He is free, subsequently, to repudiate this principle consciously and expunge it from his psychology. But if he fails
to do so, if, instead, he reinforces it by repeated acts of evasion and irrational emotional indulgence, he undermines
his self-esteem still further. How badly his self-esteem is damaged will depend on the frequency of his evasions, the
extent of the knowledge he evades and the nature of the desires he indulges.
If a person develops healthily, if he acquires an integrated set of values, his mind and emotions achieve harmony:
he is not chronically torn by conflicts between his desires and his knowledge. But, no matter how well integrated a
person may be, the process of holding and applying correctly the full, long-range context of his knowledge is not
automatic; the subconscious integrations that generate his emotions are not infallible. Thus, a man always has the
responsibility of monitoring and appraising his desires; it is never appropriate for him to regard them as self-
justifying primaries.
The majority of men, as adults, suffer from a significant deficit of self-esteem. The senseless tragedy of their lives
is that most of them betrayed their mind, not for the sake of gratifying some violent if irrational passion, but for the
sake of indulging meaningless or senseless whims that they can no longer remember, for the sake of being free to
act on the impulse or spur of the moment, without the responsibility of awareness or thought.
If it is psychologically disastrous to reject one's mind under the pressure of irrational desires, there is another
practice which is, perhaps, more disastrous still: rejecting one's mind under the pressure of fear. The pursuit of
irrational desires might still represent some twisted, neurotic form of self-assertiveness, a groping for pleasure or
enjoyment—but the sacrifice of one's mind to fear is undiluted self-abnegation.
The experience of fear per se is not, of course, abnormal or pathological. In many instances, fear has a definite
value: it can activate man to cope with some danger. What is crucial for man's psychological well-being is his
attitude toward fear, his method of dealing with it.
For instance, it is very common for young children to have the experience of being frightened by a barking dog. But
children can react to this experience in different ways. One child may be careful