According to Dr. Alfred Adler, Viennese psychologist, many of our most serious troubles in America come from our fierce struggle for superiority.
"The competitive spirit appears in every phase of American life," he says. "Your young men and women are striving to be gods and goddesses. When they fall short of their ideal, they suffer breakdowns—hence the suicide, the criminal, the neurotic.
"Every man must have a record. A fifty-story building is a record. Marrying three wives is a record. Dancing till 6 o'clock in the morning is a record. The American wants to be a conqueror in everything he does."
In Vienna, he explains, it is very different. There, "if a man is competitive, if he strives to be a leader, he hides it like a shame. If a student is ambitious to stand at the head of his class, he is ridiculed. Football and other games are played and attended for recreation or because there is nothing else to do—not for championships.
"In Europe a good man who misses success is still respected and beloved by his fellow-men."
Evidently here is a wide gulf between the Old World and the New. Which is better? "Ours," most of us will answer unhesitatingly. Yet we pay heavily for all this competitive glory. Life is more than records.
Fuente: The Napa Journal (Napa, California), domingo 6 de marzo de 1927, p. 2 (página editorial), suelto sin firma. Transcripción hecha sobre la imagen de la página (California Digital Newspaper Collection, NJ19270306.1.2), cotejada con el OCR de la plataforma, que no recoge el titular ni las comillas. Las declaraciones de Adler proceden probablemente de una entrevista o despacho neoyorquino de comienzos de marzo de 1927 que no se ha localizado.