Catalogs, Flyers and Price Lists. Open Access. Open Access for Authors. Open Access and Research Funding. Open Access for Librarians. Open Access for Academic Societies. About us. Stay updated. Corporate Social Responsiblity. Investor Relations. Review a Brill Book. Reference Works. Primary source collections. Open Access Content. Contact us. Sales contacts. Jealousy, stemming from lost love, should be distinguished from vulgar envy. Jealousy expresses disappointment at what was incorrectly understood to be a reciprocal relationship.
Envy, however, knows nothing of altruistic love, but is fascinated by monomaniacal self-love. Envy is dyadic. Cain is not envious, he is jealous. Jealousy can perhaps be understood as a helpless attempt to excuse the one who unexpectedly and suddenly gives his love to somebody else by attributing that dramatic loss to the power of the intruder.
Lethal hate for the intruder expresses the continuing love for the original love object. Jealousy desperately tries to secure the love that appears to be lost. Betrayed, rejected, and humiliated, Cain is overwhelmed by hatred for the rival who steals the object of his love. He kills his brother Abel out of jealousy.
This appears to be senseless violence, but it is not without meaning. To protect him from revenge by those who fear an explosion of violence, Cain is marked with a significant sign, a sign warning others not to repay evil with evil. The murder of Abel, an act stemming from disappointed love, must not be avenged; otherwise a fearful spiral of violence will evolve.
The mark protects Cain from those who fail to recognize how disappointed love has led to murder, from those who cannot appreciate the drama in which Cain has forfeited love on account of love. In order to conclude this analysis of meaningless violence, we must pay some attention to the shame dynamics that determine it. Narcissistic problems occupy a prominent position in contemporary culture Mooy They relate to the instability of self-esteem that without a clear cause fluctuates between feelings of utter worthlessness and grandiose magnificence.
This problem is exemplary exposed in the excessive concern of so many ordinary men and women about their public image and in their uncertainty as to whether that image is sufficiently appreciated. Acts of violence are affronts to self-esteem, affronts whose severity is experienced in direct proportion to the grandiosity of the originally imagined value of the self.
The paradox in the dynamics of violence is that the judgments of others weigh so heavily because they reflect our repressed and hidden self-knowledge. This is why shattering the illusion of assumed omnipotence and invulnerability leads to horrific consequences Mooy If violent behavior can be regarded as a reaction and defense against shame, the socio-political consequences of institutional disrespect and public disgrace are also relevant to our analysis.
As long as government bureaucracies continue to believe that they always know better than the average citizen, as long as big business continues to prefer interchangeability and replaceability to loyalty, as long as collegiality at universities, for example continues to be sacrificed to hierarchy, and performance to production, the effect of such policies and strategies are experienced as willful attacks on the self-esteem of ordinary citizens, clients, customers, and employees.
The individual must conclude that, in the eyes of those who are set above him, his value is nil and hence of no consequence. In a society in which nobody counts, every such narcissistic injury generates great anger. Violence in all its forms matches the pressure to present oneself as competent, successful, accepted, as someone of worth whose self-esteem is validated.
This kind of violence is not only physical. Everyday crudity, vulgarity, and arrogance are expressions of the shameful and violent defense against attacks on a vulnerable self. Shame is felt even more strongly when dealing with matters of intimacy. This accounts, in part, for sexual violence. Pornography, rape, domestic violence are no less narcissistic attempts to restore self-esteem by humiliating another Stoller Such violence, though unpleasant, is not meaningless.
It has a purpose, although perhaps it suits us better to close our eyes to the dark side of our own existence. To cultivate the concept of meaningless, senseless violence is a final attempt to maintain the idea of a just world supporting the pretence of our own innocence.
That life support must be derived from the trust and hope we should have learned while we were fed and weaned as infants. Cherishing the hope that is in us, we might be able to conquer our vulnerability and follow our own path with equanimity, believing that some day we will be seen as we are. That inner conviction must be achieved in childhood, when, in the relations with the most important people in our life, it is not injury that was predominant, but support and confirmation Erikson At the same time, a narcissistic vulnerability, for which hope of a better life to come is the sole panacea, is the result of an indifferent or distrustful pedagogy characterized by parental negligence or over-indulgence.
To keep hope alive, some desires must be abandoned and traded in for a more realistic vision of the future. Hope requires continual adaptation to the possibilities of the moment Pruyser Both the abandonment of desires and the continuous creation of new, more feasible aspirations are thus needed to counterbalance the temptation to surrender to delusory dreams cf.
Capps Hope and shame, mutually exclusive, keep each other in a painful equilibrium, to be upset in favor of hope via a trained capacity for appreciating the absurd. In the end, humor helps best to conquer the tyranny of the narcissistic self Kohut A sense of humor and a conception of the finite and transient nature of life ensure that illusions can be relinquished without any lapse into sarcasm or cynicism.
Only when freed of illusions is it once again possible to believe in the power of the ego-ideal, of any ideal.
Bastian, T. Psyche , 44 , — PubMed Google Scholar. Berke, J. Shame and envy. British Journal of Psychotherapy , 2 , — Article Google Scholar. Shame, however, is linked with. In order to survive, to avoid drowning in self-depreciation and to escape the sudden futility of existence, Cain killed his brother.
Nauta relates these issues to our present-day culture, with clear implications for those prone to engaging in targeted violence:.
Not to be respected when support and admiration are essential, to be laughed at when one fails are fatal injuries to a fragile existence. The shame this generates finds expression in and is, at the same time, hidden by a violent rage. This kind of targeted destructiveness liberates the perpetrator from the dependence and despondency of the shaming experience.
Socially deviant behavior e. To be clear: none of this suggests that mass killers are models of mental health. While most mass shooters would probably not meet DSM criteria for a mental disorder, most appear to be deeply unhappy individuals who are struggling to contain feelings of self-pity, anger, resentment and victimization.
Cain fails to obtain the recognition he believes he deserves, becoming bitter and resentful. Here is the destructive power of envy, resentment and narcissism that underlie many mass shootings. Thus, the disgruntled employee may feel his sacrifice of years of hard work has been rejected by a boss. A student who desperately seeks social acceptance at school may feel cruelly ostracized.
For the Cain-figure, an inability to accept reality, work within its bounds, and assign meaning to his struggle is his fatal flaw. He tragically and perhaps selfishly?
In doing so, he makes an enemy of life itself-a mindset that inexorably leads to nihilism and destruction. I believe I have a better plan. All analogies are imperfect, and the one we are drawing is no exception. Nevertheless, Cain shares with many mass shooters the mentality of rage, resentment, envy, jealousy, selfishness, narcissistic injury, a sense of victimization and injustice, and a deep-seated need for vengeance.
Like many mass shooters, violence, for Cain, becomes a way of restoring a false sense of power and self-esteem. Transporting Cain magically into our own time-and positing access to lethal weapons-we can readily envision him as a potential mass shooter. When confronted by God, Cain neglected his responsibility and answered God with sarcasm. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on earth. He was also afraid he would be killed by people that might find him later. So God put a mark on Cain and warned all people they would be punished sevenfold if they killed Cain.
Abel was allowed to be slain to show the world our need for a savior. Death made its debut in this story, and God was working out our salvation through it.
To ask why does God allow suffering in our world is pointless. All of us are the ones who allow suffering, not God! We are His creation and just like Adam and Eve and their firstborn Cain, we, too neglect our responsibility and deny our sin.
Jim Robidoux works in precision sheet metal, is father of four and husband of Manchester Ink Link publisher Carol Robidoux. He looks forward to receiving fan mail at jrmetalman comcas. Click here to join the growing list of InkLink Community Ad Partners who, like us, are mission driven and believe in building community.
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