It [the "fall" of China to the Communists] caught this country psychologically unprepared. It was natural for a confused country to look for scapegoats and conspiracies; it was easier than admitting that there were things outside your control and that the world was an imperfect place in which to live.
The further back you can reach in imagination, the more extended you become.
Whether we are bound by the original understanding depends on whether we conclude, on principle, that we should be bound by the original understanding. Those who reject originalism believe that our constitutional order is far better if we conclude that we are not bound. They believe that at least with respect to individual rights (where circumstances and values change), and perhaps with respect to constitutional structure more broadly (where again, circumstances and values change), we do much better to follow the text and pay respectful attention to the original understanding—without being rigidly constrained by it. In my view, that’s Justice Kennedy’s best argument. He is claiming that our system of rights is better if we take the Constitution to set out broad principles whose particular content changes over time.
They all follow these three Socratic steps: 1) Humans can know themselves. We can use our reason to examine our unconscious beliefs and values. 2) Humans can change themselves. We can use our reason to change our beliefs. This will change our emotions, because our emotions follow our beliefs. 3) Humans can consciously create new habits of thinking, feeling and acting. These three steps are, in essence, what CBT teaches.
There are a host of other differences, but they can effectively be boiled down to two things: fear and reality. Amateurs believe that the world should work the way they want it to. Professionals realize that they have to work with the world as they find it.
— The Difference Between Amateurs and Professionals (Courtesy of Farnum Street blog newsletter)
