The Foundations of Personality

by Abraham Myerson

There are people, especially among the hysterics, who are deeply wounded when sympathy is not given, when appreciation and praise is withheld or if there is the suggestion of criticism. They are people of a "tender ego," not self-sustaining, demanding the help of others and reacting to the injury sustained, when it is not given, by prolonged emotion. These sensitive folk, who form a most difficult group, do not all react alike, of course. Some respond with anger and ideas of persecution, some with a prolonged humiliation and feeling of inferiority; still others develop symptoms that are meant to appeal to the conscience of the one who has wounded them. On the other hand, there are those whose feeling of self sustains them in the face of most criticism, who depend largely upon the established mentor within themselves and who seek to conform to the rulings of that inward mentor. Such people, if not martyred too soon, and if possessed of a fruitful ideal, lay new criteria for praise and blame.

Contrasting with the desires and purposes of fellowship we find the desires and purposes of superiority and power. Primarily these are based on what McDougall calls the instinct of self-display, which becomes intellectualized and socialized very early in the career of the child. In fact, we might judge a man largely by the way he displays himself, whether by some essentially personal bodily character, some essentially mental attribute or some essentially moral quantity; whether he seeks superiority as a means of getting power or as a means of doing good; whether he seeks it within or without the code. One might go on indefinitely, including such matters as whether he seeks superiority with tact or the reverse and whether he understands the essential shallowness and futility of his pursuit or not. To be superior is back of most of striving, and it is the most camouflaged of all human motives and pleasures. For this is true: that the preaching of humility, of righteous conduct, of service, of self-sacrifice, by religion and ethics have convinced man that these are the qualities one ought to have. So men seek, whenever they can, to dress their other motives and feelings in the garb of altruism.

Camouflage of motive as a means of social approval has thus become a very important part of character; we seek constantly to penetrate the camouflage of our rivals and enemies and bitterly resist any effort to strip away our own, often enough hiding it successfully from ourselves. There are few who face boldly their own egoism, and their sincerity is often admired. Indeed, the frank child is admired because his egoism is refreshing, i. e., he offers no problem to the observer. Out of the uneasiness that we feel in the presence of dissimulation and insincerity has arisen the value we place on sincerity, frankness and honesty. To be accused of insincerity or dishonesty of motive and act is fiercely resented.

The desire for power and superiority will of course take different directions in each person, according to his make-up, teaching and the other circumstances of his life. Property as a means of pleasure, and as a symbol of achievement and of personal worth, is valued highly from the earliest days of the child's life. Very early does the child show that it prizes goods, shows an acquisitive trend that becomes finally glorified into a goal, an ambition. Money and goods become the symbol and actuality of power, triumph, superiority, pleasure, safety, benevolence and a dozen and one other things. Men who seek money and goods may therefore be seeking very different things; one is merely acquisitive, has the miser trend; another loves the game for the game's sake, picks up houses, bonds, money, ships, as a fighter picks up trophies, and they stand to him as symbols of his superiority. Some see in property the fulcrum by which they can apply the power that will shift the lives of other men and make of themselves a sort of God or Fate in the destinies of others. For others, and for all in part, there is in money the safety against emergencies and further a something that purchases pleasure, whether that pleasure be of body, or taste or spirit. Wine and women, pictures and beautiful things, leisure for research and contemplation,—money buys any and all of these, and as the symbol of all kinds of value, as the symbol of all kinds of power, it is sought assiduously by all kinds of men.

There are many who start on their careers with the feeling and belief that money is a minor value, that to be useful and of service is greater than to be rich. But this idealistic ambition in only a few cases stands up against the strain of life. Unless money comes, a man cannot marry, or if he marries, then his wife must do without ease and leisure and pretty things, and he must live in a second-rate way. Sooner or later the idealist feels himself uneasily inferior, and though he may compensate by achievement or by developing a strong trend towards seclusiveness, more often he regrets bitterly his idealism and in his heart envies the rich. For they, ignorant and arrogant, may purchase his services, his brains and self-sacrifice and buy these ingredients of himself with the air of one purchasing a machine. So the idealist finds himself condemned to a meager life, unless his idealism brings him wealth, and he drifts in spirit away from the character of his youth. It is the strain of life, the fear of old age and sickness, the silent pressure of the deprivations of a man's beloved ones, the feeling of helplessness in disaster and the silent envious feeling of inferiority that makes inroads in the ranks of the idealists so that at twenty there are ten idealists to the one found at forty.

I remember well one of my colleagues, working patiently in a laboratory, out of sight of the world and out of the stream of financial reward, enthused by science and service, who threw up his work and went into the practice of medicine. "Why?" I asked him. "Because when one of my brothers took sick and was in dire need, I who loved him could not help. I had no money, and all my monographs put together could not help him buy a meal. There is a cousin of ours, who has grown rich running a cheap moving-picture house, where the taste of the community is debauched every day. He lent my brother two thousand dollars out of his superfluities; it involved no sacrifice to him, for he purchased a third car at the same time—and yet HE is our savior. Love alone is a torture. I am going to get money."

The world is built up on the sacrifices of the idealists, and eternally it crucifies them. Wealth and power are to him who has a marketable commodity, and one cannot complain when true genius becomes rich. But the genius to make money may be and often is—an exploiting type of ability, a selfishly practical industry, which neither invents nor is of great service. The men who now do the basic work in invention and scientific work in laboratories are poorly paid and only now and then honored. Every year in the United States hundreds of them leave their work in research and seek "paying jobs," to the impoverishment of the world, but to their own financial benefit. Countries where the scramble for wealth is not so keen, where the best brains do not find themselves pressed into business, produce far more science, art and literature than we do, with all our wealth. We will continue to be a second-rate nation in these regards, still looking for our great American novel and play, still seeking real singers and artists, until our idealism can withstand the pressure of our practical civilization.

For here is a great division in people. There are those who become enthused by the noble aims of life, by the superiority and service that come in the work of teacher, priest, physician, scientist, philosopher and philanthropist, and those that seek superiority and power in wealth, station and influence. Those who, will fellowship and those who will power is a short way of putting it, the idealists and the practical is another. Fellowship is built up on sympathy, pity, friendliness and the desire to help others; it is essentially democratic, and in it runs the cooperative activities of man. For it is not true that "competition is the life of trade"; cooperation is its life. Men dig ore in mines, others transport their produce, others smelt it and work it into shape, according to the designs and plans of still other men; then it is transported by new groups and marketed by an endless chain of men whose labors dovetail to the end that mankind has a tool, a habitation or an ornament. The past and present cooperate in this labor, as do the remote ends of the earth. Competition is the SPUR of trade; its mighty sinews, its strong heart and stout lungs are cooperative.

Power is aristocratic, and elaborates and calls into play competitive spirit. In all men the desire for power and the desire for fellowship blend and interplay in their ambitions and activities; in some fellowship predominates, in others power. If a man specializes in fellowship aims, without learning the secret of power, he is usually futile and sterile of results; if a man seeks power only and disregards fellowship, is hated and is a tyrant, cruel and without pity. To be an idealist and practical is of course difficult and usually involves a compromise of the ideal. Some degree of compromise is necessary, and the rigid idealist would have a better sanction for his refusal to compromise if he or any one could be sure of the perfection of his ideal.

The practical seek their own welfare or the welfare of others through direct means, through exerting the power and the influence that is money and station. Rarely do they build for a distant future, and their goal is in some easily and popularly understood good. What they say and what they do applies to getting rich or healthy, to being good in a conventional way; success is their goal and that success lies in the tangibles of life. They easily become sordid and mean, since it is not possible always to separate good and evil when one is governed by expediency and limited idea of welfare. This is also true,—that while the practical usually tend to lose idealism entirely, and find themselves the tools of habits and customs they cannot break from, now and then a practical man reaches a high place of power and becomes the idealist.