Welcome to From Insults To Respect.

Here on this blog, I aim to shed light upon how folks might improve their self-respect and the respect others have for them. With this end in mind, from time to time I describe someone who has handled a difficult situation in a respect enhancing manner. For example, in one post I describe how Abraham Lincoln skillfully handled insults (see HERE). In another, I describe how Joni Mitchell wisely dealt with her experiences with depression (see HERE). Utilizing the same educational technique, today, I provide a brief look at how the astonishingly well respected psychologist and philosopher William James deftly dealt with his interpersonal relationships.

James’s Interpersonal Relationship Skills

In 1920, ten years after William James passed away, his son, Henry, published many of his father’s letters in a two volume set titled, The Letters of William James.

William with his brother, Henry

This Henry James was not the famous author, Henry James, who was William’s brother. He, nevertheless, reveals an accomplished talent for writing as he provides in the volumes’s beautifully written context for the letters.

The two volumes were very well received as we see in this excerpt of a review published in the New Republic. 

The very tones of his [William James’s] voice are audible in them, his wit is here, his fine considerateness, his friendships, naturalness, variety, sincerity. Nobody’s humor draws closer likenesses of persons and ideas and point of view. Nobody’s seriousness is more informal. Is there a better book of letters in English?

William James’s sons, Willie on the left, and Henry on the right.

Henry begins his two volumes with a brief biography of his dad. As this draws to a close, he summarizes his dad’s interpersonal style:

 He enjoyed being generous and hated to spoil a gift of praise by “stingy” qualifications. He might have said that the great point was not to let any unique virtue in a man evaporate or be wasted. At any rate, he said, that should be seen to in a university. He was quite unconventional in recognizing originality, and preferred all risks in hailing potentialities that might never come to fruition, to a policy of playing safe in his estimates. Yet on the whole he seldom “fooled himself.” Few men who have possessed a comparable gift of discovering special virtues in different individuals have combined with it so just a sense of what could not be expected of those same individuals in the way of other virtues.

But there would be danger of misunderstanding if this trait were mentioned without an important qualification. The reader will do well, in interpreting any judgment of James’s to consider whether the book, or theory, or man under consideration was new and unrecognized, or was already established and secure of a place in men’s esteem. In the former case, especially if there were anything in the situation to appeal to James’s natural “inclination to succor the under-dog,” his praise was likely to be extravagantly expressed and his reservations were apt to be withheld. In the latter case he was no less certain to give free rein to his critical discernment. Men who knew him as a teacher are likely to remember how he encouraged them in their efforts on the one hand, and on the other how stimulating to them and enlarging to their mental horizons were his free and often destructive comments upon famous books and illustrious men.

With regards to this trait of James to provide “free and often destructive comments upon famous books and illustrious men,” it is important to add that critical comments were not directed at the person, but at the ideas of the person. In fact, James often communicated to the person advocating an idea with which he had very much disagreed, some kind words about the author of the idea.

Prof. Hodgson

For  example, in a letter to the eminent Professor Shadworth H. Hodgson in which James severely criticizes his ideas that had been put forth in a philosophy article, James concludes his letter, with the following friendly words:

Farewell! Heaven bless you all the same — and enable you to forgive me. We are well and I hope you are the same. Let me add a wish for a happy New Year and the expression of my undying regard. You are tenfold more precious to me now that I have braved you thus! Adieu! 

James’s son, Henry, concludes this point thusly:

If more critics, and more of the criticized, were to cultivate the manliness, and generosity with which James always entered discussions, there would be less reviewers “never forgiven,” and less feuds in the world of science. 

Henry ends his description of his dad’s interpersonal style with these words:

…he helped many a troubled soul to face the problems of the universe in an independent and gallant spirit. He helped them by example as well as by precept, for it was plain to everyone who knew him or read him that his genius was ardently adventurous and humane. 

Discussion

Dr Jeff Rubin

Today, William James is largely respected because of his insightful ideas that he shared in his writings. In past posts, I discuss some of those ideas such as his highly practical suggestions about child discipline (see HERE), and his fatherly advice to his depressed daughter (see HERE). To get some sense of why James was respected for his interpersonal interactions, it makes sense to go beyond his writings and turn to someone who knew him well. James’s loving son, Henry is a good fit for this task for there is hardly anyone who knew him better. And yet, in doing so, it makes sense to surmise it is, to a certain extent, biased.

Recognizing this, we need not assume Henry’s description is absolutely accurate in every respect to obtain from it something of value. Taken solely as a narrative of someone who just might have acted thusly, it provides us an opportunity to reflect upon our own conduct to see if we can glean from it some skills we just might usefully seek to incorporate into our own conduct.

Wishing all of my readers a colorful autumn,
Jeff

enhancing respectinterpersonal relationshipsrespectsocial skillsWilliam James