Progressivism is Bad

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately and I want to share some of the things I have learned about the concept of “Self-Help.”   So many people are focused on self-help.   Self-help has become the new buzz topic, and it seems like everyone who speaks or writes for a living wants to help you tap into your motivation to help you accomplish your goals, or dreams, or your best personal whatever you want to call it.  Self-help has become a parallel of psychology and counseling.  The interesting thing about self-help is that anybody can write about it, because they do not have to go through any educational requirements or state requirements for regulated professions.  Generally these folks have some sort of real life experience that they draw upon to deliver their content.  There’s always some sort of truth involved, and they leverage that element of truth to deliver the rest of their philosophy for their “Intellectually Licensed” material.  As long as they don’t call it counseling or psychology, they are free to say whatever they want without any worries of liability.  This is the benefit of free speech, and I am all for it.  However, the helpers usually indicate that their information is not designed to diagnose or cure anything and they cannot be held liable for your lack of success at using their intellectual material.  The problem with self-help is that none of their ideas are new.  They are repackaged versions of very old philosophies.  All of them are based on humanism. 

The social sciences are all founded on humanism.  What is humanism you may wonder?  It’s an umbrella term for several philosophies.  Modern Humanism began in the 1800’s as a response to the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution.  Western cultures decided at this time that they had it all pretty well figured out due to the new scientific revolution.  The lesson of the scientific revolution was that if it couldn’t be proven or measured, then it could not definitively be true.  The scientific method was a tool introduced to measure and observe the natural world and scientific hypotheses.  It was all about outcomes based measurement.  Several different models of humanism resulted from this time period.  Some of them include classical humanism, renaissance humanism, religious humanism, secular humanism and many more.  A common element between them is that man is the sole motivator for his destiny.  Another common element is that idea of outcomes based measurement for validating a theory.  According to the American Humanist Association,
“Humanism is a progressive lifestance that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead meaningful, ethical lives capable of adding to the greater good of humanity(1).”
            I think this is a solid definition for humanism as a general guide.  Each of the versions of humanism has a specific application of this definition.  For example, secular humanism holds to the view that religions are based on beliefs and are not based on reasoning.  For example, Christianity is based on the Bible and it requires belief in the Bible as the foundation for truth.  Humanism believes that human reasoning alone is sufficient for understanding truth and ethics.  So they hold to the idea that the best test of human reasoning is that which can be tested by the scientific method.  They deny any involvement in views that hold to the Bible as a revelation or source of truth.   
Psychology came out of humanism.  Psychology is a study or science of the mind.  It is a study of humanity.  So since it is an attempt to study man and his ways of thinking, and it is a science, it is used as a tool to help people change (hopefully improving) the ways that they think and feel.   Mental health professionals implement a form of the scientific method to deliver the help that clients seek.  This is done through an outcomes based measuring document called the treatment plan.  It is measurable, and centered around the goals of the client.  The therapist is accountable to this document.  It serves as a type of contract between the client and the therapist.  Self-help comes from the science of psychology.  It is less regulated and does not require knowledge or professional accountability from the treatment plan model.
            America has bought into the scientific method and outcomes based measurement in the corporate world too.  Think about all of the leadership material that is published.  All of it is designed around learning about your strengths and abilities.  These published works all set out someone’s plan to help you plan out steps to make yourself a more focused influencer of other people.  These books are using behaviorism to accomplish their goals of improving your skills.  How many times have you heard some variation of the following messages?

            You can achieve anything you set your mind to…all you need is a plan to get there.            The only thing standing between you and your dreams is a plan.  You have the ability to change the world.  These are focused on the power of the individual.  They are based on humanism.  The problems arise when church picks these up.  There was not a treatment plan for crossing the Red Sea.  God provided manna from Heaven to feed the Israelites for forty years.  God provided the manna.  Their faith did not provide it.  In fact, God provided it while they were complaining to Him about having to eat it.  Jesus fed 4,000 people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish.  Over and over the Bible records the provision that God has provided.  He does not do it in a progressive way.  The Holy Spirit came down to the disciples on Pentecost in a event planned by God, not the disciples.  He empowered the believers to speak in the languages of the people who were passing by.  This was done by God as an example to the non-believers about God’s power to be God.  No human effort was required to help God accomplish His purpose of reaching out to the non-believers.  This is why God says that His ways are higher than our ways.  Our ways are progressive, and outcomes based.  His ways part the Red Sea, feed multitudes, and deliver His people to a place they had not yet planned to arrive at.  If we stop proclaiming God as God, then the Bible says that even the rocks would cry out His name.  Our human efforts always result in a form of progressive humanism.  In psychology, corporate leadership, self-help and government, our efforts are always creating more problems than they set out to fix.  This is the problem with progressivism.  It says that it is designed to improve the lives of the greater population, but it is the powerful that always come out on top.  Then they convince the population to rise up against itself to make up for the terrible actions of the leaders.  This is because it is the humanists who believe in behaviorism who are causing the problem.  The best problem for leaders to fix is the one they create.  This is the danger of progressivism and behaviorism.

            I would like to spend some time continuing to broaden my understanding of humanism and its contrast with faith in Jesus Christ.  I have a pretty good understanding already, but I recently finished writing a chapter on Altruism and Acceptance at my job.  This chapter also encompassed Narcissism and Entitlement.  So some of these concepts are rolling around in my head and I believe there is a great deal of relevant material to process related to Narcissism and Humanism.  I think it is interesting that Humanism holds the view that man’s ability to reason is sufficient for everything he needs, although his behavior dictates otherwise.  I believe this is why Humanism defines itself as progressive.  The belief here is that man can be progressively evolving into a better person.  The problem is that there is no definition for who gets to decide what “better” looks like, or what the “greater good of humanity” looks like.  I believe that Behaviorism, which is Skinner’s theory, holds the answer.  Behaviorism says that people are generally good, and can be helped to achieve their goal by modifying their behavior.  I personally don’t really like having my behavior modified by anyone but me.   The side effect of Skinner’s theory is that the ones with the most power decide what right and wrong look like.  I believe we are living in a time when the powerful few among us are using behaviorism to establish their version of right and wrong.  They do this through the messages that the media sends to us.  
Remember when the media said the Tea Party was “violent?”  There was no actual violence.  They said they were rioting, yet there were no riots.  They said they were angry, but when the camera panned the crowd there was no behavior to indicate anger.  It’s was a bunch of grandparents holding signs that said “I love The  Constitution,” and stuff like that.  Yet when the “Occupy” movement came along, they were called peaceful and spontaneous by the media.  Even after many young women were raped at the sites and they actually did condone violence as a legitimate method of social protest, they were being continually broadcast as mainstream and peaceful.
Interestingly, the easiest problem for a behaviorist to fix is the one that he creates, because he’s already got the prescription planned out.  He just has to convince the client or patient that this particular illness is the problem.  He has to redefine the illness in terms that the patient can believe in.  Then the patient does all the work.  I believe that the progressive leadership (not just American leadership) is attempting to rewrite history as they have indicated they need to do.  America is not the Soviet Union of the 1980’s.  But that is what the “Occupy” movement is saying.  America is the only place in the world where you and I have the opportunity to achieve our dreams.  We are not the slaves of the elite that the “Occupy” movement says we are.  I believe the “Occupy” movement is right about one thing though, and this is how they are able to reach the hearts of Americans today.  The problem with the Soviet Union in the 80’s and America today, is that both countries have been victims of Cronyism.  Cronyism is,
“The practice of favoring one’s friends, especially in political appointments(2).”
It was Cronyism that caused the Russians to replace their government.  The people in Russia knew that their politicians were living the good life on the French Riviera, while the common folks struggled to put bread on the table.  They saw the injustice of the elite, and they were correct when it came to Russia.  What we see today is the government sanctioning the few socialists among us to redefine America through the lens of what reshaped the Soviet Union.  They saw it work over there, and they believe they can control it over here more easily because of our uninformed press (through behaviorism).  However they just changed the name of the problems through the media and they keep it fresh and new each day.  They have called Capitalism the “failed policies,” instead of blaming Cronyism.  They would have to own the problem personally if they tried to solve the actual cause of the problem, which is Cronyism.  So they are saying that capitalism is the problem.  But I believe the distortion of Capitalism by cronies is what has caused us to get into the mess we are currently experiencing. 
            This method of changing history is the same method that someone with a personality disorder uses, in efforts to avoid responsibility for their behaviors.  It’s called externalization.  We are hearing each day that we are the victims of our unjust and unfair society.  The easily manipulated media and the campaign managers are creating (or behaviorally conditioning) a country full of victims who need the government to recue us from our evil society.  We need them to come save us.  Then the government helps us by bullying (crony capitalism) the very companies that you and I work for and contribute to, through our retirement funds each week.   This may have worked for the Soviet Union, but it is self-mutilation to encourage us to attack our own society.  Self-mutilation or self-harm is a form of coping skill that I have treated frequently in my clinical experience.  Self-harm can be cutting or physically harming ourselves on our bodies.  It is frequently done to remind the individual of internal wounds that cannot be fully understood or expressed.   It is our inability as a nation to identify where our internal wound exists, that makes us harm ourselves.  Because we can’t see where the hurt is located, we are told over and over again until radical elements pick up on it enough to progressively begin the treatment.
We are the only nation in the world where the government is: of, by and for the people.  We are the government, and we are Wall-Street.  We are all connected to both.  You cannot divide the family of America into class warfare groups and expect the nation to endure.  You will end up with cronies who win, instead of cronies who get voted out of office.  They are attempting to manipulate you.  They are doing it in the media. The method is called behaviorism, which is founded on humanism, which is a progressive worldview that lifts up man as his own god.  The consequence for this type of thinking is spelled out in the Bible as spiritual death.  But Jesus paid the price of spiritual death for you.  So what about you?  In whom do you place your hope?  Do you strive for self-improvement, which ends in exaltation of yourself and Narcissism, or do you place your hope in the only human to ever have the authority to walk into the throne room of God as heir to the throne?  He walked into the room with all the rights and privileges of the owner of the house.  It’s a house, which cannot be divided by any media or message or government.  He bears the scars of your sin on His body.  His wounds can heal your self-injury. (1 Peter 2:24)  He already knows what you need.



Leading As A Servant


     These photographs should not really exist.  They are of a very cute little girl at Epcot.  Every photo has a story to tell.  These are of my daughter and I’m proud of the story behind these pictures.  You probably don’t know the story so I’ll tell it to you.  I know they say that every picture is worth a thousand words, but these pictures are different.  These pictures have 108,000 pictures behind them.  Give or take a few thousand.  I didn’t really count, but I averaged the numbers.  I was a photographer at Epcot for three years between 1999 and 2002.   I took about 150 pictures per day at Epcot, five days per week for three years.  If you figure I worked at least forty-eight weeks a year for those three years, it comes out to about 108,000 pictures. 

     I worked for a company that contracted at Disney called Sharp Shooter-Spectrum Imaging.  You could never meet a more zany and diverse group of people than the group that I ran around with during those three years.  We were a band of misfits.  Now we are scattered all over the earth, but for a few short years we huddled into a room that was actually a closet underneath Space Ship Earth.  There were over fifty of us in those three years who went in to work each day to chase Disney guests for a picture in front of Space Ship Earth, as they entered the gate.  In those days we intentionally approached guests for a photo because we had the opportunity to earn money for achieving high sales.  Now Disney employs the photographers at Epcot.  While they do provide an excellent service, and they do use top quality camera gear, I think they are missing that certain “need to survive” mentality that made us good…and somewhat crazy.  You see we did this because we had something to prove.  We needed to be motivated every day, and we earned our living off of constantly being told “no” to one simple question… “can I take your picture?”  We each quickly learned about the unwritten rules and expectations of the normalcy of being rejected.  Rejection was part of the job.  But everyone had to be comfortable with being told no, because it was the thirty to fifty times that we got that “yes” which brought us our daily pay.  We each had a stake in the game because we earned a group commission in addition to our individual sales commission.  It was this group interaction that made us accountable to the team, and made us have a vested interest in each other.  But it was the ability to earn an individual sales commission that made us push ourselves mentally on a daily basis.  We had to set individual goals for ourselves to achieve the standard of living that we were expecting this job to provide.  The job was never intended to be a high-paying job, but there were a few of us who did do pretty well.  Those folks had to endure challenging conditions.  Florida heat during the summer gets to about 110 degrees when you are standing on concrete.  Eight hours of that a day can really make an impact on you.  My knees are in pretty bad shape from getting up and down on the concrete a hundred times a day.  Being told “no” about a thousand times a day to the same question can also be kind of disheartening.  (We always tried to come up with new ways to try to get people to say yes to stopping for a photo.)  All of these things combined to make a group dynamic that will stay fresh in my mind forever.

The biggest reason why this time was important to me was because I was coming to the end of my time of running from God.  Running from God is never a good thing.  I wanted to be a leader.  I wanted people to like me.  I wanted to be in charge of stuff.  I wanted to be the guy that people came to when they had troubles.  I wanted to be noticed for being important.  I needed to be needed, and I really wanted to be paid for being needed.  I figured that people who were needed would be able to get paid really well, and then I could go prove to my parents that I was justified for failing out of college…twice.

     It was during these years when I came to the end of myself.  I often tell people now that there was no more Billy left to mess up.  It came at a time when I was told that I had to change venues because my coworkers thought I was unfair and mean.  I believe that my mean and unfair perception was due to my behavior while I was running from God.  Prior to that time, I had been promoted to an assistant of sorts and spent part of my time taking pictures, and part of my time helping with the daily operations of the “closet.”  Those promotions fed into my entitled ego and I began to believe that the future would show that I was needed as a leader, and management material.  I found my little piece of real estate to plant my flag into, and I decided that I would be able to build a foundation of future leadership off of this little island of “Assistant Venue Coordinator” or something like that.  Honestly I don’t even remember the title anymore.  I just didn’t want to have to actually go back to college because I didn’t think I could pass the classes.  But having my ego handed to me that day when I was told I would have to leave Epcot was a reminder that my identity was not about being an authority figure.  It wasn't working because I was working against God's plan for my life.  My identity was in Jesus Christ.  Also, I made a commitment to my parents to go to college.    Leaders don’t become leaders by running from their commitments.  In my first attempt at being a leader I had used my own standard of personal judgment on other people.  The problem with that is that I wasn’t even living up to my own standard of judgment, so it was pretty narcissistic and hypocritical to expect other people to live up to it.

     To shorten a long story I’ll say this.  I took a few months to look at myself in the mirror, and was accepted back in to college.  I was also allowed back to Epcot as a photographer.  I also stopped running from God.  I will never forget my moment of repentance about the sins I had committed over the course of those years in rebellion against God.  From that point on I became focused on serving people instead of obsessing about leading people.  This part was not a conscious decision, it is just what naturally followed as a result of returning to the foot of the cross.  I spent my last year at Epcot as a full time college student and just a regular photographer.  No title or expectations for leadership.  A funny thing happened during that year.   As I was focused on serving my coworkers in the job, they began coming to me for things that felt a lot like leadership.   The more I helped people without any expectations for building up my ego, the more I realized that leadership works best for me when I’m in the mindset of a servant. 

     I graduated from college the week a different company took over the photography at Epcot.  Ironic huh?  I went on to a different job and attended graduate school for psychology full time.  Instead of failing out this time, I earned straight A's all the way through, which is a different story for another day.  But after graduate school I was responsible for the safety and treatment of twelve foster children and twenty staff members at a therapeutic group home.  I had become an authority figure.  I didn't ask for it.  In fact, it was a role that ate therapists for lunch.  I always remembered the lessons that I learned at Epcot, and taught the foster kids and the staff to overcome the unfairness that they were focused on by serving others.  They came to me with the idea that the world owed them something, and for the most part, it was hard to argue that point.  The kids had already had everything stripped from them.  The staff were responsible for things that were seemingly beyond their control.  But teaching them to serve others was much better than any behavior modification program.  Encouraging someone to help their friends and their authority figures is easier to do and more appropriate than behavioral therapy in the moment.  Everyone can understand loving your neighbor.

     How about you?  Do you feel inspired to lead?  If you do, then what is your motivation to lead?  Is it to gain wealth?  Power and fame?  Do you feel like the world owes you something?  It's a painful road to try to convince the world that it needs you.  It's much easier to meet people where they hurt and to try to help them overcome the thing that is holding them back from accomplishing their goals.

     I return to Epcot from time to time to remind myself where I come from and to remember my friends.  I am blessed to bring my wife and daughter.  I try to remember that I am not entitled to the life that I have.  It is a blessing to have this life, in spite of the fact that I wounded other people along the way.  I promise my memory of my friends that I will always honor their time in my life by encouraging people to be a servant instead of being an authority.  I want my daughter to be able to return to this spot, and stand on the raised ledge at the front gate of Epcot.    I want her to know that each picture of a family in front of Space Ship Earth has a story.  I want her to know that her story started here.