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Jan 22, 2023Liked by Diane Perlman, PhD

It took me a minute to realise the bird, Vireo, is a very close word to the one you chose. Search Vireo for recordings of them in your area, there are many subspecies. https://youtu.be/vq177liSXlc Very relaxing for us Viridos, the Vireos.

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I got to say how much I love your idea about creating a predictive tool for the "Courageous Personality" and for courageous behaviors, just as we have them for the "Authoritarium Personality." Brilliant.

However, as you were suggesting features of the Courageous Personality, I feel compelled to make one suggestion to you. As someone who is a long-time personal friend of Daniel Ellsberg (and his wife Patricia Ellsberg), it is necessary to consider the vital importance of having a life partner who helps to encourage and enable courageous behaviors. Patricia has played a vitally important role in Daniel's courage, and Daniel is always the first to acknowledge this fact.

In this light, our behaviors need to be understand in context of the friends and family that surround us!

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Thank you, Doctor, for writing about the academic understanding of personality types.

My thought here is that regardless of experience, background, and habit, each of us decides our thoughts and actions. These have ethical and moral consequences and should inform the individual on whether the decisions were right or not, and whether they should reassess the basis for them.

Sloth, pride, lack of courage and empathy are some of the moral deficits that make for weak and fearful individuals, but intentional self-improvement can, yes, requiring self-awareness, strengthen us to be freer beings, unafraid of truth.

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2003/03/08/will-the-real-daniel-ellsberg-please-stand-up/

nowhere in this revisionist history will be audience be presented with the cast of Corsican drug smugglers and CIA agents that shaped Ellsberg’s sensibilities and sent him on his path to New Left notoriety. But as the reader shall see in this article, somewhere between the official Pentagon Papers story, and the CIA’s involvement in international drug trafficking, is a disturbing clash of facts from which Ellsberg will not emerge with his icon status intact.

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Excellent, interesting and valuable work Dr Perlman! Thank you for sharing it here. One question that arises for me is the distinction between the ability to resist propaganda, and the felt need to publicly speak the truth. Obviously, the former is in this instance a prerequisite for the latter, but could also stand on its own. One could see through Covid propaganda and not fall for it, but not proselytize to others, or feel compelled to do so.

Personally I don’t meet the criteria of the origin story of the Veridos, but have both seen through the propaganda and, as much as I’ve been able to, tried to inform patients and loved ones in order to keep them safe, and as is the case for so many of us, with some social ostracism and marital strife as a result.

Since I have not done so to the detriment of my career by also doing this on social media, I assume I don’t qualify as a Verido, but only as part of this first group that I describe above. I have , however, always had a mistrust of authority and felt safer seeking knowledge and thinking for myself. I wonder if there is a need for a distinction as described above? At the very least “group one” is highly supportive of “group two”.

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Diane - very impressive insights, well supported and detailed. Thank you and Bravo! Another understanding of the rise of moral leaderships can be found in the writings or P.R. Sarkar, founder of PROUT - Progressive Utilization Theory. The emerging new leaders are called by a Sanskrit word - Sattvipras, "satt" meaning "truth." They contain the capacities of courage like a warrior, mental brightness like the best intellectuals, ability to handle money, finance, organizations, and willingness to do whatever must be done, even "lowly" tasks. We are living at a time when the Veridos / Sattvipras move to the center of the "social cycle" to provide guidance and leadership.

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