The Foundations of Personality [80]
tribe. My objection to them is based on this,--that mankind must see clearly in order to rid itself of unnecessary suffering. Hiding one's head (and brains) in a desert of optimism merely perpetuates evil, even though one sufferer here and there is deluded into happiness. Sorrow may enrich the nature or it may embitter and narrow it. Wisdom may spring from it; indeed, who can be wise who has not sorrowed? Says Goethe: "Wer nie sein Brot in Thranen ass Wer nie die kummervollen Nachte Auf seinem Bette weinend sass Er weiss Euch nicht--himmelischen Machte."
The afflicted in their sorrow may turn from self-seeking to God and good deeds. But sorrow may come in a trivial nature from trivial causes; the soul may be plunged into despair because one has been denied a gift or a pleasure. The demonstrativeness of grief or sorrow is not at all in proportion to the emotion felt; it is more often based on the effort to get sympathy and help. For sorrow is "Help, help" in one form or another, even though one refuses to be comforted. All our emotions, because they are socially powerful, become somewhat theatrical; in some completely theatrical. We are so constituted that emotional display is not indifferent to us; it pleases, repels, annoys, angers, frightens, disgusts or awes us according to the kind of emotion displayed, the displayer and the circumstances. The psychologists speak of sympathy as this susceptibility to the emotions of others, but there is an antipathy to their emotions, as well. If we feel that our emotions will be "well received," we do not fear to display them, and therein is one of the uses of the friend. If we feel that they will be poorly received, that they will annoy or anger or disgust, we strive to repress them. The expression of emotion, especially of fear and sorrow, has become synonymous with weakness, and a powerful self-feeling operates against their display, especially in adults, men and certain races. It is no accident that the greatest actors are from the Latin and Hebrew races, for there is a certain theatricality in fear and sorrow that those schooled to repression lose. We resent what we call insincerity in emotional expression because we fear being "fooled," and there are many whose experiences in being "fooled" chill sympathy with doubt. We resent insincere sympathy, on the other hand, because we regret showing weakness before those to whom that weakness is regarded as such and who perhaps rejoice at it as ridiculous. We like the emotional expression of children because we can always sympathize, through our tender feeling with them, and their very sincerity pleases as well. Is there a harm in the repression of emotion?[1] Is emotion a heaped-up tension which, unless it is discharged, causes damage? Shall man inhibit his anger, fear, joy, sorrow, disgust, at least in some measure, or shall he express them in gesture, speech and act? The answer is obvious: he must control them, and in that term control we mean, not inhibition, not expression in its naive sense, but that combination of inhibition, expression and intelligent act we call adjustment. To express fear in the face of danger or anger at an offense might thwart the whole life's purpose, might bring disaster and ruin. The emotions are poor adjustments in their most violent form, their natural form, and invite disaster by clouding the intelligence and obscuring permanent purposes. Therefore, they must be controlled. To establish this control is a primary function of training and intelligence and does no harm unless carried to excess. True, there is a relief in emotional expression, a wiping out of sorrow by tears, an increase of the pleasure of joy in freely laughing, a discharge of anger in the blow or the hot word, even the profane word. There is a time and a place for these things, and to get so "controlled" that one rarely laughs or shows sadness or anger is to atrophy, to dry up. But the emotional expression makes it easy to become an habitual weeper or stormer, makes it easy to become the over-emotional type, whose reaction
The afflicted in their sorrow may turn from self-seeking to God and good deeds. But sorrow may come in a trivial nature from trivial causes; the soul may be plunged into despair because one has been denied a gift or a pleasure. The demonstrativeness of grief or sorrow is not at all in proportion to the emotion felt; it is more often based on the effort to get sympathy and help. For sorrow is "Help, help" in one form or another, even though one refuses to be comforted. All our emotions, because they are socially powerful, become somewhat theatrical; in some completely theatrical. We are so constituted that emotional display is not indifferent to us; it pleases, repels, annoys, angers, frightens, disgusts or awes us according to the kind of emotion displayed, the displayer and the circumstances. The psychologists speak of sympathy as this susceptibility to the emotions of others, but there is an antipathy to their emotions, as well. If we feel that our emotions will be "well received," we do not fear to display them, and therein is one of the uses of the friend. If we feel that they will be poorly received, that they will annoy or anger or disgust, we strive to repress them. The expression of emotion, especially of fear and sorrow, has become synonymous with weakness, and a powerful self-feeling operates against their display, especially in adults, men and certain races. It is no accident that the greatest actors are from the Latin and Hebrew races, for there is a certain theatricality in fear and sorrow that those schooled to repression lose. We resent what we call insincerity in emotional expression because we fear being "fooled," and there are many whose experiences in being "fooled" chill sympathy with doubt. We resent insincere sympathy, on the other hand, because we regret showing weakness before those to whom that weakness is regarded as such and who perhaps rejoice at it as ridiculous. We like the emotional expression of children because we can always sympathize, through our tender feeling with them, and their very sincerity pleases as well. Is there a harm in the repression of emotion?[1] Is emotion a heaped-up tension which, unless it is discharged, causes damage? Shall man inhibit his anger, fear, joy, sorrow, disgust, at least in some measure, or shall he express them in gesture, speech and act? The answer is obvious: he must control them, and in that term control we mean, not inhibition, not expression in its naive sense, but that combination of inhibition, expression and intelligent act we call adjustment. To express fear in the face of danger or anger at an offense might thwart the whole life's purpose, might bring disaster and ruin. The emotions are poor adjustments in their most violent form, their natural form, and invite disaster by clouding the intelligence and obscuring permanent purposes. Therefore, they must be controlled. To establish this control is a primary function of training and intelligence and does no harm unless carried to excess. True, there is a relief in emotional expression, a wiping out of sorrow by tears, an increase of the pleasure of joy in freely laughing, a discharge of anger in the blow or the hot word, even the profane word. There is a time and a place for these things, and to get so "controlled" that one rarely laughs or shows sadness or anger is to atrophy, to dry up. But the emotional expression makes it easy to become an habitual weeper or stormer, makes it easy to become the over-emotional type, whose reaction