Societal expectations matter little; personal expectations matter tremendously.
Most of us fail to appreciate the extent to which our behavior is under situational control, because we prefer to believe that is all is internally generated. We wander around cloaked in an illusion of vulnerability, mis-armed with an arrogance of free will and rationality.
I started studying shyness in adults in 1972. Shyness operates at so many different levels. Out of that research came the Stanford shyness clinic in 1977.
At North Hollywood High School, I was shunned by everyone. I would sit down in the cafeteria, and students would get up from the table and walk away. They thought I was from the Mafia.
Mama, humanity is my business.
The line between good and evil is movable and it’s permeable.
Evil consists in intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent others – or using one’s authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf. In short, it is “knowing better but doing worse”.
We mortals can be fools, especially when mortal emotions rule over cool reason.
It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable. – Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind.
If you don’t think much of yourself, why should I, since you obviously know yourself better than anyone else?
A good way to avoid crimes of obedience is to assert one’s personal authority and always take full responsibility for one’s actions.23.
However, even psychologists are people, subject to the same dynamic processes at a personal level that they study at a professional level.
While 76 per cent of Americans said they watched, read or heard the news on a daily basis, only 41 per cent said they went beyond the headlines.4 So there’s this potential illusion of knowing. It is the danger of having a superficial level of knowledge about anything, but believing you know everything.
Everyone must choose one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. – Jim Rohn, entrepreneur and motivational speaker.
Evil that arises out of ordinary thinking and is committed by ordinary people is the norm, not the exception.
That seduction or initiation into evil can be understood by recognizing that most actors are not solitary figures improvising on the empty stage of life. Rather, they are often an ensemble of different players, on a stage with various props and changing costumes, scripts, and stage directions from producers and directors.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. – Frederick Douglass, African-American social reformer and a leader of the abolitionist movement.
Time and oppression are the fathers of rebellious invention.
Change alone is unchanging. – Heraclitus.
One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again. – Abraham Maslow, humanist psychologist.