How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
109/400
- Publication/creation
- London : George Routledge, 1932.
- Physical description
- xiv, 374 pages ; 22 cm
- Contributors
- Wolfe, W. Béran 1900-1935.
- Notes
-
This edition was reprinted in 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1946 and 1948.
Copy 1 Note: 1937 reprint. X158203
- Attribution and usage
-
Wellcome Collection
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The image contains the following text:
Plus Gestures ” and the Superiority Complex
The fiction of power is much more easily attained than
real power and satisfaction, and that is why we have so
very many neurotics strutting on the stage of life acting
“as if ” they were kings and queens. These strutters
are gnawed by a constant fear that their fellow-men will
“ call their bluff ” or pierce the thin fabric of their
disguise. This leads them to isolation, to make-believe,
to redoubled, but always useless, efforts to maintain their
artificial superiority. To this end they develop a variety
of gestures which make them appear bigger and more
important than they really are. We have named these
character traits “ plus gestures ”. The sum total of
these “ plus gestures ” is usually called a “ superiority
complex ” by people who do not understand it. Let us
examine this superiority complex more closely because
its explanation is the key to the understanding of a great
many human traits.
The superiority complex is never more than a smoke¬
screen about an inferiority complex. There is a very good
biological basis for an inferiority complex, as we have
shown in a previous chapter, but the sole basis for a
superiority complex is the desire to prevent others from
thinking as badly of you as you think of yourself. The
big dog, who is sure of his power, does not bark—it is
only the little dog who barks and jumps at the big dog so
that he will not pass unnoticed. Similarly, really great
men and women do not boast of their greatness because
their works speak eloquently enough for themselves.
I once asked a patient who denied that he had an
inferiority complex why he needed a million pounds to
feel secure. Men who are really certain of their value to
their fellows do not strive for a million pounds. He
had never realized that, in his own mind, his opinion of
himself must have been a very unfavourable one if he
needed the objective evidence of so much money to feel
socially significant.
Much of the mad scramble of modern civilization