There are a number of possible ways to become a better person. Probably the   
   most useful one is that of learning from people who are good. Of these there   
   appear to be two kinds. One is the people who have always been good people.   
   The other is the people    
   who became good even though they did not start out that way.   
      
   Much can be learned from observing both kinds of people. But the person who   
   will be able to explain to you the process the best is the second kind. That   
   is because such a person has had to learn it consciously rather than   
   unconsciously or being born with    
   it. A person who's had to learn something consciously will understand it   
   better than someone whose learning has been unconscious. As a non-native   
   English speaker I am often praised for my command of the English language.   
   That is because, as a non-native    
   English speaker, I have had to learn English consciously; and doing that with   
   anything will give you an understanding of the subject.   
      
   Now there are many paths claiming to offer a way to becoming a better person,   
   and most of these paths are dead-ends or worse. I will examine some of these   
   paths here.   
      
   One path not to take is self-esteem psychology. As a woman from World War II   
   generation once told me, self-esteem used to be called conceit. Now there are   
   situations in which encouraging self-esteem is rightful, such as in situations   
   in which someone    
   keeps getting exploited. However to claim that self-esteem makes good people   
   is obviously wrong. The way that I treat the next person is not based on how I   
   feel about myself; it is based on how I feel about the next person. Indeed a   
   strong case can be    
   made that it works in the opposite direction. If you have higher standards for   
   yourself, you will find it more difficult to feel good about yourself than if   
   you have lower standards for yourself. Rewarding self-esteem does not reward   
   personal good; it    
   rewards low standards.   
      
   Another path not to take is deciding that everything that happens to you is a   
   reflection of what's in your consciousness. This path creates complete jerks.   
   If anything bad happens to you, whether or not it is your fault, you get   
   blamed for it. Now it is    
   valid to see where one can make more informed choices. It is not valid at all   
   to think that, if I were to kill you, it is your fault rather than mine. A   
   person who believes such a thing will be a fair-weather friend who supports   
   you when you are up then    
   kicks you when you are down. That does not create better people; it creates   
   worse people.   
      
   A related path not to take is “positive thinking.” Being positive may make   
   you attractive to people, but ultimately it creates more problems than it   
   solves. You think positive, you fail to anticipate problems, you do foolish   
   things. An engineer who    
   thinks positive will create equipment that will blow up on use. A policy maker   
   who thinks positive will formulate policies that cause more problems than they   
   solve. A woman who thinks positive will fall for the line of a player and wind   
   up in a bad    
   situation.   
      
   Yet another path not to take is Freudian, or Adlerian, or personality,   
   psychology. Freud and Adler did not become better people as a result of the   
   beliefs that they preached; they became worse people as a result of the   
   beliefs that they preached. With    
   personality psychology, what we really see is a psychology of personal   
   disfigurement. We are also seeing fascism. In the concept of the criminal   
   personality they have re-created the Orwellian concept of crimethink, and with   
   it a totalitarianism so    
   absolute that people are not allowed to be free from it even within the   
   privacy of their minds. With the concept of narcissism they have pathologized   
   most of the world's greatest contributors. And with the concept of adequacy   
   and adequacy striving they    
   have pathologized everything that has taken humanity from caveman to man on   
   the moon. No human being is an adequate match for a tiger, nor should he   
   strive to be an adequate match for a tiger. He outdoes the tiger using   
   superior methodology and in so    
   doing advances the lot of humankind.   
      
   With Islam, we see the exact same problem as we do with Freud and with Adler.   
   Mohammad, as a result of inventing Islam, went from being a good person to   
   being a bad person. He started out as an honest, intelligent, truth-seeking   
   person; he became a    
   tyrant and a pedophile. Whereas Paul, as a result of following Christ, went   
   from being a bad person to being a good person. He knew that he was a sinner.   
   Understanding this – and being able with the help of Christ to get from   
   point A to point B –    
   allowed him the insight that he needed to become one of the most brilliant   
   moral teachers of all time.   
      
   Still another path not to take is political correctness. Political correctness   
   does not create tolerant people; it creates people who are insincere. For me   
   to actually know whether or not to tolerate or respect the next person I need   
   to understand their    
   perspective. This requires for them to be able to express their honest   
   opinions, however offensive these may be. If people cannot express their   
   honest opinions out of the fear that it may offend someone, I will never know   
   their actual perspective, which    
   means that I will not know whether or not to extend to them tolerance or   
   respect.   
      
   Yet another path not to take is unconditional conformity to whatever is around   
   you. Different places have different ways, and most are good in some ways and   
   bad in others. You need to use your mind to figure out when people around you   
   are doing the right    
   thing and when people around you are doing the wrong thing. Then it is   
   possible to make an informed choice: To support them in what they are doing   
   right and oppose them in what they are doing wrong. Doing this makes you a   
   positive influence on the people    
   around you. You adopt what they are doing that is right and change what they   
   are doing that is wrong.   
      
   Another path not to take is the belief that you can never be angry or that you   
   can never be negative. There are times when anger is the correct response. As   
   for being “negative,” sometimes you do have to say things that are   
   negative. If a nuclear    
   reactor blows up, you have to tell people what has actually happened. Doing   
   anything else is not enlightenment, it is lying.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)