Fanatical Narcissism and the Poetry of Leadership

Isabela in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure is an aspiring nun and saint-like figure of mercy. But when the going gets rough, she changes into her opposite, demanding – she cries out: ‘‘justice, justice, justice, justice!’

When Saints turn Sinners: Lily Brayton as Isabela, Royal Court Theatre (1906)

Shakespeare’s conflicted heroine riffs on the verse from Deuteronomy from this past week’s Torah reading: ‘Justice, justice, you shall pursue‘ (Deuteronomy 16.20). A verse loved by fanatics like Isabela for centuries.

But fanatical vehemence is always, as in Isabela’s case, a symptom of psychic imbalance. When you claim the certainty of being only one thing, the part of the self which you claim not to be, but which you are, fights back with a vengeance.

Justice – as no one in Measure for Measure learns – starts off with the self, as not just an ethical principle, but a poetic one. ‘Just’ as in balanced, where the different voices of the self make peace with one another. The harmony allows for discord; we are human after all.  But they manage to stay together.

For the the Talmud, justice is beautiful: the verse ‘Justice, justice’ commands: find a beit din yafe, a ‘beautiful’ court of justice.

Justice to be just must be beautiful. Just here as in ‘just, right,’ ‘balanced,’ beautiful.

The poetic balance, the beauty, offered by a justice system that works, should be paralleled in the human psyche.

Paul Klee, Senecio (1922)

The just person maintains a balance between her ideals and what they demand, and her creative energies and what they demand. We are often punished by our puritanical ideals, or overwhelmed by the sources of the deep within. The ‘just’ leader avoids the psychic ping-pong that many play their entire lives.

But the answer is not moderation – where both are compromised – but poetic justice, balance.

Freud talked about the conversation between superego and id. The ego survives as beautiful, in that healthy balance, provided that the superego does not repress the id, and that the id does not overwhelm the superego. ‘Keep the conversation going’ begins as a demand for an internal dialogue.

As the Hebrew word tirdof implies that the pursuit is relentless, conducted with the zeal of a murderous stalker – the rodef, the same root – in pursuit of his prey. The verse commands: Energies of vengeance are to be channeled – for Justice.

Justice, as the 13th century commentator, Rabbenu Bachye explains, begins with consciousness of one’s own words and actions. As another of Shakespeare’s heroines says to one of the playwright’s many male narcissists: ‘if you saw yourself with your eyes or knew yourself with your judgment.’ Justice begins with self-knowledge.

Someone who balances their thoughts and words, and tells their story beautifully – justly – will also act in a just and beautiful way. As the poet John Milton writes, ‘a good man is like a good book.’

We are sometimes blessed with teachers or leaders who embody this balance.

Of course, we immediately recognize the ugliness of the bad leader – unbalanced, always at war with himself. His insistent certainty reveals an insecurity, seen by everyone but him. The unresolved internal war deforms and turns outwards: vengeance against the world masquerading as justice.

We all know people like this – not only leaders of nations, but of university departments, non-profit institutes, and high-tech companies. They are compromised by that always menacing thought: what if someone has a good idea other than me? The leader who cannot lead others because he is afraid to lead himself.

Justice is found in the beauty of balance—between ideals and desires, skepticism and enthusiasm, and in the willingness to keep the conversation going, first within the self and then with others.

Before pursuing justice for others, through relentless self-examination we make ourselves just, balanced, beautiful.

Justice, justice, you shall pursue…