Salvaging Mankind by Psychology1
By Dr. Alfred Adler (Wien)
What can individual psychology do to prevent that debacle of our civilization which, in the belief of some of the most important thinkers of the day, threatens as a consequence of the over-development of scientific technique at the expense of morality?
It is generally agreed that man’s control over the forces of nature has increased far beyond his moral fitness to exercise it; and it is also agreed that herein lies at the greatest menace to our civilization. The late war has presented us with a prospectus of the possibilities of scientific extermination. If the world — our world — is to be saved obviously the one thing needful is to raise man to a level where he shall not, like a child playing with a loaded pistol, constantly risk destroying himself by misuse of his own power. It is difficult to see where this education is to come from is not from the new psychology which claims to bring order into the chaos of blindly struggling forces in man’s subconscious mind.
Individual psychology holds that the most important key to the understanding of both personal and mass problems is the so-called sense of inferiority, or inferiority complex, and its consequences. The truth of this today is recognized by all tendencies of psychology and psychiatry. From our point of view each fact of history, each phase of the evolution of culture, represents an attempt, sometimes successful, at other times futile, at erasing this sense of inferiority of a person or a group. Often the attempts of persons and groups run together in this direction.
According to individual psychology the second basic principle permeating all historic evolution is the sense of solidarity innate in every human society. The degree to which this sense of solidarity is developed in a person gives the measure, not only of his desires, but even more of his actions. The same holds good of groups.
History judges human actions according to the degree of human solidarity which is expressed in them. Without exception those deeds and events are regarded as great and valuable which are saturated with the sense of human solidarity, which promote the welfare of the whole. Lack of this sense of solidarity, always due to an increased sense of inferiority, drives the individual into neurosis or crime and groups and nations toward the abyss of self-extermination.
The motives which actuate a crowd are always veiled in darkness and are always perceived and interpreted by the persons who are in the grip of the mass current as solutions of their individual needs and weaknesses. Of course this process is aided by the circumstance that the relation of large groups to life is uniform, and that the pressure of a group’s inferiority complex somehow makes itself felt in each individual, be it in different ways and in reference to different personal problems. In a little essay entitled “The Other Side — The People’s Guilt in the World War” I have shown how the imperialistic tendencies of the great financial powers pressed on the peoples of other countries. This pressure manifested itself in the lives of individuals in difficulties of earning a livelihood, in bad wages conditions, if inadequate educational and cultural facilities, in the reluctance of young people to get married, in the reluctance of married people to have children, in a joyless existence, in continuous irritation and nervousness, etc.
All these factors increase the sense of inferiority, produce an exaggerated sensitiveness, and drive the individual to seek “solutions”. Any outside interference appears to an individual in this state of mind a threat to his security and rouses him to active or passive self defence. The young men who murdered the Austrian heir to the throne were individuals at odds with themselves. The crowds which subsequently clamored for war as a solution, and the still larger crowds which accepted war as a solution, consisted similarly of individuals at odds with themselves.
Motives of hatred appear most clearly in the economic disturbances of our time. The class struggle is carried on by crowds made up of individuals whose quest for an inwardly and outwardly balanced mode of life is thwarted. On the other hand, these mass movements produce further disturbing motives in the individuals.
Mass movements always proceed with a firm and resolute step toward their destructive aims, for destruction means to the masses a release from situations felt intolerable and thus appears as a preliminary condition of improvement.
The craving for power is in the masses, as in is in individuals, the expression of the sense of inferiority, of inadequacy. Therefore mass movements can be properly understood only from the perspective of individual psychology which shows how this striving upwards, which permeates all humanity, originates in the individual. In his struggle for greater security man is always somehow right, even though his methods are inadequate.
Thus the fashion of bobbed hair, expressing woman’s desire to eliminate an external difference between herself and man, originates in the so-called “masculine protest” of women, in women’s tendency to be, and feel themselves as being, of equal rank with men. The individual woman may find personal reasons for having her hair cut; she may tell herself that bobbed hair saves her effort, or makes her look prettier, that “everybody is doing it”, or she may simply want to tease her husband; subconsciously she follows the line of masculine protest, just the same.
If the life tendencies of an individual coincide completely or almost completely with the direction of a mass movement, if the yearning of the masses is incarnated in him, if he can lend his voice and his arm to the dumb and obscure striving of his people or his group, he is a chosen leader of men. All great achievements of humanity originate in the social genius of individuals. The questions of an age reach out for an answer, and find it in a man. In him mankind’s struggle for salvation is re-enacted, only with a greater clarity and intensity than in other men. The very essence of his being is this struggle, and therefore he cannot fit himself into the inherited forms of life. They cramp him, and he tries to burst them. In order to adjust himself to existence he has to reorganize it. But he can succeed only if his endeavor coincides with a mass current and serves to promote and elevate the group. The power of the individual leader, of the “great man” is limited by the preparation of the masses, by their capacity to fall in line with him.
What are the personal requirements of such leadership? A strongly developed sense of solidarity is the first of all. An optimistic outlook and sufficient self-confidence are just as necessary. The leader must be endowed with capicity for quick action — he must not belong to the type of the dreamer or onlooker. He must have ease in his contact with people, and must possess tact so as not to frustrate the assent of others. His preparation, his training must be abovs the average. He must, in a word, be a real human being who possesses courage and equipment. In him lives what other men dream about.
All these required features are the products of upbringing in the home, at school, and in life. Today the education of children is burdened by many errors. Individual psychology points out the weaknesses of presentday education and devises a better preparation for the battle of life. For the upbringing of both normal and neglected or nervous children it prescribes measures reinforcing the sense of solidarity, counteracting the sense of inferiority and converting it into a source of industry and effort, stimulating courage and improving the all-around equipment of both mind and body.
Can individual psychology turn every child into a leader? Of course not. Apart from any other consideration, we do not claim to possess an infallible technique of training. But we do claim that we are able to increase the number of those fitted for leadership, to insure a better start for all in the contest of life, to prevent that deterioration of human material which would inevitably reduce the level of all achievement.
Individual psychology claims to increase the standards of individual efficiency and achievement, and thus also that those of groups. We can already point to our long series of successes in salvaging neglected, nervous or underdeveloped children at school, and in restoring a large number of neurotics to a normal routine and enjoyment of life. The application of our educational principles on a large scale would produce results that would make a very perceptible difference within a few years.
Most of the methods employed today to solve pressing problems in the lives of peoples or groups are obsolete and inadequate. They are mostly based on stimulating nationalistic and religious passions and lead to oppression, persecution, and war. An education based on the principles of individual psychology would eliminate these delusions of egotism and folly and would substitute a general zeal for common welfare. Individual psychology could rally all the latent forces for good which are inherent in groups just as it is already rallying such latent forces in individuals. War, national hatreds and class struggle, these greatest enemies of humankind, root in the desire groups to escape or compensate for the crushing sense of their inferiority. Individual psychology, which can cure individuals from the evil effects of this sense of inferiority, might be developed into a most powerful instrument of ridding nations and groups of the menace of their collective inferiority complexes.
What I said concerning the hatreds and jealousies that urge nations and groups against one another holds also good of the bitter struggle of the sexes, a struggle that is poisoning love and marriage and is ever born anew out of the inferior valuation of woman. The idealized picture of overestimated masculinity imposes both on the boy and the grown-up man the obligation of appearing, if not being, superior to woman, and this causes him to distrust himself, to exaggerate his demands on and expectations from life, and increases his sense of insecurity. On the other hand, the little girl feels that she is valued less than a boy, and this stimulates her to exaggerated efforts to make up for her inadequacy, to fight on all sides real or apparent underestimation, or else it will cause her to resign herself to her supposed inferiority.
In this mental atmosphere it is impossible to find satisfactory solutions for the problems of love and marriage. Moreover, the achievements of women often fall short of the standard of their own possibilities, because women are apt to underestimate themselves under the pressure of tradition and prejudice.
Unfortunately this tradition and this prejudice root so deeply in both sexes that it will take at least two generations until they are ultimately and definitely dispersed. In this field, too, individual psychology is most effective in bringing about betterment.
Fuente: transcripción a partir de la reimpresión en la Internationale Zeitschrift für Individualpsychologie, 3. Jg., Nr. 6, Wien, November-Dezember 1925, págs. 332-335 (cuaderno digitalizado en Internet Archive), con el OCR de archive.org cotejado con las imágenes de las páginas. Según la nota, el texto procede de una entrevista de Eugene Bagger en The New York Times (1925; New York Times Magazine, según las bibliografías), convertida en un artículo en primera persona firmado por Adler; el original del periódico no se ha visto. Los ids AA1925-11 (entrevista del NYT) y AA1925-06 (reimpresión en la IZI) del inventario corresponden a esta única pieza. Los comentarios p. n del código marcan el comienzo de cada página impresa de la reimpresión.
From an interview in “The New York Times” by Eugene Bagger. ↩