Lambert has a post called People of the Lie. In the post the following can be found.
This useful term was coined by Christian psychiatrist and theologian M. Scott Peck in his book The People of the Lie, which is, among other things, an examination of the nature of human evil. Peck quotes Martin Buber:Since the primary motive of evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church.Additional excerpts can be found here.
"Utterly dedicated to preserving their self-image of perfection, they are unceasingly engaged in the effort to maintain the appearance of moral purity. They are acutely sensitive to social norms and what others might think of them. They seem to live lives that are above reproach. The words "image", "appearance" and "outwardly" are crucial to understanding the morality of 'the evil'. While they lack any motivation to be good, they intensely desire to appear good. Their goodness is all on a level of pretense. It is in effect a lie. Actually the lie is designed not so much to deceive others as to deceive themselves. We lie only when we are attempting to cover up something we know to be illicit. At one and the same time 'the evil' are aware of their evil and desperately trying to avoid the awareness.
Lambert goes on the say that POTL could be useful in analyzing, with certain caveats, the nature of the wing of the Republican party that has taken control of the U.S. government. I think POTL could be used to analyze various wings of various political parties that are "control freak" wings. After all, Clinton's and Bush's view of civil rights are more alike than different and I completely disagree with their views of civil rights. Of course, I'm somewhat libertarian when it comes to civil and individual rights.
POTL could also explain a phenomenon here in homophobic, racist, loony Washington County, Oregon, and that is the habit of people in Washington County to pretend they're fine upstanding Christian White folk at the same time they allow routine and extreme hatred of anybody who is slightly different. All manner of civil rights violations and bigotry are encouraged in Washington County in order to "protect the fine upstanding white folk" from the maurading chaos of the "barbarians".
For example, the following really happened to me and I'm not gay and I don't have AIDs.
The following will give you just one example of how the Roger Weidner/Victor Oekerman gang has interfered with my efforts to earn a living over the last twenty years.
The following story is true and it also tells you a little of the business practices of at least one employer in Washington County, Oregon.
Stream International came up with some outrageous personnel policies that were designed with one thing in mind. To get me to quit so the managers and my co-workers wouldn't be worried about me giving them AIDS. On a daily basis I was harassed and insulted. I was kept out of necessary training, etc.
Various persons in management also came up with a lot of outrageous and illegal schemes to get me to quit or to get me fired. One of their little schemes went like this:
Many times I was scheduled to begin work at 6 A.M. I would arrive before 6 A.M. to get everything prepared so I would be able to start working at 6. Then when I went to the computer I was assigned to on any particular day the computer would not be ready or it would be down. Only the IT people could get it back up because they had administrative rights and I didn't. The disabling of the computer I was to work on was, of course, done on purpose. Usually about an hour later, after I complained, the IT people would get the computer working or I would be assigned to another computer.
Sometime during the day (and this happened on a lot of days) somebody in management would come to me and tell me that I didn't start on time, or I was late for work, or something similar, and that I would be terminated.
Another ploy that was used was for somebody in management to change my weekly work schedule on my off days in order to try and get me fired for not showing up for work at my scheduled time. It got so bad that sometimes on my day off I would go into work just to check if my work schedule had been secretly changed. There will be more to come, including the strange postings on the bulletin boards informing my co-workers about my alleged medical conditions.
After about a year of working there I was told I was being laid off because my job was being transferred to Canada. I applied for unemployment insurance at the Oregon Employment Department. When the person handling my claim called up Stream International a couple of the supervisors said I had been fired because I didn't show up for work. Pretty sleazy, huh? I guess lying in order to avoid paying unemployment benefits is a normal business practice for Stream International. Anyway my claim was turned down.
I then filed an appeal. Fifteen minutes before the appeal was to be heard somebody at the Oregon Employment Department called my residence to inform me my appeal was to be heard. I wasn't around but a roommate took the call and told me about the call later. I ended up not getting unemployment payments.
The reason I kept working there despite the abuse was because my paycheck was going to the mother of my two daughters and my two daughters.
NOTE: I've got better things to do than erase the childish, immature, psychotic, obscene comments from looney Roger Weidner and his gang of illiterate morons, so just put your opinions at the Johnhays.net Forum.