Advice : Wedding, Marriage, Engagement, Anniversary

There are many spouses who operate according to a tit-for-tat system. If Mary performs and behaves in a manner which John desires, then John will behave in a manner which Mary desires. But if Mary displeases John (and sometimes he requires the impossible), then John will, with effort and planning, behave so as to make Mary as miserable as he can. Unlike the quid pro quo process, in which the relationship agreements originate largely out of awareness, the tit-for-tat system implies a revengeful kind of conscious motivation which seeks equality in a punitive way that cannot possibly succeed. (Unfortunately, even nations seem not to have learned this elementary distinction.)

The following statements are characteristic expressions of the tit-for-tat relationship.

“If you treated me as if you really loved me, I could stand anything, accomplish anything.”

“You are negative about everything I do. Whether I swing a big deal or take the children camping, you suggest that it could have been done better. When we do things together, you always try to take charge, making it clear that my method is no good. If you encouraged me, the sky would be the limit in our relationship.”

“If you’d only make a good home, I’d be here all the time and I’d be loving.”

“If only you wouldn’t drink so much, I wouldn’t be so nervous and bitchy.”

“If you didn’t interrupt me whenever I started talking, I’m sure I could cure myself of the habit of using filthy language about the house.”

“If you didn’t shout at me or embarrass me in front of strangers, and if you’d hold my hand and look after me at parties, I’m sure I’d never hurt again in my life.”

“If you’d only read a few important books and some good newspapers, maybe we could find something to talk about.”

“If you’d stop going to those damned bridge parties every afternoon and stay home more…”

“If you didn’t watch television day and night and would talk to me just a little…”

“If you’d stop apologizing to guests about the miserable house, the poor meals…”

“If you’d only go to cooking school and learn how to prepare a meal…”

“If you’d only be a little neater and stop dropping your ashes all over the house…”

“If you’d only stop pampering the children…”

In each of these statements, one spouse indicates that he feels his own behavior depends on that of his partner.

Here we have the old chicken-and-egg problem. Even if it would help for the husband to be neater and for the wife to play less bridge, who will make the first move? And if someone does take the initiative, will his spouse regard this as an admission that he is the villain? More important, are these complaints valid, or do they really represent oversimplified attacks based on more general relationship problems? There are ways to avoid some of these traps, and we shall describe suitable methods. But in any event, if you find yourself simply blaming your spouse for all your problems, you had better seek a new constructive approach. For whatever else you do, you would have a hard time picking a worse technique to help a bad situation.

In the discussion of the symmetrical relationship and the status struggle we mentioned that certain statements or actions may unconsciously be directed at the spouse in a derogatory, attacking manner by a person who is attempting to establish that he is the peer or the superior of the other, in order to build his self-esteem, his self-respect, his dignity. This behavior is often of the youhurt-me-so-I’ll-hurt-you variety; in many instances it becomes a form of mental plundering, pillaging, and weakening.

The cause of this sort of conduct is likely to be vague, hidden, or camouflaged. It may be something which the other partner is believed-whether correctly or not-to have done or to have omitted doing. Perhaps one of the spouses suffers from his own sense of inferiority and in compensation attempts to elevate himself by stepping on his partner. Often an individual may attack his spouse on any insignificant issue when his real criticism is related to something entirely different. For instance, a husband may nag his wife for being a mediocre cook (even though he really doesn’t mind her cooking) because he is jealous of her social success. He is shy and awkward socially, but may unconsciously sense that if he attacks her on this issue, he automatically will expose his own feeling of inadequacy and his envy. In order to avoid painful self-disclosure, he chooses to pick on one of his wife’s sensitive areas-her cooking. He is probably not even aware that he is doing it, and certainly does not understand why.

Attacks of this kind are not restricted to husbands and wives.

They may involve employer and employee, brother and sister, two congressmen who happen to sit next to each other. But they are most obvious and (probably most damaging) in the case of marital partners simply because marriage lasts so long and is so intimate. Spouses cannot keep up a front with each other, no matter how much they wish to do so, or how hard they try to deceive themselves.

The symptoms of this type of human aggressiveness-though not necessarily the causes-have been reasonably well identified by psychiatrists and psychologists. In most cases in which marriages break up, several varieties of this destructive kind of behavior have been at work It is probable that these patterns of behavior are present in almost all marriages, but they need not be damaging. In the same way, the germs of tuberculosis and pneumonia are present in the bodies of most human beings, but these pathogenic germs are kept under control and do not become pernicious unless the body becomes weakened by fatigue, other illnesses, or the malfunction of an organ. Correspondingly, in a healthy marriage the natural defense system of the individual can handle the derogatory attacks, sometimes by tolerance, sometimes by quid pro quo techniques, sometimes by rendering the attacks harmless through personal change or a good old-fashioned fight.

Many a spouse, after spending expensive months with a psychiatrist or marriage counselor, has at least become aware of the extreme, constant attacks that he unconsciously makes on the other. It is one of the great rewards of psychiatry to witness the client’s explosive surprise upon recognizing that he has unconsciously been beating his partner into an emotional pulp. Usually the response is, “But I love my wife (or husband); how could I have done such a terrible thing for so many years?”

If this illumination comes before the partner has erected permanent defenses against the tormentor, there usually follows a satisfying revitalization of the marriage. Because the marriage process is an interlocking system, anyone action which has been fed into it has effects in a dozen different ways. When a person recognizes and understands the attack he has been making on the other, he is likely, almost in a moment of revelation, to understand a variety of past experiences which were discordant and confusing.

In the hope that some readers will experience illuminations of this sort, we present in the following sections on “How to Drive Your Spouse Crazy” examples and analyses of the most common methods by which one partner attacks and cripples the other, without even knowing what he is doing,

Yet the reader should recognize that it is incorrect to say that one spouse has “ruined” or “castrated” or “undermined” the other. A law of physics states that every action has an equal and opposing reaction; correspondingly, while there is no victim without a victimizer, it is equally true that the victimizer requires a willing subject. For instance, there can be no aggressive or dominating husband unless there is an accepting or passive wife. However, in each of the following examples we are concerned only with techniques employed by one of the spouses; it is up to the reader to remember that this approach is used for the sake of simplicity, so that the reader perhaps will be able to recognize the complexities of actual life.

The same care is needed to distinguish the real problem from the apparent one in analyzing any other source of marital discord. Economic difficulties are frequently blamed for destroying harmony. “When poverty comes in the door, love flies out the window.” It sounds good-but is it true? I have seen many marriages in which economic strain prevented disruption-and not only because the couple could no longer afford the cost of divorce. And it is probably not merely the increased ability to meet expenses which raises the number of divorces during prosperity.

Hardship can bring two people closer together as well as break their marital ties. The depression deepened some unions, and broke others. Any kind of misfortune is a test of the courage and sincerity of the mates; it is a test of the fundaments on which the marriage is built. If the wife has married only for the purpose of financial security, then of course the loss of an adequate income removes the only basis on which this particular marriage rests. On the other hand, if there is a feeling of belonging, hardship will strengthen it. Under really trying conditions many minor frictions, which often are more detrimental to the mutual understanding, disappear. Real disaster leaves no room for concern with personal prestige. Any desire of being better, any fear of appearing inferior, loses all meaning when very existence is threatened physically, economically, or socially. Women previously concerned with amusement, appearance, and. luxury become real companions of their husbands, sacrificing comfort in assisting them, and even providing financial support. Many a couple under such circumstances has detected favorable qualities and traits in each other which they had never suspected before.

It cannot be denied, however, that economic troubles are only too often the immediate grounds for the collapse of the marriage. But experience has taught us to look beyond immediate conflicts for deeper reasons. As we have said before, perhaps the foundations of such a union were never broad enough to withstand any strain, or they were already so deteriorated by other frictions that the slightest additional burden completed the destruction. We must always suspect behind any marital collapse the arch-enemy of human cooperation: over-emphasis of personal prestige. How can economic hardship affect personal prestige? To understand this question we must recognize the deeper source of many marital discords which seem to be based on economic difficulties.

The Man as Provider

Prevalent conceptions of rights and duties for men and women give financial matters a peculiar tinge. Many a woman considers her social value in terms of the dollars which a man spends on her be he husband or boy friend. The reduced financial capacity of the husband appears as an intolerable injury to social prestige. Any man who dares endanger her vanity and threaten her social status has to bear the full brunt of her contempt and indignation. On this basis personal quarrels and mutual accusations start. But there is another side to the picture. Men very often consider their own position correlated to the money they make. This conception is so common; at least it was so before the depression, that any man who doesn’t earn or have money is regarded as a failure. Being without a job is still more difficult for a man to bear than for a woman. The deep feeling of personal inadequacy on the side of a husband who has lost his job or fortune increases the intensity of his fight for personal prestige within the family and disturbs deeply the marital equilibrium.

If the husband does not or cannot support the family adequately, it takes much courage and a deep sense of dignity on both sides to maintain the marital harmony. The wife is inclined to regard his shortcoming as a personal insult, often interpreting the man’s failure to make more money as a neglect of wife and family. The husband, on his side, feels his inadequacy deeply, even if his pride prevents him from revealing his feeling of shame. But his actions demonstrate clearly his futile and disturbing attempts to compensate for his alleged failure. He may remonstrate actively or passively by staying in bed and refusing any kind of contribution on his side; or he may play the tyrant, demanding and ordering the other members of the family around. The wife generally doesn’t understand at all why he behaves as he does; and her anger increases when he becomes less and less willing to help at home. She thinks that he should feel more obliged to assume domestic duties if he isn’t working. She does not realize that his conception of domestic work as being feminine and therefore inferior deepens his feeling of shame. Her nagging drives him deeper into desperate opposition.

If men were trained to consider housework as not inferior, and women regarded support of the family as not exclusively a man’s job, then unemployment of the husband would hardly create any problem. The situation is somewhat different among professional men, where the husband’s importance as artist, actor, writer, lawyer, or scientist is less dependent upon the amount of money he makes. In this and similar fields a man may gain professional status and still be poor, and the wife can be proud of him, even though she supports him. Women and men in this group often look down upon men whose only contribution is support.

Changes in the conception of man as the only provider lead to new difficulties in another direction. Many a man resents the desire of his wife to work outside the home and to earn money herself. He regards it as a personal humiliation if his wife works. Actually it is a struggle for supremacy and prestige which prevents many a man from consenting to his wife’s career. To overcome such an obstacle is not easy for a woman who has something to contribute and looks for personal recognition. Neither fighting nor giving in will help. Fighting may lead to a disruption of the marital ties. Even if she wins he will continuously resent her success and, in some cases, may become so discouraged in the competition with his wife that his own efficiency is impaired. And her surrender may entail the cultivation of a resentment that will lead her either to an unhappy, empty life, or to other expressions of independence as distasteful to her jealous husband.

The clash between spouses does not preclude an agreement resulting in some satisfactory equilibrium. Many women capable and desirous of a career renounce it voluntarily because they realize how disturbing it would be for their husbands’ development. Such a decision, however, cannot be regarded as “surrender.” It is made deliberately in full consciousness of the benefits obtained. But, if the woman is sincerely interested in some work and determined to carry it on, her giving in to threats or intimidation will not solve the problem. She should find means of maintaining her marriage along with developing a career. This requires the ability to win her husband’s approval. Arguments and tears, threats and accusations, will only antagonize. Courageous women engaged in a career can be kind and firm enough to convince a husband that he does not lose anything, not even his masculine superiority, if she finds her own field of activity.

Regardless of whether the conflict is created by the husband’s failure to provide or by his desire to be the only provider, the same principles are valid and should be observed if disaster is to be avoided. First of all, the wife must recognize her husband’s problem and help him to solve it. He needs encouragement even if-no, because-he tries to play the tyrant. The husband who prevents his wife from having a career demonstrates thereby his discouragement, his fear that he will be unable to maintain his superiority. Proving to him how wrong he is in his demands proves only how right he is in questioning her devotion. Whenever problems of prestige, of distrust, or of lack of faith arise, logical arguments are of no avail. Humiliation cannot be avoided by humiliating the other one. Expressions of sincere affection, demonstrations of love, strengthen the feeling of belonging and prepare for mutual agreement. In an atmosphere of frank confidence, the most controversial issues can be settled. Of course, a wife who does not believe that her husband will ever agree, or that she will ever be able to make him understand her point of view, prepares only for a fight and disappointment.

We must be emphatic: These statements are not theoretical but have very practical implications. We can change our whole life and the attitude of people around us simply by changing ourselves. The change is not easy. Improvement is possible only when the necessity to start with oneself is recognized-and admitted. Too many persons try to educate and change the partner. How many even enter marriage with the idea of changing the other one! In living together we do influence and change each other but not by insisting upon a change of the partner. Only by our own behavior can we influence those with whom we live.

Whatever happens in a marital relationship expresses the interaction of both spouses. Instead of the general demand, “If only he would change, I’d be glad to act differently,” we should recognize the truth that “If I change my behavior, he cannot continue his.” Even the slightest changes in attitude of one are immediately reflected in the behavior of the other. Without realizing it, we possess uncanny sensibility and remarkable powers of coordination. Unfortunately, we know much better how to fight and how to hurt than how to please. Therefore, we are more efficient and successful in warfare and fighting. It generally takes more time and effort to provoke pleasant reactions, especially when warfare has already begun. In the marriage relationship, a certain amount of fight, of competition, of hostility and distrust, exists often from the beginning; and it takes deliberate effort to establish an atmosphere of genuine trust and kindness.

Not that most people are bad or malicious. All possibilities for good or bad exist in almost every human being. Husband and wife have the power of arousing the good or bad in each other. But what do they know of each other? They live together in one room, they eat at the same table, they share the same bed, their whole life is intimately fused by mutual activity-yet how little they understand one another! Each knows the other’s habits (mostly annoying), peculiarities, preferences, and irritabilities. What has all this to do with the deeper personality, with expectations and fears, with conceptions of life and of one’s self, with all that which makes people act and behave in a definite way? Husband and wife recognize symptoms, but not the forces behind them. And if they are disappointed, they wish to eliminate the symptoms without being willing to gratify the needs in each other.

Curiously enough, too often after two individuals have separated, they understand each other better than before. Friction, mutual fear, the fight for prestige, had blinded them. In blaming each other, they sought to excuse their own maladjustments. Ignoring or riding roughshod over the partner’s fundamental needs made it easier to continue fighting for one’s own ends. What each says about the other is generally right, although statements seem to contradict each other. But it is not important who is right and who is wrong. Each is right from his own point of view, and wrong from the other’s. The point is that if we love someone, we do not ask if he is right or wrong. That is why love is called blind. But love is not necessarily blind. Love says, “I love you, although you are not perfect. I love you and accept you as you are.” But later, when our self-esteem and prestige are threatened, we do not take each other as we are. In fighting for our own superiority we find faults in our partner and use them as good reasons for stopping our own cooperation. For happiness, the question of rightness and wrongness is unimportant. But to accept the other’s faults and virtues-that is important.

We must start at this point when discord and disappointment threaten the very existence of a marriage–or, in minor degrees, just make it less comfortable and satisfactory. The first step, the first condition for any improvement, means accepting the situation, however unpleasant, as it is; it is futile to wish it were different. To face the problem squarely and courageously is the prerequisite for finding the ways and means out of a predicament. It is not always easy, as we are timid. But running away never pays; no problem is solved in that way. When we have decided to face the issue, when we muster our courage and try to think in terms of ‘What can I do to improve the situation?” -then we are on the right track. Having abandoned the illusion that we may succeed by fighting and forcing the issue, having overcome our feeling of inadequacy, having admitted that the other one suffers too, we discover solutions. Perhaps slowly, perhaps inadequately at first, but with growing courage as our insight increases and our growing self-confidence makes us less vulnerable and more effective.

The following example is characteristic of thousands of episodes and conflicts found in the history of almost every marriage. They could have been avoided or easily solved had both spouses understood the underlying motives and goals of each other, had they refrained from resenting and accusing each other and looked instead for their own chances to change the situation.

Mrs. M. came for advice in a matter that seemed to her thoroughly trivial and yet was threatening her whole marriage. Married about one year, she got along very well with her husband. Sexually and socially they had fun together and were devoted companions–except for one disagreement which lately had taken on such proportions that the harmony between them was gone, affecting almost every phase of their marital life.

She reported that despite all her efforts she was unable to make Mr. M. give her her weekly allowance for food and other housekeeping expenses on time. She had to ask for the money each week, several times; and, if she did not ask, he “forgot’” altogether to give her her money until the week was over. She talked to him, pleaded with him, and threatened him-nothing helped. The more they quarreled, the less he obliged. What could she do? Now he had started to accuse her of spending too much; she should have saved something from last week. “From my fifteen dollars a week-when I try so hard to make ends meet since he simply refuses to give me more.” She could not understand why he was so miserly in this regard, since he spent rather generously on her otherwise.

What could she do to avoid the fighting, quarreling and invariable final submission to the humiliating experience? We can well understand her predicament. It was impossible for her to plan her budget and even her meals. She had to borrow and to make debts, both of which she hated. What could she have done instead of talking, pleading-and threatening?

Here we reach the crucial point. Despite the fact that the majority of housewives probably would have acted as Mrs. M. did, they all miss the boat. A little understanding of the little guy who wants to play the big boss would have saved many sleepless nights, tortuous scenes, wasted hours, days, and weeks. It is obvious that the “unreasonable” behavior of Mr. M. appears only unreasonable when looked upon at the logical level. He certainly had neither the “right” nor any logical reason to behave as he did. But the situation looks different when regarded from the psychological point of view. He loved his wife dearly, was devoted to her to such a degree that she could wind him around her little finger. And she did so, except in this one field of action. The only point where he could exert his superiority was in his role as provider. And-without being aware of it-he wanted to make full use of this one advantage. He wanted to be asked, to be begged. If he had given her her allowance at the beginning of the week, without any ado, then even this sign of his authority would have been taken away from him. Instead of power he would have accepted just another duty. He could not explain that to her, because he was not aware of his psychological motivation. Therefore, when she accused him, he had to come back with rationalizations, with flimsy retaliations and unfounded reproaches, which made Mrs. M. only more furious. And so they became deadlocked in a battle which could result only in the break-up of their marriage.

Once Mrs. M. realized the situation, overcame her hurt pride and resentment, she found easily what she could do to solve the problem. First, she no longer resented asking him for what she knew was due her. She wanted him to be happy -and if that was what made him happy, why not give it to him. It was so easy, once her false pride was gone. Still, there remained some difficulty. She had to ask him several times for the money, of course, as he did not give it to her immediately. That sometimes involved hardships as bills had to be paid. What to do? But Mrs. M., clever as she was, found a simple answer. She discovered that she could as easily get from him a hundred dollars as fifteen dollars if she asked for it several times. He actually was very generous. So on several occasions she got a hundred dollars, which gave her a reserve to fall back on if he did not provide the weekly allowance on time. And reproaches and scenes were never necessary.

What she had learned from this experience went deeper than the successful handling of the allowance problem. She discovered that their real danger lay in their mutual competition, that he was afraid of being just a “sucker,” that his love and devotion would make him her slave, and that she wanted, more than necessary, her queenly position, ambitious and pampered as she was. In the limelight of the one conflict, she learned to understand the deeper conflict endangering their entire relationship-and she found the way of solving the whole problem.

Countless are the problems which we have to meet in living together. Our whole lifetime is given over to overcoming obstacles. Marriage is of definite advantage, for it brings together two people for mutual help in the struggle for existence. But though marriage helps us to meet the tasks of life-it is also a task which must be met. In matrimony we encounter not only the general problems of life, but the special problems arising in marriage. We may consider problems as a test of our capacity to solve them. Our marital problems are a test of our ability to live closely together with another human being.

These considerations suggest that every problem is related to various levels of our personality and our life. It is on the superficial level that the actual content of a problem appears first. We are aware of uneasiness. This subjective feeling of calamity seems to be caused entirely by a definite concrete situation. Economic, social, professional, or sexual conflicts seem to demand special efforts. If these efforts do not resolve the problem, disappointment and discontent follow. Formerly assistance and advice were limited to specific regulations which had to be observed in order to maintain cooperation and harmony in life or marriage. The suggestions offered were technical, recommending specific procedures to be followed to meet specific evident circumstances. Written laws directed personal conduct.

The modern psychologist seeks behind any concrete problem a structure totally different from the evident problem itself, which can be regarded as merely a symptom. Each problem is related to the entirety of a given life situation, which is established by all forces converging on us from the outside and meeting our personal attitude deriving from our past-our style of life, our training, our preparation.

Any constructive discussion of the problems causing discontent and friction must disclose psychological errors which have provoked the problems or are hindering their satisfactory solution. Although it seems to us that our encounter with life results in real and concrete clashes which hurt, insult, and sometimes even kill, in reality the conflict is only within ourselves. The question, whether reality exists at all, or only in our conception of it, remained a mere philosophical issue-and a very confused and confusing one-until physicists revealed the “spiritual nature” of matter, discovering that any concrete substance, tangible as it is, consists entirely of abstract and utterly immaterial waves. The chair on which one sits is real, it consists of wood or metal. One might expect to find the same material no matter how far one analyzes the constituents of the chair, but that is wrong. If one goes far enough, one finds particles which consist only of electrons, neutrons, and other smallest bodies which, however, are actually only waves without what we generally consider substance. The speed and number of waves alone determine the material, wood or metal, the consistency, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, and the color . We are living in an entirely different world when we look behind the surface of the “real thing.” Great is the similarity between the conception and approach of modern physical science and psychology.’ The analysis of concrete problems discloses a similar fundamental difference between the appearance of a problem and the forces constituting it. Each problem is the expression of personal and social forces beneath the surface. Solution of conflicts demands an understanding of the underlying facts, of conditions and personalities involved.

The Subjectivity of Facts

As long as life goes on, forces will oppose each other, interests will clash, demands will conflict. Life always will be succumbing to death, and growth will always try to survive destruction. That is true for life as a whole, as well as for any part of it. It is as true for the cell as for the organism; for the unit of the family as well as for the nation and the world. Clash and collision do not necessarily mean suffering. Even death is rarely painful. Real mishaps are responsible for only a minor amount of our grief and unhappiness. It is hard to believe, but true, that death, disease, war, and poverty cause only a small part of the misery which plagues mankind today. The ability of human nature to adjust itself to the most atrocious conditions is amazing. Our suffering takes place within ourselves. It comes from our attitudes toward facts, it lies in our minds. This does not mean that we dare be oblivious to the conditions of life; on the contrary, we recognize now more than ever the interrelationship between facts and mind. We know the human mind creates facts and conditions and is itself stimulated by conditions and experiences. There is a constant interaction between an individual and his environment. But whether any situation is pleasant or unpleasant depends ‘Only to a limited degree upon the situation itself. Our attitude spells acceptance or rejection-and only rejection is connected with unpleasant sensations.

Our attitude determines the meaning of facts. Facts in themselves, life in itself, are neither good nor bad-pleasant nor unpleasant. What we make of them counts. Almost everything contains all possibilities; even death or pain may be acceptable and welcome. Pain as a sign of healing or of progress (giving birth, or as first sign of recovery in paralysis) may be highly pleasant. Good may stem from anything, as may evil. A given circumstance may destroy or it may stimulate. Our own determination, our preconceived opinion directs our view to the beautiful or the ugly and enables us to find help or disaster. Our “biased apperception” turns reality into fiction: we see what we like to see, we find what we expect to find. We learn by experience only to a limited degree, because we generally “make” our experiences; that is, arrange them-arrange them and definitely interpret them as we choose.

This “idealistic” interpretation of life is accused of neglecting any conflict produced by conditions outside ourselves. According to our everyday experiences, our life seems to be determined by strong environing forces, in comparison to which our own individual strength appears puny. Hereditary or hygienic conditions, economic security or unemployment, war or prosperity have decisive influence on the course of our life. A group of people, persecuted and suppressed, can scarcely include or beget happy individuals, and starved people can rarely be optimistic. Are social forces not more important than personal attitudes?

Contradictory points of view are responsible for many misunderstandings in personal relationships, in research, in counseling. Materialism and idealism represent different aspects of life. For a long time economic and sociological approaches to human problems were exclusively materialistic; religious and philosophic conceptions by contrast were more or less idealistic. Today, however, we are moving toward an integrated conception of life. We find in psychology as well as in sociology both mechanistic and idealistic tendencies. Behaviorists, for instance, recognize only the tangible influences upon the individual, while semanticists regard personal interpretations and conceptions as decisive factors. It seems difficult to unite both points of view. In our endeavor to combine these two aspects, both seeming true and yet each contradicting the other, we receive assistance from modern physical science. Physicists point out that what we call causality is the law of the great number, which is better called “statistical probability”while the single particle seems to be undetermined and unpredictable in its movement and speed. Applied to human problems, this notion of causality has interesting consequences.

Sociological factors are material influences which determine the fate of the masses. Such influences are decisive only for a great number, but not for the individual. The number of people in the United States who are unemployed depends on economic and social conditions, the influence of which is strictly deterministic. Any improvement of these conditions produces an increase of employment, and any deterioration a corresponding decrease. This relationship is deterministic. But whether you and I are unemployed is determined neither by economic and social conditions nor by the number of unemployed. It is up to us how we meet the necessity of earning a living. If we try harder and more efficiently, we may get a job-although at the expense of someone else, who may be fired,” or we may create a job.

This is the idealistic approach to a problem contrasted to causalistic determinism. Both approaches have a definite value, if we distinguish clearly that the first should be employed in considering individual problems, and the second in judging general conditions. The percentage of persons who commit suicide in a given community remains amazingly constant from year to year, and is related to economic conditions (the price of grain, for instance) or to social and political circumstances which alone cause increase or decrease in the number. During war and revolution the number of suicides generally decreases. But whether an individual commits suicide or not is entirely independent of the price of grain, or the war situation.

Although exposed to all general influences, his actions are not fully determined by them, nor has any other factor decisive, unalterable power over him. The individual is free to make his plans and to act accordingly. His own attitude, formed on the spur of the moment, but on the basis of and in agreement with his personal style of life, decides which steps he will take and in which direction he will move.