You've Just Gotta Understand (Unless You Can't)

"The historical trajectory of this empathy thing has some roots and I know where they lie because it was right here in San Francisco and I was around then.

These warm and fuzzy feelings we're debating now are a direct backlash to a '70s movement/hustle that was the antithesis of empathy. It was about being guilt-free and basking in the wonderfulness and perfection of yourself. This deal was a conscious-numbing plague of narcissism that crept into the upper reaches of the Jimmy Carter White House, and had hundreds of thousands of adherents who came to believe they were fine just the way they were. No feeling other people's icky pain and suffering necessary.

They called it EST.

Right. That thing. Erhard Seminar Training, the brainchild of former encyclopedia salesman and new age wizard Werner Erhard (actually Jack Rosenberg; apparently not everything was perfect 'the way it is' -- as his EST slogan had it.)

To be fair, Mr. Erhard got a lot of people on board his feel-good wagon, including celebrities (John Denver, Diana Ross), political wives and a lot of young adults who felt the flames of '60s social activism licking the edges of their BMWs and just didn't want to have to feel guilty about their own creature comforts.

As I saw it, EST boiled down to this: don't feel bad. Don't worry about anything but yourself. And you're pretty damn perfect the way you are. Who doesn't want to hear that, even if you're Woody Allen?

Brilliant! As James Lipton would say.

Werner Erhard even started an offshoot called The Hunger Project where, so far as I could tell, no one actually got fed, directly. But the message seemed to be that you don't have to actually do anything about world hunger. Just acknowledging its existence is enough. How freeing is that!? You could do that and play a game of squash at the same time.

While he brilliantly synthesized useful tips from Zen Buddhism, Dale Carnegie, and mass hypnosis, his jewel of conscription was a full weekend of large room, haranguing lectures from Jack himself where no one could leave to pee the entire time."

-- Phil Bronstein, seeing the world - and it's delusional cultism, from the roots up - as we do, except he's posting on The Huffington Post.