"Look, the Cabinet Minister Has No Clothes!"

Most people have a good opinion of themselves. Indeed, many would consider themselves to be above average, regardless of the metric they choose for themselves and others, including intelligence, honesty, caring, patience, courtesy, etc. Yet it is clearly impossible for most people to be above average.

Criminologists have studied perceptual dissonances like this in an effort to understand the thinking by which criminals take to crime. While some might find it surprising, those who commit crimes or other bad deeds are like most people in that they have a good opinion of themselves. If someone breaks into your home and steals your possessions, it must seem nonsensical to imagine that the perpetrator could not realize how reprehensible their behaviour was, or that he could imagine himself to have done anything even remotely proper. Even more peculiar, many of these same thieves would feel much the same as you if someone else were to steal from them.

There is one example of this that I heard long ago in a media interview with a former burglar that gives some insight into their thinking process. The thief, having a good opinion of himself, for whatever reason sees that he is poor or disadvantaged relative to you in some way, and wonders how this could be possible. If you have nice things and he doesn't, and he can't afford to buy them, he sees injustice. After all, he's certainly as good as you, maybe even better, so those things should be his. Therefore he makes them his own by taking them, thereby restoring order to his world. Since this is only a short-term solution and because there are other things he doesn't have, the cycle repeats until he is caught and stopped. With this unfortunate turn of events, he licks his wounds and bemoans the unfairness of the world. Later, when he's back on the street, he is likely to slip back into the old ways.

Not all thieves think this way, perhaps not even most, but it is reasonably common. In my youth, when for some years I lived in a poor neighbourhood, very nearly a slum, I saw this very attitude among many of the kids and adults around me. When power or privilege is added to this mindset, greater trouble isn't far off. This brings me to the ongoing problems of ex-Minister Helena Guergis.

It's popular now to label the type of behaviour I've described above as having a sense of entitlement. It would be presumptuous of me to ascribe motives to Ms. Guergis, yet I see glimmers of that thieving mindset at work. I think it is uncontroversial to say that she has a good or even inflated opinion of herself and, because of that, when she looks around her and sees things that she does not have, she wonders why that is. Since she is no common criminal, and would probably be horrified at the thought of burglarizing someone's home or business, she would have to find some other way to correct the perceived imbalance between what she deserves and what she has. Political power was her tool in this unseemly quest.

Property may not have been her objective (although that remains to be seen). Instead she seemed to believe that she was not given the respect and privileges that were her due. Therefore she exercised her power in an attempt to coerce those responses out of others. This would explain her tantrum in Charlottetown and the letters sent by her staff to a local newspaper. Her objective was respect, not things. It isn't only politicians that are prone to this fault; you can see it in some businessmen and investors who come into unexpected success, professional athletes, recently-promoted corporate managers, and, really, there are examples to be found in any field of human endeavour. One characteristic that they share is that even if what they've gained was due to luck, they always attribute it to their superior qualities.

Further to their high opinion of themselves, they are also blind to their misbehaviour. If they steal from office supplies or pad their expenses, they think that no one notices. If they strut with head held high and speak or treat others harshly, they imagine others envy, respect or fear them, since they crave or more of these. Common criminals also get that way, if they survive long at their trade, imaging that they are untouchable due to their great talent.

I have worked with people just like this, and I suspect that most everyone has. I have seen coworkers take things home, I have seen acquaintances cheating on their spouses, and I have seen students plagiarizing or copying the work of their fellows. In all cases they seem unable to see that many of the people around them notice what they are doing. Like the fable of the emperor whose new outfit, though not visible, he believed to clothe him in the highest of high fashion, they are able to strut in plain sight and be completely oblivious to the pointing and giggles of the populace. That is until someone in the crowd shouts: "Look! The Emperor has no clothes!"

Instead of a little boy, in this case it was the Prime Minister. Now the ex-Minister is, metaphorically speaking, aware of her nakedness and is rushing for cover. She now knows what everyone else has known all along. I imagine that she still craves and feels entitled to the respect and reverence that she believes is her due, so it must sting to know that it is now further away than ever, and what little she thought she has achieved towards that goal was merely a mirage of her own making. I can almost pity her.