What psychometrics
do NOT teach you:
D!LEMMA ONE: Objective
self-worth.
The Scottish Doctor
of Ethics Alasdair MacIntyre recounts several traditional models for virtue,
according to which he defines moral valuation. Here are just a few which we
inherited from Antiquity:
1.
Virtue is defined as what is owed to
a (hu)man. Coupled with self-knowledge, it requires individuals to objectively
decide what others owe to them and what they owe to others.
2.
Virtue is defined as the teleological
need to produce a Better World. (This is classified by Jungians as the
Archetype of the Seeker, and according to the Enneagram this correlates to the
Reformer.)
3.
Virtue is defined as the external
imperative to actualize internal potentialities. In recognizing that people are
born with different gifts, precluding the pretension that “everyone is gifted”,
the ancient Greeks hosted competitions by which to decide who was the Best in a
given field. The purpose of these competitions was not egocentric but social,
since success was considered to be both a right and a responsibility, and
talent was thus both a blessing and a curse. Quite literally, one’s life was a
constant process of pursuing the actualization of one’s inner strengths, and
failure was not an option.
MacIntyre argues,
almost irrefutably, (by his own admission,) that the traditional meaning of moral
utterance was revocably lost. For instance, (though this is my own
observation,) “humility” ought to be distinguished from “humbleness”, as
Krishnamurti indicated. Being too lazy to achieve ought to be distinguished
from being open to experience, to new information, and to reform. Yet reform
itself must be founded upon an even deeper orthodoxy. Entrepreneurs who echo
MacBeth in saying that “fair is foul” ascribe arrogance to people who feel a
drive to be “right”, yet Righteousness may not be so radically subjective.
Lawrence Kohlberg demonstrated that most people plateau at a very low level of
Moral Development; does this not imply that empathy can be a weakness? The
sheer paradox of moral life corroborates MacIntyre’s thesis: what once was
clear is obscured. Is this no different from that process which therapists
refer to as “gaslighting”? Who are they to consider themselves innocent?
Allow me, therefore,
to express the previous models of morality within the vernacular of behaviourism:
4.
Virtue is defined as what is owed to
a (hu)man. Coupled with self-knowledge, it requires individuals to objectively
decide what others owe to them and what they owe to others.
-
This is referred to as “self-entitlement”.
Shrinks will often abbreviate this to say “entitlement”, summarizing their emotivistic*
presupposition that entitlement is NOT a function of social virtue but rather
of psychological pathology. In this manner, among many others, they demoralize.
Being
“virtuous” in this sense is identified with narcissism. This is why some of the
less conscientious fans of the television programs Breaking Bad and Better
Call Saul tend to deplore Skyler White and Charles McGill, projecting their
own shortcomings.
*Despite having been
a topic of discussion for over a century, this term is yet unrecognized by Microsoft
Word 16.
5.
Virtue is defined as the teleological
need to produce a Better World. (This is classified by Jungians as the
Archetype of the Seeker, and according to the Enneagram this correlates to the
Reformer.)
-
The Shrinks call this “grandiosity”.
It is not uncommon, therefore, for psychopaths and manipulators working within
the psychiatric industry to describe moral imperatives and social obligations
as expressions, again, of “arrogance”, irrespective of the actual benefits,
while all the while they are content to live parasitically off of others. Even
trying to create a Better World is psychoanalytically evil.
6.
Virtue is defined as the external
imperative to actualize internal potentialities. In recognizing that people are
born with different gifts, precluding the pretension that “everyone is gifted”,
the ancient Greeks hosted competitions by which to decide who was the Best in a
given field. The purpose of these competitions was not egocentric but social,
since success was considered to be both a right and a responsibility, and
talent was thus both a blessing and a curse. Quite literally, one’s life was a
constant process of pursuing the actualization of one’s inner strengths, and
failure was not an option.
-
It’s not uncommon for psychometrics
to ask a prospective employee, REPEATEDLY, to confess to feelings of impending
greatness. Yet was this not also how the Renaissance Man Mirandola** (whose
full name in itself is grandiose, legally) defined human potential? To his
mind, Humanism lay in the actualization of God’s gifts:
“A sacred pride
should grip us of not being satisfied with the mediocre but to strive (for we
can do it, if we want to) with the exertion of all our strength to attain the
highest. Let us scorn what is of this earth, let us ignore what is of heaven,
let us leave absolutely everything worldly behind us in order to hasten to the
abode out of this world, in the proximity of the sublime deity. We do not need
to think of stepping back. Of being satisfied with second rank, let us strive
for dignity and glory. To attain the highest.”
**Note: MS Word does
not even recognize HIM.
What has become of
the Beautiful, Human Soul? Even Martin Seligman argues that we must move away
from the Disease Model and supplement it with a Positive Clinical Model which
seeks to empower genius instead of punishing it.
So: what is the
dilemma? It really amounts to a paradox:
If I take a
psychometric test, I only require the most cursory knowledge of popular
psychology in order to “hack” it. Any psychopath can score as a saint if (s)he
simply knows what a humble person is SUPPOSED to say, and the truly delusional
narcissist will make claims to these virtues without warrant. Behavioural
shrinks tend to presume that we are stupid so as not to appear to be
condescending. The Just World fallacy has possessed them, apparently and
transparently, to believe that members of the Dark Triad will slip up, exposing
their own narcissistic evil.
While this might
work for creating good television, it is seldom truly the case. Villains know
how heroes think, and even though the historical meaning of “virtue” has become
buried under the neglect of philosophy in a scientific age, most people are at
least smart enough to guess at what answers seem more virtuous. If I wish to
appear humble, all I have to do is click “Strongly Agree” when asked if I am. One
can hardly disguise the essence of the question by asking me if I “know that I
am great because people tell me that all the time”. In fact, all that this
attempt at concealment does, manipulatively, is that it reflects the cynicism
of the writer, who PRECLUDES the possibility that “people” are objective in
judging the worth of the individual, who is then objective in recounting this
worth, positively. This is precisely what MacIntyre characterizes as the modern
crisis: that under the influence of emotivism morality has become subjectified***.
***Jung Himself used
this term, and yet MS Word doesn’t!!
What psychometric
examinations do, therefore, is that they reverse roles. Humble people, knowing
humility to be a virtue, admit to their vices, confessing to egoism which the “impartial
judge” then uses against them, describing them as narcissists. The judge does
this subtly; instead of saying, “you have a problem,” the conclusion is that “you
are more narcissistic than the average person, simply because you believe
yourself to be better than the average person.” Yet this “belief” emanated from
one of two places: either the aforementioned humility, an excessive admission
to sins which the doctor believed himself to have subtly disguised, or an
honest evaluation of one’s own value to society. The narcissist can look like a
saint, while the saint will confess to the sins of the narcissist. It’s up to
the Doctor to determine whether the confession expresses an external fact or an
internal delusion. The nature of the clinical mind game is in the arbitration
of the therapist. In other words, I might ask you: “Are you humble?” If you
answer “yes”, I might choose to take your word for it, OR I MIGHT NOT, arguing
that the very fact you believe your humility to be sufficient evidences your
inflated self-conception. Had you answered “no”, the power would still remain
with me, UNLESS YOU HAD SUCCESSFULLY MANIPULATED ME.
For a class of
specialists who appear to love good television, they certainly lack the
subtlety of the shows’ writers.
Presuming that I CAN
fill out an examination HONESTLY and OBJECTIVELY, my answers must at once serve
two functions for the clinician:
1.
Those Truths which I am honest enough
to reveal, though I am too stupid to fathom their significance, must remain
apparent, and
2.
Those Truths which I am dishonest enough
to conceal, owing to the same stupidity, must bubble up somehow in such a manner
that exposes ME for the fraud I am.
Yet if I truly
possess the Objectivity to answer these questions Truthfully, presuming I
intend to do so Honestly, then how am I at fault for assessing my own self-worth?
Why would you disbelieve me if I claimed that “most people praise me constantly”?
Is that not the case for many exceptional people? Is that not an OBJECTIVE,
SOCIAL danger of which they must be made aware, instead of simply an INTERNAL problem
that THREATENS those same admirers they represent? Who are YOU, if not a gaslighter****,
to invalidate my friends, fans, and family? If I stood on the precipice, ready
to jump, would they not beg me to remain among the Living? Would YOU urge me to
forget them THEN?!?
****This MUST be
common usage, by this point.
Often, the paradox
is intrinsic to the text itself. Here are but a few examples:
1.
“Modesty doesn’t become me.”
“I am essentially a modest person.”
[These stereotypes don’t become you,
though you certainly become them.]
2.
“I am no better or worse than most1
people.”
“I think I am a special person”.
3.
“I will be a success.”
“I
am not too concerned about success.”
[Precluding
the possibility that effortless action produces the surest results. See Taoism, Zen Buddhism.]
4.
“I just want to be reasonably happy.”
“I want to amount to something in the
eyes of the world.”
[Ask the Ancient Greeks for the
difference. Oh, wait. There is none.]
5.
“When people compliment me I
sometimes get embarrassed.”
“I know that I am good because everybody
keeps telling me so.”
[Presuming I can trust most people, isn’t
the latter a GOOD thing? Perhaps I’m only “embarrassed” by the former because I
am a cynical sociopath who frowns upon those who admire me, which is precisely
how narcissism is defined.]
6.
“I am assertive.”
“I wish I were more assertive.”
[I have working muscles. I wish I
were more muscular.]
7.
“I like to have authority over other
people.”
“I don’t mind following orders.”
[Ever heard of “rank”? Or maybe just
the egalitarian concept of eating what you dish out.]
The paradox is not
in the contradiction but the LACK of contradiction. Since none of these
pairings are mutually exclusive, the answers are arbitrary, and since they are
arbitrary expressions of the emotivist self, the conscientious individual can
decide just as ARBITRARILY how to answer. So can the narcissist.
1 Here, the
only contradiction lies in what Kierkegaard calls “Leveling”: the process by
which egalitarian institutions inhibit Individuality. It’s most transparent in
the expression “most people”, implying it to be “healthy” to be well-adjusted
to a confessedly sick society, so long as one realizes that MOST people are one’s
equals. Who, then, are the inferior FEW, and why do we presume that there are
not also the few who are Superior, such as da Vinci and Einstein? Simply put:
it’s a witch-hunt. We like to feel that the Greats speak for us, but we do not
allow them to speak for themselves.
Since the whole matter is an
exercise in emotivism instead of ethics, the results you get reflect only one
thing: your mood.
[({Dm.A.A.)}]
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