Scott Peck on white lies

White lies may be every bit as destructive as black ones.  A government that withholds essential information from its people by censorship is no more democratic than one that speaks falsely...  Indeed, because it may seem less reprehensible, the withholding of essential information is the most common form of lying, and because it may be the more difficult to detect and confront, it is often even more pernicious than black-lying.

White-lying is considered socially acceptable in many of our relationships because "we don't want to hurt peoples' feelings."  Yet we may bemoan the fact that our social relationships are generally superficial.  For parents to feed their children a pap of white lies is not only considered acceptable but is thought to be loving and beneficent...  Usually such withholding and lack of openness is rationalized on the basis of a loving desire to protect and shield their children from unnecessary worries...  The result, then, is not protection but deprivation.  The children are deprived of the knowledge they might gain about money, illness, drugs, sex, marriage, their parents, their grandparents and people in general...  Finally, they are deprived of role models of openness and honesty, and are provided instead with role models of partial honesty, incomplete openness and limited courage.

~ M. Scott Peck, M.D., The Road Less Traveled, "Withholding Truth," pp. 59-60

Scott Peck on the link between lies and mental illness

One of the roots of mental illness is invariably an interlocking system of lies we have been told and lies we have told ourselves.

~ M. Scott Peck, M.D., The Road Less Traveled, "Openness to Challenge," p. 58

Scott Peck on the paths to reality and delusion

A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged.  The only way that we can be certain that our map of reality is valid is to expose it to the criticism and challenge of other map-makers.  Otherwise we live in a closed system - within a bell jar, to use Sylvia Plath's analogy, rebreathing only our own fetid air, more and more subject to delusion.

~ M. Scott Peck, M.D., The Road Less Traveled, "Openness to Challenge," p. 52

Scott Peck: truth is more vital to our self-interest than comfort

We must always hold truth, as best we can determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest, than our comfort.  Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even welcome it in the service of the search for truth.  Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.

~ M. Scott Peck, M.D., The Road Less Traveled, p. 50

Scott Peck on personal roadmaps and dedication to reality

Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life.  If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there.  If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost. (p. 44)

[...]

By the end of middle age people have given up the effort.  They feel certain that their maps are complete and their Weltanschauug is correct (indeed, even sacrosanct), and they are no longer interested in new information.  It is as if they are tired.  Only a relative and fortunate few continue until the moment of death exploring the mystery of reality, ever enlarging and refining their understanding of the world and what is true. (p. 45)

[...]

Rather than try to change the map, an individual may try to destroy the new reality.  Sadly, such a person may expend much more energy ultimately in defending an outmoded view of the world than would have been required to revise and correct it in the first place. (p. 46)

~ M. Scott Peck, M.D., The Road Less Traveled (1978), "Dedication to Reality"

Scott Peck anticipates the victimology movement

When character-disordered individuals blame someone else - a spouse, a child, a friend, a parent, an employer - or something else - bad influences, the schools, the government, racism, sexism, society, the "system" - for their problems, these problems persist.  Nothing has been accomplished.  By casting away their responsibility they may feel comfortable with themselves, but they have ceased to solve the problems of living, have ceased to grow spiritually, and have become dead weight for society.  They have cast their pain on society.

~ M. Scott Peck, M.D., The Road Less Traveled (1978), p. 39

Scott Peck on the pursuit of truth

Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.

~ Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled