Individualism

by Robert Villegas

  Depending upon your situation, this can be a difficult issue for you. In some cases, the demand of altruism is very strong and sometimes we are forced into a position where we must give up our time and thoughts of the future to others. Recognize that your morality has nothing to do with others and that self-sacrifice can never be a demand that is imposed upon you. Sometimes you have to stand up and refuse these expectations and stand for yourself without guilt. You cannot live your own life if you have to live it for others and you must resist the pull to sacrifice as a matter of your own survival.

  5. Perform "self-programming" or "re-programming" exercises where you confirm that your mind, happiness, opinions, hopes and desires are more important to you than those of others. Take time to re-orient yourself to yourself, to your core needs and loves. If you have no hope, give yourself hope, learn to smile, to laugh, to forget the seriousness that collectivism has imposed upon you. You live for yourself in order to enjoy your life. Keep this thought as a shining beacon that guides your thinking and plans as you define them for yourself.

  6. Watch for times when your primary thought is others, particularly, when you are wondering what other people are thinking about you. Guard yourself in these times and analyze these thoughts. Ask yourself, what is the cause of these thoughts, their source. What is the proper alternative to these thoughts? Identify the ways you have been controlled by others in the past and associate this control with events that you remember. Don’t blame others for cruelty (your parents and peers were merely “acting out”); dismiss what they might have done and don’t let it paralyze you and your happiness. Recognize that now is the time for joy and hope because you were the victim of disapproval and that was not your fault but the fault of collectivist ideas.

  7. Watch for times when you try to predict what others think. This is a fruitless action. Little comes from it because it is a negative, an effort to find knowledge by reading the mind or expression of another--which is impossible. It restricts proper intellectual growth and creative talent. It is a waste of time and energy. Knowledge is best acquired first hand. Ask questions and seek answers in the real world.

  8. Develop your thinking abilities. Learn logic, learn any “reality-based” science or subject that will help your mind become more self-sufficient, more judging, more independent, less dependent on the thinking of others, more aware that there is a reality that you can control for your own benefit. An important goal here is to learn how to be totally self-sufficient intellectually, learn how to make your thinking the fundamental source of all your knowledge. Question the ideas of others and insist that they support them with facts and clear reasoning.

  9. Make every effort to identify self-doubt in your mind and strive to resolve that self-doubt at your deepest core—consider the possibility that others have been the source of your self-doubt. Analyze how you came to believe so, and argue that such thinking is invalid. Add pride, hope and joy to your thinking. Recognize that these three virtues are the foundation of your future as an individual.

  10. Determine, clearly, and in writing, your goals, your values, and the steps that will make them possible. Identify your prime purpose in life and integrate it with the values you will seek. Make purpose your prime motivation. Make sure you can defend and validate it as being in your best interest. Do not tolerate contradictions.

  11. Develop a hierarchy of values, starting with your happiness, your self-esteem and integrity. Stand for values, defend them, do not allow cynics to belittle them. Fight for your value as an individual. One way to do this is to make a “List of Choices” you will make in certain circumstances that will help you decide what is in your best interest and help you resolve doubt about what you will do. Next to each item on this list place the context where this choice will come up and your best argument as to why this choice benefits your life. This is a simple but effective way of winning your wellbeing according to the right standard.

  12. Work toward financial self-sufficiency. Do not allow yourself to be dependent on anyone. Make sure you have a career and work to develop your career goals. Go to school, think long-range, but be self-sufficient. You cannot succeed without the intellectual preparation you need for success.

  13. Love selfishly, know why you love and love someone of high values and character. Love them for the kind of person they are and especially their self-sufficiency of soul. Make sure the loved one is not a drain on your soul, that he or she is supportive, loves you for your highest qualities and that you love them for theirs. If you are in a dependent or abusive relationship, get out, if you cannot change it. If you find yourself chained to a person who is bad for you, determine just why you "need" that sort of relationship and correct any subconscious mistakes that put you into it.

  Most importantly, never back away from your love, accept it fully, openly, selfishly and never let the other person doubt that your love is complete and total. We live in a confusing world, and love is one thing about which there should be no confusion. Your love can be the refuge against cynical disapproving authority figures and peers. But it can also be a source of emotional fuel, admiration and romantic feelings that enlighten and inspire.

  14. Analyze clearly those things that are in your life because you felt they would influence others positively toward you, that by having them, others might give you value. Realize clearly that trying to obtain your value from others is "otherism," the practice of holding the views of others above your own views. Independence is a difficult thing to achieve and maintain. But being a dependent is much more difficult, for it involves pain, suffering, confusion, self-doubt, disintegration and eventually failure. Independence leads to the opposite: happiness, hope, certainty, self-confidence, integrity and success. These last are much easier to live with because they do not involve pain.

  Raising Children as Individualists

  These 14 important issues have tremendous import when it comes to raising children. How can we guard them against the onslaught of collectivism? How can we protect them against the manipulation of government and other institutions? How can we give them the self-esteem needed to function in their lives without fear and suffering and, especially, without fear of upsetting the collective?

  We must instill in our children a deep respect for the inviolability of the self, a self-love that is deep and abiding. We must let them know they are important and that what they think and do are important. We must teach them to elevate themselves not to humble themselves. We must give them the greatest gift we could possibly give: the recognition and appreciation of their individuality, the love that we feel for the unique Individual in our charge.

  Additionally, we must only nurture and never attack. A critical or harsh word to a child makes a deep wound, one that may be impossible to heal. Further, the pain of such cruelty leads to a need to release nervous energy and that release can become cruelty to others---and then with misunderstanding parents---engender more critical and harsh words. Attacking a child can lead to an endless cycle of confusion, self-doubt and misunderstood behavior that can destroy a life.

  Attacking a child can take many forms, sometimes very subtle, sometimes couched under expressions of love, sometimes implied in a kind word or in quiet criticism or in frank discussion. We must be vigilant that the message we give a child is one of positive recognition and nurturing. Nurturing comes from the realization that the child is a developing human being, one who makes mistakes as part of the process of development.

  Certainly, there is seldom evil intent on the part of the parent trying to discipline a developing human being. By starting with the premise that the child can learn how to be a genuine “self”, the parent can help the child much more. To brand a child early in life as "bad" or defective in some way is to give up on the child while he is in the process of growing. It is to tell that child he has no right to try his best, to become better, that he is not a member of the human race. Children should never be branded by negative markers or role paradigms. They should be ta
ught to find the best in themselves and encouraged to do so. After all, the expression of the best within a person is an outgrowth of the real person.

  Finally, the behavior of the parent is critical to teaching the child. There will always be an element of emulation in a developing child. How the parent acts toward himself, his children and others is a direct instruction to the child. How the parent feels about life and society is a direct indication of how the child should feel. If the parent is a mediocre automaton or a prejudiced bigot, he is displaying to his children that they should be like him. If he is a positively self-critical, independent, self-motivated person who is seeking happiness, he is teaching his children to be the same.

  We have rarely identified how negative is our common treatment of our children and how devastated are the young lives that we have decided to help in their development. Further, many of us do not realize that because we were treated with disdain, we very often do the same to our children. And we must recognize that otherism and collectivism have created the culture of disdain toward children. They deserve better than to be told to believe what others believe, do what others do, hate what others hate and don’t be so prideful.

  The Highest Intelligence in the Freest Body

  The title to this chapter was once spoken in a television show that I saw years ago about the life of Isadora Duncan,[2] one of the early 20th Century’s most revered dancers. Through her dance, she portrayed awe-inspiring intelligence in a beautiful body. The words signify an attitude (lost in modern times) that glorified intelligence and freedom. They offer just one more clue to the fact that the earlier part of the 20th Century was a more romantic period with a more uplifting view of man than we find today.

  But the quote is more than an artistic goal. Art, as a selective recreation of reality, offers a concrete expression of values. An artist presents values that he/she thinks are achievable or proper. The words can apply, not only to dance, but also to life. They can apply to the values an Individual seeks or has achieved in the course of his/her own life. They represent the fundamental purpose of this book; to express a love for Individual beauty and intelligence as positive forces in society.

  As with all matters, there is and must always be a point of reference, a philosophical abstraction that guides the interpretation of moral and artistic issues. It will be the purpose of this chapter to discuss the two fundamental approaches to the interpretation of artistic and moral values. These two fundamentals are Idealism and Realism.

  Idealism

  The concept of Idealism came to the western world via Plato and the Greek philosophers. It held that the universe contained two dimensions, the world of particulars and the world of essences. The world of particulars was held to be an imperfect projection of the world of essences. It is the world in which we live. It contains all that we see, hear, touch, taste and smell. Yet in this world, nothing is fully real except as a mere projection of its more perfect counterpart in the realm of essences, a transcendent realm that is remembered only through the particulars in this world that jolt our memories of the ideals.

  Man’s dilemma for the Platonist is that he is caught in the unreal world of particulars and yet is able to comprehend the more perfect world of ideas. This dichotomy pits man’s mind against the carnal nature of his body in favor of unreachable yet profoundly high values. The result is constant defeat and failure by man. His only consolation is the proximity to the ideal that he attains; an attainment made possible by the denial of all worldly interests and pleasures in favor of spiritual values.

  To an idealist, the lines about Isadora Duncan would represent a goal that does not and cannot exist in the real world. Ideals serve mainly as inspiration but have no practical consequence except that man always falls short. Man, because he is an imperfect image of God or the ideal man, can never attain the ideal. He can only conceive of it, not only as the impossible, but also as the goal for which he must and should strive.

  It is the essence of idealism that it pits man against himself and leaves him in the state of a being chained to the earth until he is released by death. Morality, by this view, requires tremendous, yet futile, effort. It demands a battle against the body’s biological needs, engendering repression of thoughts related to those needs. And it requires an effort toward values that have little relation to the Individual and hence, have little motivational value.

  Self-love is most vehemently damned by idealists of all kinds. A man of self-love can’t be ruled and idealism is a philosophy most energetically advocated by those who would rule. Plato believed in an authoritarian system of government. Hegel, another philosopher, was an idealist without whom Hitler and Stalin could not have justified their atrocities. These monsters were the “Supermen” of Hegel’s ideal. Today we have the descendants of Kant who believe that in order to be free, man must be irrational – an indirect way of destroying self-love, since the irrational man can have no basis for pride; he is too much a failure. On the other hand, we have many religions that preach heaven as a realm of perfection that man can only achieve after he lives a life free of sin in the real world.

  Realism

  Realism holds, in brief, that existence is real and independent of man’s consciousness. According to this view, there are not two worlds; there is only the world that exists and it is a projection of man striving for his best on earth. It simply is. To a Realist, the words about Isadora Duncan would represent a goal that is achievable, on this earth and in this life. The words serve as a moral beacon of potential accomplishment. A person’s distance from the beacon depends upon his character and there is always the possibility of improvement.

  In contrast to the ever-elusive ideal of the Platonist, the Realist holds no ideals in the Platonic sense. He holds values, and within the context of his life he is able to determine which actions can achieve them. In this way, he need not project an “ideal man” to become. He knows that virtue is an ever present act, that within any given context there are only so many alternatives and that only one act will most adequately assist him in the achievement of a given value. He also knows that even if a chosen act only brings him a step closer to his value, it is an act he can take and that taking that act is a sign of moral perfection.

  Realism is an aspect of Individualism. Even more, it is a philosophy of self-love. This, it proudly emphasizes, is crucial to a healthy man. By the Realist philosophy, a person is not imperfect by nature, he is perfectible by choice; but born as a being with a certain nature, a nature he need not fight; a nature that must be respected and understood. There is no dichotomy between mind and body; they are part of the same existence, tied to existence and no other realm.

  By this view, virtue is an act taken by a rational consciousness. It is derived by recognizing facts of reality and associating those facts with actions that the Individual can take to affect his wellbeing. Virtue is what you do rather than a vague “striving”. No massive effort is required in any given context, provided that man’s mind clearly knows where he is and what he must do. There is no excruciating battle against uncontrollable urges and unacknowledged motivations. The highest intelligence in the freest body is an everyday state.

  Platonism sets up a split between spirit and the real making high values impossible to man; which leads to a fruitless “war” between spirit and body which then leads to numerous intellectual conflicts that result in war between the advocates of spiritual “good” and those who would rather be left alone. This mind/body split has been a scourge for man that has caused much cultural and religious strife.

  Today, under the influence of idealism, genuine intelligence is not a desirable trait to possess. Anyone interested in achieving the highest intelligence possible to him is isolated, ostracized or ridiculed to such an extent that many young are discouraged about making their best effort.

  Yet, we must ask, without intelligence how can one reach a free body? Today we are told that the free body is achieved by nothing more than mindless whim worship. Today�
�s psychologists advise: “Do what you feel like doing. You are free. You are in control of your own life.” All of this ignores, however, the unfortunate truth that the Individual they are freeing has not learned how to think about moral issues, so “what he wants” may not be to his benefit.

  The highest intelligence in the freest body is locked in a cultural chasm deep within the soul of every man and is felt only as a submerged wish that escapes from time-to-time and is best described as a wish that life was better or happier or freer, or as a wistful longing for more romance or more excitement. It is a long way to the highest and the freest. Those who wish to achieve this state, because of negative cultural influences, must often emerge from the depths in order to rise up. We have only an image of Isadora Duncan.

  But what a goal!!

  Montessori

  As an ardent reader and lover of Romantic literature, I had never thought that reading a book about education could excite me to any degree. For this reason, I had put off my educational reading requirements for many years. Recently, however, I blew the dust off one of those books and discovered one of the most interesting reading experiences of my life. Dr. Maria Montessori’s book, THE ABSORBENT MIND, is a classic of educational literature. Indeed, it may well be the most comprehensive exposition of child psychology ever written.