In the following months, I learned more than I can ever recount here. I studied vigorously, and paid attention even to the government of the city, which I thought basically as tiresome as any government, and read voraciously the great Christian scholars, completing my time with Abelard, Duns, Scouts and other thinkers. Whether the ostensible purpose of these primitive dances we learned about are animistic-religious or magical-material, one constant feature in them is that they are group performances and not solo or couple acts. The main crises of human life are dramatized, couched in movement and shared by all who participate in the dace, thus alleviating the inflictions which inevitably follow from human existence, and enriching and ornamenting the joys which are incidental to life. The choral dace is the physical manifestation of groupward drives. Whatever vital experience the primitive group has to face, its sharing by every member is made possible by the translation of that experience into rhythmic muscular movements simultaneously executed by all. The speechless eloquence of posture and gesture supplemented the primitive vocabulary of prehistoric humanity and became a powerful medium of social intercourse. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14

The choral dance was not merely instrumental in securing group unity for ulterior purposes like a good harvest or the propitiation of evil demons. The groupward drives, the yearning for a tangible, physically manifested unity exist on their own account and suffuse the dance ritual whatever its ostensible purpose. In the choral dance an inarticulate consensus and an absolute fraternity are reaffirmed from time to time, thus tightening up group cohesion and conserving solidarity. In it the individual member finds a reassurance that one is not alone. The Australian aborigines—who were living in the Stone Age—seemed the most paradoxical of all, with their luxuriant systems of kinship classification and their complex divisions of their tribe into half and half and then half again. This passion for splitting things into two polar opposites that were complementary was a most striking and widespread feature of primitive being’s social organization. (The Chinese Yin and Yang is a survival of this phenomenon.) A person belonged either to one half or the other, traced one’s descent from a common ancestor, often identified with a particular animal totem representing one’s half, usually married someone in the other half, and had rigorously specified types of relationship with people in the other half, including the duty to bury them and mourn for them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14

One of the main things that took place between the halves was something Homo sapiens seem to thrive on: contest of skill and excellence. It is believed that the teasing and mocking behaviors which anthropologists call “joking relationships” may have had their origin there. In fact, it is possible that all team games arose out of the dual organization. The primitive mind was just as intelligent as ours, just as intent on them. Primitive beings fed into their cerebral computer all the important natural facts of this World as one observed and understood them, and tried to relate them intimately to one’s life just we try to relate the mechanical laws of the Universe to our own. Did we wonder at the complexity of primitive symbolism and social organization? Well, it was because primitive beings tried to organize their society to reflect their theory of nature. Anthropology has shown with increasing clarity how social life in the archaic period normally rests on the antagonistic and antithetical structure of the community itself, and how the whole mental World of such a community responds to this profound dualism. The human mind has a natural tendency to split things into contrasts and complementarities, which is called binary opposites. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14

Binary opposites is a term that has given a great boost to the computer freaks, this binary tendency of the primitive mind, because it seems to show that beings function naturally just like the computer—and so the computer can be championed as the logical fulfillment of basic human nature, and the mystery of mind and symbolism might well be traceable down to simple neural circuits and so forth. People divine themselves into two groups in order that they may impart life to one another, that they may intermarry, compete with one another, make offerings to one another, and do to one another whatever is required by their theory of prosperity. The reason for the dual organization is so foreign to us that we may not at first see it: it was necessary for ritual. The fundamental imperative of all ritual is that one cannot do it alone; beings cannot impart life to oneself but must get if from their fellow beings. If ritual is a technique for generating life, then ritual organization is a necessary cooperation in order to make that technique work. In some early civilizations this potential of the choral dance was recognized, for instance, the training of the Greek soldier included the performance of marital dances. The dance was a means of giving soldiers carriage, agility and health, and cultivating esprit de corps. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14

War dances not only constitute a popular form of entertainment but serve at the same time to crystallize group solidarity.  Dance was originally nothing but a vehicle of religious mysticism, to us it appears that it was a medium of a paradigmatic experience which at its core was strictly and social or communal. The experience of a union, however, is not merely a gratification of social hunger, of the instinct of gregariousness, that is, of biosocial need. The satisfaction of this propensity is often accompanied by an auto-intoxication comparable only to ecstasy involved in pleasures of the flesh which results in a temporary draining of the will from stubborn self-regard and in the gathering of reckless sacrificial emotions. Under these conditions individual separateness disappears and phylic unity is complete; and it is under these conditions that the group’s reality is supreme and exclusive. Through the choral dance primitive beings successfully achieved two objectives: the effective sharing of the burdens of one’s conflicts and tensions, a sharing which reaffirmed and deepened the bonds of fellow-feeling; a catharsis through the rhythmic communal rapture which renewed and strengthened the individual. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14

The choral dance, therefore, was not only a socio-political vehicle of group solidarity but also a primitive method of group psychotherapy. Repressed powers are loosed and seek expression; an innate sense of rhythm orders them into lively harmony. Harmony deadens and dissipates the will, the dancer gives oneself over to the supreme delights of play prescribed by custom, gives oneself over to the exhilaration which carries one away from the monotony of everyday life, from palpable reality, from the sober facts of experience. Inn the ecstasy of the dancer, beings bridge the chasm between this and the other World. Captivated and entranced one bursts one’s Earthly chain and trembling feelings oneself in tune with all the World. The “chasm” here referred to is that which exists between one solitary individual and another. The transcending of solitariness has always appeared to mystics, poets, and philosophers as a communion with the Godhead, a surrender to the essential beauty of nature or an acceptance of the Universe. Whilst all that they experienced was a spiritualized, symbolical expression of their biosocial life. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14

The deeper level of explanation for the dual organization is so simple we may not see it: it is phenomenological. Beings need to work their magic with the materials of this World, and human beings are the primary materials for the magic wrought by social life. One of the main motives of organismic life was the urge to self-feeling, to the heightened sense of self that comes with success in overcoming obstacles and incorporating other organisms. The expansion of the self-feeling in nature can come about in many different ways, especially when we get to the human level of complexity. Beings can expand their self-feeling not only by physical incorporation but by any kind of triumph or demonstration of one’s own excellence. One expands one’s organization in complexity by games, puzzles, riddles, mental tricks of all types by boasting about their achievements, taunting and humiliating one’s adversaries, or torturing and killing them. Anything that reduces the other organisms and adds to one’s own size and importance is a direct way to gain self-feeling; it is a natural development out of the simple incorporation and fighting behavior of lower organisms. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14

By the time we get to beings we find that one is in an almost constant struggle against not to be diminished in one’s organismic importance. However, as one is also and especially a symbolic organism, this struggle against being diminished is carried on on he most minute levels of symbolic complexity. To be outshone by another is to be attacked at some basic level of organism durability. To lose, to be second rate, to fail to keep up with the best and the highest sends a message to the nerve center of the organism’s anxiety: “I am overshadowed, inadequate; hence I do not qualify for continued durability, for life, for eternity; hence I will die.” However, is not the attitude of basic anxiety and hostility toward people, described as an essential constituent of neuroses, a normal attitude which secretly all of us have, though perhaps in a lesser degree? When considering this question one has to distinguish two points of view. If “normal” is used in the sense of a general human attitude, one could say that the basic anxiety has indeed a normal corollary in what German philosophical and religious language has termed the Angst der Kreatur. All of us are helpless toward forces more powerful than ourselves, such as death, illness, old age, catastrophes of nature, political events, accidents. The first time we recognize this is in the helplessness of childhood, but the knowledge remains with us for our entire life. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14

This anxiety of the Kreatur has in common with basic anxiety the element of the helplessness toward greater powers, but it does not connote hostility on the part of those powers. If “normal” is used, however, in the sense of normal for our culture, one could say this much: in general experience will lead a person in our culture, provided one’s life is not too sheltered, to become more reserved toward people as one reaches maturity, to be more cautious in trusting them, more familiar wit the fact that often people’s actions are not straightforward but are determined by cowardice and expediency. If one is an honest person one will include oneself; if not one will see all of this more clearly in others. In short one develops an attitude which is definitely akin to the basic anxiety. There are these differences, however: the healthy mature person does not feel helpless toward these human failings and there is in one none of the indiscriminateness that is found in the basic neurotic attitude. One retains the capacity of bestowing a god deal of genuine friendliness and confidence on some people. Perhaps the differences are to be accounted for by the fact that the healthy person made the bulk of one’s unfortunate experiences at an age when one could integrate them, while the neurotic person made them at an age when one could not master them, and as a consequence of one’s helplessness reacted to them with anxiety. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14

Failure, then failure! So the World stamps us at every turn. We strew it with our blunders, our misdeeds, our lost opportunities, with all the memorials of our inadequacy to our vocation. And with what a damning emphasis does it then blot us out! The subtlest forms of suffering known to beings are connected with the poisonous humiliations incidental to these results. And they are pivotal human experiences. A process so ubiquitous and everlasting is evidently an integral part of life. We just say way: because it is connected to the fundamental motive of organismic appetite: to endure, to continue experiencing, and to know that one can continue because one possesses some special excellence that makes one immune to diminution and death. This explains too the ubiquitousness of envy. Envy is the signal of danger that the organism sends to itself when a shadow is being cast over it, when it is threatened with being diminished. Fear of being reduced almost seems to have a life of its own inside one’s being. The basic anxiety has a definite implications for the person’s attitude toward oneself and others. It means emotional isolation, all the harder to bear as it concurs with a feeling of intrinsic weakness of the self. It means a weakening of the very foundation of self-confidence. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14

The implications of basic anxiety carries the germ for a potential conflict between the desire to rely on others, and the impossibility to do so because of deep distrust of and hostility toward them. It means that because of intrinsic weakness the person feels a desire to put all responsibility upon others, to be protected and taken care of, whereas because of the basic hostility there is much too much distrust to carry out this desire. And invariably the consequences is that one has to put the greatest part of one’s energies into securing reassurance. The more unbearable the anxiety the more thorough the protective means have to be. There are in our culture four principal ways in which a person tries to protect oneself against the basic anxiety: affection, submissiveness, power, withdrawal. First, securing affection in any form may serve as a powerful protection against anxiety. The motto is: If you love me you will not hurt me. Second, submissiveness can be roughly subdivided according to whether or not it concerns definite persons or institutions. There is such a definite focus, for example, in submission to standardize traditional views, to the rites of some religious or to the demands of some powerful person. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14

To obey these rules or comply with these demands will be the determining motive for all behavior. This attitude may take the form of having to be good, although the connotation of good varies with the demands or the rules that are complied with. When the attitude of compliance is not attached to any institution or person it takes the more generalized form of compliance with the potential wishes of all persons and avoidance of everything that might arouse resentment. In such cases the individual represses all demands of one’s own, represses criticism of others, is willing to let oneself be abused without defending oneself and is ready to be indiscriminately helpful to others. Occasionally people are away of the fact that anxiety underlies their actions, but usually they are not at all aware of this fact and firmly believe they act as they do because of an ideal of unselfishness or self-sacrifice which goes so far as a renunciation of their own wishes. In both the definite and the general forms of submissiveness the motto is: If I give in, I shall not be hurt. The submissive attitude may also serve the purpose of securing reassurance by affection. If affection is so important to a person that one’s feeling of security in life depends on it, the one is willing to pay any price for it, and in the main this means complying with the wishes of others. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14

Frequently, however, a person is unable to believe in any affection, and then one’s complying attitude is directed not toward winning affection but toward winning protection. There are persons who can feel secure only by rigid submission. In them the anxiety is so great and the disbelief in affection so complete that the possibility of affection does not enter after all. A third attempt at protection against the basic anxiety is through power—trying to achieve security by gaining factual power or success, or possession, or admiration, or intellectual superiority. In this attempt at protection the motto is: If I have power, no one can hurt me. The fourth means of protection is withdrawal. The preceding groups of protective devices have in common a willingness to contend with the World, to cope with it in one way or another. Protection can also be found, however, by withdrawing from the World. This does not mean going into a desert or into complete seclusion; it means achieving independence of others as they affect either one’s external or one’s internal needs. Independence in regard to external needs may be achieved, for example, by piling up possession. This motivation for possession is entirely different from the motivation for the sake of power or influence, and the use made of the possession is likewise different. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14

Where possessions are amassed for the sake of independence there is usually too much anxiety to enjoy them, and they are guarded with an attitude of parsimony because the only objective is to be safeguarded against all eventualities. Another means that serves the same purpose of becoming externally independent of others is a restriction of one’s needs to a minimum. Independence in regard to internal needs maybe found, for example, by an attempt to become emotionally detached from people so that nothing will hurt or disappoint one. It means choking off one’s emotional needs. One expression of such detachment is the attitude of not taking anything seriously, including one’s self, an attitude often found in intellectual circles. Not taking one’s self seriously is not to be confounded with not thinking one’s self important. In fact these attitudes may be mutually contradictory. These devices of withdrawal have a similarity with the devices of submissiveness or compliance, inasmuch as both involve a renunciation of one’s own wishes. However, while in the latter group renunciation is the service of being good or of complying with the desires of others in order to feel safe, in the former group the idea of being good plays no role at all, and the object of renunciations is attaining independence of others. Here the motto is: If I withdraw, nothing can hurt me.  #RandolphHarris 14 of 14

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