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%OBJECTIVE INTIMATE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS JOY LOVE+931106
   %UNDERSTAND PREDICT POWER CONTROL KNOW EVIL WISE+931106
%MEANING SIGNIFICANCE EMOTIONAL SEPARATION RESEARCH+931106
  %NARROW SPECIALIST BALANCE AFFECTIVE EMOTION LOVE+931106
  %TRAGEDY LEADER REFLEXIVE ADDICT COLLUDE CODEPEND 931106

People  working   within  the  guidelines   of   the
objectivists'    paradigm  believe   that   understanding,
predictability,  control,  meaning and significance are to
be  achieved  through emotional separation of  the  knower
from that which is known; e.i., through objectification of
research procedures,  reporting procedures and  evaluative
procedures.    Those things which can be achieved  through
the objectivists'  paradigm are regarded as meaningful and
significant.    Those  things  which  cannot  be  achieved
through  the objectivists'  paradigm are regarded  as  not
meaningful or significant.

     Objectivists  believe that they can become meaningful
and significant people through refined behavior within the
confines of their specialized paradigm; and so they become
narrowly focused specialists.  They do not seek BALANCE in
their  own perspectives,   attitudes,  beliefs, behavioral
patterns, close friendships and professional associations.
Instead  they  seek  FORMAL  CONFIRMATION  of  their   own
perspectives,   attitudes,  beliefs,  behavioral patterns,
friendships  and  professional  associations.    They  are
dedicated  to  CONFORMAL behavior patterns and  attitudes,
not  to gaining  FAMILIARITY and PERSONAL UNDERSTANDING of
DIVERSE  CREATIVE PEOPLE  with  their  DIFFERING  VISIONS,
DESIRES, HOPES, ASPIRATIONS, FEARS AND ANXIETIES.

     The meanings and significances of our lives are bound
up   in   our  intimate  personal   relationships.     The
objectivists' paradigm does not offer wise council to lead
us  in  understanding what contributes positively  to  the
development   of  meaningful  and  significant  lives  and
relationships.      The   objectification   of    personal
relationships does not  promote meaningful and significant
personal relationships; but rather leads tragically to the
deterioration  of  personal  and communal integrity.   The
objectification   of   personal   relationships   is   the
destruction of most of what  is  essential to personal and
communal  integrity.  We cannot become familiar  with  and
understand each other by becoming emotionally distant from
each other---in keeping with the objectivists' paradigm.

     Through objectification  we learn to a limited extent
how to  analyze  objects  into  their component elementary
parts,    to   understand   their   internal    elementary
relationships,  to manipulate their internal processes, to
predict elementary aspects of those  processes for   short
distances into the future,   and to appear to control some
of those elementary processes.    The tragedy is, however,
that  the more successful we are  in that  objectification
process---the  more  we  tend to  use  it  in  efforts  to
understand,  predict, manipulate and control ourselves and
each other!

     Our  attempts to perfect the objectivists'   paradigm
tragically  lead  us  into collusive games of mutual  self
deception,  and into the destructive patterns of addictive
and codependent relationships which  destroy  personal and
communal  integrity.     Through  objectification  of  our
personal  relationships be blind ourselves to  the  tragic
natures  of  the  personal  processes from which  we  have
emotionally detached ourselves.    We cannot be wise while
we are emotionally detached from ourselves and each other.
Objectification does not lead to wisdom.   Objectification
leads technocrats and their followers into technocracy.

     Meaningful and significant lives are bound up in open
and  honest intimate relationships among  people  as whole
people.  Meaningful and significant lives are not bound up
in the analysis,  understanding,  prediction, manipulation
and  control of elementary  processes  within  people  and
communities regarded unemotionally as objects of study and
analysis.  Preoccupations with the objectivists'  paradigm
destroy our sensitivity to and interest in the integrative
ideals, values and goals which might lead us into open and
honest intimate relationships which  promote both personal
and communal integrity.

     The    more    exclusive    our preoccupations   with
objectification   are   the  more  destructive   are   the
consequences.    The objectivists'  paradigm  blinds us to
this  kind of understanding because it  is  reflexive---in
contrast to objective---understanding.  The  objectivists'
paradigm   leads   us   away   from   such   complimentary
understanding  and into  narrowly  specialized   forms  of
understanding, prediction,  manipulation,  and appearances
of  being  in control as manipulators of people,  personal
relationships and of essential truths about ourselves.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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