120 philosophical essays you must read in your life

Chapter 46

Chapter 3 Section 3 Honor

[Germany] Schopenhauer

Because of the peculiar weakness of human nature, we often pay too much attention to what others think of us; in fact, it only takes a little reflection to know that other people's opinions have no influence on our attainable happiness.

So I understand why everyone takes great pleasure in the compliments of others.If you hit a cat, its hair will stand on end; if you compliment him on something he is proud of, even if the compliment is an obvious lie, he will still welcome it.

As long as others appreciate him, he can still be at ease even if he has bad luck and little hope of happiness; on the contrary, when a person's feelings and self-esteem are hurt by nature, status, or environment, when he is indifferent, belittled and ignored , everyone will inevitably feel distressed, even extremely painful.

If the sense of honor is based on the nature of "like praise and hate disparagement", then the sense of honor can replace the moral law and benefit the public welfare.It is a pity that the influence of honor on such elements of happiness as peace of mind and independence is not beneficial but harmful.So from the point of view of happiness, we should stop the spread of weakness.

Self-properly and correctly considering and weighing the relative value of certain interests, thereby alleviating the high sensitivity to the opinions of others.Whether such opinions are flattering or not, they cause pain because they are emotional.If this is not done, a man becomes a slave to what others think as he pleases—it is easy to hurt and appease a man who is greedy for praise.

Therefore, a proper comparison of the value of a person in our own eyes with that of others is helpful to our happiness.What creates the value in the eyes of others is the consciousness of others; it is our image in the eyes of others and our joint thoughts about this image.This value has no direct effect on our being itself, but it has an indirect and moderate effect on our being, because the behavior of others towards us depends on it.However, when this value in the eyes of others prompts us to modify "the self in our own mind", its impact becomes direct.Apart from this, the consciousness of other people is indifferent to us; especially when we realize how ignorant and superficial the minds of the masses are, how narrow-minded their views are, how base their sentiments, how partial their opinions, how erroneous they are. For a long time, what other people think of us is even less important.

When we know from experience how a man slanders his fellow man behind his back, he will try to slander as long as he has no need to be afraid of him and to believe that he will not hear it.Then we really don't care what other people think.As long as we have the opportunity to recognize how many great men in ancient and modern times have been despised by fools, we will also know that caring about others is too much respect for others.

【Together with you】

As the saying goes, Tao follows nature.The same goes for reputation.The real reputation is the most perfect decoration of our personality, character, behavior, value, and spiritual temperament, or it is an appropriate expression.Reputation must never be overly utilitarian, nor does it allow pretentiousness.A reputation based on vanity and face is like building a mansion of life on a vain river.Once the vain reputation has gone through the test of life, one day it will become like a withered flower, which will become unaesthetic and lack the freshness it deserves... This kind of honor has nothing to do with utilitarianism, that is, we don't expect to get anything from it Interests, it is only related to a person's conduct, or even just his state of mind.

(End of this chapter)