The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
Our _social self-seeking_, in turn, is carried on directly through
our amativeness and friendliness, our desire to please and attract
notice and admiration, our emulation and jealousy, our love of glory,
influence, and power, and indirectly through whichever of the material
self-seeking impulses prove serviceable as means to social ends. That
the direct social self-seeking impulses are probably pure instincts is
easily seen. The noteworthy thing about the desire to be 'recognized'
by others is that its strength has so little to do with the worth of
the recognition computed in sensational or rational terms. We are
crazy to get a visiting-list which shall be large, to be able to say
when any one is mentioned, "Oh! I know him well," and to be bowed to
in the street by half the people we meet. Of course distinguished
friends and admiring recognition are the most desirable--Thackeray
somewhere asks his readers to confess whether it would not give each
of _them_ an exquisite pleasure to be met walking down Pall Mall with
a duke on either arm. But in default of dukes and envious salutations
almost anything will do for some of us; and there is a whole race of
beings to-day whose passion is to keep their names in the newspapers,
no matter under what heading, 'arrivals and departures,' 'personal
paragraphs,' 'interviews,'--gossip, even scandal, will suit them
if nothing better is to be had. Guiteau, Garfield's assassin, is
an example of the extremity to which this sort of craving for the
notoriety of print may go in a pathological case. The newspapers
bounded his mental horizon; and in the poor wretch's prayer on the
scaffold, one of the most heartfelt expressions was: "The newspaper
press of this land has a big bill to settle with thee, O Lord!"
Not only the people but the places and things I know enlarge my Self
in a sort of metaphoric social way. "_Ça me connaît_," as the French
workman says of the implement he can use well. So that it comes about
that persons for whose _opinion_ we care nothing are nevertheless
persons whose notice we woo; and that many a man truly great, many a
woman truly fastidious in most respects, will take a deal of trouble
to dazzle some insignificant cad whose whole personality they heartily
despise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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