We are deeply concerned about judgments made about ourselves. We want other people to think of us as good/cool/sexy, and under no circumstances as bad/vulgar/ugly.
However, our personal representation is not open to intentional performance. Even if I accrue a mountain of good deeds, I will not be judged as a “good person” if I go around saying “I am showing you what a good person I am through my good deeds. Look! I really am a good person!” I will not be recognized by others as a “good person” until someone sees me accruing good deeds unnoticed while he is watching.
So, how do we get other people to think of us as good/cool/sexy? This was the question I posed last time.
There is no safe and sure solution to this problem. All we can do is act in such a way that others are led to think of us as good/cool/sexy, while hiding this fact from them so that they don’t notice; that is, we must act naturally. It is like a swan that appears to glide elegantly over the surface of a lake, while actually kicking furiously under the water. Come what may, we must never say aloud “This will make you think I’m a good person, right?” If our intentions become known, all is lost.
In Junichiro Tanizaki’s (1886–1965) novel Sasameyuki (English: The Makioka Sisters), there is a passage describing how Sachiko, a female character, takes a disliking to a character named Okubatake. Her dislike for him is not due to his being violent or immoral. Rather, she finds Okubatake’s manner of speech irritatingly slow. She thinks he sounds like a pampered rich kid.
But this does not mean that Sachiko feels Okubatake is committing “identity fraud” by putting on rich-kid air although he is actually poor. Okubatake really is the son of a wealthy family (although it is getting less and less rich), and Sachiko knows this. So why does Sachiko dislike Okubatake?
In Sasameyuki, there is a description that Sachiko perceives that Okubatake is flaunting his easygoing, wealthy mannerisms, and that she dislikes him for it.
She dislikes him not because he is a wealthy man who was raised in the midst of plenty, and therefore naturally speaks with a slow and easygoing air, without realizing it. Sachiko dislikes Okubatake because he consciously speaks slowly, as if to announce “Speaking slowly shows how wealthy I am. Isn’t it glamorous?”
Obviously, Okubatake is not overt about his intentions. Nor does he know that Sachiko has seen through him. If another person says to him “You sure speak slowly Mr. Okubatake,” he would undoubtedly feign ignorance, slowly saying “Oh? Is that so?”
If all this is just the product of Sachiko’s imagination, we can only say that Mr. Okubatake is quite unlucky, but even if this is the case, Sachiko still has no choice but to rely on her own perceptions when judging the people around her. The same is true for Okubatake and the rest of us as well.
In order to obtain desirable judgments from others, we should produce our own desirable “characters (images of figure)” with our best care lest our intention of producing should be detected by other people. The question of whether our intentions will be detected, and our own suspicions about whether the characters created by others are real or just façades, are a component of the “hidden battles” that are incredibly common in everyday conversation.
