The Savage Garden—it is just a phrase I used to use for Earth in the old times when I did not believe in anything, when I believed the only laws were aesthetic laws. But I was young then and expecting further miracles. Before I knew we knew more of nothing, and nothing more. Sometimes I think of the phrase again when the night is like this, so accidentally beautiful. Capitalism is based on the principle that is to be found in all class societies: the use of mortal by mortal. Since the modern capitalist employs labor, the social and political form of this exploitation has changes; what has not changed is that the owner of capital uses other mortals for the purpose of his or her own profit. The basic concept of use has nothing to do with cruel, or not cruel, ways of human treatment, but with the fundamental fact that one mortal serves another for purposes which are not one’s own but those of the employer. The concept of use of mortal by mortal has nothing to do even with the question whether one mortal uses another, or uses oneself. The fact remains the same, that a mortal, a living human being, ceases to be an end in himself, and becomes the means for the economic interests of another mortal, or oneself, or of an impersonal giant, the economic machines. “For he truly spake many great things unto them, which were hard to be understood, save a mortal should inquire of the Lord; and they being hard in their hearts, therefore, they did not look unto the Lord as they ought,” 1 Nephi 15.3. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11

There are obvious objections to the foregoing statements. One is that modern mortals are free to accept or to decline a contract, and therefore one is a voluntary participant in one’s social relation to the employer, and not a thing. However, this objection ignores the fact that in the first place one has no choice but to accept the existing conditions, and secondly, that even if one were not forced to accept these conditions, one would still be employed, that is, made use of for purposes not one’s own, but of the capital whose profit one serves. The other objection is that all social life, even in its most primitive form, requires a certain amount of social co-operation, and even discipline, and that certainly in the more complex form of industrial production, a person has to fulfill certain necessary and specialized functions. While this statement is quite true, it ignores the basic difference: in a society where no person has power over another, each person fulfills one’s functions on the basis of co-operation and mutuality. No one can command another person, except insofar as a relationship is based on mutual co-operation, on love, friendship or natural bonds. “Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you,” reports 1 Nephi 15.11. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11

 Actually we find this present in many situations in our society today: the normal co-operation of husband and wife in their family life is to a large extent not any more determined by the power of the husband to command his wife, as it existed in antiquated forms of patriarchal society, but on the principle of co-operation and mutuality. The same holds true for the relationship of friends, inasmuch as they perform certain services for each other and co-operate with each other. In these relationships no one would dare to think of commanding the other person; the only reason for expecting one’s help lies in the mutual feeling of love, friendship or simply human solidarity. The help of another person is secured by my active effort, as a human being, to elicit one’s love, friendship and sympathy. In the relationship of the employer to the employee, this is not the case. The employer has bought the services of the worker, and however human one’s treatment may be, one still commands one, not on a basis of mutuality, but on the basis of having bought one’s working time for so many hours a day. The use of mortal by mortal is expressive of the system of values underlying the capitalistic system. Capital, the dead past, employs labor—the living vitality and power of the present. In the capitalistic hierarchy of values, capital stands high.er than labor, amassed things higher than the manifestations of life. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11

Capital employs labor, and not labor capital. The person who owns capital commands the person who only owns one’s life, human skill, vitality and creative productivity. Things are higher than mortals. The conflict between capital and labor is much more than the conflict between classes, more than their fight for a greater share of the social product. It is the conflict between two principles of value: that between the World of things, and their amassment, and the World of life and its productivity. Every time I insist on having my own rights, I hurt the Son of God, while in fact I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I will endure the challenge myself. A disciple realized that it is one’s Lord’s honor that is at stake in one’s life, not one’s own honor. My life’s spiritual honor and duty is to fulfill my debt to Christ in relation to lost souls. Every tiny bit of my life that has value I owe to the redemption of Jesus Christ. Am I doing anything to enable Christ to bring his redemption into evident reality in the lives of others? “In the name of the Almighty God, I command you that ye touch me not, for I am filled with the power of God, even unto the consuming of my flesh; and whose shall lay his or her hands upon me shall wither even as a dried reed; and one shall be as naught before the power of God, for God shall smite that individual,” reports 1 Nephi 17.48.  #RandolphHarris 4 of 11

Closely related to the problem of exploitation and use, although even more complicated, is the problem of authority in modern mortals. Any social system in which one group of the population is commanded by another, especially if the latter is a marginalized member of the population, must be based on a strong sense of authority, a sense which is increased in a strongly patriarchal society where the male gender is supposed to be superior to and in control of the female gender. Since the problem of authority is so crucial for our understanding of human relations in any kind of society, and since the attitude of authority has changed fundamentally from the past to the present, authority is not a quality one person has, in the sense that one has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to oneself. However, there is a fundamental difference between a kind of superiority-inferiority relation which can be called rational authority and one which may be described as inhibiting, or irrational authority. An example will show what I have in mind. The relationship between teacher and student that between slave owner and slave are both based on the superiority of the one over the other. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11

The interest of teacher and pupil are compelled in the same direction. If the teacher succeeds in furthering the pupil, he or she is satisfied. If the teacher has failed to do so, the failure is the teacher problem and the pupil’s problem. The slave owner, on the other hand, wants to exploit the enslaved human being, which is why the call them salves. It is an effort to classify them as problem which is not even worthy of being. The slave owner wants to exploit the slave as much as possible; the more one gets out of the slave, the more the slave master is satisfied. At the same time, the slave seeks to defend as best he or she can one’s claims for a minimum of happiness. These interests are definitely antagonistic, as what is of advantage to the one is detrimental to the other. The superiority has a different function in both cases: in the first, it is the condition for helping of the person subjected to the authority; in the second, it is the condition for one’s exploitation. The dynamics of authority in these two types are different too: the more the student learns, the less wide is the gap between one and the teacher. One becomes more and more like the teacher. In other words, the rational authority relationship tends to dissolve itself. However, when the superiority serves as a basis for exploitation, the distance becomes intensified through its long duration. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11

The psychological situation is different in each of these authority situations. In the first, elements of love, admiration, or gratitude are prevalent. The authority is at the same time an example with which one wants to identify one’s self partially or totally. In the second situation, resentment or hostility will arise against the exploiter, subordination to whom is against one’s own interests. However, often as in the case of a slave, one’s hatred would only lead to conflicts which would subject the slave to suffering without a chance of winning. Therefore, the tendency will usually be to repress the feeling of hatred and sometimes even to replace it by a feeling of blind admiration. This has two functions: to remove the painful and dangerous feeling of hatred, and to soften the feeling of humiliation. If the person who rules over me is so wonderful or perfect, then I should not be ashamed of obeying him or her. I cannot be one’s equal because he or she is so much stronger, wiser, better, and so on, than I am. As a result, in the inhibiting kind of authority, the element either of hatred or of irrational overestimation and admiration of the authority will tend to increase. In the rational kind of authority, the strength of the emotional ties will tend to decrease in direct proportion to the degree in which the person subjected to the authority becomes stronger and thereby more similar to the authority. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10

The difference between rational and inhibiting authority is only a relative one. Even in the relationship between slave and master there are elements of advantage for the slave. One gets a minimum of food and protection which at least enables one to work for the master. (Provided one does not get beat to death for not producing enough, or disabled to the point they cannot work and are deemed useless, at which point food and shelter and the luxury of life might cease.) On the other hand, it is only in an ideal relationship between teacher and the student that we find a complete lack of antagonism of interests. There are many gradations between these two extreme cases, as in the relationship of a factory worker with his or her boss, or a farmer’s son with his father, or a hausfrau with her husband. Nevertheless, although in reality the two types of authority are blended, they are essentially different, and an analysis of a concrete authority situation must always determine the specific weight of each kind of authority. The character of society a mixture of rational and irrational authority, with essentially a hierarchical blend, based on divine law and tradition, where the ownership of capital allows one to buy and thus command labor of those who do not, and the latter has to obey, under penalty of going on government relief or starvation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11

One cannot deny that in America today, there is a certain blending between slavery and freedom, the new and the old hierarchical pattern. The state, especially in the monarchial form, cultivates the antiquated virtues of obedience and submission, and applies them to new contents and values. Obedience, int the middle class, is still one of the fundamental virtues and disobedience one of the elementary vices. “They were confounded and could not contend against me; neither durst they lay their hands upon me nor touch me with their fingers, even for the space of many days. Now they durst not do this lest they should wither before me, so powerful was the Spirit of God; and this it has wrong upon them. And it came to pass that the Lord declared unto me: Stretch forth thine hand again unto thy brethren, and they shall not wither before thee, but I will shock them, saith the Lord, and this will I do, that they may know that I am the Lord their God. And it came to pass that I stretched forth my hand unto my people, and they did not wither before me; but the Lord did shake them, even according to the word which he had spoken,” reports 1 Nephi 17.52-54. At the same time, however, rational authority had developed side by side with irrational authority. Since the Reformation and the Renaissance mortals had begun to rely on their own reason as a guide to action and value judgment. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11

 The mortals felt proud to have convictions which were theirs, and they respected the authority of scientists, philosophers, historians, who helped them to form one’s own judgments and to be sure of one’s own conviction. The decision between true and false, right and wrong, was one of the utmost important and, indeed, both the moral and the intellectual conscience assumed a paramount place in the character structure of current mortals. One may not have applied the rules of one’s conscience to mortals of a different color or even of a different social class, yet to some extent one was determined by one’s sense of right and wrong, and at least by the repression of the awareness of wrong-doing, if one did succeed in avoiding wrong action. “May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes flee before him. As smoke is blown away by the wind, may you blow them away; as wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God. However, may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful. Sing to God and praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds—his name is the LORD—and rejoice before him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of windows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a Sun-scorched land,” reports Psalm 68.1-6. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11There is nothing neutral about the soul. It is the possession of the source of life. Either we respond to what the soul presents in its fantasies and desires, or we suffer from this neglect of ourselves. The power of the soul can hurl a person into ecstasy or into depression. It can be creative or destructive, gentle or aggressive.  “And the fire will never leave us though the path divides between us. You always had the strength to walk alone and the quiet hours would haunt you and the wilder winds, they called you, I almost had the strength to let you go. Why were you falling? Far, far away. I still remember you and those days could not get better. I keep it all, this will not fade, I will never let it. I know you gave it all so good, I cannot forget it. Still lost in you, on that day we will stay forever. Stay forever. And I know that time is speeding, experiences fleeting. I would give them all away to bring you home. Why were you falling? Far, far away. Forever lost in you and those days could not get better. I keep it all, this will not fade, I will never let it. I know you gave it all so good, I cannot forget it. Still lost in you, on that day we will stay forever. Forever lost in you…” reports Emma Hewitt (Still remember). Power incubates within the soul and then makes its influential move into life as the expression of the soul. If there is so soulfulness, then there is no true power, and if there is no power, then there can be no true soulfulness. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11