ety's rules. Although, Gotti was a leader, but then again, so was Nixon.Any admiration we have for criminals is reluctant due to our mental conflict on the issue. We try to minimize this conflict by developing certain strategies. One such strategy is to rationalize our admiration of criminals by endowing them with certain virtues such as greatness or glamour. Another strategy is repression, whereby we bar from consciousness our admiration for criminals and replace it with loathing.One function of romanticizing criminals and their place of punishment is to “ward off the various narcissistic wounds to which our flesh is heir—the fear of leading prosaic, meaningless lives and the pain of recognizing our ultimate solitude and our mortal condition.” (Buruma)Byron's hero's, or outlaws in the sense of technicalities, as shown in the example with Gotti, are strikingly similar to how we view the criminal world today. Elegance verses smut....
