The moral sense is an influencing motive in our pursuit of virtue and our avoidance of vicious behavior, and it plays a part in our bestowal of praise and blame. In the twenty-first century, many people seem to be on a quest for individuality that itself is more a product of the power relations of an essentially conformist and elaborately micromanaged society than an authentic expression of true human need. This is our World: focus groups, elaborate surveillance, and single televised entertainment events beamed simultaneously into billions of homes, much like the historical wedding of Prince Harry and Princess Meghan Markle. Every aspect of our life is watched over, chronicled, legislated, recorded, and turned into a massive database on the likes, needs, habits, desires, and activities of the modern human. How did we get ourselves into this paradoxical state? Because someone wanted to psychologically control large groups of people. The masses were also characterized as an intrinsically dangerous, unpredictable, and irrational rabble. And because of and despite their volatility, crowds could be manipulated. Whatever be the ideas suggested to crowds, they can only exercise effective influence on condition that they assume a very absolute, uncompromising, shape. Gustave Le Bon, the father of mass psychology and patron saint of propaganda, had a clarion call that would come to affect the future billions: Dumb it down! #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

It has been observed in criminology that most criminals are just copy cats lacking innovation. Gabriel Tarde, a criminologist, believed society to be a group of beings who are apt to imitate one another. The masses are supposedly sleepwalking through life, noting that society is imitation and imitation is a kind of somnambulism. The French media critics like Legrand du Saulle and Despine, warned against the moral contagion in which the press publicizes crimes and sensational stories that are immediately imitated. Hysteria is an emotional disturbance that manifests in a variety of physical symptoms, such as blindness, anesthesia, or paralysis. These symptoms are produced by the subconscious functions that are dissociated from normal awareness. People essentially are susceptible to sentiment—they will copy whatever they are shown are told. Conformity is the distinctive quality of the mass human. They conform because they are suggestible. Once suggestible, people submit to idea and emotions of which they were unaware, rising up from the depths of their psyche. Half asleep, some individuals plunge into the mysterious World of dreams, which they take for reality. These people copy automatically, obey somnabulistically, and together with the rest, flows with the human tide. They must be withdrawn from the resistance of the censorship. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

The crowd is a beat that wants only to be fed—and will eat anything—and that is why it is so easy to manipulate mass culture. Leaders and tycoons of industry have also been instructed to ignore what the people in the crowd might actually want by pronouncing that crowds are by nature crazy and hysterical. It followed that the crowd was open to manipulation for the crowd’s own good. The crowd, faceless and sometimes dangerous, must be picked apart, studied, made to obey. This is something that is seen particularly in California, which has a lack of affordable housing, high energy rates, and extremely expensive gas, people are not protesting for rent control, affordable housing, or a living wage. Instead, they are fighting to add more people to the situation who are not Americans and unlawfully entered the country. The most pressing issue in California, according to many democratic leaders and their followers is making illegal immigration legal, while legal Americans struggle to get by. Notice how the morning papers mornings news shows set the agenda for the day’s conversation so the sheep can be sheared even as they gaze. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

However, we have a challenge to rise above the plateaus we have been on. Life was purposefully designed to place us in circumstances where we can be individually tested and where, by the exercise of the agency God has given us, we can determine what our future possibilities will be. “We are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient to humans. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all humans, or to choose captivity and death,” reports 2 Nephi 2.27. The more frustrated you become; failing to find common ground usually results in the use of force—crying, yelling, stomping, physical battle. However, crying or aggression rarely solves the problem and usually escalates tension. “We have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for ourselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law according to the commandments which God has given,” reports 2 Nephi 2.26. Every person many act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency given unto him or her, that every people may be accountable. When we understand what right and wrong are, we are in a position to exercise our freedom in making choices. In so doing, we must stand accountable for our decisions, and we cannot escape the inevitable consequences of these choices. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

Physicists have found that by changing their expectations of the manner in which particles and waves will move they can actually cause these subatomic events to shift course. In other words, not even the laws of nature are immune to the power of perception. (Incidentally, these experiments are further support of the importance of visualization in achieving what you want.) By our very endowment as children of an Eternal Father, we have had implanted within our souls the urgency to be free. If perception is so powerful that it can change energy patterns, it is not something you want to ignore. It is natural for us to want to be accountable for our own fates, because there is a whispering within us confirming that this accountability is absolutely essential to the attainment of our eternal destiny. The existence of laws, regulations, and procedures has never been sufficient to compel people to obey. Productive obedience comes through the exercise of free will. Conflict not only enables us to improve the situation at hand, it also provides learning opportunities that makes us better people. All that it usually requires to improve any relationship is for one of the parties to shift into a more conciliatory, compassionate, and curious view of other people. When one individual in a conflict is able to see the opponent as a worthwhile person with worthwhile opinions, resolution almost always occurs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

Learning to respect one’s adversary is crucial to conflict resolution. The first step toward negotiation is to separate the person from the problem. In other words, do not confuse how you feel about the person (or the person’s behavior) with how you view the issue. Conflict resolution is always more likely when you can be generous enough to extend your opponent the recognition and respect that the person seeks from you. (You should only forgo this approach is your adversary is operating out of evil motives. And while evil motives do exists, they are much less frequently a factor then we presume.) Since we tend not to respect the opinions of people whom we consider unlikable, we need to learn to view our opponent not as unattractive, unpleasant person, but as an individual who possesses a combination of traits—some of which cause us to react optimistically, some negatively, some neutrally. It is only when we can see our opponents as real, multidimensional people that we can hope to build the other critical ingredient of conflict resolution: trust. Respectful listening builds trust, and when we trust people, we feel comfortable negotiating with them. The more you can learn about your opponent, the better able you will be to bring respect and trust to the situation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

From the Renaissance and Enlightenment emerges this idea of human rights, of a humankind in which each person deserves to be free and uplifted. The Enlightenment ideal of individual human dignity, which is now enshrined in society gives life to essential freedoms. However, if we allow ourselves to accept dependency and regulation and cease valuing independence and self-accountability, then we are vulnerable to the forces that destroy freedom. Then the one thing we no longer own, we cannot possess, it will not be able to be charged on MasterCard and protected through hiring private security, are our values, thoughts, and integrity. These are assets compromised and invaded by the paradoxical creation of a herd-like individuality. If righteousness is judged primarily by the degree to which one responds to programmed activity, then a condition develops within which opportunities for progress decline. The resulting tragedy affects the mortal potential of human beings and has a profound effect on our eternal possibilities as well. Programmed behavior cannot produce the level of spiritual development required to qualify one for eternal life. A necessary range of freedom and self-determination is essential to one’s spiritual development. With an understanding of correct principles and intrinsic desire to apply them, one must be motivated within oneself to do many good things of one own free will; for, as the revelation says, the power is in one wherein that individual in an agent unto oneself. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

 Lord, Heavenly King, comforter, spirit of truth, have compassion and mercy on us, and pardon our unworthiness, and forgive us all the sins that we committed today, and not only humanly but even worse than a beast—our sins, known and unknown, from our youth and from evil suggestions, and from our brazenness, and from boredom. If we have sworn by your name or blasphemed it in in thought, blamed or reproached anyone, or in our anger have detracted or slandered anyone, or grieved anyone, or if we have got angry about anything, or have told a lie, if we have slept unnecessarily, or if a beggar has come to us and we despised or neglected him or her, or if we have troubled our people or quarreled with them, or if we have condemned anyone, or have boasted, or have been proud, or lost our temper with anyone, or if when standing in our prayer our minds have been distracted by the glamour of this World, of if we have had depraved thoughts or have overeaten, or have drunk excessively, or have laughed frivolously, or have thought evil, or have seen the attraction of someone and been wounded by it in our heart, or said indecent things, or made of our people’s sin when our own faults are countless, or been neglectful of prayer, or have done some other wrong that we cannot remember—for we have done all this and much more—have mercy, Lord and Creator, on us, your children. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

Dear God, please absolve and forgive and deliver us in your goodness and love for human beings, so that, lustful, sinful and wretched as we are, we may lie down and seep and rest in peace. And we shall worship, praise, and glorify your most honourable name. Lord, deprive us not of your Heavenly joys. God, deliver us from eternal torments. Lord, if we have sinned in mind or thought, in word or deed, forgive us. God, deliver us from all ignorance, forgetfulness, cowardice and stony insensibility. God, deliver us from ever temptation. Lord, enlighten our hearts, which evil desire have darkened. God, we being human have sinned, but you being the generous God, have mercy on us, knowing the sickness of our souls. Lord, please send your grace to our help, that we may glorify your name. God, write our names in the book of life, and grant us a good end. God, even though we may not have done anything good in your sight, yet grants us by your grace to make a good start. Lord, sprinkle into our hearts the dew of your grace. Lord of Heaven and Earth remember us and accept us. A careful balance must be maintained between which is ordered for the welfare of the group and that which is reserved for the conscience and incentive of the individual. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9