SINthysist
Rural Racist Homophobe
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2001
- Posts
- 11,940
David C. Stolinsky
Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2002
Are you a "control freak"? Do your family and friends complain that you always need to be in control? This is a common psychological problem with which many of us have to deal. It causes difficulties in personal life.
But consider what political and social positions a "control freak" might take.
Obviously, extremes of both Left and Right yearn to be in control. Indeed, they try to control virtually every aspect of life. The underlying motivation of totalitarianism may be an insatiable urge to be in control.
But what about the less extreme? What about ordinary people with impractical ideas? Might an urge to be in control – or at least to seem in control – play an important role in their thinking?
To take a common example, what do we do when we hear that someone has been murdered, robbed or raped? Often the first question we ask is "Where did it happen?" Certainly we want to know if a criminal is loose near us. But beyond that, we want to avoid feeling afraid.
We want to tell ourselves, "I don't go to 'bad' parts of town late at night. I don't hang out in bars or seedy motels. I don't carry large amounts of cash. I don't drive a flashy car. I don't dress like a slut. That couldn't happen to me. I'm safe."
Avoiding unsafe behavior is wise. To the extent that we learn from others' mistakes, we are being intelligent. But if we convince ourselves that we are perfectly safe if we avoid certain behaviors, we are being stupid.
We are blaming the victim in order to give ourselves a false sense of security.
We are, in effect, denying the existence of the most dangerous thing in the world – human evil. Not second-hand smoke, pesticides, industrial pollution, SUVs or global warming. Not poverty, racism or guns. Human evil.
It's frightening to realize that there are people who want to do evil things. It's frightening to think that there are people who rob the poor, carjack ordinary cars, rape elderly women, harm children, or murder people with whom they have no quarrel. Just because they want to. Because they enjoy it. Because they have no moral restraints.
Looking evil in the face is difficult. No one wants to be frightened and disgusted by looking at something horribly ugly. But we must. Otherwise, we deceive ourselves into believing that we can control everything by avoiding risky behavior and thinking good thoughts.
We fool ourselves into thinking that if we avoid fat, eat "organic" food, don't smoke, and jog three miles a day, we will live forever. And if we don't expose children to second-hand smoke or peanuts, and if we remove swings and monkey bars from playgrounds, our kids will always be healthy and safe.
We delude ourselves that we will all be safe and happy if only we ban guns, reduce pesticide use, build no new power plants or dams, ban SUVs, fund more programs for the poor, treat women like men, and force airport screeners to search elderly ladies from Omaha instead of young men from the Middle East.
Not one of these actions affects the main cause of human suffering in any way. Not one affects human evil.
The key delusion underlying all these unsuccessful attempts to explain anti-social behavior is that something we did caused the trouble. So if only we stop doing it, all will be well. That is, we are in control.
But even though we live in the richest, most powerful nation on earth, there are limits to what we can do. We can barely control ourselves, much less the whole world. To a considerable degree, we are not in control.
To religious people, this is neither surprising nor frightening. They know that God is in control, so they don't have to be. They know that if they do their best, He will do the rest. They don't think that they are the center of the universe. They value life and health, of course, but they value other things, too – goodness, for example.
But secular people have no such assurance. They strive to make this world perfectly safe and risk-free, because they don't believe in the next world. Life and health are their supreme goals.
They can't blame evil for human suffering – they don't believe in evil. When President Bush called terrorist states an "axis of evil," they objected not because they don't believe these states are evil, but because they don't believe anything is evil.
The closest they come to calling some action evil is to say "That's sick." People who do evil may also be sick. The sickness may be treated by psychiatry, though to date little success has been achieved in treating anti-social personality disorder and almost no success in treating pedophilia. Surely research should continue. But I must admit that I don't look forward to effective behavior control – it's sure to be misused.
We can use what help science gives. But science is the search for knowledge of the physical universe. It has nothing to say about the moral universe. It can describe precisely the trajectory of a bullet, but it can't tell us whether murder is wrong. If we want answers to the ultimate questions, we must look elsewhere. And that's a big "if."
It may be painful or even frightening, but we must see reality for what it is. Most criminals hurt people because they enjoy hurting people. Not because of guns, poverty, racism, social injustice, or anything else we can control. Criminals hurt people because they lack good values and have bad values. It's that simple, and that complex.
Liberals often feel the need to be in control, but the irony is that they reject the one course that might actually give them some control. They oppose all efforts to restore ethical values to our schools. They object whether these values are taught on a religious or a secular basis.
They oppose behavior codes, dress codes, abstinence education, and even posting the Ten Commandments. Then they are shocked – shocked! – when value-free education produces value-free graduates.
And, of course, value-free people do things that make liberals feel even more frightened and out of control. And so it goes.
Non-religious people often ignore the effects of religion, both good and bad. They tend to see everything in economic terms. Marx's "Communist Manifesto" was published in 1848, and almost everything he predicted proved false. Yet liberals and leftists (if there's a difference any more) still share his viewpoint.
Many liberals see 9-11 in economic terms. They assume that people hate us not because of religious fanaticism and a desire to murder "infidels." They narcissistically assume that everyone is like them – interested only in material things.
So they assume 9-11 must have been about oil. They think we attacked Afghanistan not to remove a brutal regime that nurtured the terrorists who attacked us, but merely to build a pipeline. How materialistic. How egocentric. How false.
People crash airliners into office towers not because of what we did wrong, but because of who we are. We are free; they are totalitarians. We respect women's rights; they see women as property, even in the next world. (Remember the 72 virgins?) We are democratic; they have contempt for ordinary people. We advocate religious pluralism; they spit on it.
All these issues dwarf economics, but not in the liberal mind. All these issues reflect fundamental differences on the question of good and evil. This time, it's not the economy, stupid.
In a final spasm of attempted control, some people go so far as to swallow and regurgitate the lies of our enemies. They whisper that al-Qaeda may – may – have carried out the attack on 9-11, but it was really the "hidden hand" of the CIA pulling the strings – for oil, of course.
That is, we attacked ourselves. The illusion of control is preserved, even in the face of devastating evidence to the contrary.
In order to act effectively, we need to see things clearly, and not with our vision clouded by obsolete and discredited theories that try to explain everything on the basis of economics. These theories give only the illusion of control.
If you doubt this, look at the Soviet Union. It imploded despite attempts to control everything. Or rather, it imploded because of attempts to control everything.
After the film "Titanic" caused a sensation, and "Titanic" books and memorabilia were on sale everywhere, I saw a man with a T-shirt that made me laugh out loud. The legend on the shirt said "The ship sank. Get over it."
The Marxist-leftist-liberal ship sank some time ago. Get over it.
You can learn a lot from movies. As the police chief in the film "Fargo" said to the murderer, "There's more to life than money, you know."
I enjoyed that film, partly because I was born in Fargo. And the message is a valuable one. There's more to life than economics. For starters, there's good and evil.
Dr. Stolinsky is retired after 25 years of teaching in medical school. He writes from Los Angeles on political and social issues. He may be contacted at dcstolinsky@prodigy.net.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/2/172116.shtml
Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2002
Are you a "control freak"? Do your family and friends complain that you always need to be in control? This is a common psychological problem with which many of us have to deal. It causes difficulties in personal life.
But consider what political and social positions a "control freak" might take.
Obviously, extremes of both Left and Right yearn to be in control. Indeed, they try to control virtually every aspect of life. The underlying motivation of totalitarianism may be an insatiable urge to be in control.
But what about the less extreme? What about ordinary people with impractical ideas? Might an urge to be in control – or at least to seem in control – play an important role in their thinking?
To take a common example, what do we do when we hear that someone has been murdered, robbed or raped? Often the first question we ask is "Where did it happen?" Certainly we want to know if a criminal is loose near us. But beyond that, we want to avoid feeling afraid.
We want to tell ourselves, "I don't go to 'bad' parts of town late at night. I don't hang out in bars or seedy motels. I don't carry large amounts of cash. I don't drive a flashy car. I don't dress like a slut. That couldn't happen to me. I'm safe."
Avoiding unsafe behavior is wise. To the extent that we learn from others' mistakes, we are being intelligent. But if we convince ourselves that we are perfectly safe if we avoid certain behaviors, we are being stupid.
We are blaming the victim in order to give ourselves a false sense of security.
We are, in effect, denying the existence of the most dangerous thing in the world – human evil. Not second-hand smoke, pesticides, industrial pollution, SUVs or global warming. Not poverty, racism or guns. Human evil.
It's frightening to realize that there are people who want to do evil things. It's frightening to think that there are people who rob the poor, carjack ordinary cars, rape elderly women, harm children, or murder people with whom they have no quarrel. Just because they want to. Because they enjoy it. Because they have no moral restraints.
Looking evil in the face is difficult. No one wants to be frightened and disgusted by looking at something horribly ugly. But we must. Otherwise, we deceive ourselves into believing that we can control everything by avoiding risky behavior and thinking good thoughts.
We fool ourselves into thinking that if we avoid fat, eat "organic" food, don't smoke, and jog three miles a day, we will live forever. And if we don't expose children to second-hand smoke or peanuts, and if we remove swings and monkey bars from playgrounds, our kids will always be healthy and safe.
We delude ourselves that we will all be safe and happy if only we ban guns, reduce pesticide use, build no new power plants or dams, ban SUVs, fund more programs for the poor, treat women like men, and force airport screeners to search elderly ladies from Omaha instead of young men from the Middle East.
Not one of these actions affects the main cause of human suffering in any way. Not one affects human evil.
The key delusion underlying all these unsuccessful attempts to explain anti-social behavior is that something we did caused the trouble. So if only we stop doing it, all will be well. That is, we are in control.
But even though we live in the richest, most powerful nation on earth, there are limits to what we can do. We can barely control ourselves, much less the whole world. To a considerable degree, we are not in control.
To religious people, this is neither surprising nor frightening. They know that God is in control, so they don't have to be. They know that if they do their best, He will do the rest. They don't think that they are the center of the universe. They value life and health, of course, but they value other things, too – goodness, for example.
But secular people have no such assurance. They strive to make this world perfectly safe and risk-free, because they don't believe in the next world. Life and health are their supreme goals.
They can't blame evil for human suffering – they don't believe in evil. When President Bush called terrorist states an "axis of evil," they objected not because they don't believe these states are evil, but because they don't believe anything is evil.
The closest they come to calling some action evil is to say "That's sick." People who do evil may also be sick. The sickness may be treated by psychiatry, though to date little success has been achieved in treating anti-social personality disorder and almost no success in treating pedophilia. Surely research should continue. But I must admit that I don't look forward to effective behavior control – it's sure to be misused.
We can use what help science gives. But science is the search for knowledge of the physical universe. It has nothing to say about the moral universe. It can describe precisely the trajectory of a bullet, but it can't tell us whether murder is wrong. If we want answers to the ultimate questions, we must look elsewhere. And that's a big "if."
It may be painful or even frightening, but we must see reality for what it is. Most criminals hurt people because they enjoy hurting people. Not because of guns, poverty, racism, social injustice, or anything else we can control. Criminals hurt people because they lack good values and have bad values. It's that simple, and that complex.
Liberals often feel the need to be in control, but the irony is that they reject the one course that might actually give them some control. They oppose all efforts to restore ethical values to our schools. They object whether these values are taught on a religious or a secular basis.
They oppose behavior codes, dress codes, abstinence education, and even posting the Ten Commandments. Then they are shocked – shocked! – when value-free education produces value-free graduates.
And, of course, value-free people do things that make liberals feel even more frightened and out of control. And so it goes.
Non-religious people often ignore the effects of religion, both good and bad. They tend to see everything in economic terms. Marx's "Communist Manifesto" was published in 1848, and almost everything he predicted proved false. Yet liberals and leftists (if there's a difference any more) still share his viewpoint.
Many liberals see 9-11 in economic terms. They assume that people hate us not because of religious fanaticism and a desire to murder "infidels." They narcissistically assume that everyone is like them – interested only in material things.
So they assume 9-11 must have been about oil. They think we attacked Afghanistan not to remove a brutal regime that nurtured the terrorists who attacked us, but merely to build a pipeline. How materialistic. How egocentric. How false.
People crash airliners into office towers not because of what we did wrong, but because of who we are. We are free; they are totalitarians. We respect women's rights; they see women as property, even in the next world. (Remember the 72 virgins?) We are democratic; they have contempt for ordinary people. We advocate religious pluralism; they spit on it.
All these issues dwarf economics, but not in the liberal mind. All these issues reflect fundamental differences on the question of good and evil. This time, it's not the economy, stupid.
In a final spasm of attempted control, some people go so far as to swallow and regurgitate the lies of our enemies. They whisper that al-Qaeda may – may – have carried out the attack on 9-11, but it was really the "hidden hand" of the CIA pulling the strings – for oil, of course.
That is, we attacked ourselves. The illusion of control is preserved, even in the face of devastating evidence to the contrary.
In order to act effectively, we need to see things clearly, and not with our vision clouded by obsolete and discredited theories that try to explain everything on the basis of economics. These theories give only the illusion of control.
If you doubt this, look at the Soviet Union. It imploded despite attempts to control everything. Or rather, it imploded because of attempts to control everything.
After the film "Titanic" caused a sensation, and "Titanic" books and memorabilia were on sale everywhere, I saw a man with a T-shirt that made me laugh out loud. The legend on the shirt said "The ship sank. Get over it."
The Marxist-leftist-liberal ship sank some time ago. Get over it.
You can learn a lot from movies. As the police chief in the film "Fargo" said to the murderer, "There's more to life than money, you know."
I enjoyed that film, partly because I was born in Fargo. And the message is a valuable one. There's more to life than economics. For starters, there's good and evil.
Dr. Stolinsky is retired after 25 years of teaching in medical school. He writes from Los Angeles on political and social issues. He may be contacted at dcstolinsky@prodigy.net.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/2/172116.shtml
How much more could one attribute as having the force of God behind it than having it put forward by the creator of God?
