Evil Beliefs In Psychology

I am writing this to address a number of very wrongful but very widespread beliefs that I have encountered among people with psychological or spiritual associations.

One is that self-esteem makes good people. That is completely wrong. Rewarding self-esteem does not make people better; it makes them worse. A person with higher standards for themselves will find it harder to feel good about themselves than a person with lower standards for themselves. Rewarding self-esteem does not reward personal good. It rewards low standards. And that does not improve people; it makes them worse. I have told a friend of mine in California that I knew in Virginia “good people who thought that they were shit and dipshits who thought that they were the shit.” His response: “”Pretty shitty situation.” I see every reason to think that this is what happens when the culture rewards self-esteem and not good character.

Another is the Buddhist “law of attraction” - that the like attracts like. Once again, completely wrong. Different people attract different things and for different reasons. I have attracted a number of women who were beautiful both inside and out while not being either myself. I have also attracted a number of persecuting fascists of both genders when I myself do not want to harm anyone. The same person could attract wonderful people and terrible people in less than a month of one another. So clearly the Buddhist law of attraction is wrong.

Another claim I have heard is that you need to love yourself before you can love another. Totally wrong as well. In many cases it works the other way around. You do not love another for traits that you have; you love them for traits you find lovable, whether or not you yourself have these traits. Seeing these traits in another person, you know what you need to strive for in order to be lovable yourself in your own eyes. Then you, by working on yourself in that direction, acquire these same traits. Then you love yourself.

Further along the same line is the idea that if you are loving you cannot be angry, or if you are angry you cannot be loving. I cannot begin to tell you how wrong that is. If you love Amazonian rainforest, then you rightfully will be angry at people who cut it down. If you love a woman, then you rightfully will be angry at some idiot doctor who kills her through medical malpractice. To expect anything else is not enlightenment, it is foolishness.

I once knew a person who gave me just that line. Then he got a job through me; he borrowed a Jeep on a loan from the boss; and then he skipped down the road while missing the payments on the Jeep. When I talked to him about it, he said that the problem was his self-hatred. No, it was not. The problem was that he was a crook.

So there were women in 1960s and 1970s who bought just into that same line. They got together with men who used them and abused them. They had many rightful reasons to be angry at these men, but their ideology of universal love forbade it. So then they decided that love is bullshit and formed the vicious strand of feminism that has been plaguing the Western world and especially America since 1990s. My response to those women is that right and wrong do not depend on your mood. Sometimes you need to be kind and nurturing to people. Sometimes you need to confront people. No woman should have to tolerate a man throwing sulfuric acid into the face of her child. But neither should anyone, man or woman, buy into fascist ideologies that say that Jews, or “sociopaths,” or “narcissists,” or men, are constitutionally evil and are incapable of rightful behavior.

So we have seen these women attacking men such as myself, seeing in me the reflection of men who abused them. I however do not deserve these attacks. I want men and women to get along. I want men and women to be good to one another. The gender war on both sides teaches precisely the opposite. It teaches both men and women to be horrible to one another. They take it out on precisely the wrong people. The feminists take it out on men nearest the liberal centers of learning and culture who are the least likely to be actually misogynistic, and the men take it out on women in right-wing or Muslim or inner-city communities who are the least likely to be vicious to men. This creates a destructive set of incentives within society. It teaches everyone involved – both men and women – that it pays to be a jerk and that good behavior and good attitude will get you mistreated. And that makes the world worse for everyone, both men and women.

Of course in such a climate very few people would think or dare to attempt love; and those who do will be laboring under a heavy disadvantage. The loving relationships that do form will be attacked from all sides, and both the men and the women who are interested in such things will be in one or another bind. Most of such relationships, being as they are at such a disadvantage, will fail. This will then reinforce the false belief that something is wrong with love. And that will be bad for everyone, both men and women.

So we see some people with such convictions accusing me of being such things as a predator or a misogynist. No, they are predators. They destroy good things that happen between men and women and then make tons of money as either divorce lawyers or psychiatrists. These people prosper from making the world worse. And that means that they, and not people such as myself, are the predators. As for misogyny, a misogynist will not be writing love poetry, or moving across the ocean to be with a woman in another country when he has a nice setup at home, or continuing to love a woman with whom he had been for only a short time 22 years previously. What we see here is not only beliefs that are wrong. What we see here is beliefs that are precisely wrong. What we see here is a Big Lie. And it is time that more people say that the king has no clothes.

Now I anticipate that I will ruffle many feathers by saying things of this nature, and I hope to do so. What we are seeing here is false and evil beliefs that make the world worse. And I believe that I owe this to a number of people whom I have known to confront such wrongful attitudes and help others to have lives free of such poison.