The Courage to Be Disliked

by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

This is the difference between ‘aetiology’ (the study of causation) and teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause). Everything you have been telling me is based in aetiology. As long as we stay in aetiology, we will not take a single step forward.

We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.’

‘People are not driven by past causes, but move toward goals that they themselves set’—that was the philosopher’s claim.

PHILOSOPHER: There’s nothing extraordinary about it. It’s been repeated ever since the classical Greek era. Have you heard the saying ‘no one desires evil’? It’s a proposition generally known as a Socratic paradox.

PHILOSOPHER: Without question, there is no shortage of behaviour that is evil. But no one, not even the most hardened criminal, becomes involved in crime purely out of a desire to engage in evil acts. Every criminal has an internal justification for getting involved in crime. A dispute over money leads someone to engage in murder, for instance. To the perpetrator, it is something for which there is a justification, and which can be restated as an accomplishment of ‘good’. Of course, this is not good in a moral sense, but good in the sense of being ‘of benefit to oneself’.

PHILOSOPHER: The Greek word for ‘good’ (agathon) does not have a moral meaning. It just means ‘beneficial’. Conversely, the word for ‘evil’ (kakon) means ‘not beneficial’. Our world is rife with injustices and misdeeds of all kinds, yet there is not one person who desires evil in the purest sense of the word; that is to say something ‘not beneficial’.

PHILOSOPHER: Yes, you could put it that way. To be a little more accurate, it is ‘the way one’s life should be’. You probably think of disposition or personality as something with which you are endowed, without any connection to your will. In Adlerian psychology, however, lifestyle is thought of as something that you choose for yourself.

PHILOSOPHER: When we try to change our lifestyles, we put our great courage to the test. There is the anxiety generated by changing, and the disappointment attendant to not changing. I am sure you have selected the latter.

PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.

It’s actually that he wants to leave the possibility of ‘I can do it if I try’ open, by not committing to anything. He doesn’t want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn’t want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it. In another five or ten years, he will probably start using other excuses like ‘I’m not young anymore’ or ‘I’ve got a family to think about now.’

as Adler’s teleology tells us, ‘No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.’ That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life.

ALL PROBLEMS ARE INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS

PHILOSOPHER: You were so afraid of interpersonal relationships that you came to dislike yourself. You’ve avoided interpersonal relationships by disliking yourself.

please understand that what you are feeling is not an objective inferiority, but a subjective feeling of inferiority. Even with an issue like height, it’s all reduced to its subjectivity.

One holds up various ideals or goals, and heads toward them. However, on not being able to reach one’s ideals, one harbours a sense of being lesser.

Adler is saying that the pursuit of superiority and the feeling of inferiority are not diseases, but stimulants to normal, healthy striving and growth. If it is not used in the wrong way, the feeling of inferiority, too, can promote striving and growth.

So, one thinks to oneself, I’m not well educated, so I can’t succeed, or I’m not good-looking, so I can’t get married. When someone is insisting on the logic of ‘A is the situation, so B cannot be done’ in such a way in everyday life, that is not something that fits in the feeling of inferiority category. It is an inferiority complex.

The condition of having a feeling of inferiority is a condition of feeling some sort of lack in oneself in the present situation. So then, the question is— YOUTH: How do you fill in the part that’s missing, right? PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. How to compensate for the part that is lacking. The healthiest way is to try to compensate through striving and growth. For instance, it could be by applying oneself to one’s studies, engaging in constant training or being diligent in one’s work. However, people who aren’t equipped with that courage end up stepping into an inferiority complex. Again, it’s thinking, I’m not well educated, so I can’t succeed. And it’s implying your capability by saying, ‘If only I were well educated, I could be really successful.’ That ‘the real me’, which just happens to be obscured right now by the matter of education, is superior.

One is suffering from strong feelings of inferiority, and, on top of that, one doesn’t have the courage to compensate through healthy modes of striving and growth. That being said, one can’t tolerate the inferiority complex of thinking, A is the situation, so B cannot be done. One can’t accept ‘one’s incapable self’. At that point, the person thinks of trying to compensate in some other fashion, and looks for an easier way out. YOUTH: What way is that? PHILOSOPHER: It’s to act as if one is indeed superior, and to indulge in a fabricated feeling of superiority.

But those who make themselves look bigger on borrowed power are essentially living according to other people’s value systems—they are living other people’s lives. This is a point that must be emphasised.

As Adler clearly indicates, ‘The one who boasts does so only out of a feeling of inferiority.’

PHILOSOPHER: The person who assumes a boasting manner when talking about his upbringing and the like; the various misfortunes that have rained down upon him. If someone should try to comfort this person, or suggest some change be made, he’ll refuse the helping hand by saying, ‘You don’t understand how I feel.’ YOUTH: Well, there are people like that, but … PHILOSOPHER: Such people try to make themselves ‘special’ by way of their experience of misfortune, and with the single fact of their misfortune try to place themselves above others. Take the fact that I am short, for instance. Let’s say that kind-hearted people come up to me and say, ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ or ‘Such things have nothing to do with human values.’ Now, if I were to reject them and say, ‘You think you know what short people go through, huh?’, no one would say a thing to me anymore. I’m sure that everyone around me would start treating me just as if I were a boil about to burst, and would handle me very carefully—or, should I say, circumspectly. YOUTH: Absolutely true. PHILOSOPHER: By doing that, my position becomes superior to other people’s, and I can become special. Quite a few people try to be a ‘special being’ by adopting this kind of attitude when they are sick or injured, or suffering the mental anguish of heartbreak. YOUTH: So, they reveal their feeling of inferiority, and use it to their advantage? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. They use their misfortune to their advantage, and try to control the other party with it. By declaring how unfortunate they are and how much they have suffered, they are trying to worry the people around them (their family and friends, for example), and to restrict their speech and behaviour, and control them. The people I was talking about at the very beginning, who shut themselves up in their rooms, frequently indulge in feelings of superiority that use misfortune to their advantage. So much so that Adler himself pointed out, ‘In our culture weakness can be quite strong and powerful.’

PHILOSOPHER: Adler says, ‘In fact, if we were to ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.’ The baby rules over the adults with his weakness. And it is because of this weakness that no one can control him.

Rather, he’s saying that on the same level playing field, there are people who are moving forward, and there are people who are moving forward behind them.

The pursuit of superiority is the mindset of taking a single step forward on one’s own feet, not the mindset of competition of the sort that necessitates aiming to be greater than other people.

First, there are two objectives for behaviour: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. Then, the objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviours are the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.

He referred to them as ‘tasks of work’, ‘tasks of friendship’ and ‘tasks of love’, and all together as ‘life tasks’.

No, please think of this solely in terms of interpersonal relationships. That is, the distance and depth in one’s interpersonal relationships. Adler sometimes used the expression ‘three social ties’ to emphasise the point.

But Adler does not accept restricting one’s partner. If the person seems to be happy, one can frankly celebrate that condition. That is love. Relationships in which people restrict each other eventually fall apart.

DENY THE DESIRE FOR RECOGNITION

DO NOT LIVE TO SATISFY THE EXPECTATIONS OF OTHERS

Who ultimately is going to receive the end result brought about by the choice that is made?