Dear Caitlin Johnstone:

I admire your work very much for both its logic and passion. I like the clarity of this column very much and would hope decision-makers are stirred to more action by it.

There is one more thing necessary for all of us to be free and that is for us to be critical of that in ourselves which likes the lies we are told, especially the lie that says that the way the world is run is all we can hope for (with a few changes.) I have been very fortunate to be learning how to criticize this love of lies in myself from the work of the greatest thinker who ever lived. We like the lies that essentially say this world is not so good because that way we can have the pleasure of feeling we are better than “all that.” And “all that” usually includes other people.

We all accept some abuse that we don’t have to because then we can say “I may not be so good, but I am sure better than that person." We also accept the abuse because we feel we deserve it for looking down on the abuser, instead of demanding more from that person and ourselves and only leaving him or her when we see they are not really willing or able to be better. We can always keep trying to understand them better and use it to be more critical of the same things in ourselves (in other forms) up close or, if need be, at a distance.

Instead we need to do what the wisest and kindest of men said if we are to be just and kind ourselves: we need to stop elevating ourselves by making less of other people and things. Until we learn how to be critical of this desire in ourselves which has made for every form of human evil – including racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, religious bigotry, and economic injustice, we will not get to where we really want: true civilization, where freedom and justice are the same thing in every part of life, and being kind (not soft) critics of ourselves and others.