1. From childhood we are continuously subjected to systematic control, not just in matters where it may be necessary for survival, but even in areas which affect our personal integrity, our initiative and our beliefs, because the social urge for control tends to err on the side of excess as social institutions put a premium on conformity.
2. The irony is that we soon own up the beliefs and controls which have been thrust on us and we then seek to impose them on others, and this explains not just the continuity but also the misery which such conditioning creates for the over-zealous, the orthodox, the puritans and the conservatives, all of whom tend to be heavily control-oriented by dressing their compulsive need for control in the garb of self-righteousness.
3. Since times immemorial and unto our times, organized religion has sent young men to slaughter on the battlefield by telling them that God is on their side, and people have killed each other in the name of God!
4. Self-righteous people tend to believe that their sense of right or wrong is absolute, and deny others, who disagree with them, the right to their own views, by frequently using morality to control others and interfere in their lives, as it is a continuous stick to beat others.
5. The moral concern vests the players of this power game with a halo of superiority, and the control which these religious and social sanctions offer become an ego trip, where the inexorable pressure of logic and the consequent need to prove that one is right and the other is wrong take precedence over human concerns.
6. Control over the child, spouse and colleagues becomes an end in itself, which is clothed and camouflaged in religious sanction and morality, often resulting in failed marriages, browbeaten and straitjacketed children, and lost friendships.
7. It is, therefore, important to see through this unhealthy propensity, by not only checking others who might be playing this game, but also to check our own impulse to use morality as a whip.
8. We need to see that most of the time our sense of right and wrong is a choice that has been thrust on us by religion or by our social group, without our being aware of the choices we have made, and only then will we be able to see that other people too have had such choices forced on them.
9. Control-oriented people need to look closely at the compulsiveness in their behaviour, and learn to let go a bit, by learning to relax and realise how their obsession with control is destroying their own peace of mind while they ride roughshod over others.
10. People of the book are so controlled by the rules that they are unable to see beyond them and go through life throwing the rule book at people, nay-saying and shooting down ideas and possibilities, and also tend to be more susceptible to formula approaches and readymade solutions to problems, because their locus of control is almost entirely externalized, making them almost incapable of assuming responsibility outside a closed system for their own actions.
2. The irony is that we soon own up the beliefs and controls which have been thrust on us and we then seek to impose them on others, and this explains not just the continuity but also the misery which such conditioning creates for the over-zealous, the orthodox, the puritans and the conservatives, all of whom tend to be heavily control-oriented by dressing their compulsive need for control in the garb of self-righteousness.
3. Since times immemorial and unto our times, organized religion has sent young men to slaughter on the battlefield by telling them that God is on their side, and people have killed each other in the name of God!
4. Self-righteous people tend to believe that their sense of right or wrong is absolute, and deny others, who disagree with them, the right to their own views, by frequently using morality to control others and interfere in their lives, as it is a continuous stick to beat others.
5. The moral concern vests the players of this power game with a halo of superiority, and the control which these religious and social sanctions offer become an ego trip, where the inexorable pressure of logic and the consequent need to prove that one is right and the other is wrong take precedence over human concerns.
6. Control over the child, spouse and colleagues becomes an end in itself, which is clothed and camouflaged in religious sanction and morality, often resulting in failed marriages, browbeaten and straitjacketed children, and lost friendships.
7. It is, therefore, important to see through this unhealthy propensity, by not only checking others who might be playing this game, but also to check our own impulse to use morality as a whip.
8. We need to see that most of the time our sense of right and wrong is a choice that has been thrust on us by religion or by our social group, without our being aware of the choices we have made, and only then will we be able to see that other people too have had such choices forced on them.
9. Control-oriented people need to look closely at the compulsiveness in their behaviour, and learn to let go a bit, by learning to relax and realise how their obsession with control is destroying their own peace of mind while they ride roughshod over others.
10. People of the book are so controlled by the rules that they are unable to see beyond them and go through life throwing the rule book at people, nay-saying and shooting down ideas and possibilities, and also tend to be more susceptible to formula approaches and readymade solutions to problems, because their locus of control is almost entirely externalized, making them almost incapable of assuming responsibility outside a closed system for their own actions.