This is http://www.essayz.com/a9404141.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %MATTER HEART OBJECTIVE PARADIGM IMPORTANT 940414 According to the paradigm of compulsive objectivists the matters of the heart are not important; i.e., personal motivations do not make a difference so long as objective considerations of cause and effect are properly considered, correct decisions are made, and correct actions are taken. Such thinking and attitudes lead naturally into the paradigm of judgmental legalists who seek to require that correct decisions be made and correct actions be taken---in conformity with carefully and systematically developed rules, taboos, regulations, prescriptions, proscriptions, expectations. Since matters of the heart are not important---then external coercion of the heart and the consequent anger, resentment and motivations do not matter; and so may safely be neglected, ignored. The heartless patterns of thinking and attitudes can easily be used to justify and rationalize selfish manipulative behavior and addictive attempts to be in control---both of which lead to personal and communal disintegration which are made invisible by the heartless patterns of thinking and attitudes. If we begin with heartless thinking and attitudes--- then our consequent spirit will lead us into personal relationships which are alienative---no matter how sophisticated are our computations of cause and effect, or how carefully we seek to predict and control outcomes. The outcomes of our computations of cause and effect are often the fruits of heartlessness and spiritual emptiness, as much as they are the fruits of attempts to conform our decisions and actions to a presumably superior set of ideals and goals. If we seek to be superior beings who are qualified to be in control, we then loose control of our ability to anticipate the disintegrative consequences of our heartless thinking and attitudes; we blind ourselves to other people's reflexive responses to our decisions and actions. Not all consequences are objective in nature; for within the context of reflexive human relationships the fruits of decisions and actions flow from matters of the heart, as well as from objective relationships which appear to be subject to sophisticated manipulation and control. If we enter into our personal relationships with the conviction that we as persons are essentially disconnected from each other (rather than essentially inter-connected spiritually with each other) then our matters of the heart lead us into further personal and communal disintegration. If we enter into our personal relationships with the assumption and conviction that we as persons are essentially interconnected as spiritual beings (rather than essentially disconnected as separated objects) then our matters of the heart lead us into progressively greater personal and communal integrity. How we enter into our personal relationships, with what assumptions and convictions, makes all the difference in the world. Our reflexive desires, hopes, intentions, expectations, anticipations, attitudes, assumptions and their like---play just as important a role in our evolving self conception; as do our techniques, objective facts, scientific theories, laws, computations, sophisticated predictions and their like. If we believe that objectivity is all important, then matters of the heart are not at all important, and have no place in our personal or communal lives. Our beliefs will then lead us into exclusively objective relationships which are devoid of love, spirit, joy, enjoyment, affection, intimacy, sexuality, creativity, imagination, fulfillment, meaning and their like. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================