The fact that mortals have reason and imagination leads not only to the necessity for having a sense of one’s own identity, but also for orienting oneself in the World intellectually. This need can be compared when the child can walk by oneself, touch and handle things, knowing what they are. However, when the ability to walk and to speak has been acquired, only the first step in the direction of orientation has been taken. Mortals find themselves surrounded by many puzzling phenomena and, having reason, one has to make sense of them, has to put them in some context which one can understand and which permits one to deal with them in one’s thoughts. The further one’s reason develops, the more adequate becomes one’s system of orientation, that is, the more it approximates reality. However, even if a person’s frame of orientation is utterly illusory, it satisfies one’s need for some picture which is meaningful to one. Whether one believes in the power of a totem animal, in a rain god, or in the superiority and destiny of one’s own race, one’s need for some frame of orientation is satisfied. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

Quite obviously, the picture of the World which one has depends on the development of one’s reason and of one’s knowledge. Although biologically the brain capacity of the human race has remained the same for thousands of generations, it takes a long evolutionary process to arrive at objectivity, that is, to acquire the faculty to see the World, nature, other persons and oneself as they are, and not distorted by desires and fears. The more mortals develop this objectivity, the more one is in touch with reality, the more one matures, the better can one can create a human World in which one is at home. Reason is mortal’s faculty for grasping the World by thought, in contradiction to intelligence, which is mortal’s ability to manipulate the World with the help of thought. Reason is mortal’s instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is mortal’s instrument for manipulating the World more successfully; the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the terrestrial aspect of mortal. Reason is a faculty which must be practiced, in order to develop, and it is indivisible. By this I mean that the faculty for objectivity refers to the knowledge of nature as well as to the knowledge of mortals, of society and of oneself. If one lives in illusions about one sector of life, one’s capacity for reason is restricted or damaged, and this the use of reason is inhibited with regard to all other sectors. #RandolpHarris 2 of 8

Reason in this respect is like love. Just as love is an orientation which refers to all objects and is incompatible with the restriction to one object, so is reason a human faculty which must embrace the whole of the World with which humans are confronted. The need for a frame of orientation exists on two levels; the first and the more fundamental need is to have some frame or orientation, regardless of whether it is true or false. Unless mortal have such a subjectively satisfactory frame of orientation, one cannot live sanely. On the second level the need is to be in touch with reality by reason, to grasp the World objectively. However, the necessity to develop one’s reason is not as immediate as that to develop some frame of orientation, since what is at stake for mortals in the latter case is one’s happiness and serenity, and not one’s sanity. This become very clear if we study the function of rationalization. However unreasonable or immoral an action may be, mortals have an insuperable urge to rationalize it, this is, to prove to oneself and to others that one’s action is determined by reason, common sense, or at least conventional morality. One has little more difficulty in acting irrationally, but it is almost impossible for one not to give one’s action the appearance of reasonable motivation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

If mortals were only a disembodied intellect, one’s aim would be achieved by a comprehensive thought system. However, since one is an entity endowed with a body as well as a mind, one has to react to the dichotomy of one’s existence not only in thinking but in the total process of living, in one’s feelings and actions. Hence any satisfying system of orientation contains not only intellectual elements but elements of feeling and sensing which are expressed in the relationship to an object of devotion. The answers given to mortal’s need for a system of orientation and an object of devotion differ widely both in content and in form. There are primitive systems such as animals and totemism in which natural objects or ancestors represent answers to mortal’s quest for meaning. There are nontheistic systems like Buddhism, which are usually called religion although in their original form there is no concept of God. There are purely philosophical systems, like Stoicism, and there are monotheistic religious systems which give an answer to mortal’s quest for meaning in reference to this concept of God. However, whatever their contents, they all respond to mortal’s need to have not only some thought system, but also an object of devotion which gives meaning to one’s existence and to one’s position in the World. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

Only the analysis of the various forms of religion can show which answers are better and which are worse solutions to mortal’s quest for meaning and devotion, better or worse always considered from the standpoint of mortal’s nature and one’s development. Th courage to be as a part is the courage to affirm one’s own being by participation. One participates in the World to which one belongs and from which one is at the same time separated. However, participating in the World becomes real through participation in those sections are actual with which one is partially identical. The more self-relatedness a being has the more it is able, according to the polar structure of reality, to participate. Mortals as the completely centered being or as a person can participate in everything, but one participates through that section of the World which makes one a person. Only in the continuous encounters with other persons does the person become and remain a person. The place of this encounter is the community. Mortal’s participation in nature is direct, insofar as one is a definite part of nature through one’s bodily existence. One’s participation in nature is indirect and mediate through the community insofar as one transcends nature by knowing and shaping it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

Without language there are no universals; without universals no transcending of nature and no relation to it as nature. However, language is communal, not individual. The section of reality in which one participates immediately is the community to which one participates immediately is the community to which one belongs. Though it and only through it participation in the World as a whole and in all its parts is mediated. Therefore, one who has the courage to be as a part has the courage to affirm oneself as a part of the community to which one participates. One’s self-affirmation is a part of the self-affirmation of the social groups which constitute the society to which one belongs. This seems to imply that there is a collective and not only an individual self-affirmation, and that the collective self-affirmation is threatened by nonbeing, producing collective anxiety, which is met by collective courage. One could say that the subject of this anxiety and this courage is a we-self as against the egoselves who parts of it are. However, such an enlargement of the meaning of “self” must be rejected. Self-hood is self-centeredness. Yet there is no center in a group in the sense in which exists in a person. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

There may be a central power, a king, a queen, a president, an emperor, an empress, or a dictator. One may be able to impose his or her will on the group. However, it is not the group which decides if he or she decides, though the group may follow. Therefore it is neither adequate to speak of a we-self nor useful to employ the terms collective anxiety and collective courage. When describing the three periods of anxiety, we pointed out that masses of people were overtaken by a special type of anxiety-producing situation and because outbreaks of anxiety are always contagious. There is no collective anxiety save an anxiety which has been overtaken many or all members of a group and has been intensified or changed by becoming universal. The same is true of what is wrongly called collective courage. There is no entity we-self as the subject of courage. There are selves who participate in a group and whose character is partly determined by this participation. The assumed we-self is a common quality of ego-selves within a group. The courage to be as a part is like all forms of courage, a quality of individual selves. A collectivist society is one in which the existence and life of the individual are determined by the existence and institutions of the group. In collectivist societies the courage of the individua is the courage to be as a part. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

Looking at so-collective primitive societies one finds typical forms of anxiety and typical institutions in which courage expresses itself. The individual members of the group develop equal anxieties and fears. And they use the same methods of developing courage and fortitude which are prescribed by traditions and institutions. This courage is the courage which every member of the group is supposed to have. In many tribes the courage to take pain upon oneself is the test of full membership in the group, and the courage to take death upon oneself is a lasting test in the life of most groups. The courage of one who stands these tests is the courage to be as a part. One affirms oneself through the group in which one participates. The potential anxiety of losing oneself in the group is not actualizes, because the identification with the group is complete. I wish I was one of those saints. Maybe that is why I had to write this chapter. However, I am not a saint. And that did not even take five minutes for you to know it, so do not complain. It is just that I cannot forget my passion to be officially canonized. “My God hath been support; he hath led me through mine afflictions s in the wilderness; and he hath prescribed me upon the water of the great deep. He hath filled me with his love, even consuming my flesh. He hath confounded mine enemies, unto the causing them to quake before me,” reports 2 Nephi. 420-23. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8

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