PECULIAR PSYCHOLOGY.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1440, 15 December 1923, Page 2

PECULIAR PSYCHOLOGY.

WE DISLIKE WHAT SHAMES US. (Contributed.) Why do we dislike those that are better than we? Why do drunkards sneer at teeotallers? Why do the vicious hate the viruous and the weak glower at the strong? Why do all of us feel a twinge of resentment against anyone Who is more capable, rich or famous than ourselves? This type of hostility is a curious thing. It is the kind of feeling the politicians of Athens had towards Socrates and the Pharisees of Jerusalem had towards Jesus. I think I have “isolated” the microbe, as the medical gentlemen eay. The secret of it is that those who do better than we make us ashamed. And we dislike whatever shames us. This is a very prevalent and powerful feeling. It is subtle and covert, but it operates strongly. Haven’t you seen the dissolute, worthless husband who has grown to detest his wife for no reason except that she is good and patient, and always does as nearly as she can what she believes to be right? His maudlin accusation is that “she doesn't understand” him. He neglects and finally detests her. He delights in doing what he knows will hurt her. Why? Because her presence is to him a con-

stant rebuke. She shames him. And all his nasty egotism and pride rise up to resent it. Is not this the solution of the too common tragedy of parent and chilci? The parent agonises to gain the child’s confidence and cooperation. An insuperable spiritual barrier seems to be between them. The child turns to any chance companion rather than to the parent. Why? Because before the parent he is ashamed. And the weaker and more wayward you are the more pride and sensitiveness develop in you. This is that strange centrifugal force of evil, that something in a wrong soul that impels it to ilee Horn right souls. The cry of the perverted is “Let us alone!” This is why the wastrel seeks the wastrel for his boon companions, why birds of evil flock together, why there is something in us all, God pity .us! that makes us fly from those who would do us good and seek out those who work us woe. It is even why we choose for company those who are more ignorant and altogether lower in morals and attainments than ourselves. It is the same reason the ostler is embarrassed in the drawing room and the farm hand in the university hall. We hate what shames us. Happy thrice fortunate the man who seeks out those who shame him and corrects himself thereby!