The Foundations of Personality [103]
and because of the enormous reading public, the artificial nature of convention has been emphasized to that large part of the community that desires to be different merely for the sake of being different, and there is built up a conventional unconventionality. It has become the mark of the artist, the great in spirit, to be unconventional (at least in novels), and so there are a hundred "unconventional" poseurs to one genuinely free in spirit. Anything that becomes a dogma or a cult is not unconventional, for it is the standard or the custom of a group. Most Bohemians, so-called, are poseurs and conventionalized to their marrow. And most of the really unconventional are "freaks," "odd sticks" whose grotesque individualities cannot conform. But in the mass of the unconventional one finds here and there, like nuggets of gold in sand, the true reformers of the world. The "poseurs" in custom have their analogies in the pompous, over-dignified and over-important; the affected, in a word. Affectation is felt to be a disharmony between the pose and the inner values or an attempt to win superiority or "difference" of a superior kind by acting. In either case it excites ridicule, hatred or disgust, and shafts at it form part of the stock in trade of the satirist, humorist and indeed every portrayer of life. What men demand of each other is sincerity, and even where the insincerity is merely a habitual pose it arouses hostile feeling which expresses itself all the way from criticism to the overt act. Since to feel superior is so highly prized in social relationships of all kinds, part of the technique of those seeking some advantage or other--economic, social, personal--from those who must be influenced is to give them the feeling of superiority. Flattery, cajolement, humble supplication and the finer maneuvers of tact, all have this in mind. These however are palatable to the intelligent only when felt to be sincere and when emanating from some one more or less esteemed, though there are plenty who "fall" for the grossest flattery from almost any one, whose ego feeling is easily inflated with a corresponding shrinking in judgment and common sense. In the relations of men and women, flattery in one shape or another plays an enormous role --from the effect on women of the statement or implication in a subtle or gross way that they are charming, and the effect on men of acknowledged superiority in strength courage or intelligence. Of course, in both cases the effect is partly in the physical attractiveness of the flatterer and tends to become ridiculous when he or she is without charm. The simpering language that is irresistible when uttered by a starry-eyed maid of eighteen loses somewhat in beauty and effect when emanating from the lips of bespectacled forty. The power to use and the power to resist flattery in any of its forms have played almost as great a role in the history of the race as strength, beauty or intelligence. It would be futile to elaborate in detail the various ways of seeking superiority or resisting inferiority. Two directions of this impulse need some attention, as they lead to personality traits of great importance. "Having one's way" becomes a dominant desire with many people, and much of the clashing that occurs in families, organizations and the council chambers of nations arises from a childish, egoistic seeking of superiority. People enter into the most heated and sterile arguments, often coming to blows, if the course of conduct they desire to have followed is modified or blocked. Even when secretly convinced that they are wrong, husbands and wives will continue to insist on victory, for too often the domestic relationship is a struggle for leadership and dominance rather than a partnership and a conference. Two heads are better than one when the intelligence within the heads is of good grade and when the desire for superiority does not take trivial directions. And the effect of yielding to the whims of children is to develop an irritable, domineering egoism bent on having its own way, resisting reasonable