THE SUGGESTION OF INFERIORITY
As the initials which boys cut in the bark of a sapling become
great, ugly scars on the grown tree, so the suggestions of
inferiority etched upon the young mind become great ugly scars
in the life of the adult.
You may succeed when others do not believe in you, when everybody
else denounces you even, but never when you do not believe in
yourself.
In olden times criminals, fugitives from justice, and slaves were
branded. The words, "I am a fugitive," "I am a thief," or others
indicating their crime or their inferior status were seared on some part
of the body with a red hot iron.
In Rome robbers were branded on the forehead with a degrading letter.
Laborers in mines, convicts, and gladiators were also branded. In Greece
slaves were sometimes branded with a favorite poetical passage of their
master. In France the branding iron used on slaves and criminals often
took the form of the fleur-de-lis. In England deserters from the army
were marked with the letter D, and vagabonds, robbers and brawlers were
branded in some way to advertise their disgrace.
The barbarous custom of branding human beings with the badge of crime or
inferiority persisted in America even after it had been discontinued in
the mother country. Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" gives us a vivid
picture of the suffering inflicted on the moral delinquent by Puritan
moralists in Colonial days. The tragic heroine, Hester Prynn, is never
allowed to forget her sin. The sinister scarlet letter with which she is
branded proclaims her shame to every one she meets. While long after the
Colonial period, up to the time of their emancipation, slaves were
branded in Christian America with the initials of their owners as they
were in Pagan Greece and Rome.
The mere idea of this stamping human beings with an indelible badge of
disgrace, of inferiority, shocks us moderns. Yet we do not hesitate to
mark people to-day with the scarlet letter of outlawry, the brand of
ostracism. We put the criminal badge on our prisoners by shaving their
heads and clothing them in stripes, thus perpetually keeping before them
the suggestion that they are criminals, outlaws, apart from their kind.
We even carry our branding into our homes. In order to satisfy our cheap
vanity, we force our domestic workers to wear as a mark of inferiority,
a distinctive livery to remind them that they are menials, a lower grade
of being than ourselves. As a matter of fact, if it were not for these
branding distinctions, the maid would, in many instances, be taken for
the mistress and the valet for the master whom they far outrank both in
appearance and character.
There are certain inalienable rights which human beings inherit from
their Maker, rights which no fellow being, no human law or authority is
justified in taking away. No matter what offense a person may commit
against society we have no right to degrade him below the level of a
human being; we have no right so to bombard him with the suggestion of
degradation, of inferiority, that we are almost certain to make him less
a man; to lower his estimate of himself to such a degree that we rob
him of the power even to attempt to regain his self-respect and his
position in society. We have no right to insist that those who work for
us shall wear a badge of inferiority. We have no right to thrust the
suggestion of inferiority perpetually into the mind of any human being.
One of the greatest injuries we can inflict on any one is to convince
him that he is a nobody, that he has no possibilities, and will never
amount to anything. The suggestion of inferiority is responsible for
more blighted ambitions, more stunted lives, more failures, more misery
and unhappiness than almost any other single cause. Just as the constant
dripping of water will wear away stone, so the constant iteration of a
statement will cause its acceptance by the average person. Even though
the facts may be opposed to it, a constant suggestion presented to the
mind impresses us in spite of ourselves and tends to a conviction of its
truth.
When the weight of the Civil War was nearly crushing Lincoln, when it
was the fashion to denounce and criticise and condemn him, when he was
being caricatured as a hideous monster in the jingo press all over the
world, one day, walking the floor in the White House, he was overheard
saying to himself, "Abe Lincoln, are you a dog or are you a man?" During
these dark days it would appear that Lincoln sometimes had a doubt as to
whether he was really the man his closest friends knew him to be, or the
one an antagonistic press pictured him.
The curse of the inferiority suggestion not only tends to destroy our
faith in ourselves, but it often makes even the innocent take on the
appearance of guilt. When Lieutenant Dreyfus, through a foul conspiracy,
was convicted of the crime of treason against France, he showed
outwardly all the manifestations of guilt. When stripped, in the
presence of a vast multitude, in a public square in Paris, of all his
insignia of rank as an officer in the army of France, the epaulettes and
buttons being cut from his uniform and his sword broken, although
conscious of his innocence of the crime imputed to him he actually
looked like the guilty thing he was accused of being. And all but a very
few close friends in the vast concourse that witnessed his public
disgrace believed that even his appearance corroborated his guilt. The
brain of the unfortunate Dreyfus was a wireless receiving station for
the hatred, the contempt of millions of people who believed they were
looking at a vile traitor who had sold valuable military secrets to
Germany.
We are all influenced for good or ill by suggestion, but children and
young people are peculiarly susceptible to it. The constant suggestion
of stupidity, badness, and dullness by teachers or parents, filling a
child's mind with the idea that he is a blockhead, always blundering,
making mistakes, that he is no good, and never will amount to anything,
makes an indelible impression on his plastic mind.
The child naturally looks up to its parents and teachers and accepts
what they say as truth. He has implicit faith in their superior
knowledge and experience, which seem wonderful to him, and when they
tell him he is stupid, dull, slow, or bad, he takes what they say for
granted. He makes up his mind that, since they say so, he must be a
blockhead, and that they are right in thinking he is no good and will
never amount to anything.
It is criminal for a parent or teacher to brand a child as dull, stupid,
bad; to tell him that there is nothing in him and that he will never be
anybody or amount to anything in life. The effect on a sensitive child
is disastrous. Thousands of boys and girls have been stunted mentally,
their careers handicapped, and in some instances completely ruined by
such cruel suggestions of inferiority.
I have known men who kept taunting their sons with what they called
their imbecility and stupidity until the lads came to believe that they
were partial idiots and could not possibly make anything of themselves.
Many of them never did, because they were unable to overcome the
conviction of inferiority impressed upon them by their fathers.
I remember one quite pathetic instance of a sensitive boy whose
slightest mistake evoked a volley of abuse from his father. He would
tell him that he was not "half baked," that he was "an imbecile," "a
blockhead," "a blunderer," "a hopeless good-for-nothing." The little
fellow so completely lost faith in himself and became so cowed that he
hardly dared look people in the face. He could not be induced to enter
his home when there were callers or guests present. He would slink away
and hide himself in the shed or barn until they had gone. In fact, he
became so morbid that he shrank from association even with other boys
and the neighbors whom he had known from babyhood. The boy really had a
fine mind, and when the death of his father threw him on his own
resources, he managed, by sheer will force and dogged persistence, to
succeed in making an honorable place in life. But he has never been able
to get away from the early conviction of his inferiority, of his lack of
ability compared with others around him. All his later life has been
handicapped by those pernicious suggestions. Whenever he is asked to
assume any responsibility, to take a place on a committee or a board, to
speak in public or make himself prominent in any way, these boyhood
mental pictures of his "good-for-nothingness" rise before him like
terrifying ghosts and seriously cripple or paralyze his efforts. He has
always felt that there is some grave defect in his nature and that, try
as he may, he can not entirely overcome his handicap. This crippling,
cramping defective image of himself impressed on this man in childhood
and youth has robbed him of much of the best of life, of all the joy and
exhilaration that come from spontaneity, from the free, unshackled
expression of oneself, of all one's faculties.
Children are affected by praise or blame just as animals are. It is easy
to kill the spirit of a dog by abuse and ill treatment, so that in a
short time he will slink about with his tail between his legs, look
guilty and self-depreciatory. In short, he will take on all the
appearance of a "whipped cur." Thoroughbred horse trainers say that
after a horse has been beaten or abused a few times he loses confidence
in himself. His spirit is broken and when he sees the other horses
getting neck and neck with him, or perhaps gaining on him a little, he
is likely to give up the race. The destruction of self-confidence has
caused many a youth with the latent qualities of a thoroughbred to fail
in life's great race.
There are thousands and thousands of boys who do not develop quickly.
Their brains are strong and capable, but they work slowly, and as a
consequence the boys are misjudged and misunderstood by parents and
teachers alike. In other instances the stupidity and dullness for which
children are berated are only apparent. They are often the result of
timidity, shyness, excessive self-consciousness. The youngsters do not
dare to assert themselves. Especially is this true in families where the
parental rule is stern and repressive. The children are afraid to speak
aloud or to express themselves in any way.
The suggestion of inferiority deepens this defect till it becomes a
mania. Many of the tragedies of the pernicious "ranking system" by
examinations in our public schools and colleges are the result of an
acute sense of inferiority. Every year quite a number of public school
pupils and students in academies and colleges suffer nervous breakdown,
become insane or commit suicide because they fail to pass their
examinations. Chagrin and humiliation at the sense of inferiority
suggested by their failure unbalances them. In most of those cases lack
of confidence, not lack of ability, is the cause of failure.
You may say this is foolishness, but it is true. And if the suggestion
of inferiority is powerful enough to drive young people to suicide,
certainly the opposite, the suggestion of superiority, would multiply
the youth's ability and work a miracle in his career.
A child should never hear the slightest hint to the effect that it is in
any way inferior. Its whole training should tend to develop faith,
confidence in himself, in his powers, in his great possibilities. As the
twig is bent the tree is inclined. The child who is impressed in its
tender formative stage with the idea of its inferiority suffers a wrong
for which nothing in the after years can compensate.
Many young employees, especially if they are at all sensitive, are
irreparably injured by nagging, fault-finding employers, who are
constantly reminding them of their shortcomings, scolding them for every
trivial mistake, and never giving them a word of praise or
encouragement, no matter how creditable their work, or how well they
deserve it.
Enthusiasm is the very soul of success and one cannot be enthusiastic
about his work, he cannot take continued pride in it, if he is
constantly being told that it is no good, that it is in fact
disgracefully bad, that he should be ashamed of himself, and that he
ought to quit if he can't do better. This fault-finding and continual
suggestion of inferiority has ruined many a life.
A young writer, for instance, often gets a serious setback in his early
efforts because of a severe criticism, an unqualified condemnation of
his first book by a reviewer, or the return of his initial manuscript,
with an editor's sneering suggestion that he has made a mistake in his
calling. Harsh critics, editors and book reviewers have deterred many
young writers from developing their talent. The fear of further
criticism or humiliation, of being called foolish, dull or stupid, has
blighted in the bud the career of many talented young people who under
encouragement might have done splendid work. If he is of a sensitive
nature even though he really have great ability such rebuffs often so
dishearten him that he never has the confidence to try again.
In the same way many a possible clergyman or orator has been discouraged
by early failure and the humiliation of ridicule. In other words, unless
a youth is made of very strong material and has a lot of pluck and
indomitable grit, the suggestion of inferiority, perpetual nagging and
discouragement may seriously mar his career.
If instead of carping and harping on the little faults and mistakes of
those under their jurisdiction, and prophesying their utter failure and
ruin, parents, teachers, employers and others in responsible positions
would recognize and appreciate laudable qualities, there would be less
misery and crime in the world, fewer human failures and wrecks.
The perpetual suggestion of inferiority holds more people back from
doing what they are capable of than almost anything else. In the Old
World,--China, Japan, India, in England and other European countries,
for example,--who can measure the harm it has done in the form of
"caste." Think what superb men and women have been held down all their
lives, kept in menial positions, because they were reared in the belief
that once a servant always a servant; that because their parents were
menials they must also be menials!
What splendid brains and fine personalities we see serving in hotels,
restaurants and private households in Europe--often much superior to
the proprietors themselves. Saturated with the idea that the son must
follow in the father's footsteps, though they may be infinitely superior
in natural ability to those they serve, these men remain waiters,
butlers, coachmen, gardeners or humble employees of some sort. No matter
what talents they possess they are held in leash by the ingrained
conviction of generations that the accident of birth has decided their
position in life. They are convinced that the barriers established by
heredity and by caste, an outworn feudal system, are insurmountable.
How delightfully the gentle humorist Barrie satirizes this Old World
condition in his play, "The Admirable Crichton." How skillfully he
portrays the clever and resourceful butler, Crichton, who in the
crucible of a great emergency proves himself a born leader, a man head
and shoulders above the noble lord, his master.
When the yacht carrying the master and his family, Crichton and some
other servants, is wrecked, they escape with their lives to a desert
island. In their desperate plight the barriers of caste are broken down,
and master and man change places. Removed from an artificial
environment, where hereditary rank and wealth determine the status of
the man, Nature unmistakably asserts herself, and Crichton, by the tacit
consent of all, becomes leader. By the force of his inborn ability he
controls the situation. He commands, the others obey. Yet when they are
rescued by a passing ship and brought back to England, old conditions at
once resume their sway. Crichton, without a murmur, or thought of
change, falls back to his former menial position, and all goes on as
before.
While we Americans laugh at, or severely criticize and denounce, the
snobbishness of class distinctions in other countries, we are guilty of
similar snobbishness, especially in regard to one section of our
fellow-Americans--the Negro race. No matter how highly educated, how
able, how refined or charming a man or a woman, if he or she has but a
drop of Negro blood, we brand him or her with the stigma of race
inferiority.
I always feel sympathy for the colored people, especially for the better
educated and more refined men and women of this class who must suffer
keenly from the discrimination against their race. They see white people
avoiding them everywhere; refusing to sit down beside them in public
places, in churches, on trains and cars, everywhere they can possibly
avoid it. In the South they are not permitted to ride in the same cars
with whites, and in other parts of the country, while they may travel on
the ordinary day coaches, they are not allowed on the Pullman cars,
except as waiters and porters. Our hotels, private schools, public
places, and even many of our churches, practice similar discrimination.
The churches pretend to draw no color lines, but by their attitude most
of them practically do so.
Everywhere they turn in this land of ours, where we boast that every man
is "born free and equal," Negroes are embarrassed, placed at a
disadvantage. In all sorts of ways white people are constantly
humiliating them, reminding them that they belong to an inferior race,
and they take their places according to the valuation of those born to
more favorable conditions. This constant suggestion of inferiority has
done much to keep the colored race back, because it has added
tremendously to their sense of real or fancied inferiority and has been
a discouragement to their efforts to make themselves the equals of those
who look down upon them.
We can not help being influenced by other people's opinion of us. It
makes us, according to its nature, think more or less of ourselves, of
our ability. We are similarly affected by our environment. We
unconsciously take on the superiority or inferiority of our
surroundings. Employees who work in cheap, shoddy stores or factories
soon become tagged all over with the marks of inferiority, the cheap
John methods employed in the establishments in which they work and spend
their days.
If the employees in a store like Tiffany's or Altman's, for example,
were to be mixed up with those of some of the cheap, shoddy New York
stores, it would not take much discernment to pick out the worker in the
superior environment from the one in the inferior. To spend one's best
years selling cheap, shoddy merchandise will inevitably leave its mark
on those who do so. Even though we may struggle against it, we are
unconsciously dyed by the quality of our occupation, the character of
the concerns for which we work.
In making your life choice, avoid as you would poison shoddy, fakey
concerns which have no standing in their community. Keep away from
occupations that have a demoralizing tendency. Every suggestion of
inferiority is contagious, and helps to swerve the life from its
possibilities.
Every influence in our environment is a suggestion which becomes a part
of us. If we live with people who lack ambition, who are slovenly,
slipshod, or with people of loose morals, of low flying ideals, we tend
to reflect their qualities. If we mingle much with those who use slangy,
vulgar, incorrect English, people who are not careful about their
manners or their expression, these things will reappear in our own
conversation and manners. If we read inferior books, or associate with
perpetual failures, with people who botch their work and botch their
lives our own standards will suffer from the contagion.
It does not matter whether inferiority relates to manner, to work, to
conversation, to companions, to thought habits--wherever it occurs, its
tendency is to pull down all standards and to cut down the average of
achievement. We are all living sensitive plates on which the example,
the thoughts and suggestions of others, our own thoughts and habits, our
associations and surroundings indelibly etch themselves.
I wish I could burn it into the consciousness of every person who wants
to make a success of life that he cannot do so while he associates
himself with inferiority and harbors a low estimate of himself. Get away
from both. Have nothing to do with them. If you are a victim of the
inferiority suggestion, deny the suggestion, drive it from your mind as
the greatest enemy of your welfare.
You can only do what you think you can. If you hold in mind a cheap,
discreditable picture of yourself; if you doubt your efficiency you are
shackled, you are not free to express yourself. You erect a barrier
between yourself and the power that achieves.
The mere mental acknowledgment or feeling that you are weak,
inefficient, is contagious. It is sensed by other people and their
thought is added to yours in undermining your self-confidence, which is
the bulwark of achievement. No matter what others say or think of you,
always hold in mind a lofty ideal of yourself, a picture of your own
efficiency. Never allow yourself to doubt your ability to do what you
undertake. You can not be inferior, because you are made in God's image.
You can, if you will, make a masterpiece of your life, because it is
part of His plan that you should.