A difficult book, in part because Adler isn't all that good at expressing his ideas: he's a practitioner, not a writer, and it shows. Further, I believe Understanding Human Nature has more indirect value than direct value: the reader has to move from what the book teaches to a layer of second-order insights. I'll explain what I mean in a moment.
First a quick summary of the book's core themes and ideas. According to Adler, we all have a psyche, formed and largely fixed in childhood, and that psyche has an ulterior psychological goal. For most of us, unfortunately, that goal takes the form of striving for power, control, attention, or superiority. Throughout the book Adler gives examples where peoples' psyche-driven strivings cause suffering, both for themselves as well as everyone else in their blast radius.
Most of us will likely resist Adler's claim that to understand other people and their motivations you must first understand their psyches' "ulterior motive." Likewise, as a believer in personal growth and development, I also don't want it to be true that our psychological nature is largely fixed![1] But beneath these rather unappetizing core views, there are quite a few encouraging and useful second-order insights. They require inverting Adler's thinking, flipping his arguments around to consider them from different angles.
Let's start with changing ourselves. Even if it is true that we cannot change our core psychological nature, we can always change our actions. The difference is subtle but important. Thus we can select the behaviors we wish to practice as well as behaviors we wish to avoid. If Adler is right that almost everyone has a psyche predicated on striving for power, control, attention, or superiority--and further if he's right that most of humanity's problems spring from these strivings--we can invert this idea and not strive for these things. By doing so, you immediately remove all of the symptoms of the underlying problem, which is effectively the same as solving the problem!
Again: never strive for superiority, attention or power over others. At all. Ever. I suspect it will make our psychological lives--as well as the lives of those around us--far better. In fact, perhaps we can flip this idea yet again and strive for the opposite: striving for insignificance, striving for a lack of superiority, and never striving for attention or power. Consider it.
I'll give one more example where flipping around Adler's ideas gives us an opportunity to develop a superpower. One of the key themes late in the book is the idea of "conviviality." Adler considers it a sort of meta-trait indicating a person's ability to live cooperatively and successfully with others--something the psychologically maladjusted people he discusses throughout this book cannot do. Well, why not invert the idea and just practice conviviality? In other words, behave in a manner that is friendly, lively, collaborative, such that you make yourself easy to be around and easy to live with. Thus perhaps we can do an end-run around most psychological difficulties simply by choosing to behave convivially all the time. Think of it as a daily practice, as a kata, like Zen breathing.
[A quick affiliate link to Amazon for those readers who would like to support my work here: if you purchase your Amazon products via any affiliate link from this site, or from my sister site Casual Kitchen, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!]
To reiterate: wherever Adler suggests desirable characteristics--and the book is filled with examples, ranging from having the ability to deal with change, or setbacks, or even having the humility to understand oneself--the reader can adopt a second-order conclusion and choose to engage in behaviors that lead to those characteristics. I think this is by far the most valuable way to read this book.
Just two more quick things, starting with thoughts on Adler's writing and what his style liabilities can teach us about improving our own writing. While certain chapters sing out with insight (see for example chapters 9 and 11), in general this book is poorly organized and poorly written. Adler drifts from topic to topic as he wishes, with occasional long and sometimes frustratingly unresolved tangents. Much of the time it isn't always clear what Adler really wants his readers to get out of his discussions.
The fix for this is basic: spend more time thinking about your lead sentences. Sculpt and tighten the lead sentence each chapter (and likewise each paragraph) so your reader knows what you are saying and where you are going. Take your readers by the hand and help them along. It makes an enormous difference in the reader's experience.[2]
One last thought. Adler was yet another revolutionary thinker who was canceled by his peers. As James Hemming writes in this edition's introduction, "...there was for many years a conspiracy of silence--or, worse, distortion--in academic circles to block out Adler's work as inconvenient to those professionally identified either with Freudian theories or behaviourism." Sound familiar? The fact is, cancelling happens in every era, another depressing truth that offers us yet another second-order insight: What are the useful ideas and useful frameworks being cancelled today? Those are the ones to learn.
Footnotes:
[1] Per Adler, yes, we can change ourselves, but only to a minor extent. We can only tinker around the edges of an already established core nature.
[2] For a book that is stylistically the polar opposite of this one, where the author takes readers along, clearly and concisely explaining exactly where he is going and why, I recommend Julian Jaynes' wonderful work The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. That book really gets it right.
[Readers, a friendly warning: the notes and quotes from the text that follow are here to help me order my thinking and better remember what I read. They are almost certainly not worth reading! Feel free to continue, but also feel free to stop right here and return to your lives.]
Notes:
Introduction (by James Hemming)
9ff Comments on the big three: Freud, Adler and Jung. Freud exploring unconscious drives and the sexual instinct, and seeing society as a "stern suppressor of human impulses"; Jung exploring "the formative influence of the personal and collective unconscious," seen as "the universal source of creative energy"; and on Adler as being practical: "His central aim was to help people live effectively."
10 "...there was for many years a conspiracy of silence--or, worse, distortion--in academic circles to block out Adler's work as inconvenient to those professionally identified either with Freudian theories or behaviourism." [Note the same happened with Albert Ellis, his work was suppressed and then stolen.]
10ff "Adler agreed with Freud that the early years are powerfully formative in building the individual personality. Freud then became tangled up in elaborate theorizing about infantile sexuality, while Adler asked, 'What does the world seem like to a young child?'" and arriving at the answer that we strive for "significant self-fulfillment," and then the child either builds courage and confidence exploring its surroundings or it doesn't, and in the latter case "the child must be driven to the conclusion that he/she is not so good as the others and is flawed in some dreadful and dispiriting way. At this point the child's personal authenticity is put at appalling risk because the message is: 'You are no good as you are. You must put up a show of being different.'"
11 Comment here on "the famous Adlerian, Dr. Rudolph Dreikurs" telling his patients "we must have the courage to be imperfect. Life is about courageous striving, not about attaining perfection." On a child growing up either led with love and encouragement to make the most of our abilities, or led by neglect or criticism or distrust and then turning "to any of various phoney means intended to impress others, whom we may even regard as a threat." Further comments here about how parents sometimes take the logic of encouraging the young child too far, into pampering and giving him everything he could want: the pampered child tends to crumble in the face of the real world. Thus Adler saw striving as the way to become our fullest selves.
12 "Anything unnaturally excessive in behaviour or emotional response suggest a faulty element in our life style." [I think this is one of the reasons why it's important to examine any reaction you have to anything: sit with your reaction, "see it" in the Krishnamurtian sense, consider the ramifications of why you are reacting that way, etc. Just stopping to consider it, rather than just reacting, is a major step.]
13ff On Adler's concept of "organ inferiority," which can go both ways: a short man might be more aggressive or you might end like a Hitler; or, you can have the "fantastic courage" of handicapped people surmounting their difficulties. James Hemming writes here about a lovable headmaster he had who had lost his left arm.
Preface [by Alfred Adler]
15 "This book is an attempt to acquaint the general public with the fundamentals of Individual Psychology... The book is based on a year's lectures to an audience of hundreds of men and women of all ages and professions at the People's Institute in Vienna. The purpose of the book is first to point out how the misguided behaviour of the individual affects the harmony of our social and communal life, secondly, to teach individuals to recognize their own mistakes and, finally, to show them how to adjust harmoniously to their social environment."
Introduction
16-17 "It is an oft-repeated truism that people walk past and talk past each other. They approach each other as strangers, not only in society at large but also within the very narrow circle of the family. Most parents complain at one time or another that they cannot understand their children, and most children claim that they are misunderstood by their parents... Human beings would get on together more harmoniously if they had a better knowledge of human nature."
17ff On how the psychological disorders, complexes and delusions in disturbed patients are quite similar to those in normal patients, the psychologically-disordered patients' problems are simply more obvious and more easily recognized; the premises and patterns however are the same. [The author doesn't say it this way at all but maybe you could say they are fractals of each other.] Thus studying abnormal cases can teach us related characteristics in a normal psyche.
18ff On how traits and patterns and adults can be connected to psychological activity in the third or fourth year of life; with the only difference that the adult can hide his real feelings whereas a small child cannot. "The traits we observe in the adult are in fact the direct projection of his childhood experiences." "The psyche does not change its foundation; the individual retains the same tendencies in childhood and in maturity..."
20 "Nothing is more likely to arouse resentment, and nothing will attract greater criticism, than brusquely presenting an individual with the stark facts we have discovered in the exploration of his psyche... An excellent way to acquire a bad reputation is carelessly to misuse one's knowledge, for example in the desire to show how much one has guessed about the character of one's neighbour at dinner. ...the science of human nature compels us to be modest. We must not announce the results of our experiments indiscriminately or hastily. To do so would be understandable in a little child who is anxious to parade and show off all his or her accomplishments but this is hardly appropriate behavior in an adult." [Note the related ideas in Milton Erickson: that it doesn't do any good to explain to a patient what his problems is, or why he has the problem. That just grooves the problem and doesn't lead to healthy change.]
21-22 Adler discusses how "Older is not always wiser!" and that nearly all peoples' patterns of behavior actually never change. Also on how this very idea will be "incomprehensible" to most people. [Think habit loops here, see the book Atomic Habits, for example: you have a lifelong habit loop, you have to insert something new into that loop, you can't actually change the loop itself.] Adler gives an example here of a man who keeps making the same mistakes but blames it on his childhood or various alibis that justify the behavior; "...we can understand why a person does not change his behavior pattern, but instead turns and twists and distorts his experiences to fit into the pattern. The hardest thing for human beings to do is to know themselves and to change themselves." On how apparent changes are often "only a front, valueless so long as the basic motivation has not been modified."
22 [Good quote here, he's saying quite a lot] "...the individual seeking help does not do so in order to feed someone else's personal vanity. The process of transformation, moreover, must be conducted in a way that seems justified to the subject. We know that if a tasty and nutritious dish is carelessly prepared and unattractively presented, it will often be rejected."
23-4 Interesting comment here from Adler on how the "reformed sinner" is well-suited to gain a real appreciation of human nature: such a person has almost drowned in the mistakes and errors of human nature "before dragging themselves clear." "The reformed sinner is therefore as valuable in our day and age as he was in the days when the great religions were first founded. He stands much higher than a thousand righteous men. How does this happen? Picture an individual who has lifted himself above the difficulties of life, extricated himself from the swamp, and learned to take bad experiences and make use of them. He truly understands the good and the bad sides of life. No one can compare with him in this understanding, certainly not the righteous ones who have seen only the good side." [Interesting to think about Saint Columba as an example here: for most of his life Columba was corrupted by his own rage.]
24 "The ability to know ourselves increases with our ability to determine the origins of our actions and the dynamics of our minds. Once someone has understood this, he has become a different person and can no longer escape the inevitable consequences of his knowledge." [Once you see your volition and psychological agency, you cannot unsee it.]
Part One: Fundamentals of Character Development
Chapter 1: What Is the Psyche?
28ff "Psychological activity is a complex of aggressive and defensive mechanisms whose final purpose is to guarantee the continued existence of the organism and to enable it to develop in safety." On purpose and goal-directedness, which are "basic to the concept of adaptation, and the life of the psyche is inconceivable without a goal toward which all our efforts are directed. A person's mental life is determined by his goal." Note also here that the goal may be static or changing.
30ff On the idea that "so few people know exactly what their goal is." However, we can discover/infer the goal of an individual by observing his present activities. [Watch what people do, don't listen to what they say!] Example here of an aggressive man coming to a therapist in a deep depression but with an aggressive attitude toward others; Adler connects this to the man's earliest childhood memory, where his brother was put ahead of him unintentionally by their mother. "The concept of the ideal state--that is, the goal--of each human being is probably formed in the first months of life." [It's kind of harsh to read this, and I don't want it to be true that so much of your nature, your underlying psychological direction, is set so early on. And yet it's probably still true, despite my protestations.]
32 On how a child seeks security and a margin of safety of security "greater than is strictly necessary for the satisfaction of his basic needs" which gives rise "to a tendency towards dominance and superiority."
32 "We must understand that human psychological reactions are not fixed and absolute: every response is only a partial one, temporarily valid but not to be considered the final solution to a problem."
33 On two basic attitudes: an optimistic attitude versus a pessimistic attitude. Adler gives two examples: a child growing up with "the characteristics of a person who considers the tasks of life easily within his power" versus the child who is not confident of being able to solve his problems, manifesting "timidity, introspection, distrust and all those other characteristics and traits with which a weakling seeks to defend himself. His goal will lie beyond his reach, but also far away from the front line where life's real battles are fought." [Again, one way to invert this problem is to never manifest the comportment of the second child here: don't be timid, automatically distrusting, don't be a weakling, fight life's real battles, etc.]
Chapter 2: Social Aspects of Mental Life
34ff On how the individual is limited in his ability to control the community; strange comment here about "the materialistic stratification of society described by Marx and Engels" describing how a community determines the ideological thinking and behavior of individuals; [it sounds that Adler is just saying that the communal environment just is, like laws or like the weather]. On our biological need for communal life because we don't have horns, claws or teeth like other animals; likewise our children need extraordinary care to be kept alive; an interesting discussion of language and how it is a product of communal life; also language is needed to build concepts and work out logic. Also by language we communicate ethics, reason, understanding, emotions, thoughts and concepts to others. And then further on legal codes, taboos, superstitions, education: all of which are governed by the concept of community. "In the course of our investigations it will become increasingly evident that no well-adjusted person can grow up without cultivating a deep sense of fellowship with humanity..."
Chapter 3: The Child and Society
39ff On childhood and its long development; the idea that in infancy the child is dependent on the community and it demands integration with that community. "The psyche accomplishes this by evaluating each situation and negotiating it with the maximum satisfaction of instincts and the least possible discomfort."
40 On the branching of psychological tendencies in the infant: either he can imitate the methods he sees adults using to become stronger, having a desire to grow; or he can display his weakness which will be seen by adults as a demand for their help. Thus on the formation of character types, which begins at an early age; a child might develop in the direction of the acquisition of power, he might choose to seek recognition through courage; or he might "trade on his [own] weakness."
40 Also on compensating for weakness in a child's development: "a thousand talents and capabilities arise from our feelings of inadequacy."
42ff Various examples here of the demands and characteristics of children who are inadequately equipped to take their place in human society, either because of disabilities, or inadequacies, or "organ inferiority" as the author phrases it; also on children who were insufficiently loved or excessively pampered and the difficulties they face: either they are unable to recognize love, or (in the case of a pampered child) they have an inordinate and insatiable craving for affection.
44 "Thus we may conclude that anything may become a means to an end, once the psychological pattern is fixed. The child may develop in an antisocial direction in order to achieve his goal, or he may become a perfectly behaved and admirable child, with the same goal in view. In any group of children there is usually one whose attention-seeking takes the form of unruly behaviour, while another, being more shrewd, attains the same goal through conspicuous virtue."
46 Finally comments here on the basic fixity of a lot of these early childhood social influences. [it's somewhat depressing to read this, especially if you are at all idealistic about a person's ability to change. However, maybe it's worth truly seeing this "fixity" for what it is, and accepting that it's likely true: and then we can better understand both ourselves and others.] "...it is essential to deal with the individual as a social being. Once we have grasped this, we have gained an important aid to our understanding of human behaviour."
Chapter 4: The World We Live In
47 "Because every human being must adjust to her environment, her psyche is capable of taking in a multitude of impressions from the outer world. In addition, the psyche pursues a definite aim according to its own interpretation of the world... dating from early childhood."
49 "...each of us experiences a very specific segment of life, or of a particular event, or indeed of the entire world in which we live. We all ignore the whole and value only that which is appropriate to our [psyche's] goal. Thus we cannot fully understand the behaviour of any human being without a clear comprehension of the secret goal she is pursuing; nor can we evaluate every aspect of her behaviour until we know how her whole activity has been influenced by this goal."
50 On our perceptions and how they fit our behavioral patterns; on how everyone is capable of reconfiguring and rearranging contact with the outer world to fit his or her own life pattern. Perception as a psychological function.
50ff Comments here on memory and imagination as faculties that play a role in psyche defense, in maintaining existence; that memories and recollections "have an unconscious purpose within themselves"; that the psyche does this "as an organ of adaptation"; Adler goes so far as to argue "there is no such thing as a random or meaningless recollection. Memory is selective... Thus we find that memory, too, is subordinated to the business of purposive adaptation." Further ideas here on imagination as also "purposive" in the same way: also further comments on understanding "the tricks the psyche is capable of playing on us"; Also on illusion: the creative power of the mind can produce either illusion or hallucination as the need arises.
55-6 An anecdote here about a man who was a failure professionally, and his hopelessness caused him to become an alcoholic; but even after he shook off his alcoholism he still was never able to find real work, he continued to view the world as if he were still a drunkard, thus "he could console himself with the thought that he could have accomplished a great deal more if his alcoholism had not ruined his life. This strategy enabled him to maintain his sense of self-worth. It was more important for him not to lose his self-esteem then it was for him to work." Basically his psyche put an insurmountable obstacle in his way so he would then have a "consoling excuse." [One takeaway here is to put your self-esteem and your ego last--always. When you put it first you usually choose the wrong path!]
Chapter 5: Aspects of Unreality
57ff On fantasy and day-dreaming as a creative faculty of the psyche; on the "when I grow up" daydream, children's fantasies "almost always involve situations in which the child exercises power." Also it can be escapist or a way of avoiding the realities of life for very weak children, a sort of magic carpet to rise "above the meanness of living."
59 On night dreams: just a brief comment from Adler here that they "are only seldom comprehended" but still they represent a driving for power and security according to the author.
59-60 On the psyche's ability to sense or guess what will happen in the future; a contribution to the function of foresight, making adjustments to reality; also identification or empathy is a well developed function in human beings; various examples here: stage dramas, where "we readily identify with the characters on stage"; the uneasiness we experience when we notice another person in danger, etc.
61 On influence, suggestion and hypnosis: "susceptibility to influence is one of the major manifestations of our psychological life." On education as a form of influence; also the example of gangs and submissive behavior of the lower ranked members who usually commit the crimes.
63 "The intensity of our striving for power is inversely proportional to the degree to which we can be educated." [This is a fascinating claim, I'm not sure I agree with it.]
63ff Comments here on hypnosis: successful hypnosis is based on a readiness and psychological attitude of the subject, he must be willing to submit to it either consciously or subconsciously, and then a strange paragraph on "the pernicious activities of stage hypnotists."
65 Comments here on suggestion; then comments also on and two types of humans: one who overvalues other people's opinions (and undervalues his own whether right or wrong); and then the second type who considers only their opinion right and disregards opinions from others. "The first expresses this weakness through compliance. The second type expresses it in an inability to listen to the views of another human being. People in this category are usually very belligerent, although they may pride themselves on their openness to suggestions."
Chapter 6: The Inferiority Complex
66ff Discussion here on how early childhood creates a "decisive trend" at a very early age to teach children to preoccupy themselves continually with the impression they make on other people. "We must remember that every child occupies an inferior and dependent position in life... We realize that the beginning of every life is fraught with a fairly deep-seated sense of inferiority when we see the weakness and helplessness of every child." Examples here of children exposed to ridicule; or who due to unresolved feelings of inadequacy become problem children, experiencing everything as some major form of defeat or seeing themselves as always neglected or discriminated against.
68ff On compensation mechanisms for inferiority: like striving for recognition, seeking positions of power or superiority, on seeking the limelight, demanding parents' attention, etc. "It is the feeling of inferiority, inadequacy and insecurity that determines the goal of an individual's existence." Adler frames this as striving for a definite goal, a psychological goal, such that even our perceptions are prejudiced towards the psychological goal; we can even create an entire fiction for ourselves because of our psychological inadequacy, albeit a fiction that is useful for navigation and "to orient ourselves in the chaos of existence." Adler uses the example of meridians for navigation as an analogy here: they don't actually exist, but they are still useful.
69 "Individual Psychology, therefore, creates for itself a heuristic system and method: to regard human behaviour and understand it as a final pattern of relationships produced by the effect of the pursuit of a definite goal upon the organism's basic inherited potentialities."
71 On extreme examples where an inferiority complex is compensated for by a pathological power drive. "These are the children whose behaviour is characterized by their frantic strivings toward an exaggerated goal of dominance. Their attacks on the rights of others in turn put their own rights at risk; they are against the world and the world is therefore against them." Further, on examples where this happens covertly rather than openly: where children express their striving for power "in a manner not calculated to bring them into immediate conflict with society... In the forefront of these are pride, vanity and the desire to get the better of everyone at any price. The last may be subtly accomplished."
73ff The chapter gives two case studies: one of a man who was underdeveloped as a boy and compensated for it with character traits of self-importance and being the center of attention. Finally there's a longer case study of a woman who was constantly busy and constantly describing how much work she had to do, driven by her need for self-importance, as well as a need for attention and tenderness that she did not receive as a child; she developed methods to obtain these things while also appearing to be above reproach. These are both examples of Adler's dictum that "all human behavior is based on striving for a goal" much of it driven by early life experiences, but also that can be used to hopefully indicate the areas in life where people are likely to make mistakes. [In other words, you can't really do much to change your basic nature, but if you can see your basic nature you might be able to avoid situations where your nature gets you into trouble.]
Chapter 7: Psychological Characteristics
83 "One of the fundamental tenets of Individual Psychology is that all psychological phenomena are appropriate to a specific goal."
83ff On children preparing for life; on games and play as a preparation for the future; when watching a child at play "we can determine with great certainty the extent and quality of his social feeling." Games and play are vehicles for self-expression, but also vehicles for striving for dominance; on the extreme importance of play, "play should never be considered nearly as a way of passing the time."
85ff On attention and distraction: "...why then are there so many inattentive people?" Adler asks. [Good question!] Examples of children's oppositional nature; on how their attention sometimes only awakens when it is a matter of importance to themselves: "We can see how children immediately jump to attention when their status and importance are in question. Their attention, on the other hand, is easily distracted when they have the feeling there is 'nothing in it' for them."
87ff On how many people do not understand the workings of their own minds [I would go so far as to say that if you understand the working of your own mind it is a superpower]; they do not know why they think the way they do; Interesting quote here: "It is not necessary, in order to be vain, actually to know that one is vain." [It's even worse than that: the very ignorance of it is foundational to not being able to do anything about it. Again this is why self-understanding is a superpower.] On people who are uninterested or unwilling to understand their psychological world; Adler strikingly writes: "They make bad teammates."
89 Interesting mention here of Dostoevsky's The Idiot, which per Adler "beautifully" describes aspects of the unconscious.
90 I realize here that in every single case study so far, Adler mentions birth order. Usually the psychology of each of these people is also heavily rooted in their success or failure at competing for their parents' attention. [Note that Chapter 9: The Family Constellation deals more directly with birth order.]
90 On the mind's ability to either bring things to a conscious level or keep them at a subconscious level; case study here on a young man who was convinced he was ugly as a mechanism to drive out all social activity and anything extraneous, such that he could become a successful and famous scientist, he convinced himself that he was ugly and that nobody wanted to be friends with him, and this was a sort of "placeholder reason" that protected him from expressing his actual desire: to sacrifice all of human relationships for the sake of his goal, which would seem ridiculous if articulated this way.
93ff A second case study of a boy who, constantly spurred on to academic success by his father, withdrew from society suddenly at age 18: in this case the son had the unconscious thought of "I shall withdraw from the race rather than compete unsuccessfully" but hid this under blame toward his father, a much easier "reason" to deal with psychologically.
94ff More on dreams here: on how in past history people were far more concerned with dream interpretation than we are today; Adler cites the various dreams in the Bible; also the ancient Greeks, where it was understood that everyone would be able to interpret them correctly, everyone understood Joseph's dreams of the sheaves of wheat for example; a pretty interesting side thought here.
96 On using dreams as information, but only if you have other evidence to reinforce any conclusions; also "in dreams the waking problems of an individual are expressed in a metaphor."
98ff A couple of cases here: a case study of a man whose parents were extremely strict and belittling; and then another example from Cicero of the poet Simonides and his dream, where a ghost warned him not to make a sea journey, and the ship was ultimately lost at sea. In both cases the dreams were used to justify a behavior, or intensify an impetus needed to resolve a problem in a certain way. "...we can say that a dream shows not only that the dreamer is searching for a solution to one of his problems, but also how he approaches these problems." Social feeling and a striving for power will be clear influences and they will be "especially evident in his dream."
102-3 A brief discussion here on intelligence: how intelligence tests tend to tell us nothing more than what a teacher could already tell about the intelligence of a student; also examples of intelligence in Berlin and Hamburg testing that were not predictive of later academic success. Then a comparison to the "sorry results" of intelligence testing to the [per Adler] much more robust observations of psychology.
Chapter 8: Male and Female
[This chapter is the weakest and strangest one so far, it spouts quite a striking amount of second wave feminist and Marxist dogma: not that there's anything wrong with this per se, but it has little to do with the author's psychological theories. The chapter really is all over the place, and if I were to "play analyze the psychiatrist" it's as if Adler is unloading a certain rage against society onto these pages; the tone and subject is radically different from rest of the book so far.
104ff The chapter spends quite a lot of time discussing the structure of male-dominated households as part of a male-dominated society and male-dominated labor market [recall this book was first translated into English in 1927]. It would be fascinating to see a present-day take on this given the various inversions we have today modern society: see for example the increasingly widely-discussed acknowledgement of "diversity ceilings" in the labor market; also I'd be curious to see what Adler thinks of the modern American "divorce-industrial complex"--a system that suggests the pendulum has flipped quite far the other way since Adler wrote this in the 1920s].
104ff Restatement here of one of the author's key themes: that two great tendencies, social feeling and the individual striving for power and domination, dominate all psychological activities; then mention of "the logic of communal life" which includes labor. "His [a person's] acceptance of this communal life makes him important to other human beings, makes him a link in the great chain binding society together." [It's interesting to hear the subtext of what he's saying here, calling those who do work (and thus do not value communal life) "the eccentrics, the layabouts and the criminals." Harsh, but that was the thought back in the 1920s before the modern era of European double-digit structural unemployment. Remember this book was originally written in 1927, before Adler even had left Europe.]
105ff This striving for power and dominance... has given us a false basis for the judgment of human values." On various things warping the labor market, including class differences [I suppose everyone can see the inescapable Marxist influence here, something likely characteristic of all intellectuals of this era]. On male/female division of labor; on male dominance as reflected in the patterns of the division of labor; thus per Adler, the dominant male directs the activity of women in such a way that men always seem to get the good things of life, whereas women are given the tasks that men prefer to avoid." [Sounds like something from a 21st century feminism textbook]; all institutions are essentially run by "privileged males for the glory of male domination."
106ff Also in the household, the child is interested in his father's "mysterious comings and goings" and "quickly recognizes the prominent role his father plays."
107-8 Interesting blurb here where he imagines the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in history: "A terrific battle must have preceded the transition from matriarchy to masculine domination." [And then he drops the subject and just moves on: "A growing child need not, however, read books on this subject." It's interesting that even a world expert on human psychology can step well outside of his circle of competence; fortunately after a couple of paragraphs he quickly steps back inside.]
108ff [Adler sounds like a second wave feminist here]: "The vital question all women should ask their prospective husbands before marriage is: 'What is your attitude towards male domination, particularly in family life?'... Sometimes we find women striving for equality and sometimes we find varying degrees of resignation."
109 "There is no justification for the differentiation between 'manly' and 'womanly' character traits. We shall see how both groups of traits are liable to be used to gratify the striving for power. In other words, we shall see that a person can pursue power with so-called 'feminine' traits such as obedience and submissiveness, just as the advantages and obedient child enjoys can sometimes bring him much more into the limelight than a disobedient child, though the striving for power is present in both cases."
110 [Anticipating toxic masculinity by some 80 years right here!] "What we consider 'masculine' nowadays is, above all, something purely egotistical, something that satisfies self-love and brings a feeling of superiority and domination over others."
110ff Comments here on the alleged inferiority of women; the author gives all kinds of examples throughout history and literature, ranging from the Bible and The Iliad to various legends and fairy tales from all eras, discussing the moral inferiority of women, their wickedness, their treachery, etc. He even cites women themselves "who have been resigned to a belief in their own inferiority. These are the champions of woman's duty of submission." [Give that Adler has already said that this issue is of minor importance, and that he uses it is solely to illustrate the various dynamics of egoic striving for power, the reader really wonders why Adler continues belaboring topic for so many pages.]
115 "Until we can guarantee each woman absolute equality with men we cannot ask her to subscribe to all the expected patterns of behaviour that make up our society." [This is very interesting rhetoric here: it sounds like a reasonable statement until you think about it and realize how it infantilizes women.]
115ff On three types of responses that women take: one is to have a masculine response and become a tomboy who is aggressive and rejects women's roles; the second type of reaction is the woman who goes through life with an attitude of resignation or obedience but may display nervous symptoms, being "a martyr to her nerves"; the third type does not rebel in any way but carries with her "the torturing consciousness that she is condemned to a life of inferiority and subordination." Adler then describes these three types of women in their child-rearing roles: the masculine type will be excessively strict [like a tiger mom]; the other two types nag and scold but ultimately threaten to "tell the father" and basically call a man to enforce discipline; as Adler puts it, "she abrogates her child rearing responsibilities as if to justify her view that only men are capable of everything, including bringing up children."
117ff Now a very long case study of a woman with a long-term conflict with her mother, who replicates this conflict in her marriage, becoming controlling in her cleanliness and fastidiousness; somehow Adler arrives at the conclusion that "it will be necessary for us to develop better methods of rearing girls in the future, so that they will be better prepared to reconcile themselves with life."
122 Brief discussion here on menopause; denigrating the idea that it was a dangerous age or that menopause accentuates certain character traits; Adler frames it as our society only looks for "present performance" and this is just devaluing an aging woman.
122-3 "The fallacy of the inferiority of women, and its corollary, the superiority of men, constantly disturb the harmony of the sexes. ...even destroying every chance for happiness between the sexes. Our whole love life is poisoned, distorted and corroded by his tension. This explains why harmonious marriages are so rare." [Jeez. One can't help but note that happily married people tend not to go to a psychiatrist for marriage counseling, which means a psychiatrist is likely to only meet the unhappily married people. Of course it also requires a staggering amount of naive empiricism for a psychiatrist to conclude that "harmonious marriages are so rare."]
124 "The distrust between the sexes that is so universal prevents people from being frank with one another, and all humanity suffers in consequence." [Again, is this naive empiricism? Then again maybe I would think this too if all I did was offer therapy to frustrated wives, frustrated husbands, frustrated couples. etc., all day long.]
124 "We have no reason to oppose the purposes of the women's emancipation movements. It is our duty to support them in their struggle for freedom and equality, because in the end a happiness of the whole of humanity depends on creating conditions where women can be reconciled with their womanly role and men can achieve happy relaxed relationships with them."
124-5 The chapter concludes, inexplicably, with brief discussion of the pros and cons of co-education.
Chapter 9: The Family Constellation
126ff On the importance of the child's position in his family constellation: first born, only children, the youngest, etc. The youngest is always the smallest and weakest as a child and thus grows up desperate to excel and be the best at everything. "It is not uncommon for the youngest child to outstrip every other member of the family and become its most capable member." Examples given here of Joseph from the Bible, saving his whole family. [Note that Adler devolves into "on the one hand/on the other hand" here, giving a contrasting example of a "type" of youngest child who shies away from tasks, is cowardly, is a chronic complainers, who wriggles out of situations as a form of avoidance. Thus youngest children can be either amazing or pathetic, apparently.]
129 On the eldest child: the advantage of an excellent position for psychological development, a favorable position historically speaking; the guardian of law and order in the family; such a person values power.
129ff The second child is constantly under pressure, striving for superiority, there's always someone ahead of him, and this is a strong stimulus for the second child; while the first child feels secure until the second child threatens to surpass him. See Esau and Jacob in the Bible.
130 On the only child: tends to be dependent, waiting for someone to show him the way; "Indulged throughout his life, he is quite unused to difficulties, because someone has always smoothed his path for him. Being constantly the centre of attention he very easily acquires the feeling that he is a very valuable person indeed."
132 Interesting quote here at the end of Part One of the book: "We must approach mistaken and misguided people sympathetically, because we are in a much better position than they are to understand what is going on inside them."
Part Two: The Science of Character
Chapter 10: General Considerations
135ff "How do we become who we are?" On character traits being social concepts that are in relation to others in our social environment. See this quote about Robinson Crusoe: "It would make very little difference what kind of character Robinson Crusoe had--at least until he met Friday." On how the goal of superiority, power, conquest, directs the activity of most human beings; how it shapes a person's behavior pattern and channels thoughts and feelings. On character traits as instruments, tools, and the use of these tools amounts to a technique for living. Also comments here on how these traits are not inherited and nor are they present at birth: "No child, for instance, is born lazy. A child becomes lazy because laziness seems to hurt the best way of making her life easier, while at the same time enabling her to keep her feeling of significance." Also: "We believe that such traits of character are indistinguishable from the personality, but are neither inherited nor unchangeable. Closer observation shows us that the person has found the necessary and suitable for her behavior pattern, and has acquired them for this purpose, sometimes very early in life. They are not primary factors, but secondary ones, and have been forced into being by the secret goal of the personality. They must be judged from the standpoint of teleology." [If you invert this idea, it reveals some insights: for example: if you want to change your personality, then change the environment such that it causes you to default to the personality you wish to have; tilt the pool table so that the defaults that you're likely to arrive at are the ones you want.]
137ff On striving and the problem of personal significance; on the goal of superiority, a secret goal: "it [the goal of supriority] grows in secret and hides behind an acceptable facade." The author makes a cute comment here about if we could only "see through our neighbour's mask" it would be far more difficult, and not even worthwhile for people to keep up their striving for power: "the veiled struggle for superiority would disappear."
139ff On social feeling and community spirit: Adler puts this second to "striving for power" as the most important roles in the development of character. We all live in the midst of a community and live by the logic of that communal existence, thus we need to know criteria for the evaluation of our fellows and of them of ourselves. Also: "Social feeling is do universal that no one is able to begin any activity without first being justified by it." Note also this quote on the "pretence of social feeling": which can be used to conceal antisocial thoughts and deeds; see Adler's quote here: "Interestingly enough, social feeling is so fundamental and important that, even if we have not developed this ability to consider others as fully as most people have done, we still make efforts to appear as if we had done so." Comments here on detecting genuine social feeling versus false/phony social feeling [an important skill in detecting liars, narcissists, toxic personalities, etc].
142ff On modifications or diversions of character development: initially children strive to realize their goal along a direct line but then difficulties and obstacles appear; this causes a different type of approach; also social feeling comes into play: we have to blend with our teachers, classrooms, society. etc.; On teaching a child to adapt such that there is an undisturbed communal social life.
144 "We can also classify people according to the way they approach difficulties." Optimists [Adler's description here is interesting]: their character development is in straight line, they approach difficulties courageously, they don't take difficulties too seriously, they retain a belief in themselves, they don't consider themselves neglected or insignificant, they move easily and naturally, they speak openly and freely. "Pure examples of this type are seldom found except in the first years of childhood" [Jeez, I thought we were being optimists...?]; on pessimists: easy for them to lose heart, typically have inferiority complexes, tortured by feelings of insecurity, much more conscious of the difficulties of life, abnormally cautious and timid, etc.
145 Parenthetical comment here about sleep disturbances: "Sleep, as a matter of fact, is an excellent standard for measuring the development of a human being, for sleep disturbances are an index of great cautiousness and a feeling of insecurity."
146ff Adler makes another division of human beings, into aggressive types and defensive types: aggressive people are "so obtrusive" that it makes them disliked, they "elevate courage into foolhardiness," thus they "betray their deep feelings of insecurity." They also show traits of brutality and cruelty; the defensive person feels threatened, they compensate for their feelings of insecurity by anxiety, caution, and cowardice. Often they've unsuccessfully adopted an aggressive attitude previously. "The defensive type is quickly discouraged by setbacks and unpleasant experiences, and easily put to flight. Occasionally they succeed in disguising their defection by behaving as though a useful piece of work lay along the line of retreat." "If we want to portray this type symbolically, we can do so by imagining a figure with one hand raised to defend itself and the other covering its eyes, to blot out the danger." [Note this striking phrase describing the defensive type, a trait we all see here and there among our fellow humans, and a trait that, hopefully, we all can eliminate from ourselves]: "...the happiness of strangers is almost painful to them." [Another insight arrives if you invert this idea, flipping it backwards: if you make yourself into the kind of person who is invariably happy for others' happiness and others' successes, you will chip away at any defensiveness in your personality.]
148ff Criticism of old classifications of psychological phenomena and character traits: Adler considers the categories of temperament "inadequate" and a vestige of the "four humours" concept from antiquity that remains a "sacred relic" in psychology. He then describes each of these traits: the sanguine type who experiences joy in life and doesn't take things too seriously; the choleric individual has an intense driving for power and reacts emphatically and violently to everything; the melancholic type broods, is easily defeated, is an "openly hesitating neurotic who has no confidence in ever overcoming her difficulties or getting ahead." The phlegmatic individual is hardly interested in anything, makes no friends, has almost no connections with life. [Strange that he's going through these categories in such detail when he started off by saying that such taxonomies are "not valid" in the first place!] Now a discussion of the endocrine system and its various secretions. [Note that this sub-domain was poorly understood and in its infancy when this book was written.] Adler gives an example of "cretinism," a disorder of the thyroid [today we would call this congenital hypothyroidism] and the ultraphlegmatic temperament of people with this disorder.
154ff On the idea that children come into the world with various weaknesses or disabilities and are tempted to acquire psychological tricks as compensation "[but] this temptation to resort to artifice can be overcome. There is no physical disability, no matter how serious, which much inevitably, necessarily and irrevocably force an individual to adopt a particular attitude to life."
155ff Summing up: You can't take things out of their psychological context if you want to understand human nature; to be on solid scientific ground you have to find a number of key points and discover a pattern to have a clear and complete evaluation of a human being, and all of the factors also have to be seen in relation to social life; "The most important and valuable fundamental thesis for our communal life is this: The character of a human being never forms the basis of a moral judgment. We prefer to use a social evaluation of how this human being relates to her environment, and if the quality of her relationship to the society in which she lives." And thus we arrive at two universal human phenomena: the first is the existence of a social feeling that binds humanity together, a community spirit at the root of all the great accomplishments of our civilization; we build up a picture of the human psyche by learning how an individual relates to society and expresses her fellowship with humankind, how she thus makes her life meaningful and worthwhile. The second criterion for the evaluation of character is an examination of those influences most hostile to social feeling: tendencies to strive for personal power and superiority. "With these two points of view we can understand how relations between human beings are conditioned by their relative degree of social feeling, as contrasted with their striving for personal aggrandizement, two tendencies always in opposition to each other. This is the dynamic interplay, the combination of forces, that manifests itself externally in what we call character."
Chapter 11: Aggressive Character Traits
157ff On vanity, ambition and pride: "As soon as the striving for significance gets the upper hand, it provokes increased psychological tension. In consequence, the goal of power and superiority becomes increasingly prominent for the individual, who pursues it with great intensity and violence, and lives his life in the expectation of great triumphs. Such an individual loses his sense of reality and loses sight of real life by always being preoccupied with the question of what other people think about him and with the impression that he makes on the world. His freedom of action is circumscribed to an extraordinary degree..." [Long thought here. A tremendous takeaway that this book helps you reach--once again via flipping various ideas and looking at them backwards--is to never strive for these things, to make sure "striving for significance," "living life in the expectation of great triumphs" and "having the goal of power and superiority" are things you never, ever seek. It instantly removes a lot of the problems Adler talks about with people's psyches: if you don't strive for power, superiority, significance, etc., you remove all the symptoms of the underlying problem, which is effectively the same as solving the problem! Further, I think we could flip this idea one more time and consider "doing the opposite" and actually striving for insignificance, striving for a lack of superiority, never striving for power over others, while we strive for control and sovereignty over ourselves. This brings us to a nice synchronicity with various ideas from Perpetual Traveler about being a "gray man," blending in, not being a target--and this is especially worth considering in a Fourth Turning-type environment. Note that Adler also says when you are subject to striving for significance and power your "freedom of action is circumscribed": this is a paradox worthy of a Zen koan, and it is the exact opposite of individual sovereignty!]
157 On vanity, how it goes into hiding and becomes a master of disguises, on how it "leads an individual to all kinds of useless activity more concerned with appearance and essence." It distorts his attitude and understanding of other humans and disconnects him from reality. "No other vice is so well designed to stunt the free development of human being as personal vanity, which forces an individual to approach every person and every event with the query: 'What do I get out of this?'" [Again, consider inverting this idea and doing the opposite: seek out humility, seek out embarrassing situations, do anything to avoid vanity.]
158 "The average human being has problems in dealing with such [vain] individuals because he does not know how to evaluate or criticize them. The vain person always knows how to shift the responsibility for any mistakes onto someone else's shoulders. He is always right, the others are always wrong." [What Adler is calling vanity here sounds a lot like today what we would call narcissism.]
159 "These are the unfortunate souls who cannot get along with anyone, who are unable to adjust to life because their whole aim is to appear more significant than they are." [Thus appear less significant than you are. Once again: do the opposite.]
160 Neat quote here from Socrates, addressing a speaker who had mounted the podium in ostentatiously bedraggled clothing: "Young man of Athens, your vanity peeps out through every hole in your robe!"
161 On how vanity springs from internal feelings of inadequacy. "We may suspect that anyone whose vanity is well marked has little sense of his own worth."
163 On the "deprecation complex": using sarcasm or criticism to bring others down and gain a feeling of superiority.
164ff Multipage case study here of a woman with serious control dramas: controlling her family using illness to get them to attend to her, give her attention, etc., and yet being unable to interact with the real world because she couldn't exercise her control over it.
169 On vanity causing an individual to be reluctant to put himself to the test: see the example Adler gives of the man who gave up on his studies right before his final examination. "He carried his life jacket with him at all times! He felt safe, consoling himself with the thought that it was sickness and misfortune that caused his failure." His psyche caused him to make a "life detour" (in this case towards severe sickness) at precisely the moment when a major event or decision will truly test him. Therefore he doesn't "fail"--he got sick. It was out of his hands.
171ff [Fascinating how many borderline behaviors Adler collectively groups under vanity] On an acquisitive personality: a person who instead of looking to the needs of others, has a need to be superior to others, being discontented because they're occupied with the thought of what they must still achieve or still possess in order to be happy; other examples of vanity like dressing conspicuously or, if a person is genuinely desperate to make an impression and can only do so this way, employing shameless behavior to gain attention and satisfy one's a vanity.
175ff On playing god: Adler tells the Hans Christian Andersen story of "The Vinegar Jar" about a poor fisherman who catches a fish who begs for its freedom in return for a wish; he grants the fish freedom and wishes for a cottage, but his impossible-to-satisfy wife demands more and more wishes, including finally to be made into a goddess. "There are no limits to vanity and ambition. It is very interesting to see how in fairy tales, as well as in the overheated imaginings of vain individuals, the striving for power becomes a desire to play God."
178ff On jealousy: "Jealousy occurs almost universally among children with the advent of a younger brother or sister who demands more attention from his parents, and makes the older child feel like a dethroned monarch."
180ff On envy: someone with striving for power and domination but because their goal is unreachable they begin to spend time measuring the success of others; on the desire to have more than one's neighbor; none of us is entirely free from this feeling especially when we're in pain or feel oppressed or lack money or hope; "Our civilization is still in its early stages. Although our ethics and religions forbid feelings of envy, we have not yet matured enough psychologically to eliminate them." Also note this harsh quote: "Nobody who has been envious all his life is a useful member of the community. The envious person will be interested solely in taking things away from other people, and depriving them and putting them down."
183ff On greed: there's a tangent here on business, which reveals the author's [understandable] stereotypes of the business world; then finally a discussion of hate, misanthropy and criminal negligence, all of which are forms of hostility under varying levels of disguise.
Chapter 12: Non-Aggressive Character Traits
188ff On traits that are not openly hostile but "give the impression of hostile isolation": examples here are timidity and withdrawal: people who do not greet others, who are alienated, who have coldness in their mannerisms and in the way they shake hands: Adler sees an undercurrent of ambition and vanity here as well [just like everywhere else I guess]. Also on isolation done on a group level: like with social class or a creed or religion that holds itself apart.
189ff On anxiety, which Adler calls an extraordinarily widespread trait; it distances us from others, it makes us afraid of the outer world. "Once someone assumes the point of view that life's difficulties must be avoided, she is inviting anxiety in, and once in, it will reinforce that point of view." Also on children who use their fear of being left alone as a control mechanism to wield power over parents or others. In adults anxiety is a device to compel someone to stay close and take care of them.
192 On timidity: a form of anxiety characterized by slow movements, excessive preoccupation with safety and activities aimed at evading responsibility.
193 An out-of-place sidebar here on a complex of questions in individual psychology that Adler calls "the problem of distance" to judge how far a human being is from solving the three great problems of life; the first problem is whether the person has helped or hindered contact between herself and fellow humans, the second is the problem of profession or occupation, and the third is the problem of love and marriage. "By examining how far a person is from solving these problems, we can draw far-reaching inclusions about her personality."
194 The detour syndrome: the above examples are of "psychological detours" both of which betray ambition and vanity; they show that "an individual likes to play a heroic role, at least to herself." [Like the gamma personality bravely flouncing away from a battle he knew he would have won.]
194ff Interesting case study here about an oldest son who took over his father's business, doing well until the Austrian revolution of 1918 happened and the situation changed: he couldn't use his personal power and dominance to run the business, and because he didn't have additional personality tools. Note also that his only "goal" had been power and superiority (both of which he had, circularly, due to his position as the oldest son of the father who had started the business), he lacked the social skills to adjust to the new environment. [Another takeaway here: you have to continually add psychological "tools" to your toolkit, even if it may look like you'll never need them. These tools are meta-tools like an adaptive personality, the ability to deal with setbacks or change, etc.] Also note another insight here: that the personality traits and mental models that work in, say, a professional setting, or in an "oldest child" setting, do not work in domains of relationships or love. In the case of this particular oldest child "the power-crazed personality will never choose a weak, easily dominated individual as his partner, but will seek one who must be conquered and reconquered so that each conquest appears as a new victory. In this way to like-minded individuals are drawn to one another, and their marriage is an unbroken chain of battles." [This sounds like the same dynamic you'd seen in a codependent relationship.]
196 "No one understands our patient very well, and he understands himself even less." [Another huge takeaway here, in the form of psychological tools to add to your toolkit: make sure you understand yourself, or at the least find someone who can understand you. And reveal yourself to them.]
197 [Hilarious quick example of an arm-waving argument/proof by vigorous assertion here, but couched in the author's imperious rhetoric (ironically, Adler is speaking about an imperious patient). "This case proves clearly that is not our objective experience that leads us away from the straight path of development, but our personal attitude toward those experiences and our evaluation of events." While this may be true in the case study he gives to the reader, this case study by itself in no way "clearly proves" anything in the general sense: this is inductive logic, extrapolating from the individual to the general. But props for Adler's rhetorically persuasive style.]
198 [Very good quote here, worth pondering]: "Society has no place for deserters. A certain degree of adaptability and co-operation are necessary in order to play the game of life. We need to be helpful, and not assume leadership simply for the purpose of ruling."
199 Good example here sometimes where Adler's writing can be both entertaining and instructive in this section on "Absence of Social Graces": "There are people who show a character trait that we might describe as a tendency for ill-mannered or uncivilized behaviour. Those who habitually bite their nails, pick their noses or gobble their food belong in this class. The significance of these habits is obvious when we observe a greedy person. She is a voracious eater, and so noisy! Enormous mouthfuls of food disappear down her throat. What remarkable amounts she gets through, and so quickly, and so often!"
200 On this and other manifestations of uncivilized behavior, indicating a "disinclination to relate to fellow human beings," a wish for distance. "For when a person is unwilling to play the game of life according to the rules, she is, as a matter of fact, behaving quite logically... What other behaviour could bar her so effectively from holding a position in which she is subject to criticism and competition and the judgement of others?"
Chapter 13: Other Expressions of Character
202ff On mood and temperament: Adler talks here about people with cheerful temperaments, gives examples of people that take it too far and "do not take difficult situations sufficiently seriously," but then also pays tribute to over-optimistic people who are always pleasant to work with and are "a welcome contrast to those who go about with gloomy faces." [Another heuristic is to choose an optimistic temperament, and by extension adopt the self-fulfilling belief you are the kind of person who has an optimistic temperament.]
204-5 Other examples involving peoples' manner of speech: using proverbs or slang/jargon, schoolboy behavior, people who are anxious to speak up and are keen to show they've "done their homework": these people, according to Adler, "feel safe only in structured situations" and this is a trait that "appears at all intellectual levels." [He's describing interesting psychological contours found in ludic behavior here: those who have all the answers, those who (believe they) understand everything immediately, those who semantically pigeonhole everything according to pre-existing intellectual rules, etc. Very interesting.] Then Adler moves on to pedantry, those who "squeeze all of life and living into a tiny cage of rules and formulae, lest it overwhelms them" avoiding situations where they don't have rules or formulas. "It goes without saying that one can exercise a great deal of power by the use of this method." [Yes if one lives in a ludic environment!]
206ff On submissiveness: people who are comfortable only when obeying someone else's command, living by the rules and laws of others. On yes-men. Then, oddly, Adler goes on a strange unexpected tangent here, talking about female submissiveness and how it's unhealthy and will sooner or later cause the woman to become dependent and socially parasitic. On ancient civilizations, built on an institution of slavery; there were two classes of people and most people alive today came from slave families; on modern caste systems that still survive on a principle of submission and subordination; Adler believes these ideas of slavery and aristocracy still influence society, and mentions Nietzsche here advocating this view as well. [Interesting that he would default to Nietzsche here, one would think he would rather psychoanalyze Nietzsche, he'd certainly find all kinds of interesting answers!]
209ff Fascinating comments here on bad luck: people who feel the repercussions of their actions or their natures, and don't learn from experience "may view their misfortune as an undeserved personal disaster." They can even be proud of their bad luck, but Adler ascribes it to vanity: "Only a person who considers himself the centre of the universe can exaggerate like this." [Bowtied Bull makes an interesting claim that you should avoid people with bad luck: we may not know why they have bad luck but something about them is unlucky, and you want to avoid such people. And of course to invert this idea you can argue that in order to go about having good luck, put yourself in situations where you can find good luck: Look for asymmetric upside, look for situations where you can meet new people, experience new things, etc.]
210ff Finally a brief discussion here on religiosity, where people "shift their burdens onto the shoulders of a benevolent God." Adler calls it a manifestation of vanity to assume the Lord has nothing to do but occupy himself with their troubles, paying a great deal of attention to them, etc. Adler calls this type of heresy [and he's right].
Chapter 14: Feelings and Emotions
212ff Adler describes feelings and emotions as extensions or accentuations of character traits, also "like character traits, they have a definite goal and direction. ...Their purpose is to modify the situation of the individual in whom they occur, to her benefit. [I think he's speaking here of more or less maladjusted people here, as we're going to see when he talks about anger.] By emotional exertions, a person with a feeling of inferiority can [they believe] prove themselves victorious [towards a goal] via strenuous emotional efforts; different examples given here, like you "cannot have anger without an enemy"; "In our culture it is still possible to achieve our aims by means of this exaggerated behaviour. We would have fewer outbursts of temper if it were not possible to achieve some goal in this way." [Note also in a Fourth Turning there is going to be in general a lot more free-floating rage, anxiety, frustration, etc., and so we will probably see more and more of behavior like this in the coming years.]
213ff Discussion of disjunctive feelings, like anger, grief, disgust, fear; Adler starts with anger, where such a person thinks they can use it to get their own way by conquering their opponents or winning an engagement; it typically works per Adler; and although there are occasions where anger is justified, "we are considering such cases here." Also note that this may be successful on a small scale it loses its effectiveness the wider the context. "Consequently, these habitually angry people soon find themselves in conflict with the whole world." Also an interesting comment here about alcohol as "one of the most important triggers of rage and anger" as Adler says [I'm paraphrasing] intoxicated people may, with great effort, hide their hostility and inhibit their unfriendly tendencies, but once intoxicated their true character is expressed. [Very interesting.] Also this interesting comment: "It is by no means coincidental that people who are out of tune with life are the first to take alcohol. They find in this drug a certain consolation and forgetfulness, as well as an excuse for their failure to attain what they desire." Further comments here on "temper tantrums" which arise from children's greater feeling of inferiority and showing "their striving for power in a more transparent manner."
216 Comments here on grief: here the author is talking about excesses of grief, not normal grief; that its value is identical with that of a temper tantrum: involving a striving for superiority, it is a shrinkage of psychological horizons and the grieving person achieves personal elevation and satisfaction because of the elevation of the sorrower. "Grief becomes an irrefutable argument that places a binding duty upon the sorrower's friends, neighbours and family."
217-8 Comments here on using disgust or fear [again in a contrived form, used by people with inferiority complexes] as mechanisms to establish superiority, or to give people a reason to flee something without admitting defeat, etc.
219ff On the use and misuse of emotion: interesting comments here about how we don't understand these feelings and emotions until we understand how they can be used as "valuable instruments to overcome a sense of inferiority and to elevate the personality and obtain recognition... Once a child, feeling neglected, learns that she can tyrannize her environment through fury or tears or fearfulness she will test this method of obtaining domination again and again. In this way she falls easily into a behavior pattern that allows her to react to insignificant stimuli with her typical emotional response. She uses her emotions whenever they suit her needs." Comments here on adults who found success doing this as children will grow into adults constantly misusing emotions: "Such an individual utilitizes anger, grief and all the other feelings in a dramatic way, as though they were puppets."
220ff Now on to conjunctive feelings like joy, sympathy, humility. Note that joy does not allow isolation; it's conjunctive in the sense that it is a movement toward unity or reaching out; although note that joy and laughter can be misused for personal ends; the author gives an example of a patient who was afraid to show his feelings of powerlessness who showed joy at the reports of a serious earthquake; also another abuse of happiness is schadenfreude (joy at the misfortune of others); thus joy at the wrong time or in the wrong place can also be disjunctive and "an instrument of conquest."
221ff On sympathy, again a conjunctive feeling, because it is an expression of social feeling; sympathy as a yardstick of to what extent a human can identify with others; on false or exaggerated sympathy, which can be misused; for example to get oneself noticed; Adler also quotes Rochefoucauld, "We can always find a measure of satisfaction in the misfortunes of our friends." Finally comments here on humility, which can also be conjunctive or disjunctive, in the latter case it can be an action of withdrawal or a gesture of self-isolation.
Chapter 15: General Remarks on Child-Rearing and Education
223ff [This chapter strikes the reader as somewhat insidious.] Adler starts out by saying the family is a great institution, but then he any criticizes parents for being neither good psychologists nor good teachers, and then claims "Various degrees of pathological family egotism seem to dominate child-rearing today." See also comments where he talks about the leadership and superiority of the father which is "where the damage begins." [You can see early indicators here of what today we see in fully inverted form, as modern media presents fathers as clueless dopes, bumbling around, who would be utterly lost if weren't for their all wise and all-knowing daughters and wives. Adler here is attacking the established leadership role of the father in a family in a subtle but clear way.] Comments here that "revolt" can't be attempted openly in a father dominated family; it can only be dealt with by secret resistance or going along with parental authority, and then Adler argues this drives a person into becoming vain and ambitious for that same power later in life. Adler claims every child wants to be respected, and demands obedience and submission according to the way his own father was. "A belligerent attitude to his parents and the rest of the world is the inevitable result of his false expectations." [Yikes. This whole section is unfortunate.]
225 On how it is the function of the mother to develop social feeling in the child; Adler cites two mistakes that are the most common: first, when the mother does not properly perform her motherly role and the child fails to develop any social feeling growing up, "like a stranger in a strange land." The second mistake which is more common: the mother plays an exaggerated motherly role, thus the child is unable to develop social feeling beyond the mother, and thus excludes the rest of the world.
226ff On how schools are not really an institution capable of compensating for errors in the early development of a child; teachers are too busy dealing with teaching curriculum, there's far too many children in class, etc. And then the author even says life itself can't bring about any essential change; Adler says, harshly, "...life is the worst teacher of all. It has no consideration, it does not warn us, it does not teach us; it simply rejects us, and lets us perish." [This isn't exactly the kind of quote you'd want to frame and put outside your office if you'd like to have a successful therapeutic practice.] Adler suggests schools could be changed to help with correcting the defects of family upbringing. [This brings to mind the type of school that Krishnamurti founded in California.]
Conclusion
229-30 "We have attempted to show in this book that the psyche is not determined by hereditary factors. Its development is entirely conditioned by social influences." "We have shown that a degree of ambition and vanity appears in every human being, according to his individual method of striving for power." Also on exaggerated ambition and vanity preventing a person's orderly development, and stunting the growth of social feeling, "the power-hungry individual follows a path to his own destruction." Finally on understanding the various psychological mechanisms and drivers that Adler discusses throughout the book, being vital to any human "who wishes to determine his own destiny consciously and openly, rather than allow himself to be the victim of dark and mysterious psychological forces."
To Read:
Rudolf Dreikurs: The Challenge of Marriage
Rudolf Dreikurs: Children: The Challenge
Fyidor Dostoevsky: The Idiot ("beautifully" describes how our unconscious influences our lives, with often "bitter consequences")
Fyidor Dostoevsky: Netochka Niesvanova (contains a "magnificent description" of jealousy)
Rochefoucauld: Maxims
Rochefoucauld: Memoirs
Alfred Adler: The Pattern of Life
Alfred Adler: The Science of Living
Alfred Adler: What Life Could Mean to You