Michelle, you sure let us know who you are!
Swastika in middle of forehead definitely a minus at a job
interview.
Has Psychology Today ever done a study on Random Apostrophe Disease? :)
"at the outset [of their study] that people adopt counterfeit products because they are trying to improve their self-image"
Ironically, their study shows that these counterfeit products actually harm self-image by causing a sense of inauthenticity, or inducing what the authors term a "counterfeit self".
I really don't want to see everything through the lens of Race, but this just jumps out at me. If you're taught to be a victim, taught that people look down on you, if you're expected to have self-image problems -- what does that do to you? Would you adopt a false personna? Lots of swagger? Lots of attitude? Would you get in people's faces and demand "respect" because, deep down inside, you feel like a scared little phony?
If people are forced to take personal responsibility, and be who they truly are -- if people have to stand up for themselves and actually meet real expectations, then they will be healthier and happier individuals and will be more productive members of society.
Or they could just attend Al Sharpton's next rally.
Cost of Faking It. Just look at the current occupants of the West Wing.
What would the corollary be for children who are all forced to wear the same school uniform? Higher self-esteem? greater empathy?
More about the PP busybodies conducting hands-on surveillance on the ins and outs and ups and downs of genitalia-in-motion.
For those not yet in the know, circumnavigating genital cavities is a very profitable business.
Don't expect limp statistics from the PP crowd. No sir.
bump and bookmark
Michelle, you sure let us know who you are!
However we can become conditioned to ignoring truth and the urgency to express it, and we can even lose contact with it altogether and become unable to tell the difference between truth and mendacity.
Who wants a fake Omega watch, for example? I don't even like silver plate. When I first got a computer, I experimented with being somebody else--faked age, circumstances, etc. I soon stopped that. I didn't like what it was doing to me.
I don't like anything fake. I don't like dishonesty. I do not want an inauthentic self. If I don't like something about myself, I want to change that--not fake it.
Mendacity is corrosive. One can reach a point of confusion and dispair at which nothing is true, real, or authentic.
This is one of the worst thing about the Decadence that has suffused Western Civilization and bombards us constantly from the Left--especially the "newsmedia", college professors, celebrities, and politicians:
They scorn truth.
Some do it for purposes of propaganda.
Some naively think they can improve on truth.
Some merely parrot what they have heard elsewhere.
Some are intellectually lazy.
Some are stupid.
Some are naturally mendacious.
But the mendacity and inauthenticity of the Left is the single most dangerous thing in the world today. It has created an enormous subculture of mendacity, inauthenticity, and disregard or downright scorn of truth.
Most of the perpetrators of this have become so accustomed to mendacity as to have lost the ability to recognize truth, falsehood, dishonesty, distortion of truth, lies, deceit, manipulation, and mendacity.
That's why they parrot what other people have said. They no longer know the difference between truth and mendacity.
This is extremely dangerous. If you cannot recognize truth and mendacity, you do not know what is real and what is not, and your chances of making wise decisions are between zilch and zero.
This is why the Western World is in such a mess today: An enormous part of the intelligentsia has lost the ability to differentiate between truth and mendacity, between information and propaganda, and between reality and illusion, and consequently they and their disciples cannot make intelligent decisions.
I'm really not surprised by this. In general, people are too gullible and easily lead around by the nose. That's why companies spend so much on advertising, and that's why Obama won the Presidential election.
Then there are those of us (like most of us FReepers) who are not gullible and easy to influence. We can actually think for ourselves and know that the designer name does not make the sunglasses function any better, nor does it mean that the person wearing them has more intelligence or stronger character.
Wow, they’ve described the entire nation of China. Never trust anything from China that hasn’t been independently verified.