Each person wants one’s life to be a marker for good as one’s group defines it. Men and women work their programs of heroism according to the standard cultural scenarios, from Pontius Pilate through Eichmann and Calley. Once we see the role of acquaintanceship in social life, we are led to ask how this relationship may be developed between two individuals. Presumably, acquaintanceship can develop “informally,” as when persons in the same office or factory come to “know about” each other and gradually acknowledge this to one another, so that knowing about becomes knowing. A special case of this is found among ritually profane persons such as young children. Here it may be enough for each to know that the other goes to the same school for acquaintanceship to be automatically assumed. Acquaintanceship may also come about informally through joint participation in the same encounter, although differences in status of the participants may here act as a restriction. This may be illustrated from a report on an environmental maintenance custodian’s response to the way he was treated by a hospital physician: “Of course they are [the doctors] not all like that. Some of them would not say hello if they tripped over you. Now you take Dr. Winchester. He came down here once and asked Al to fix something that belonged to him, so Al dropped his work and went ahead and fixed this thing. Winchester was nice as could be, stood around very friendly and chatted while Al fixed this thing. Well, Al says he met up in the hall the next day and the doctor walked right by him as if he had never laid eyes on him before. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
“Al says he has met him lots of times since then and the doctor never lets on her recognizes him. Al said to me, ‘What do you think ails him?’ I told him. ‘I don’t know, Al, maybe some of these doctors think they are better than we are. Just don’t pay any attention to him.’” The relationship of acquaintanceship may also develop “formally” in our society, as when two individuals are introduced, typically by a third party but sometimes, when conditions are right, by themselves. An introduction, even more than acquaintanceship that develops informally, ought, it is felt, to have a permanent effect, placing the introduced persons forever after in a special and accessible position in regard to each other. The difference is that, while informal acquaintanceship may spring up without the participants in fact “knowing” each other’s name, formal acquaintanceship presumably involves an exchange of names and an obligation to be able thereafter to refer to the other by one’s name. Thus, with persons who have been formally introduced, or who have used names to each other on the basis of informal acquaintanceship, the offense of forgetting may take two distinct forms: not knowing that one ought to know a particular person (the greater of the sins); and knowing that one knows the person, but not being able to remember one’s name. If acquaintanceship places individuals in a preferential communication relationship, or, rather is a preferential communication relationship, then we can understand why some persons will avoid those places and occasions where troublesome introductions are likely to occur. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
More important, it can easily be appreciated that an introducer may feel an obligation to make sure that no harm resulting from the new relationship will come to those whose communication relation to each other he has altered. Since harm of this kind seems to flow from the poor to the affluent, the male to female, the weak to the powerful, the introducer may feel obliged to check with the one who has the more to lose before effecting the introduction, and assume that the one who has something to gain will have no objection to the relationship. Friends or acquaintances may not be introduced to one another unless it is known that the introduction will be agreeable to both parties. Suppose two persons, however, are of the same rank and social position, it is proper to accede to the request of one of them to be introduced, without previously asking the permission of the other. It is not in good form to introduce a person of lower rank to one of higher rank without receiving the express permission of the latter, but a request from one of higher rank to be presented to one of lower rank must be complied with instantly. Where the context is a close or continuing one, making it difficult for the persons introduced to employ the courtesy of foregoing their rights, the introducer will presumably have to take special care. You must never introduce people to each other in public places unless you are very certain that the introduction will be agreeable to both. You cannot commit a greater social blunder than to introduce to a notable person someone she does not care to know, especially on shipboard, in hotels, or in other very small, rather public communities where people are so closely thrown together that it is correspondingly difficult to avoid presuming acquaintances who have been given the wedge of an introduction. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
One of the complications in understanding the institution of introduction in our society is our interpersonal deference system, because introduction is one of its ritual coins. The forms of introduction themselves are of course tied to the deference system, and differences in the relative rank of the persons introduced will be felt. Thus, “in polite society,” the custom is to introduce the subordinate to the superordinate. Also, the naming employed may be asymmetrical, with one person being introduced, say, by first name, and the second by formal title. And whether symmetrical or asymmetrical, the naming couplet employed may be selected from varying places in the hierarchy of formality, from nicknames to civil titles. Finally, the right to initiate or modify a particular naming usage between two persons may be differentially allocated. When “with” one person, a chance meeting with a second person requires the individual to introduce the two, except when contact with the newcomer clearly must be brief. Failure to introduce, in middle-class society, may be considered an open affront to one or both of those not introduced. Underlying this convention is the rule that, under proper circumstances, an individual has the right to introduce to each other any two persons with whom one is acquainted (a rule that can lead an individual to be put under pressure or under obligation to “arrange an introduction”). The issues raised by obligatory introductions are met in various ways, in addition to the basic one of the limiting one’s acquaintances to social equals, who will not be embarrassed by being introduced to one another, and to trustworthy persons who will not abuse introduction provided them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
When two people—either friends or acquaintances—are walking together and they meet a third who stops to speak to one of them, the other walks slowly on and does not stand awkwardly by and wait for an introduction. If the third is asked by the one she knows, to join them, the sauntering friend is overtaken and the introduction made. The third, however, must not join them unless invited to do so. Further, introductions made at such times, and even fleetingly at large social occasions, are sometimes treated by both introduced parties as “courtesy” introductions only, and are not drawn on when the individuals next find themselves in a similar situation unless, through preliminary signs, each signifies inclination to do so. Finally, where there is marked difference in the status of the unacquainted persons, a strategy may be employed to form a relationship of acquaintanceship without introduction: On occasions I happens that in talking to one person you want to introduce another in your conversation without making an introduction. For instance: suppose you are talking to a seedsman and a friend joins you in your garden. You greet your friend, and then include her by saying, “Mr. Smith is suggesting that I dig up these cannas and put in delphiniums.” Whether your friend gives an opinion as to change in colour of your flower bed or not, she has been made part of your conversation. This same maneuver of evading an introduction is also resorted to when you are not sure that an acquaintance will be agreeable to one or both of those whom an accidental circumstance has brought together. The same “half-way” introduction has been employed in introducing servants to house guests. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
Jesse James used to rob trains and held up banks and then gave money to the neighbouring farmers to pay off their mortgages. I am sure he thought that the was doing a good thing, but there are no victimless crimes. The fact is that all people you meet have a high regard for themselves and like to be find and unselfish in their own estimation. However, a person usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good and a real one. The person will think of the real reason. You do not need to emphasize that. Yet, all of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of motives that sound good. So, in order to change people, appeal to the nobler motives. For instance, when John D. Rockefeller, Jr., wished to stop newspaper photographers from snapping pictures of his children, he too appealed to the nobler motives. He did not say: “I do not want their pictures published.” No, he appealed to the desire, deep in all of us, to refrain from harming children. He said: “You know how it is, boys. You have got children yourselves, some of you. And you know it is not good for youngster to get too much publicity.” When Cyrus H.K Curtis , the poor boy from Maine was starting on his meteoric career, which was destined to take him millions as owner of The Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies’ Home Journal, he could not afford to pay his contributors the prices that other magazines paid. He could not afford to hire first-class authors to write for money alone. So he appealed to their nobler motives. For example, he persuaded even Louisa May Alcott, the immortal author of Little Women, to write for him when she was at the flood tide of her fame; and he did it by offering to send a check for a hundred dollars, not to her, but to her favourite charity. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
Although nothing may work in all cases, and nothing may work with all people, it is worthy trying. Six customers of a certain automobile company refused to pay their bills for servicing. None of the customers protested the entire bill, but each claimed that someone charge was wrong. In each case, the customer had signed for the work done, so the company knew it was right—and said so. That was the first mistake. Here are the steps the men in the credit department took to collect these overdue bills. Do you supposed they succeeded? They called on each customer and told him that they had come to collect a bill that was long past due. They made it very plain that the company was absolutely and unconditionally right; therefore he, the customer, was absolutely and unconditionally wrong. They intimated that they, the company, knew more about automobiles than he could ever hope to know. So what was the argument about? Result: They argued. Did any of these methods reconcile the customer and settle the account? You can answer that one yourself. At this stage of affairs, the credit manager was about to open fire with a battery of legal talent, when fortunately the matter came to the attention of the general manager. The manager investigated these defaulting clients and discovered that they all had the reputation of paying their bills promptly. Something was wrong here—something was drastically wrong about the method of collection. So he called in James L. Thomas and told him to collect these “uncollectible” accounts. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
Here, in his words, are the steps Mr. Thomas took: He listened to the customers and learned why they disputed the bill. After Mr. Thomas apologized for the matter being badly mishandled and reduced the bill, five of the customers agreed to pay. The sixth refused. However, because Mr. Thomas was so nice and professional, in the next two years, all six of these customers bought new cars from that company. “Experience has taught me,” says Mr. Thomas, “that when no information can be secured about the customer, the only sound basis on which to proceed is to assume that one is sincere, honest, truthful and anxious to pay the charges, once convinced they are correct. To put it differently and perhaps more clearly, people are honest and want to discharge their obligations. The exceptions to that rule are comparatively few, and I am convinced that the individuals who are inclined to chisel will in most cases react favourably if you make them feel that you consider them honest, upright and fair.” Appeal to the nobler motives. “When I look back at the opportunities missed in this life, I have the feeling that only by being a different kind of person could I have acted differently. From this it seems to me that the only way to affect recurrence is to change one’s essence.” Again, very useful. However, how can you do this? “Would memory of a previous recurrence make it possible to change one’s actions?” That I do not know. That you will see when you have it. “A recurring life is not lived exactly as before, is it?” The beginning is always the same. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
“In recurrence through one life to another do we retain the same level of being?” There are different theories about it. One theory is that if one acquires something in one life it is bound to grow. However, there are many other theories. “Is memory in essence?” It is better to say that it is connected with “I”s which are in personality. There are many different kinds of memory of this system, memory of smell, memory of roads. However, we speak of the memory that we know. It is very easy to spoil this memory. “There are people with photographic memory. Are they more conscious?” There are many different kinds of memory. You have a certain kind of memory. Another man has another kind. However, you can use your own kind of memory better or worse by being more conscious or less conscious. Memory is in all centers. It may be a little better in one center than in another but there is only one method of making memory strong—by becoming more conscious. Not only does each center have its own memory but some kinds of memory belong to essence and some to personality. “Id memory a function of the body? Can it be compared to movement?” You can call it a function of the body if you like. However, why compare it with movement? One thing is not like another. Memory is something in us, maybe in essence, maybe in personality. We recollect in personality, but memory of taste or smell is in essence. However, actually one remembers in personality. “What must we do to avoid spoiling our memory?” Work on imagination first; lying second. These two things destroy our memory. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
When we first spoke of lying people took it s funny; they did not realize that one can destroy one’s memory completely. Struggle with imagination also, not just for sport or exercise. “What can help us to recognize lying in ourselves?” There are many different things; first, analysis of fact, words and theories. Recognition of other people’s lying is very useful and then one bright morning one can come to oneself. “Does false personality destroy memory?” Yes, one can say that false personality either destroys or distorts memory. “Is false personality a form of lying?” Leave false personality. It is not a form of lying; it is a defence. Avoiding unpleasant results by false personality, one can feel oneself in a certain way. “Does this spoiling of memory result in physiological change?” Oh, yes! It may bring complete lunacy. Old psychologists knew about that. They spoke about hysterics and so on. However, they did not realize that just by our ordinary psychological play we can spoil memory. Lying about ideas, imagining about ideas and so on. “What effect would hard work on stopping thoughts have on recurrence?” Right or wrong, there is promise behind it. “What is the way towards developing memory in recurrence?” This is very interesting and very important. It is necessary to develop memory, as it is also possible to destroy memory. According to the studies to the theory or recurrence, self-remembering is the only way of developing memory. If one remembers oneself in this life, one will remember next time. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
Our final mechanism of internal change and interaction patterns deals with space. In this mechanism the actions occurring within the system alter the very structure of the space in which actors are located. The agents are not directly intent on changing the collective interaction patterns, but barriers are being created (or reduced) from the inside, as a by-product of agent actions. The classic example from biology is speciation. Over time a population can diverge, its members evolving into subgroups that eventually can no longer interbreed. The subpopulations have grown far apart, as though they were continents, now separated by a kind of ocean in the space of possible animals. The animals may have had no intention to form separate species, but their breeding decisions eventually had that result. Biological examples of mergers are less common, but they do exist. One widely supported theory suggests that mitochondria, the tiny “fuel factories” of animal cells, are the result of a capturing process. Bacterial structures were incorporated by host animal cells, and some of the genetic encoding for mitochondrial reproduction was moved to the animal cell genome. What had been a separate population was merged into another one. In the social World, we frequently see merging and division of groups and even nations. At the level of national politics, such processes always have an explicit component. New nations declare their independence. Foreign governments recognize their existence. However, frequently this is a late stage of what began as a more implicit and internally driven separation process. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
A group of people that have been considered part of some larger nation find themselves interacting more strongly with each other and less with members of the “other” group. They begin to talk of their separate identity. That talk, and the reaction of others to it, may then propel the dynamic into a new phase, one better understood with tools from the early part of our report, on external intervention and introduction of explicit barriers. These remarks on the mixture of internal and external processes in nation building serve as a reminder that actual situations typically involve many mechanisms at once. Variety may be created by imitating foreign visitors even as it is destroyed by censoring media. Interaction may be decreased by a policy decision to reduce foreign language instruction, at the same time as interaction is increased by the need to trade with each other. An idea can be widely adopted in spite of being publicly condemned—indeed, because of being condemned, so that publishers will be eager to print a book “banned in Boston.” Interaction among agents shapes the creation and destruction of variety and produces the events that drive the attribution of credit. Shortly after Ronald Reagan was elected to the American presidency, Lee Atwater, one of his chief assistants (later successively George Bush’s campaign manager and chairman of the Republican National Committee), met with friends for lunch at the White House. His candour at the table was remarkable. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
“You will hear a lot in the coming months about the Reagan Revolution,” he said. “The headlines will be full of tremendous changes Reagan plans to introduce. Don’t believe them. Reagan does want to make a lot of changes. But the reality is, in one direction. If we here work very hard and are extremely lucky, Reagan may be able to push it five degrees in the opposite direction. That’s what the Reagan Revolution is really about.” Despite a media focus on individual politicians, Atwater’s remark underlines the degree to which even the most popular and highly placed leader is a captive of the “system.” This system, of course, is not capitalism or socialism, but bureaucratism. For bureaucracy is the most prevalent form of power in all smokestack states. Bureaucrats, not democratically elected officials, essentially run all governments on an everyday basis, and make the overwhelming majority of decisions publicly credited to Presidents and Prime Ministers. “All Japanese politicians…” writes Yoship Tsurumi, head of the Pacific Basin Center Foundation, “have become totally dependent on the central bureaucrats for drafting and passing bills. They stage Kabuki plays of ‘debates’ on bills according to scenarios created by the elite bureaucrats of each ministry.” Similar descriptions apply with varying degrees of force to the civil services of France, Britain, West Germany, and the other countries routinely described as democratic. Political leaders regularly bemoan the difficulty they face in getting their bureaucracies to carry out their wished. The fact is that, no matter how many parties run against one another in elections, and no matter who gets the most votes, a single party always wind. It is the Invisible Part of bureaucracy.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
Often others can help us achieve credible commitment. Although people may be weak on their own, they can build resolve by forming a group. The successful use of peer pressure to achieve commitment has been made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA,) and diet centers too. The AA approach changes the payoffs from breaking your word. It sets up a social institution in which pride and self-respect are lost when commitments are broken. Sometimes teamwork foes far beyond social pressure and employs strong-arm tactics to force us to keep true to our promises. Consider the problem for the front line of an advancing army. If everyone else charges forward, one soldier who hangs back ever so slightly will increase one’s chance of survival without significantly lowering the probability that the attack will be successful. If every soldier thought the same way, however, the attack would become a retreat. Of course it does not happen that way. A solider is conditioned through honour to one’s country, loyalty to fellow soldiers, and belief in the million-dollar wound—an injury that is serious enough to send one home, out of action, but not so serious that one will not fully recover. Those soldiers who lack the will and the courage to follow order can be motivated by penalties for desertion. If the punishment for desertion is certain and ignominious death, the alternative of advancing forward becomes much more attractive. However, soldiers are not interested in killing their fellow countrymen, even deserters. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
How can soldiers who have difficulty committing to attack the enemy make a credible commitment to killing their countrymen for desertion? The ancient Roman army made falling behind in an attack a capital offense. As the army advanced in a line, any soldier who saw the one next to one falling being was ordered to kill the deserter immediately. To make this order credible, failing to kill a deserter was also a capital offense. Thus even though a soldier would rather get on with the battle than go back after a deserter, failing to do so could cost one one’s own life. The motive for punishing deserters is made even stronger if the deserter is given clemency for killing those in line next to him who fail to punish him. Thus is a soldier fails to kill a deserter, there are now two people who can punish: his neighbour and the deserter, who could save one’s own life by punishing those who failed to punish him. However, if you are not careful, this can lead to a massacre of one’s own people. A munity. The tactics of the Roman army lie on today in the honour code required of students at West Point. Exams are not monitored, and cheating is an offense that leads to expulsion. However, because students are not inclined to “rat” on their classmates, failure to report observed cheating is also a violation of the honour code. This violation also leads to expulsion. When the honour code is violated, students report crimes because they do not want to become guilty accomplices by their silence. Similarly, criminal law provides penalties for those who fail to report crime as an accessory after the fact. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
Plague insurance—medical nanotechnologies promise to extend healthy life, but if history is any guide, they may also avert sudden massive death. The word plague is rarely heard today, except in relation to COVID; it calls up visions of the Black Death of the Middle Ages, when one third of Europe died in 1346-50. A virulent influenza struck in 1918, half lost in the news of the First World War: how many of us realize that it killed at least 20 million? People often act as though plagues were gone for good, as if sanitation and antibiotics had vanquished them. However, as the doctors are forever telling their patients, antibiotics kill bacteria, but are useless for viruses. The flu, the common cold, and other sexually transmitted viruses (which can be deadly)—none has a really effective treatment, because all are caused by viruses. In some American counties, as much as percent of the population is estimated to be infected with a deadly sexually transmitted virus, and even youth and virgins may carry this virus. There is no “safe” population. Without a cure soon, the steep rise in deaths from deadly sexually transmitted viruses still lies in the future. Deadly sexually transmitted viruses and cancer are grim reminders that the great history of plagues are not behind us. New diseases continue to appear today as they have throughout history. Today’s population, far larger than that of any previous century, provides a huge fertile territory for their spread. Today’s transportation system can spread viruses from continent to continent in a single day. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
When ships sailed or churned their way across the seas, an infected passenger was likely to show full-blown disease before arrival, permitting quarantine. However, few diseases can be guaranteed to show themselves in hours of a single aircraft flight. So far as is known, every species of organism, from bacterium to whale, is afflicted with viruses. Animal viruses sometimes “jump the species gap” to infect other animals, or people. You have seen the film “Kaw.” Most scientists believe that the ancestors of a particularly deadly sexually transmitted virus could only infect monkeys. Then these viruses made the interspecies a jump. A similar jump occurred in the 1960 when scientists in West Germany, working with cells from monkeys in Uganda, suddenly fell ill. Dozens were infected, and several died of a disease that caused both blood clots and bleeding, caused by what is now named the Marburg virus. What is the Marburg virus had spread with a sneeze, like influenza or the common cold? We think of human plagues as a health problem, but when they hit our fellow species, we tend to see them from an environmental perspective. In the late 1980s, over half the harbour-seal population in large parts of the North Sea suddenly died, leading many at fist to blame pollution. The cause, though, appears to be a distemper virus that made the jump from dogs. Biologists worry that the virus could infect seal species around the World, since distemper virus can spread by aerosols—that is, by coughing—and seals live in close physical contact. So far its mortality rate has been 60 to 70 percent. There is no reason a great plague could not happen again. We live in evolutionary competition with microbes—bacteria and viruses. There is no guarantee that will be the survivors. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
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