Passive aggression / Aggressive passivity

Passive aggression is the surreptitious, indirect and often insidious means by which we express antagonism or noncompliance while ensuring the plausible deniability of any such intentions. It can breed quickly: Aaron’s passive aggression provoked a peevish response from Jim (from the example given before). Though it may be practised at home, passive aggression flourishes in the workplace, where more direct expressions of frustration and resentment are considered unprofessional.

We can all think of examples: the resentful time-server who, when asked about an overdue report by his line manager, mumbles that “in the mass of your requests, it got forgotten” – not accidentally, the passive voice is usually passive aggression’s preferred verbal form. The colleague who is reliably generous with “compliments” such as “Your presentation was surprisingly good.” The boss who wonders at hometime whether his employee might want to stay a little late for the call with California.

In these instances, hostile or obstructive behaviour is at once performed and disavowed, so that the offender can assure you that he or she certainly didn’t intend whatever irritation you may now feel. It leaves you feeling, perhaps, that you’re the one with the problem. Strikingly, passive aggression is a strategy that can be adopted by both the boss class and its minions.

Bartleby’s (from Melville's 1853 tale, Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall Street) riposte may be the most crystalline expression of passive aggression ever coined. He doesn’t outright refuse to examine the document. To a boss, refusal is unlikely ever to be welcome, but it’s at least intelligible, precisely because it signals an active stance.

In its extreme non-commitment, Bartleby’s refrain throws some light on how more ordinary forms of passive aggression work, raising the conundrum of how we can possibly argue with or object to an attitude that refuses to reveal itself.

In intimate relationships, it is a little easier. Over the years, couples, families and close friends accrue a rich store of knowledge of each other’s codes and stratagems, and so are able to call them out. A silence or pause, a forced smile or a stiff “thank you”. These words and gestures might seem entirely innocuous or devoid of any meaning to an outsider, but they are loaded with significance. Established couples know that each is alive to the other’s ruses, which makes it harder for aggression to hide behind passivity and for the passive-aggressive individual to protest their innocence.

But matters are different in the workplace, where such explicitly aggressive behaviour is frowned upon. We are required not only to be co-operative, but must assume the good faith of our colleagues. We cannot accuse them of insidious motives, however much we might suspect them. In team meetings, conflicts and resentments play out in the language of politeness. Any academic, for example, will know that departmental meetings are festering Petri dishes of passive aggression.

In a culture in which complex human traits become fodder for simplistic moral judgments, passive aggression is always going to be a problem of another, maladjusted individual. But perhaps it makes more sense to think of it as a dynamic within relationships, a current that passes between friends, colleagues, couples and families rather than a quality of particular personalities. One consequence of thinking about it this way is that we are made to recognise passive aggression is lurking in all of us.

The art of psychotherapy involves confronting the patient with difficult truths. Though its conscious intent is to be empathetic and non-judgmental, the combination of deliberate pushback and measured tone can easily resemble passive aggression.

What happens to anger and aggression when they’re outlawed and denied any outlet for expression? Psychoanalysis understands aggression as a drive, an internal force that is constantly exerting pressure on our minds and bodies to discharge itself. According to a narrow definition, this might mean shouting or squaring off or even a physical blow. But it would be better to characterise aggression as any form of self-assertion, whether in word or deed. We cannot, for example, insist to a parent, teacher or boss on our right to speak without summoning up some aggressive energy.

Passive aggression is almost always a language unconsciously shared between unspoken adversaries.

The great advantage of passive aggression is not only that it allows us simultaneously to exercise and to deny our aggression but that it weaponises our vulnerability. Instead of exposing our feelings of insecurity, passivity becomes a sneaky way of asserting ourselves. Perhaps we should call it aggressive passivity instead.

How might we cultivate forms of confrontation that allow us to express strong and difficult feelings without descending into aggression? Psychotherapy offers an essential example of this balancing act, by providing a space for curiosity about how the other person feels without the pressure to adjudicate who’s in the right.

 

Might we forge similarly honest and unantagonistic ways to communicate with each other in the workplace and the wider world? The obstacle, of course, is our own hard-wired defences, and especially the anxiety that open disagreement will draw rejection. In a fiercely hierarchical world of bosses and middle managers and underlings, is the very idea of such openness a naive pipe dream?

 

Source: Economist Article written by Josh Cohen