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    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side and Other Essays
    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side and Other Essays
    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side and Other Essays
    Ebook91 pages1 hour

    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side and Other Essays

    By Joe Blow

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    About this ebook

    We have moral systems aimed at containing our tendency toward destructive behaviour, but their effectiveness has proven to be very limited. Sometimes it seems that our strategies for taming our dark side, from religion to “political correctness”, just make things worse. Maybe an examination of the roots of the problem will suggest a remedy. In this collection of essays, Joe Blow, author of How to Be Free, shines some light into the darkness.

    Contents :

    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side
    Why Do We Have a Dark Side?
    Will Policing Our Cultural Expressions Discourage Violence?
    "Thou Must!" vs. "F**k That!"
    Freedom vs. Political Correctness
    Thoughts on the Male Feminist
    "Toxic Masculinity" or Toxic Idealism?
    Trying Too Hard to Be Good Made Us Capable of Evil
    The Oasis : A Parable
    Me... Or My Disease?
    The Psychology of the Right Wing and the Left Wing
    "Social Justice Warriors" or "Social Fabric Healers"?
    The Problem With "-Isms"
    The Life Raft of Dogma
    Eating the Chocolate Bar
    A Free Society Can Only Grow from Psychologically Secure Individuals
    The Pleasure of Love
    The Hammer or The Key : Exposing the Dictatorship of the Ideal
    Is Reality Real? : From Plato's Cave to The Matrix
    Selfishness is Self-Denial
    Unlocking Love

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAussiescribbler
    Release dateJun 30, 2017
    ISBN9781370051557
    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side and Other Essays
    Author

    Joe Blow

    Joe Blow is the pseudonym for a man who, though currently happy and high functioning, has had a long history of mental illness, including endogenous depression, bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. His writing is the product of a lifelong struggle to integrate flashes of insight and powerful symbols which appeared to him, often during what we might define as psychotic episodes, with observable reality and a rudimentary knowledge of science by appropriating useful concepts from the work of such iconoclastic thinkers as Wilhelm Reich, R. D. Laing, Keith Johnstone, William Blake and Oscar Wilde. If asked whether this approach and this conceptual framework have provided him with a secure foundation for emotional stability, happiness and flowering creativity, Blow would reply, “Well, so far so good.” He also writes humorous erotica under the pseudonym Aussiescribbler.

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    Book preview

    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side and Other Essays - Joe Blow

    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side and Other Essays

    by Joe Blow

    Copyright 2017 Joe Blow

    Table of Contents

    Introduction

    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side

    Why Do We Have a Dark Side?

    Will Policing Our Cultural Expressions Discourage Violence?

    Thou Must! vs. Fuck That!

    Freedom vs. Political Correctness

    Thoughts on the Male Feminist

    Toxic Masculinity or Toxic Idealism?

    Trying Too Hard to Be Good Made Us Capable of Evil

    The Oasis : A Parable

    Me... Or My Disease?

    The Psychology of the Right Wing and the Left Wing

    Social Justice Warriors or Social Fabric Healers?

    The Problem With -Isms

    The Life Raft of Dogma

    Eating the Chocolate Bar

    A Free Society Can Only Grow from Psychologically Secure Individuals

    The Pleasure of Love

    The Hammer or The Key : Exposing the Dictatorship of the Ideal

    Is Reality Real? : From Plato's Cave to The Matrix

    Selfishness Is Self-Denial

    Unlocking Love

    Introduction

    As with my first book – How to Be Free – I make no claims for the ideas expressed in these essays. I'm not an authority. I haven't studied psychology formally. My ideas are largely the product of introspection. So these essays should be viewed as experiments in free thought. Please take from them what you may find of value and reject the rest. Although each essay has been written to stand alone, How to Be Free, which is available as a free download from Smashwords and anywhere else you may have found this book, may be the better introduction to these ideas.

    My essential message is : "Accept all of your thoughts and feelings unconditionally rather than fighting with them or criticising yourself for having them. If we try to impose virtue upon ourselves we will arouse resentment and rebellion against that which is virtuous. Letting go of repression of our thoughts and feelings need not lead to acting upon destructive urges, but beneath the thoughts and feelings we shamefully repress we will find our courage and our capacity for love."

    About the Author

    Joe Blow is the pseudonym for a man who, though currently happy and high functioning, has had a long history of mental illness, including endogenous depression, bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. His writing is the product of a lifelong struggle to integrate flashes of insight and powerful symbols which appeared to him, often during what we might define as psychotic episodes, with observable reality and a rudimentary knowledge of science by appropriating useful concepts from the work of such iconoclastic thinkers as Wilhelm Reich, R. D. Laing, Keith Johnstone, William Blake and Oscar Wilde.

    If asked whether this approach and this conceptual framework have provided him with a secure foundation for emotional stability, happiness and flowering creativity, Blow would reply, Well, so far so good.

    He also writes humorous erotica under the pseudonym Aussiescribbler.

    A Public Service Announcement to the Dark Side

    If you could beam a message telepathically into the minds of everyone on earth who was contemplating a destructive act, what would you say?

    Here is what I would say :

    There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to harm someone - wanting to kill them, rape them, torture them… Fantasise about it as much as you like. But if you do it, you will lose more than you gain. No matter how much momentary satisfaction it gives you, that satisfaction will be fleeting and will be outweighed by the negative effects on your life of the consequences, even if you don’t get caught and punished.

    Why would I take this particular approach?

    Our feelings, thoughts and desires arise from the interaction between our current psychological structure and our environment. We chose neither. It is no good chastising someone for something over which they have no control. The sensible thing is to help them to understand what they can do about it.

    Hostile feelings are essentially defensive. They arise from deep-seated feelings of insecurity. A hostile individual is like a dog who has experienced many beatings. He doesn’t feel safe, so his impulse is to bite first. Now if we show acceptance of his situation and give him plenty of room to run around and bark and growl, he may gradually realise that we don’t mean to kick him. But if we back him into a corner, he may be unable to do anything but bite us. This is why expressing acceptance of the hostile feelings makes us less likely to be a victim of them.

    In my message, I wouldn’t mention morality. I wouldn’t try to appeal to their better nature. I wouldn’t ask them to have compassion for their prospective victim. If any of these arguments would work, they would have worked already. Everybody has heard them before. And each of them is an implied criticism, an expression of an implied lack of acceptance. This kind of approach tends to back the savage dog further into the corner.

    Throughout the history of the human race we have had many organised systems for preaching morality. We’ve had the Ten Commandments for thousands of years, but they don’t seem to have done anything to curb our propensity for murder, theft or lying. Perhaps we need to try a new approach. Perhaps we need to begin preaching unconditional self-acceptance and enlightened self-interest.

    Why Do We Have a Dark Side?

    What produces the dark side of we humans?

    Some think that we are instinctively competitive and that the roots of our dark side can be found in our underlying animal tendency to form a dominance hierarchy.

    We are biological entities with biological needs. It makes sense that a shortage of something we need might lead to conflict in the absence of a very strong cultural structure to restrain that tendency. If there is a shortage of food we might fight over what is available because our desire to remain alive overrides any disinclination to deprive others.

    Among other animals there is often a breeding imperative which leads to competition for a mate. Does this apply on a biological level for humans? That’s hard to say. As intelligent beings with imagination we don’t have to follow our instincts. If we don’t listen to what our instincts would tell us about what food is healthy to eat, why would we think that we listen to our instincts when it comes to striving to win the most biologically healthy mate we come in contact with? Of course we often do put a great deal of effort into winning a particular kind of mate, but is it for biological reasons or psychological reasons? A millionaire’s trophy wife will win him the envy of his peers, but she may not necessarily be the best breeding

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