- Exercise Introduction:
- - Leo introduces an exercise for viewers to actively partake in; he asks them to write down three people they genuinely despise, listing one particular quality they find despicable about each of them. He advises that these individuals should not be universally denounced figures like Hitler or Osama Bin Laden, but should be people they know on a personal level.
- Problem of Demonization:
- - Leo identifies the act of demonizing others as a major flaw in human society, calling it one of the ugliest things about human behavior. He believes this habit stems from a fundamental closed-mindedness and lack of self-honesty and emphasizes the importance of open-mindedness for personal development.
- Common Targets of Demonization:
- - Leo enumerates common figures that society often demonizes, including dictators, leaders, family members, and even philosophers or religious leaders. He also highlights the frequent demonization that takes place on the internet, where people routinely judge and label each other negatively.
- Effects and Mechanisms of Demonization:
- - When people demonize others, they create a separation and make judgments, labeling the other person as evil. By denying the personal nature of such judgments, they are committing to their belief that someone is genuinely evil, which Leo asserts is a flaw in the person making the judgment and not the individual being judged.
- Reality and Augmentation with Judgments:
- - Leo explains that humans naturally augment reality with judgments; we often assign our thoughts and feelings as labels to situations, objects, people, and ourselves. This act of overlying our subjective viewpoint on the neutral reality around us gives rise to a distortion, leading to the demonization of things we dislike or disagree with.
- Preservation of the Ego and Self-deception:
- - Leo suggests that the act of demonizing others serves as a method of preserving one's ego. When people label and subsequently demonize others, they're deflecting attention from their own despicable behaviors or qualities. This is seen as a subtle form of self-deception and manipulation.
- Illusion of Reality and Emotional Suffering: People often create their own fantasy of reality, forgetting that it's a self-made illusion rather than absolute reality. This leads to emotional suffering, especially when individuals demonize others, largely because they tend to be living a falsehood.
- Unconscious Self-deception: Demonization requires augmenting reality with labels and convincing oneself that these labels are real, generally done unconsciously. This self-manipulation, self-deception, and lying to oneself is a fundamental issue in how people interact with reality.
- Detachment for Lack of Understanding: The process of demonization separates the person doing the demonizing from the one being demonized. This detachment serves as a means of avoiding confrontation with parts of reality that one does not want to face.
- Avoidance of Cognitive Dissonance: Leo notes that people often create a narrative about someone being evil to avoid the challenge of cognitive dissonance, which arises when one's belief model doesnt align with actual facts. This leads to emotional reactions like fear and anger. However, some people, like Leo, appreciate cognitive dissonance as it forces them to reevaluate their understanding of reality.
- Problem of Closed-Mindedness: Most people are unwilling to step outside their mental comfort zone to seriously consider other perspectives, creating an unlearning process that results in continuous ego preservation. This closed-mindedness subtly creates problems impacting personal development.
- Distinction between Disagreement and Demonization: It is important to distinguish between disagreeing with someone or their belief, which is acceptable, and demonizing them, which is harmful.
- Judgments and Acceptance Spectrum: Leo draws a spectrum from demonization to acceptance, with casual judgment in the middle. People should strive for acceptance, which involves acknowledging reality as it is without applying personal labels or delusions. This requires an open mind to willingly accept all aspects of reality, not just those personally liked.
- Problem with Judgments: Making judgments places a separation between oneself and other aspects of reality, with a tendency to pit likes against dislikes. Recognizing judgments as mere opinions and not concrete reality is a subtle step towards acceptance.
- Personal biases and reality: Just because an individual dislikes something doesn't mean it's evil or wrong. Most judgments are perceptions based on personal beliefs and preferences and may not represent the objective reality.
- Subjectivity of judgments: Even in the case of heinous criminals like Hitler, from an objective viewpoint, actions cannot be classified as good or evil. They are just actions until judgments are applied. Being easily offended reflects a weakness of mind and a desire for reality to fit personal expectations.
- Denial of disagreeable reality: Individuals often deny unpleasant truths and insist they shouldn't exist. However, denying does not change reality which can go against all individual desires and expectations.
- Self-centered desires: People tend to view life from a perspective of how to make their lives comfortable and secure, expecting reality to match their desires. This can block parts of actual reality leading to unfulfilled desires.
- Ego and creating separations: To solidify its existence, the ego creates enemies and problems around itself. It engages in self-protection and survival, fueling its feeling of significance even in negative situations.
- Attachment to ego: The attachment individuals have to their ego makes them fearful of the thought of being ego-less. They deny this possibility and cling to their ego, creating separation and demonizing others to enforce their ego's existence. The elements individuals demonize in others are often projections of their own internal qualities.
- False worldview: People often operate with a worldview centered around the ego which presents them as separate from the rest of reality. This is a falsehood leading to the denial of wholeness of reality and contributes to personal dissatisfaction.
- Ego's Need for Action: Leo explains that the ego needs to be in constant motion like a shark swimming, in order to survive. This is why problems, enemies, and challenges seem to be constantly created by individuals.
- Accepting Reality As It Is: The ability to be genuinely happy is linked with accepting reality as is, regardless of whether one's life is in danger, the existence of crimes in society such as murder and rape, poverty and abundance, and more. Rejecting aspects of reality and labelling them as evil is living in a fantasy, leading to the constant desire for a different reality.
- The Connection of Personal Problems to Social Problems: Leo emphasizes that every individual's lack of acceptance for reality and their own personal issues contributes to larger societal problems. Hence, everyone's personal life and societal problems are intertwined.
- Exercise Revision: He urges viewers to revise the exercise he previously suggested. Instead of demonizing and despising certain people and their qualities, he suggests that viewers work towards accepting and integrating these people and qualities into their lives.
- Role of Consciousness: Leo acknowledges the controversial nature of his claims about accepting all of reality as it is. But, believes that as one becomes more conscious, they will realize that being at acceptance allows them to be happy regardless of their circumstances.
- Demonization and Terrorism: He links the origin of terrorism to the act of demonization. This happens when individuals project their internal demons onto others instead of confronting them internally. Both sides of conflicts, such as governments and terrorists, are considered evil because of this.
- Invitation to Further Engagement: Leo concludes by inviting viewers to sign up for his newsletter if they are interested in exploring these topics in more depth. He credits Eben Pagan for the initial exercise idea and encourages viewers to comment with their thoughts about the video.