The Rebound Effect

Political agendas of people tend to backfire a lot.

In some places, the egalitarian ideals of the elites rebound on themselves. The people attack their kind of people, claiming that they are snobs or know-it-alls or think their shit does not stink. So when anyone among the people develops intellectual or otherwise thought of aristocratic tendencies, they get attacked. So that people who owe their democracy to people like Thomas Jefferson maliciously attack the people who are like Thomas Jefferson, making sure that such people do not come back.

In some places, social conservatism rebounds on itself. Socially conservative societies practice reckless reproduction. This creates places with majority young population; and majority young population demands what young people demand, causing major problems for the conservative leaders.

In some places, money values rebound on themselves. The money chase creates lots of conflict and lots of losers in the process, as well as making winners of many people who are not part of the old-boy club who get good at making money. This likewise creates major problems for the people involved.

In some places, ethical values rebound on themselves. People see the corruption in leadership and attack them on moral grounds - the moral grounds upon which the leadership controls the people. The social order that is used to enforce the morality becomes seen as immoral in itself. This sets in force dynamics that often lead to its  undoing.

In some places, winner ethic rebounds on itself. A Clinton or a Steven Job can come along and become a winner and use that position to empower people they want to be losers forever. This creates problems for the winner's club, as well as to their central claim that they use to control the population: That only they are winners and everyone else is doomed to fail.

In some places, feminism rebounds on itself. Feminism empowers women, and that means many women who are mothers and who are socially conservative. These women then create major problems for the leaders of feminism.

In some places, pacifism rebounds on itself. People become tolerant of orders that are aggressively against theirs. These orders then use the pacifism to infiltrate and take over the population.

These are just some of the ways in which I've observed social orders backfire. I am sure there are more.

Kavanaugh And Sex Crimes

As the Kavanaugh situation is dragging on, perhaps it may work to examine sexual attitudes of parties involved.

On one side, we see women afraid of men's sexuality who want to portray just about anything that a man can do as a sex crime. On the other side, we see men afraid of women's sexuality who want to keep women from having extramarital sex or having access to contraception. Both sides have a vast following, and both sides are wrong.

It appears that there is already a sex offender on the Supreme Court, and he too is far-right. Clarence Thomas got in even in spite of a high-profile sex harassment campaign by Anita Hill. Both of these men want to litigate women's sexual behavior while themselves being perpetrators of sexual crimes.

With Kavanaugh, my concern is what he actually did. Right now the issue is not being handled in a sane manner. I have a friend who went to jail for a year and lost everything that he had because he got drunk and talked to a 16-year-old. I know other people who got away with raping their children since their children were 3. And the way to bring sanity to this issue is to consider the degree of the wrongdoing. There are miles to go between talking to a 16-year-old and raping your child since he is 3. There must be degrees to these crimes in the same way as there are degrees to theft and murder.

Should Kavanaugh be barred from the Supreme Court over his sexual past? Once again, that depends on what he did. Once again I want to see sanity brought to this matter, and that means considering the degrees of the wrongdoing.

One thing is clear for certain. It is wrong for a man who commits sex crimes to persecute women's sexuality. What this man does is completely hypocritical. And hypocrites have no business preaching morals.

Character And Self-Love

I am going to confront a large subject, and I expect my comments to be controversial. I have noticed that many in psychiatry teach self-esteem and self-love instead of self-improvement. Someone told me that loving yourself is where it starts. No, that is putting the cart before the horse. Loving yourself is not the start of the process; it is the end of the process. Rather you improve yourself, and then there is more in yourself to love.

In many cases teaching self-love is not the right solution. In many cases loving oneself as is, is a mark of bad taste and lack of self-criticism. Is it appropriate that you love yourself if you are Ted Bundy? Once on an Internet depression support group an obviously depressed person was saying that he was a bad person. Someone responded with screed including “you are a GOOD person.” How on earth does he know if he is a good person? Maybe he really is a bad person. You don't tell someone whom you know nothing about that he is good.

The good news is that we are capable of choice, and anyone capable of choice is capable of being a good person. And I say this as someone who has gone from being seen by most people I knew as a bad person to being seen by most people I know as a good one.

Teaching self-esteem and self-love is therefore in many cases misguided. If someone is a good person who is getting taken advantage of, fair enough, teach them these things. But it is not a panacea. Far from it. Teaching these things is building the house on sand. Nothing real has changed, the person just feels better about himself. That is a shallow foundation for a life.

Instead it is necessary to teach character. It is necessary to develop good qualities. If you are impatient, learn patience. If you are irresponsible, learn responsibility. If you are dishonest, learn honesty. The more good qualities you develop, the more there is about yourself to love.

So I believe that psychiatry has gone off the cliff on this one. They should not be teaching self-love and self-esteem. They should be teaching character. That way a real change is affectuated, resulting in improvement in the person. Following that improvement then comes self-love.

Demonization And Dehumanization Of Sex Offenders

I would like to tackle an issue that has been on my mind for a long time. That is the demonization and dehumanization of sex offenders.

In America at least, being charged of a sex crime is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. It gives them what is known in Russia as “the wolf's ticket” - a designation that bars them from just about anything. The person gets treated as less than human. A person who has committed a theft or a manslaughter re-enters society after serving the prison sentence. Whereas these people are barred from society even after serving their prison sentence. This is not how constitutional law is meant to work.

Am I in favor of sex offenses? No, but I am also not in favor of demonization and witch hunts. And this is what we see here. The major claim about these people is that they can only be bad and that they will keep re-offending. That denies these people the most basic humanity. Anything human is capable of choice. Anything capable of choice is capable of changing their behavior. That a man gets bad urges does not mean that he is doomed to acting on bad urges all his life. He can simply tell himself no.

The way in which these people are regarded and defined denies them this basic fact – fact of choice. It is claimed that they will never stop offending. That is irrational, that is dehumanizing, and that is cruel. Once again, anything human is capable of choice. And that means also the sex offenders.

So I want greater scrutiny over such practices and over such beliefs. We are dealing here with demonization and dehumanization. Neither of the above are meant to happen in the free world. And it is wrong that this be happening in the name of feminism or in the name of anything else.

Religion Of Selfishness

One of the most misguided statements I've heard came from a brilliant young woman who said that if she cannot live for herself then she cannot live. This is beyond wrong. There are many valid reasons to live besides yourself. You can live for your family. You can live for your country. You can live for God or for a cause. People should not be kept from living for these things, nor should they be coerced into living for themselves.

A related claim is that, unless you have high self-esteem, you have nothing to offer others. Also completely untrue. There are many things that one stands to offer whatever his level of self-esteem. In my case, I've had to offer passion, affection, financial grounding and making the other person's concerns my own, which I then put vast energy into addressing. Self-esteem has nothing to do with it one way or another.

Then there are claims such as that love is a search for external validation. It is about no such thing. It is not about what you feel about yourself; it is about what you feel about the other person. Ayn Rand said, “Before one can say I love you one first has to say the I.” Completely wrong as well. It is once again unrelated to how one feels about himself. It is about the other person, not about yourself.

Now supporting selfishness is bad enough; but it is much worse to make a religion of it and to persecute all other ways. If a naturally altruistic, brilliant woman gets it drilled into her head that she needs to live for herself, that is beyond wrong. She should instead be encouraged to live for others. Doing which, as I have myself experienced, can be highly fulfilling and also do wonders for one's self-esteem.

So it is time that these wrongful attitudes be challenged and confronted. You do not have to live for yourself, nor is it necessary to work on self-esteem. You can live for whatever it is that you find meaningful. And then self-esteem and other goodies will follow.

Why Beauty Is Not Shallow

Frequently when I talk about beauty of a woman or some women I get accused of being shallow. These people are confused.

Beauty is not something that's limited to women. There can be a beautiful forest. There can be a beautiful song or a beautiful poem. In both cases there is nothing shallow about either the beautiful object or the love thereof. In case of beauty in nature, it is something that man has not created and cannot re-create, which means that it must be treated respectfully. And in case of beauty in art, it is something that takes talent and effort to produce and likewise deserves respect.

Is it shallow for women to seek to be attractive? Russian women are very much into being beautiful and they are not shallow. They have a rigorous educational system in which they learn a lot more than do Americans in school, and they have extensive knowledge of literature and arts. Many of them also know what hardship is. Here are women who are smart and strong, as well as beautiful. And the more Americans deal with such women, the less credible will be the case of people who want to claim beauty – or love of beauty - to be shallow.

Are women “objectified” by stress on beauty? I suppose it can be exasperating if you are a brilliant woman and all people care about is the size of your breasts; however that is not what beauty is about. There are values and there are misuses of values. That something lends to being used for wrong does not make it wrong in itself. For that matter intelligence and strength can also be used for wrong, but it does not make these things wrong. That stupid teenagers abuse unattractive classmates, or that unscrupulous plastic surgeons exploit women's insecurities to keep already attractive women coming back for more treatments, does not damn beauty. It damns the teenagers and the plastic surgeons.

Is the forest objectified by being regarded as beautiful? Is a poem or a song? Or is it simply a matter of aesthetic appreciation for beauty in all things, including in people?

So I would like here to stand up to these errors. There is nothing incompatible between beauty and other good traits; and there is nothing incompatible between loving beauty and being a good person. There are enough real causes out there that people should not be wasting their and everyone else's time on completely wrongful directions of feminism. Correct this wrongful direction in feminism and then go on fighting for legitimate causes such as domestic violence and incest.