What is superficiality? In a social interaction, superficiality is the effect which occurs when emotions expressed and concerns raised are artificial, imitated, or acted.
Why does this occur? When ethics or “niceness” are being enforced by an outside influence or third party, true displays of niceness and ethics which should come out naturally are dampened in significance. For those familiar with Theodore Kaczynski, perhaps he would have determined it to be a result of oversocialization (Where morality and ethics are pushed onto idnividuals to such an extent as to cause social anxiety and indecisiveness).
When superficiality is prevalent, it leads to a social environment where an artificial “friendly” exterior is present in an individual’s persona, but the true constitution of the interior persona is kept hidden. This does not necessarily mean that the interior persona is opposite of the exterior, but the interior is merely disguised - usually by the thin layer of enforced ethics mentioned above.
What is the purpose (if any) of maintaining superficiality in a society? One idea is that by keeping a friendly exterior, that eventually, through power of suggestion, the individual may subconsciously trick themselves into actually being “nice” on the interior; this could eventually lead to a social environment which is more “friendly”. This is not the case - and I’ll illustrate why:
The mental energy required to continuously maintain a superficial exterior is significantly large. Since superficiality, in essence, is denying oneself true responses, feelings, and emotions, maintaining the discipline of constantly filtering every social response would be mentally exhausting. It could even manifest itself into anxiety - and if severe enough it could even produce physiological symptoms.
Instead, we find that even individuals who are the most well-practiced in superficiality will abandon the superficial exterior as soon as it is no longer necessary. They say one superficial comment, and soon afterwards will tell a trusted friend their actual thoughts. This is usually done to mitigate any ego-damage which such superficial comments would produce if the individual hadn’t in some way negated it - they assert to themselves that it was not an honest comment.
What can we conclude from this? Superficiality is in fact a narcissistic psychological practice. We can find that nearly every superficial action is immediately followed with a counter-action to socially negate the superficial one - the mind subconsciously interprets superficial actions as an act of displaying power (‘power’ in a social sense). The mind produces the counter-action so that any witnesses present will see that the superficial action was fake, and if the receiver doesn’t acknowledge the superficial action, then the superficial individual subconsciously determines that he/she is more socially powerful than the receiver. Even if there are no witnesses present, the superficial individual still perceives an imaginary audience due to habit.
Superficiality in different genders -
the general finding is that males are shunned or determined as weak if they are superficial - where as it is indifferent for females. Why is this? Because superficiality is, in its nature, a feminine tactic - I do not want to seem sexist by saying that. It is the feminine tendency to try and subtly display power whenever displaying power is necessary. Superficiality is perhaps the most commonly used tactic for the feminine assertion of power.
However, this is seemingly most prevalent in Judaeo-Christian society. In western society, mothers commonly instill ethics and manners into their children not to improve them, but actually to humiliate them.
It is almost as if superficial mothers for some reason need to assert their power by putting socially humiliating codes of conduct into the minds of children - usually their male children. Not all mothers do this, but it is quite common.
When males are superficial, females view it as a sign of weakness and find such males unattractive. Why? Perhaps females are subconsciously aware that superficiality is resorted to by the weak, and for a male to resort to superficiality - “Well that male must be weak, or an idiot!”, the female thinks. Or perhaps the female does not want to have to compete psychologically using the same tactics as their sexual partner - they feel as if they are exposed for what they really are, as the male sees things on the same level as her.
The Judaeo-Christian societies find themselves in a state where society’s members are incapable of being honest with one another - except for the males, who having been oppressed by the fallaciousness of superficiality are socially shy, quiet, and soft-spoken with few words. Some individuals are so mentally tortured by what they view as a paradox (women finding caring and ‘nice’ men unattractive), that they develop extreme social anxiety.
To think that all acts of superficiality (the occasions of which are all too numerous) are actually subtle narcissistic efforts of power assertion, it almost seems disgusting.
It is strange to find that male acts of superficiality are usually done with the upmost amount of consideration and concern - yet, such individuals are forced into a life of isolation.
