First Blog

  Is it not remarkable that this country that has spent the last few generations teaching all students to feel good about themselves, issuing participation trophies to every child, assuring every child is intellectual, and giving increasingly high grades, has abruptly turned on itself, telling all they are racist, greedy, and otherwise evil? Do the activists expect a participation trophy, or to be praised with certainty they are good? You know, condemning another as bad enhances you as good.

Going under the hood of American students reveals a corpus of young people with different ideas than in years past.    Less educated than ever before and loving it, freed from the shackles of critical understanding, flush with a new found power over flaccid administrations, American students see the world through highly personal and rather selfish viewpoints.  Risk avoidance is favored, both in action and in thought.   Mostly, they want to feel good about themselves, to make a difference, and to be allowed indifference to serious study. They seem to live in a world of talking points, to need scripted talking points for newer issues, and surely to follow the talking points of their often anonymous leaders. Reason must be combined in equal measure with emotion. Truth is also what should be so or could be so. Feeling good is isomorphic to being good. Restricting speech of some clarifies and helps deeper understanding of the real truth. Having safe spaces is important in a ho

Feeling Good All of us need to feel good.  People, politicians, teachers, movie-star personalities, all of us have this fundamental need.  All or most are driven by this need – even if you or I think they’ve run astray.   Even psychologists need to feel good, and for them they need to feel they make a difference in their treatment of patients.  Rarely, will one tell us they tried and tried but nothing worked.  Indeed, they need affirmation, often self-affirmation, of treatment success.  And this makes them feel good. Only a few psychologists are in possession of the power to suggest the release criminally troubled (or insane) patients back into the world of us all.  To feel good they have been successful in their treatments is not enough in a such a totally subjective environment.  We must have strict criteria for the release of troubled people, particularly those with a proclivity to violence.  What can be done is unclear to me.  But something should be done.

It’s all about feeling good. In years past, folks would go to church and sit patiently for one hour, contribute a few dollars, and come away feeling good.  This was their total commitment.  Today, in our nano-world, many of the wealthy football players have the same need – to feel good.  Their obligation is to kneel patiently in their preferred church, the playing field, for three minutes of the national anthem.  They feel good, and maybe the boo’s make them feel  a sacrifice has been made.  Our nano-world of sound bites, quick jabs, and instant commitment pervades within the Hollywood elite, students, many news wonks, and now sports. They commit a few minutes, perhaps an hour, coming away feeling good they have done something of value.  This nano-goodness is enough for them. In contrast… The first responders in recent hurricanes, the physicians traveling to disaster areas, and those few missionaries that commit days, weeks, and even lifetimes to helping others actually