How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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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