Skip to main content

Importance of Flattery


Self-actualisation is the only motive that drives an organism.  Psychologist Kurt Goldstein said that. Self-actualisation, in simple words, means being (or becoming) what one can be. 

What appear to be different drives such as hunger, sex, power, achievement and curiosity are merely manifestations of the ultimate purpose which is self-actualisation.  When a person is hungry he actualises himself by eating.  Even a rapist is actualising himself, but in the most pathological way possible.  Pathology is too complex an issue to be discussed here.  So let’s get back to our topic. 

For the psychologically healthy people, self-actualisation is the organic principle by which the individual becomes more fully developed and more complete. Every individual has various needs.  The fulfilment of each need takes the individual a step forward in the self-actualising process.

Some people read and acquire more and more knowledge, thus fulfilling the need for knowledge which for them is a way of self-actualisation.  Some people ascend the ladder of hierarchy and conquer positions of more and more power, thus finding their self-actualisation.  There are infinite ways of reaching self-actualisation.

I read a good number of psychologists who discuss self-actualisation in order to find whether flattery could be a way of self-actualisation.  Not one psychologist discusses the topic.  Why?

Flattery is neither a way of self-actualisation nor an instance of psychological pathology.  It is a survival strategy of the weak and incapable.  When survival itself is a challenge, what other need can be important?  And when a person does not have any arsenal left in his armoury to fight for his survival, what can he do but flatter those who matter and get on in life?

Goldstein said that a normal, healthy person is one “in (whom) the tendency towards self-actualization is acting from within, and overcomes the disturbance arising from the clash with the world, not out of anxiety but out of the joy of conquest.” [Emphasis added]

From within.  That is what I meant by the arsenal in one’s armoury.  A sportsman’s skills lie within him.  So do a writer’s or a leader’s or any normal, healthy person’s.  When one does not possess the skills required to face the challenges lying in his path or when he has not discovered those skills within him, strategies become necessary.  Flattery is one such strategy.  A fairly harmless strategy.

Why harmless?  In fact, we can find a lot of people achieving much using that strategy.  There are many people who get on very successfully especially in their occupations by cleverly employing flattery.

Eminent self-actualisation psychologists like Abraham Maslow listed umpteen things ranging from mistrust to despair, cynicism to gracelessness, jungle world-view to bewilderment as pathologies.  Flattery does not find a place in that very long list. 

Hence, I must sadly conclude that I am the one in need of healing since I exhibit bouts of cynicism, gracelessness, and what not.  Like the three men in Jerome K Jerome’s boat, I find myself a patient in need of a physicist.  Or, at the very least, a voyage on the river of rejuvenation.

Right now, until my situation is conducive to such an adventure, let me console myself admiring the flatterers and their ingenious strategies.  


A related post which I wrote over a year ago: Your face shines like the moon

Comments

  1. Replies
    1. Chaitali, life is very gratuitous with such insights and lessons.

      Delete
  2. I agree that flattery is a survival tactic of the weak. Any day, I would prefer to associate myself with honest people, rather than false flatterers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I used to view flatterers as merely amusing people. Now, that has changed. I think they are extremely dangerous people. One chief form of flattery, as I understand, is to go the bosses and speak ill of colleagues.

      Delete
  3. Thought provoking. I am not a follower of shallow flattery. That only leads to one's fall. if you are a genuine friend then you will appreciate and motivate bnut not use flattery.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In friendship, this is not a serious problem. No good friend will ever resort to flattery. The problem is acute in workplaces where employees try to ingratiate themselves with the people in the higher orders by resorting to flattery. That is quite ridiculous. I have seen people stooping as low as to praise the boss's new pair of shoes or the new jacket!

      There's a deadly version of flattery in which people belittle others, put blames and allegations, so that they look far better in comparison. Some bosses encourage this to further their own malicious designs.

      Delete
  4. Flattery has become a skillful art now a days....the problem is if you are a poor performer in this art, most of the people think that you're a haughty person and have superiority complex :-( I don't know how to flatter and often am misunderstood ...

    I wish everybody could think about the topic in the way you've expressed your opinions about it... :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am a fool, Maniparna. I tried to learn this art called flattery so that I could survive in many places. I failed everywhere. ")

      Delete
  5. Stimulating .Process of Self-actualisation leading to flattery ! Its true if we behave like the 'kastoori mrig'
    I was smiling when I came to the flattery part. I have witness its execution at really close quarter.. rather too close for my comfort and I have learnt everything about it but, in theory ... when the practical needs arise, a feeling(might be pride or self respect or ... donnowhat) seals my lips.... and strangely, I feel good about it :)
    So I can teach others this course but am a happy failure . Life as well as mind indeed is strange :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Flattery is a talent not everyone can master... Sigh... Btw, from the receiver's end, at times, not judging whether it is innocent or harmful, flattery can be an able savior from depressed state :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti

Going Places with Sophie

Sophie as imagined by Copilot Designer Going Places is a short story by A R Barton prescribed for grade 12 students of a Central Education Board in India (CBSE). Sophie, the young protagonist, is just completing her school and will soon be working in a biscuit factory near her home as most girls of her socioeconomic class usually do. Sophie doesn’t want that future, though. She has big dreams. She wants to open a boutique, or become an actress, or be a fashion designer. She is in love with Danny Casey, the national football champion, and believes that he reciprocates the love. She believes that her fantasies about her meeting Danny in the arcade are real. Her father who is very practical and realistic has only contempt for Sophie’s fantasies. “One of these days you’re going to talk yourself into a load of trouble,” he warns his dreamer-daughter. The father is a traditional patriarch who works hard to get the family moving from day to day. He can be rough and blunt. He doesn’t know a

The Waste Land as a comic book

One page from the comic book Who would have imagined that T S Eliot’s convoluted poem, The Waste Land , would one day be a comic book? I was fascinated when I came to know about it from an article in Open Culture . The sample pages reproduced in the article look charming too. My first association with The Waste Land was as a postgraduate student of English literature. The imageries and motifs of the poem caught my fancy. But I’m not sure I understood its deep intricacies. The sluggish resistance to life in the opening lines shakes your very roots, “stirring dull roots with spring rain.” We don’t want to be reborn. We are happy with our hibernation. It’s a sort of spiritual hibernation. We need a reawakening. That’s what the poem is leading you to. Eliot was shaken by the disillusionment that descended on the world after the World War I. There was untold devastation which went on to exert profound impact on society, culture, and art. The war shattered the belief in progress, rat