Call it
what you may, the perspective of the immature or childish if you like. Irrespective of how you refer to it, it is important
to note that your view of people is dominated by this perspective; the Naïve Perspective.
And until you come to such a realisation, it’ll be close to impossible to acquire
social intelligence. Social intelligence is nothing more than the process of
discarding the Naïve Perspective and approaching something more realistic. It involves
focusing our attention outward instead of inward, honing the observational and
empathic skills that we naturally possess. It means moving past our tendency to
idealize and demonize people, and seeing and accepting them as they are. It is
a way of thinking that must be cultivated as early as possible in this phase of
our lives. But before we can begin to acquire this intelligence, we must first
come to grips with the Naïve Perspective itself.
Compared to
other animals, we humans enter the world remarkably weak and helpless. We remain
relatively weak for many years before we can truly operate on our own. This extended
period of immaturity, lasting some twelve to eighteen years, serves a valuable
function: it gives us the chance to focus on developing our brain – by far the
most important weapon in the human arsenal. But this prolonged childhood comes
with a price. During this time of weakness and dependency, we experience the
need to idealise our parents. Our survival depends on their strength and
reliability. To think of them as having their own frailties would fill us with
unbearable anxiety. And so we inevitably see them as stronger, more capable,
and more selfless than they are in reality. We come to view their actions
through the lens of our needs, and so they become extensions of ourselves.
During these
long period of immaturity, we often transfer these idealizations and distortions
to teachers and friends, projecting onto them what we want and need to see. Our
view of people become saturated with various emotions - worship, admiration,
love, need, anger. Then inevitably, often in adolescence, we start to glimpse a
less-than-noble side to many people, including our parents, and we cannot help but
feel upset at the disparity between what we imagined and the reality. In our
disappointments, we tend to exaggerate their negative qualities, much as we
once exaggerated their positive ones.
Although
it is natural to have the Naïve Perspective because of the unique character of
our childhood, it is also dangerous because it envelops us in a childish illusions
about people, distorting our view of them. We carry this perspective with us
into the adult world. In the work environment, the stakes are suddenly raised.
People are no longer struggling for good grades or social approval, but for survival.
Under such pressure they reveal qualities of their characters that they normally
try to conceal. They manipulate, compete and think of themselves first. We are
blindsided by this behaviour and our emotions are churned up even more than
before, locking us into the naive perspective. If we have been forced earlier
on in life to make it on our own, practical needs would have come to dominate our thinking and we would have become
more detached and realistic. But as it is, the many years of viewing people
through the lens of or emotional needs turns into a habit that we can hardly
control.
The Naïve perspective
makes us feel sensitive and vulnerable. Looking inwards as to how words and
actions of others implicate us in some way, we continually misread their intentions.
We project our own feelings onto them. We have no real sense of what their thinking
or what motivates them. With colleagues in our work environment, we fail to see
the source of their envy or the reason for their manipulation; our attempts at
influencing them are based on the assumptions that they want the same things as
ourselves. With mentors and bosses we project onto them our childhood fantasies,
becoming unnecessarily adoring or fearful of authority figures and creating
stormy or brittle relationships in the process. We think we understand people,
but we are viewing them through a distorted lens. In this state, all our
empathic powers are rendered useless
With the
inevitable mistakes that we make, we become entangled in dramas that consume
our minds and distract us from learning. Our sense of priorities becomes warped
- we end up giving too much importance to social and political issues because
we are not handling them well. If we are not careful we carry these patterns to
the next phase of our lives in which we are in a more public position. At this
level, being socially inept can prove particularly embarrassing even fatal to
our careers. People who retain their childish attitudes will rarely be able to hold
on to the success they may achieve through their talent.
How do you
come to such a realisation?
You reach
this awareness by reviewing your past, paying particular attention to any
battles, mistakes, tensions or disappointments on the social front. If you look
at these events through the lens of the Naïve Perspective, you will focus only
on what other people have done to you – the mistreatments you endured from
them, the slights or injuries you felt. Instead, you must turn this around and
begin with yourself – how you saw in others qualities they did not possess, or how
you ignored signs of a dark side to their nature. In doing this, you will be
able to see clearly the discrepancies between your illusions about who they are
and the reality and the role you played in creating this discrepancy. If you look
closely enough, you can often perceive your relationship with bosses and superiors
re-enactments of the childhood family dynamic- the idealizing or demonizing
that has become habitual.
By making
yourself aware of the distorting process of the Naïve Perspective you will
naturally grow less comfortable with it. You will realise that you are
operating in the dark, blind to people’s motivations and intentions, vulnerable
to the same mistakes and patterns that occurred in the past. You will feel your
lack of real connection to other people. The desire will naturally arise from
within to change this dynamic –to start looking outward instead of focusing only
on your own feelings, to observe before you react.
This new
clarity about your perspective should be accompanied by an adjustment of your attitude.
You must avoid the temptation to become cynical in your approach as an
overreaction to your prior naïveté. The most effective attitude to adopt is one
of supreme acceptance. The world is full of people with different characters
and temperaments. We all have a dark side, a tendency to manipulate and
aggressive desires. The most dangerous types are those who repress their
desires or deny any existence of them. Often acting them out in the most
underhanded ways. Some people have dark qualities that are especially
pronounced. You cannot change such people at their core, but must merely avoid becoming
their victim. You are an observer of the human comedy, and by being as tolerant
as possible, you gain a much greater ability to understand people and to influence
their behaviour when necessary.
With this
new awareness and attitude in place, you can begin to advance in acquiring social
intelligence and to see people as they truly are; having a dark side that is
obscure when viewing them through the lens of naïveté.
-
Robert Greene
Reproduced by: Atsu Dogbey
