Admiration As A Form Of Defense

What is really happening whenever we feel and express intense admiration for something or someone?

It occurred to me that 'admiration' (of others) could be conceived as a defense mechanism. Many times, we're moved to admire something we value. Whenever, wherever and in whoever we encounter this value in manifestation, we respond automatically with admiring delight. More than delight, there's also a parallel process of identification with the object expressing or manifesting this value. Thus, the object could be another human being or a work of art.

But what type of defense mechanism would this be? I think I'll qualify it as a form of sublimation which is however passive as well as transferential in nature when considered in the light of the classic understanding of sublimation. It is passive because it is achieved not through actions per se, but through sentiment. And it's transferential in the sense that the psyche manages to satisfy a part of its self-actualizing yearnings not through the pathway of a vocation or hobby, but through the realized agency of an object external to it. What the psyche cannot transcend or realize in its own structure due to its unique limitations, it realizes it in another object by transferring the locus and burden of fulfillment to it through the natural affective mechanism of 'admiration'.

This is a highly subtle form of sublimation which I don't think has been recognized in such sense before. But the bigger question remains: if the feeling of admiration and its subsequent expression is a form of defense mechanism by sublimation, what is it defending the ego against? I would say the ego is being protected from the potential despair, bitterness, depression, hostility, and the futile struggle that could result from perceiving a great gap between its desires/aspirations and its structural/functional endowment. It goes without saying that the wider this gap, the more difficult it is to bridge, and the more vulnerable the ego is to afflictions that result from the sense of its own inadequacy.

There are many ways the ego can resolve this devastating dilemma, including and most especially by adjusting or letting go of its aspirations having eventually come to a more accurate appraisal of the strength of the resources available to it or the reality circumscribing its existence. This is the technical meaning of ACCEPTANCE. However, another quite potent solution for egos trapped in this limiting dilemma is to outsource the fulfillment of its goals to others with far greater range and strength of resources. This is the technical meaning of ADMIRATION. The beauty of this solution (like all other truly adaptive defense mechanisms) is that both the admirer and the person being admired need each other. The person admiring enjoys the satisfaction of fulfilling a goal beyond their own means by identifying with another person who is able to. And the person being admired enjoys the benefit of attention. The former reaps a psychological reward, the latter a socioeconomic one.