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In a story called, "The Death of a Government Clerk," Anton Chekhov describes a clerk named Ivan Dmitritch Tchervyakov, who sneezes in the opera house. At first, the clerk thinks to himself that it is not reprehensible for anyone to sneeze, and that everyone sometimes sneezes. But then he looks around to see whether he has disturbed anyone. The bald gentleman sitting in front of Tchervyakov is wiping his head and neck with his glove.
Much to his dismay, Tchervyakov recognizes in the old gentleman a civilian general from the Department of Transport. What unfolds is a series of increasingly awkward attempts on Tchervyakov’s part to apologize for sneezing. The first time, the general says, "Never mind, never mind." But Tchervyakov somehow thinks the general really does mind and tries to apologize again; then again; and then again. The general becomes agitated, and after the third or fourth apology, exclaims, "Oh, that’s enough… I’d forgotten it, and you keep on about it."
But Tchervyakov cannot let it go. He thinks to himself:
He has forgotten, but there is a fiendish light in his eye (...) And he doesn’t want to talk. I ought to explain to him… that I really didn’t intend… that it is the law of nature or else he will think I meant to spit on him.
The next day, Tchervyakov puts on a uniform, gets a new haircut, and goes to the general's reception room. He tries to apologize again, but the general interrupts him impatiently and turns to the next petitioner. Tchervyakov says to himself:
He won’t speak (...) that means that he is angry… No, it can’t be left like this… I will explain to him.
Tchervyakov makes another attempt to apologize for sneezing in the theater. The general now suggests that Tchervyakov is making fun of him with these repeated apologies for a trifle. Tchervyakov becomes even more distraught and tries to explain that ridicule was not at all his intention. This time, the general cannot take it anymore and yells at Tchervyakov: "Be off!"
Chekhov then writes:
Something seemed to give way in Tchervyakov’s stomach. Seeing nothing and hearing nothing he reeled to the door, went out into the street, and went staggering along… Reaching home mechanically, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa and died.
Such is the end of this government clerk. He dies because of an obsession with what the general thinks of Tchervyakov’s one-time act of sneezing at the opera house.
Chekhov’s story is, of course, a caricature, but like every good caricature, it captures an actual human tendency: a preoccupation we have with what others think of what we say and do. While no one usually dies because of this preoccupation, it is probably fair to say that a good deal of human misery is caused by misplaced concern with other people's opinion of us. Thus, we may remain silent in meetings instead of voicing an important objection for fear of looking like fools or we may spend an hour replaying in our heads a conversation we had with someone at a party, ruminating over what we could or should have said. The misery may be based on an illusion – much like Tchervyakov’s – for we may be simply wrong about what others object to, admire, or indeed what they have noticed; or it may not. But misery it is, even when based on a compete misunderstanding of how the other views us.
Part of the attraction of social media, perhaps, has to do with the control we have over our media persona, control we generally don't have over our social persona in real life (in life, we might always, like Tchervyakov, sneeze at an inopportune moment, for instance). On social media, we can think about a comment for as long as we wish before posting it or share details of our lives that present us in a flattering light. Or at least light we ourselves find flattering, for it must be noted that a detail we are proud of may seem silly and not at all a bragging matter to others or to us at a later stage of life.
I am not suggesting here that social media don't lead to misery due to concern with what others think. In some ways, they may end up exacerbating the problem as people may, for instance, obsess over the number of likes their posts have or the fact someone rejected their "friend request" or else “unfriended” them, but the point stands: the initial attraction of social media likely has a good deal to do with the fact we have more control over how we appear there compared to real life.
Why get fixated on the opinions others have of us or even of minor details such as whether we sneezed in the wrong moment? How much does it really matter?
Sometimes, others’ view of us matters a good deal. That we want to impress favorably a person we are attracted to is all too natural, though if we carry it to an extreme, as Chekhov's clerk does, we’ll make a nuisance of ourselves and have an effect opposite to the intended. Sometimes, we carry the attempt to an extreme not by becoming a nuisance but in other ways, for instance, by acting inauthentically, as when people misrepresent their tastes and lifestyle. (It's no good to get the other to fall in love with a false version of us.) But we can set the romantic interest case aside. In general, attempts to appear interesting or attractive to someone we ourselves find interesting and attractive are not ill-advised.
Others’ opinion may matter also when it is of consequence to our professional rather than personal lives. Such is the case with a job interview: if we do not at all care about what interviewers think, we are unlikely to get the job.
To be sure, some people try to go in the opposite direction and play “too cool to care” even when that's not a good idea. For instance, I know someone who once showed up for an interview dressed in orange and green. This type of behavior verges on self-sabotage, but at any rate, it doesn’t actually communicate that a person doesn’t care. What it generally communicates is that a person wants strongly – too strongly, perhaps – to make others believe he or she does not give a damn. But this particular type of attempt to make a certain impression on others is probably rare. What about other cases?
Tchervyakov is influenced by the fact that the general has a higher social status although the general works in a different department and has no control over Tchervyakov. Often, however, our reason to preoccupy ourselves with what another thinks is even weaker than Tchervyakov’s: the other is just someone from our extended social network, not a person of much higher status, but – shall we say – a random, from our viewpoint, person, a distant acquaintance, perhaps, or a former schoolmate. Why care about what such people think?
To be clear, I believe that to concern ourselves with the opinions of those we deeply respect or admire is generally well-advised. It prompts us to get closer to the people we wish to be. What is interesting is that often, we spend more time and energy fretting over how someone we ourselves do not hold in particularly high regard thinks of us. A person whose moral character is just average and whose other qualities are no more impressive.
This tendency, I wish to suggest, can be traced back to what one might call the teenager in us. I’ve argued elsewhere that one of the things that makes an adolescent’s life difficult is the fact that adolescents – most of them anyway – do not see themselves as being at liberty to choose whom to impress. They believe they have to follow the standards imposed on them by other – perhaps more popular – teenagers. Things change later in life, and we feel free to pick role models we ourselves approve of, but something of the teenager remains in most of us. While we may no longer think we should care about this or that person's view, we cannot get ourselves to entirely disregard what “they” think.
I maintain that it is best to counter this tendency, for it is not one conducive of human flourishing.
This is easier said than done. We cannot always choose what to care about. People’s opinions may matter to us even if we don’t believe they should; they may matter even when we neither hold the other in high esteem nor see the other’s opinion as being of any real consequence to our personal or professional lives. But care we do.
I nonetheless think that if we fully embraced the thought that a particular person’s judgment should not make any difference to us, its power to affect us would weaken. While it is true that when our beliefs change, our feelings may not follow suit, beliefs and feelings are connected. If we truly endorsed the conclusion that there is no reason whatsoever to care, we’ll care a little less, and with time, perhaps not at all.
I would like to end with something that George Eliot’s character Caleb Garth says in Middlemarch: “There is no sort of work that could be done well if you minded what fools say.” I would go further and suggest that no human life could be lived well if a person minded too much what others think or say either.
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