From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   I am all in favor of people – myself included – examining their beliefs   
   and their character. I would not however do it – nor recommend that others   
   do it – according to beliefs that are not true. And I have seen that in most   
   of what I have    
   encountered.   
      
   There were some people who were pushing on me the Alfred Adler's concept of   
   adequacy and “adequacy striving.” I have found nothing useful in Adler's   
   psychology at all. It would pathologize everything that has taken humanity   
   from caveman to man on the    
   moon. No man is an adequate match for a tiger, nor should he strive to be an   
   adequate match for a tiger. Man outdoes the tiger using superior methodology.   
   Similarly Bill Gates is not an adequate physical match for an inner city   
   gangster or a Muslim    
   terrorist, but he has accomplished much more.   
      
   There were people who were pushing on me Sigmund Freud. I have found much that   
   is very wrong with Freud's ideas. He mistook memories of childhood sexual   
   abuse for erotic fantasy and used it to claim that children are in love with   
   parents of the opposite    
   gender, and that love in adulthood is transference of that love. At that time   
   there were few single-parent households and fewer homosexuals to study; now   
   there are plenty of them. And what we see again and again is that girls raised   
   by single mothers,    
   guys raised by single fathers, homosexuals raised by the parent of the   
   opposite gender, and people without either parent in their upbringing, fall in   
   love just as readily as do people who have been raised in nuclear families.   
   Since there is no    
   transference figure in such situations, these feelings cannot be transference.   
   Furthermore, since these feelings are of the same character as those developed   
   by people who have been raised in nuclear families, these feelings cannot be   
   transference either.   
      
   With New Age, I have found a lot of useful ideas. However the central claim   
   – that everyone is responsible for everything that happens to them – is   
   obviously wrong. These people do not owe their situation only to themselves.   
   They also owe it to the    
   parents who raised them; the teachers who educated them; the scientists whose   
   work is under all their prosperity; the government, military and police that   
   protect them; both business and labor equally; and of course the intellectuals   
   and Freemasons whose    
   work has given to them their liberty. Misappropriation of credit is not the   
   same thing as responsibility, nor is reminding them of such things the same as   
   failure thereof.   
      
   What we see with personality psychology is a very destructive form of   
   intellectual fascism. If it “narcissistic” to seek great success, have   
   ideas different from those around you, or want a passionate relationship, then   
   America owes most of what it    
   has to its narcissists, as does most of the rest of the world. If you are   
   pathologizing what made your country great, then do not go around claiming   
   that you are out there benefiting your society. You are destroying what made   
   it great in the first place.    
   As for the “sociopathic” disorder, what we see contradicts most basic   
   rationality. If people are responsible for their actions then anyone –   
   including a “sociopath” - can act rightfully; and if some people are evil   
   and can only be evil whatever    
   they do, however hard they work and whatever work they do on themselves, then   
   people are not responsible for their actions. The idea that someone can be   
   made criminal by virtue of his personality is the Orwellian institution of   
   crimethink. This then is    
   used to create a de facto totalitarianism from which people are not free even   
   within the privacy of their minds. Not even the Soviet Communists could come   
   up with a more invasive totalitarianism.   
      
   Now if one is to let someone into one's life – or a mindset into one's mind   
   – then one has to exercise discretion as to what it is of which one   
   partakes. I would not recommend for anyone to let into their heads something   
   that is destructive. For    
   someone who has, and has suffered for it, the solution is to refute the   
   mentality; and I heartily recommend these refutations to those who have   
   partaken of such beliefs.   
      
   Is everything that has come out of psychology and New Age wrong? Not at all.   
   Even the conservatives who reject psychology as a pseudo-science use it   
   constantly in marketing and management. It is however wrong to partake of   
   beliefs that are wrong. And    
   within the preceding mentalities, most is wrong.   
      
   It says in the Bible that the world's wisdom is foolishness to God. Whether or   
   not you believe in God, it does not take the Bible to show the foolishness of   
   these attitudes. I started out as a militant atheist, but I have found much   
   greater wisdom in the    
   Bible than I have in these beliefs. For one thing, Christ says that any sinner   
   can be redeemed. And that is a much more humane – and more rightful –   
   attitude that some people, such as these so-called sociopaths, are damned for   
   life.   
      
   Or that Bill Gates is inadequate. Or that John Keats wanted his mommy. Or that   
   taking credit for a state of conditions made possible by others is personal   
   responsibility. Or that it works in your society's best interests to snuff out   
   the very kind of    
   people who have been responsible for its greatest accomplishments. Or that   
   imposing crimethink is consistent with American values.   
      
   If someone is going to push onto people a wrongful set of beliefs, then it is   
   to be expected that they will be seen through eventually. This is the case   
   both with deliberate conmanship and intellectual error. Adler may have   
   believed what he wrote    
   sincerely, but that does not make his work right. It is obviously and   
   transparently wrong. Same with Freud and any number of others.   
      
   It is valid to expect understanding and tolerance; and I extend the same to   
   many people, including those whom others refuse to tolerate at all – such   
   as, for example, these damn “narcissists” and “sociopaths.” It is not   
   however valid to expect    
   tolerance for lies. Anything that is based on a lie is going to come crashing   
   down eventually; and it is in no way responsible, rational or valid to   
   construct social covenants upon rackets – whether again such be the result   
   of intellectual error or    
   deliberate conmanship.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)