TurquoiseB wrote: > > One of them has > > to be RIGHT, and the other WRONG. And therefore the only > > "proper" response to a contrary view is to challenge it > > and draw the other person into an argument, during which > > the goal is to prove one person WRONG and the other RIGHT. > > Jeff Fischer wrote: > > The further "down" somebody is, the stronger the compulsion to > be "RIGHT": Constant assertion of rightness because one's own sanity > depends on "being right". IMO the more one asserts "rightness" in the > face of huge evidence to the contrary, the further down the scale they > are.
Some of this compulsion to be right may depend on one's worldview. I say that because I'm of the enneagramatic type that makes "being right" the primary means of maintaining my ego. On a practical note, I used to debate the rightness of the TMO's policies because I genuinely felt they had a chance of being adopted on a wide scale, and I wanted to propogate them. Say, for example, some judges were to adopt meditation as a condition of parole, as has been done in St. Louis. Say they were debating whether to include vipassana or insight meditation among the methods they'd require parolees to practice. I'd object to that policy because I don't think it would work. I'd fight for the "rightness" of TM over vipassana. I used to think these online debates could conceivably be read by policy makers who wanted to look behind the veil of TMO propoganda. Yes, it was a fantasy -- my own version of Maharishi's CIA fixation. For those reasons -- the need to be right as a condition of my existence, and the hope that my reasoning might possibly enter into genuine policy-making -- I've participated in these online forums since going online 10 years ago. Now I do it just because you're such a companionable group of assholes, as Llundrub might say. - Patrick Gillam To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
