7. Punishing Evil

As far as abuse is concerned, there is no relative morality, or mitigating circumstances.
Abusers are NEVER right. They should ALWAYS be punished and severely.
YOU are never to blame. You are not responsible, not even partly.
We do not punish evil people. We punish evil deeds.
We do not lock people up ONLY when they are evil. We more often lock them up when they are dangerous.
You should start not by learning to love.
You should start by learning to HATE.
Learn to hate properly, unabashedly, openly. Flaunt it.

You will then be able to love yourself - but not before.

To my mind, the OVERRIDING emotion is GRIEF because it is a spectrum and one colour in the spectrum is shame. But it is not terribly important as long as you are capable of feeling them all.

8. Psychology

Psychology is lacking in philosophical rigour because it was established by charlatans and by medical doctors (medicine being a heuristic, taxonomic, exegetic-diagnostic, descriptive, phenomenological, and statistical discipline). Not much of a pedigree.

Psychology was founded as the "mechanics" and "dynamics" of the psyche. As physics became more interested in describing the world rather than in explaining it - psychology acquired the added legitimacy to seek similar goals.

Hence the prevailing emphasis on symptoms, signs, and behaviours, and the shift away from scientifically suspect "models" and "theories" (however poetic).

In future, instead of nine criteria one would have to possess two to qualify as a veritable PD. It is progress - but of the horizontal kind.

And to do this we must get rid of the LANGUAGE of psychology because it limits our ability to say anything new, or profoundly fundamental. It IS descriptive and phenomenological. It will not allow for anything else. What is depression if not a list of OUTSIDE correlations, pairs of behaviors/observations? And isn't PTSD another DSM category derived through the same faulty tools?

A clear cut delineation, a line of demarcation, a scientifically rigorous taxonomy is NOT possible even if we employ totally extraneous tools such as "symptoms", "signs", "behaviors", "presenting symptoms", etc. The scalpel is much too thick, the grains much too coarse. We need much more refined analytic AND synthetic tools.

next: Excerpts from the Archives of the Narcissism List Part 16