Freedom is being disliked by other people
A discussion on Adlerian psychology, security leadership, and interpersonal relationships
“Answers from others are nothing more than stopgap measures; they’re of no value.”
Introduction
The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga is best described as masterpiece if only for how well information is articulated. The book is structured like a conversation that occurs over five nights. It conveys the concepts of Adlerian psychology through a conversation between a youth and a philosopher. Adlerian psychology differs from Freudian psychology in that it dispenses with causal aspects of historic events and focuses on the moment and the context. It aligns well with stoicism in the respect that it focuses on the reaction and actions of the individual.
The dialogue forms part of what is being communicated but further depth becomes emergent as you read. The youth is the inversion of Adlerian psychology and foreshadows what is to come. It is outlined how the youth is dissatisfied with the happiness of others, presaging later conversations of inferiority and aetiology. The perspective of the youth is one of competition which is driven from these feelings of inferiority. This is clearly shown in the internal monologue at the end of the first night where he wishes to ‘thoroughly dismantle this eccentric philosopher’s theories’.
The philosopher is correct when he says “We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining”. The youth is the exemplar of a causal relationship from trauma (perceived or otherwise) to a current situation of dissatisfaction and dysfunctional interpersonal relationships following from the aetiological perspective. The philosopher the paragon of Adlerian principles, not engaging in the youth’s combative framing. Their dialogue becomes the illustration of how meaning is self-determining in how they respond to each other. They create the community described later in the book and their interactions provide an example of how Adlerian principles might be applied. The youth adopting the perspective of a vertical relationship based on his feelings of inferiority, and the philosopher a horizontal relationship.
Security leaders can adopt Adlerian principles to reframe how they conceptualise what they do and how they introspect on interpersonal relationship and how they give meaning their own problems. It’s possible, if not inevitable that we must conclude that fundamental starting point of our industry, ourselves, has been built on unsound premise when viewed in Adlerian terms.
Was it was always meant to be?
The philosopher outlines how a non-deterministic perspective is required by Adlerian principles and is dismissive of Freud’s hard determinism. The determinism and non-determinism discussion has wider reaching implications in terms of how we view subjects like criminality, justice, and freewill. We need to carry these principles through to how we apply security practice. Adlerian psychology shows that it’s useful to assume that the world is non-deterministic, and that freewill exists. The acceptance of a non-deterministic view is not without implication. You are responsible for your choices as much as others are responsible for theirs. It takes control away from external factors and lays it at your feet. The focus on action becomes meaningful and of use as you become anchored to there here and now. The philosopher states that ‘If life was a line then planning would be possible’ which does then put a question against the efficacy of predictive methodologies, those which have something to say about something that does not exist.
This might seem like a trivial point however the wider sector would benefit from giving the philosophical basis of the practice proper consideration to address inconsistencies in how methodology is applied.
Ad Victoriam
Let’s consider our own perspective. All problems are interpersonal relationship problems as articulated by the philosopher. How these relationships are viewed can make or break a security leader. The philosopher cautions against using a victory or defeat paradigm to frame interpersonal relationships and relates this to feelings of inferiority. We should apply introspection to understand why we might be seeking to frame relationships in competitive terms. This does uncover how we are biased towards egocentrism. There is an implied requirement to moderate the ego as described by Ryan Holiday. Ego inevitably leads to interpersonal relationships being seen through a competitive lens thereby holding us to the expectations of others.
The philosopher states that a competitive outlook can be the cause of a many problems in interpersonal relationships. We can see derivative concepts in Stephen Covey’s 7 habits where the ‘think win-win’ habit talks to seeking a mutually beneficial outcome in a situation where there is interdependence, eluding to the underlying concept of horizontal relationships. From a security leaders’ perspective this will have the benefit of being able to establish the relationships needed to ensure longevity in a career and create the inner circle that John Maxwell advocates.
There is the balance to feelings of inferiority that needs to be achieved, whilst it can have utility as a driver to promote action and personal growth there is a necessary aspect for introspection. Covey describes this neatly when discussing the sharpen the saw habit “Conscience is the endowment that senses our congruence or disparity with correct principles and lifts us towards them”. To this point, the youth has served as the example of a lack of self-awareness and is engaged heavily in the victory or defeat paradigm. He is captured by ego and does not seek to understand the philosopher’s perspective, only attack it. Covey might say that he would need to understand, then be understood (and certainly requires a paradigm shift). Holiday might suggest he needs to get out of his own head.
A security leader can learn from this that empathy is the mechanism in which we can think win-win. We aren’t talking about the nebulous ‘HR friendly’ interpretation of empathy, rather the Vossian concept of weaponised or tactical empathy. By seeking to understand the hidden goals of others, it then gives us the insight to apply these tools in an introspective way to manage our emotional responses and orient towards the teleological, away from the aetiological.
We can take the philosopher’s outlook about treating other as ‘comrades’ as a generally useful principle that can help improve the prospects of security leaders in their interactions. Yet we must consider that there could be malevolent intent on the part of others. The philosopher goes as far saying you should be the person that other turn to in times of need. Maxwell also makes similar points in ‘the law of connection’. There are safeguards against malevolent intent. Machiavelli discusses when this when talking about being feared or loved and how a leaning towards a totalising benevolence leaves you open to being deposed. Robert Greene articulates that creating a dependency for others in yourself will enable you to hold power over them. We are then left with the point where the philosopher and Maxwell seem to coalesce towards a more benevolent perspective where Green and Machiavelli have a more cynical perspective. But from the standpoint of a security leader, they should be cognisant of the Machiavellian world view while understanding the philosopher’s standpoint. If they are not able to defend themselves from malevolent actors, how can they be depended on to defend others. But I’d muse that a Machiavellian view would advocate that the philosopher’s perspective is that one that others should perceive.
As much as we have consistency in what we should be seen to be doing we have a contradiction in motive. Do we sincerely want to be benevolent and seek the win-win or are we seeking power and the destruction of our enemies. Again, we return to empathy, a skill that enables a security leader to make the assessment about other motives and balance an appropriate response based on the information at hand, or as the philosopher put is, understanding a person’s hidden goal.
Does the wider industry have a sense of inferiority?
As a security sector we often engage in dysfunctional interpersonal relationships and have become habituated to the victory and defeat paradigm. How we conceptualise our work is often adversarial in construct. We talk of attackers and defenders, red teams and blue teams, white hat and black hat. It’s the language of practitioners, vendors, and industry bodies. They have established a paradigm in which to view the world and it’s no wonder that this permeates into all that we do as a practice. We are conditioned to cause and effect through various frameworks. This leads to the learned thinking of drawing causal relationship which informs how we interact with others. All of which stand diametrically opposed to the principles of Adlerian psychology and prevents us form having confidence in others.
There is a point of note here. As we habituate into the adversarial construct, we are training ourselves to the boundaries of it. In pressurised situations we rely on our training, depend on reflex. So, if we are what we repeatedly do to paraphrase Aristotle, then the ongoing engagement into that paradigm will subordinate us to it. A teleological view of purpose will enable us to exchange the problem of our past to the problem of the unknown. If our purpose is to progress from the vestigial thinking, then we need choose the right problem to care about as Mark Manson would suggest. The conclusion of this perspective is a totalising rejection of current orthodoxy in the sector.
Many disciplines within IT are aligned to aetiological view of cause and effect. We see this in IT methodologies that have concepts like root cause analysis from which the security sector adopted its mindset. This happened because we didn’t consider our purpose and only our cause. We are not a technical discipline, despite what we think. We limited our community because of the cause of our own emergence which became our boundary.
The wider security industry seeks the approval of others. This is manifest in it’s ‘leaders’, in how it complains when it doesn’t get approval, support, or validation. This is an example of a life-lie “I can’t secure the organisation because I don’t have board support”. This mindset resigns us to failure at outset and we unknowingly set the goal to fail and retrospectively construct the life-lie that upholds that goal. But by seeking that approval from a place of inferiority, we become inferior. We must do what we do because it serves our purpose. As the philosopher says, ‘we must not seek reward, and we must not be tied to it’.
The philosopher muses that embracing the expectations of others is to ‘throw away who you really are and live other people’s lives’. This is something we see in practitioners in the community touting certifications, frameworks, or methodology. They have walked in the shadow of those that came before and dare not tread into the light for they will be revealed for what they truly are, vacuous vessel captured by someone else’s ideas. There is a component of responsibility. We lack assurance in own opinions and seek validation from ‘higher’ authorities. When external validation is the task then the goal is avoiding responsibility.
Frameworks, audit, and compliance functions in their conceptualisation create an environment in which outcome driven behaviours are expected. Security becomes the function to meet the expectation. This leads to the conclusion that we should remove the functions the promote behaviour that orient around attaining the external validation, or at least modify that relationship. We see that security practitioners orient to outcomes and not actions driven from their feelings of inferiority. We cannot be truly effective as our appetite for approval subverts the highest virtue, truth.
The philosopher gives an insight about the desire not be disliked and how that then leads to trying to satisfy the expectations of others. This leads to populistic people pleasing, lying to oneself, and to others. To paraphrase John Rawls, truth is the first virtue of thought. By lying to oneself we compromise our own ability to think. As security practitioners we should draw the conclusion from the philosopher that the pursuit of truth will mean that we are disliked at times. The philosopher states that ‘freedom is being disliked by others’ and offers this as the measure of the living in freedom and in accordance with your own principles. By implication we can consider the exercise of freedom as the execution of truth. Security leaders and the wider sector would benefit from understanding that we will not always be liked and should stop seeking the approval of others to service our feelings of inferiority.
Poor interpersonal relationships lead to a diminished sense of self-worth. As the philosopher says, ‘one needs a feeling of contribution to be happy’ if it us visible or not. Perhaps the poor state of fulfilment within security practitioners is that feelings of inferiority are leading them to seek recognition as their primary measure of contribution. We can extrapolate this further and consider the subjective aspects of security. We tend to apply inappropriate metrics or conformance to arbitrary lists, but security is a feeling, an abstract concept. It’s reasonable that understanding the Adlerian concept of contribution and how we perceive that can be a useful parallel to understanding the feeling of security.
Community
The philosopher discusses the concept of community which reinforces the notion that nothing can be done in isolation. How community is articulated binds many of the other ideas together. Community requires interpersonal relationships to exist. How these relationships are established within the community can be a manifestation of feeling of inferiority where vertical relationships are engaged in.
There is a wider context to community. It can be considered as concentric circles of affiliation. Failure to acknowledge the wider communities that exist become a limiting principle which narrows understanding. Appreciating broader contexts then becomes a liberating factor in terms of perspective. The wider sector tends to limit to itself to its own community or context.
Where interpersonal relationships exist then there is a requirement for separation of tasks. In part this is not encroaching on others but also it is the establishment of boundaries. Enforcement of these boundaries is necessary in the sector. What is it that we do? Too often we forget the separation of tasks and overreach into the tasks of others, damaging interpersonal relationships. The philosopher later makes the point that no work can be completed without the co-operation of others which serves as the justification for development of successful interpersonal relationships.
Conclusion
Adlerian psychology leads us to a point where we conclude that the sector has many issues. Adopting Adlerian principles will help leaders and practitioners find fulfilment and help create better interpersonal relationship that will benefit their career. A reorientation towards Adlerian principles will give us the introspection to re-evaluate the fundamental axioms on what the sector is predicated. We will find that many of our practices are built on a flawed understanding as we have co-opted these into the sector to address issues on an ad-hoc basis without considering the philosophical repercussions. And this is the real benefit of an Adlerian approach, we build solid foundations which leads us to understand why we do what we do within our practice.