The Foundations of Personality, Abraham Myerson [books to read to be successful txt] 📗
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be very beautiful. Those who are attempting to introduce the
ideal of intelligence as a goal to women need of course to
balance it with other ideals, but if successful they will
revolutionize the attitude of women toward life and change the
trend of their character.
Such ideals as beauty and wealth, however, do not acquire their
imperativeness unless at the same time they gratify some
deep-seated group of desires or instincts. Wealth gives too many
things to catalogue here, but fundamentally it gives power, and
so beauty which may lead to wealth is always a source of power,
although this power carries with it danger to the owner. Mankind
has been praising unselfishness for thousands of years, and all
men hate to be called selfish, but selfishness still rules in the
lives of most of the people of the world. Chastity and continence
receive the praise of the religious of the world, as well as of
the ascetic-minded of all types, yet the majority of men, in
theory accepting this ideal, reject it in practice. Selfishness
leads to self-gratification and pleasure; chastity imposes a
burden on desire, and praise and blame are in this instance not
powerful enough to control mankind’s acts, though powerful enough
to influence them. Wherever social pressure and education
influence men and women to conduct which is contrary to the
gratification of fundamental desires, it causes an uneasiness, an
unhappiness and discomfort upon which Graham Wallas[1] has laid
great stress as the balked desire. The history of man is made up
of the struggle of normal instincts, emotions and purposes
against the mistaken inhibitions and prohibitions, against
mistaken praise and blame, reward and punishment. Moral and
ethical ideals develop institutions, and these often press too
heavily upon the life and activities of those who accept them as
authoritative.
[1] See his book “The Great Society” for a fine discussion of
this important matter.
We have spoken as if praise and blame invariably had the same
results. On the contrary, though in general they tend to bring
about uniformity and conformity, people vary remarkably from one
another in their reaction and the same person is not uniform in
his reactions. The reaction to praise is on the whole an
increased happiness and vigor, but of course it may, when
undeserved, demoralize the character and lead to a foolish vanity
and to inefficiency. To those whose conscience is highly
developed, undeserved praise is painful in that it leads to a
feeling that one is deceiving others. Speaking broadly, this is a
rare reaction. Most people accept praise as their due, just as
they attribute success to their merits.[1] The reaction to blame
may be anger, if the blame is felt to be undeserved, and there
are people of irritable ego who respond in this way to all blame
or even the hint of adverse criticism. The reaction may be
humiliation and lowered self-valuation, greatly deenergizing the
character and lowering efficiency. There, again, though this
reaction occurs in some degree to all, others are so constituted
that all criticism or blame is extremely painful and needs to be
tempered with praise and encouragement. Where blame is felt to be
deserved, and where the character is one of striving after
betterment, where the ego is neither irritable nor tender, blame
is an aid to growth and efficiency. Many a man flares up under
blame who “cools” down when he sees the justice of the criticism,
and changes accordingly.
[1] A very striking example of this was noticeable during the
Great War. American business men in general, producers,
distributors, wholesalers, retailers and speculators all got
“rich,”—some in extraordinary measure. Did many of them
attribute this to the fact that there was a “sellers’ market”
caused by the conditions over which the individual business man
had no control? On the contrary, the overwhelming majority quite
complacently attributed the success (which later proved
ephemeral) to their own ability.
Therefore, in estimating the character of any individual, one
must ask into the nature of his environment, the traits and
teachings of the group from which he comes and among whom he has
lived. To understand any one this inquiry must be detailed and
reach back into his early life. Yet not too much stress must be
laid upon certain influences in regard to certain qualities. For
example, the average child is not influenced greatly by
immorality until near puberty, but dishonesty and bad manners
strike at him from early childhood. The large group, the small
group, family life, gang life influence character, but not
necessarily in a direct way. They may act to develop counter-prejudices, for there is no one so bitter against alcoholism as
the man whose father was a drunkard and who himself revolts
against it. And there is no one so radical as he whose youth was
cramped by too much conservatism.
One might easily classify people according to their reaction to
reward, praise, punishment and blame. This would lead us too far
afield. But at least it is safe to say that in using these
factors in directing conduct and character the individual must be
studied in a detailed way. The average child, the average man and
woman is found only in statistics. Everywhere, to deal
successfully, one must deal with the individual.
There is a praise-reacting type to whom praise acts as a tonic of
incomparable worth, especially when he who administers the praise
is respected. And there are employers, teachers and parents who
ignore this fact entirely, who use praise too little or not at
all and who rely on adverse criticism. The hunger for
appreciation is a deep, intense need, and many of the problems of
life would melt before the proper use of praise.
“Fine words butter no parsnips” means that reward of other kinds
is needed to give substance to praise. Praise only without reward
losses its value. “I get lots of ‘Thank you’s’ and ‘You are a
good fellow’,” complained a porter to me once, “but I cannot
bring up my family on them.” In their hearts, no matter what they
say, the majority of people place highly him who is just in
compensation and reward and they want substantial goods. Many a
young scientist of my acquaintance has found that election to
learned societies and praise and respect palled on him as
compared to a living salary. Money can be exchanged for
vacations, education, books, good times and the opportunity of
helping others, but praise has no cash exchange value.
Blame and punishment are intensely individual matters. Where they
are used to correct and to better the character, where they are
the tools of the friends and teacher and not the weapons of the
enemy, great care must be used. Character building is an aim, not
a technique, and the end has justified the means. Society has
just about come to the conclusion that merely punishing the
criminal does not reform him, and merely to punish the child has
but part of the effect desired. In character training punishment
and blame must bring PAIN, but that pain must be felt to be
deserved (at least in the older child and adult) and not arouse
lasting anger or humiliation. It must teach the error of the ways
and prepare the recipient for instruction as to the right away.
Often enough the pain of punishment and blame widens the breach
between the teacher and pupil merely because the former has
inflicted pain without recompense.
One might put it thus: The pleasure of praise and reward must
energize, the pain of blame and punishment. must teach, else
teacher and society have misused these social tools.
“Very well,” I hear some readers say, “is conscience to be
dismissed so shortly? Have not men dared to do right in the face
of a world that blamed and punished; have they not stood without
praise or reward or the fellowship of others for the actions
their conscience dictated?”
Yes, indeed. What, then, is conscience? For the common thought of
the world it is an inward mentor placed by God within the bosom
of man to guide him, to goad him, even, into choosing right and
avoiding wrong. Where the conception of conscience is not quite
so literal and direct it is held to be an immanent something of
innate origin. Whatever it may be, it surely does not guide us
very accurately or well, for there are opposing consciences on
every side of every question, and opponents find themselves
equally spurred by conscience to action and are equally convinced
of righteousness. In the long run it would be difficult to decide
which did more harm in the world, a conscientious persecutor or
bigot, an Alvarez or James the First, or a dissolute,
conscienceless sensualist like Charles the Second. Certainly
consciences differ as widely as digestions.
Conscience, so it seems to me, arises in early childhood with the
appearance of fixed purposes. It is entirely guided at first by
teaching and by praise and blame, for the infant gives no
evidence of conscience. But the infant (or young child) soon
wants to please, wants the favor and smiles of its parents. Why
does it wish to please? Is there a something irreducible in the
desire? I do not know and cannot pretend to answer.
This, however, may be definitely stated. Conscience arises or
grows in the struggle between opposing desires and purposes in
the course of which one purpose becomes recognized as the proper
guide to conduct. Let us take a simple case from the moral
struggles of the child.
A three-year-old, wandering into the kitchen, with mother in the
back yard hanging out the clothes, makes the startling discovery
that there is a pan of tarts, apple tarts, on the kitchen table,
easily within reach, especially if Master Three-Year-Old pulls up
a chair. Tarts! The child becomes excited, his mouth waters, and
those tarts become the symbol and substance of pleasure,—and
within his reach. But in the back of his mind, urging him to stop
and consider, is the memory of mother’s injunction, “You must
always ask for tarts or candy or any goodies before you take
them.” And there is the pain of punishment and scolding and the
vision of father, looking stern and not playing with one. These
are distant, faint memories, weak forces,—but they influence
conduct so that the little one takes a tart and eats it hurriedly
before mother returns and then runs into the dining room or
bedroom. Thus, instead of merely obeying an impulse to take the
tart, as an uninstructed child would, he has now become a little
thief and has had his first real moral struggle.
But it is a grim law that sensual pleasures do not last beyond
the period of gratification. If this were not so there could be
no morality in the world, and conscience would never reach any
importance. Whether we gratify sex appetite or gastric hunger,
the pleasure goes at once. True, there may be a short afterglow
of good feeling, but rarely is it strongly affective, and very
often it is replaced by a positive repulsion for the appetite. On
the other hand, to be out of conformity with your group is a
permanent pain, and the fear of being found out is an anxiety
often too great to be endured. And so our child, with the tart
gone, wishes he had not taken it, perhaps not clearly or
verbally; he is regretful, let us say. Out of this regret, out of
this fear of being found out, out of the pain of nonconformity,
arises the conscience feeling which says, “Thou shalt not” or
“Thou shalt,” according to social teaching.
It may be objected that “Conscience often arrays itself against
society, against social teaching, against perhaps all men.” It is
not my place to
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