The biggest problem that I have seen with the New Age movement has been their   
   belief that everything that happens to people is their doing. This is a belief   
   that one may develop if he has lived all his life in a protected environment.   
   However the 500,000    
   Americans who died during the Second World War do not have the luxury of such   
   beliefs.   
      
   When I talk about such things as the Holocaust, the usual response is that the   
   Jews had a victim consciousness. When I talk about the atrocities against the   
   gypsies, the usual response is that they did not follow the rules of the   
   societies in which they    
   lived. However the 500,000 Americans and the 20 million Russians who died in   
   that war did not suffer from either problem.   
      
   Now it is all fine and good to encourage such things as responsible choices.   
   It is in no way fine and good to do away with compassion and principle.   
   People's attitudes have all sorts of impact upon their lives, but they are in   
   no way the only factor.    
   There is a claim by many in the New Age that they are making people better. In   
   many ways they are in fact making them worse. They are teaching people to have   
   no ethics or compassion. And that is a terrible wrong to inflict upon humanity.   
      
   Most of these people started out from a similar position as did I. They saw   
   what was wrong with the world. They tried to improve things; they were met   
   with a greater force; at which point they became totally selfish and made a   
   religion of the self. I am    
   determined not to repeat their errors. I am determined to leave the world a   
   better place than I have found it rather than a worse place than I have found   
   it. And so far, the baby boomers are derided both by their parents and their   
   children for leaving    
   the world a worse place than they have found it.   
      
   At this point I will be accused of such things as being negative. My response   
   to that is that for a problem to be solved it has to be seen; and if that   
   means being negative then being negative is a part of the process. Sometimes   
   you have to be negative.    
   In Japan, where such ideas are commonplace, and people believe such things as   
   that you get what you send out, people are not allowed to say or even to think   
   anything negative. That does not lead to enlightenment; it leads to   
   suffocating insincerity. When    
   a nuclear reactor blows up you have to tell people what has actually happened.   
   Doing anything else is not enlightenment; it is lying.   
      
   Being negative can very well spoil your mood. But leaving the world in a worse   
   shape than you have found it is a far more real and far more lasting form of   
   damage. You can say as much as you want to that I am being negative. I do not   
   care. Real problems    
   require real solutions; and “positive thinking” or anything of the sort   
   does not begin to accomplish such a thing.   
      
   It is not my interest to either think positive or to think negative. It is my   
   interest to think for real. Neither positive thinking nor negative thinking   
   begins to be adequate for confronting the tasks with which we are being faced.   
   A positive thinker    
   would say that focusing on such things is being negative or not taking   
   responsibility. A negative thinker would say that these problems are beyond   
   our capacity to solve. Both will be dead wrong.   
      
   The real solutions come from facing the problems squarely and honestly. They   
   do not come from acting like a grade school coach. They do not come from   
   thinking positive. They come from thinking for real. I am not at all concerned   
   as to whether I am    
   feeling positive or negative. I am concerned about what world we are leaving   
   behind for our children. If recognizing such things is being negative, then   
   once again, being negative is a part of the process.   
      
   Once again, I do not advocate negative thinking either. Negative thinking can   
   be deluded as well. A negative thinker would see anything good as yet another,   
   sneakier attempt to do evil. I dealt with a number of such people, and I have   
   come away with the    
   conclusion that they are as full of crap as the people who think positive.   
   They think that they are smarter; they are not. Critical thinking is a value;   
   negative thinking is not a value. But neither, again, is positive thinking.   
      
   Thinking should not be based on the mood in which one finds himself. Thinking   
   should not be either positive or negative. Thinking should be real thinking.   
   Now maybe being positive can “win friends and influence people” if you are   
   a businessman or a    
   salesman; but in science or engineering or policy it does not begin to work.   
   In all such cases, you cannot afford to think positive. You have to think   
   analytically. You have to think things through, and you have to anticipate   
   problems. A scientist or an    
   engineer who thinks positive will design equipment that will blow up on use.   
      
   The solution with which these people came up – positive thinking – is   
   completely wrong. Positive thinking will not solve global warming. Positive   
   thinking will not solve the gender war. Real thinking and real solutions will   
   solve these and other    
   problems with which we are faced.   
      
   Does saying such things make me negative? No, it makes me concerned for the   
   future of the world in which my daughter will be living. I am determined not   
   to make the baby boomers' mistake. I am determined to leave the world in a   
   better and not a worse    
   shape than what I have found it. At which point there will be more, not less,   
   for people to be actually positive about.   
      
   The belief that people are responsible for everything that happens to them is   
   outrageous. The 500,000 Americans who died in the Second World War were   
   neither negative nor weak. They did what was required at the time. Most of   
   them were far stronger people    
   than anyone in the New Age movement. Nor were they in any way irresponsible.   
   And it is a complete insult to these people to claim that they had created   
   their reality.   
      
   This kind of thinking does not create good people. Instead it creates   
   scoundrels. It creates people who have no ethics or compassion. The people who   
   went from 1960s idealists to New Agers did not become better; they became   
   worse. They lost their    
   compassion and ethics. Maybe some of them became successful; but then again so   
   have many Mormons. If you have drive and intelligence, you stand a chance of   
   succeeding in America whatever your beliefs happen to be.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)