Randolph Harris II International

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I Want You to Sacrifice Yourself for My Sake without Getting Anything in Return!

ImageWith the theory of capitalist encirclement, capitalists as a rule are personified by Wall Street. For generations, it has referred to the showcase of American capitalism: our financial services system that ensured the efficient use of funds by channeling capital to its most productive use. Indeed, the governing ethos in America is that Wall Street is the heart and soul of our capitalist economy. Now again there can be no doubt that there was a policy of encirclement against Bolshevist Russia at the beginning of the revolution; but it would be fatal to believe that the terror was the consequence of the policy of intervention and of the cold war. Possibly the policy of encirclement strengthened the terror, just as the wars of intervention during the French Revolution gave Robespierre’s Terror a new impetus. However, the terror as a normal method of politics against the class opponent is contained in the Leninist definition of the dictatorship of the proletariat; it was then extended to the party and finally to the supposedly classless society, without a visible connection with the intensity of the capitalist policy of encirclement. However, the Bolshevist view of history, steadily activating anxiety, made possible identification with the leader Stalin and thus underpinned his caesarist dictatorship. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

ImageThe most important type—if only because of its immense political influence—is the theory of the conspiracy of the Jews according to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. These contain the secret plans of Jewish leaders, supposedly formulated in the year 1897, for achieving Jewish World domination by force, terror, corruption, the disintegrating influence of liberalism, freemasonry, and so forth. This World domination was to be a mock-democracy, through which the Jewish leaders were to operate. That the Protocols are a forgery, prepared by Czarist Russians, was definitely established by the Bern trial of 1934-35. It is equally beyond question that they are essentially a plagiarism of the work by Maurice Joly directed against Napoleon III, Dialogue aux Enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu. However, if the Protocols represent a forgery, and if the plans for a Jewish World conspiracy belong in the realm of mythology, where then does that kernel of truth lie which according to my view is necessary to make possible the influence which anti-Semitism and the Protocols have had? I shall confine my analysis to Germany, but the German situation can be understood only when one becomes aware of the fact that in Germany before 1933 spontaneous anti-Semitism was extremely weak. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

ImageAs early as 1942, I wrote, in opposition to an almost unanimous opinion: “The writer’s personal conviction, paradoxical as it may seem, is that the German people are the least anti-Semitic of all.” I still hold this too view today; for it is precisely the weakness of spontaneous anti-Semitism in Germany which explains the concentration of National Socialism on it as the decisive political weapon. The element of truth (if one may call it that) is first of all a religious one: the catechistic representation of the crucifixion and with it the blood guilt of the Jews. However, this is a thoroughly ambivalent element: for it is precisely the crucifixion of Christ which makes possible the salvation of Christians (and all beings); and the spiritually Semitic origin of Christianity is acknowledged by the Church. While thus the historical-religious defamation of the Jews forms the basis without which anti-Semitism could hardly be activated, the catechistic representation of the crucifixion is not sufficient by itself. If we start from the policy of National Socialism and seek to understand the role of anti-Semitism within the political systems, the existence of a total anti-Semitism can perhaps be better understood. I can sketch the problem only in it broadest outlines. Germany of 1930-33 was the land of alienation and anxiety. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

ImageThe facts are familiar: defeat, a tame, unfinished revolution, inflation, depression, non-identification with the existing political parties, non-functioning of the political system—all these are symptoms of moral, social, and political homelessness. The inability to understand why beings should be so hard-pressed stimulated anxiety which was made into nearly neurotic anxiety by the National Socialist policy of terror and its propaganda of anti-Semitism. The goal of National Socialism was clear: the welding together of the people with the charismatic leader, for the purpose of the conquest of Europe and perhaps of the Word, and the creation of a racial hegemony of the Germans over all other peoples. However, how were the people to be integrated, despite all cleavages of class, party, religion? Only though hatred of an enemy. However, how could one settle on the enemy? It could not be Bolshevism, because it was too strong; the Catholic Church could not be so designated because it was needed politically and loyalties to it were anchored too securely. The Jews remained. They appeared in public consciousness as powerful, but were in reality not as strong as many believed. They were relative strangers, and at the same time the concrete symbols of a so-called parasitical capitalism, through their position in commerce and finance; they incarnated a supposedly decadent morality through their avant garde position in art and literature; they seemed to be the successful competitors sexually and professionally. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

ImageWith all this, the thesis of the Jewish conspiracy had the element of truth necessary to permit this view of history to become a frightful weapon. It would be mistaken to want to construe a connection between the socioeconomic status of a person and one’s anti-Semitism; that is, to claim that the academically educated person is more immune than the uneducated, or the poorly paid more immune than the better paid. What is correct, however, is that there exists a connection between loss of social status and anti-Semitism. The fear of social degradation thus creates for itself a target for the discharge of the resentments arising from damaged self-esteem. This lead us to the analysis of the historical situations in which anxiety grips the masses. By now we know the strata of alienation are alienation from the product of labor, alienation from the activity of labor, alienation from the senses, and alienation from other people, or from society. The psychological stratum remains no matter what social institutions beings live in. It creates potential anxiety which beings in the masses attempt to overcome through ego-surrender. This affective identification with a leader is facilitated by the notion of false concreteness, the theory of conspiracy. The most unashamed pretender to supernatural powers was, on the primitive level, the medicine man, or shaman. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

ImageThe shaman invented the specialty of entering into the World of the dead and coming back from it unharmed; he or she went on these supernatural trips and personally carried out whatever business the tribe or members of it had in the powerful World of the spirits; one went to see a dead soul safely to the other side, to harangue the invisible spirits and make them let go of a sick person, and so forth. The shaman was the hero who died and was reborn unfailingly, who established a being’s link with the invisible power World. It was an agonizing role to play, and it was played best by those individuals who actually were seized by spirits and killed by them–the epileptics. Noting strikes greater terror into a being’s heart than to witness an eruption of power from the depths of nature that one cannot understand or control—whether it is lava erupting from the volcano or the foam and convulsions of an epileptic. And so for all these reasons primitive beings saw the epileptic shaman as a natural hero, a source of fear and respect. One was also the first natural systematizer of religion because one actually had experiences of rebirth, reincarnation, and eternal life in the dream state following a convulsive seizure. These experiences are more or less characteristic for all epileptics. This is how we understand the birth of these basic religious nations, verified objectively by many individuals. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

ImageThe shaman was the mystifier par excellence, and it was only logical that one should often be more powerful than chiefs, more feared, and get greater rewards. Sometime one allied one’s self with the chief of a tribe, and the resulting exploitation was called clearly a form of gangsterism. On the origins of inequality, primitive society was from the very beginning a struggle by individuals and groups for special privileges—who would get the best meat, the easiest access to women, some leisure and security. The elders always tried to arrange these for their own benefit, and so did the shamans. On the simplest levels of culture they were already organizing themselves into an exclusive fraternity so as to get and keep maximum power. How does one get maximum power in a cosmology where rituals is the technics that manufactures life? Obviously by getting control of the formulas for the technics. Very early the elders and the religious personages tried to get control of the ritual The religious systematizer built their symbolic interpretations around the crises of life, those passages where one’s identity was in doubt, where one was moving from one state to another, where everything had to go smoothly in order for a flowering out of birth into a new status to take place. And so the puberty and the death rituals came to be surrounded by the greatest importance, wherein lay the greatest possibilities of bungling. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

ImageOver and beyond the frankly religious and psychological nature of these passages, there is a socioeconomic purpose to them—or rather to the control of them by certain groups. With puberty rites of the Australian aborigines, over and above all other reasons is the somewhat cynically expressed purpose of the old men of having novices supply them, for many years, with regular presents in the form of animal food, of reserving the choice dishes for themselves by the utilization of the numerous food taboos imposed on the younger people, and, finally, of keeping the young women for themselves. Again, with another tribe, we can observe that the fundamental and immediate objective was to maintain power in the hands of the older people and to keep the women in proper subjection. Those who systematized the puberty, were not obeying some mystical, myth-making urge in the unconscious. Rather, specific individuals banded together formally or informationally, individuals who possess a marked capacity for articulating their ideas and for organizing them into coherent systems, which, naturally, would be of profit to them and to those who whom they are allied. This puts closer on the very beginnings of the modern debate on the origins of inequality. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

ImageThese observations suggest the question of whether it is not perhaps the greed for material things in general that is the basic phenomenon, and the need for affection only one way of obtaining this goal. There is no general answer to this question. Craving for possession, as we shall see later, is one of the fundamental defenses against anxiety. However, experience shows also that in certain cases the need for affection, though it is the prevailing protective device, may be repressed so deeply that it does not appear on the surface. The greed for material things may then lastingly or temporarily take its place. In reference to this question of the role of affection three types of neurotic persons can be roughly distinguished. In the first group there is no doubt whatever that the persons crave affection, in whatever form it may appear, and by whatever methods they may obtain it. Those in the second group reach out for affection but if they fail to get in some relationship—and as a rule they are bound to fail—they do not reach out immediately for another person, but withdraw from people altogether. Instead of trying to attach themselves to some person they have compulsively attach themselves to things, having to ear or buy or to read or, generally speaking, to get something. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

ImageSuch a change may sometimes take grotesque forms, as in person who after failing in some love affair start to eat so compulsively that they gain twenty to thirty pounds in a short time; if they have a new love affairs they lose this weight again: and if this love affair ends in failure they again put on weight. Sometimes one can observe the same behavior in patients; after an acute disappointment with the analyst they start to eat compulsively and gain weight to such a degree that they are scarcely recognizable, but they lose it again when the relations are straightened out. Such a greediness about food may also be repressed, and then it may become manifest in a loss of appetite or functional stomach upsets of some kind. In this group personal relationships are more deeply disturbed than in the first group. They still desire affection, and they still dare to reach out for it, but any disappointment can break the thread that binds them to others. The third group of persons have been stricken so severely and so early that their conscious attitude has become a deep disbelief in any affection. Their anxiety is so deep that they are contented if no positive harm is done to them. They may acquire a cynical, scoffing attitude toward affection and prefer the fulfillment of the tangible wishes concerning material help, advice, and pleasures of the flesh. Only after much of their anxiety has been released are they able to desire affection and appreciate it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

ImageThe different attitudes of these three groups can be summarized as: insatiability concerning affection; need for affection alternating with general greediness; no manifest need for affection, but general greediness. Each group shows an increase in both anxiety and hostility. Coming back to the main trend f our discussion we have to consider now the question of the special ways in which insatiability concerning affection; need for affection alternating with general greediness; no manifest need for affection, but general greediness. Each group shows an increase in both anxiety and hostility. Coming back to the main trend of our discussion we have to consider now the question of the special ways in which insatiability concerning affection manifests itself. The main expressions are jealously and demands for unconditional love. Neurotic jealousy, unlike a normal person’s jealousy, which may be an adequate reaction to the danger of losing someone’s love, is altogether out of proportion to the danger. It is dictated by a constant fear of losing possession of the person or one’s love; consequently any other interest that person may have is a potential danger. This kind of jealousy may appear in every human relation—on the part of parents toward their children who want to make friends or to marry; on the part of children toward their parents; between marriage partners; in any love relationship. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

ImageThe relationship with the analyst is no exception. It is shown there in an intense sensitivity about the analyst seeing another patient, or even about the mere mention of another patient. The motto is, “You must love me exclusively.” The patient may say, “I recognize that you treat me kindly; nevertheless, as you probably treat others equally kindly, your kindness to me does not count at all.” Any affection which must be shared with other persons or interests is immediately and entirely devalued. Disproportionate jealousy is often thought of as condition by jealousy experienced in childhood toward siblings or toward one of the parents. Sibling rivalry as it occurs among healthy children, jealousy toward a newborn baby for example, vanishes without leaving any scar as soon as the child feels sure that one does not lose any of the love and attention one has had hitherto. According to my experience, excessive jealousy occurring in childhood and never overcome is due to neurotic conditions in the child similar to those in an adult, as described above. There already existed in the child an insatiable need for affection, rising out of a basic anxiety. In psychanalytic literature the relation between infantile and adult jealousy reactions is often expressed ambiguously inasmuch as the adult jealousy is called a “repetition” of the infantile one. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

ImageIf the term means to imply that an adult woman is jealous of her husband because she was equally jealous of her mother, it would not seem tenable. The intensified jealousy that we find in a child’s relation to parents or siblings is not the ultimate cause of later jealousy, but both spring from the same sources. Perhaps an expression of the insatiable need for affection still stronger than jealousy is the quest for unconditional love. The form in which this demand most often appears in the conscious mind is, “I want to be loved for what I am and not for what I a doing.” So far we might consider this wish nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly, the wish to be loved for ourself alone is not alien to any of us. He neurotic wish for unconditional love, however, is much more comprehensive than the normal one, and in its extreme form it is impossible of fulfillment. It is a demand for love, literally without any condition or any reserve. This demand includes, first, a wish to be loved regardless of any provocative behavior. This wish is necessary as security, because the neurotic person secretly registers the fact that one has understandable and proportionate fears that the other may withdraw or become angry or vindictive if this hostility should become evident. A patient of this type will express the opinion that it is very easy and means nothing to love someone who is amiable, that love ought to prove its ability to stand any kind of untoward behavior. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

ImageAny criticism is felt as a withdrawal of love. In the process of analysis resentment may be aroused by an intimation that he may have to change something in one’s personality, even though that is the purpose of the analysis, because one feels any such intimation as a frustration of one’s need for affection. The neurotic demand for unconditional love includes, second, a wish to be loved without any return. This wish is necessary because the neurotic person feels that one is incapable of feeling any warmth or giving any affection and unwilling to do so. One’s demands include, third, a wish to be loved without any advantage for the other. This wish is necessary because any advantage or satisfaction derived from the situation by the other promptly arouses the neurotic’s suspicion that the other likes one only for the sake of that advantage or satisfaction. In relationship based on pleasures of the flesh persons of this type will begrudge the satisfaction which the other person receives from the relation, because they will feel they are loved only for the satisfaction involved. In analysis these patients begrudge the satisfaction which the analyst receives from helping them. They will either disparage the help the analyst has given them or, while intellectually recognizing the help received, will not be able to feel any gratitude. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

ImageOr they will be inclined to ascribe any improvement to some other source, to a medicine taken or a remark made by a friend. Of course they also begrudge the fees they must pay. While they many recognize intellectually that the fees are a recompense for time, energy and knowledge, emotionally they will consider the paying of a fee as a proof that the analyst is not interested in them. Persons of this kind are likely too to be awkward in making presents, because presents make them uncertain about being loved. The demand for unconditional love includes, finally, a wish to be loved with sacrifices. Only if the other person sacrifices everything for the neurotic can one really feel sure of being loved. These sacrifices may concern money or time, but may also concern convictions and personal integrity. This demand includes, for example, the expectation that the other should side with one even to a disastrous degree. There are mothers who rather naively feel justified in expecting blind devotion and sacrifices of all sorts from their children because they have borne them in pain. Other mothers have repressed their wish for unconditional love so that they are able to give their children a great deal of beneficial help and support; but such a mother derives no satisfaction from the relationship to her children because she feels, like the examples already mentioned, that the children love her only because they receive so much from her, and thus secretly begrudges them whatever she gives them. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

ImageThe quest for unconditional love, in its implications of a ruthless and merciless disregard for all others, shows more clearly than anything else the hostility hidden in the neurotic demands for affection. In contrast to the normal vampire type, who may be consciously determined to exploit others to the limit, the neurotic person is usually totally unaware of how exacting one is. One has to keep the knowledge of one’s demands from awareness because of stringent tactical reasons. No one could possibly say frankly, “I want you to sacrifice yourself for my sake without getting anything in return.” That is not a capitalist attitude. One is forced to put one’s demands on some justified basis, such as that one is ill and therefore needs all the sacrifices. Another powerful reason for not recognizing one’s demands is that when they are once established, it is hard to give them up, and realizing that they are irrational is the first step toward giving them up. They are rooted, aside from the bases already mentioned, in the neurotic’s profound conviction tat one cannot live on one’s own resources, that all one needs has to be given to one, that all the responsibility for one’s life rests on others and not on one’s self. Therefore giving up one’s demands for unconditional love presupposes a change in one’s entire attitude toward life. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

ImageAll the characteristics of the neurotic need for affection have in common the fact that the neurotic’s own conflicting tendencies bar the way to the affection one needs. What then are one’s reactions to a partial fulfillment of one’s demands, or to a complete rejection? Some existential philosophers are stressing the self-making of the self too exclusively. Speaking of the self as a project, which is wholly created by the continued (and arbitrary) choices of the person oneself, almost as if one could make oneself into anything one decided to be. Of course in so extreme a form, this is almost certainly an overstatement, which is directly contradicted by the facts of genetics and of constitutional psychology. As a matter of fact, it is just plain silly. On the other hand, the Freudians, the existential therapists, and the Rogerians and the personal growth psychologist all talk more about discovering the self and of uncovering therapy, and have perhaps understressed the factors of the will, of decision, and of the ways in which we do make ourselves by our choices. Of course, we must not forget that both of these groups can be said to be over-psychologizing and under-socializing. That is, they do not stress sufficiently in their systematic thinking the great power of autonomous social and environmental determinants, of such force outside the individual as poverty, exploitation, nationalism, war, and social structure. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

ImageCertainly no psychologist in one’s right mind would dream of denying a degree of personal helplessness before these forces. However, after all, one’s prime professional obligation is the study of the individual person rather than of extra-psychic social determinants. In the same way, sociologists seems to the psychologists to stress social forces too exclusively and to forget about the autonomy of the personality, of will, of responsibility, and so forth. It would be better to think of both group as specialists rather than as blind or foolish. In any case it looks as if we both discover an uncover ourselves and also decide on what we shall be. This clash of opinion is a problem that can be settled empirically. Not only have we been ducking the problem of responsibility and of will, but also their corollaries of strength and courage. Recently the psychoanalytic ego psychologist have waked up to this great human variable and have been devoting a great deal of attention to ego strength. For the behaviorists, this is still an untouched problem. “I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins. Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea, I saw that I had rebelled against my God, and that I had not kept his holy commandments,” reports Alma 36.12-13. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18Image

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