I cannot wait for this. If you have a mind to talk for once, I want to hear it. Carry on as if I was not here to cheer you along. It is the lack of faith in humanity which makes it possible for the authoritarian systems to conquer mortals, leading them on to have faith in an idol rather than in one’s self. However, knowing this, do you ever feel trapped and longing to escape, trying to bury out the thought it your head, you pick up a book and tear through the pages, as if you will reach some kind of salvation by the time the book is over. Before you know, you have read hundreds of books, but are still in the same position, but mentally, you realized you have grown. To regain your privacy, you stop sharing things on social media, stop talking about your day, hobbies, what movie you are watching and stop replying to comment. And you pray, hoping that God will save you and elevate you to a higher plane. There is really nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, but you have a picture in your mind of where you would like to be, and have worked hard enough to get there, but are not quite there yet. No telling how long it will take, you keep the visions of your dreams the main focus in your day. Cognitive dissonance means literally clashing ideation, a situation in which disharmony (or dissonance; both terms come from the field of music) exists within the cognitive structures, in our ideas, beliefs, values, or thought processes. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14

Cognitive dissonance is a complicated motivational force. Though there is no implication that this is an innate need, we know that it operates powerfully in the lives of many of us. When a person’s beliefs come into conflict with his or her behavior, we say the person is in a state of internal disharmony: cognitive dissonance. The need is to reduce the conflict, to harmonize the dissonance. We take as our illustration a young woman of thirty who came to consult with me some years ago and was my patient for a brief period. A graduate of one of the best New England girls’ colleges, she had grown up in a well-to-do suburb, was intelligent and attractive, and seemed in every way a typically nice girl. In college, she had absorbed what had then been the generally accepted belief in togetherness and the family, and had chosen as her goal to get married on graduation and immediately raise a large family. She had admirably lived up to her plan by marrying her boy friend from a neighboring college on commencement day, and then had five children, spaced one every two years just as she had planned. However, when she came to me at the age of thirty, she revealed that she was in love and having an affair with an auto science engineer, with whom, for the first time in her life, she was experiencing strong passion. She reported that she had never loved her husband but had contempt for him. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14

By the time she considered psychotherapy (on the urging of friends), she had gone home with her five children to live with her parents in the suburbs—a curious and pathetic denouncement to what had once been such brave plans. However, this was her means of reducing the dissonance—of bringing herself back into cognitive harmony, or consonance—by changing her behavior. Cognitive dissonance is a very complex, yet very common, motivational situation wit which we have to contend. The young lady and I were not able to do much effective therapy because she felt that love with this auto science engineer to be sacred and she did not wish to go into it. When I happened to see her some years later, she seemed a faded middle-aged woman working dutifully to support her children. This daughter of upper middle-class suburbia had gotten herself into a situation which was little susceptible of solution, is not less so, than the old-time prototype of the lost girl who has a child out of wedlock. The reason was certainly not lack of information or lack of planning and responsibility. A modern, intelligent woman, my patient with her five children seemed in many ways as trapped as her forebears in Victorian times before the emancipation of women and the invention of contraceptives. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14

The mere capacity for family planning is not an obviation of the tragic. The psychological meaning of contraception is the expanding of the realm of personal responsibility and commitment. However, far from being easier, this personal relationship may have to carry more weight and may therefore, be harder. Since contraception allays anxiety about pregnancy in a given act of intercourse, it seems to be used in out culture as a symbol that we have left behind us once and for all the tragic aspect of love in the form of pleasure of the flesh. Now I am certainly in favor of contraceptives and the planning of procreation—a point so obvious it ought not need to be made. However, this almost universally accepted principle of birth control should not blind us to the fact that contraception, great boon to pleasures of the flesh as it is, does not change one white the basic issue about which we are talking. Although it frees the individual from the immediate biological enchainment of pregnancy, it may well increase one’s psychological ambivalence. The tragic dimension of pleasures of the flesh and love is just as prevalent as it always was, even with contraception, but is raised out of the automatic, biological realm to the psychological realm. This is where tragedy should be any way; it is not the biological facts of life itself, such as death and procreation, that give the tragic dimension, but how we as human beings relate to these inescapable necessities of human fate. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14

The tragic is always a psychological and spiritual issue. There is also the dilemma of personal responsibility which comes from the freedom to choose to have a baby or not. It has been possible to plan babies for the last hundred years, and though we have acted upon that power, we have never accepted the psychological and personal responsibility for it. Our blithe evasion of that issue comes out in the guilt we feel as a whole society toward our children. We do everything for them, we cater to their development and their whims, we count it a sign of our broadmindedness and virtue that we give in to them on ever moral issue so that the poor children have an impossible time trying to find something about these always-giving-in parents against which they can revolt. When they go away, we say, “Have a good time,” and we get worried if they do not have a good time and worried if they have too good a time. And all the while we are secretly envious of them and their youth and resentful at how good they have it as compared with how hard we had it. Through all of this treating our youth like little royalty, heirs apparent to Heaven knows what, we are the maid-in-waiting, chauffeurs, cooks, nurses, doctors, bottomless money-bags, home teacher, camp leaders—until it is no wonder our children stand up and scream, “For Heaven’s sake, leave us alone!” #RandolphHarris 5 of 14

And that is the biggest threat of all to us—for we are filled with some nameless, pervasive guilt about our children and cannot let go. And guilt we are expiating is not about some specific thing we did or did not do in rearing them; it is about the basic fact of having children in the first place. For no longer does God decide we are to have children; we do. And who has even begun to comprehend the meaning of that tremendous fact? Or imagine the couples—and, with the need for population control, there will perforce be many—who will plan to have only one baby: consider the tremendous psychic weight this poor infant will have to carry. As we see in our therapy, particularly wit professional people who have had their one child, there is great temptation to overprotect the infant. When he calls, the parents run; when he whimpers, they are abashed; when he is sick, they are guilty; when he does not sleep, they look at thought they are going to have nervous breakdowns. The infant becomes a little dictator by virtue of the situation he is born into, and could not be anything ese if he wanted to. And there is, of course, the always complicating and contradictory fact that all this attention actually amounts to a considerable curtailing of the child’s freedom, and he must, like a prince born into a royal family, carry a weight for which children were never made. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14

Contraception, like all devices and machines, can increase our range of freedom and choice. However, the new freedom and power thus given to us also increases our ambivalence and anxiety, an ambivalence which now expresses itself in the banalization of pleasures of the flesh and love. As the girls who, in these days of the birth patrol bill, are exercising more freedom with their intimacy, for many it seems it is just too much trouble to say no. To make something banal, to undercut its significance, to say it does not matter, is the method par excellence of avoiding anxiety. Is not the upshot of the situation that contraception is misused to serve a detached, indiscriminate, here-today-and-gone-tomorrow attitude toward pleasures of the flesh? Surely an act which carries as much power as the pleasures of the flesh, and power in the critical area of passing on one’s name and species, cannot be taken as banal and insignificant expect by doing violence to our natures, if not to nature itself. With contraception, pleasures of the flesh can become, at least in some instances, a purely personal relationship. And the challenge this presents to us is no less than finding the meaning of this personal relationship. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14

Let us be very specific. There are no such things as homosexuals. To classify these people as such, to give them a name, is to dehumanize and thingify them. They are human beings. They are people, anatomically, physiologically, and emotionally the same as people who are considered heterosexual. Medical experts have found only an infinitesimal number of people whose hormones or genital structures seem to predispose them to what is called homosexuality. The majority of homosexual human beings have acquired a preference, a need for, a liking for pleasures of the flesh with members of their own gender. Through some learning experience, through some emotional reaction, they have found it easier, more comfortable, more tolerable, to have sexual involvement with their own sex. Each human being is born with the latent potential of loving anyone, of either sex. You have studied physiology and anatomy in any detail know that each of us caries not only hormones of the opposite sex, but primitive or vestigial sex organs of the opposite sex. Through combinations of experiences, through associations or traumas or accidental combinations, some people come to prefer the sexual companionship of their own gender. Some have actual fear of disgust of the opposite sex. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14

In many cases, we find deep-seated hostility. These reactions can occur without any strong feelings for their own sex, but because of loneliness, or sexual drive, through happenstance combination (like the military, parochial school, private school, fraternities, or camps) they are involved in close associations with members of the same gender. In a friendship, there is usually a strong need for expression of affection. Often the close non-erotic love of two same-sex people is mistake by the participants or by observers as homosexual. Some people are sensitive and affection with old friends and because they may greet them with a big bearhug or a kiss on the cheek—an honest and authentic display of affection between old friends, observers might find it offensive. Quite likely, not a few many have been concerned about their own sexual identity. Certainly our experience tells of many people who are overly concerned with the sexuality of others convinces us that they are in much conflict over their own, but people who openly tolerate others are generally secure in their own being. Many men, feeling strong ties or inclination of affection toward their fathers, brothers, friends, and acquaintances, are quite certain that they are interested in men. They are not convinced of any overt action on their part, but because their upbringing has made it difficult for them to show affection to anyone, especially to a member of the same sex. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14

Women in this country are a bit more comfortable with contact and displayed affection among women. Yet, there is this same panic among many women, too. The panic may occur for two social reasons: many religious teach that homosexual involvement is a sin; and most countries in western civilization make it an illegal behavior. Great Britain, however, has recently changed its attitude toward homosexuality, viewing it now as a medical or emotional situation and not a matter of legalistics. And gay marriage is not legal in much of the United States of America. Among the underground press in this country, over the past ten years, there has been a growing pressure to get society to let up on those who choose sexual partners that are different from those we call normative. The Gay Liberation Front has linked arms and forces with the Women’s Liberation Movements and the radical liberation groups. Are people who live homosexual lives happy? This is a difficult question to answer. Our clinical experience has included psychotherapy with both males and females with homosexual love-lives. Obviously, the person coming to mental health clinic is unhappy about something. Usually the person who brings us one’s sexual life for treatment is dissatisfied or unhappy about some aspect of it, even if it is only the reaction one gets from the larger society. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14

Treatment is difficult, but certainly not impossible. The person with either a homosexual love-life or homosexual panic, who is motivated to explore his or her feelings about it and about oneself, can come to a point where on may choose whichever form of sex life one pleases. A growing body of homosexuals are learning to accept their different preferences, and with the acceptance comes the ability to lead productive, happy lives. All of us have experienced the pain associated with a physical injury or wound. When we are in pain, we typically seek relief and are grateful for the medication and treatments that help to alleviate our suffering. The Lord’s truth is that not altered by fads, popularity, or public opinion polls. No matter what, we are told to love our neighbor as ourselves and not to judge them. Keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever. Truly the Spirit of the Lord as been here in rich abundance. We all have to come down from peak experiences to deal with the regular vicissitudes of life. Please do not be cast down in spirit and do not give up. God wants all of his children to have hope and inspiration. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14

 One of the most significant insights is that a great many of our motives—what our real reasons—are not fully known to us, not only because of our lack of information but because our consciousness will not recognize them. Obedience to the law of chastity will increase our happiness in mortality and make it possible our progress in eternity. Chasity is very important to God. Chasity is sexual purity. All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of Heavenly parents, and has a divine nature and destiny. Those who are chaste are morally clean in their thoughts, words, and actions. Chasity means not having sexual relations before marriage. It also means complete fidelity to husband or wife during marriage. Unconscious motivation may explain many of the things we say, do, or commit ourselves to. We are agents blessed with moral agency and are define by our divine heritage as children of God—and not by sexual behaviors, contemporary attitudes, or secular philosophies. As we look beyond mortality and into eternity, it is easy to discern that the counterfeit companionship advocated by the adversary is temporary and empty. “Use boldness, but not overbearance; and also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love; see that ye refrain from idleness,” reports Alma 38.12. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14

 Love increases through righteous restraint and decreases through impulsive indulgence. We are promised that, as we pursue the pathway of virtue, the Holy Ghost shall be our constant companion. Our innate longing to belong is fulfilled in righteousness as we walk in the light with hope. However, the industrialist concentrates on machines and neglects mortals, who are the producer and developer of the machine and, obviously, has far greater potentialities. One will not consider the fact that undeveloped geniuses are doing manual jobs in one’s plant where they have neither the opportunity nor are given the incentive to develop themselves to genius or even to normal intelligence and skill. The lack of interest of the worker in one’s work creates dissatisfaction which either leads to a decrease in the productiveness of the worker, or to industrial strife and class struggle. America is at the crossroads in this matter. A decision must be made, and soon. There is much lack of understanding by the people generally, yet they must choose. On their decision rests the future of the United States, and of the individual. In industry, the goal of the company’s operation that is stated in the by-laws is to make a profit, and profit only. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14

However, it is important that incentive for work are recognized. Workers want safety, seniority, security, and bargaining power. This will allow them to have a sober and realistic appreciation of the economic and human facts of Capitalism. People should be rewarded for all the things they do well that are of help, and penalized if one does not do as well as others in all these same ways. One is a member the team, and is rewarded or penalized, depending on what one can do and does do in all opportunities to win the game. The person is rated by all those who have accurate knowledge of some phase of his or her work. The best employee gets the praise and the standing one warrants and craves. In the bonus plan, one is rewarded in direct proportion to one’s contribution to the success of the company. The principle involved in incentive management is in one respect drastically different from that of traditional Capitalism. The worker’s wages, instead of being independent from the efforts and results of one’s work, are related to it. One participates in increasing profits, while the stockholder gets a regular income which is not quite as directly related to the earnings of the company. The company record show clearly that this system leads to increased productivity of the worker, low labor turnover, and absence of strikes. This system of incentive management is the most logical consequence of the capitalistic system. Capitalism in which the dissatisfaction of the worker is overcome by making one feel that one too is a capitalist, and an active participant in the system. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14