays, there are historians who think that slavery was originally the slavery of women, because when a village was sacked, everything was razed to the ground and the men were killed, but the best was carried off: the women, domestic and reproductive female servants. Such was the attitude of these valiant tough guys. Later, of course, it occurred to them that they could also enslave the men.
I would say that this character—sadistic, tough, that tends towards the antisocial—has been highly determinant in the male dominance of our civilization. This has brought with it a great many problems—starting with the inner imbalance of the individual psyche, the repression of emotions and rationalism, having a bearing on things that have apparently nothing to do with masculinity but are the result of living with the masculine analytical half of our brain.
I have spoken of archaic times in reference to how “the system” has been based on power. But power nowadays is not in the hands of thugs with big muscles; we do not need such insensitive folk when we have cannons and missiles and when we have learned massively to desensitize ourselves. We do not need generals with a sadistic character, since killing has become an everyday event.
As the policing organ of civilization, the military organ, is intrinsic to its structure, we do not notice that it has grown in a cancerous way. In 1920, the North American military budget was one per cent of productivity, and by 1995 it was already more than fifty per cent. How much does the defense from the other barbarians who might cut off our heads consume! This explains much of the suffering and trouble in life in contemporary society.
In spite of its high technology, of the increase in productivity, of automatization, of the improvements in agriculture and in the exploitation of natural resources to their limits, there is still hunger and poverty as a result of the diversion of human resources towards the upkeep of armies and the manufacture of armaments.