How Leaders Turn Kind People Evil

Going against a person we praise isn't easy, but we must do it to avoid the spread of malignancy.

We don't trust all experts, celebrities, and people from our social circle. There are always individuals and fields we are skeptical of. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic showed people from the same nation have vastly different opinions about a scientist's authority. But while we distrust some people, all adults glorify role models secretly. 

Revering a person with favorable traits benefits is positive. For instance, at 19, I quit playing video games to learn skills because entrepreneur Gary Vee said it was the right thing to do. Sometime after, I founded a 6-figure content strategy business following designer Chris Do's business tips.

But leaders can influence you to evildoing. Not all soldiers who killed one of 1.6 million people at the Gulag and one of 11 million people during The Holocaust were born evil. Many turned cruel after trusting evil leaders.

Many of us can—which doesn't mean you will—hurt others because a person we praise believes it's the correct thing to do. Leaders are even more likely to influence evildoing if they frame the act as a solution to a situation that frustrates or threatens their followers. 

Going against a person we praise isn't easy, but we must do it to avoid the spread of malignancy. To do this, we must understand why humans follow evil leaders and the repercussions of this reality.

Leaders replace their followers' parents.

Transference is a phenomenon where you transfer your feelings from one person to another. Freud discovered transference while treating patients. They made him the center of their world, seeing him as a source of protection, power, and wisdom.

Psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi said adults practiced transference, even though most seem self-sufficient. They support their families, cover their needs, and can ride a bike without training wheels. Yet, adults transfer what they felt for their parents to other people. Children see their parents as the center of their worlds; adults worship teachers, celebrities, and experts.

Symbiosis is a relationship where two species live together for a biological purpose, as anemones and clownfishes do. The anemone's tentacles protect the clownfish from predators, and the clownfish chases fishes trying to eat the anemone.

Psychologist Erich Fromm believes many humans go through "incestuous symbiosis." The term defines the fear of leaving our families to face life's terrifying parts. Living is easy when your parents cover your expenses and tell you what to do, but it's challenging when you must do it.

Despite this difficulty, we move out of our parent's house to reclaim the freedom we lost as children. But we never stop needing a father or mother figure. The leader of a group, whether Rihanna, Charles Manson, or Donald Trump, is a medium we use to feel as safe as we did when our parents took care of us.

Leaders look like they know something you don't

Girard says people publicly imitate those with a trait they are unlikely to get. Most of us can safely mimic Stephen King's writing style because he will likely never know you exist or consider us a threat. But there would be a conflict if known writers like Dan Brown, Nora Roberts, and George R.R. Martin did it. These writers are on similar social, financial, and skill levels, so rivalries spark: we are not. 

Leaders are at the top of the hierarchies we value. We assume they know something we don't, so we do what they think is best for us.

The person we follow doesn't need our parents' traits. They don't need your father's tenderness or your mom's empathy. Instead, leaders must be authoritarian and look like they know something you don't. Freud said that our pursuit of an authoritative figure is why people follow dangerous individuals.

Kidnapping, murdering, and humiliating someone you don't know is an inconceivable act up to the moment the person you admire the most does it. Then it's atrocious but justified. 

Psychoanalyst Fritz Redl says followers eventually do these acts and find pleasure in them because the leader takes the initiative. If the leader acts first, the action is valid because he knows what's best, but since he is the supreme authority, he is to blame for any bloodthirsty event.

The leader is both a parent and a scapegoat. They tell the masses what to do, but they are susceptible to being blamed.