Errors Of Personality Psychology And New Age

Psychology and New Age thinking both make the same error, but from the opposite directions. The first claims that, if someone is a narcissist, a sociopath or a pervert, then he can never be good whatever he does. The other claims that a child who's been run over by a car has caused it by negativity in his consciousness.

The first treats people as animals; the second treats people as gods. The first abdicates responsibility and choice to the point of claiming that people have no control over their actions. And the second saddles people with responsibility for things that are not their responsibility at all.

On this matter, as on others, Christianity offers a correct solution. Christianity says that we have choice without saying that we have control over everything. Christianity says that even a sociopath can choose to act in rightful ways. And it does so without saying that everything that happens to people is solely their doing.

This makes it the rational standpoint.

Now there are certainly people who've fallen into the whining habit who need to be told to be more responsible and proactive. But there are also people who've fallen into the persecution habit who need to be reminded that others are human beings rather than animals. Once again, anything capable of choice is capable of rightful choice. This, once again, includes sociopaths, perverts and further along the same line. There may not be cure for sociopathy or sexual perversions, but there is a cure for acting on such things. It is called choice. Choice, once again, of which everyone, including sociopaths, is capable. The correct cure for people who act like bastards is to provide them a moral compass. That is the case whether or not they have anything wrong with their brain.

Some people who do wrong things have something wrong with their brains; some do not. Some people who do right things have something wrong with their brains; some do not. Any number of major contributors in history have been diagnosed with mental illness. It would be especially present in the narcissistic diagnosis. If it is narcissistic to have original ideas or to seek great success, then most of the world's major contributors have been narcissists. If it is narcissistic or sociopathic to dislike social authority, then most Americans are descended from narcissists and sociopaths, who disliked the social authority in their countries enough to move across the Atlantic. And if it is schizoid or schizophrenic to have spiritual experiences, then the bulk of the world owes its moral guidance to schizoids and schizophrenics.

With New Age idea, we see exceptional cruelty as well as lack of ethics. Now it may very well be, as I have been told, that the Jews who got killed during the Second World War had a “victim consciousness”; however the 500,000 American soldiers who died during that war suffered from no such thing. This is something that one may believe if one has spent all his life in a protected environment. But people who've experienced trouble that was not of their making do not have the luxury of such beliefs. And it is reprehensible that such people would insult the heroic people such as the above who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that they can live in comfort and sneer at them.

Once again, both ideologies make the same error from the opposite directions. One treats people as animals; the other treats people as gods. We are neither. We are human beings. We are beings who can control some things but not others. It is rightful that people be told to make more responsible choices without holding them accountable for the phases of the moon. And it is also rightful that every human being, even if possessing a sociopath diagnosis, be treated as a human being.