The Foundations of Personality by Abraham Myerson (color ebook reader .TXT) 📕

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