A hallmark of totalitarian societies is that the people are apprehensive about being overheard or spied upon. The person who lives by oneself and for oneself is apt to be corrupted by the company he or she keeps. Humans are limited by society, economic conditions, laws, history, the church, and especially by God. Human beings are classified, defined, and fixed by a hundred institutions and a thousand conditions. Humans, however, do not want to be defined and limited; they want to be free and want to be totally free. Humans are right in wanting to be free, for freedom is the essential attribute of their identity. Human beings have to refuse to be what society and economic conditions have made of them: stuck in a certain rank of a job, which is not paying well, living on the street with a servant; someone not poor and not rich; something of a bootlicker, a bit of a hypocrite, and a social bore. By letting go of all of our undesirable traits, we are able to make in our mind a new identity: good, brave, intelligent, and heroic. In our own minds we can define who we are. When our ideas of who we are and what others see come into conflict, we can defend our freedom by rejecting what the past conditions have made of us, and we have a right to create our own identity. If individuality has no play, society does not advance; if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes. “People are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil. And the law is given unto people,” reports 2 Nephi 5. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

Finding one’s own, intimate identity can be a great blessing in the life of every human being. Everyone can obtain it if he or she realizes it comes only through the light of truth or, the light of life. “I am the light of the World: one that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,” reports John 8.12. As we endeavour to understand what it means to have the light of life, which is a most important tool to discovering our identity, we have to figure out if we are some infinite calculus, or if we are free to follow the sweet curve of our foolish will. In the scriptures human beings find that we belong to a whole, of which God is a part. Belonging to such a whole gives one a sense of the value of one’s own soul, but seen in relation to God reveals one’s dependence and hence one’s subordination. Thus, a devout use of the scriptures nourishes the spiritual life with a calm that displaces the doubts and anxieties which paralyze human kind. This statement leads some to believe humans are not really free. For this freedom implies an implacable and terrible truth about the actions of humans and their treatment of others. If there are no law to one’s nature—and there cannot be if one is to be free—then humans alone are their own law. And if one is one’s own end, one will make everything else serve that end, including other people. Even more, every a priori truth becomes illusion. Otherwise, the truth would be a prior to our choices, and our choices would be determined by it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

Truth as something absolute, timeless, and pre-existent to our choices would be impossible in this concept of freedom. Truth, like everything else in this kind of World depends on our wills. The implication of the are terrifying: every action of principle, every act of unselfishness, every good, beautiful, virtuous, reasonable act is only an appearance. No matter how much naïve and tender romantic souls may want to believe in them, they are really deceptions, for the reality is human’s free will and one’s deadly duel with others free wills. The total freedom brings us to the total terror of a Universe without truth or principle, good or evil, virtue or vice. This nihilistic version of the Universe sends some philosophers into dark ecstasy over the naked power of the will, and it creates an irresolvable dilemma: Freedom is the supreme good because humans are not humans unless they are free, but freedom is also a supreme evil because humans are free to do anything, including illimitable destruction. People think that God threatens to restrain the destructive aspect of free will by destroying freedom. That is probably because some people only explore, with incredible creative skill and dramatic power, the destructive implications of free will. Total freedom does not lead to destruction because human nature is thought to be good by law. The freedom that kills life is not the only possibility, for there is a freedom that gives life. God has made humans a little lower than Angels, and has crowed them with glory and honour. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

In this capacity humans have been given characteristics which are unique to the human race. We have an awareness of our own personality and the ability to strive for self-realization. We have the ability to extend our knowledge, to become aware of the nature of humanity and the nature of things about us. We have the power of abstract reasoning by which we compare facts and determine the relationship between them and their relevance in our lives. We have the ability and the right to make choices. This is one of the greatest gifts of God to us. We have a will to master. By this power, we can control thoughts, emotions, appetites, and passions. We have a right to worship God and can seek power from him to fulfill our destiny. With this unique capability and emphasis on the worth of souls in sight of God also comes the opportunity for confusion. We live in a materialistic World. Some become confused and seek identity through riches or the accolades of humans. The Saviour makes it very clear in his teachings that it is not possible to realize our divine identity through such means. To inherit eternal life, we must not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honour they father and thy mother. Superhumans are shaken to their roots when involved in graft, intrigue, and scandal. “While you have light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of light,” reports John 12.35-36. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

When people experience life as meaningful, they tend to express that meaning. We must be familiar with the mental process through which meaning is experienced and conveyed. If we did not know what it was to love or abhor something, to have an intention, or to express something, we could not begin to understand anything; of course we need not abhor spiders to understand Miss Muffet’s abhorrence of them. Because we are human beings and because all expression ultimate derive from the activity of individual human beings, this requisite of familiarity with mental processes is always at least partially fulfilled. Understanding expressions is knowledge of the particular concrete context in which they occur. A word is better understood, sometimes only understood, in its verbal setting; and action, in the situation that gave rise to it. To understand an expression, we must systematically explore the context in which it stands. For example, to understand a religious movement or a philosophic doctrine better, we must relate it to the climate of opinion and the social conditions of the time. To further highlight this illustration, the philosophy of Spinoza can be better understood against the background of the rise of science and the conflict between different religious sects in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Much like some of the stuff we read on social media might not seem like things the people we know would say, and does not reflect their real personality, unless what understand what it is they are responding to. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

Knowledge of the social and cultural systems determine the nature of most expressions. To understand a sentence we must know the language; to understand a chess move, the rules of the game. Two problems arise about the way we understand such systems. First, we are theoretically involved in a circle. To understand a word we must understand the language, yet to understand a language we must have come to understand the words that constitute it. In practice we solve this problem by a kind of shuttlecock movement. From approximate knowledge of individual words an understanding of the language grows; this, in turn, make sour understanding of individual words more precise; and so on. Tis procedure is characteristic of the human studies. The second problem in understanding cultural systems is more general; understanding a legal code is different from and more complex than understanding what Aunt Tori feels. Legal systems or works of literature are, of course, the products of individual minds, empirically given in physical signs (such as marks on paper) and in the psychological experiences that they precipitate. Yet it is methodologically convenient, as well as in conformity with common usage, to treat them as independent entities belonging to a sphere of their own and confronting the individual: Brown’s life, we say, has been affected by Milton’s poetry. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

Philosophy assists the human studies in the achievement of methodological clarity and receives from the, in return, the factual insights into life which are grist to its mill. Some ideas are mental, meaning that they cannot be derived from experience and must be synthesized operationally from a few unequivocal ideas used as building stones. We satisfy the desire for our own happiness in part, but only in part, by seeking the happiness of others. A person who inhibits these desires of their own which find their satisfaction in achieving the happiness of others will not in fact make oneself happy. By refusing to be benevolent, one damages one’s own self-interest and disobeys the call of self-love. Cool and reasonable self-love consists in guiding our actions by reference to a hierarchy of principles; supreme among these is moral reflection or conscience, by means of which human nature is defined and the good that will satisfy it discerned. Thus, self-love itself refers us to the arbitration of conscience, which in turn prescribes that extent and degree of benevolence which will satisfy the needs of self-love. If there were in the World today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years. Superiority to fate is difficult to learn. It is not conferred by any, but possible to earn. A pittance at a time, until, to one’s surprise, the soul with strict economy subsists till Paradise. The words you left behind have rippled the serenity and brought about some mysterious dream to my heart. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7