And so down the long centuries it comes down to this. Was it you, you traitor to everything the believed? It had to be, did it not? You petty deserter. May God forgive you that you made peace with your enemy. Did you lead them here by the hand yourself? You made are people as hard as ice, that is what you did. Frozen solid. If there is a soul left in them, I cannot feel it. But what do I know? Humans really should be called the valuator. No people could live without first valuing; if a people will maintain itself, however, it must not value as its neighbor valueth. The existence of a very general attitude toward experience, of a sort that disposes toward complexity of outlook, independence of judgment, and originality, has been suggested by the result of the studies. Valuing is created; hear it, ye creating ones! Valuation itself is the treasure and jewel of the valued things. Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the soul of existence would be hollow. Hear it, ye creating ones! Individuals who refuse to yield to strong pressure from their peers to concur in a false group opinion described themselves, on an adjective check-list, as original and artistic much more frequently than do subjects who yielded to such group pressure. In addition, the independent (nonyielding) subjects show a definite preference for complex and asymmetrical line drawings, as opposed to simple and symmetrical drawings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

 This preference for the complex and asymmetrical has been show previously to be highly correlated both with the choice of art as a vocation and with rated artistic ability among art students. Furthermore, in a sample of Ph.D. candidates in the sciences, preferences for the complex and asymmetrical figures proved to be significantly related to rated originality in graduate work. This relationship was found among graduating medical school seniors who were rated for originality be the medical school faculty. Other evidence indicated that the opposed preferences, for complexity or for simplicity, were related to a generalized experiential disposition: the preference for complexity is associated with a perceptual attitude that seeks to allow into the perceptual system the greatest possible richness of experience, even though discord and disorder result, while the preference for simplicity is associated with a perceptual attitude that allows into the system only as much as can be integrated without great discomfort and disorder, even though this means excluding some aspects of reality. From all these considerations, certain hypotheses as to the characteristics of original persons were derived and put to the test in the present study. Hypothesis one is that original persons prefer complexity and some degree of apparent imbalance in phenomena. The second hypothesis is that original persons are more complex psychodynamically and have greater personal scope.  #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

The third hypothesis is that original persons are more independent in their judgments, and the fourth hypothesis is that original persons are more self-assertive and dominant. The fifth hypothesis is that original persons reject suppression as a mechanism for the control of impulse. This would imply that they forbid themselves fewer thoughts, that they dislike to police themselves or others, that they are disposed to entertain impulses and ideas that are commonly taboo, and in general that they express in their person the sort of indiscipline that psychoanalytic theory would ascribe to a libidinal organization in which derivatives of the early anal rather than of the late anal stage in which psychosexual development predominate. What is common to both rational and irrational authority is that it is overt authority. You know who orders and forbids; the father, the teacher, the boss, the king, the officer, the priest, God, the law, the moral conscience. The demands or prohibitions may be reasonable or not, strict or lenient, I may obey or rebel; I always know that there is an authority, who it is, what it wants, and what results from my compliance or my rebellion. Thus the ability to respond in an unusual or original manner will be greatest when freedom is great. Now freedom is related in a very special manner to degree and kind of organization. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

In general, organization in company with complexity generates freedom; the more complex the level of integration, the greater is the repertoire of adaptive responses. However, the tendency toward organization may operate in such a fashion as to maintain a maladaptive simplicity. We are familiar in the political sphere with totalitarian stats which depend upon suppression to achieve unity; such states are psychodynamically similar to the neurotic individual who suppresses one’s own impulses and emotions in order to maintain a semblance of stability. There are at hand enough case histories of both such organizations, political and private, to make it clear that the sort of unity and balance that depends upon total suppression of the claims of minority affects opinions is maladaptive in the long run. Suppression is a common way of achieving unity, however, because in the short run it often seems to work. Increasing complexity puts a strain upon an organism’s ability to integrate phenomena. One solution of the difficulty is to inhibit development of the greater level of complexity and thus to avoid the temporary disintegration that would otherwise have resulted. Originality, then flourishes where suppression is at a minimum and where some measure of disintegration is tolerable in the interests of a higher level of integration which may yet be reached. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

If we consider the case of a human being who develops strongly the disposition toward originality, we must posit certain personal characteristics and personal history which facilitated the development of such a disposition. In our hypotheses, the term dominance was used to describe one trait of the regularly original individual. Dominance may be translated as a strong need for personal mastery, not merely over other persons, but over all experience. It initially involves self-centeredness (which in its socialized form may come to be known as self-realization). One aspect of it is the insistence on a high degree of self-regulation, and a rejection of regulation by others. For such a person, the most crucial development crisis in relation to control of impulse comes, if we accept the psychoanalytic formulation of stages of psychosexual development, at the anal stage of socialization. At this level one learns independence is important and necessary, as well as toilet training and to keep one’s clothes clean. What our hypotheses have suggested is that there is a beneficial rebellion against the prohibition of unregulated anal production, and a carrying of the derivatives of anal indiscipline into adult life. The original person, in adulthood, thus often likes things messy, at least at first. The tendency is toward a final order, but the necessary preliminary is as bis a mess as possible. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Viewed developmentally, the rejection of externally imposed control at the anal stage is later generalized to all external control of impulse, with the tendency toward socially unlicensed phallic activity, or phallic exhibitionism in its more derivative forms, being simply another expression of the general rejection of regulation of impulse by others, in favor of regulation of impulse by oneself. The disposition toward originality may thus be seen as a highly organized mode of responding to experience, including other persons, society, and oneself. The socially disrated traits that may go along with it include rebelliousness, disorderliness, and exhibitionism, while the socially valued traits which accompany it include independence of judgment, freedom of expression, and novelty of construction and insight. Every act has an infinite number of deterministic elements in it, to be sure, but at the moment of personal decision something occurs which is not just the product of these conditioning forces. A man, for example, is confronted with a picket line as he arrives to board a steamer for a trip to fill a speaking engagement. The strike, say, is one which the issue of justice is far from simple, as in the recent disputes in the New York harbor between two stevedore unions. The man is confronted with what for him, let us assume, is a strong ethical issue—shall he cross the picket line? #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

The man may endeavor by countless means to determine the justice of the strike, to weigh his own needs to take the trip, or alternate means of transportation. However, the point of decision to board the ship or not, he draws himself together and assumes the risk in his decision. This risk will be present no matter which way he decides. The action, like a dive into water, is done by the person as a whole or not at all. To be sure we are speaking in somewhat ideal terms; many persons would tend to act by a rule—I never cross picket lines,” or “The hell with strikers”—and to rationalize out of the responsibility this way or that. However, to the extent that the person is able to fulfill his human capacities in any action—that is, to choose in self-awareness—he makes the decision as a relative unity. This element of unity does not arise merely out of the integration of his personality—though the more mature he is, the more will he be able to act in this way. Rather, it arises from the fact that any action chosen in self-awareness is a placing of oneself on the line as it were; it involves a commitment, to a greater or lesser extent a leap. It is as though one were saying, “To the best of my lights at the moment this is what I choose to do, even thought I may know more and choose differently tomorrow.” The person’s act of choosing itself throws a new element into the picture. The configuration is changed, if ever so slightly; someone has thrown his weight on one side or the others. This is the creative and the dynamic element in decision. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

As everyone knows, a person is influenced in a multitude of ways by unconscious forces. However, it is often overlooked that conscious decisions, if they are soundly and not precipitately or defiantly made, can change the direction in which unconscious forces push. This is illustrated most fascinatingly in drams in therapeutic sessions when a person as been struggling for months to make the decision, let us say, to leave home and get a job on one’s own. During these months one’s dreams have been roughly equally on the pro and con side of the issue, some dreams warning one to stay home, others saying it is better to go. One finally makes the decision to leave and one’s dreams suddenly become strongly on the optimistic side, as if the conscious decision releases some unconscious power likewise. It seems that there are potentialities within us for healthy which are not released until we make a conscious decision. Allegorically, the individual’s decision is like that of the Israelites in their battle against the army of Sisera: “the stars in their courses fought Sisera,” but not until the Israelites decided to fight, too. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

An ethical act, then, must be an action chosen and affirmed by the person doing it, and act which is an expression of one’s inward motives and attitudes. It is honest and genuine in that it would be affirmed in one’s dreams as well as one’s waking thoughts. Thus an ethical mortal does not act on the conscious levels as though one loves someone when on unconscious levels one hates the individual. To be sure, no integrity is perfect; all human actions have some ambivalence, and no motives are entirely pure. An ethical action does not mean one must act as a completely unified person—with no doubts at all—or one would never act. One will always have struggle, doubt, conflict. It means only that one has endeavored to act as nearly as possible from the center of oneself, that one admits and is aware of the fact that one’s motives are not completely clear and assumes responsibility for making them clearer as one learns in the future. In this emphasis on inner motives in ethical acts, the findings of modern psychotherapy and the ethical teachings of Jesus have their clearest parallel. For the essential point in Jesus’ ethics was his shifting the emphasis from the external rules of the Ten Commandments to inward motives. Out of the heart are the issues of life. The ethical issues of life, he held, are not simply “thou shalt not kill,” but rather are inward attitudes toward other persons—anger, resentment, exploitative lust in the heart, railings, jealousies, and so on. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

The wholeness of the mortal whose external actions are at one with one’s inner motives is what is meant by the expression in beatitudes, the pure in heart. Purify your hearts, ye double-minded! Some persons will be frightened by the freedom in such an ethics of inwardness, and made anxious by the responsibility which this places on each mortal’s decisions. They may yearn for the rules, the absolutes, the rigid ancient law, which relieves us of this fearful burden of free choice. And in the longing for a rule, one might protest, your ethics of inward motives and personal decision lead to anarchy—everyone can then act as one wishes! However, freedom cannot be avoided by such an argument. For what is honest and true for a given person is not totally dissimilar from what is true for others. Dr. Tillich has stated that “the principles which constitute the Universe must be sought in mortals,” and the converse is true, that what is found in mortal’s experience is to some extent a reflection of what is true in the Universe. This can be clearly illustrated in art. A picture is never beautiful if it is not honest, and to the extent that it is honest, that is, represents the immediate, deep and original perceptions and experience of the artist, it will have at least the beginnings of beauty. This is why the art work of children, when it is an expression of their simple and honest feelings, is almost always beautiful: any line one make as a free, spontaneous person will have it in the beginning of grace and rhythm. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

The harmony, balance and rhythm which are principles of the Universe, present in the movement of stars as well as atoms, and underlying our concepts of beauty, are likewise present in the harmony of rhythm and balance of the body as well as other aspects of the self. However, at the moment the child begins to copy, or to draw to get praise from adults, or to draw by rules, the lines become rigid, constricted, and the grace vanishes. The truth in the inner light tradition in religious history is that one must always begin with oneself. No one has known God who has not known oneself—fly to the soul, the secret place of the Most High. Relating this truth, each individual is one’s own center, and the entire World centers in one, because one’s self-knowledge is a knowledge of God. This is not the whole story of ethics and the good life, but certainly if we do not start there we will get no place. The religious and philosophical development after the end of the Middle Ages is too complex to be treated within the present volume. It can be characterized by the struggle between two principles: the Christian, spiritual tradition in theological or philosophical forms and the pagan tradition of idolatry and inhumanity that assumed many forms in the development of what might be called the religious of industrialism and the cybernetic era. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Following the tradition of the Late Middle Ages, the humanism of the Renaissance was the first great flowering of the religious spirit after the end of the Middle Ages. The ideas of human dignity, of the unity found in it an unencumbered expression. The seventeenth—and eighteenth-century Enlightenment expressed another great flowering of humanism. If we examine the foundation of this faith, we find that at every turn the Philosophers betrayed their debt to medieval thought without being aware of it. The French Revolution, to which Enlightenment philosophy had given birth, was more than a political revolution. It was a political revolution which functioned in the manner and which took on in some sense the aspect of a religious revolution. Like Islamism and the Protestant revolt it overflowed the frontiers of countries and nations and was extended by preaching and propaganda. Radical humanism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is descried later on, in my discussion of the humanist protest against the paganism of the industrial age. However, to provide a base for that discussion we must now look at the new paganism that has developed side by side with humanism, threatening at the present moment of history to destroy us. The change that prepared the first basis for the development of the industrial religion was the elimination, by Martin Luther, of the motherly element in the church. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Although it may appear an unnecessary detour, I must dwell on this problem for a while, because it is important to our understanding of the development of the new religion and the new social character. Societies have been organized according to two principles: patricentric (or patriarchal) and matricentric (or matriarchal). The matricentric principle is centered in the figure of the loving mother. The motherly principle is that of unconditional love; the mother loves her children not because they please her, but because they are her (or another woman’s) children. For this reason the mother’s love cannot be acquired by good behavior, nor can it be lost by sinning. Motherly love is mercy and compassion (in Hebrew rachamim, the root of which is rechem, the womb”). Fatherly love, on the contrary, is conditional; it depends on the achievements and good behavior of the child; father loves that child most who is like him, for instance, whom he wishes to inherit his property. Father’s love can be lost, but it can also be regained by repentance and renewed submission. Father’s love is justice. The two principles, the feminine-motherly and the masculine-fatherly, correspond not only to the presence of a masculine and feminine side in any human being but specifically to the need for mercy and justice in every man and woman. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

The deepest yearning of human beings seems to be a constellation in which the two poles (motherliness and fatherliness, female and male, mercy and justice, feeling and thought, nature and intellect) are united in a synthesis, in which both sides of the polarity lose their antagonism and, instead, color each other. While such a synthesis cannot be fully reached in a patriarchal society, it existed to some extent in the Roman Church. The Virgin, the church as the all-loving mother, the pope and the priest as motherly figures represented motherly, unconditional, all-forgiving love, side by side with the fatherly elements of a strict, patriarchal bureaucracy with the pope at the top ruling by power. Corresponding to these motherly elements in the religious system was the relationship toward nature in the process of production: the work of the peasant as well as of the artesian was not a hostile exploitative attack against nature. It was cooperation with nature: not destructive but transforming nature according to its own laws. Martin Luther established a purely patriarchal form of Christianity in Northern European that was based on the urban middle class and the secular princes. The essence of this new social character is submission under patriarchal authority, with work as the only way to obtain love and approval. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Behind the Christian façade arose a new secret religion, industrial religion, that is rooted in the character structure of modern society, but is not recognized as religion. The industrial religion is completely incompatible with genuine Christianity. It reduces people to servants of the economy and of the machinery that their own hands build. The industrial religion had its basis in a new social character. Its center was fear of and submission to powerful male authorities, cultivation of the sense of guilt for disobedience, dissolution of the bonds of human solidarity by the supremacy of self-interest and mutual antagonism. The sacred in industrial religion was work, property, profit, power, even though it furthered individualism and freedom within the limits of its general principles. By transforming Christianity into a strictly patriarchal religion it was still possible to express the industrial religion in Christian terminology. How do we learn to mistrust our anger and pass this mistrust on from one generation to another? After all, the idea that anger has a legitimate and inevitable place in life has been stated many times before. Yet the suppression of anger remains an actual, though sometimes disavowed, ideal for most of us. Our mistrust of our anger is learned, of course. And we learn it because it is taught to us. And the teaching begins early. Even small babies are frequently punished for angry behavior and rewarded for behavior that is more pleasing to the parents. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

As the child grows older, the training becomes more specific and explicit. The child is told not to express anger toward parents, or brothers and sisters, or others. He is taught that anger is bad and that it is bad because it is the opposite of love. Most parents are too sophisticated these days to say, “If you get angry with me, it means you do not love me.” Or: “If you get mad at me, I will not love you any more.” Or: “If you do something, and I get angry with you, it means I do not love you.” However, despite our intellectual sophistication about these matters, we still give them because we are not so sure that they are not true. This is probably the most important way in which the ideal of the suppression of anger is maintained in our culture. A perpetual cycle is set up. We, as parents, having been subtly indoctrinated as children, cannot accept within ourselves the anger that we all experience. Our inclination is to avoid admitting our anger and dealing directly with our guilt about it. It is much easier for us to recognize and condemn the anger we see in our children. So when our children express anger toward us, we react quickly to their talking back or smarting off. The anger we express under these circumstances is, of course, justified because we are doing it for the good of the child and to teach one a lesson. In other words, we have been righteously indignant. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Our children, then, through many of these experiences, come to feel guilty about their anger when they feel it and more so when they express it. In order to please us and society they may try to suppress entirely this evil side of their nature. Unless the continuing cycle is interrupted, they, too, will eventually become parents well prepared to teach their children to mistrust their feelings of anger. Another reason we learn to mistrust our anger is that we often have little opportunity to learn as children that we can be very angry without being dangerous. Often the only message the child hears is that if he or she becomes angry the outcome is likely to be disastrous. He is apt, for example, to understand that if one becomes angry with the boy next door one is liable to be in danger of being harmed. Under these circumstances one has little opportunity to learn that one can express anger directly and openly without the necessity of resorting to harmful violence. One frightening reality is that there is indeed danger when a person has been encouraged to view oneself along these extreme lines, so that one says of oneself, “If I do not keep my anger suppressed, I am likely to hurt someone.” When the emotional overload of anger eventually piles up beyond the point where is can be suppressed, such a person is not prepared to act any way but violently, with the flood of backed-up emotion suddenly released. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Children also learn to mistrust their feelings of anger because their parents make it apparent that they are afraid of their own anger. Some parents go to great lengths to avoid letting the children see them fight. They feel so frightened and guilty about their anger that they assume it would be very frightening and emotionally damaging to their children for them to witness their parents in a heated argument. What the children often witness are sullen silences between their parents that are probably frightening to the child because one has no idea what they are about and yet sense the anger. The child often interprets these silences as much more serious breaches between the parents than they actually are. And when the child does happen to overhear a fight between the parents (perhaps without their knowledge), it may seem as though the family is disintegrating, since one has been taught by word and implication that anger is a cataclysmic and catastrophic occurrence in human relationships. However, even if the parents were successful in hiding all their disagreements, the results would probably still be harmful; for the child would be likely to feel even more guilty and frightened about one’s own anger when one has no opportunity to observe similar feelings in one’s parents’ dealings with each other. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

On the other hand, when parents make little or no attempt to hide their anger from their children, but have not learned to fight creatively, it is certain to be frightening to the children. Such fights lead nowhere. Perhaps when the argument begins, dad stomps out of the hose or mother withdraws behind a bitter wall of silence. Or perhaps the fighting degenerates into an incessant bickering back and forth that fails to clarify the real issues. The fears that keep the parents from dealing creatively with their anger are almost certain to infect the child under such circumstances. For the child has been denied the opportunity to see those one loves dealing openly and realistically with anger. One as not been able to witness one’s parents in a natural ebb and flow of anger openly and directly expressed, resulting in relief of tension, clearing of the air, and the good feeling of having been oneself, followed by the reassertion of their deep affection also being expressed openly and directly. “But behold, my limbs did receive their strength again, and I stood upon my feet, and did manifest unto the people that I had been born of God,” reports Alma 36.23. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19