Randolph Harris II International Institute

The Devil is Old; Grow Old to Understand Him

Sin and passion originate wholly in the inevitable conditions of human existence. There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing, one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none. It is not without pre-established harmony, this sculpture in the memory. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. In your reality, as you feel the weight of difficult days—uncertainty and fear—peace feels distant. All of us yearn for a peaceful and just world. However, mankind has shattered the possibility of peace through an insatiable hunger for material possessions and an unquenchable thirst for dominion. What begins as a secret disorder of the heart—an inward distortion of desire—unfolds outward into the great calamities of the age. The individual, unable to master his own passions, becomes the first battlefield. Within him, the conflict manifests as despair, self‑reproach, and the tragic impulse toward self‑destruction. In the family, this same moral disease takes the form of cruelty, suspicion, and violence, as the home—once the sanctuary of affection—becomes the arena where frustrated ambition and wounded pride seek their victims. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Among nations, the disorder magnifies itself into insurgency, civil strife, and the perpetual rivalry of states. Peoples rise against their rulers; rulers wage war against their neighbors; and the earth, weary of human contention, bears witness to the same tragic cycle repeated across centuries. No nation, however proud its heritage or lofty its ideals, has escaped the scourge of war. Each has, at some point in its history, bowed beneath the weight of its own ungoverned passions.Across the United States, crowds are clashing with federal authorities over the enforcement of the law. Some individuals have gone beyond peaceful protest, choosing instead to physically confront federal officials, mock them, or treat the documentation of their actions as a source of amusement. Yet the moment those same individuals discover that their conduct has placed them under federal scrutiny—listed as potential domestic threats, restricted in employment opportunities, or barred from air travel—the laughter will fade. These confrontations carry consequences far beyond the adrenaline of the moment. People who engage in violence or targeted harassment against federal officers jeopardize their futures, their freedom, and their safety. They also endanger the lives of the very officials tasked with maintaining public order. History shows that provoking armed authorities is never a trivial matter. The state’s responsibility to enforce the law does not disappear because a crowd is angry, and the risks escalate quickly when people treat confrontation as entertainment or political theater. Whatever one’s grievances, escalating into violence or direct attacks on federal personnel is a path that leads only to harm—for individuals, for families, and for the broader society that must absorb the consequences. Thus, the unrest of the world is not an accident of politics but the inevitable consequence of a deeper moral and psychological failure: the inability of mankind to restrain greed, to govern desire, and to honor the dignity of others. Until the inner life is reformed, the outer world will remain in turmoil. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Human aggressiveness, enmity, violence, and war have revealed man’s inability to govern himself. Neither religion nor science has ever suggested that humans are perfect in the sense of possessing great powers of intellect, will, and decision-making. Dr. Jung stresses that aggressiveness, violence, and greed are the inherent characteristics of “ego-instincts.” The originally simple and unequivocal instinctual determination, in Dr. Jung’s view, can appear transformed into “pure greed” and into a characteristic expression of self-preservation. It may well be that greed is encouraged to a greater degree in capitalism, but it is impossible to deny that greed precedes rather than follows the capitalistic economic order. Humans, like animals, are born with greed. The nursing child, knowing nothing about capitalism and dialectical materialism, will instinctively overfeed himself. Goldfish, like many animals, will overeat when given the chance. This instinctive excess reflects a broader truth: the drive to take more than is necessary is not unique to humans but inherent in many living beings. What humans call “greed” is, in its rawest form, a biological impulse toward survival and accumulation. Animals hoard food. Plants compete aggressively for sunlight and nutrients. Predators overhunt when prey is abundant. Humans accumulate wealth, power, and status far beyond survival needs. The difference is that humans moralize the impulse, while animals simply enact it. However, no mutual interaction of economic forces, including private ownership, division of labor, and exchange, can ever give rise to human greed, although this interaction can influence its intensity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Greed—understood as the desire to acquire more than one needs—is older than capitalism, older than socialism, older than any modern ideology. It appears in monarchies, tribal societies, feudal systems, and communal experiments. It appears in families, workplaces, religious institutions, and political movements. Economic systems do not invent greed; they merely provide different avenues for it to express itself. In capitalist societies, greed often expresses itself through the accumulation of wealth, the exploitation of labor, monopolistic behavior, and consumer excess. Critics argue that capitalism can reward greed by tying success to acquisition. In socialist or collectivist movements, greed can take a different form: a sense of entitlement to others’ labor or resources, demands for benefits without contribution, political elites controlling distribution, and corruption within centralized authority. These are not inherent to socialism itself, but they are ways human desire can distort the system. Whether someone seeks private wealth or public redistribution, the psychological root can be the same: a desire to acquire without limit or without responsibility. Greed and selfishness are defects of human nature and not defects of socioeconomic relations. The primacy of greed and other human passions has nothing to do with the capitalist economy. The situation of human action and the character of humanly possible responses to that situation are shot through with deep-seated tensions which make the maintenance of any given state of affairs precarious. Human beings are never simply reacting to the external world; they are continually negotiating the inner contradictions of dependency and autonomy, fear and desire, vulnerability and assertion. These tensions press upon the developing personality long before the individual has the resources to understand them, and the early solutions adopted in childhood often harden into enduring orientations toward life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

People who later tend toward the self‑effacing solution usually have solved their early conflicts with others by “moving toward them.” In the face of threat, disapproval, or emotional uncertainty, they discovered that safety lay not in resistance or withdrawal but in compliance, appeasement, and the cultivation of exaggerated agreeableness. What begins as a child’s attempt to preserve connection becomes, in adulthood, a habitual strategy of self‑preservation: the self is protected by diminishing itself, by anticipating the needs of others, by forestalling conflict through submission or charm. Yet this solution, like all characterological defenses, carries its own internal strain. The individual who survives by yielding must continually monitor the emotional climate, suppress personal impulses, and maintain a vigilant sensitivity to the expectations of others. The very strategy that once ensured safety becomes a source of chronic tension, for it requires the ongoing sacrifice of spontaneity, autonomy, and authentic self‑assertion. Thus, the self‑effacing solution preserves the person at the cost of constricting the self. The self-effacing type grew up under the shadow of somebody: of a preferred sibling, of a parent who was generally adored (by outsiders), of a beautiful mother or of a benevolently despotic father. It was a precarious situation, liable to arouse fears. However, the affection of a kind was attainable—at a price: that of the self-subordinating devotion. There may have been, for instance, a long-suffering mother who made the child feel guilty at any failure to give her exclusive care and attention. Perhaps, there was a mother or a father who could be friendly or generous when blindly admired, or a dominating sibling whose fondness and protection could be gained by pleasing and appeasing. And so, after some years, in which the wish to rebel struggled in the child’s heart with his need for affection, he suppressed his hostility, relinquished the fighting spirit, and the need for affection won out. Temper tantrums stopped, and he became complaint, learned to like everybody, and to lean with a helpless admiration on those whom he feared most. He became hypersensitive to hostile tension and had to appease and smooth things over. Because the winning over of others became paramount in importance, he tried to cultivate in himself qualities that would make him acceptable and loveable. Sometimes, during adolescence, there was another period of rebellion, combined with a hectic and compulsive ambition. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

However, he again relinquished these expansive drives for the benefit of love and protection, sometimes with his first falling in love. The further development largely depended upon the degree to which rebellion and ambition were suppressed or how complete the swing toward subordination, affection, or love became. Like every other neurotic, the self-effacing type solves the needs evolving from his early development by self-idealization. However, he can do it in one way only. His idealized image of himself primarily is a composite of “lovable” qualities, such as unselfishness, goodness, generosity, humility, saintliness, nobility, and sympathy. Helplessness, suffering, and martyrdom are also secondarily glorified. In contrast to the arrogant-vindictive type, a premium is also placed on feelings—feelings of joy or suffering, feelings not only for individual people but for humanity, art, nature, values of all sorts. To have deep feelings is part of his image. If he reinforces the self-abnegation trends which have grown out of his solution of his basic conflict with people, only then can he fulfill the resulting inner dictates. He must therefore develop an ambivalent attitude toward his own pride. Since the saintly and lovable qualities of his pseudoself are all the values he has, he cannot help being proud of them. One patient, when recovering, said about herself: “I took my moral superiority humbly for granted.” Although he disavows his pride, and although it does not show in his behavior, it appears in many indirect forms in which neurotic pride usually manifests itself—in vulnerability, face-saving devices, avoidances, et cetera. On the other hand, his very image of saintliness and lovableness prohibits any conscious feeling of pride. He must lean over backward to eradicate any trace of it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Thus begins the shrinking process which leaves hum small and helpless. It would be impossible for him to identify himself with his proud, glorious self. He can only experience himself as his subdued, victimized self. He feels not only small and helpless but also guilty, unwanted, unlovable, stupid, and incompetent. He is the underdog and identifies himself readily with others who are downtrodden. Hence, the exclusion of pride from awareness belongs to his way of solving the inner conflict. The weakness of this solution, as far as we have traced it, lies in two factors. One of them is the shrinking process, which in biblical terms entails the “sin” (against oneself) of hiding one’s talent in the earth. The other concerns the way in which the taboo on expansiveness renders him a helpless prey to self-hate. We can observe this in many self-effacing patients at the beginning of analysis, when they respond with stark terror to any self-reproach. This type, often unaware of the connection between self-accusation and terror, merely experiences the fact of being frightened or panicky. He is usually aware of being prone to reproach himself but, without giving it much thought, he regards it as a sign of conscientious honesty with himself. He may also be aware that he accepts accusations from others all too readily, and realizes only later that they may actually have been without foundation and that it comes easier to him to declare himself guilty than to accuse others. In fact, his response to admitting guilt, or a fault when criticized, comes with such a quick and automatic reaction that his reason has no time to interfere. However, he is unaware of the fact that he is positively abusing himself, and still less of the extent to which he does it. His dreams are replete with symbols of self-contempt and self-condemnation. Typical for the latter are execution-dreams: he is condemned to death; he does not know why, but accepts it; nobody shows him any mercy or even concern. Or he has dreams or fantasizes in which he is tortured. The fear of torture may appear in hypochondriac fears: a headache becomes a brain tumor; a sore throat, tuberculosis; a stomach upset, cancer. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

As analysis proceeds, the intensity of his self-accusations and self-torture comes into clear focus. Any difficulty of his that comes up for discussion may be used to batter himself down. An emerging awareness of his hostility may make him feel like a potential murderer. Discovering how much he expects of others makes him a predatory exploiter. A realization of his disorganization with regard to time and money may arouse in him the fear of “deterioration.” The very existence of anxiety may make him feel like somebody utterly unbalanced and on the verge of insanity. In case these responses are out in the open, the analysis at the beginning may then seem to aggravate the condition. We may therefore get the impression at first that his self-hate or self-contempt is more intense, more vicious than in other kinds of neurosis. However, as we get to know him better, and compare his situation with other clinical experiences, we discard this possibility and realize that he is merely more helpless about his self-hate. Most of the effective means to ward off self-hate which are available to the expansive type, are not at his disposal. He does try, though, to abide by his special shoulds and taboos and, as in every neurosis, his reasoning and his imagination help to obscure and to embellish this picture. However, he cannot stave off self-accusations by self-righteousness, because by doing so, he would violate his taboos on arrogance and conceit. Nor can he, effectively, hate or despise others for what he rejects in himself, because he must be “understanding” and forgiving. Accusing others, or any kind of hostility toward others, would, in fact, frighten him (rather than reassure him) because of his taboos on aggression. Also, he needs others so much that he must avoid friction for this very reason. Finally, because of all these factors, he simply is not a good fighter, and this applies not only to his relations to others but to his attacks on himself as well. In other words, he is just as defenseless against his own self-accusations, his self-contempt, his self-torture, et cetera, as he is against attacks on the part of others. He takes it all lying down. He accepts the verdict of his inner tyranny—which in turn increases his already reduced feelings about himself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Nevertheless, he, of course, needs self-protection, and does develop defensive measures of his own kind. If his special defenses are not properly functioning, the terror with which he may respond to the assaults of his self-hate actually only emerges then. He tries to placate and take the edge off accusations by (for instance) an overeager admission of guilt. “You are quite right…I am no good anyhow…it is all my fault.” He tries to elicit sympathetic reassurance by being apologetic and by expressing remorse and self-reproach. He may also plead for mercy by emphasizing his helplessness. In the same appeasing way, he takes the sting out of his own self-accusations. He exaggerates in his mind his feelings of guilt, his helplessness, his being so badly off in every way—in short, he emphasizes his suffering. A different way of releasing his inner tension is through passive externalization. This shows in his feeling accused by others, suspected, or neglected, kept down, treated with contempt, abused, exploited, or treated with outright cruelty. However, this passive externalization, while allaying anxiety, does not seem to be as effective a means of getting rid of self-accusations as does active externalization. Besides (like all externalization), it disturbs his relations to others—a disturbance to which, for many reasons, he is particularly sensitive. All these defensive measures, however, still leave him in a precarious inner situation. He still needs a more powerful reassurance. Even at those times in which his self-hate keeps within moderate limits, his feeling that everything which he does by himself or for himself is meaningless—his self-minimizing, et cetera—makes him profoundly insecure. So, following his old pattern, he reaches out for others to strengthen his inner position by giving him the feeling of being accepted, approved of, needed, wanted, liked, loved, and appreciated. His salvation lies in others. Hence, his need for people is not only greatly reinforced but often attains a frantic character. Greed, self‑preservation, and the self‑effacing personality are best understood as divergent attempts to resolve the same fundamental insecurity that marks the human condition. In a world where the individual is continually confronted with threat, uncertainty, and the precariousness of all social arrangements, the psyche develops characteristic modes of safeguarding itself. Greed represents an expansive, acquisitive effort to secure safety by accumulating power or possessions; the self‑effacing solution represents the opposite tendency, in which safety is sought through compliance, appeasement, and the reduction of one’s own claims. Both are expressions of the broader instinct toward self‑preservation, shaped by early relational tensions and hardened into enduring patterns of character. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Human action unfolds within a field of tensions that no individual can fully escape. The moral life, like the psychological life, is marked by contradictions that render the maintenance of any stable orientation precarious. The ethic of ultimate ends collapses when confronted with the problem of means; the individual who seeks purity of intention soon discovers that action in the real world demands compromise, ambiguity, and the acceptance of morally hazardous instruments. In such moments, the strain of unresolved conflict often drives the idealist into chiliastic certainty, a prophetic absolutism that shields him from the intolerable burden of contradiction. Clinical experience reveals a parallel process within the developing personality. The child, confronted with the inescapable tensions of dependency, fear, and the unpredictability of others, must fashion some workable mode of self‑preservation long before he can comprehend the forces that shape him. These early solutions harden into characteristic patterns of character. Greed represents one such solution: an expansive, acquisitive attempt to secure safety by accumulating power, possessions, or advantage. It is a defensive maneuver against the felt precariousness of existence, a way of mastering anxiety by enlarging the sphere of control. The self‑effacing solution represents the opposite pole. Here, the individual seeks safety not through expansion but through contraction—by appeasing others, yielding to their demands, and minimizing his own claims. This pattern, too, is a response to the same fundamental insecurity. Where the greedy personality attempts to overcome tension by dominating the environment, the self‑effacing personality attempts to dissolve tension by aligning with it, “moving toward” others in the hope that compliance will forestall conflict. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Thus, the ethic of ultimate ends, the greedy pursuit of security, and the self‑effacing retreat into submission are all variations on a single theme: the human effort to manage the deep and persistent tensions inherent in action, relationship, and moral life. Each represents a different strategy of self‑preservation, shaped by early experience and sustained by the individual’s ongoing attempt to find safety in a world that offers none without cost. Human action is continually strained by contradictions that no individual or moral system can fully resolve. Even those who preach “love against violence” often find themselves, under the pressure of events, calling for one final act of force that will supposedly abolish all future violence. This shift from moral purity to chiliastic certainty is not an aberration but an expression of the deep tensions inherent in acting within a world where every means carries danger and every end demands compromise. The psyche, no less than the moralist, seeks refuge from these contradictions by adopting protective strategies that promise safety, coherence, or release from inner conflict. Clinical experience shows that individuals respond to these same tensions with characteristic patterns of self‑preservation. Greed represents one such pattern: an expansive attempt to master anxiety by accumulating power, possessions, or advantage, as though the enlargement of one’s sphere could neutralize the precariousness of existence. At the opposite pole stands the self‑effacing solution, in which the individual seeks safety through compliance, appeasement, and the reduction of personal claims. Both strategies arise from the same fundamental insecurity. Where the greedy personality attempts to overcome tension by dominating the environment, the self‑effacing personality attempts to dissolve tension by aligning with it, “moving toward” others in the hope that submission will forestall danger. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

The moralist who turns from nonviolence to a final purifying act of force is engaged in a similar psychological maneuver. Faced with the intolerable strain of contradiction, he seeks a decisive act that will eliminate the very conditions that produced the conflict. This is the chiliastic impulse: the belief that one ultimate gesture—whether of force, renunciation, or submission—can restore harmony and abolish tension. Yet, like the characterological solutions of greed and self‑effacement, this impulse is itself precarious, for it rests on the illusion that the fundamental conflicts of human existence can be resolved once and for all. Therefore, whether in moral doctrine or in personality structure, the same pattern emerges: confronted with the inescapable tensions of life, individuals and systems alike adopt protective strategies that promise safety but cannot escape the underlying instability of the human condition. In the social sphere, the same instability that marks individual action becomes readily apparent. People often express grievances about economic strain, rising taxes, or the cost of living, yet their responses to the conditions producing these burdens are frequently marked by contradiction. They may support policies intended to reduce financial pressures while simultaneously protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which, as an institution, is tasked with enforcing policies to reduce inflation and enforce laws. Illegal immigration is costing Americans jobs, it is increasing health care costs and education costs, and increasing competition for housing, which results in billions of taxpayer dollars being spent unnecessarily. Such inconsistencies are not best understood as matters of logic but as manifestations of deeper emotional tensions. Much of this behavior reflects the strain of self‑preservation under conditions of uncertainty. When individuals feel economically or socially threatened, their anxieties seek an outlet. The resulting agitation may attach itself to whatever object is most symbolically available, regardless of whether it aligns with their stated concerns. In these moments, the protest is less about the issue itself and more about the need to discharge accumulated frustration, to assert agency, or to locate a target for diffuse anger. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

This pattern is not unlike the clinical solutions we observe in personality development. Just as the greedy personality attempts to secure safety through expansion, and the self‑effacing personality through submission, the socially agitated individual may attempt to preserve a sense of control by directing hostility outward. The object of that hostility need not be logically connected to the underlying distress; it merely needs to serve as a vessel for the emotional tension. Furthermore, what appears as political inconsistency is often a psychological maneuver—an attempt to manage inner conflict by externalizing it. In this sense, the instability of public reaction mirrors the instability of individual character. Both arise from the same fundamental condition: the difficulty of maintaining coherence in a world where threats are real, tensions are chronic, and the means of securing safety are never entirely adequate. Using the logic that people who immigrated illegally should be allowed to be here, even though they broke the law, is like saying the guys who crashed the airplanes on September 11, 2001, should have been allowed to do so because they made it past security. What is interesting—and where this ties back to your work—is that people often use whatever argument feels emotionally satisfying, not necessarily logically consistent. When people feel threatened, insecure, economically strained, or morally conflicted, they may reach for explanations that symbolically express their frustration, even if the reasoning is inconsistent. This is a form of self‑preservation, not logical analysis. In other words, some arguments are not really about history. Some arguments are not really about science, but they are about managing anxiety, identity, and social tension. As you can see, people adopt positions that help them cope with inner conflict, even when the reasoning is unstable. People may try to appeal to historical territorial changes to justify their modern immigration position. However, territorial history is extremely complex. Borders have shifted countless times across the world. Nations have formed, dissolved, and merged, and historical ownership does not determine modern law. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

This problem—the experience of the irrationality of the world—has been the driving force of all religious evolution. The early Christians knew full well the world is governed by demons and that he who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with all diabolical powers, and for his action it is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant. We are placed into various life-spheres, each of which is governed by different laws. Religious ethics have settled with this fact in different ways. Hellenic polytheism made sacrifices to Aphrodite and Hera alike to Dionysus and to Apollo, and knew these gods were frequently in conflict with one another. The wickedness of the world stemming from original sin allowed, with relative ease, the integration of violence into ethics as a disciplinary means against the heretics who endangered the soul. However, the demands of the Sermon on the Mount, an acosmic ethic of ultimate ends, implied a natural law of absolute imperatives based upon religion. These absolute imperatives retained their revolutionizing force, and they came upon the scene with elemental vigor during almost all periods of social upheaval. They produced especially the radical pacifist sects, one of which in Pennsylvania experimented in establishing a polity that renounced violence towards the outside. This experiment took a tragic course, inasmuch as, with the outbreak of the War of Independence, the Quakers could not take up arms in hand for their ideals, which were those of war. Normally, Protestantism, however, absolutely legitimized the state as a divine institution and hence violence as a means. Protestantism, especially, legitimized the authoritarian state. There is an ethical responsibility for war, and that is transferred to the authorities. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

To obey the authorities in matters other than those of faith could never constitute guilt. Calvinism, in turn, knew principled violence as a means of defending faith; thus, Calvinism knew the crusade, which was for Islam an element of life from the beginning. One sees that it is by no means a modern disbelief born from the hero worship of the Renaissance which poses the problem of political ethics. All religions have wrestled with it, with highly differing success, and after what has been said, it could not be otherwise. It is the specific means of legitimate violence as such in the hands of human associations which determines the peculiarity of all ethical problems of politics. Whosoever contracts with violent means for whatever ends—and every politician does—is exposed to its specific consequences. This holds especially for the crusaders, religious, and revolutionaries alike. Let us confidently take the present as an example. He who wants to establish absolute justice on earth by force requires a following, a human “machine.” He must hold out the necessity of internal and external premiums, heavenly or worldly reward, to this “machine” or else the machine will not function. Under the conditions of the modern class struggle, the internal premiums consist of the satisfying of hatred and the craving for revenge; above all, resentment and the need for pseudo-ethical self-righteousness: the opponents must be slandered and accused of heresy. The external rewards are adventure, victory, booty, power, and spoils. The leader and his success are completely dependent upon the functioning of his machine and hence not his own motives. Therefore, he also depends upon whether or not the premiums can be permanently granted to the following, that is, to the Red Guard, the informers, the agitators, whom he needs. #RandolphHarris 15 of

In every sphere of collective life, the individual who assumes a position of leadership discovers that the actual outcome of his efforts is never fully his own. What he attains is shaped not only by his intention but by the motives of those who follow him—motives which, when examined ethically, are often mixed, ambivalent, or frankly base. The following can be harnessed only so long as a genuine belief in the leader’s person or cause animates at least a portion of them; never, in the realities of earthly affairs, can one rely upon the purity of motive in the majority. The leader must therefore contend with the instability inherent in human action: the gap between the ideal he seeks to embody and the emotional currents that drive those who rally behind him. For here, as with every leader’s machine, one of the conditions for success is the depersonalization and routinization, in short, the psychic proletarianization, in the interests of discipline. After coming to power, the following of a crusader usually degenerate very easily into a quite common stratum of spoilsmen. Whoever wants to engage in politics at all, and especially in politics as a vocation, has to realize these ethical paradoxes. He must know that he is responsible for what may become of himself under the impact of these paradoxes. He lets himself in for the diabolical forces lurking in all violence. He who seeks the salvation of the soul, of his own and of others, should not seek it along the avenue of politics, for the quite different tasks of politics can only be solved by violence. Those who enter political or social struggle for the sake of what they believe to be the common good often discover that the work exacts a psychological toll. They must contend not only with external opposition but with the inner conflict that arises whenever one is compelled to use imperfect means in the service of a desired end. Under such conditions, it is not uncommon for the individual to feel that his soul is endangered, that the very act of resisting disorder draws him into the moral ambiguities he hoped to overcome. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

This sense of being “damned” is less a theological judgment than a recognition of the tragic structure of human action: no one can engage the world’s conflicts without being touched by their impurities. In the course of fulfilling one’s duty, it is not uncommon for the individual to feel that the impurities of the world have reached out and drawn him into their orbit. The work of resisting ignorance, disorder, or harm requires contact with precisely those forces one would prefer to avoid. This contact produces a sense of inner strain, as though the soul itself were endangered by the very responsibilities laid upon it. Yet it may be that such burdens are not accidental but intrinsic to the vocation. There are tasks that fall to particular individuals not because they are untainted, but because they possess the strength to endure the tension without collapsing into cynicism or despair. The genius or demon of politics lives in an inner tension with the god of love, as well as with the Christian God as expressed by the church. This tension can at any time lead to an irreconcilable conflict. Men knew this even in the times of the church rule. Time and again, the papal interdict was placed upon Florence, and at the time, it meant a far more robust power for men and their salvation of soul than the “cool approbation” of the Kantian ethical judgement. The burghers, however, fought the church-state. And it is with reference to such situations that Machiavelli, in a beautiful passage, if I am not mistaken, of the History of Florence, has one of his heroes praise those citizens who deemed the greatness of their native city higher than the salvation of their souls. If one says, “the future of capitalism” or “international peace,” instead of native city of “fatherland” (which at present may be a dubious value to some), then you face the problem as it stands now. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Everything that is striven for through political action operating with violent means and following an ethic of responsibility endangers the “salvation of the soul.” If, however, one chases after the ultimate good in war of beliefs, following a pure ethic of absolute ends, then the goals may be damaged and discredited for generations, because responsibility for consequences is lacking, and two diabolic forces with enter the play remain unknown to the actor. These are inexorable and produce consequences for his action and even for his inner self, to which he must helplessly submit, unless he perceives them. The devil is old; grow old to understand him! Age is not decisive; what is decisive is the trained relentlessness in viewing the realities of life, and the ability to face such realities and to measure up to them inwardly. Sure, politics is made with the head, but it is certainly not made with the head alone. In this, the proponents of an ethic of ultimate ends are right. One cannot prescribe to anyone whether he should follow an ethic of absolute ends or an ethic of responsibility, or when the one and when the other. One can say only this much: If in these times, which, in your opinion, are not times of “sterile” excitation—excitation is not, after all, genuine passion—if now suddenly the Weltanschauungs—politicians crop up en masse and pass the watchword, “The world is stupid and base, not I,” “The responsibility for the consequences does not fall upon me but upon the others whom I serve and whose stupidity or baseness I shall eradicate,” then I declare frankly that I would first inquire into the degree of inner poise backing this ethic of ultimate ends. I am under the impression that in the nine out of ten cases, I deal with windbags who do not fully realize what they take upon themselves but who intoxicate themselves with romantic sensations. From a human point of view, this is not very interesting to me, nor does it move me profoundly. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

However, it is immensely moving when a mature man—no matter whether old or young in years—is aware of a responsibility for the consequences of his conduct and really feels such responsibility and somewhere he reaches the point where he says: “Here I stand; I can do no other.” That is something genuinely human and moving. And every one of us who is not spiritually dead must realize the possibility of finding himself at some time in that position. Insofar as this is true, an ethic of ultimate ends and an ethic of responsibility are not absolute contrasts but rather supplements, which only in unison constitute a genuine man—a man who can have the “calling for politics.” In the United States of America, where the rule of law is stable and consistently applied, individuals experience a heightened sense of security. People are not required to adapt to chronic threat, nor to accept violence, disappearance, or predation as ordinary features of daily life. This predictability becomes a psychological asset: it reduces the burden of vigilance and allows the individual to invest energy in constructive pursuits rather than in constant self‑protection. The popularity of the United States of America is therefore not mysterious; it reflects the universal human longing for an environment in which danger is not omnipresent and where the individual can rely upon institutions to stop and/or prevent conflict and crime. However, everything that we are accustomed to call love, that which lives in the depths of the soul and in the visible deed, and even the brotherly service of one’s neighbor which proceeds from a pious heart, all this can be without “love,” not because there is always a “residue” of selfishness in all human conduct, entirely overshadowing love, but because loves as a whole is something entirely different. Only he who knows God knows what love is. It is not the other way round; it is not that we first of all by nature know what love is and therefore know what God is. No one knows God unless God reveals Himself to him. And so no one knows what love is except in the self-revelation of God. Love, then, is the revelation of God. And the revelation of God is Jesus Christ. “In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him,” reports 1 John 4.9. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

January 28, 2026 10:44 pm

I Am the Hope I Dare to Live and Give

Everything that happens to us has merit, whether we recognize the significance of it or not. Everything in our lives ultimately leads us somewhere. However, to envy anyone for the things which they have is not a noble thing to do. Envy is the cause of much trouble and should be avoided. However, we cannot help, at times, thinking that we would like to have some of these things which others possess and which, for some reason or other, we do not have. Then, again, there is much truth in the fact that if we envy someone else, we may, by that envy, be spurred on to do greater work so that we may acquire them. It is not harmful, in this way, to look around and find someone to envy—or we might say, to emulate. Such reflections on envy remind us that it is not merely a moral inclination but a distinct emotional state, one that engages the deeper mechanisms of human feeling. To understand its force, we must consider the broader principles governing emotion itself. The fundamental proposition, respecting Emotion generally, may be expressed in these words: The state of Feeling, or the subjective consciousness which is known to each person by his own experience, is associated with a diffusive action over the system, through the medium of the cerebral hemispheres. In other words, the physical fact that accompanies and supports the mental fact, without making or constituting that fact, is an agitation of all the bodily members more immediately allied with the brain by the nervous communication. The organs first affected, by a wave of nervous influence emanating from the brain, are the moving members. Some of these are more readily agitated than others—for example the features of the face; which therefore constitute the principal medium of the expression of feeling. However, observation shows that all parts of the moving system are liable to be affected by an emotional wave: while a very important series of effects is produced upon the secreting and excreting apparatus of the body. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

The coincidence of a state of mental excitement with bodily agitation is one of the most common experiences of human nature. In children, with whom no influence is as yet at work to suppress the free play of emotion, the coincidence may be produced invariable. Every stimulus, whether of pleasure or of pain, animates the features, the vocal organs, and the whole moving system. In pain, the lachrymal section is profusely poured out. So constant is the accompaniment of bodily excitement with mental, that the one is always looked upon as sufficient evidence of the other. In advancing years, there is a process of education, as well as an exercise of the will, tending to check and suppress the bodily manifestations of feeling, especially those of a more violent nature; but in cases where the suppressive influence is suspended, or where the strength of the passion breaks through the artificial barriers, the characteristics of infancy are reproduced in all their fullness. The observed agreement of bodily agitation with states of pleasure or pain is borne out by noting that the two rise and fall together in degree or intensity. Exactly as we increase a pleasurable or painful stimulus, we find the diffused expression of the bodily organs becomes more energetic. The hardly perceptible smile rises to the animated distension of all the features, and at last convulses and agitates every member into ecstatic violence. A link of causation is in this way shown to exist between feeling and bodily activity; so that in cases where no bodily excitement is shown, we presume either that the feeling is too weak to produce an effect sufficient to catch the eye of a beholder, or that some restraining power is at work. It must be in the nature of a state of emotion to cause the brain to diffuse or transmit currents to the various muscles and secreting organs; although up to a certain point of strength these do not show any sensible agitation. As soon as the agitation becomes apparent, we find it growing stronger with each addition to the moving cause. Everyone knows in their own consciousness that extreme intensity of the feeling itself, and that even on occasion where nothing is allowed to appear to others, there is nevertheless a diffused flutter and thrill accompanying any state of acute excitement. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

Recognizing envy as one instance of the broader emotional life, we may now observe how any feeling, once awakened, exerts its influence upon the whole system. As soon as the agitation becomes apparent, we find it growing stronger with each addition to the moving cause. Envy can become so strong that it overpowers a person and turns them into a different being than they typically are. To further highlight this illustration, it is well-known fact that in the heat of battle, wounds are for a time unfelt. The engrossment of the brain and bodily system is so entire that the stimulus of a sharp wound is unable to diffuse itself, and consciousness or feeling is not produced. So when the attention is strongly fixed upon one object, other impressions falling upon the senses have no effect; the sensory organ is excited, but the free diffusion through the brain and over the system is obstructed by the bent already imparted to the nervous currents. On this fact is founded one of many devices for alleviating pain, which is to engage the attention on some new class of objects. Whatever the impression be that determines the general attitude of the bodily framework, the same impression prevails in the inner consciousness. When the attention is released from something that has strongly occupied it, the recent impressions made on the sense begin to become conscious; as when a person gives no heed to words addressed to him, and after a minute or two suddenly wakes up to their import. From these examples, we may observe how envy can so completely possess the brain, the body, and the emotional nature that one becomes, for the time, incapable of perceiving another being as an object of affection. The passion gathers such force that the love which once existed can no longer penetrate the hardened armor of jealousy, and the mind, thus clouded, mistakes its own agitation for just cause of resentment. Yet, when the envied person is removed from one’s immediate sphere, the tumult often subsides; and in the stillness that follows, remorse awakens. One then begins to recall, with painful clarity, the love that had been offered and to feel the weight of guilt for having been insensible to it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

Some individuals are particularly susceptible to jealousy, and under the sway of the repetition‑compulsion, they are driven to relive, as a present reality, what has long been repressed. The earlier neurosis does not vanish; it merely returns in altered form, emerging as a fresh transference neurosis. This compulsion to repeat arises from the repressed element in the unconscious, which presses for expression whenever the person perceives a threat—whether real or imagined—in another individual or situation. Yet envy, though rooted in such deep psychological mechanisms, may still be moderated by deliberate reflection. We may cure much of it in ourselves by considering how trivial, burdensome, or ill‑suited are the things for which we envy our neighbor, or by recognizing that we already possess goods equal to those we covet. If I envy another’s greatness, I may recall that he lacks my quiet; I may even suspect that he envies me as much as I do him. And when I examine his perfections with exactness and balance them against my own, I often find that my condition is no less tolerable than his. Indeed, though many indulge envy, very few would truly exchange their lot for that of the person they resent, once all circumstances are weighed. We ought therefore to guard ourselves against every appearance of envy, for it is a passion that always implies a sense of inferiority wherever it resides. The envious person suffers precisely at those moments that ought to bring him pleasure, for another’s joy becomes his torment. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow-creatures are odious. Youth, beauty, valor, and wisdom are provocations of their displeasure. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

What a wretched and apostate state this is to be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we prove him! The condition of the envious man is the most emphatically miserable; he is not only incapable of rejoicing in another’s merit or success, but lives in a world wherein all mankind are in a plot against his quiet, by studying their own happiness and advantage. He who holds himself down, shrinking in stature lest he make any expansive motion, unwittingly prepares the very soil in which his envy takes root and festers. Moreover, he feels subdued by an ever-alive readiness to accuse and despise himself; he also feels easily frightened and spends a good deal of his energies in assuaging all these painful feelings. This developmental crisis is evoked by the necessity to manage encounters. A new sense of estrangement is awakened along with the awareness of new dependences and new familiarities. Envy is a type of infantile simplicity. It is a sense of “hallowed presence” which remains basic in neurotic adults in our society who have a desire for safety. Their reaction is often to unknown, psychological dangers in a world that is perceived to be hostile, overwhelming, and threatening. Such a person behaves as if a great catastrophe were almost always impending, id est, he is usually responding as if to an emergency. His very security rests upon being the center of attention, upon having and being “the best,” and upon looking down with condescension upon others, their belongings, and their accomplishments. This type of neurotic adult may be said to behave as if he were actually afraid of a spanking, or of his mother’s disapproval, or of being abandoned by his parents, or having his food taken away from him. It is as if his childish attitudes of fear and threat reaction to a dangerous world had gone underground, and, untouched by the growing-up and learning processes, were now ready to be called out by any stimulus that would make a child feel endangered or threatened. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

The neurosis in which the search for safety takes its clearest form is in the compulsive-obsessive neurosis. Compulsive-obsessives try frantically to order and stabilize the world so that no unmanageable, unexpected, or unfamiliar dangers will ever appear. They hedge themselves about with all sorts of ceremonials, rules, and formulas so that every possible contingency may be provided for and so that no new contingencies may appear. They resemble the brain‑injured patients described by Goldstein, who preserve their equilibrium only by avoiding everything unfamiliar and by arranging their restricted world with such meticulous order that nothing unpredictable can intrude. When this defensive rigidity appears in psychologically intact individuals, it may manifest as attempts to control, diminish, or socially demote others—undermining their standing, damaging their reputation, devaluing their achievements, or even terminating a life—in order to preserve a sense of superiority and maintain a tightly ordered inner world. Envy then becomes a pathological need for omnipotent control. Pathological controls must be established to serve as a basis of comparison. This is due to the dread of losing one’s audience, and certainly, that they will leave unless he can continuously establish his dominance, and the only way he can do that is by keeping others down, making them look bad and bragging about his importance and material objects. Even when a person is no longer in his circle, a person suffering from the pathological need for omnipotent control will still try to destroy one he truly believes is better than him. They try to arrange the world so that anything unexpected (dangers) cannot possibly occur. If, through no fault of their own, something unexpected does occur, like someone they envy finding success, they go into a panic reaction as if this unexpected occurrence constituted a grave danger. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

Each successive stage and crisis has a special relation to one of the basic institutionalized endeavors of man for the simple reason that the human life cycle and human institutions have evolved together. The relation between them is twofold: each generation brings to these institutions the remnants of infantile needs and youthful fervor, and receives from them—as long as they, indeed, manage to maintain their institutional vitality—a specific reinforcement of childlike vitality. If one can overcome envy, it becomes possible to pierce the universal amnesia that conceals the frightening aspects of childhood. In relinquishing envy, we loosen the defenses that keep those early terrors unexamined. Yet we may also gratefully acknowledge that the principal glory of childhood survives into adult life: the capacity for wonder, for spontaneous joy, and for a trust in life that, though often obscured, is never wholly extinguished. Trust, then, becomes the capacity for faith—a vital need for which man must find some institutional confirmation. Religion, it seems, is the oldest and has been the most lasting institution to serve the ritual restoration of a sense of trust in the form of faith while offering a tangible formula for a sense of evil against which it promises to arm and defend man. Childlike strength as well as a potential for infantilization are suggested in the fact that all religious practices include periodic childlike surrender to the Power that creates and re-creates, dispensing earthly fortune as well as spiritual well-being; the demonstration of smallness and dependence by reduced posture and humble gesture; the confession in prayer and song of misdeeds, misthoughts, and evil intentions and the fervent appeal for inner reunification by divine guidance. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

At best, all of this is highly stylized and thus becomes suprapersonal; individual trust becomes a common faith, individual mistrust a commonly formulated evil, while the individual’s plea for restoration becomes part of the ritual practice of many and a sign of trustworthiness in the community. When religion loses its actual power of presence, then, it would seem, an age must find other forms of joint reverence for life which derive vitality from a shared world image. Only a reasonably coherent framework provides the faith which is transmitted by the mothers to the infants in a way conducive to the vital strength of hope, that is, the enduring predisposition to believe in the attainability of primal wishes in spite of the anarchic urges and rages of dependency. The shortest formulation of the identity gain of earliest childhood may well be: I am what hope I have and give. For some, the promises of celibacy and obedience made in life can be said to relieve them of their burdens which they are not ready to assume. Sometimes, it takes a kind of shock therapy for God to change one’s mind. Others have said that Christ himself spoke. The spiritual part of the experience can also be an intra-psychic one. Martin Luther, for instance, records that something in him made him pronounce a vow before the rest of him knew what he was saying. His friends’ conviction that he was acting under God’s guidance was based on nothing but their impressions of the genuineness of his inner life. For some, celibacy provides a divine preservation tied to personal sacrifice. God is sustaining their life in recognition of their vow of celibacy. Although some individuals disparage celibacy out of ignorance or envy, the practice itself belongs to a long and well‑established tradition in which human life is interpreted through the framework of sacred commitment. Within this tradition, celibacy functions not as a denial of life but as a structured mode of meaning‑making, providing containment, purpose, and a sense of continuity with a larger spiritual order. For men who have embraced celibacy in earnest, even an ordinary thunderstorm may be interpreted as a direct intervention of Providence, directed toward them with deliberate intent. Such individuals exhibit a form of conviction that is not merely doctrinal but existential, and they stand as honest representatives of an earlier moral epoch—one in which personal vows, divine agency, and the ordering of one’s life under a sacred mandate were experienced with an immediacy seldom encountered in the modern mind. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

One cannot examine the psychological life of the individual without eventually confronting the larger question of how personal ethics relate to the structures of collective life. For if private convictions, vows, and defenses shape the individual’s conduct, we must ask what relation such ethical formations bear to the sphere of political action. Now then, what relations do ethics and politics actually have? Have the two nothing whatever to do with one another, as has occasionally been said? Or is the reverse true: that the ethic of political conduct is identical with that of any other conduct? Occasionally, an exclusive choice has been believed to exist between the two propositions—either the one or the other proposition must be correct. However, is it true that any ethic of the world could establish commandments of identical content for erotic, business, familial, and official relations; for the relations to one’s wife, to the greengrocer, the son, the competitor, the friend, the defendant? Should it really matter so little for the ethical demands on politics that politics operates with very special means, namely, power backed by violence? Do we not see that the Bolshevik and the Spartacist ideologists bring about exactly the same results as any militaristic dictator, just because they use these political means? In what but the persons of the power-holders and their dilettantism does the rule of the workers’ and the soldiers’ councils differ from the rule of any power-holder of the old regime? In what way does the polemic of most representatives of the presumably new ethic differ from that of the opponents which the criticized, or the ethic of any other demagogues? In their noble intention, people will say. Good! However, it is the means about which we speak here, and the adversaries, in complete subjective sincerity, claim, in the very same way, that their ultimate intentions are of lofty character. “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” and fighting is everywhere fighting. Hence, the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

By the Sermon on the Mount, we mean the absolute ethic of the gospel, which is a more serious matter than those who are fond of quoting these commandments today believe. This ethic is no joking matter. The same holds true for this ethic as has been said of causality in science: it is not a cab, which one can have stopped at one’s pleasure; it is all or nothing. If trivialities are not to result, this is precisely the meaning of the gospel. Hence, for instance. It was said of the wealthy young man, “He went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.” The evangelist commandment, however, is unconditional and unambiguous: give what thou hast—absolutely everything. The politician will say that this is a socially senseless imposition as long as it is not carried out everywhere. Thus, the politician upholds taxation, confiscatory taxation, outright confiscation; in a word, compulsion and regulation for all. The ethical commandment, however, is not all concerned about that, and this unconcern is its essence. Or, take the example, “turn the other cheek”; This command is unconditional and does not question the source of the other’s authority to strike. Except for a stain, it is an ethic of indignity. This is it: one must be saintly in everything; at least in intention, one must live like Jesus Christ, the apostles, St. Francis, and their like. Then this ethic makes sense and expresses a kind of dignity; otherwise, it does not. For if it is said, in line with the acosmic ethic of love, “Resist not him that is evil with force,” for the politician, the reverse proposition holds, “thou shalt resist evil by force,” or else you are responsible for the evil winning out. He who wishes to follow the ethic of the gospel should abstain from strikes, for strikes mean compulsion; he may join the company unions. Above all things, he should not talk of “revolution.” After all, the ethic of the gospel does not wish to teach that civil war is the only legitimate war. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

The pacifist who follows the gospel will refuse to bear arms or will throw them down; in Germany, this was the recommended ethical duty to end the war and therewith all wars. The politician would say the only sure means to discredit the war for all foreseeable time would have been a status quo peace. Then, the nations would have questioned, what was this war for? And then, the way would have been argued ad absurdum, which is now impossible. For the victors, at least for part of them, the war will have been politically profitable. And the responsibility for this rests on the behavior that made all resistance impossible for us. Now, as a result of the ethics of absolutism, when the period of exhaustion will have passed, the peace will be discredited, not the war. Finally, let us consider the duty of truthfulness. For the absolute ethic it holds unconditionally. Hence, the conclusion was reached to publish all documents, especially those placing blame on one’s own country. On the basis of these one-sided publications, the confessions of guilt followed—and they were one-sided, unconditional, and without regard to consequences. The politician will find that, as a result, truth will not be furthered but certainly obscured through abuse and unleashing of passion; only an all-round methodical investigation by non-partisans could bear fruit; any other procedure may have consequences for a nation that cannot be remedied for decades. However, the absolute ethic just does not ask for “consequences.” That is the decisive point. We must be clear about the fact that all ethically oriented conduct may be guided by one of two fundamentally differing and irreconcilably opposed maxims: conduct can be oriented to an “ethic of ultimate ends” or to an “ethic of responsibility.” This is not to say that an ethic of ultimate ends is identical with irresponsibility, or that an ethic of responsibility is identical with unprincipled opportunism. Naturally, nobody says that. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

However, there is an abysmal contrast between conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of ultimate ends—that is, in religious terms. “The Christian does rightly and leaves the results with the Lord”—and conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of responsibility, in which case one has to give an account of the foreseeable results of one’s action. You may demonstrate to a convinced syndicalist, believing in an ethic of ultimate ends, that his action will result in increasing the opportunities of reaction, in increasing the oppression of his class, and obstructing its ascent—and you will not make the slightest impression upon him. If an action of good intent leads to bad results, then, in the actor’s eyes, not he but the world, or the stupidity of other men, or God’s will, who made them thus, is responsible for the evil. However, a man who believes in an ethic of responsibility takes account of precisely the average deficiencies of people; as Fichte has correctly said, he does not even have the right to presuppose their goodness and perfection. He does not feel in a position to burden others with the results of his own actions so far as he was able to foresee them; he will say: these results are ascribed to my action. The believer in an ethic of ultimate ends feels “responsible” only for seeing to it that the flame of pure intentions is not quelched: for example, the flame of protesting against the injustice of the social order. To rekindle the flame ever anew is the purpose of his quite irrational deeds, judged in view of their possible success. They are acts that can and shall have only exemplary value. However, even herewith the problem is not yet exhausted. No ethics in the world can dodge the fact that in numerous instances, the attainment of “good” ends is bound to the fact that one must be willing to pay the price of using morally dubious means or at least dangerous ones—and facing the possibility or even the probability of evil ramifications. From no ethics in the world can it be concluded when and to what extent the ethically good purpose “justifies” the ethically dangerous means and ramifications. Public debates often illustrate this dilemma. Some argue, for example, that permissive immigration policies are motivated by the ethically laudable aim of offering individuals from other countries the possibility of a better life. Yet the practical ramifications of such policies are contested. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

Reports have documented criminal incidents involving certain migrant groups, including a widely publicized case in Aurora, Colorado, where alleged members of a Venezuelan gang were involved in armed home invasions and kidnappings within an apartment complex. There are also reports of violent crime, murder, and sexual assault increasing. As well as billions of dollars in fraud. Furthermore, the billions of dollars in costs to accommodate these people left American citizens victims of crime and caused them to go without the government services that they needed. The decisive means for politics is violence. You may see the extent of the tension between means and ends, when viewed ethically, from the following: as is generally known, even during the war, the revolutionary socialists (Zimmerwald faction) professed a principle that one might strikingly formulate: “If we face the choice either of some more years of war and then the revolution, or peace now and no revolution, we choose—some more years of war!” Upon the further question: “What can this revolution bring about?” Every scientifically trained socialist would have had the answer: One cannot speak of a transition to an economy that, in our sense, could be called socialist; a bourgeois economy will re-emerge, merely stripped of the feudal elements and the dynastic vestiges. For this very modest result, they are willing to face “some more years of war.” One may well say that even with a very robust socialist conviction, one might reject a purpose that demands such means. With Bolshevism and Separatism, and, in general, with any kind of revolutionary socialism, it is precisely the same thing. It is, of course, utterly ridiculous if the power politicians of the old regime are morally denounced for their use of the same means, however justified the rejection of their aims may be. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

Thus, the inconsistency of denouncing the old regime for employing means that the revolutionaries themselves do not hesitate to adopt is but one instance of a broader historical irony. The same divergence between moral intention and practical necessity that vitiates their political conduct also frustrates the very historical vocation which Marx, with such confidence, attributed to the proletariat. The revolutionary bourgeoisie seized power in 1789 because they already had it. At this period, legality, as Jules Monnerot says, was lagging behind the facts. The facts were that the bourgeoisie were already in possession of the posts of command and of the new power: money. The proletariat was not at all in the same position, having only their poverty and their hopes, and being kept in their condition of misery by the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie class debased itself by a mania for production and material power, while the very organization of this mania made the creation of an elite impossible. However, criticism of this organization and the development of rebel conscience could, on the contrary, forge a reserve elite. Only revolutionary trade unionism, with Pelloutier and Sorel, embarked on this course and wanted to create, by professional and cultural education, new cadres for which a world without honor was calling, and still class. However, that could not be accomplished in a day, and the new masters were already on the scene, interested in making immediate use of human unhappiness for the sake of happiness in the distant future, rather than in relieving as much and as soon as possible the suffering of millions of men. The authoritarian socialists deemed that history was going too slowly and that it was necessary, in order to hurry it on, to entrust the mission of the proletariat to a handful of doctrinaires. For that very reason, they have been the first to deny this mission. Nevertheless, it exists, not in the exclusive sense that Marx gives it, but in the sense that a mission exists for any human group which knows how to derive pride and fecundity from its labors and its sufferings. So that it can manifest itself, however, a risk must be taken and confidence put in working-class freedom and spontaneity. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

Authoritarian socialism, on the contrary, has confiscated this living freedom for the benefit of an ideal freedom, which is yet to come. In so doing, whether it wished to our not, it reinforced the attempt at enslavement begun by industrial capitalism. By the combined action of these two factors and during a hundred and fifty years, except in the Paris of the Commune, which was the last refuge of rebel revolution, the proletariat has had no other historical mission but to be betrayed. The workers fought and died to give power to the military or to intellectuals who dreamed of becoming military and who would enslave them in their turn. This struggle, however, has been the source of their dignity, a fact that is recognized by all who have chosen to share their aspirations and their misfortunes. However, this dignity has been acquired in opposition to the whole clan of old and new masters. At the very moment when they dare to make use of it, it denies them. In one sense, it announces their eclipse. A similar pattern may be observed in the fate of those who, in our own time, undertake the perilous task of exposing institutional misconduct. Their dignity, acquired through long resistance to the dominion of old and new masters, is acknowledged by all who share their burdens. Yet the instant they dare to assert the moral authority their struggle has earned, the institutions they confront hasten to repudiate them—thereby announcing, however unwillingly, the waning of their own legitimacy. This frightening experience, with whatever lessons in bravery, cunning, and skill it yields, is firmly sedimented in the consciousness of the individuals who went through it. If the experience is shared by several individuals, it will be sedimented intersubjectively and may perhaps even form a profound bond between these individuals. As this experience is designated and transmitted linguistically, however, it becomes accessible and, perhaps, strongly relevant to individuals who have never gone through it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

To further illustrate this dynamic, multiple Boeing employees have come forward in recent years with serious concerns about aircraft manufacturing and safety practices. Their disclosures were made under conditions of intense pressure, fear of retaliation, and, in some cases, personal danger. Those who spoke out developed a tight, intersubjective bond, for only they fully grasped the risks involved in challenging a major aerospace manufacturer. One of the most prominent figures, John Barnett, had served as a quality manager at Boeing for more than thirty years. He first filed a whistleblower complaint in 2017—one year before the first 737 MAX crash—alleging that the company’s quality‑control systems were severely inadequate. Barnett reported that faulty parts and substandard manufacturing practices were being overlooked, potentially compromising flight safety. Another whistleblower, Joshua Dean, likewise raised concerns about manufacturing defects. Both men died suddenly in 2024—Dean from a severe bacterial infection and Barnett from what authorities ruled a self‑inflicted gunshot wound. Their allegations helped catalyze ongoing investigations and legal scrutiny, brought into sharp public focus when the door plug of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 detached mid‑flight in January. Since that incident, more than one hundred additional whistleblowers have contacted the Federal Aviation Administration, demonstrating how an initially private ordeal can, once articulated and transmitted publicly, become a matter of collective concern and cultural significance. Such testimony does more than record a private ordeal; it objectifies the experience in language and thereby transforms it into a publicly available form of knowledge. Once articulated, the whistleblower’s experience can be incorporated into a wider moral and cultural tradition—invoked in debates about corporate responsibility, used as material for ethical instruction, or taken up in journalism, documentary storytelling, and public inquiry. In this way, both the immediate experience and its broader symbolic meanings become transmissible to new generations, and even to communities far removed from the aerospace industry, each of which may attach its own significance to the narrative. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

In this way, the objectified experience becomes part of the moral and psychological vocabulary through which individuals make sense of upheaval. And just as communities assimilate the lessons of others’ ordeals, individuals themselves often require a comparable jolt before meaningful change can occur. One sees this in those whose inner lives have been shaped by intense religious or ascetic experiences—such as celibate men who, in moments of crisis, report encounters or impressions that they interpret as divine communication. Typically, growth in awareness unfolds gradually, but there are times when only a dramatic rupture can dislodge a person from entrenched defenses. If the person has the courage (and the encouragement) to accept threat and not respond reflexively with mechanisms of defense, growth will go on throughout a person’s life span, even into the seventies and nineties. Properly understood, the experiences of anxiety and dread will evoke the “courage to be” and they will be harbingers of growth to richer existence. Improperly understood, or encouraged in a spirit of timidity, they lead a person to make of the identity an impregnable bastion. The person then leads a safe but often unproductive and joyless life. Courage and encouragers assist them to grow. The courage to grow can sometimes be generated in psychotherapy or in a properly conducted encounter group. Under such conditions, individuals may enlarge their self‑concept, revise their conscience in more humane and mature directions, and present a public self that corresponds more closely to the realities of their own personality and the demands of the situation. These processes can be profoundly life‑preserving. Yet it remains a sobering fact that not everyone reaches this point of transformation. Some individuals, unable to find a setting in which their inner rupture can be metabolized, become martyrs to the very forces they sought to confront. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

Lord Jesus Christ, You who stood for truth when the world preferred silence, look with mercy upon all who dare to speak out against wrongdoing in their workplaces, institutions, and communities. We grieve that so many are willing to risk their careers to do what is harmful or unlawful, while so few are willing to risk their careers to defend what is right. We lament that our society so often protects the powerful at any cost, even when their actions endanger the vulnerable, distort justice, or betray the public trust. Strengthen the whistleblowers who step forward despite fear, retaliation, and isolation; grant them courage, clarity, and the assurance that their sacrifice is not in vain. Bless the work of those who labor to support them—including the mission of this nonprofit, which seeks to advance public understanding, protect truth‑tellers, and cultivate a culture where integrity is honored rather than punished. May Your Gospel inspire us to stand firm in righteousness, to resist complicity, and to uphold justice even when the cost is great. And for those who become martyrs to truth—those whose courage is met not with gratitude but with suffering—grant them peace, and grant us the strength to continue their work with unwavering faith. Amen.

January 26, 2026 2:16 pm

Completely Wall by a Fear of a Sudden Death

Science grows by accumulation. Discoveries, inventions, and new knowledge, are added to the existing stock. These new elements are usually very small. Inventions, as additions of something new, are seen after analysis to be not nearly so large as they popularly appear to be. An invention is rather a small step in a process growing … Continue reading →

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January 23, 2026 2:55 pm

She Fashioned Him into a King of War

Who he is emerges from what he glorifies, what he hates, what he builds, and what he buries. Prince Lestat, Lord de Lioncourt, glorifies and cultivates within himself everything that means mastery. Mastery with regard to others entails the need to excel and to be superior in some way. He tends to manipulate or dominate … Continue reading →

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January 7, 2026 8:54 pm

If You Hear Voices, You’re Crazy!

In the struggle to preserve self-worth, pride often becomes both shield and prison—deflecting painful truths that threaten one’s constructed identity. Aside from a Perpetrator’s externalizations, one’s main defense on this score is an armor of self-righteousness so thick and so impenetrable that it often makes one inaccessible to reason. In arguments that may arise, a … Continue reading →

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January 4, 2026 12:23 am

We are Fighting for the Gates of Heaven

Gratitude is not just “thank you.” It is a posture. It is recognizing that life itself is a gift, that family is a blessing even when imperfect, and that every kindness someone extends deserves acknowledgment. Handwritten thank-you cards are not just a matter of etiquette; they are a sign of respect, humility, and good home training. They tell the recipient, “I see you. I appreciate you. You matter.” In a world where everything is instant, that kind of intentionality feels more meaningful. Ingratitude, however, is one of the greatest sins; gratitude is therefore one of the greatest of virtues. Gratitude builds our testimony. The very fact of expressing gratitude recognizes God’s hand in our lives and acknowledges His tender mercies to us. This, in turn, increases our confidence that the Lord will hear and answer our prayers and guide our lives. In recognizing our dependence upon the Lord, we become more dependent on Him. As our gratitude for the Lord’s blessings increases, our desire to come unto Him increases, and we will reach out to Him in all we do. Furthermore, real giving is not measured by convenience. Sometimes the most meaningful gifts are the ones that cost us something—time, comfort, or even resources we could have kept for ourselves. However, giving while you have the chance is powerful. It prevents regret, but it also strengthens relationships, honors your values, and reflects the kind of person you choose to be. It is better to give with a full heart now than to wish later that you had. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

Manners and respect, thoughtfulness and intention, generosity without expectation, living without regret, honoring the people who matter while they are still here—that is not old-fashioned—that is foundational. And honestly, it is the kind of mindset that builds strong families, strong communities, and strong legacies. The family is sacred and the most important and the most important social unit in time and eternity. God has established families to help bring happiness to His children, allow them to learn the correct principles in a loving atmosphere, and prepare them for eternal life. The home is the best place to learn, teach, and apply the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the place where individuals learn to provide food, shelter, and other necessities they need. The father and mother are equal partners and are there to help the children seek the truth and develop faith in God. Purity of heart is to will one thing as we base our meditation on the Apostle James’ words in his Epistle, Chapter 4, verse 8: “Draw night to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts ye double-minded.” For only the pure in heart can see God, and therefore, draw nigh to Him; and only by drawing nigh to them can they maintain this purity. And he who in truth wills only one thing can will only the Good, and he who only wills one thing when he wills the Good can only will the Good in truth. “Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only moments,” reports Proverbs 12.19. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

At the close of the Middle Ages, a sombre melancholy weighs on people’s souls. Whether we read a chronicle, a poem, a sermon, a legal document even, the same impression of immense sadness is produced by them all. It would sometimes seem as if this period had been particularly unhappy, as if it had left behind only the memory of violence, of covetousness and mortal hatred, as if it had known no other enjoyment but that of intemperance, of pride and of cruelty. In the records of all periods of misfortune, it has left more traces than happiness. Great evils from the groundwork of history. We are perhaps inclined to assume without much evidence that, roughly speaking, and notwithstanding all calamities, the sum of happiness can have hardly changed from one period to another. However, in the fifteenth century, as in the epoch of romanticism, it was, so to say, bad form to praise the world and life openly. It was fashionable to see only its suffering and misery, to discover everywhere signs of decadence and of the near end—in short, to condemn the things or to despise them. No other epoch has laid so much stress as the expiring Middle Ages on the thought of death. An everlasting call of momento mori resounds through life. In earlier times, too, religion had insisted on the constant thought of death, but the pious treatises of these ages only reached those who had already turned away from the world. Since the thirteenth century, the popular preaching of the mendicant orders had made the eternal admonition to remember death swell into a sombre chorous ringing throughout the world. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

Towards the fifteenth century, a new means of inculcating the awful thought into all minds was added to the words of the preacher, namely, the popular woodcut. Now these two means of expression, sermons and woodcuts, both addressing themselves to the multitude and limited to crude effects, could only represent death in a simple and striking form. In the evaluation of the dominant moods of any historical period, it is important to hold fast to the fact that there are always islands of self-sufficient order—on farms and in castles, in homes, studies, and cloisters—where sensible people manage to live relatively lusty and decent lives: as moral as they must be, as free as they may be, and as masterly as they can be. If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness. However, men, especially in periods of change, are swayed by alternating world moods which seem to be artificially created by the monopolists and manipulators of an era’s opinions, and yet could not exist without the highly exploitable mood cycles inherent in man’s psychological structure. Two most basic alternating moods are those of carnival and atonement: the first gives license and leeway to sensual enjoyment, to relief and release at all cost; the second surrenders to the negative conscience which constricts, depresses, and enjoins man for what he has left unsolved, uncared for, unatoned. Especially in a seemingly rational and informed period like our own, it is obvious how blithely such moods overshadow universally available sets of information, finding support for luxurious thoughtlessness at one time, for panicky self-criticism at another. Thus, we may say that beside and beyond a period’s verifiable facts and official doctrines, the world image “breathes.” It tends to expand and to contract in its perspectives, and to gain or lose solidity and coherence. In each careless period, latent panic only waits for catastrophe—famines, pests and depressions, overpopulation and migration, sudden shifts in technology or in leadership—to cause a shrinkage in the world image, a kind of chill attacking the sense of identity of large masses. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

Every expansion opens frontiers; every conquest exposes flanks. Gunpowder and the printing press could be used against their users; voyages revealed a world of disquieting cultural relativities; wider social contacts increased the chances of ideological contamination and of further inroads of plague and syphilis. The impact of all these Pyrrhic victories, and of the spiritual decline of the papacy and the fragmentation of the empire, produced both a shrinkage of that official perspective which was oriented toward eventual salvation, and an increase in the crudity and cruelty of the means employed to defend what remained of the Church’s power of persuasion. Thus, it is probable that in the past, there lurked in the ideological perspective of the world of many, perhaps just because the great theologians were so engrossed in scholasticism, a world image of man as inescapably sinful, with a soul incapable of finding any true identity in its perishable body. This world-image implied only one hope: at an uncertain (and maybe immediately impending) moment, an end would come which might guarantee an individual the chance (to be denied to millions of others) of finding pity before the only true Identity, the only true Reality, which was Divine Wrath. Among the increasing upper urban classes, among the patricians, merchants, and masters who were the town fathers of the ever more important cities, the reaction was developing which eventually became the northern Renaissance. These upper classes no more wanted to be the emperor’s then growing economic proletariat than they wished to end on the day of judgment as God’s proletariat who (as they could see in the paintings which they commissioned) were to be herded into oblivion by fiery angels, mostly of Italian extraction. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

This attitude reflected the discrepancy between the era of unlimited initiative then dawning and the era coming to an end which subordinated man’s identity on earth to a super-identity in heaven. However, these two eras, all too simply set off against each other as the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, corresponded, in fact, to two inner world moods; their very conflictedness corresponded to man’s conflicted inner structure. Hegel haughtily brings history to an end in 1807; the disciples of Saint-Simon believe that the revolutionary convulsions of 1830 and 1848 are the last; Comte dies in 1857, preparing to climb into the pulpit and preach positivism to a humanity returned at last from the path of error. With the same blind romanticism, Marx, in his turn, prophesies the classless society and the solution of the historical mystery. Slightly more circumspect, however, he does not fix the date. Unfortunately, his prophecy also described the march of history up to the hour of fulfillment; it predicted the trend of events. The events and the facts, of course, have forgotten to arrange themselves according to the synthesis; and this already explains why it has been necessary to rally them by force. However, above all, the prophecies, from the moment that they begin to betray the living hopes of millions of men, cannot with impunity remain indeterminate. A time comes when deception transforms patient hope into furious disillusionment and when the ends, affirmed with the mania of obstinacy, demanded with ever-increasing cruelty, make obligatory the search for other means. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

The revolutionary movement at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth lived, like the early Christians, in the expectation of the end of the world and the advent of the proletarian Christ. We know how persistent this sentiment was among primitive Christian communities. Even at the end of the fourth century, a bishop in proconsular Africa calculated that the world would only exist for another one hundred and one years. At the end of this period would come the kingdom of heaven, which must be merited without further delay. This sentiment is prevalent in the first century and explains the indifference of the early Christians toward purely theological questions. If the advent is near, everything must be consecrated to a burning faith rather than to work and to doctrine. Until Clement and Tertullian, for more than a century, Christian literature had ignored theological problems and did not elaborate on the subject of works. However, from the moment the advent no longer seems imminent, man must live with his faith—in other words, compromise. Then, piety and the catechism appear on the scene. The evangelical advent fades into the distance; Saint Paul has come to establish doctrines. The Church has incorporated the faith that has only an ardent desire for the kingdom to come. Everything had to be organized in the period, even martyrdom, of which the temporal witnesses are the monastic orders, and even the preaching, which was to be found again in the guise of the Inquisition. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

A similar movement was born of the check to the revolutionary advent. The passages from Marx already cited give a fair idea of the burning hope that inspired the revolutionary spirit of the time. Despite partial setbacks, this faith never ceased to increase up to the moment when it found itself, in 1917, face to face with the partial realization of its dreams. “We are fighting for the gates of heaven,” cried Liebknecht. In 1917, the revolutionary world really believed that it had arrived before those gates. Rosa Luxemburg’s prophecy was being realized. “The revolution will rise resoundingly tomorrow to its full height and, to your consternation, will announce with the sound of all its trumpets: I was, I am, I shall be.” The Spartakus movement believed that it had achieved the definitive revolution because, according to Marx himself, the latter would come to pass after the Russian Revolution had been consummated by a Western revolution. After the revolution of 1917, a Soviet Germany would, in fact, have opened the gates of heaven. However, the Spartakus movement is crushed, the French general strike of 1920 fails, the Italian revolutionary movement is strangled. Liebknecht then recognizes that the time is not ripe for revolution. “The period had not yet drawn to a close.” However, also, and now we grasp how defeat can excite vanquished faith to the point of religious ecstasy: “At the crash of economic collapse whose rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment, and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are bowed down with curses.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

While awaiting these events, Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg are assassinated, and Germany rushes toward servitude. The Russian Revolution remains isolated, living in defiance of its own system, still far from the celestial gates, with an apocalypse to organize. The advent is again postponed. Faith is intact, but it totters beneath an enormous load of problems and discoveries which Marxism had not foreseen. The new religion is once more confronted with Galilee: to preserve its faith, it must deny the sun and humiliate free man. What does Galilee say, in fact, at this moment? What are the errors, demonstrated by history itself, of the prophecy? We know that the economic evolution of the contemporary world refutes a certain number of the postulates of Marx. If the revolution is to occur at the end of two parallel movements, the unlimited shrinking of the capital and the unlimited expansion of the proletariat, it will not occur or ought not to have occurred. Capital and proletariat have both been equally unfaithful to Marx. The tendency observed in industrial England of the nineteenth century has, in certain cases, changed its course, and in others, become more complex. Economic crises, which should have occurred with increasing frequency, have, on the contrary, become more sporadic: capitalism has learned the secrets of planned production and has contributed on its own part to the growth of the Moloch State. Moreover, with the introduction of companies in which stock could be held, capital, instead of becoming increasingly concentrated, has given rise to a new category of smallholders whose very last desire would certainly be to encourage strikes. Small enterprises have been, in many cases, destroyed by competition as Marx foresaw. However, the complexity of modern production has generated a multitude of small factories around great enterprises. In 1938, Ford was able to announce that five thousand two hundred independent workshops supplied him with their products. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

Of course, large industries inevitably assimilated these enterprises to a certain extent. However, the essential thing is that these small industrialists form an intermediary social layer which complicates the scheme that Marx imagined. Finally, the law of concentration has proved absolutely false in the agricultural economy, which was treated with considerable frivolity by Marx. The hiatus is important here. In one of its aspects, the history of socialism in our times can be considered as the struggle between the proletarian movement and the peasant class. This struggle continues, on the historical plane, the nineteenth-century ideological struggle between authoritarian socialism and libertarian socialism, of which the peasant and artisan origins are quite evident. Thus, Marx had, in the ideological material of his time, the elements for a study of the peasant problem. However, his desire to systematize made him oversimplify everything. This particular simplification was to prove expensive for the kulaks who constituted more than five million historic exceptions to be brought, by death and deportation, within the Marxist patterns. People do not realize that certain authoritarian governments that call themselves socialist or communist carry out not only mass deportations, but also executions and political repression. That is not an opinion—it is documented history. In the Soviet Union, during the era of Mr. Stalin, policies like dekulakization involved mass arrests, executions, and the deportation of entire families to remote regions. The goal was to eliminate the kulaks class by the 1930s. It is estimated that five million people died as a result of this policy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

The implementation of dekulakization was closely tied to the consolidation of power by the Communist Party. The elimination of the kulaks was seen as a way to remove a perceived threat to the socialist state and to strengthen the position of the Party. Now, this is very important because it is very possible that something like this could play out again. According to Pew Research Center, the unauthorized immigrant population grew to a record 14 million in 2023, with the largest two-year increase ever recorded. Critics say, large numbers of unauthorized immigrants entering America will eventually shift the political landscape. Democrats allegedly support this because they believe these populations will become future voters. Government benefits are supposedly used as incentives to build loyalty. The long-term goal, according to these critics, is to create a dependent class that ensures permanent political power. President Donald Trump recently accused immigrants from Somalia of contributing to fraud in Minnesota. This accusation comes against the backdrop of a federal prosecutor’s allegation earlier in December that at least fifty percent of approximately $18 billion in federal funds allocated to Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen. Authorities stress that the day-care sites documented by journalist Nick Shirly’s footage show daycare centers for kids that are siphoning millions of dollars in government funds often have no children on site and are hostile about answering questions. Muslim Ilhan Abdullahi Omar is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Minnesota’s 5^th congressional district since 2019. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Ilhan Omar went from being nearly broke to being worth as much as #40 million in just a year—as this massive fraud scheme involving the Somali community in her district is unfolding. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

Timothy James Walz is an American politician and the 41^st governor of Minnesota. He assumed office on January 7, 2019. He was selected as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in the 2024 U.S.A. presidential election, running alongside Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic nominee for president after President Biden exited the race. Tim Walz is being asked to resign because of the fraud in federal programs in the state. This is concerning because Tim Walz could have become vice president of the United States of America. And he is not the only one to worry about. Many people question the loyalty of Kamala Harris to the United States of America because, for one, during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, she endorsed a bail fund that put violent repeat offenders back on the streets of Minneapolis. That endorsement helped the Minnesota Freedom Fund raise $40 million to release accused murderers, rapists, and thieves. Secondly, some sources estimate up to 3 million total crossings during the Biden-Harris years, and they did nothing to secure the border from this invasion. Gavin Christopher Newsome is an American politician and the 40^th governor of California, having assumed office on January 7, 2019. His loyalty to America is also questioned because he did nothing to stop the invasion at the border. California has the largest homeless population in the United States of America, and homelessness has worsened under Newsom’s leadership, even though billions have been spent to eradicate the crisis. Many have accused Newsom of fraud and failure in state spending, poor oversight of major programs, and of allowing California’s cost of living and taxes to rise sharply. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris are expected to run for president in 2028. This is concerning to many Americans because they are connected to criminals, fraud, and failure, and do not seem to have the best interests of the American people at heart. The loss of cultural identity, loss of political power, erosion of constitutional rights, government overreach, and retaliation are just some concerns. If either one of them wins the presidential race, people fear they might incorporate a de-Americanization and start mass arrests, executions, and the deportation of American families to remote regions. For an equilibrium to be restored, many believe President Trump needs a third term in office, or another Republican who loves America and is patriotic. Under Democrats, poverty and degeneration have become abundant. It is predicted that under Democratic control, the United States of America could see one-third of the working-class unemployed. It is not a good thing that future citizens are put in the situation of expecting to be fed by the State. Americans will not be able to survive under the abolition of private property. Division of labor and private property are identical expressions. Critics are saying the Democrats are socialists and communists. Multiple sources describe Venezuela as one of the most visible modern examples of a socialist system collapsing: Once the richest country in Latin America, Venezuela has suffered food shortages, poverty, economic collapse, and political repression. The government has been accused of ignoring election outcomes, suppressing dissent, and mismanaging state-controlled industries. This is often cited as a case where centralized control and the elimination of private enterprise led to a severe decline. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

There is a kind of pride that does not boast or belittle. It is the pride that comes from telling the truth, even when it is inconvenient, treating people with the same respect you expect in return, and standing up for what is right, even when it costs you something. This kind of pride is not loud. It does not need applause. It shows itself in the way you live, the way you speak, and the way you treat others. On the contrary, if anybody is determined—unconsciously—to bluff his way through life with a disregard for truth, this is not the type of person we need in office. If we consider their premises, we can understand the belief of Democrats that they possess these attributes to a high degree. To hit back or—preferably—to his first appears to them (logically!) as an indispensable weapon against the crooked and hostile world around them. It is nothing but intelligent, legitimate self-interest. Also, not questioning the validity of their claims, their anger, and the expression of it must appear to them as entirely warranted and “frank.” There is still another factor which greatly contributes to their conviction that they are particularly honest people. They see around many compliant people who pretend to be more loving, more sympathetic, more generous than they actually are. And in this, Democrats regard themselves are indeed more honest. They do not pretend to be friendly people; in fact, they disdain doing so. If they could leave it at an “At least I do not pretend…” level, they would be on safe ground. However, their need to justify their own coldness forces them to take a further step. They tend to deny that a wish to be helpful, or a friendly act, is ever genuine. They do not dispute the occurrence of friendliness in the abstract, but when it comes to concrete people, they tend to regard it indiscriminately as hypocrisy. This move, then again, puts them on top of the heap. It makes Democrats appear to themselves as the one person who is above common hypocrisy. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

This intolerance of the pretense of love has a still much deeper root than the need of Democrats for self-justification. Only after considerable analytic work, there appear here too, as in every expansive type, self-effacing trends. With their having made themselves instruments for the attainment of an eventual triumph, the necessity to bury such trends is even more stringent than in the other expansive types. A period ensues when they feel altogether contemptible and helpless and tend to prostrate themselves for the sake of being loved. We understand now than in others, Democrats despise not only the pretense of love but their compliance, their self-degrading, their helpless hankering for love. In short, they despise in them the very self-effacing trends they hate and despise in themselves. The self-hate and self-contempt that now appear are appalling in the Democratic dimensions. Self-hate is always cruel and merciless. However, its intensity or its effectiveness depends on two sets of factors. One is the degree to which a Democrat is under the sway of their pride. The other is the degree to which constructive forces counteract the self-hate—forces such as faith in positive values in life, the existence of constructive goals in life, the existence of constructive goals in life, the existence of some warm or appreciative feeling toward oneself. Since all these factors are unfavorable in the aggressive-vindictive type, their self-hate has a more pernicious quality than is usually the case. Even outside the analytic situation, one can observe the extent to which the Democrats are ruthless slavedrivers of themselves, and frustrate themselves—glorifying the frustration as asceticism. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

Such self-hate calls for rigorous self-protective measures. Its externalization seems a matter of sheer self-reservation. As in all expansive solutions, it is primarily an active one. Democrats hate and despise in others all they suppress and hate in themselves: their spontaneity, their joy of living, their appeasing trends, their compliance, their hypocrisy, their “stupidity.” Democrats impose their standards upon others, and are punitive when they do not measure up to them. Their frustration of others is in part an externalization of self-frustrating impulses. Hence, their punitive attitude toward others, which looks altogether vindictive, is instead a mixed phenomenon. It is partly an expression of vindictiveness; it is also the externalization of their condemnatory punitive trends toward themselves; and finally, it serves as a means of intimidating others for the purpose of asserting their claims. Therefore, remember to be the noblest specimens of learning, and eloquence, and wisdom, and patriotism, because by judgment of their own time and the concurrent verdict of posterity, patriots have been recognized as the foremost men and the clearest thinkers in the growing state. Patriots dare to protest against wrong. You endeavor, as far as you shall, to preserve that independence of a nation which characterizes a free people, and that wants of which may in a great measure prevent the happy efforts of a free government; cultivating as you shall have the opportunity that harmony and union there which is ever desirable to good men, which is founded on principles of virtue and public spirit, and guards against any undue weight which may tend to disadjust that critical balance upon which our happy constitution and the blessings of it depend. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

The Winchester Mystery House

Ladies and gentlemen, gather close… and welcome to the Winchester Mansion. Before we step inside, let me tell you a story—one that locals have whispered for more than a century. You see, long before this mansion stood here, this land was nothing but open fields. Empty. Silent. Undisturbed. And then, on the afternoon of Saturday, March 13, 1886, something extraordinary happened. Sheriff Angel Camilio began receiving frantic reports from townsfolk. They claimed a massive wooden castle had magically appeared. Gables rose like jagged mountains. Towers pierced the sky. Some swore that the sprawling labyrinth rose from the earth like a mushroom after rain. Others insisted it materialized out of thin air. No blueprints. No permits. No records of construction. Just… a house that wasn’t there the day before.

The house’s sudden manifestation had been both disconcerting and fascinating to the community. To some, it looked like a fairytale palace shimmering in the spring sunlight. To others, it radiated something darker—shadows that moved on their own, cold drafts on warm days, and a feeling that something unseen was watching from the windows. And then came the hearse. One morning, without warning, a black carriage barreled through these very gates. Inside was a coffin. Some believed it held Mrs. Sarah Winchester herself. Others whispered it was a decoy, or perhaps a warning from whatever spirits lingered here.

Now, legend says Sarah Winchester—widow of William Wirt Winchester, heir to the Winchester rifle fortune—was haunted by tragedy. After losing her husband and infant daughter, she sought answers from a spiritual medium. And the medium told her something chilling: “The spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles are angry. They will take your life too… unless you flee west and build them a house. A house that must never be finished.”

And so, in 1886, Sarah Winchester came here to the Santa Clara Valley. She bought an 18‑room farmhouse and began to build. And she never stopped. Day and night, for decades, hammers rang, saws screeched, and workers added room after room after room. At its peak, the mansion rose nine stories high and held as many as 600 rooms. Staircases that lead straight into ceilings. Doors that open into thin air. Windows built into the floor. Hallways that twist like a maze. Some say Sarah designed it this way to confuse the spirits that followed her.

Today, the mansion stands four stories tall, but it still stretches over 100,000 square feet. And many believe the spirits never left. Some visitors report footsteps behind them when no one is there. Others hear whispers drifting through the walls. A few have seen a woman in black wandering the corridors late at night, searching for something—or someone. Now, if you’re ready… we’re about to step inside. Stay close. Watch your step. And if you feel a tap on your shoulder or a cold breath on your neck, don’t worry. It’s probably just one of the house’s… permanent residents. Shall we begin?

And before you leave this place—whether you walk out with a shiver down your spine or a spark of wonder in your eyes—I’d like to extend a special invitation. After your journey through the mansion’s twisting corridors and secretive rooms, it would be a pleasure to have you join us for a delicious meal at Sarah’s Café. Once you’ve eaten, feel free to stroll along the paths of the Victorian gardens, which long ago stretched across 740 acres, all the way down to Stevens Creek Boulevard. Imagine the carriages, the orchards, the rolling lawns… and perhaps the quiet footsteps of someone who walked here long before you. And if you’re feeling brave, you’re welcome to wander once more through the miles of hallways inside the world’s most mysterious mansion. Every corner has a story. Every window has a whisper. And every room—well, you’ll see for yourself. Welcome to the Winchester Mansion. Enjoy your stay… for however long you choose to remain.

For further information about tours—including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and our many special events—please visit our website for all the details you’ll need to plan your next unforgettable experience: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Before you head out into the sunlight again, don’t forget to stop by our online gift shop. It’s the perfect place to find something special for friends and relatives—and perhaps a memento for yourself to remember your time inside the world’s most mysterious mansion. From classic souvenirs to unique collectibles inspired by the Winchester legend, you’ll find a wide variety of gifts waiting for you. Take a look, explore, and bring home a little piece of the mystery. Before you head out into the sunlight again, don’t forget to stop by our online gift shop. It’s the perfect place to find something special for friends and relatives—and perhaps a memento for yourself to remember your time inside the world’s most mysterious mansion. From classic souvenirs to unique collectibles inspired by the Winchester legend, you’ll find a wide variety of gifts waiting for you.
Take a look, explore, and bring home a little piece of the mystery. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/

Father, I declare that You are my source. Every good and perfect gift comes from You. Let financial breakthroughs and opportunities come my way. Amen.

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Discover the Beauty of Each Day

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Vindictiveness Has Gone Quite Out of Fashion

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December 25, 2025 6:42 am

For Me and You Nobody Cares

Roman law overwhelmingly is private law. It is a secular form of law that encompasses the legal system of ancient Rome, spanning centuries from its founding in 753 BCE, and it remains a comprehensive framework that continues to shape legal practices to this day. However, under Roman law, families were formed and property transmitted in … Continue reading →

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Telling the Truth is Often Terrifying

Lying rarely just about the words spoken in a single moment. It is often the visible tip of a much deeper structure—patterns of fear, shame, insecurity, or learned survival strategies that have been reinforced over the years. When someone lies, especially someone we care about, it is tempting to interpret the act as a personal … Continue reading →

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