The Ruminator, Mindfulness

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/practical-mindfulness/202002/one-word-stops-ruminating-the-future?amp=

For most of my life, in homage to famous movie character, "The Terminator", I would be better called "The Ruminator". My brain likes to endlessly play out scenarios of the future, analysis of the present, always with a strong bias to imagined negative outcomes / thoughts. Much like a recovering alcoholic, I'm a ruminator in recovery -- one day, when I see my Lord, I'll be "cured".

Through Mindfulness -- the subject of the linked, and a lot of prayer, my "monkey mind" chatters less. I've also learned to appreciate the GIFT of an active mind ... one that questions, searches, considers options, naturally thinks critically, etc. Like every piece of our human existence, the tendency to "overthink" is both a blessing and a curse.

A good article. It also makes me think of Eckhart Tolle.

I especially liked this from the article ...

As I wrote in my book 101 Mindful Ways to Build Resilience: "Uncertainty is the keystone of life. The truth is this: No one can purchase or own the future."

As simple as ACCEPT what is, and what will be. And as complicated ...

The Rediscovery Of America, Jaffa

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41116095-the-rediscovery-of-america

I've discovered Harry Jaffa via the Power Line Podcast with Steven Hayward ... it is a great discovery. The subject book now has a LOT of tabs and markings, so if I lend it to anyone, laughter is assured!

The theme of the book is Natural Rights, and understanding that if one does not believe in Natural Rights, then the Declaration of Independence, America, and Western civilization have no foundation.

Page 108; "The mind frees itself from all sense perception whenever it employs a universal, that is, a common noun -- the ground and basis of what we call common sense -- is at once the basis of the most common experience, and the greatest of all miracles. It exhibits the mind detached from matter, understanding material things simply because it is detached from them." 

Page 109, "A philosophy or metaphysics that denies the metaphysical freedom of mind that was axiomatic for Jefferson can have no part in liberal education, for liberal education means education in freedom and for freedom. It means education in the metaphysical reality of such a universe that the Declaration of Independence proclaims." 

He states a truth I believe to be self evident on p154; "Of all the words that have poisoned public discourse, none has done more damage than the word "value" used as a synonym for moral or political choice".

If there are no "self evident principles", then all is "value" ... a relative term, so it seems sensible for you to have "your values" and I to have "my values" -- which "Moral Believing Animals" would state is not possible. We ALL believe in SOME set of universally applicable truths, and if we don't have significant intersection in those foundational beliefs, we have extreme difficulty communicating, because our human nature is irrevocably tribal outside of a shared moral reality.

Jaffa has harsh words for Bork, Harvey Mansfield, Rehnquist, Bloom, and others who call themselves "conservative" because they have knowingly or unknowingly denied universals -- in which case, John C Calhoun, defender of slavery was correct -- "Morality" just means "power" as in "Might is right". 

A superb book to discover the cost of the denial of universals -- deny god and you get Nietzsche and "all is permissible".  You can't prove (or disprove) God, however if you refuse to believe in him there is a definite earthy cost, and I believe an even harsher eternal cost.

Moral Believing Animals

https://www.goodreads.com/notes/19220626-moral-believing-animals/6923915-bill-berg?ref=bsop

Love the book, hate the title. Yes, we are "creatures", so "animal" is accurate at one level, however it is a dangerous term -- it can lead to genocide, abortion, euthanasia and all manner of depravity. "Beings" would be my preferred term., and a much better representation of the content of the book.

The book makes a strong case for what I believe to the clearest fact of human existence, EVERYTHING we do is "faith based". NOTHING is epistemologically "provable", since our very consciousness, which we don't understand, is running on wetware (our brains) that we also don't understand -- we ALL walk by faith, the only question is "in what"?

Science as we know it can only ever proceed by first placing faith in a set of unprovable cosmological, metaphysical, and epistemological assumptions and commitments." And science as we know it proceeds by hitching its wagon to a set of nineteenth-century general assumptions about civilization, progress, knowledge, and morality. Science may have put a man on the moon (which was itself a morally, politically, and emotionally pregnant endeavor). But we cannot say that science is exempt from the moral and believing character of humans and society. 

We all live a narrative ... a story, founded on nested sets of beliefs that are coupled with other believed relationships, which Smith models as "rafts" (worldviews)  ...

Well-educated moderns are, of course, socialized to see other rafts. We are educated to recognize, tolerate, and appreciate a diversity of perspectives, paradigms, and cultures. At least to a point. For this modern, Mult versioned self is itself, of course, an historically situated position constituted by faith commitments to particular basic assumptions and beliefs-about individuality, autonomy, cosmopolitanism, equality, relativity, self-expression, truth, and so on. And when occasions arise that threaten these trusted assumptions and beliefs, sophisticated, flexible, tolerant, liberal, ... etc. we fight, even to the death.

If you question any of the foundational beliefs of these well-educated moderns however ... by saying that there IS an absolute truth, and it isn't theirs, or that "equality" is a demonstrable metaphysical impossibility, their "tolerance" quickly becomes similar to that of a Muslim jihadi!

So, since faith is all any of us have, our task is to see that we are ALL in a "faith boat" (which itself is likely "floating" in possibly stacked other "boats") and those boats are not "equivalent", nor are any "scientifically true" belief systems that rationally allow us to look down on other belief systems past or present. As believers, our human tendency is to assume that OUR belief system is "enlightened", "progressive", "divinely inspired", "rational", etc.  We are like fish in water not knowing or even having the concept of "wet".

The world we bring into being through believing has for us become fixed, unified, total. We are thus not in the end very different in this condition than the medieval peasant from whom the Enlightenment promised to raise and deliver us.

The point, rather, is that for all of our science, rationality, and technology, we moderns are no less the makers, tellers, and believers of narrative construals of existence, history, and purpose than were our forebears at any other time in human history. But more than that, we not only continue to be animals who make stories but also animals who are made by our stories.

So, we are certain to believe (the question is "in what"! ) -- and tragically, we can easily select a nihilist narrative that life is meaningless and there is no hope beyond this mortal coil -- OR, we can believe that we are unique creations of a loving God with a divine purpose that can be given to us by Grace! (and many of us believe that faith is only through the GIFT of the Holy Spirit). 

Our individual and collective lives come to have meaning and purpose insofar as they join the larger cast of characters enacting, reenacting, and perpetuating the larger narrative. It is by finding ourselves placed within a particular drama that we come to know our role, our part, our lines in life-how we are to act, why, and what meaning that has in a larger scheme of reality.

On page 117, he seems to agree with a theistic, though not specifically Christian belief model: "and so I am inclined to leave the matter here and maintain the parsimonious theistic explanation as my proposed theory."  

 The book makes an excellent sociological / philosophical case that humility is the root of wisdom ... in complete agreement with Socrates and the Bible. It does however make that case in a somewhat technical manner that may be difficult for some.

Mansfield, Manliness

A classic work to explore the very modern idea that "Manliness" is "bad", and the eternal issue of "Nature vs (or in concert with?) Nurture (social pressure/constructs),

To get the left view of the book I chose this review the Harvard Crimson.  Not surprisingly, it ignores one of the major themes of the book, understanding "Thumos"  ... "spiritedness", "passion", "drive", "courage" ... whole books are written on the subject, and it is quite visible today as Trump is very much an embodiment of Thumos.

The New Criterion has great coverage of this fact in this article.  ...

Most people don’t think of Plato when they think of Donald Trump, but they should. Our usual forms of political analysis—both the more rigorous, like academic political science, and the more popular, like the conventional wisdom of political journalists and commentators—utterly failed to come to grips with the Trump phenomenon. They did not predict his success as a presidential candidate. To the contrary, they confidently, repeatedly, and erroneously predicted his failure.

A way to understand the "Enlightenment" is "Mind over Matter" ... and as "matter" is worshipped --  history, classic literature, religion, and also philosophy, are consigned to the "dustbin".  The worship of matter is the worship of "particles and progress" ... relentless, inevitable (it is hard not to be a determinist if one is a materialist, a discussion of many posts). In any case, the assumption of "modernity" is that any of the old Natural Rights thought is simply bunk -- Darwin, Nietzsche, and Marx have repealed all those "myths".

So as Mansfield laments, men have decided to just roll over and submit to the program of the feminization of culture -- but have they really?

As I read the book, an old model that I read somewhere and can't remember, and I'm CERTAINLY not going to take credit for inventing! is that humans are darned easy to understand.

When a man walks into a room, his underlying snake brain (subconscious)  evaluates the other men in the room to see if he is confident that he can adequately handle any of them should they challenge him.  The same low level functions evaluate the females for "desirability".  If there are any "standouts" in either category, these will come to conscious attention ... along with assessment of "friend or foe".

The female snake brain does a similar evaluation -- what is the "attractiveness ranking" of the women relative to her, where do the men rank on "desirability".

One of the major modern dilemmas is that materialist science is increasingly showing the power of these "lower level" materialist elements vs the "higher level" conscious functions of nurture, culture, etc. Our believed "mastery" over the "mere material" as science advanced in results through technology led us to believe we could subdue ALL the "mere material", including the material of which we are made (flesh).

Predictions the development of Artificial Intelligence (see 2001 a Space Odyssey)  the ability to create "life" ,,, which it turns out we have a very poor idea of what it even is, and likewise consciousness, have led even some really intelligent scientists to question some of the more basic assumptions of secularism, humanism, feminism, materialism, etc ...

Western civilization "sold its soul" (denied it even had one), and as Mansfield discusses on page 121, when you kill god, you get nihilism and the ubermensch. Tired old ideas like Christianity, created soulful behaviors like Gentlemanliness ,,, throw out the baby of the manger and you get the Satan of Nietzsche!

"Darwin's theory by destroying the specialness of human beings denies that nature can be a standard for them; "nature" is merely what evolves by chance, and thus has no authority for us. This very denial makes nature into a standard for us in the phrase "survival of the fittest"-- first a description of what happens, then a prescription of how men should behave".

Nietzsche understands human nature very well, and applauds it ... "Man would rather will nothingness than not will" ... "That is of course a statement about human nature and it's perverseness. It implies that the low and the high are permanent elements of in man and that if the low does not serve the high, the high will serve the low".

On 239, Mansfield says "If you are weaker, you have to pay more attention to the context than if you are stronger, I believe it really matters that women are weaker than men, and that is why I have mentioned the fact more often than a gentleman would have preferred."

I question if anyone truly denies this ... being a fairly robust 6'4" 300 lb male, I'm comfortable walking up to a group of bikers or a rough looking bar. While our current feminized society is working hard to create female superheroes ... Elsa, Black Widow, etc, on a day to day basis in the real world, does that actually work? We can imagine a lot of things, but reality is often far different from our imagination.

On 37, we get a succinct definition of Manliness: " What does a John Wayne or Theodore Roosevelt show us about manliness is it's completeness. A manly man is nothing if not an individual, one who sets himself apart, who is concerned with the honor rather than the survival of his individual being. Or to better say, he finds his survival only in his honor."

At the very bottom, the definition of a secular "real man" is as simple as Rhett Butler ... "Frankly, I don't give a damn!"

Voter ID

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/jun/21/facebook-posts/no-only-reason-oppose-voter-id-laws-isnt-because-y/?fbclid=IwAR2ng4lf35b92hFv2JipDkv0U56Ohs_dRSuTHrasq-iXxt52h5lgnNF-0I8

First, "Politifact" is definitely biased -- so we have Fake News calling other news fake.

Second, what is NOT reported is often at least as important as what is.

Canada requires voter ID, 

Mexico has very stringent Voter ID.

Thirdly, while the "fact check" honestly reports that 2/3 of americans support voter id, it's main justification for opposing ID is because "studies show it is rare". Hmmm

"Studies have shown" LOTS of things that have turned out to be false, and "proving", or even postulating the rarity of something hard to observe is next to impossible. eg, You may believe that you have no mice (or few) in your home "because you have not seen one". Would you be willing to bet big money that someone could not find a goodly number? If you see ONE, are you willing to bet that is the ONLY ONE, or at least that there are "very few"?

Without voter ID, how do you find fraud?

So far, this is all typical bickering, but FB is claiming that "The only valid reason to oppose voter ID is because you plan to cheat" is "mostly false", and are flagging it thusly so they hope people will be led to not consider that claim, and look into it themselves.

 EVERYONE, is biased. Our best approach is ALWAYS to at least look at "both", or often "many" sides ... get a balanced media diet, because often the MSM will not even mention stories that disprove their narrative ... nor will Fox, or other even more biased media on the right or left.

If you are too busy for a balanced media diet, I recommend All Sides.

I quibble with the "ONLY reason" in the meme. 

Being misinformed, having limited mental faculties, being so ideologically committed that you blindly support "your side", etc are also at least "reasons", of various levels of validity for opposing voter ID.

However, we have pretty ample evidence that Democrats are extremely willing (certainly much more willing than Canada and Mexico for example) to insure that "voters" of very limited capability or veracity as citizens get to vote! This would seem to fly completely in the face of their commonly stated view that anyone that votes Republican is "stupid, uneducated, backward, etc".

The "fact check" has this "support":

In 2006, the Brennan Center commissioned a survey that found that an estimated 21 million voting-age U.S. citizens didn’t have government-issued photo IDs. Of those 21 million, 15% of citizens who earned less than $35,000 a year, 18% age 65 or older, and 25% of African Americans didn’t have a current government-issued photo ID.

"Survey says" is certainly good enough for "Family Feud", but what kind of person actually finds it sufficient for supporting argument on the integrity of voting?  If you don't have the capability to realize that you are absolutely required to have photo ID in order to live in this country (drive, buy on credit, cash a check, ship a package, get a room at a hotel, fly, etc, etc) do you REALLY want such a person to vote?

Certainly Democrats do ... they actively canvas nursing homes, shut-ins, etc. I've often visited such and love them dearly, however I KNOW that if someone knocks on their door and "helps them" with a ballot, they are certain to "vote" however the "helpful person" indicates!

There is some excellent information on voter fraud in this post, including a pointer to a great book that covers the "how it is done" very well. This is another good thread to follow.

The bottom line here is that the MAIN reason to oppose voter ID is because you benefit from it ... which Democrats clearly do, and have for ages.

AND, you definitely can't trust the media! They will consistently lie to you (both knowingly and unknowingly) and maybe even of more importance, do all they can to fail to report and even suppress (as in this case, labeling it "fake") information that does not support their narrative!

DON'T BE AN MSM / DEEP STATE SHEEP!

The Joy Of Hatred

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/media-bias-cnn-don-lemon-did-trump-a-huge-favor/

The link discusses a recent obvious example of media people reveling in their hatred of the common "Blue Collar" Americans that live in "red state - flyover country". They proudly hate them, and firmly believe that they are honorable and just in their hatred. Hating the "Trumpkins" is a badge of honor, a "virtue" they are proud to signal.

And as in the Old Testament days of "an eye for an eye", our human nature begets hatred in return -- so we reap what we sow. We can no more change our flawed human nature without divine intervention than a tiger can change it's stripes.

Thus we now have a nation bathed in mutual hatred and a cold (so far) civil war.

2k years ago, Jesus came and presented a radically new and completely inhuman  idea -- the idea of loving our enemies! Completely impossible for unrepentant humans, but as proven by many "sinning saints" in Christ, at least significantly possible through the Grace of God.

Much like the slow and often painful process of "getting in shape", bit by bit, step by imperfect step, Western civilization increasingly became a significantly Christian civilization., While still just in it's toddler phase, it unsurprisingly came to the much premature confidence of "MINE"! "MYSELF!".

The slowly maturing faith practice "ran into the street" (like a toddler breaking away from mom)  of a number of wars, including the devastation of two world wars, and after being given the "car keys" of the bomb, it at least partially buckled down enough to best the class bullies of Hitler and Stalin (at fearsome cost). Like teenage "victories" however, the the assumption was immediately made that there was no "controlling authority", and a detour was made to the siren of pleasure, and rejection of authority (God).

Like all analogies, attempting to map the stages of an infinite God's plan to mere human activity is futile. A fool such as myself might imagine that it would be obvious by now that such a plan in no way fits the model of Historicism, Socialism, or Progressivism -- the World Wars alone would seem to drive home the fallicitious assertion that "progress is inevitable" in purely human terms (more "stuff", more "pleasure" -- and all of it perpetually requiring less effort! (but always bereft of any spiritual consideration)

Reading the Old Testament shows a God willing to let his children suffer terrible lessons on the path to accepting his Grace -- banishment to Babylon, many lost wars, etc. Free Will is a benefit with an eternal price -- either the light yoke of following Christ, or the eternal devastation of letting Satan and "the flesh"  have mastery.

Today, one of the "sides" mostly rejects the idea of divine authority --  "higher power", while the other "side" may claim God's authority, their faith is largely in "cheap grace" -- no need to accept the humility of kneeling in submission, and realizing the constant human failure to love the "other". Virtue signalling of "good works" in raising others taxes, or celebrating the sin of others is counted as righteousness in the secular faith.

America, and in general all of Western Civilization blundered into the idea that we were "progressing" to some undefined  "heaven on earth" of an ever more powerful centralized impersonal bureaucracy taking the place of the Christian God.

The creation of the European Union (EU) in the late 20th Century, and then the election of Obama in 2008 in the US seemed to have "sealed the deal" on Statist, Socialist or near-Socialist, centralized, Deep/Administrative elitist control.

The Statist/Socialist "victory" was at least delayed by the beginning of Brexit in the UK and the election of Trump in the US in 2016.

The Deep/Administrative State was not amused.

The Brexit vote in the UK was fought by the elite with vengeance, and the election of Trump was never accepted by the American left wing -- investigation by the Deep State started before he was elected, and has continued up to his impeachment by the house, to be officially rejected by the Senate in the next couple days. Brexit has just finally been completed after a battle of 1,317 days.

The age old battle of "the people" (the "Bourgeois", the "Commoners", the "Deplorables", etc) vs the Elites, the Davos overlords, the Betters, etc, continues.

In the US, Democracy worked from 1800 to 1865, then failed spectacularly with the Civil War. It failed again in 2016 as the "losers" failed to accept the results of an election -- how costly that failure is remains to be fully seen, however the linked article shows that hatred is again strongly evident.

Can democracy work without Faith? Not according to John Adams !

Humans LOVE to feel superior, and hatred of "the other" and virtue signalling about how strongly they hate that "other" is a major source of joy once the soul is given over to "The Dark Side".

Once we abandon God, might is right, and all "sides" seek "justice" in power! The "other side" is demonized and any "tired old ideas" of "loving your enemy" are abandoned to the dark and delicious feelings of superiority over those who fail to see the "wisdom" of your "truth". 

Welcome to the Jungle! 

Churchill Mass Effects In Modern Life

https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/mass-effects-in-modern-life.html

A worthy article whose meaning is mostly lost in summary.

The meaning is that "making all the same" ... "leveling", "equality", like all in this mortal coil has it's cost. Man needs his heroes -- and we can see that with the veneration of mere movie stars or athletes. We are so desperate for heroes, that we are drawn to the imaginary -- the "Marvel Universe", and various videogame "realities".

The irony is if course that Churchill himself at the time he authored this was one of the last remaining true heroes ...

No, we must take the loss with the gain. On the uplands there are no fine peaks. We must do without them while we stay there. Of course we could always, if we wished, go down again into the plains and valleys out of which we have climbed. We may even wander thither unwittingly. We may slide there. We may be pushed there. There are still many powerful nations dwelling at these lower levels, some contentedly, some even proudly. They often declare that life in the valleys is preferable. There is, they say, more variety, more beauty, more grace, more dignity, more true health and fertility than upon the arid highlands. They say this middle situation is better suited to human nature. The arts flourish there, and science need not be absent. Moreover, it is pleasing to look back over the plains and morasses through which our path has lain in the past, and remember in tradition the great years of pilgrimage. Then they point to the frowning crag, their venerated El Capitan or Il Duce, casting its majestic shadow in the evening light; and ask whether we have anything like that up there. We certainly have not.

Churchill's Trial, Larry Arn

https://www.amazon.com/Churchills-Trial-Churchill-Salvation-Government/dp/1595555307

https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/mass-effects-in-modern-life.html

It's a "trial" in the sense of difficult challenges he dealt with, not a court trial.

A delight to at least students of Churchill. While much of our study of Churchill focuses on his life prior to him being summarily dumped from office in 1945 after having saved the nation and the world from the scourge of National Socialism. Naturally, the British people were ungrateful and anxious to be coddled in the warm reptilian embrace of socialism. As one of history's certified great men, Churchill was not particularly angry -- he understood human nature very well and realized that ever since the Garden of Eden, man has been extremely prone to accept false promises.

The quote we all need to keep before us as the population again, even efter many harsh lessons, returns to the siren song of Socialism:

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

From his "Crazy Speech" that helped him lose the 1945 election:

I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart, that no Socialist system can be established without a political police…No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently ­worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.

I'm reminded of the excellent "Liberal Fascism" which covers the "why" of this statement in more detail. It is human nature to work for our own gain, and do be the ones who decide how the fruits of that gain are apportioned -- we may well be very generous, however there are few among us who joyfully pay our taxes. Increasing force is required to achieve the goals of any form of Socialism, be it labled "National" (Nazi), or a cover for Communist (USSR).

On page 225, Arn recounts an interesting observation from actual excellent politicians in a Democracy from Churchill ... "They are quite downcast and offended when the (nasty) cartoons stop. ... they murmur; " We are not mauled and maltreated as we used to be. The great days have ended.""

Democracy is messy, Totalitarianism in any form is very quiet with the exception of massive STAGED hordes of shouting masses all of coerced single mind "Heil Hitler"! The people "loved" the leadership of the USSR -- as long as they were forced to at gunpoint -- and then the "beloved" statues came down. 

On p 182, Arn summarizes the population of a modern near-Socialist state, numbed by the "Mass Effects": 

"Their opinions shaped by the "machinery" of the press and widespread diffusion of standard  views. Education was "universal and superficial", it produced "standardized citizens, all equipped with regulation opinions, prejudices and sentiments according to their class or party". 

Sounds a lot like much of the current population of the west!  

Epimenides, Absolute Thinking, Schiff

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/a-postmodern-impeachment.php

As Pilate observed, "what is truth"?

Is very hard question for mere humans to arrive an answer to this question -- although our media marketing complex is ready and willing to give us easy (but false) answers. 

Accepting that Christ is "The Way, The Truth and The Life", would be an excellent start. This would quickly lead to the realization that we can at most , "discern" with a lot of his Grace, that we can never judge, because "Judgement is the Lords". 

The linked gets into the Epimenides paradox -- "All Cretans are liars" ... however, Epimenides is a Cretan, so ... 

Sentient beings tend to get out of this paradox pretty easily, since the idea of "absolutes" is more applicable in the domain of mathematics and metaphysics than reality. Primarily, because they inherently realize that such thought games are just that -- games. They don't put food on the table!  If they choose to waste a little time, they know that just because Epimenides and Cretins may be "in most cases"  liars, does not infer ALL cases, 

For flesh and blood people who do actual work and live in the real world outside of the echo chamber of Washington and the MSM, and sometimes, (with increasing difficulty) even outside the "Matrix-lite" world of  media and marketing (but I repeat myself), most of what the "Media-Marketing-Matrix sells and tells is simply nonsense. 

The "Media-Marketing-Matrix" (MMM) deals mostly in absolues, and absolutes need to have the classic lost in space warning -- "Danger Will Robinson" on their "package" (like cigarettes). 

... but of course they do not. The Deep/Administrative State are increasingly one in the same with the MMM -- it is very lucrative to sell snake oil.

One of the many losses as our nation as lost God, is that Satan has led many of us into the ditches of "Liberals bad, Conservatives good" ... or vice-versa, the general case of "Our side good, other side evil". We are lost lambs without Christ, easily led to the easy (and false) comfort of earthly absolutes. Satan is a VERY absolute guy -- my guess is that the true Absolute of Gods Love and willingness to forgive is what really burned his biscuits. How could God love such clearly flawed, ugly,  and unloveable creatures as humans! Satan simply could not accept the "injustice" of it! 

Someone with basic exposure to psychology understands how dangerous such thinking is to our lives and relationships. However we are daily bombarded with media that is increasingly targeted to support each of our narrow views as "ultimate justice", and the alternative POV as the "essence of evil",  thus relationships, family, and eventually our country are destroyed. 

Trump is Satan, Adam Schiff is truth and light! ... or vice versa. Call me skeptical. 

We are in grave peril. 

The Psychopath Inside

https://www.goodreads.com/notes/18917592-the-psychopath-inside/6923915-bill-berg?ref=rsp

A book I  very much enjoyed -- but many may not. It gives you "The time", "The watch", "How to build the watch", as well as quite a bit about the watchmaker (biography) -- a play on "I just wanted to know the time, not how to build a watch". "

The author, James Fallon, is a fairly famous brain scientist specializing in the study of what the brains of psychopaths look like, and how are they different from the norm. If you want to get to know him, there are a number of Youtube's of him, and he has appeared in the media in various forms.

The "punchline" is that he accidentally discovers that HE is what he classifies as a "prosocial psychopath"! He also has some interesting connections " ... I had seen her (mom) lecture our family friend George Carlin ...". Also a bunch of film and media connections, since the line between scary and interesting is sometimes narrow -- "psychopathic killer" as sold a lot of movies and books!

He goes into a LOT of depth on his personal life experience, and the neuroscience of various behavior disorders -- depression, borderline, bipolar, narcissism, OCD, panic disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, obesity, social phobia, etc

He starts out as pretty much a materialist "matter over mind, nature vs nurture", but as with many of us, reality has a way of calling imagined world views into question as they face up to the actual world. 

In my mind, we are machines, albeit machines we don’t understand all that well, and I have believed for decades that we have very little control over what we do and who we are. To me, nature (genetics) determines about 80 percent of our personality and behavior, and nurture (how and in what environment we are raised) only 20 percent.

This is the way I have always thought about the brain and behavior. But this understanding took a stinging, and rather embarrassing, blow starting about 2005, and I continue to reconcile my past belief with my present reality. I have come to understand—even more than I did before—that humans are, by nature, complicated creatures.

I found the results of a a Case Western Reserve study by  Anthony Jack to be an interesting explanation as to why some people have a lot of trouble thinking of a dualistic mind/body/spirit sort of split.

What group of people did Tony Jack find that are stumped by the very idea of dualism? Psychopaths. My lack of emotional empathy and my abandonment of God, the soul, and belief in free will may all be connected.

As Christ said, "forgive them for they know not what they do", it seems that science has now verified this.

Having worked at IBM with a number of people (including myself) at least fairly high on the autism spectrum, I found the following interesting.

... another important dichotomy, and that is between emotional empathy and cognitive empathy, also known as “theory of mind.” Theory of mind, as I’ve previously discussed, arises early in childhood, developing progressively until adulthood, and is a key developmental accomplishment in which the child learns she possesses mental states like desires and intentions and beliefs, and that others possess similar states, though those may be different from her own. Someone with autism will not show a normal theory of mind. This lack may also be present in people with some personality disorders such as borderline personality disorder, and also some forms of bipolar disorder. In contrast, people with psychopathy, narcissism, and certain affective types of schizophrenia will have cognitive empathy but lack emotional empathy.

 As I worked as a Peer Support Specialist and reflectect on my personal struggles with anxiety, depression and panic, and also studied DBT and practiced mindfulness, I became more aware of various "spectrums" ... as was stated in the book.

Psychiatry is moving away from categorical thinking—the latest diagnostic manual talks about “dimensions” to disorders—but it’s hard when doctors don’t want to learn new methods, insurance companies need to rely on specific diagnoses, and everyone likes closure and clearly defined labels. I see psychopathy like others see art; I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.

Categories are helpful and dangerous -- as is pretty much everything. "Everything in moderation" is a statement with a lot of wisdom. We are ALL "on the spectrum" for all characteristics, AND, the more we are aware of that, and willing to give grace to others because we are all in the same boat, the better this world will be. "Do unto others" tells the tale.

Would you like to be forgiven? Then forgive.

Would you like to be loved? Then love.

Would you like to be understood? Then seek to understand.

I found this paragraph to be obviously and totally true! (at age 63 ;-)

These brain circuits mature at different times during development, and although there are major maturational events that take place in the terrible twos, puberty, late adolescence, the twenties, and the mid-thirties, some are not completely integrated until one is in the sixties, which appears to be the typical average peak time of human insight, cognition, and understanding in many realms of life.

Not that we have a choice, but if I did have a choice, the grass looks greener to me on the other side ... (I've got a lot of anxiety and memory, and my theory is that part of the reason they go together is because you KNOW that if you screw up, or bad things happen to you, you WILL remember -- VIVIDLY!)

For example, one allele that codes for the growth factor BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) is associated with excellent memory but high anxiety. This is the combination I have, and it fits with my actual behavior. The other allele of BDNF codes for lower memory function but also low anxiety. So what would I rather have, a great memory and high anxiety or a poorer memory and a mellow disposition? Tough call.

So ... if you enjoy LOTS of detail, low level brain chemistry discussion, personal biography/asides, etc, then I HIGHLY recommend this book. If you don't, then if you are able to judiciously skip around the "watchmaking sections", you might still like it --- otherwise, look for other brilliantly done reviews like this one ;-)