Many of the beliefs that are out there are not only false, they are precisely false. They are the precise opposite of what actually is the case. For example I have been called a misogynist. I am such a misogynist that I've written extensive, beautiful poetry for several different women. I am such a misogynist that I sacrificed a very nice setup in America to move to Australia to be with a woman I've loved. I am such a misogynist that I am a loving, responsible father to my daughter and am constantly going out of my way to do what needs to be done by her.
What we see here is not only a lie; it is a Big Lie. It is representing things as the opposite of what they are. When R. D. Laing called the common concept of mental health as “being out of one's mind,” he was absolutely correct. Once in a therapy session I said that I was being taught to capitulate, at which point a therapist said that I was being taught to capitulate to mental health. The problem is that this person's concept of mental health is mean, ideologically driven and wrong. And I would rather join the Taliban than practice this concept of mental health.
Is it really mental health to be hateful to love and beauty? Is it really mental health to abuse people who are partial toward the same? Is it really mental health to have no value for arts or for poetry? Or are we seeing here a form of fascism that has no business claiming to exist in countries that are intended to be free?
Now I am perfectly willing to examine myself; but I am not going to do so according to attitudes that are wrong. I will not examine myself according to errors of Freud or Adler or self-esteem psychologists or New Agers or anything of the sort. These people are wrong – dead wrong. And I refuse to assay myself according to such beliefs.
What I am willing to do instead is examine these ideologies. And I have done so – extensively. There are many essays on my site athttps://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought that examine things of this sort. You assay me, expect me to assay you right back. And don't expect me to be more gentle toward you than you are being toward me.
For me, acquiescing to such beliefs is just as unacceptable as it was for Ayn Rand to adapt to Communism. I would rather be dead than believe things of this sort. Do not force on me something that is against my most valued principles. Do not claim such things to be mental health either. They are no such thing as mental health; they are lies.
I am a Russian romantic. That is what I have always been; that is what I always will be. I am willing to work hard, look after my family and follow the law; I am not willing to give up my cherished principles. Do not try to force on me your false concept of mental health. It is no such thing as mental health; and the more you force it on me the more effort I will put into refuting it.
So here it is. I am willing to follow your law and to work within your system; I am not willing to give up my way of thinking and follow yours. And if you are genuinely intelligent you will give up trying to make me think your way and allow me to think my way while demanding the things and only the things that you have a legitimate right to demand.