Oh, poor child, I thought. You might have had a little more compassion for everyone if you had known how beautiful you were, and you might have thought yourself a little bit stronger and more able to gain something for yourself. A it was, you play sly games on those around you, because you did not have faith in your own self or even know what you were. Economic activity itself, from the dawn of human society to the present time, is sacred to the core. It is not a rational, secular activity designed simply to meet human survival needs. Or, better, it is not only that, never was, and never will be. If it were, how explain being’s drive to create a surplus, from the beginning of society to the present? How explain being’s willingness to forgo pleasure, to deny oneself, in order to produce beyond one’s capacity to consumer? Why do people work so hard to create useless good when they already have enough to eat? We know that primitives amassed huge piles of food and other goods often only to ceremoniously destroy them, just as we continue to do. We know that many of their choicest trade items, such as bits of amber, were entirely superfluous; that many of their most valuable economic possession created with painstaking labors were practically useless, for instance, the big ceremonial axe-blade of the Trobriands. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

And we know that historically this creation of useless goods got out of hand and led to the present plight of beings—immersed in a horizon of polluting junk, besieged by social injustice and class and race oppression, have and have-nots, all grasping, fighting, showing, not knowing how they got into their abysmal condition or what it all means. When attempting to be serious, the mass media must rig up pseudo-problems and solve them by cliché. They cannot touch real problems or real solutions. Plots are packed with actions which obscure the vagueness and irrelevance of meanings and solutions. Similarly, to replace actual individuality, each character and situation is tricked up with numerous identifying details and mannerisms. The more realistic the characteristics, the less real the character usually, r the situation, and the less revealing. Literal realism cannot replace relevance. Mass media inveigh against sin and against all evils accepted as such. However, they cannot question things not acknowledge as evil or appear to support things self as evil. Even Rigoletto, were it a modern work, could not be broadcast since crime and immorality pay and the ending is unhappy for everybody but the villain. Combating legal censorship, organized group pressures, and advertising agencies is gallantly romantic—and as quixotic as being’s rage against one’s own mirrored image. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

These agencies are interested only in presenting what is wanted and in preventing what might often people. They are nuisances perhaps, but things could not be very different without them. Police officers do not create the law, thought becoming the target of the few who would defy it. The very nature of the mass media excludes art, and requires surrogation by popular culture. Though the Hays production code applies only to movies, its basic rule states a principle which all mass media must follow: “Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment” must be upheld. Doubtless “correct standards” are those standards mist of the audience is likely to believe correct. They authorize whatever does not upset or offend the audience, and nothing else. “Correct standards of life” must exclude art (expect occasional classics). For art is bound to differ from the accepted, that is, the customary mora and aesthetic view, at least as it takes shape in the audience’s mind. Art is always a fresh vision of the World, a new experience or creation of life. If it does not break, or develop, or renew in significant aspects the traditional, customary, accepted aesthetic and moral standards, if it merely repeats without creating, it is not art. If it does, it is incompatible with the “correct standards of life” which must control mass media. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Mass media thus never can question being’s fate where it is questionable; they cannot sow doubt about an accepted style of life, or an approved major principle. To be sure, mass media often feature challenges to this and that, and clashes of opinion. These are part of our accepted style of life, as long as challenges do not defy anything but sin and evil in the accepted places and manner. The mass media must hold up “correct standards of life” whereas art must create, not uphold views. When film or broadcast, the visions of the playwright or novelist cannot deviate from the accepted “correct standards” and they must be entertaining. They must conform to the tastes of the audience; they cannot form it. Virtue must triumph entertainingly—virtue as the audience sees it. The poets, Shelly thought, are “the unacknowledged legislators of the World.” Shelley’s poet wrote for a few who would take the trouble to understand them. They addressed an audience that knew and shared the common traditions they were developing. High culture was cultivated in special institutions—courts, monasteries, churches, universities—by people who devoted their lives to the development of its traditions, and were neither isolated nor surrounded by masses wishing to be entertained. (Besides, there were no means of addressing a mass.) #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

There was no need and no temptation for the artist to do anything but to create in one’s own terms. Poets, painters, or philosophers lived in and were of the group for whom they produced, as did most people, were they peasants, artisans or artists. The relations between producers of culture and consumers were so personal (as were the relations between producers and consumers generally) that one can hardly speak of an impersonal market in which one sold, the other bought. In both high and folk culture, each bounded and autonomous Universe—court r village—relied on the particular cultivators and inventors of its arts and sciences no less than the latter relied on their patrons. Each region or court depended on its musicians as it depended on its craftsmen, and vice versa. The mutual personal dependence had disadvantages and advantages, as has any close relationship. Michelangelo or Beethoven depended on irksome individual patrons more than they would today. On the other hand, whatever the patrons’ tastes or demands, they were individual and not average tastes or demands. Folk culture grew without professional help. High culture was cultivated like an orchard or garden. However, both folk and high cultures grew from within the groups they distinguished and remained within them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

High culture was entirely dominated by people with more than average prestige, power and income—by the elite as a group, who also dominated politics and society in general. This group determined what was to be produced, culturally and otherwise; and they took their toll often by oppression and spoliation of the mass of people whom they ruled. With the development of industry, the elite as a group lost its power. The great mass consumers now determines what is to be produced. Elite status, leadership in any form, is achieved and kept today by catering to the masses, not by plundering or oppressing them. The nobleman may have become rich by robbing (taking from) his peasants. However, the industrialist becomes a millionaire or billionaire by selling to (exchanging with) farmers. And one’s business is helped by giving one’s customers, via television, the entertainers they want. These in turn reach elite status by appealing to the masses. So do politicians. The elite no loner determines what is produced, any more than it dominates society in other respects. Rather, the elite becomes the elite by producing the goods that sell the goods that cater to an average of tastes. With respect to culture, the elite neither imposes any tastes nor cultivates one of its own. It markets and helps homogenize and distribute popular culture—that which appeals to an average of tastes—through the mass media. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

The changes in income distribution, mobility and communication, the economics of mass production already discussed, have caused the power of individual consumers to wane. However, the power of consumers as a group has risen and that of producers as a group has dwindled. From a sample of many diverse societies, the giving of gifts between groups and individuals was the heart of archaic social systems. On the primitive level we see compellingly that social life is a continual dialogue of gift giving and counter gift giving. To the anthropological observer the thing was simply marvelous: goods were shared and freely given; being observed the principle of social reciprocity and respected social obligations to the letter. When there was food, there was food for all; the hunter who killed the game distributed it with pride and often took the least desirable part of the animal for oneself. This was the core of truth in the myth of primitive communism. If someone had something you wanted, you asked for it and received it. However, often this continuous gift giving and taking seemed to the Western observer to be perverse; a native would work very hard at the trading post to earn a shirt, and when he came back a week later someone else would be wearing it. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

Westerners could only think that this represented a basic lack of responsibility, a kind of simplemindedness. It is so alien to our “I got mine—you get yours” philosophy. Or more alarmingly, missionaries would find that natives came to their hut and simply took valuable knives, guns, clothes, and so forth, without so much as a “thank you,” as though these were coming to them. How could traders, missionaries, and administrators understand something that often eluded anthropologists themselves: that primitive beings did not act out of economic principles, that the process of freely giving and receiving was embedded in a much larger, much more important cosmology, that since the explorers had destroyed the old gods and replaced them, one had to give freely just as the gods had done. Primitive life was openly immersed in debt, in obligation to the invisible powers, the ancestors, the dead souls; the group lived partly by drawing its powers from the non-living. Unlike us, primitives knew the truth of being’s relation to nature: nature gives freely of its bounty to beings—this was the miracle for which to be grateful and beholden and give to the gods of nature in return. Whatever one received was already a gift, and so to keep things in balance one had to give in return—to one another and, by offerings, to the spirits. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

The gods existed in order to receive gifts. This helps us understand why primitive society seems so masochistic to us in its willing submission to nature and to dead spirits. It has found the perfect formula for keeping things in balance: In the archaic consciousness the sense of indebtedness exists together with the illusion that the debt is playable; the gods exist to make the debt payable. Hence the archaic economy is embedded in religion, limited by the religious framework, and mitigated by the consolations of religion—above all, removal of indebtedness and guilt. And this explains too the thing that has puzzled thinkers since the beginning of the study of beings: why were not natives content to live in the primitive paradise, why could not beings simply relax and consume nature’s bounty, why was one driven from the very beginning to develop a surplus beyond basic human needs? The answer is that primitive beings created an economic surplus so that one would have something to give to the gods; the giving of the surplus was an offering to the gods who controlled the entire economy of nature in the first place, and so beings needed to give precisely in order to keep oneself immersed in the cosmology of obligation and expiation. The ceremonial destruction of mountains of precious food was just that: a ceremonial, religious act. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

The painstaking fabrication of charms or the dangerous hunting down of rare objects like whale’s teeth represented the sweat of one’s brow for the most vital motive beings knew: to keep the cycle of power moving from the invisible to the visible World. When beings give, the stream of life continues to flow. In order to understand this, we have to abandon our own notions of what a gift is. It is not a bribe by one who is a stranger to you and simply wants to get in god with you, or by a loved one who wants to draw close to you or even selflessly give you pleasure. No serious person would doubt that the ultimate effect of the abolitionist movement was constructive. It is even possible that if it had been more successful, the Civil War, with its inconceivable suffering, might have been averted. Wendell Phillips, Willian Lloyd Garrison, James Gillespie Birney, and Theodore D. Weld are beings that fit our definition of aggression very well. They were actively moving into territory of others (slaves were personal property and sanctified thereby) to accomplish a restructuring of power. Their activities were characterized by great conflict, both inward and outward, the latter including continual threats on their lives and limbs. In their early lives, these for seemed like very unlikely candidates for their later profound aggression in the cause of anti-slavery. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Wendell Phillips had led the typical life of  a Boston Brahmin of his time, taking a law degree at Harvard; William Lloyd Garrison was attracted first to writing and politics; when one first hears of Theodore Weld, it is as a lecturer on the art of improving one’s memory; James Birney was twice suspended from Princeton for drinking, although he was readmitted and graduated with honors, and eventually became a planter and lived like a young southern aristocrat, drinking and gambling in excess. What characteristics in these men determined the fact that their aggression was to be constructive rather then destructive (like John Brown’s, for example)? When we look back into their childhood, each had been consistently loved by one’s parents. I believe that this is crucial to the understanding of the constructive nature of aggression. When a person has not been loved or has been loved inconsistently or by a mother or father who was oneself radically insecure, there develops in his later aggression a penchant for revenge on the World, a need to destroy the World for others in as much as it was not good for one. Each had—and we must assume that this begins early in infancy—a deep compassion for others, which took the later, particular form of compassion for slaves and the persecuted. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

Garrison and Weld were attracted to the movement by empathy for the Africans held as slaves. Birney wrote: “It is hard to tell what one’s duty is toward the poor creatures; but I have made up my mind to one thing, I will not allow any of them to be treated brutally.” Phillips was first attracted to the abolitionist movement by the mob’s murder of fellow abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy, and later joined the movement when he saw the mob threaten Garrison’s life. Thereafter, his motivation differed slightly from the others in that he was continually outraged that in his beloved Boston there should be such a disregard of civil liberties. The physical courage of these four, made necessary by their being under constant threat of mob violence, bears deeper scrutiny. For the kind of aggression in which they moved, they had to have a capacity for risk, for existing in extremis. All four had had an abundant amount of energy as children, which had taken the forms of vigorous play and of fighting with their peers. However, their courage seemed more a triumph over anxiety (as, in the last analysis, courage may always be) rather than something with which they were born. Garrison tells, in a letter to a friend, of his “knees shaking in anticipation” of a lecture he had to give to the Congregational Societies of Boston, and a newspaper account of the day tells of his voice being so faint that the audience could scarcely hear him. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

However, he recovered and gave a strong plea for the emancipation of the slaves. Although Garrison suffered least of the four abolitionists and indeed appeared to enjoy combat, it would be a mistake to overlook the fear he experienced on numerous occasions when his life was in jeopardy from angry mobs. The social courage required here is even more impressive. Birney wrote that the pain of alienation from those with whom we [went] up from Sabbath to Sabbath to the house of God—many of our near relations estranged from us, and the whole community looking upon you as an enemy to its peace, is no small trial. In 1834 he wrote to Weld: “I have not one helper—not one from whom I can draw sympathy on this topic!” Again and again, he faced censure and threats of violence from mobs, while he believed that if ever there was a time, it is now come when our republic with her cause of universal freedom is in a strait, where everything that ought to be periled by the patriot should be freely hazarded for her relief. Men must themselves die freeman [rather] than slaves, or our Country, glorious as has been her hope, is gone forever. “Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men, Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life,” reports 2 Nephi 31.20. RandolphHarris 13 of 18

The opposition they received served to strengthen them in their commitment. Garrison responded to it with increasing aggression and closer identification with the Africans now in America. He wrote with eloquence: I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak or write, with moderation. No, no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of a ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which he has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present! I am in earnest. I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead. “For behold, he surely must die that salvation may come; yea, it behooveth him and becometh expedient that he dieth, to bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, that thereby men may be brought into the presence of the Lord. Yes, behold, this death bringeth to pass the resurrection, and redeemeth all humankind from the first death—that spiritual death; for all humankind, by the fall of Adam being cut off from the presense of the Lord, are considered as dead, both as to things temporal and to things spiritual,” reports Helaman 14.15-16. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

No sensitive person can go through such prolonged aggressive activity without serious doubts from time to time about the rightness of one’s position. Birney’s period of doubt and indecision touches us particularly for it hinges on a typical contemporaneous worry. He was continuously afraid that his decisions would be influenced too much by feeling, trying as he was to convince by reasons others as well as himself: “When I remember how calmly and dispassionately my mind has proceeded from truth to truth connected with this subject [for instance, slavery] to another still higher, I feel satisfied that my conclusions are not the fruits of enthusiasm.” He later despaired that the South could ever be reached by reason. Despite failing health he same to New York to serve as secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Interestingly enough, he, who had depended on reason, despaired of gradualism before he died in 1857: “When or how it [slavery] will expire I must say I see not.” “And blessed art thou because thou hast established a church among this people; and they shall be my people. Yea, blessed is this people who are willing to bear my name; for in my name shall they be called; and they are mine. And because thou hast inquired of me concerning the transgressor, thou art blessed,” reports Mosiah 26. 17-19. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

Constructive aggression causes suffering as well as inner conflict. The suffering that dedication to such a cause entails was responsible for the commitment of greater and greater numbers to it. Prominent Bostonians were incensed when the mob threatened the life of Garrison. Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, a prominent physician, wrote: “Then it has come to this, that a man cannot speak on slavery within sight of Faneuil Hall.” When Bowditch volunteered to help a member of the city government, Samuel Eliot, standing nearby, to suppress the rioters, Eliot, “rather intimated that the authorities, while not wising for a mob, rather sympathized with its object…to forcibly suppress the abolitionists. I was completely disgusted and I vowed from my heart as I left him with utter loathing, ‘I am an abolitionist from this very moment.’” The role of the forces of law and order presents a dismal picture in this period, as in our own. It reveals a truth that we know but, for our own peace of mind, try to forget. Not only did members of the government covertly instigate violence by sympathizing with it, as in the incident quoted above, but there was also an incident the like of which could be multiplied a thousand fold: the good people of Boston watched, ashamed and helpless, as a former slave was taken by force to be shipped back to slavery while their own militia guarded the capture. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

Indeed, many who had regarded the abolitionists as hotheads and spokesmen for the lunatic fringe had second thoughts when they observed incidents like this. The aggression of the abolitionists succeeded in its central aim—to combat the apathy that always emerges in a time of anxiety and guilt. The anxiety was caused by the social upheaval of that historical period; the guilt for holding slaves was felt even among the southerners themselves. However, the abolitionist would not permit escape into apathy. They continued to jar the populace and permitted no man’s conscience to sleep. These four men had a powerful grievance—the inhuman character of slavery. They also had a powerful aim at stake—the possibility of correcting injustice. While destructive aggression sometimes contains only the first, both of these must be present in constructive aggression. In contrast to affirmation and assertion, aggression occurred because the opposition was so entrenched and apathy and inertia were so strong that the greater force was necessary for stirring up effective action. It is the nature of any society to protect the status quo, and aggression, from time to time, moves into violence not only because of the blind rage of mobs but also because of the action of police and militia on the side of “law and order.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

It is inspiring to watch how each of these men gathered his individual strength, not present to start with, and transcended himself with his own effort in bringing the power of his oratory and his example to bear upon the opposition. In this self-transcendence there must often have been the experience of ecstasy. When a being as reached this state of inward detachment, when one has withdrawn from passion and hate, prejudice and anger, all human experience—including one’s own—becomes for one a subject for prayer, a theme for analysis, and a dream bereft of reality. One’s reflection about other being’s experiences is not less important than about one’s own. Fromm this standpoint nothing that happens in the lives of these around one can be without interest, but everything will provide material for detached observation and thoughtful analysis. One who has attained that state of desirelessness has liberated oneself from the need to court, flatter, or deceive others, from the temptation to prostitute one’s powers at the behest of ambition, from the compulsion to drag oneself servilely after conventional public opinion. One neither inwardly desires nor outwardly requires any public attestation to the sincerity of one’s services or the integrity of one’s character. The quiet approval of one’s own conscience is enough. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18