Humiliating Your Opponent Is Doomed

Mocking or Demeaning An Opponent Does Not Lead to Success, Learn from the Story of Sleeping Beauty

“The Curse” from Sleeping Beauty (1920) / Illustrated by Arthur Rackham

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From the time that Donald Trump first emerged on the scene with an organized campaign for the US presidency until now, he has been the object of public derision, attack, arrest, impeachment, and countless attempts to erase him, including assassination. As political tactics, these strategies are doomed. They are not “resistance,” but rather provocation. In humans, humiliation predictably evokes rage, both in private and in public. Humans experience humiliation as a painful emotional attack on their identity. Those inflicting humiliation cannot occupy the moral high ground because of the destruction they wreak.

Humiliation is the experience of having one’s identity ridiculed or one’s weaknesses exposed. It is induced through ignoring, attacking, or deriding, but it can also be communicated more subtly by a contemptuous roll of the eyes or a smirky smile. The effects of repetitive humiliation stick around for a long time. When I hear people say, “Trump can’t be humiliated, ” I know they are ignorant of how humiliation works. When we feel humiliated we express rage (hot or cold) targeted against the humiliator.

Humiliation and Rage