These ideas, hammered endlessly and over decades, have left behind a trail of damaged lives.

The big drivers of this abuse have been socialism and Freudian beliefs. I'll explain below, but let's be clear on the fact that both socialism and Freud's "it's your parents' fault" can and must be thrown aside. We don't need to waste our time on tired and failed beliefs, regardless of elderly dogmatists in marble buildings.

If you're not convinced that these twin gods of the 20th century preached ideas that failed at horrifying costs, please be honestly convinced first. But at this point adults understand the truth of this: Socialism was a mass-murdering failure and Freudian ideas have failed at both large and small scales.

And so we should be convinced of something else: People still espousing these ideas are not to be taken as serious thinkers. Be kind to them, help them if you can, but stop wasting your time on them.

A Century of "Not My Fault"
Marx and Freud became the gods of the 20th century for the same reason: They gave people a way to evade responsibility. It was a century when methods of diverting blame to others raced to popularity, especially if they were said to be "scientific."

This situation came about because, over that same period of time, men and women lost their ability to comprehend the larger world. Briefly (see A Changing of The Gods for deeper coverage), the process went like this:

The ways of the 19th century were made impractical by new financial systems.
The old mating strategy became impossible. And so young people had either to ridicule it or judge themselves unfit for mating.
Farm work was vanishing due to agricultural machinery. Millions of people were left feeling vulnerable.
Good jobs were found in factories, where workers became interchangeable parts and their agency was diminished.
Mass media was thrust into the minds of millions.