IFY HABIT. In order to avoid censure
and gain the expressed approval of others, people learn, either,
as we say, through bitter experience, or deliberately, to modify
their actions. The well-brought-up child, even when
its mother is not about and its appetite unsatisfied, may be
ashamed to say "Yes" to a second offering of ice cream. The
ten-year-old who likes to be coddled by his mother in private
would be acutely embarrassed to be "babied" in the presence
of other people. Among adults, likewise, actions are checked,
prompted, or modified by the praise and blame that have become
habitually associated with them. Men like to appear
virtuous, even if they do not like to practice virtue. It is not
only the professional politician who does generous acts for
public approval, nor is even the most disinterested and conscientious
work altogether free from being affected by the
expressed attitudes of approval or disapproval of other people.
Even transportation companies have found that they can
increase the efficiency of their employees by expressing in
some form the approval of their employees' courtesy and
loyalty.[1] "A man, again, ... may fail to see any 'reason'
why an elementary-school teacher or a second-division clerk
cannot do his work properly after he has been 'put in his
place' by some official who happens to combine personal callousness
with social superiority. But no statesman who did
so could create an effective educational or clerical service."[2]

[Footnote 1: Many transportation companies maintain a merit system.
Sometimes they award special insignia, as the green flag to the New
York bus-drivers who save gasoline.]

[Footnote 2: Wallas: _Great Society_, p. 197.]

To say that we are moved to action by praise and blame is
not to indicate that actions thus motivated are done in a spirit
of hypocrisy or charlatanism. Even the most sincere acts are
prompted or sustained, especially where their performance
involves serious personal privation or sacrifice, by the imagined
or actual approval of those whom we love, admire, or
respect. Whose praise and blame individuals will care about
depends on their education and temperamental differences.
That there will be some group, however small, is almost sure
to be the case. The poet who curls his lip at popular taste
cherishes the more keenly the applause of those whom he
regards as competent judges. The martyr will be unmoved
by the curses, the jeers, and the hoots of