Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. With the way the state of California is being ran, it is becoming a vision of a glittering, sinister World in which society will be hardened into a caste-system and the workers will be permanently enslaved. It is also becoming a state without purpose, in which politicians toil cynically and faithlessly. No society of that kind will last more than a couple of generations, because a ruling class which thinks principally in terms of a “good time” will soon lose its vitality. The aim is not economic exploitation, because someone has to pay taxes and earn money for cooks to steal, but the desire to bully and dominate. There is a power hungry, sadistic, hardened vibe. Human beings will eventually increase the population so greatly that there will be an exhaustion of natural resources, which will usher in an era of famine and a shortage of everything, but plastic waste. Of course, theses are the dangers of a society, ran by the media, who partake in devil worship and witch burning. The World cannot abandon God and Capitalism, nor law and order and return to the old system of regulations and disabilities. Discrimination is also a problem because if a fit person is excluded, there is a real loss, while the exclusion of thousands of unfit people who are granted opportunities because of nepotism is no gain. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

If the constitution of the electoral body disposes them to chose unfit persons, there are always plenty of such persons to choose from. Limitation of the field of selection deprives society of some chances of being served by the competent, without ever saving it from the incompetent, which is why people are fleeing California. We should aim to live in a World without discrimination of race of gender. And the discussion must be a real discussion descending to foundations, and not resting satisfied with vague and general assertions. If it be said that the doctrine of equality of the races and genders rests only on theory, it must be remembered that the contrary doctrine also has only theory to rest upon. Through all the progressive period of human history, the condition of the human race and women has been approaching nearer to equality with the majority and men. This does not of itself prove that the assimilation must go on to complete equality; but it assuredly affords some presumption that such is the case. Even the preliminary knowledge, what the difference between the genders now are, apart from all questions as to how they are made what they are, is still in the crudest and most incomplete state. What woman by nature can do, it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing. RandolphHarris 2 of 20

If women or people of different ethnic backgrounds have a greater natural inclination for some thing than for others, there is no need of laws or social inculcation to make them majority of the do the former in the preference to the latter. Whatever women’s services or other marginalized groups are most wanted for, the free play of competition will hold out the strongest inducements to them to undertake. And, as the words imply, they are most wanted for the things for which they are most fit; by the apportionment of which to them, the collective faculties of the two genders or different cultures can be applied on the whole with greatest sum of valuable result. It is also not the place of the dominant group to decide what is natural work women or other groups, and they cannot be made to accept the condition said to be natural to them. We as a society pride ourselves on our democratic values. We do not believe that people should be constrained by innate differences from being able to achieve desired positions of influence to improve their well-being; equality of opportunity is our professed aim. The Preamble to our Constitution stresses the importance of justice, as well as the general welfare and the blessings of liberty. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

The Pledge of Allegiance asserts that our republic preserves “liberty and justice of all.” Yet substantial inequalities between genders still exist in our society. In economic terms, full-time working women (After some very recent improvement) earn on average 71 perfect of the earnings of full-time working men. One-half of poor and three-fifths of chronically poor house-holds with dependent children are maintained by a single female parent. The poverty rate for elderly women is nearly twice that for elderly men. On the political front, two out of a hundred U.S. senators are women, one out of nine justices seem to be considered sufficient representation on the Supreme Court, and the number of men chosen in each congressional election far exceeds the number of women elected in the entire history of the country. Underlying and intertwined with all these inequalities is the unequal distribution of the unpaid labour of the family. An equal sharing between the genders of family responsibilities, especially child care, is “the great revolution that has not happened.” Women, including mothers of young children, are, of course, working outside the household far more than their mothers did. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

And the proportion of women who reach high-level positions in politics, business, and the professions command vastly disproportionate amount of space in the media, compared with the millions of women who work at low-paying, dead-end jobs, the millions who do part-time work with its lack of benefits, and the millions of others who stay home performing for no pay what is frequently not even acknowledged as work. Certainly, the fact that women are doing more paid work does not imply that they are more equal. It is often said that we are living in a post-feminist era. This claim, due in part to the distorted emphasis on women who has “made it,” is fake, no matter which of its meanings is intended. It is certainly not true that feminism has been vanquished, and equally untrue that it is no longer needed because its aims have been fulfilled. Until there is justice within the family, women will not be able to gain equality in politics, at work, or in any other sphere. The typical current practices of family life, structured to a large extent by gender, are not just. Both the expectation and the experience of the division of labour by gender make women vulnerable. As I shall show, a cycle of power relations and decisions pervades both family and workplace, each reinforcing the inequalities between the genders that already exist within the other. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

Not only women, but children of both genders, too, are often made vulnerable by gender-structured marriages. One-quarter of children in the United States now live in families with only one parent—in almost 90 percent of cases, the mother. Contrary to common perceptions—in which the situation of never-married mothers looms largest—65 percent of single-parent families are a result of marital separation or divorce. Recent research in a number of states has shown that, in the average case, the standard of living of divorces women and the children who live with them plummets after divorce, whereas the economic situation of divorced men tends to be better than when they are married. A central source of injustice for women these days is that the law, most noticeably in the event of divorce, treats more or less as equals those whom custom, workplace discrimination, and the still conventional division of labour within the family have made very unequal. Central to this socially created inequality are two commonly made but inconsistent presumptions: that women are primarily responsible for the rearing of children; and that serious and committed members of the work forces (regardless of class) do not have primary responsibility, or even shared responsibility, for the rearing of children. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

The old assumption of the workplace, still implicit, is that workers have wives at home. It is built not only into the structure and expectations of the workplace but into other crucial social institutions, such as schools, which make no attempt to take account, in their scheduled hours or vacations, of the fact that parents are likely to hold jobs. Now, of course, many wage workers do not have wives at home. Often, they are wives and mothers, or single, separated, or divorced mothers of small children. However, neither the family nor the workplace has taken much account of this fact. Employed wives still do by far the greatest proportion of unpaid family work, such as child care and housework. Women are far more likely to take time out of the workplace or to work part-time because of family responsibilities than are their husbands or male partners. And they are much more likely to move because of their husbands’ employment needs or opportunities than their own. All these tendencies, which are due to a number of factors, including the gender segregation and discrimination of the workplace itself, tend to be cyclical in their effects: wives advance more slowly than their husbands at work and thus gain less seniority, and the discrepancy between their wages increases over time. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Then, because both the power structure of the family and what is regarded as consensual “rational” family decision-making reflect the fact that the husband usually earns more, it will become even less likely as time goes on that the unpaid work of the family will be shared between the spouses. Thus the cycle of inequality is perpetuated. Often hidden from view within a marriage, it is in the increasingly likely event of marital breakdown that the socially constructed inequality of married women is at its most visible. This is what I mean when I say that gender-structured marriages makes women vulnerable. These are not matters of natural necessity, as some people would believe. Surely nothing in our natures dictates that men should not be equal participants in the rearing of their children. Nothing in the nature of work makes it impossible to adjust it to the fact that people are parents as well as workers. That these things have not happened is part of the historically, socially constructed differentiations between the sexes that feminists have come to call gender. We live in a society that has over the years regarded the innate characteristic of sex as one of the clearest legitimizers of different rights and restrictions, both formal and informal. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

While the legal sanctions that uphold male dominance have begun to be eroded in the past effects of socialization, still works powerfully to reinforce gender roles that are commonly regarded as of unequal prestige and worth. The sexual division of labour has not only been a fundamental part of the marriage contract, but so deeply influences us in our formative years that feminists of both genders who try to reject it can find themselves, struggling against it with varying degrees of ambivalence. Based on the linchpin, “gender”—by which I mean the deeply entrenched institutionalization of sexual differences—still permeates our society. To return now to self-recriminating attitude, another function that they serve, in addition to protecting against a fear of disapproval and inviting absolute reassurance, is to prevent the neurotic from seeing the necessity for change and in fact to serve as a substitute for change. To make any changes in a developed personality is extremely hard for everyone. However, for the neurotic person this task is twice as hard, not only because one has a greater difficulty in recognizing the necessity for change, but also because so many of one’s attitudes are necessitated by anxiety. Consequently one is mortally frightened at the prospect of having to change, and one shrinks back from recognizing the necessity for it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

One of the means of shirking this knowledge is to believe secretly that self-recrimination one can “get by.” This process can frequently be observed in everyday life. If a person regrets having done something or having failed to do it, and as a consequence wants to make good or to change the attitude which was responsible, one will not submerge oneself in guilt feelings. If one does do this it indicates that one shirks the difficult task of changing. It is indeed so much easier to be remorseful than to change. Incidentally, another way in which the neurotic many blind oneself to the necessity for change is to intellectualize one’s existing problems. Patients who are inclined to do this find a great intellectual satisfaction in gaining psychological knowledge, including knowledge concerning themselves, but let it remain at that. The intellectualizing attitude is then used as a protection which prevents them from experiencing anything emotionally, and thus from realizing that they would have to change. It is as if they looked at themselves and said: how interesting! Self-recriminations may also serve to ward off the danger of accusing others, for it may appear the safer way to take guilt on one’s own shoulders. Inhibitions toward criticizing and accusing others, thus reinforcing the tendencies to accuse one’s self, play such a great role in neuroses that they should be discussed at a greater length. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

As a rule such inhibitions have a history. A child growing up in an atmosphere that creates fear and hatred and restrains one’s spontaneous self-esteem has deeply accusatory feelings against one’s surroundings. Not only, however, is one unable to express them, but if one is sufficiently intimidated one does not even dare to become aware of them in one’s conscious feelings. This is partly because of a simple fear of punishment, and partly because of one’s fear of losing the affection one requires. These infantile reactions have a solid basis in reality, inasmuch as parents who create such an atmosphere are scarcely every able to take criticism, because of their own neurotic sensitivities. The ubiquity of this attitude that parents are infallible is due, however, to a cultural factor. The position of parents in our culture is based on authoritative power which may always be relied on to enforce obedience. In many cases benevolence rules the relationships in the home, and there is no need for the parents to stress their authoritative power. Nevertheless as long as this cultural attitude exists it does somehow throw a shadow on the relationships, even when it remains in the background. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

When a relationship is based on authority, criticism tends to be forbidden because it would undermine the authority. It may be openly forbidden and the ban be enforced by punishment, or, much more effectively, the prohibition may be more tacit and be enforced on moral grounds. Then the criticism of children is checked not only by the individual sensitives of the parents, but also by the fact that the latter, pervaded by the cultural attitude that it is a sin to criticize parents attempt implicitly and explicitly to influence the children to feel the same way. Under such conditions a less intimidated child may express some revolt, but in turn is made to feel guilty. A more intimidated child does not dare to show any resentment and gradually does not even venture to think that the parents may be wrong. One feels, however, that someone must be wrong, and thus comes to the conclusion that, since the parents are always right, it must be one who is at fault. Needless to say, this is usually not an intellectual but an emotional process. It is determined not by thinking but by fear. In this way the child begins to feel guilty, or more accurately, one develops the tendency to seek and find fault within oneself, instead of calmly weighing both sides and considering the whole situation objectively. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

One’s reproaches may lead one to feel inferior rather than guilty. There are only fluctuating distinctions between the two, depending entirely on the implicit or explicit emphasis on morals which is customary in one’s surroundings. A girl who is always subordinated to her sister and out of fear submits to the unjust treatment, chocking the accusations she really feels, may tell herself that the unequal treatment is warranted because she is inferior to her sister (less beautiful, less brilliant), or she may believe it is justified because she is a bad girl. In both cases, however, she takes the blame on herself instead of realizing that she is being wrong. This type of reaction does not necessarily persist; it may change if it is not to deeply ingrained, if the child’s surroundings are changed, or if persons enter one’s life who appreciate one and emotionally support one. If such a change does not take place the inclination to transform accusations into self-accusations becomes in time stronger rather than weaker. At the same time that resentment against the World is gradually piling up from several sources, the fear of expressing resentment is also growing, because of the increasing fear of being found out and the assumption of the same sensitivity in others. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

We have now worked our way through some difficult material that has required careful study and thought. We have distinguished and out into proper relationship profound aspects of human existence and divine operation. However, it is very important that we not lose sight of the simplicity of spiritual formation in Christ. Otherwise its practical implementation, by individuals in their own life or by leaders for their groups, will falsely appear to be extremely difficult or even impossible. The effect of this will be (and often is) that spiritual formation is not seriously undertaken, even by Christian groups, or that it is undertaken in such a way that it is bound to fail or achieve only minor degrees of success. Individuals sometimes hear of disciplines for the spiritual life, for example, and rightly understand how important they could be for growth in Christlikeness. Perhaps they learn what an effective role the disciplines have played for “great ones” with Christ in the past or present. However, they are unable to practice such disciplines to much good effect, because they do not have a sense of how such practices fit into the overall process of spiritual formations in Christ. In particular, I find, they are unable to put special practices, such as the disciplines of solitude, Scripture memorization, or fasting into a seamless unity with the rest of their life. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Hear, O Lord, our prayers, and graciously accompany your children on their journeys; and as Thou art everywhere, do Thou everywhere bestow on them Thy mercy, that being by Thine assistance defended against all adversities, they may enjoy the fulfilment of their just desires; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “And it came to pass that according to his (God) word he did destroy them; and according to his word he did do all things for them; and there was not anything done save it were by his word. And after they had crossed the river Jordan he did make them mighty unto the driving out of the children of the land, yea, unto the scattering them to destruction. And now, do ye supposed that the children of this land, who were in the land of promise, who were driven out by our fathers, do ye suppose that they were righteous? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. Do ye suppose that our fathers would have been more choice than they if they had been righteous? I say unto you, Nay. Behold, the Lord esteemth all flesh in one; he that is righteous is favoured of God. However, behold, this people had rejected every word of God, and they were ripe in iniquity; and the fulness of the wrath of God was upon them; and the Lord did curse the land against them, and bless it unto our fathers; yea, he did curse it against them unto their destruction, and he did bless it unto our fathers unto their obtaining power over it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

“Behold, the Lord hath created the Earth that it should be inhabited; and he hath created his children that they should possess it. And he raiseth up a righteous nation, and destroyeth the nations of the wicked. And he leadeth away the righteous into precious lands, and the wicked he destoryeth, and curseth the land unto them for their sakes. He ruleth high in the Heavens, for it is his throne, and this Earth is his footstool. And he loveth those who will have him to be their God. Behold, he loved our fathers, and he covenanted with them, yes, even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and he remembered the covenants which he made; wherefore, he did bring them out of the land of Egypt. And he did straiten them in the wilderness with his rob; for they hardened their hearts, even as ye have; and the Lord straitened them because of their iniquity. He sent fiery flying serpents among them; and after they were bitten he prepared a way that they might he healed; and the labour which they had to preform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished. And they did harden their hearts from time to time, and they did revile against Moses, and also against God; nevertheless, ye know that they were led forth by matchless power into the land of promise. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

“And now, after all these things, the time has come that they have become wicked, yea, nearly unto ripeness; and I know not but they are at this day about to be destroyed; for I know that the day must surely come that they must be destroyed, save a few only, who shall be led away into captivity. Wherefore, the Lord commanded my father that he should depart into the wilderness; and the Jews also sought to take away his life; wherefore, ye are murderers in your hearts and ye ae like unto them. Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God. Ye have seen an Angel, and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words; wherefore, he has spoken unto you like unto the voice of thunder, which did cause the Earth to shake as if it were to divide asunder. And ye also know that by the power of his almighty word he can cause the Earth that it shall pass away; yes, and ye know that by his word he can cause the rough places to be made smooth, and smooth places shall be broken up. O, then, why is it that ye can be so hard in your hearts? #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

“Behold, my soul is rent with anguish because of you, and my heart is pained; I fear lest ye shall be cast off forever. Behold, I am full of the Spirit of God, insomuch that my frame has no strength. And now it came to pass that when I had spoke these words they were angry with me, and were desirous to throw me into the depths of the sea; and as they came forth to law their hands upon me I spake unto them, saying: in the name of the Almighty God, I command you that ye touch me not, for I am filled with the power of God, even unto the consuming of my flesh; and whose shall lay one’s hands upon me shall wither even as a dried reed; and one shall be as naught before the power of God, for God shall smite one. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto them that they should murmur no more against their father; neither should they withhold their labour from me, for God had commanded me that I should build a ship. And I said unto them: If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou Earth, it should be Earth; and if I should say it, it would be done. And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of humans, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship? #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

“And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said many things unto my brethren, insomuch that they were confounded and could not content against me; neither durst they lay their hands upon me nor touch me with their fingers, even for the space of many days. Now they durst not do this lest they should wither before me, so powerful was the Spirit of God; and thus it had wrought upon them. And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me: Stretch forth thine hand again unto thy brethren, and they shall not wither before thee, but I will shock them, saith the Lord, and this will I do, that they may know that I am the Lord their God. And it came to pass that I stretched forth my hand unto my brethren, and they did not wither before me; but the Lord did shake them, even according to the word which he had spoken. And now, they said: We know of a surety that the Lord is with thee, for we know that it is the power of the Lord that has shaken us. And they fell down before me, and were about to worship me, but I would not suffer them, saying: I am thy brother, yea, even thy younger brother; wherefore, worship the Lord thy God, and honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee,” reports 1 Nephi 17.31-55. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

Lord of the could and fire, I am a stranger, with a stranger’s indifference; my hands hold a pilgrim’s staff, my march is Zionward, my eyes are toward the coming of the Lord, my heart is in Thy hands without reserve. Thou hast created it, redeemed it, renewed it, captured it, conquered it. Keep from it every opposing fore, crush in it every rebel lust, mortify every treacherous passion, annihilate every Earthborn desire. All faculties of my being vibrate to Thy touch; I love Thee with soul, mind, body, strength, might, spirit, affection, will, desire, intellect, understanding. Thou art the very perfection of all perfections; all intellect is derived from Thee; my scanty rivulets follow from Thy unfathomable fountain. Compared with Thee the Sun is darkness, all beauty deformity, all wisdom folly, the best goodness faulty. Thou art worthy of an adoration greater than my dull heart can yield; invigorate my love that it may rise worthily to Thee, tightly entwine itself round Thee, be allured by Thee. Then shall my walk be endless praise. Holy Things for holy persons. There is One holy, One Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father, to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Thou Whom camest into the World to save sinners, of whom I am the chief—I confess to Thee like the robber, Remember me, Lord, in Thy kingdom. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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