The Disease of Showing Off!

The love of showing off is a psychological disease bound closely to the feeling of inferiority. It is an ailment spread far and wide in our East, among the poor and the rich alike. It preys upon its people, carries off money and minds, and breeds misery, anxiety, fear, and many psychological illnesses that lead their victim to grave consequences — mental, psychological, and bodily.

I used to meet from time to time with Miss Jumana. At every gathering I would hear her talk about herself and about her abilities and talents. She never stops speaking of her bright future and her dazzling past, the beauty of the house she lives in, and its furnishings and servants. Often we would try to change the course of the conversation so that this Jumana would leave off her empty riches and the exaggeration of her talk, but in every subject she broached Jumana had to speak of her family, her friends, and herself with every exaggeration. So we would all be repelled by her talk, and would try to stay away from any gathering that included her. Several months after making her acquaintance, luck favored me and I entered her house — and how great was my astonishment when I did, for I saw none of the things she spoke of in her constant talk. It was the utmost in simplicity, and bare of furnishings and servants. Why, one wonders, does Jumana behave in this way??

"Randa" was, most regrettably, one of today's wives who spend on their homes and their appearance more than their husbands' income. By ill luck, she always loved to keep company with the rich and the wealthy. Randa's single concern was to keep pace with her friends, and for this she would buy luxurious furniture and heavy furnishings — all of it to appear to her friends and relatives as one of them, even though her husband's salary did not suffice for these great expenses. But Randa does not care, for she is afflicted with the disease of "love of showing off": she wants to appear far more than she is in reality. And when Randa went out into society, her concern was to draw eyes to herself by every way and means. She talks always of her virtues or her merits, and of what she has bought and what she will buy

of costly things and beautiful clothes. And when she speaks of her friends or relatives, she touches on nothing but the ugly things, the coarse habits, and the points of weakness in them. Her talk is nothing but biting criticism and unjust orders and counsels, as she does her utmost to appear in the guise of superiority.

If we try to think a little, we see many of our women and our men living, like "Jumana" and "Randa," in their destructive imaginary world, trying to satisfy their desires without thought or reason.

And if we stop to analyze the causes of Jumana's or Randa's behavior, and ask what motive it is that drives a Jumana or a Randa to deck herself in these appearances, we say that among the chief causes is the feeling of inferiority that may lie in the depths of her soul: she tries to achieve in imagination what reality has denied her, in order to cover over this deficiency. As Adler the psychologist has said, the feeling of inferiority is among the most potent factors that drive a person to such behavior. Among the most prominent traits of one afflicted with this disease are the feeling of lack of self-confidence, preoccupation with self, and the feeling of incompetence; and these traits are coupled, too, with the feeling of fear — fear of what others will say. Thereby a person begins to cover over this feeling by comparing himself with others, and by exposing the points of weakness in them so as to conceal them in himself.

Among the chief causes of this feeling of inferiority are those that go back to childhood, and its cause may be either organic or psychological. Organic, for example, as with short stature, homeliness of face, or the presence of bodily defects. Psychologically, the causes go back to the factors of the environment in which the afflicted person has lived — as when a child lives in surroundings lacking love and fatherly tenderness, and so grows up in an atmosphere full of anxiety and of psychological unrest.

Or when parents resort to comparing their children with other people's children and setting one above another so as to show up their shortcomings; or to mocking them with phrases that touch on their weakness, or to stinging blows; or to giving them no responsibility. Thus the individual grows up lacking confidence in himself and the sense of his own importance, and so resorts to covering over this feeling with unreal things.