The "Weak". Are They Really Weak?

 This is what is being glorified today. Those ascribing to the dog-eat-dog philosophy are being seen as role models. Decency and goodness is dying.

In today's wold those who are sensitive and mild are labeled as weak. Being cunning, vindictive and treacherous is considered the virtue of the strong. The reasoning is, Darwin has said man too is an animal. And man must act like an animal to survive. From this reasoning springs the brutality and heartlessness that we see all around us.

But this is not true. People like Abraham Lincoln and the famous psychologist Alice Miller tell us that there is another way. The civilised way. The way it should be. That the labeling of men and women as weak and strong is wrong and stupid. It is the natural temperament of the person and upbringing that moulds the person into what he becomes. Attaching labels like "weak" is stupid. Miller says going back to the childhood helps in curing the person. 

 Becoming brutalised is called "growing up". Those who refuse to be brutalised are labeled as "wimps", "weak". Those who turn brutal and inhuman are called "smart".

Lincoln is one of the greatest of men who walked on this earth because of his firm belief that given equal chances all men and women are equal. Equally talented. To call some dumb, weak or simple is not only stupid but unfair. They say life is unfair. It is up to all of us to ensure that it is not so. That is what Lincoln said. That is what Alice Miller said and that creating such level playing ground is possible. In short, all men (women) are born equal. It is the life circumstances which make them unequal. That is what we have to strive against. Life will be better for all of us.

Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of equal rights of men ... ours began, by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant, and vicious, to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant, and vicious. We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser; and all better, and happier together.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

 In America, this kid would be dressed up as a Wall Street broker

People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be—both in their youth and in adulthood—intelligent, responsive, empathic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience.
ALICE MILLER

 These children grow up into "weak" men and women. They are not weak. They are the sensitive and the good people who are ready to be taunted as being "weak" rather than join the crowd and becoming malicious, cunning and heartless as the rest.

Almost everywhere we find . . . the use of various coercive measures, to rid ourselves as quickly as possible of the child within us—i.e., the weak, helpless, dependent creature—in order to become an independent competent adult deserving of respect. When we re-encounter this creature in our children, we persecute it with the same measures once used in ourselves.
ALICE MILLER

And in case any of us think Alice Miller is a impractical romanticist and idealist; listen to what she says....

I was not out to paint beautiful pictures; even painting good pictures was not important to me. I wanted only to help the truth burst forth.

Miller further says...

Those children who are beaten will in turn give beatings, those who are intimidated will be intimidating, those who are humiliated will impose humiliation, and those whose souls are murdered will murder.
 

And that is the circle of violence spirals. Those who do not believe in violence and cunning are labeled as weak. The fact is that they are strong enough to withstand these evil urges forced into them against their will in childhood.

The fact is no one is weak. It is just that some people have had a bad bad childhood and they are yet to recover from that early grief. A little support and some gentle therapy and he/she will be as good as anyone. Remember that adversity often breaks the strongest of men. It is that some people are lucky that they never face  such a soul-breaking adversity in their life. We mistake them to be 'strong' people.