The Self-Confidence Trap

by Madeleine Kando

A few days ago I did an experiment. I googled the keyword 'self-confidence'. Aside from one pitiful wikepedia entry with some factual information, all I could find was innumerable advise on how to improve, increase or build self-confidence and its counterpart, how to decrease, beat, avoid or overcome self-consciousness.

In general, being confident about something means being certain that it is correct. So does self-confidence mean being certain that YOU are correct?As a child I liked having internal conversations with myself, pretending that I was 2 people. For example: I argued that it was good that my family had left Communist Hungary to come to the West. My other self argued that if we had stayed we could have learned Hungarian and we would not have turned ourselves into political refugees. Does that mean that I was never sure whether I was correct? Does this constitute a lack of self-confidence?

Self-confidence is also having faith in one's own abilities, but the danger of being too self-confident is that it makes you think that you are correct when you are not. How can you improve yourself when you are blind to your own mistakes?

And then there is the unpleasant relationship between self-confidence and self-consciousness. I am fairly confident in my own abilities but when it comes to public speaking for instance, I am so conscious of myself that I become speechless, which poses a slight problem while delivering a public speech.

Very self-confident people have a total unawareness of themselves, especially their own shortcomings. But to tell you the truth I see many positive aspects in being less confident and more conscious of yourself. Here are a few: being less self-confident gives you the ability to listen and learn from others. It means having self-criticism which results in a more objective view of the world. It widens your perspective by embracing other points of view.

Self-confidence should be a temporal, ever changing state of mind, based on what you have accomplished, not based on who you are. You have an A in school, your confidence goes up. You shop-lift, it goes down.

But children these days are told by their parents that they are all special. It is based on the politically correct view that everyone is creative, everyone is a genius in the make. Being ordinary becomes every child's fear. It leads to an obsessive self-focus and breeds feelings of superiority.

The worst by-product of our culture of 'self-confidence' is the inability to identify with the underdog, the 'looser', the less fortunate. If you are told over and over that you should be a success, intelligent, powerful, famous, wealthy, how can you show compassion and empathy?

Believe it or not, there are other belief systems that actually teach the exact opposite. Buddhism for instance warns against taking yourself too seriously. The self is not what counts, it is the interdependence and sharing with others that validates who you are. In that sense, the more self-conscious you are the better. My favorite type of person is one who does not show much self-confidence but has a lot of self-worth. They know who they are, so they don't have to prove it.
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Who is Right? Left or Right

By Tom Kando

Unless you are in the natural sciences, a lot of what you say is debatable, at least up to a point. On the left side of the political spectrum we have liberals and Europeans (the two are nearly identical, ha, ha). On the right there are the Neanderthals spouting off some amazing things.Let me parry both an example of left-wing reasoning and right-wing reasoning which I came across recently:

1) On the left: We have just learned that the Amsterdam Court of Appeal is criminally prosecuting Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, because he made and propagated an anti-Koran film which depicts acts of violence by Muslims. Shame on you, Holland! You may not have a First Amendment, but surely you believe in freedom of the press, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, and political freedom? What’s wrong with you? Look at Pat Condell's commentary on this issue and see for yourself.

2) On the right, some of my dinosaur acquaintances recently re-visited those two asinine “hypotheses” which blamed America’s high crime rate, on (A) women acquiring the right to vote and (B) importing blacks (as slaves) from Africa.

My response, first to the gender-based hypothesis, then to the racial hypothesis:

A. Gender: The twisted logic here is that women are emotional and permissive, whereas men are more rational. Oh Yeah? It seems to me that testosterone is pretty good at clouding rational judgment. Ken Wilber sums up the male predicament throughout evolution: When the male of any species encounters another creature, he can only think of one of two things: f.... it or kill it. Testosterone will do that to you. So don’t tell me that patriarchy works better because males make better judgments. War is real rational, right? World War I (which also caused World War II) was really rational, right? Let me be an extreme feminist here and put it bluntly: There are only two things that men consistently do better than women: hurting and destroying.
Anyway, wacko theories are one thing, but empirical facts are another. A simple glance at the majority of countries in the world where women have the suffrage will immediately show that there is no correlation between that fact and high crime rates, so the theory is bs.
Finally, even if I were to agree with the silly notion that women are politically less capable than men, even then, it is absurd to argue that the 19th amendment was an error. The world progresses to ever higher stages of evolution through increasing, not exclusion. Exclusion is archaic and retrograde. Inclusion is the mark of progress.

B. Race: Okay, so different demographic groups have different rates of crime. Yes, the black crime rate is currently higher than the white crime rate (which in turn is higher than that of Asian-Americans). Do we, therefore, have to belabor the fact that if there were fewer African-Americans in the US, there would be less crime? What an obvious and useless thing to say! How does this help? Isn’t the main question what should be done, now?
And in order to answer that, shouldn’t we work on the causes of black crime, which is certainly neither race, nor the slave trade centuries ago. No, the primary cause is obviously socio-economic, and that, unlike what happened centuries ago, is something we can work on. You can’t go back in time! Remember: civilization progresses through inclusion, not exclusion!

And that brings me to my second point: Why do some people have this ugly focus on this one silly variable - race? There are many correlates of crime. Race is just one, and certainly not the most important one. Here are some other “hypotheses” you could consider:

Gender: men are far more criminal than women - always were, always will be. They commit 75% of all crimes, almost 90% of all violent crimes.
Age: young people are much more criminal than old people: 98% of all crimes are committed by people under 50, 2% over 50.
Region: The South has always been the most criminal region in the US.
Diet: Vegetarians are less criminal than meat eaters.
Socio-economic status: The lower class commits a majority of the 8 index crimes.
Urban-rural setting: Cities are the most criminal, suburbs less, and rural areas the least.
The middle child is more often delinquent than the first-born or the last-born.
Etc, etc.

You want to be silly? Okay: maybe we should outlaw meat eating? Maybe we should commit male infanticide. If we altered the sex ratio to 90-10, there would still be enough males to perpetuate the species, and we would be almost crime-free. Maybe it should be illegal to have more than two children.

My point is: The myopic focus on race as the most important correlate of crime is stupid, morally wrong, and it doesn’t help one bit. The high black crime rate will soon be a thing of the past. Black and white crime rates are already converging. All we need to do is help this along.
So what is the point of reminding us that importing Africans into the US long ago may have something to do with the country’s crime rate? The point is certainly not to offer any solutions.

I’ll tell you what the point it: It’s a point made by people who believe in white superiority. This is proven by the very arbitrariness of choosing race as the most important correlate of crime. After all, you could just as well focus on the high criminality of men, or young people, or meat eaters, or Southerners, or urbanites, or the lower class, or middle children, or some other subgroup. But then, that would not help feeling racially superior. In fact, as a male, you would have to admit that your gender is defective. Wouldn’t that be a bummer!
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Post-Racialism?

By Tom Kando

Jan. 19, 2009: Today is Martin Luther King Day. Last night, we just saw the incredibly uplifting concert held at the Lincoln Monument in celebration of Obama’s upcoming Presidency.

So today there are many comments in the media about race. For example a couple of articles in the Sacramento Bee. (1) One is by my colleague Tim Fong, Professor of Ethnic Studies at Cal State, and (2) another one is by columnist Dan Walters. These two articles highlight (1) a frequent mistake and (2) a correct observation about race at this time:
(1) Fong re-iterates the oft-heard truth that while Obama’s election is a great step forward, we are still not out of the woods, as far as race relations are concerned. He then proceeds to point out that a majority of white Americans voted for McCain, not for Obama.

This oft heard statement is problematic. The obvious implication is that most whites are still racists. But by this measure, blacks appear to be more fixated on race than whites, since a far higher percentage of blacks voted the race line, i.e. for Obama.

Fong also reminds us of continued racial economic inequality. Whites are better off than blacks. Another indication of lingering racism. Yes. But Japanese and Chinese Americans make even more than whites. This is inconvenient for the facile and simplistic dichotomy which places whites one the side of privilege and all others on the side of victimization.

(2) Dan Walters, on the other hand, reminds us that it was indeed the great influx of minority voters which helped California pass the anti-gay Proposition. Sorry folks, if Obama had not motivated an extra 600,000 blacks and Hispanics to go to the polls in November, Prop 8 would have been defeated.

But you see, here again, the liberals stick to their knee-jerk binary thinking: There are only two groups: (A) Good people, i.e. minorities, gays, women, etc. And bad people, i.e. whites, especially white heterosexual men. So the fact that African-Americans and Hispanics were more anti-gay than the rest of the electorate creates great cognitive dissonance in liberals. Anyone who even states this fact - as Dan Walters bravely does - is called a racist. There was even a research project (San Francisco and New York University) which attempted to show that if you control for church attendance, then minorities dit not favor Prop. 8 disproportionately. Do you see how self-serving this is? It merely adds one more category to the liberals’ list of bad people - namely church-goers!

The post-racial era is what we are all eagerly anticipating, and Obama’s election is a huge step in that direction. What is required, however, is a de-emphasis on race, not a continued emphasis upon it. And in that regard, I am afraid that liberals are as guilty as conservatives.

Now don’t misunderstand me: I would be very insensitive if I were to deny African-Americans the well-deserved and long-overdue celebration of the first black President. Ethnic (and Gender and other demographic) identification is legitimate. Heck, I have been joking to my wife about how proud I am that Peter Orszag (a fellow-Hungarian) is going to be Obama’s director of OMB. It is eminently appropriate right now for African-Americans to be festive and to celebrate the election of the first African-American President.

But then, we need to move on: I voted for Obama not because of his ethnicity, but because he seems to be magnificently qualified for the Presidency at this time of great trouble.

One of the things I love about him the most is that he is, indeed, post-racial. He is a universal man. He transcends race and nationality. Notice for example a very subtle passage in his January 18 speech, when talking about Martin Luther King: he quoted the great man’s famous statement that men should be judged “on the content of their character.” But he left out “... and not on the color of their skin.” This is pretty revealing. There are many criteria that should not be used to judge each other - gender, sexual preference, national origin, family origin, etc. Race is one of theme.

We do not want traditional racism to be replaced by the inverted fixation which, as I just documented, seeps through some liberals’ editorializing. As we clearly saw during yesterday’s celebration in Washington, the greatness of the Obama transition is that it is inclusive rather than exclusive. It is truly post-racial.
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Confessions of a Confused Housewive

by Madeleine Kando

For a long time now I have been struggling to understand why my culture, i.e. Western culture has been forced to focus so much on the Islamic/Arab ‘problem’. Where did that suddenly come from?

My first reaction was: ‘what’s that got to do with us?’ Why do we have to be dragged into the affairs of a culture that is in such a state of chaos? The majority of people who die as a consequence of Muslim aggression are other Muslims, not Westerners. So, let them sort it out, I thought, and leave me in peace already.But when more and more of our attention was taken up by this conflict and more and more suicide bombings took place, my ‘resistance’ turned into ‘resentment’. And after the attack of 9/11 this resentment turned into pure anger.

The Western world has basically been hijacked by a conflict that should have happened some time in the Middle Ages. I don’t see any difference between the days of the Inquisition when witches were burnt at the stake because they were supposedly possessed by the devil and Islamic Fundamentalist organizations that declare Jihad in the name of Allah.

I long for the good old days of the cold war. At least I understood what that was about. It was either US, the free world, or THEM, the commies. I was born in a Communist Country and know what I speak of. But this new thing: this Islam thing.. The majority of our political discussions are focused on terrorism, Islam, fear for Israel’s survival, fear of Islamofascism.. is there any room left for more constructive problems?

You see, I am still under the naïve illusion that history should progress in an upward moving direction, towards more enlightenment, more rational thought, more happiness. Aren’t we supposed to learn from the past? From our history? But for a long time now things have been moving backwards. Rational thought has taken a backseat to dangerous religiosity and attempts at explaining the world through insane theories like ‘intelligent design’. Ethnic cleansing is rampant everywhere. Aren’t we supposed to have left religion and tribalism behind in our more enlightened modern time?

Another source of great confusion is how people use the terms ‘Arab’, ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam'. Let’s make an ‘equivalency’ list: the word ‘Arab’ denotes ethnicity, so we can compare it to the word ‘Caucasian’. The word ‘Muslim’ denotes a person of a certain faith, so we can compare it to the word ‘Christian’. And the word ‘Islam’ is a religion, so we can compare it to the word ‘Christianity’. Saying that ‘Arabs should denounce terrorism’ is like saying ‘Caucasians should denounce the Ku Klux Klan’.

I have to accept that simple people like myself are not equipped to fully understand, let alone influence the course of history. On the other hand it is people, after all, that make up societies. There must be at least one other person out there that is as disillusioned with the post cold war direction that the world has taken as I am. We are all going down like a ship in a maelstrom and no one is able to stop it.
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Deconstructing "Femme Fatale"

Thomas Kando

1995: International con artist/thief Laure Ash helps pull off a diamond robbery in Cannes during the annual film festival. She double-crosses her partners-in-crime (the evil black guy and his accomplices) and makes off with the diamonds to Paris where she accidentally assumes the identity of a distraught woman who commits suicide, and then she leaves the country. On the airplane to America, Laure meets millionaire and future US ambassador to Paris Peter Coyote, whom she marries. And then, the mystery begins:Scenario One, 1995: shown early in the movie: the beautiful blonde Laure is taking a bath in her apartment. A despondent brunette enters the apartment and starts committing suicide. Laure lets the brunette kill herself. That’s how she is able to assume the girl’s identity, go to America, meet and marry Peter Coyote and do all the bad things which follow, namely:

2002: Seven years later, Laure (now called Lily Watts) returns to Paris as the wife of the new American ambassador to France (Peter Coyote) where a certain Nicolas Barto (Antonio Banderas), a Spanish photographer, takes her picture. This is bad, because as a result her former partners-in-crime, still looking for her, will find her. Therefore, she decides to entrap Barto, staging that he kidnaps her for a $10 million ransom from her millionaire-ambassador husband. In reality, she aims to kill Barto, collect the $10 million and skip out on her husband whom she cannot stand, because she is still very evil. But things go haywire, her former partners-in-crime show up, there is a shootout and she is dumped into the Seine to drown.

What’s confusing is that (1) the despondent girl whom Laure allows to commit suicide in her apartment in 1995 is another Laure - i.e. she is also played by Rebecca Romijn. And (2) there is another French brunette in the plot, who might or might not be this same girl. This (second?) brunette seems to be another diamond thief and crime partner of Laure’s. She helped Laura double-cross the other crime-partners (the ones who are really bad) Early on in the film, these guys come after this brunette, and she dies.

Scenario Two, 1995: shown at the end of the movie: blonde Laure prevents the brunette from killing herself, telling her that she is her “guardian angel,” and instead, she sends her off to America to clean up her life. Laure herself stays in Paris.
We now learn that all the bad things in scenario One are only things which Laure dreamed while in the bathtub. They all would have happened if Laure had allowed the despondent brunette to kill herself. However, she talked her out of it and gave the girl her air ticket to America.

2002: Laure has been in Paris all along, as has her female accomplice. Their double-crossed partners-in-crime finally catch up with them, but this time Laura’s accomplice does not die - instead the bad guys do. The two girls get to keep the stolen $4 million diamond bra, plus Laure meets Barto for the first time, and they like each other right away, and they will probably be happily in love...
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Falling In Love With The Eternal City

By Anita Kando

At the age of 59, having traveled throughout most of Europe since the age of 24, I hardly expected to develop a new love affair with a city. After all, I've not lived in cities, except for my birthplace, San Francisco, and I've never been a big fan of the noisy bustling metropolis way of life. Nevertheless, the unexpected did happen; Rome entices, it seduces, it compels you to fall in love.My first trip to Rome, when I was 32, was enjoyable, but we stayed in the suburbs at the hotel where my husband was attending a conference. There were a few trips to various places, Frascati, the Vatican, a group bus tour of central Rome (where the bus just parked overlooking the Forum, with no time for getting out of the bus -- truly the worst , most frustrating way to visit the Forum). Upon exiting the city toward the next leg of our trip (Austria), we spent an afternoon walking around Rome – the Coliseum, the catacombs, the Via Apia. But it was very hot, the children grew restless, we had a car to fuss over (never a good idea to have a car in Rome), and we simply left without absorbing all that Rome offers.

For many years, Italy was not part of our travels. Pity, because my children, being partly of Italian extraction themselves, never really developed a knowledge of that part of their heritage. Hopefully they will explore Rome and the rest of Italy on their own. Perhaps I will be lucky enough to travel there with them, and hopefully some day tour the Forum with my grandchildren.

When I was 56, after spending a couple of years adding to my fairly extensive library of Roman history, we used our Marriott points toward a week in Rome. The Rome Marriott on the Via Veneto was luxurious and comfortable, and I thoroughly enjoyed our stay. It's not that I'm ungrateful, but the Via Veneto is not my favorite part of the city. I prefer to be as close as possible to the Forum, Trajan's marketplace, etc. This trip was in March, and Rome was incredibly cold – an unexpected icy wind blew for the entire week we were there! I wondered how on earth the ancients managed when such weather happened. Even though it was brightly sunny, the cold was relentless. My California wardrobe did little to abate the frigid air, so I bought a wool high-neck sweater from a very pleasant lady on the Via Corso. Even so, that night I shivered through La Traviata performed in a beautiful stone church. After the opera, we (and all the Italians in the audience) made a mad dash across the street to the coffee bar. How on earth do the Italians manage to sleep after consuming so much espresso at 11:30 p.m.? Luckily, the the coffee bar was kind, having camomile tea on the menu for wimps like us who need a full night's sleep.

At the age of 59, I returned to Rome. I am still trying to figure out exactly what it is about this city that makes me to feel so "at home.". Genetic memory? More likely it's the combination of antiquity and historical interest, architectural beauty, more art than one can ever view, incredible food, and a people who are friendly, welcoming, tolerant and accepting of visitors. They look happy, they smile a lot (even when they are on their scooters in heavy traffic or crowded together on a bus or subway). Without bragging or being oppressive about it, they are proud of their city and they offer it to you in a delightful way. The seduction by Rome began the moment I landed at Fumicino. The light was that perfect golden hue and the sea pines were already within view. Ahhh, I felt, home. Strange feeling, not at all what I usually feel so far away from where I live.

We stayed at a small Rick Steves-recommended hotel, Il Giardino, run by a charming British woman and her Italian-British sons, just 5 minutes walk from the Forum. For me, it just doesn't get better than that for location. Across the street was another Rick Steves recommendation, a little mom-and-pop restaurant open until very late at night. I think I had their tortellini en brodo soup four times over the one week we were there. It was just fabulous to be able to walk through the Forum almost every single day, to walk around the Coliseum and cut across Trajan's marketplace to get back to our little hotel, stopping on the way for olives, cheese, and salami the quality of which I simply can never find at home. Now what's not to love about days like that?

On this trip, having a much greater understanding of Roman history, I absorbed more than ever as we visited various antiquity sites. We climbed up the Palatine Hill, visited the Domus Augustus (although I must return because I did not get to visit the Domus Livia). We saw the still vivid red and blue decorated ceilings of the Augustan era, we walked out into the courtyard overlooking the Circus Maximus, just as Augustus and Livia must have done over 2,000 years ago. If only we could turn back the hands of time a couple thousand years. It was thrilling to imagine how it must have been in all its glory as we stood high above the circus maximus looking out in the distance to the Baths of Caracalla. Later that evening, we ate at the Ulpia Restaurant, which is encrusted right into one of the walls of Trajan's Marketplace. What a hoot that was, savoring authentic minestrone, made in the simple style for which Roman food is so famous, while overlooking Trajan's marketplace. I commented to the handsome older silver-haired waiter that this was the very best location of any restaurant I'd ever been to – he smiled gently, and replied, "Yes, one of the best in the entire world, madam". I stood there for a long time, trying to envision what the marketplace looked like in its heyday, as the first "shopping center" ever built. Earlier that afternoon, we had also enjoyed Rome's incredible thin-crusted pizza and a salad at the Trattoria Gladiatore right across from the Coliseum. It is entirely Rome's fault that I now search in vain for the same type of pizza at home.

The next day I returned to the Forum alone for the afternoon. My husband was suffering from a bad sore throat and needed a nap. As I walked to the Forum, I passed the statue of Julius Caesar, and again saw bouquets of flowers lain at the base of the statue. On our last trip, we were there on the Ides of March, and there was a four-foot-high pile of flowers then. The Italians told us that this is the case every year on March 15th. Interestingly, even though it was not the Ides of March on this trip, Julius Caesar's actual cremation site in the Forum also had flowers placed in that small chamber. I took my sandwich, my book, and found a very pleasant place in the sun right in the middle of the Forum, settling atop of a piece of Roman column, for lunch and reading. It just does not get better than that for me, and it was difficult to tear myself away.

The next day we visited Ostia, another thrill. The Roman port is very intact, and offers a view of what life was like in the busy port city, with gorgeous mosaics in the marketplace, a well-preserved amphitheater and apartment buildings, and more. It's so easy to get there – just a short tram ride from the heart of Rome. Next time I'll bring a blanket to spread out a picnic – great location next to the Tiber.

We made sure to visit some of the magnificent museums that we had missed on earlier trips. For me, the apex was standing in a dimly-lit room viewing the wall coverings taken from a villa just outside Rome that belonged to Livia Drusilla. Gorgeous blue color, with birds and trees -- mind blowing, to be sure, and I wondered if I was truly there or just dreaming.

This rather sums it up: A day or two after returning home, my husband muttered as he was walking upstairs, "I miss Rome." I knew exactly how he felt, exactly what he meant. The city grabs you, it owns you, and invites you to return – and hopefully we will.
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