‘If everybody’s doing it, it’s probably wrong’.

From The man who destroyed America’s ego: How a rebel psychologist challenged one of the 20th century’s biggest – and most dangerous – ideas:

“FOR MUCH OF HUMAN HISTORY, our beliefs have been based on the assumption that people are fundamentally bad. Strip away a person’s smile and you’ll find a grotesque, writhing animal-thing. Human instincts have to be controlled, and religions have often been guides for containing the demons. Sigmund Freud held a similar view: Psychotherapy was his method of making the unconscious conscious, helping people restrain their bestial desires…”

Furries: Do you like your fursona? Do you have higher self-esteem, and feel happier and better with it?

Or do you represent “bestial desires” of a “grotesque, writhing animal-thing?” Are you fundamentally bad, and need to restrain what you are inside?

The 1960’s brought an alternative movement of self-esteem, dedicated to boosting “unconditional positive regard” for the self. Education and public policy has now become deeply supportive for this. But there are dissidents to this, too. Meet Roy Baumeister.

Read the rest of this entry »