In recent years, the topic of human adequacy has come up more and more often in conversations with friends and colleagues. In particular, I myself have begun to forgive others a lot - stupidity, laziness, carelessness, inattention, greed, etc., if they are generally adequate. What is adequacy? The philosophical dictionary suggests the following: “Adequacy (from the Latin adaequatus - equal) - correspondence, equality, equivalence. Adequacy means the correspondence (or similarity) of the reflection (image, knowledge) to the original, due to which they have the character of objective truths.” Dictionaries list “validity,” “reliability,” and even “identity” as synonyms. Don't you think that in everyday life we ​​put a slightly different meaning into this word? I am close to the definition used by the famous psychologist Nikolai Kozlov. He calls an adequate person who corresponds to the circumstances of life and the expectations of people. That is, a person who speaks and acts based on external norms, and not on his internal experiences. This is the definition we mean when we talk about adequacy. Have you ever encountered this: you want to help a person, you give good advice, and in response you receive a barrage of abuse? And you think: “not an adequate fool.” Or vice versa: you come home not in the mood, a cat fawns on you, and you kick it to the side, and now the cat thinks about you: “not adequate…”. Or quite the opposite: they tell you at work about dismissal, and you, on the wave of your happiness, smile and even to yourself you no longer seem very adequate... Why is it so difficult for us to meet the expectations of others? A reasonable answer: “we don’t read minds...” (Oh yes, I myself love to repeat this phrase, forcing you, my dears, to talk to each other about your experiences!). But when communicating with strangers this is not necessary. A remedy was invented a long time ago and it is called etiquette. This is decent, but this is not. The only problem here is that these norms are now very blurred. And in order to “enter” them in an unfamiliar company, you need to tune in to those around you, and not to yourself. But here we are faced with another difficulty. From early childhood, educators, parents and teachers blast our brains with two opposing demands: “behave decently” and “it’s not good to lie.” Why opposite? Yes, because honestly is not always decent, especially in childhood. Why should I smile and say hello to, say, a doctor whom I fear and don’t like at all? He pricks me painfully with a needle, but should I say thank you to him? But remember this: even if you didn’t like the gift, you still need to thank him, the main thing is attention? Everything is correct, these are the norms of social interaction, the peaceful coexistence of such different personalities. And we, girls and boys, really want to be good, and therefore polite, “decent,” but this conflicts with the postulate that lying and being a hypocrite is bad. Let’s take the situation with the same unsuccessful gift. They give me blatant bullshit, and I don't like it. I want to be a good girl - I thank you, I smile (good) - I act hypocritically, not expressing my true thoughts (bad) - I turned out to be a bad girl (although everyone around me thinks that she is good, which makes the girl even more hypocritical). You can go shorter: you don’t like the gift - tears, scandal, resentment (your choice, you can do everything at once, it’s still bad) - the girl immediately turns out bad, those around her have the same opinion (but she’s honest, which means she’s good at something). In science fiction, this is where the brains of robots begin to boil. Our brain is more flexible, so it makes a choice. If the opinion of others is more important to a person, he will follow the norms of etiquette, and if an internal sense of rightness is more important to him, he will cut down the truth, no matter what the cost. Well, there are intermediate options. Etiquette is generally bad now, teaching norms of behavior is also not very good, but very good with the “cult of personality” - from all sides we are told about our uniqueness, exalting our “I” and stroking our ego. So we get hung up on our own