We need to begin exploring Narcissistic Personality Disorder but before we get there, I want to furnish a definition of the word “hubris,” because of its close relationship to the mental disorder. The following excerpt is taken from chapter four of Eros and Polis: Desire and Community in Greek Political Theory (Paul W. Ludwig [London: Cambridge University Press, 2002], pp. 171–72). The chapter is titled “The Problem of Aggression” and opens by stating: “In Greek legal thought, aggression and sexuality came together in the concept of hubris.” The entire chapter reads like a profile:
* * *
Although the English language does not have any single word to cover the full concept of hubris, the various aspects of this nexus of violation, arrogant superiority, and the deliberate humiliation of others can be found in disciplines as diverse as psychoanalysis, the history of sexuality, feminist theory, and the sociological study of rape. The Greek concept is complex, and the definition of the word will be subsequently revisited. Parts of a definition from Aristotle’s Rhetoric follow: “Hubris is the doing or saying of that by which shame exists for the one suffering it.” And, “the cause of the pleasure for those committing hubris is that they think that, by doing an ill turn, they themselves rise above.”7 Rape was an important subcategory of hubris because forced or otherwise undesirable intercourse was one means of shaming a victim. For example, at Hippolytus 1073, Theseus uses the word hubrizein to describe the act alleged by Phaedra, viz., that Hippolytus has raped her.8 Hubris as rape created shame on the part of the victim and a perverse sense of honor or “rising above” on the part of the perpetrator.
7 Rhetoric 2.2.5–6 1378b 23–8. Compare especially N.R.E. Fisher, Hybris, pp. 7–35. Caution should be exercised before ascribing to Aristotle’s own thought topoi from his Rhetoric. The Rhetoric seeks “persuasives” rather than factual or theoretical truths. Aristotle may only be demonstrating the kind of hubris arguments that have been found to be persuasive in the past or are likely to prove persuasive in future.
8 Compare 885–6: “dared to touch [her] bed with violence.” The connection between hubris and shame is apparent from Theseus’ later euphemism for the same act: “. . . someone [else] whose wife he shamed [kateisxun’], like his father’s, by violence?” (1165).
* * *
