Erasing Choice

The capacity for choice, the ability to create, the drive for purpose, that comes from the heart of a human being is also the source of human evil. We find ourselves in a state where our will does not rule the self, but is rather subject to it; emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations telling us what to choose, as opposed to our capacity for choice and purpose re-aligning our thoughts and emotions around the will.


1) There is an impulse within our culture to "be true to yourself."

a) What this usually means is who you really are is defined by what you feel

b) This implies that your feelings should rule your life

c) This also implies that not letting them do this is harmful, repressive, false, and constrictive

2) The reality is, however, deeper than our culture, and more complicated...

a) Our culture is woefully unreflective, we listen to what screams loudest.

b) Emotion, sensation, scream loudest

c) Human nature is more than what the psychologists say. There are endless debates about what is more important in determining behavior, our essential nature, or the environment that shapes that nature. The will/heart/spirit has no place in the nature-nurture debate. This is an unfortunate blunder.

d) In reality, your emotions are not the core of who you are. The will is the center of a person, not the whole of a person, but definitely the central part that gives shape and direction to the rest of a person.

3) The Will is the core organizing principal of the human being.

a) The will is the seat of drive, yearning, purpose, and choice; it is the place which chooses and says "yes or no" to our physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, and relationships.

b) The will as heart, organizing principal, core, gives shape to our mental, physical, relational, and personal aspects.

c) The will as spirit is non-physical, personal power; this does not mean that it is fuzzy or lacks reality, simply that it is non-physical. It is, however, concrete, we interact with the spiritual realm constantly as is evidenced by phrases like, 'spirited' and 'strong-willed;' or 'hard-hearted' and 'broken-hearted.'

4) The results of, "Being true to yourself..."

a) You are inculcated with the rational framework, the impulse, and the moral ambiguity to simply do whatever you want, with no possible check on evil.

b) Changing your emotional and sensational states, is no longer an option (not even thought of as a possibility, and if it were possible it would be "unhealthy.")

c) We are discouraged from exercising our will to override our emotions and sensations

d) We are essentially discouraged from choosing anything other than what we feel

Your self is being defined as emotions; not will, body, intellect, or social self. The "organizing principle" is emotion, sensation, as opposed to purpose and choice.

The will is the seat of choice, it is the part of the human being which has the power to choose, the mind is the part of us that has emotions, thoughts, etc.; we talk about choice and empowering people, making them free, what we really mean is that people should always do whatever they feel like doing, and by consequence, they should not choose to do anything they don't feel like doing. This emphasis on "being true to yourself" is really exalting the emotions over the will; we are telling people that they should not choose to do something they don't feel like doing!

Choice is a word that is attached to many political issues, but when we begin to think it through in this light, we can see that often the rhetoric of choice, and certainly the cultural impulse behind it, is not really a desire for choice so much as a lack of intentional choice for good, whenever that good conflicts with our own comfort or emotional and physical pleasure.

The impulse we have here discussed ends up, in spite of the language of choice, erasing choice...