I can only jokingly think of people who are naturally hostile or low on EQ. "They can't handle all this!" kind of people.
And this is just one example. I have quite a few more of different flavors, all of which involve someone deciding that "being themselves" is all about destructive behavior. They don't lack EQ: In fact, I'd say almost all of them have very high EQs, but they are also either very damaged, or not very good people.
It's a good approach for someone who's already developed those social skills and wastes a lot of time second guessing themselves, but it's a terrible approach for someone who's really immature or unpolished. It gives them carte blanche to dismiss all conflicts and disagreements as being someone else's fault.
I've known too many people who will formulate vast and complicated worldviews to explain away all their personal troubles, before they'll ever consider looking in the mirror and admitting that they might be able to improve some things about themselves. Example: incels and redpillers. They will change their view of the entire world before they consider changing their view of themselves. Someone who habitually blames everything on other people is unlikely to ever perceive their own faults, and may even embrace them rather than grow out of them.
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.
Maybe Hitler's true self was being a painter, maybe the horrors of the trenches or Germanys humiliation pushed him to it? Maybe it was the rejection of not being able to sell any paintings.
You’re right benj111, maybe he was just misunderstood.
I don't think I was defending him though? If he's killing millions of people whilst not being himself isn't that in some ways worse?
Less profound but invites continual improvement, and it subtly elicits what matters to you.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
That's not permitted though. This is the framework that is permitted, and within which we can discuss the difference between "be yourself" and "just do what you want" in articles of appropriate word count as suggested by the editor:
> [Hobbes] foresaw the necessary idolatry of power itself by this new human type, that he would be flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal, although actually society would force him to surrender all his natural forces, his virtues and his vices, and would make him the poor meek little fellow who has not even the right to rise against tyranny, and who, far from striving for power, submits to any existing government and does not stir even when his best friend falls an innocent victim to an incomprehensible raison d'etat.
-- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
We have this "open world sandbox", moot and harmless, utterly devoid of deep meaning, because it's all printed on stickers without any lasting adhesive, that can and will be removed without any trace or consequence. We may not have noticed this, but our brain did.
Most "thought" expressed in the 21st century stems from rationalizing around that elephant on the couch, that's what I think. When I come across a turtle on its back in a desert, I don't know quite know what to do, I never seem to be able to help and it's really stressing me out, but I know what I will NEVER do, I will never say "oh, I guess that's just what the turtle does, that's just how it walks, it's not dying, that's how it lives".