Thoughts on Self-Help, Personal Development, and Personal Accountability
Today is America’s Birthday and as it happens mine as well. (See the latest Lee Greenwood tribute video at the end of this article). Two years ago, I wondered how well America will survive the Twin Towers of the “DamPendic DownLock*” and the recent outbreak of Marxist Socialism whose foundations have been laid in recent years but now have sprung forth in sheep’s clothing.
We’ve made progress overcoming the “DamPendic*” and the economy recovered somewhat (except new economic threats from the “DamPendic DownClose*” have now materialized).
Unfortunately, the Marxist ideology of class conflict and victimhood are still going strong, and the suppression of Free Speech and the Free Exchange of Ideas continues to threaten our liberties.
Threats to our Liberties, Threats to the American Dream
A new tyrannical Public-Private Partnership
Orwell’s “Big Brother” and “The Ministry of Truth” has come to life not just in our government manipulating our lives but also aided by mass media, big tech social media overlords, and academia. They collude to censor and prohibit free speech and the exchange of ideas. These entities believe they know what is best. They filter what we ought not to know and create memes of what we ought to know. Everywhere we are being told how we are supposed to act and think. (The chaos these threats are producing has been wonderfully satirized by singer/songwriter/guitarist Bradley James Skistimas & Five Times August in a music video – see below)
“Mark, Jack, Bill, Joe – they’ll tell you what you need to know” https://youtu.be/tzXbXKaM4Pk
New Age Communists in Sheep’s Clothing
Activist organizations of many stripes are trashing our American history, ideals and institutions tearing down the traditional fabric and structures of American life. New histories are being fabricated to justify this assault. Most pernicious of these destroyers are the Marxist alliances associated with Black Lives Matter movement. The BLM movement and the Critical Race Theory propaganda are undoing fifty years of progress, ransacking Dr. King’s Dream.
“The premise behind Black Lives Matter is a lie” – Larry Elder
Psychology, Personal Empowerment and Personal Accountability
These liberty threatening themes run counter to the main thrust of Psychology and in particular Myers-Briggs Personality Type. The underlying theme of Isabel Myers seminal book “Gifts Differing” and the use of the MBTI is to empower individuals to recognize and utilize their unique gifts to improve their happiness and their lives. The theory of Personality Types and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator promotes these ends by better understanding self and better understanding others.
Likewise the academic discipline and professional practice of Psychology believes the solution to greater happiness and success lies between our ears. While the world outside might contribute to one’s misery, Psychology teaches us skills, knowledge and techniques to compensate for these disadvantages.
This can-do attitude, the belief that one can succeed against adversity or rise out of poverty was considered part of the American dream. That was then, but it is not now.
The dominant themes of the mainstream media, the universities and among the Masters of social media technology are not psychology-based and personal empowerment ideas that reflect the American ideals of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Instead, they are sociology-based. They champion grand-scale socialistic solutions that address some flavor of alleged systemic inequity. Notions such as “personal empowerment” are derided as vestiges of white supremacy buried deep within our social institutions.
More Articles on Society & Personality Type
Hope for the future America and the Cause of Freedom and Liberty
In some corners of academia and on the Internet social media, within a community known as the Intellectual Dark Web, there are those who are standing against the sociological tide of anti-freedom and anti-free speech. Among them are a couple of academic psychologists.
Jordan Peterson
Dr. Peterson is perhaps the most well-known psychologist opposing the anti-freedom forces. You can find on YouTube his early lectures on general psychology and lectures on the psychological implications of biblical stories. More recently he has become more widely known for his best selling book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Gad Saad
Dr. Saad is another psychologist, also Canadian, who has risen against this sociological tyranny. Dr. Saad’s specialty is evolutionary psychology. His channel has some longer form interviews and lectures, as well as short form commentaries on the news of the day. Because evolutionary psychology integrates with some related fields such as evolutionary biology and social psychology Dr. Saad’s perspective has long included observing economic consumerism and social trends. Among his current interests are the anti-freedom forces at work in academia. His recent book is entitled “The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas are Killing Common Sense”
Hope for Keeping Dr. King’s dream alive
Many Black and Brown people active on Social Media are standing against the Marxist propaganda and keeping “The Dream” alive. Two who have produced some compelling documentary films are Larry Elder and Shelby Steele.
Larry Elder
One of many rays of hope in Social Media is Larry Elder. He is an attorney, author, radio and social media host, and film maker who can introduce you to the great minds and influential leaders past and present whose roots trace back to Africa. He also introduces common sense and clear-eyed vision on the developments of the day. While you can tune into Larry daily on YouTube or Radio/TV his most recent film production ( “Uncle Tom”) brings many of these important people and history of blacks in America together in one serving.
Shelby and Eli Steele
Shelby Steele is a former English professor who later became a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He has written widely on race in American society and the consequences of contemporary social programs on race relations. In 2006, Steele received the Bradley Prize for his contributions to the study of race in America.
Shelby’s son Eli is a filmmaker. Together they have collaborated on an insightful documentary film “What Killed Michael Brown.”
Happy Birthday America – Let Freedom Ring
Ross Reinhold, Editor & Publisher and a Yankee Doodle Dandy!