Ozodi Osuji Ph.d
The desire to please other people, to have them approve of us, accept us, and not reject us, enslaves us to living by social expectations and limits our behavior.
If we didn’t need to live up to other people’s approval, we would live freely, like the gods, doing only what we want.
LJ and EJ, desiring other people’s approval and believing that I was about to say something that would damage their social standing, were ready to terminate our relationship or hate me.
Take away the fear of social rejection, and one lives either as a god, freely, or as an animal without morality, unconcerned by what other people think of one’s behavior. I imagine that prostitutes do not care about what other people think about their behavior. A well-socialized woman probably would prefer to die than shamelessly prostitute her body. (I was in certain parts of town today and saw prostitutes on the sidewalks and cars stopping and picking them up; some of the women were practically naked!)
Without preoccupation with what other people think of one, which is rooted in seeking other people’s approval, one learns well and sings unselfconsciously in public, and does all kinds of things well in society.
The desire for social approval and fear of social rejection, if one makes a mistake, stifles learning and performance in public.
The positive side of seeking social approval and fearing social rejection is that it makes normal and neurotic people conform to socially approved behavior, whereas those without such desire tend to become antisocial personalities and do things without consideration of how they would affect other people.
Be that as it may, excessive concern with what folks think of one stifles one from living spontaneously and authentically.
It is probably because most people desire social acceptance that there is society; if many people did not care for social approval of their behavior, they would do whatever they want to do, and society would end; chaos and anarchy would reign in the land.
The rulers of society, therefore, are invested in getting the people to seek social approval and fear social rejection. Religion largely exists as a means of making people accept their society’s rules and obey them (or they are punished by their God).
Most societies punish those who do not behave according to their norms.
Sigmund Freud, in Civilization and Its Discontents, said that it is because society punished, even killed, those who do not conform to its norms that people obey the laws of society. That is, fear of imprisonment and death is what makes one behave morally and obey the laws of the land. Without social punishment, such as capital punishment and imprisonment, Freud said that most people will allow their ID to reign supreme in their lives, and they rape people and steal and kill people.
Over-socialized folks like me cannot contemplate taking a penny that does not belong to us. As a result, Freud said that we are neurotic and have anxiety disorders. Freud said that neurosis is the price we have to pay for being in society. Freud himself was a neurotic; his personality was obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Let us just say that, like most well-brought-up people, he was neurotic.
People from the lower classes, the riffraff of society, especially those from broken homes and the slums or ghettos, tend to be under-socialized and thus are prone to antisocial behavior.
Antisocial personalities tend to have little or no anxiety. They behave on impulse, including stealing, having sex with multiple women, and other sociopathic behaviors. They tend to have an external locus of authority and say that other people made them do what they do and blame other people for their fate. I am sorry to say it, most Nigerians have antisocial personalities and blame other people for their fate; they easily rationalize criminal behavior.
Ozodi Osuji
September 30, 2026
