“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”
—Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Tonight I contemplate how truth informs image. This supposition is the basis of Thoreau’s above assertion and is the axiom that underscores how one person’s perception of another is likely to be completely flawed. In general, most people promulgate complex ruses in order to affect the creation of a positive perception (i.e. an image). These ruses vary in efficacy depending on the talent of the promulgator, the gullibility of the perceiver and the similarity of the ruse to the actual personality. We see this every day; people meticulously cultivate images of intelligence, toughness, power, prestige or importance.
Grasping this concept, one may think society an inherently shallow institution. For all purposes, this is true. Prevailing society focuses narrowly on material wealth, physical beauty and prestige as vaulted ideals. Yet, these qualities no more define success in life than they do the content of a person’s character. We use these attributes as heuristics (whether knowingly or unknowingly) in order to determine relative success. This is undoubtedly one of the most pervasive fallacies within our society.
True success must be evaluated from an intrapersonal analysis of character. No other quality is acceptable in this endeavor because no other quality pierces the internal ethic. Certainly people are capable of layering (or building barriers) through which they are able to overcome self-loathing, remorse or a sense of moral failure. However, these practices usually result in nothing more than grand facades. Assuredly, there are people who have an inflated view of themselves. However, as a rule the strength of a grounded (whether by faith or secular source) moral code prevails. Such an evaluation must come from within because no person knows as much about you as yourself. The ruses that we create provide disinformation to those who attempt to evaluate our character. Even when we do not create such ruses, outside evaluations are skewed by bias and lack of information.
When people judge quickly, they usually do so in error. All actions occur in context, yet most people do not consider such context. An otherwise laudable person may act inappropriately on a bad day. Likewise, an action intended to be good may be perceived as otherwise because of the aforementioned bias. Such biases may be cultural, political, ideological or biological. Serious contemplation of why people do the things that they do is paramount to reducing said bias. Breadth of knowledge with regard to culture, sociology, psychology, ethics, religion and history aids in this understanding. Closed-mindedness is obviously anathema to understanding and does nothing improve your worldview.
Why then, do we concern ourselves so much with how we are perceived by others? In truth, it is an exercise in stupidity. No person is allowed to define who we are but ourselves. We have a monopoly on knowledge of our character. Every other person has, at best, a flawed perception of you. Therefore, if you honestly and thoroughly examine your character and find that you are generally good (though imperfect) then that is what truly matters. To employ one of my favorite phrases, everyone else can go play in traffic. I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, but I think that Thoreau would feel the same way.
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