How Good Guys Can Stop Helping Bad Guys

by Charles Lyell on April 17, 2014

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”
– Virginia Woolf

Nothing will change until the good guys admit they’re helping the bad guys.

The bad guys aren’t necessarily evil. They do bad things because they’re addicts who use money, power, and status to score the same dopamine squirts that junkies, smokers, and drinkers trigger with heroin, nicotine, and booze.

Without the good guys’ help, the bad guys wouldn’t get away with pretending their addictions are normal, acceptable, and even admirable behaviors.

Why nice people help reprobates

“What we call human nature in actuality is human habit.” - Jewel Kilcher

Good guys who help scoundrels have something in common with those they supposedly oppose. The good guys’ dirty little secret is that they’re also addicts who benefit from the bad guys’ charades.

Nice people’s addictions might not be as destructive as their nemesis’ addictions but addicts are addicts.

If this sounds ridiculous, irrational, and/or absurd it’s because we’re talking about addictions. After all, what could be more absurd than lying about, denying, protecting, and continuing unhealthy, destructive, and counterproductive behaviors?

Addicts lie and deny, to themselves and others, because the only thing they really care about is protecting and triggering dopamine flow.

It doesn’t matter if the dopamine is triggered by drugs, gambling, junk foods, safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, esteem, status, beliefs, or money. And it doesn’t matter if the addictions are considered harmless or harmful, or if antagonists, who ordinarily disagree, agree to call addictions habits, proclivities, idiosyncrasies, cravings, obsessions, callings, or anything else to bolster their mutual deception.

How good guys help bad guys

“We have met the enemy and he is us”  – Walt Kelly

The same dopamine-induced denial, that keeps bad guys denying responsibility for mayhem, keeps good guys from understanding how dishonesty makes them invaluable allies of alleged foes.

As long as good guys remain unconsciously committed to denying harmless addictions, the miscreants are free to destroy environments, economies, and lives.

Win-win for addicts, lose-lose for humankind.

How big addicts help little addicts

“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”
– Eric Hoffer

The biggest money, power, and status addicts are dopamine driven to control the institutions that define moralities, legalities, and addictions.

By controlling the definition of addictions, to suit their addictive needs, the big addicts make it easy for little addicts to deny benign addictions to safety, power, acceptance, approval, attention, status, religion, and money.

The resulting codependent relationship ensures professed enemies remain unwitting allies with a shared interest in covering for one another.

How little addicts can stop helping big addicts

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

Dishonest thinking landed us in the mess we’re in. Honesty is our best hope to solve the problems and meet the challenges plaguing our species. And the honesty starts with admitting to addictions.

Admitting to addictions isn’t always easy but it is liberating.

It isn’t necessary to tell anyone or give up the addictions. But it is absolutely necessary to do what few addicts are capable of doing — be honest about the addictions.

What about you?

“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.”
– Anthony Robbins

Are you genuinely interested in effecting positive change? Would you be willing to take a good hard look and admit to your addictions to make it happen?

Or will you continue protecting your dopamine flow even if it means helping the bad guys maintain the status quo?

 

Discussion

2 Responses to “How Good Guys Can Stop Helping Bad Guys”

  1. Yes, I’d be willing to look at my addictions. Am I correct in assuming that you have a test/measurement instrument?

    Posted by Rod House | April 17, 2014, 5:50 pm
    • Great start. That’s one.

      We’re working on the Dishonometer 2100, a 21st century device that can detect lies, deceptions, and b.s. from ten feet away. The first prototypes were so sensitive they kept exploding when placed in rooms with test subjects who swore they were being honest.

      Posted by Charles | April 21, 2014, 7:57 am

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