God's law or private law?

[Leonardo17]

they should begin hating themselves a little bit. There has to be some sort of self-critisism inside every man and woman in this world. (what are you even talking about?)

Years ago I read a long philosophical novel by Iris Murdoch -- a splendid writer who deserves to be much better known.

Near the end of the book, after many events and much discussion, one of the characters says, "We should live quietly and learn to hate ourselves." (This was spoken by a character, not by Murdoch herself, so it isn't necessarily the view of the author. Nonetheless the character was presented as a reasonable person, which meant that her words were not to be taken as insane.)

Naturally this seemed very strange to me. As a young American I had been raised to think that loving yourself was always best, that the schools are there largely to foster "self-esteem," and the best way to go through life is to forgive yourself as quickly and thoroughly as possible. For example, "Of course I shot all those kids at the school, but I'm not really a bad guy." 

It's taken me a long time to ponder the wisdom of giving up self-love. There are Buddhist approaches, but also (as always) Western sources which parallel the Eastern wisdom.

I am a reader of someone called Louise Hay. I believe in the importance of Self-love and Self-worth. (It’s a psychological book but you can check it out if you like). So when I say “Why wouldn’t he hate himself a little?” what I mean is that (as it is described in the Quran) this is a state (the pharaoh State of Mind) in which the Ego lost all its sense of self-criticism. And Scholars describe this as the lowest state of the Human Ego. The English Term is Hubris. (It come from the Greek language. You may have heard that Ancient Spartans had not one but two kings so that one King would always be present to limit the Hubris of the other.)

And unfortunately what I am saying is nonsense. Because as Thomas Jefferson said “The only thing that stops power is power”. But while I am saying that I have absolutely no doubt that they will all end like Muhamad Kaddafi or like Adolf Hitler or like Benito Mussolini. That’s because they don’t have this self-criticism that normal people have. They don’t have it anymore.