Tom: Our culture, based on managerial, authoritarian childrearing, instills
both an
aversion for and a dependence on control. This distorts our ability to
distinguish
legitimate from illegitimate uses of power. To some degree we're all like Woody
Allen in
Annie Hall when he tears up his driver's license in front of the perfectly
reasonable cop
and ends up unnecessarily in jail.

Determinism, psychotherapy, progressive politics, are so provocative to people
because
they see these ideas (and those of us who promote them) as cops ordering them
around.

As promoters of an idea who are trying to wield some legitimate authority (based
on merit)
we are seen as cops, taking things away from people, making people do things
they don't
want. Radical individualism is tough soil for planting our crop, though we seem
to get a
sprout here and there.

Ken