It is common to equate being aggressive with being manly, and—in many circles—to assign this a beneficial connotation. Men who appear far from aggressive may be subjected to slurs, or made fun of for such apparent weakness, as exemplified by referring to them as females. One of the most interesting aspects of group sexual assault is that it is an aggressive group activity, implying that the discussion of motivation must take into the fact that there is, in some sense, an audience and that something is being shared. While studying convicted rapists’ accounts of the rewards of rape, with particular attention to the responses of gang rapists, who were mostly in their late teens or early twenties, a motive was confirmed. In the “Good Old Boys Sociability groups” (GOBS), men who maintained a group affiliation from adolescence into adulthood, provided a helpful picture of the activities of middle-class “gangs.” The most common description of the rewards of rape by the incarcerated gang rapists fell into the category of recreation and adventure. For these men, fun and trouble enjoy a symbiotic relationship as sociability themes. One activity that fits this description is fooling around with a “bad woman.” A bad woman is defined as any woman who is not the wife or girlfriend of a member. A unique reward of gang rape described by the respondents is the camaraderie among the men. It is believed that some men prefer gang rape to solitary rape because they a pack mentality. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Also, when someone is of a different culture, seen as an enemy, or does not share a common language, the offenders are able to detach from the victim by not seeing the individual as a human being and this make them feel they are doing no harm. It also provides a motive for sharing the rape with friends. Fellowship, and cooperation are seen as unique benefits of gang rape. However, the offenders who call their victims animals may have fantasies of bestiality. In group situations, as previously mentioned, fun and trouble go hand-in-hand, so are competition and camaraderie intertwined in some male sociability groups. A primary motive in group sexual assault, especially for group leaders, is to sustain an image with the group. Participation seems to stem in part from indebtedness to or emotional dependency on the leader. In part, then, participation in a group sexual assault is motivated by the relationship among the men, for the purpose of maintaining or creating images and roles within the group. Certainly, providing a woman to the group, as in several of the documented campus cases where a college student offered his date to his friends, falls in the category of motives related to intragroup acceptance. An intriguing possibility to consider is does an outsider intensify the competition and need to create a masculine image? It appears that part of the appeal is the shared experience with one’s buddies. Earlier studies of gang rape posited that the men were latent homosexuals and sharing the woman was a way of sharing sex. The men are sharing in a homosexual experience. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

That does day something about their social and emotional relationships with their own gender, but does not in itself inform us that they would rather have sex with each other. Men do not rape women out of sexual desire for other men, but they may rape women, in part, as a way to relate to men. Much like two men robbing a store together: they are not covertly expressing a desire to rob each other. One motive that should not be overlooked in this age group, however, is simply the opportunity to have heterosexual intercourse. One offender who was interviewed had been involved in 20-30 group rapes. He stated that he had participated in gang rapes because his driver’s license had been revoked, depriving him of the opportunity to take women out alone. A college student interviewed about his participation in a “train” during Spring break in Florida seemed to be delighted by the unusual sexual availability of college women. He did not know the other men, thus apparently relations among the men played little or no role in his participation. A related enticement of group rape for young men who are unable to make relationships with women on their own is that it allows for sexual intercourse without responsibility toward the sexual partner. Solitary rapists sometimes seek reassurance from their victims that they were also sexually satisfied and believed that a reward of group rape was that on individual has to be concerned about or related to the woman. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

However, there is also a new trend amongst college age males, who are generally 18-28. They are living in houses with large groups of men, and they have group sex. Most times it is consensual because other men want to be part of the group, and they are able to backout at any time because there are so many guys participating and enjoy that no one is held hostage, but the interesting phenomena is that these young man do not fit the stereotype of a homosexual male. They have no overt homosexual tendencies other than the fact that they like to have sex with other men. If you met one of them, you would not even suspect that they were gay. It could be as homosexuality is becoming more accepted, more men are willing to have homosexual relationships, but they may not be homosexual. It could just be a way for them to get through college or life without being accused of rape. Men tend to be more free about their sexuality and if they are in a group where they already know what is considered the dominant culture, they know what to expect. So it is not like they are being tricked into having sex. It is just an unwritten rule about their house that that is what they do. They often times do not use protection because there is no risk of pregnancy, so as long as no one goes outside of the house for pleasures of the flesh, they do not have to worry about diseases or viruses. And sometimes there is also financial compensation. Many of these young men are able to afford jumbo sized homes together and luxury cars, and they have healthy bank accounts. Can afford to buy high end clothes and dine at fancy restaurants. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

This social group thee young men form may help some of them pay their way through college or give them the funding they will need later in life to start a business. And all they need to do is be skinny, or slightly muscular and have an average to attractive face. Nonetheless, you will also notice that homosexual men, especially the ones who do not fit the stereotype, are very secretive about their relations. If you are not one of them, you probably will not know what they do on their free time. They also may date women, and some may not. But you still have like these masculine athletic jocks nowadays who are openly in relationship with other men, who often times look like their twin or brother. This could be a healthy form of narcissism. (Not the I am promoting this lifestyle, I think abstinence is best, but in most cases, they are not hurting anyone and earning a living legally.) It is well-established that individuals are more aggressive in groups than they would be when acting alone. Such group processes are probably what participants in group sexual assaults and their defenders have in mind when they attempt to deflect blame by explaining, “Things got out of hand” (a several “enlightened” male students have confided to me about group sexual assaults). Three factors identified by social psychologists to explain why groups are so easily ignited to aggression can be applied to gang rape. An individual in a group is less likely to behave altruistically and more likely to harm others than if the same individual were alone. One reason for these tendencies is that responsibility for the welfare of a victim is diluted by the presence of others, who share the blame. The term diffusion of responsibility is applied to situations in which the presence of others acting in a similar fashion diminishes the feeling of responsibility any individual feels for the harmful consequences of his or her own behavior. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

A slightly different concept, deindividuation, refers to a state of loss of self-awareness, including awareness of one’s beliefs, attitudes, and self-standards. (In contrast, diffusion of responsibility does not entail forgetting oneself or what one considers proper behavior, but only feeling it is not one’s job to uphold these standards all alone. Deindividuation connotes irrationality.) This loss of self is sometimes encouraged to promote group spirit, as in a pep rally, or to facilitate behavior that is otherwise unacceptable. For examples, soldiers’ uniforms are deindividuating that they remove signs of individuality and are thought to make it easier for them to adopt the alien role of defender. Alcohol promotes deindividuation by allowing escapes from one’s conscience and self-consciousness. Group cohesion and loyalty can produce deindividuation by substituting a group identity, with a group history and mores, for individual identities with unique, personal histories and beliefs. Hierarchical or status seeking behavior can start at a very young age, supported by whatever aggression can be mustered—and by authority figure and social rewards. In a group setting, particularly when a group identity produces conformity, modeling of aggression also occurs. Not only would watching peers rape and sodomize a woman indicate the appropriateness of such behavior, it would also demonstrate how it is done. There was an incident in which up to forty fraternity brothers raped and sexually humiliated a woman who was developmentally disabled. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Many view aggression not as innate, but as a disposition fueled and governed by personal and cultural condition. According to the social learning theory, aggression is a self-serving learned behavior: we assume we need or deserve something, and we find that we can get it—and sometimes even more—through being aggressive, whether directly or indirectly (as when we manipulate another into acting out our aggression). The students’ behavior can be attributed to group membership, illustrating how diffusion or responsibility, deindividuation, and modeling might come together to render a grotesque act not only tolerable but pleasurable: Who can doubt that these same young men would…have had considerable qualms about doing these things to a woman by themselves? They would probably have felt that what they were doing was perverse and shameful. It was the presence of other men that made the act acceptable; in fact, it was probably the presence of the other men that made it attractive…it was the sort of appeal that baiting a dog, or watching a hanging holds. The aggressive man, the alpha male, the violence-delivering hero, the mesomorphic bare-chested hulk with the big guns, the tough guy who kills with barely a blink of his narrowed eyes, the ruthless moneymaker—all of these, in various combinations, infiltrate a boy’s consciousness, however peripherally, implanting the notion that a man is primarily here to fight, however bloodless his battles may be. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

Functional mental disorders are instances of sickness similar in certain ways to the sickness exhibited by a paretic is partly based on the fact that in many cases it is extremely difficult to discover from behavior alone whether an individual patient is suffering from an organic or functional psychosis. The assumption seems to be that the misbehavior or organically diseased patients is thoroughly symptomatic, and that if functionals exhibit these behaviors, too, it can at least be said of them that they are conducting themselves symptomatically. How a psychogenically-based disorder can give rise to a whole pattern of behavior similar to that seen in organic cases is not explained. However, in terms of the sociology of situations, surely this happy coincidence between organic and functional behavioral symptoms is only to be expected. Whatever the diverse grounds—social or organic—of deviance, there is usually only one set of situational rules that apply within a given situation. And if eventful deviation is to be perceived, whether this deviation is called a symptom or not, it is just these rules that must be broken. Take, for example, the form of possession called “were” of the Shango cult in Trinidad: Finally, a form of possession known as “were” occurs with some frequency. Individuals in this state are considered “messengers of the powers.” Were possession is a half-way state between full possession and normal behavior, and a high degree of consciousness is retained. It is marked by disobeying ceremonial regulations by such acts as smoking, swearing, or mocking sacred places by spitting on the tombs of the powers. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

The behavior becomes extremely childish: the possessed may speak with a marked lisp, wet or soil oneself, and use vulgar oneself, and use vulgar language and gestures. One is treated tolerantly by onlookers, as one might treat a naughty but loved child. One person in this state maintained that he had just landed from “New York Thity” and that his plane was parked outside the gate. He cordially invited all available females to examine the side of the plane with him (evoking gales of hysterical laughter from all present). It is possible to view this kind of conduct as a form of transitory psychosis, but the more we learn about the qualifications required for engaging in this behavior, and the community position of those qualitied, the more we appreciate that the same vocabulary of improprieties must be relied upon regardless of the reasons and meaning of deviation. (This lesson, of course, has been taught by Freudian psychiatrist themselves, in their theory if not in their practice, in connection with the notion that a psychotic symptom can be a defense, and can be altered radically without changing the underlying psychopathology, while at the same time similar symptoms may be exhibited by persons of quite dissimilar psychopathology.) Here, paradoxically, the comparative approach has perhaps done us some disservice. Psychiatrists visiting foreign countries often find the culture utterly strange and the language very difficult to understand. However, often, too, the find the behavior of local mental patients perfectly familiar; once they are on a native back ward the visitors find themselves at home. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

Since they similarly find themselves in a familiar territory when looking in on a foreign operating room or observing  native case of measles, the tendency is to assume that what mental patient have is a medical kind of culture-free disorder. Here, however, the possibility might be entertained that some of the same rules of situational propriety may be to social gatherings in many different cultures. To the degree cultural uniformities, there are internationally recognized improprieties, and psychiatrist are in fact at home anywhere in the World. The culmination of the rising tide of these deceiving spirits sweeping upon the Church is described by the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians, where he speaks of the manifestation of someone who will, eventually, have so deceived Christendom as to have gained an entrance into the very sanctuary of God; so that “he sitteth in the sanctuary of God, setting himself forth as God.” The bearing of this one will be a “presence” like God, and yet “according to the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and wonders of falsehood, and with all deceit…” (2 Thess. 2.4, 9-10). Confirmation of our Lord’s words recorded by Matthew is found in the revelation given by Him to John on Patmos, that at the close of the age the main weapon used by the deceiver for obtaining power over the people of the Earth will be supernatural signs from Heaven, when a counterfeit “lamb” will do “great signs,” and even “make fire come down out of Heaven” to deceive the dwellers on the Earth, thereby exercising such control over the whole World that “no man shall be able to buy or sell, save he that hath the mark of the beast” (Rev. 13.11-17). Through this supernatural deception, the full purpose of the deceiving hierarchy of Satan reaches its consummation in the foretold World-wide authority. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

Deception of the World with deepening darkness, including deception of the Church through arcane “teachings” and “manifestations,” will reach the highest floodtide climax at the close of the age. It is striking to note that John, the apostle who was chosen to transmit the Apocalypse to the Church in preparation for the last days of the Church militant, should be the one who wrote to the Christians of his say, “Believe not every spirit…” (1 John 4.1-6). He earnestly warned his “children” that the “spirit of antichrist” and the “spirit of error” (deception) was already actively at work among them. Their attitude was to be “believe not”—id est, to doubt every supernatural teaching and teacher until proved to be of God. They were to prove the “teachings,” lest they came from a “spirit of error” and where part of the deceiver’s campaign as “antichrist,” id est, against Christ. If this attitude of neutrality and doubt toward supernatural teachings was needed in the days of the Apostle John—some fifty-seven years after Pentecost—how much more is it needed in “later times” foretold by the Lord, and by the Apostle Paul. Times which were to be characterized by a clamor of voices of “prophets”: that is—in the language of the twenty-first century—“speakers” and “teachers” using the sacred name of the Lord; and when “teachings” received supernaturally from the spiritual realm would abound—“teachings” accompanied with such wonderful proofs of their “divine” origin as to perplex even the most faithful of the Lord’s people, and even, for a time, to DECEIVE some of them. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

One moment someone’s hand is warm in yours and then they are gone. The door closed between you and that individual and one was taken away. Shut off in another one, the person left behind will feel a cold vacancy. Alone, silent and still, waiting the long loneliness. The terror and dread from being away from the one you love increases and grips one’s heart. People do not know what life is like without their soulmate. They envision only vague, empty images from their mind. One thing may be clear, your being in the World brought them a unique value into their life as it has for many others. When you depart, often your other half has no idea what life will be like—alone, facing the painful intimacy of a broken heart. Always before you two were together. You faced your sufferings together. They often wonder in that final moment when you walk away, who will they be? As they listen to approaching footsteps approach in the hall, your loved one wonders “Where are you?” and “What is happening in the moment?” as they do not see you coming home. All they see is new faces, cars, dogs, and cats. All of it comes together in horror and he or she closes the door. Waiting, trying to feel some hope. Will you come soon? Will your face tell me the ordeal is over? Hardly a night passes when they have not awakened to the depth of suffering. In these days, your loved one pauses momentarily and stops and stares. In crowded streets, they feel your hurt. And in the morning sun the pain is continuous. Yet through it all you have maintained a loving place in their heart, a gentle spirit, and your strength has encouraged other to go on living. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

Your loved believes if you return to their life, there will be no more pain, only tenderness and life. As one listens for the sounds that will bring you back, this is one’s fervent hope—that fear and anguish and the break up are finished and will never again hover over them again. The practice of stopping thoughts helps self-remembering very much. Struggle with imagination and with mechanical talk with oneself or with people is necessary from the very beginning. However, one will get still stronger help for self-remembering from sacrificing one’s suffering. Only this can make the work on consciousness real and serious. Before this, all is only preparation for it. The work on emotions as the work on consciousness mut be practical from the beginning. It begins with the struggle against the expression of negative emotions. When a certain control is acquired and when you fully understand all evil sides of negative emotions in your own life and in life in general, you must make a plan for your personal work on identification, imagination and lying in those particular forms which they take in you. In this work you must not be afraid to hurt yourself. Understand that only by hurting yourself can you get what you want. You can do this by observing rules. For instance, by saying something about yourself or about other people that you do not want to say, but when you are told to do so. Also, you can produce a very emotional state in yourself by preparing yourself to speak in this way, by imagining yourself being told to speak the truth on the most difficult and intimate subjects which you think are quite hidden or disguised. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

Realize also, that there are many other kinds of suffering through which you will pass before you attain your aim. Try to understand that suffering is the only active principle in us which can be converted into higher feeling—which is also higher thought and higher understanding. Do not be afraid of thinking of your emotions and finding contradictions in them, even if it hurts you. Only if your work hard enough and are not afraid of hurting yourself by comparing different emotions referring to the same subject, can you find buffers in yourself and eventually destroy them. Remember that this will lead you to the awakening of conscience, which is the simultaneous feeling of all contradictory emotions; and remember that the awakening of conscience is a necessary step for transferring yourself to the higher level of consciousness. Practice removing identification and imagination from negative emotions without destroying them. You may get quite unexpected and very interesting results. Learn to transform emotions into mental attitudes and to transfer them to the mind. Many emotions which are quite useless and even harmful in emotional center, because they cannot exist there without identification and imagination, become quite useful as mental attitudes and help self-observation, observation of other people and generally understanding. Try to go through all your emotions during all the time you have been connected with the system, emotions referring to the system itself, to me, to yourself and to other people in this work. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Try to be sincere with yourself. See how you have always tried to profit by your being in the work; for instance, by using the particular intimacy that establishes itself between people in the work, owing to common psychological study and the disappearance of many buffers, for making friends in the ordinary mechanical and sentimental way, having love affairs, et cetera. See what use you have made of your connection with the work. See how you were often selfish and calculating, how little you have to the work and how much you took from it. See how much considering was in your attitudes, how many demands and how much resentment, particularly when people tried to help you. Try to see how poor was your valuation of the work and how much you missed by it. Try to see how foolish you were to express negative opinion of people who could have helped you, many of whom have disappeared already. Try to see yourself as you really are. And do not let yourself rest, do not comfort yourself with false hopes and expectations of miracles, or with decisions to act differently tomorrow. Think about life in general, think about masses of blind and sleeping people without any chance in the World to become anything else. Think about yourself, realize how many opportunities you had and how many you have already lost. Think about death. You do not know how much time remains to you. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

And remember that if you do not become different, everything will be repeated again, all foolish blunders, all silly mistakes, all loss of time and opportunity—everything will be repeated with the exception of chance you had this time, because chance never comes in the same form. You will have to look for your chance next time. And in order to do this, you will have to remember many things, and how will you remember then if you do not remember anything now? Try to understand the work on will. You begin this work by work on mind and consciousness; work on emotions strengthens will still more, and prepares you for further efforts. However, real work on will begins with trying to understand self-will and finding examples of its manifestations in your actions. At this point come the necessity for great sincerity with yourself and the necessity for being ready to speak to me about your manifestations of self-will. Try to understand that every decision made by yourself and for yourself which can at the same time affect your work is the manifestation of self-will. In order to understand better the difference between will and self-will, learn to distinguish between mechanical and conscious. Self-will is always mechanical, will is always conscious. You must understand that even on an ordinary level there is a great difference between mechanical and conscious. In life the difference is connected with the difference between important and unimportant, but in life the difference between important and unimportant varies for different people and changes according to the change of circumstances. For people in school, “important” is always connected with the work. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Bargaining—a newly elected trade union leader went to his first tough bargaining session in the company boardroom. Nervous and intimidated by the setting, he blurted out his demand: “We want ten dollars an hour or else.” “Or else what?” challenged the boss. The union leader replied, “Nine dollar fifty.” Few union leaders are so quick to back down, and bosses need the threat of Japanese competition, not their own power to secure wage concessions. However, the situation poses several important questions about the bargaining process. Will there be an agreement? Will it occur amicably, or only after a strike? Who will concede and when? Who will get how much of the pie that is in the object of the haggling? To look ahead and reason back, it helps to start at a fixed point in the future, so let us think of an enterprise with a natural conclusion, such as a hotel in a summer resort. The season lasts 101 days. Each day the hotel operates, it makes a profit of $1,000. At the beginning of the season, the employees, union confront the management over wages. The union presents its demand. The management either accepts this, or rejects it and returns the next day with a counteroffer. The hotel can open only after an agreement is reached. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

First suppose bargaining has gone on for so long that even if the next round leads to an agreement, the hotel can open for only the last day of the season. In fact bargaining will not go on that long, but because of the logic of looking ahead and reasoning back, what actually happens is governed by a thought process that starts at this logical extreme. Suppose it is the union’s turn to present its demand. At this point the management should accept anything as better than nothing. So the union can get away with the whole $1000. Now look at the day before the last, when it is the management’s turn to make an offer. It knows that the union can always reject this, let the process go on to the last day, and get $1,000. Therefore the management cannot offer any less. And the union cannot do any better than get $1,000 on the last day, so the management need not offer any more on the day before. Therefore the management’s offer at this stage is clear: of the $2,000 profit over the last two day, it asks half. Each side gets $500 per day. Next let the reasoning move back one more day. By the same logic, the union will offer the management $1,000, and ask for $2,000; this gives the union $667 per day and the management $333. We show the full process following table. #RandolphHarris 18 of 210

Each time the union makes an offer, it has an advantage, which stems from its ability to make the last all-or-nothing offer. However, the advantage gets smaller as the number of rounds increases. At the start of a season 101 days long, the two sides’ positions are almost identical: $505 versus $495. If the management were to make the last offer, or indeed if there were no rigid rules like one offer a day, alternating offers, et cetera, almost the same division would emerge. Our restrictions to alternating offers and a known finite horizon are simply devices to help us look ahead. They become innocuous when the time between offers is short and the bargaining horizon is long—in these cases, looking ahead and reasoning backward leads to a very simple and appealing rule: split the total down the middle. What is more, the agreement occurs on the very first day of the negotiation process. Because the two sides look ahead to predict the same outcome, there is no reason why they should fail to agree and jointly lose $1,000 a day. Not all instances of union-management bargaining have such a happy beginning. Breakdowns in negotiations do occur, strikes or lockouts happen, and settlements favor one side or the other. When it comes to the media, the best way to understand its power is to place today’s media revolution in historical perspective, and to distinguish clearly among three different modes of communication. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

In highly oversimplified terms, we can say that in First Wave or agrarian societies, most communication passed mouth-to-ear and face-to-face within very small groups. In a World without newspapers, radio, or television, the only way for a message to reach a mass audience was by assembling a crowd. The crowd was, in fact, the first mass medium. A crowd may “send a message” upward to its ruler. In fact, the very size of the crowd is itself a message. However, whatever else the crowd may communicate, it also sends an identical message to all its participants. This message—which can be profoundly subversive—is simple: “You are not alone.” The crowd, therefore, has played a crucial role in history. The problem with the crowd or mob as a communications medium, however, is that it is usually ephemeral. The crowd was not the only pretechnolgical mass medium. In the West during the medieval era, the Catholic Church, because of its extensive organization, was the closet thing to a durable mass medium—and the only one able to transmit the same message to large populations across political boundaries. This unique capacity gave the Vatican immense power vis-à-vis Europe’s feuding kings and princelings. It accounts in part for the seesaw power struggles between church and state that bloodied Europe for centuries. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

The Second Wave system of wealth creation, based on factory mass production, needed more communication at a distance and gave rise to the post office, telegraph, and telephone. However, the new factories also needed a homogeneous work force, and technologically based mass media were invented. Newspapers, magazines, movies, radio, and television, each capable of carrying the same message to millions simultaneously, became the prime instruments of massification in the industrial societies. The new Third Wave system, by contrast, reflects the needs of the emerging post-mass-production economy. Like the latest “flexible manufacturing” plants, it customizes its image products and sends different images, ideas, and symbols to closely targeted population segments, markets, age categories, professions, ethnic or life-tyle groupings. This new high diversity of message and media is necessary because the new system of wealth creation required a far more heterogeneous work force and population. The de-massification has become a key characteristic of the new media system. But this is only one aspect. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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