the future to satisfy everyone’s yearnings? Politics, by itself, will never explain why this perfect world, so artfully rendered, is always spoken of as somewhere in the future, never in the present. Bottom line: Politics, even if it could, would never expose its failures, hidden corruptions and compromised personalities. So, it’s up to us.
Lacking information, we’ve settled on a position that only creates more political conflict: Good politics is what we agree with; bad politics is what we disagree with.
We’re not doing much better trying to figure out which politician is good or bad for America, especially when we’re told that all possess a superior intellect, unquestioned integrity, high moral standing, vast knowledge, enlightened expertise in every field of study, and are beyond reproach. We’re expected to believe that politicians put us first. Their lives are guided by every honest trait imaginable while holding to every positive ideal. Collective misperceptions like these permit the tyrannical personality to meld into politics unnoticed. And America is the worse for it.
Political tyrants will always deny their tyrannical calling. The untold suffering they cause is also denied; for them, public suffering brings exploitable opportunities. Victims seek relief; any politician who promises relief today is in a position to mold minds into blindly accepting lifelong states of victimhood tomorrow. Helpless but willing masses also serve as a social foundation of “inferiors” for political elites to proudly compare themselves to, and stand above, as self-anointed “superiors” who are born to lead and, therefore, deserve to be idolized by those born to follow. In other words, we the people of America are inferior, and will always be inferior.
Let’s, for a moment, accept that argument. We’re still left with this inconvenient truth: If we investigate our self-anointed, political “superiors” with a science of psychology, we’d find them to be nothing more than self-centered, mental and emotional inferiors who, like common, white-collar criminals, exploit anyone within reach for personal gain. However, there is a difference: The politician is better positioned with resources and influence to avoid exposure and penalties.
America’s Founders had a sense of the above when they gave us the political powers to choose, or reject, people who represent us. The Founders were already living under the political yoke of an officially proclaimed superior English political system enforced by a truly superior military. So instead of looking up to a future, king-like elite to rule their new America, The Founders looked laterally to each other to find that eternal key to good politics and government: the virtuous, informed, and patriotic citizen.
Building a political system around, by and for the good citizen is the only formula for building good governments. When political power is firmly held in the hands of the people, the good among them rise to sense their responsibilities for becoming protective guardians of good government while honoring their God-given rights to improve political outcomes as they experience them day-to-day. They’re also free to satisfy natural yearnings for liberty and independence by maximizing individual potential—as they see fit. Sadly, disempowering the individual is the path America has chosen and is now on.
How much power a government is willing to allow its citizens is measured by how many citizens are benefitting versus how many are suffering—a telling criterion for judging any political system. Unfortunately, the idea that ultimate political power must be held by the people has been eroding in America for over a century, fed by the skillfully manufactured, emotionally seductive lie that big government—the bigger the better—is the only government worth living under.
But here’s the good news: The right psychology, with the right information, when joined to good government, can muster formidable challenges to big-government/anti-individual ideologies.
However, this may sound too good to be true, if not wildly idealistic. It will if you believe the mind is too mysteries for clear, practical answers, if you are convinced that psychology has no role in your life, or if you feel that psychology, even as a science, will never make a difference in politics.
Nonetheless, a science of psychology is an information source unlike any other in that it defines you and others around you, guides you through life, and defines your quality of life with words you can trust and live by.
The science of psychology I am offering in this book welcomes your interest. It also welcomes your criticism and rewards your patience for examining it. Psychology is confusing and rudderless without clear guidelines. It is also, for the most part, irrelevant if we the people of America are not active participants in it.
A science of psychology:
Is for you. Today’s psychology is for academics and theoreticians who have established a status quo closed to criticism. This has freed mental health professionals to treat us with endless ruminations about the human psyche as if it is a mysterious art form off limits to anyone not officially licensed to ponder it, ergo why today’s psychology rarely gives us practical conclusions. The science of psychology, on the other hand, treats opinions, theories, and educated guesses as first steps toward reaching conclusions, but not any conclusions. Its conclusions carry practical information the public already knows is true, suspects is true, or just makes sense. Its conclusions not only lead to predictable, observable outcomes, they work each time, every time. Today’s mental health field only recognizes psychological symptoms that most people agree are obviously in need of its professional intervention (therapy, management, medication, or residential care). It dismisses subtle or mild forms of dysfunction as “normal” or labels them with fuzzy definitions that keep us guessing (e.g., “personality disorder”). When there is no clear line between normal and abnormal, we grow accustomed to “little things” that bother us assuming they’re just part of the human experience we have to live with and can’t do much about.
Specializes in learned, psychological problems, and leaves organically-based, psychological problems for the medical field. Notwithstanding the fact that some mental and emotional problems are created by combinations of learned and organic causes, the vast majority are learned, i.e., caused by events that traumatize a developing mind.
Is specific and has little use for generalities. It clearly identifies every learned, psychological problem, from very subtle to very serious. It also pinpoints causes and effects, examines all of its significant parts, maps a problem’s progression over time, presents clear remedial strategies, speaks in a language of fact and common sense, organizes itself for public use, works with combinations of symptoms and causes to see how they interact to create new classes of symptoms, and goes back in time to the original traumatic event to frame it in terms of place, circumstance, and causal agent.
Establishes a standard against which to compare the psychological problem, i.e., how people would be thinking, acting, or emoting if psychological symptoms were absent from their personalities. That standard is individual, psychological excellence. When we’re the best we can be, we’re demonstrating the highest level of human thinking, emotion, and behavior—how Mother Nature designed our mind to work. Comparing and contrasting psychological weaknesses directly to psychological strengths gives us something concrete to work on, work with, and work for.
Is willing to question itself, take criticism, admit when it’s wrong, and respectfully listen to any cohesive argument.
Attracts innovative people who are motivated to break new ground, expand the production of reliable, working conclusions, and build upon them to challenge the status quo—all necessary criteria if we are to establish professional standards the public can believe in and live by.
Organizes itself around a central/unifying theme. If one digs deeply into psychology’s research, or any related research (e.g., child development, neurology, or psychobiology), one finds a consensus of information that forms naturally around a unifying theme. A unifying theme is critical for making connections between isolated
