Braggarts Have Feelings of
Inferiority
YOUTH: Maybe so, but…
PHILOSOPHER: Further, you harbor an inferiority complex about education and think, I’m not well educated, so I can’t succeed. Put the other way around, the reasoning can be, If only I were well educated, I could be really successful.
YOUTH: Hmm, true.
PHILOSOPHER: This is the other aspect of the inferiority complex. Those who manifest their inferiority complexes in words or attitudes, who say that “A is the situation, so B cannot be done,” are implying that if only it were not for A, they’d be capable and have value.
YOUTH: If only it weren’t for this, I could do it, too.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. As Adler points out, no one is capable of putting up with having feelings of inferiority for a long period of time. Feelings of inferiority are something that everyone has, but staying in that condition is too heavy to endure forever.
YOUTH: Huh? This is getting pretty confusing.
PHILOSOPHER: Okay, let’s go over things one at a time. The condition of having a feeling of inferiority is a condition of feeling some sort of lack in oneself in the
present situation. So then, the question is—
YOUTH: How do you ll in the part that’s missing, right?
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. How to compensate for the part that is lacking. The healthiest way is to try to compensate through striving and growth. For instance, it could be by applying oneself to one’s studies, engaging in constant training, or being diligent in one’s work. However, people who aren’t equipped with that courage end up stepping into an inferiority complex. Again, it’s thinking, I’m not well educated, so I can’t succeed. And it’s implying your capability by saying, “If only I were well educated, I could be really successful.” That “the real me,” which just happens to be obscured right now by the matter of education, is superior.
YOUTH: No, that doesn’t make sense—the second thing you’re saying is beyond a feeling of inferiority. That’s really more bravado than anything else, isn’t it?
PHILOSOPHER: Indeed. The inferiority complex can also develop into another special mental state.
YOUTH: And what is that?
PHILOSOPHER: I doubt you have heard much about it. It’s the “superiority complex.”
YOUTH: Superiority complex?
PHILOSOPHER: One is suering from strong feelings of inferiority, and, on top of that, one doesn’t have the courage to compensate through healthy modes of striving and growth. That being said, one can’t tolerate the inferiority complex of thinking, A is the situation, so B cannot be done. One can’t accept “one’s incapable self.” At that point, the person thinks of trying to compensate in some other fashion and looks for an easier way out.
YOUTH: What way is that?
PHILOSOPHER: It’s to act as if one is indeed superior and to indulge in a fabricated feeling of superiority.
YOUTH: A fabricated feeling of superiority?
PHILOSOPHER: A familiar example would be “giving authority.”
YOUTH: What does that mean?
PHILOSOPHER: One makes a show of being on good terms with a powerful person (broadly speaking—it could be anyone from the leader of your school class to a famous celebrity). And by doing that, one lets it be known that one is special. Behaviors like misrepresenting one’s work experience or excessive allegiance to particular brands of clothing are forms of giving authority, and probably also have aspects of the superiority complex. In each case, it isn’t that the “I” is actually superior or special. It is only that one is making the “I” look superior by linking it to authority. In short, it’s a fabricated feeling of superiority.
YOUTH: And at the base of that, there is an intense feeling of inferiority?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course. I don’t know much about fashion, but I think it’s advisable to think of people who wear rings with rubies and emeralds on all their ngers as having issues with feelings of inferiority, rather than issues of aesthetic sensibility. In other words, they have signs of a superiority complex.
YOUTH: Right.
PHILOSOPHER: But those who make themselves look bigger on borrowed power are essentially living according to other people’s value systems—they are living other people’s lives. This is a point that must be emphasized.
YOUTH: So, a superiority complex. That’s a very interesting psychology. Can you give me a dierent example?
PHILOSOPHER: There’s the kind of person who likes to boast about his achievements. Someone who clings to his past glory and is always recounting memories of the time when his light shone brightest. Maybe you know some people like this. All such people can be said to have superiority complexes.
YOUTH: The kind of man who boasts about his achievements? Yes, it is an arrogant attitude, but he can boast because he actually is superior. You can’t call that a fabricated feeling of superiority.
PHILOSOPHER: Ah, but you are wrong. Those who go so far as to boast about things out loud actually have no condence in themselves. As Adler clearly indicates, “The one who boasts does so only out of a feeling of inferiority.”
YOUTH: You’re saying that boasting is an inverted feeling of inferiority?
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. If one really has condence in oneself, one doesn’t feel the need to boast. It’s because one’s feeling of inferiority is strong that one boasts. One feels the need to aunt one’s superiority all the more. There’s the fear that if one doesn’t do that, not a single person will accept one “the way I am.” This is a full-blown superiority complex.
YOUTH: So though one would think from the sound of the words that inferiority complex and superiority complex were polar opposites, in actuality they border on each other?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, they are clearly connected. Now, there is one last example I’d like to give, a complex example that deals with boasting. It is a pattern leading to a particular feeling of superiority that manifests due to the feeling of inferiority itself becoming intensied. Concretely speaking, it’s bragging about one’s own misfortune.
YOUTH: Bragging about one’s own misfortune?
PHILOSOPHER: The person who assumes a boasting manner when talking about his upbringing and the like, the various misfortunes that have rained down upon
him. If someone should try to comfort this person, or suggest some change be made, he’ll refuse the helping hand by saying, “You don’t understand how I feel.”
YOUTH: Well, there are people like that, but…
PHILOSOPHER: Such people try to make themselves “special” by way of their experience of misfortune, and with the single fact of their misfortune try to place themselves above others. Take the fact that I am short, for instance. Let’s say that kind-hearted people come up to me and say, “It’s nothing to worry about,” or “Such things have nothing to do with human values.” Now, if I were to reject them and say, “You think you know what short people go through, huh?” no one would say a thing to me anymore. I’m sure that everyone around me would start treating me just as if I were a boil about to burst and would handle me very carefully—or, I should say, circumspectly.
YOUTH: Absolutely true.
PHILOSOPHER: By doing that, my position becomes superior to other people’s, and I can become special. Quite a few people try to be “special” by adopting this kind of attitude when they are sick or injured, or suering the mental anguish of heartbreak.
YOUTH: So they reveal their feeling of inferiority and use it to their advantage?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. They use their misfortune to their advantage and try to control the other party with it. By declaring how unfortunate they are and how much they have suered, they are trying to worry the people around them (their family and friends, for example), and to restrict their speech and behavior, and control them. The people I was talking about at the very beginning, who shut themselves up in their rooms, frequently indulge in feelings of superiority and use misfortune to their advantage. So much so that Adler himself pointed out, “In our culture weakness can be quite strong and powerful.”
YOUTH: So weakness is powerful?
PHILOSOPHER: Adler says, “In fact, if we were to ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be, the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.” The baby rules over the adults with his weakness. And it is because of this weakness that no one can control him.
YOUTH: I’ve never encountered that viewpoint.
PHILOSOPHER: Of course, the words of the person who has been hurt—“You don’t understand how I feel”—are likely to contain a certain degree of truth.
Completely understanding the feelings of the person who is suering is something that no one is capable of. But as long as one continues to use one’s misfortune to one’s advantage in order to be “special,” one will always need that misfortune.
The youth and philosopher had now covered a series of discussion topics: the feeling of inferiority, the inferiority complex, and the superiority complex. Psychology keywords though they clearly were, the truths they contained diered greatly from the youth’s imagined meanings. Still, something didn’t feel right to him, somehow. What is it about all this that I’m having a hard time accepting? Well, it must be the introductory part, the premise, that is giving me doubts. The youth calmly opened his mouth to speak.
