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Have You Got a Brook in Your Little Heart—The Heart I Cherish in My Own
It was a cacophony of minds filling me in on everything from the beginning. And the whole thing sent a little panic through my enormous brave soul. A problem that comes with living is a kind of conflict called alienation. It means that the person feels or is made to feel that he or she is totally other than people in his or her own groups. People feel that they are an alien in the same sense as non-naturalized residents in the United States of America are considered aliens by the American government. They are a physically present nonmember of the group. The term “alien” may also carry negative and discriminatory connotations. Alienation is more than isolation or separateness; it is estrangement. It carries with it the idea of detachment from ourselves and from others. Among the many possible definitions of the term “alienation,” it seems appropriate to limit them term alienation to mean an individual feeling or state of dissociation from self, from others, and from the World at large. Such states, although functions of the conditions that produce them, should not be confused with the conditions themselves. When you feel alienated it may be that you have chosen to elaborate parts of your total self that others cannot tolerate or live with. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
When it comes to alienation, you may, in other words, choose to express a particular aspect of yourself that puts distance, both spatial and social, between you and other people. Take the hero (or anti-hero, if you wish) of Supernatural’s Dean Winchester. He chose not to live like other people. He did not have the apple pie life everyone dreams of with a nice house, in a lace curtains suburb, two cars, a wife, two kids, great career, and a white picket fence. Dean would do so many things that where so radical and so different from society’s norms that when he was hunting monsters, he was at times so alone and apart from other people. He subsequently did not trust many people, including his own brother at times. Simply being different does not qualify one as an alien, however. The alienated feels that his or her differences makes a difference. The individual (or one’s group) adopts the attitude that one’s actions create a gap that is unbridgeable. Obviously either party can create this situation and can participate in the attitude. A person can so order one’s life, can so emphasize these dissociating aspects of self, that it will almost guarantee a schism. One may do this intentionally, either to thumb one’s nose at those one dislikes or to show how little one needs them or their approval. Many of us do this in little ways throughout our lives, yet the feeling of alienation is hardly ever there, or not for very long. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
We can create a divine between us and society out of spite, or to test our individuality, or simply as an experiment. As an example of the latter, a young lady in one of our classes deliberately tested the alienating process by using in class what most of her female classmates called “obscene” language. She wanted to see what it might take to condition alienation in them. At the end of a prearranged time, she told them what she had been doing, but a few of the ladies never quite forgave her! Sometimes the people in a group decide that the person’s self-expression is detestable or alien, and they create the attitude and the subsequent behavior. The alien can choose to go along with it and feel alienated simply because the group is expressing alienation or one can refuse to play the game and either change one’s behavior or leave the scene. An example of how the group can force the alienation: A young teacher decided to supplement her salary by writing fiction. She had talent and sold two novels to a firm that specialized in somewhat controversial fiction. She chose to write under her own name (since she felt that her selfhood included writing as well as teaching, and she saw nothing wrong with what she was doing). #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
The books were not best-sellers, but they were available on most newsstands in the city where she taught. The books were very frank and explicit in their language and were classified by many people as “obscene.” She protested that they were simply portrayals of real life as she had observed it, and, though none of the experiences she described had actually happened to her, she was capitalizing on the public’s states for sensational literature. Not only were parents and townspeople angry at her, but her fellow teachers began expressing their displeasure. She was avoided in the faculty lounge, in the lunch room, and even by close associates. Her fiancé assumed her to be a cheap opportunist and broke off the engagement. (She felt, however, that, in spire of his vehement denials, he believed she had done most of the things she had written about.) A group of townspeople and teachers succeeded in getting her fired. Though the young lady admitted she was taking advantage of the opportunities to sell sensational literature, she felt that she was also making social commentary with her stories. Whatever her motives, she chose to exhibit a part of her self that flew in the face of conventional morality. The group felt it necessary to alienate itself from the young woman and succeeded in communicating its attitude to her. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
Alienation may have another very important aspect. A person may find it vitally necessary to split off from the group in order that one might survive as a person. Feelings of alienation and the rejection of others might well be the results of the way in which one does this. Our society may itself have become biologically dysfunctional, and some forms of schizophrenic alienation from the alienation of society may have a sociobiological function that we have not recognized. What we call schizophrenia is not a disease or sickness at all. It is a way of living that may be vital and necessary. One feels that the schizophrenic is a person who is extremely sensitive to the depersonalizing and fragmenting experiences of life and is going within to try to dramatize this fragmentation, this alienation to help bring the pieces back into their intended togetherness again: Perhaps we can retain the now old name, and read into it its etymological meaning: Schiz—“broken”; Phrenos—“soul” or “heart.” The schizophrenic in this sense is one who is brokenhearted. If we have the heart to let them, even broken hearts have been known to mend. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” reports 2 Corinthians 12.9. Schizophrenia, or any other so-called mental illness may be the step or process certain people take on their way to healthy functioning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
That is, a person may have to experience one’s own disorientation or sickness of soul before one can really know oneself fully. “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has declared, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you,’” reports Hebrews 13.5. Alienation, in whatever form, is a widespread and deeply painful experience. The courage to be as a part in the progress of the group to which one belongs, of this nation, of all humankind, is expresses in all specifically American philosophies: pragmatism, process philosophy, the ethics of growth, progressive education, and crusading in politics. However, this type of courage is not necessarily destroyed if the belief in progress is shaken, as it is today. Progress can mean two things. In every action in which something is produced beyond what was already given, a progress is made (pro-gress means going forward). In this sense action and the belief in progress are inseparable. The other meaning of progress is a universal, metaphysical law of progressive evolution, in which accumulation produces higher and higher forms and values. The existence of such a law cannot be proved. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
Most processes show that gain and loss are balanced. Nevertheless the new gain is necessary, because otherwise all past gains would also be lost. The courage of participation in the productive process is not dependent on the metaphysical idea of progress. The courage to be as a part in the productive process takes anxiety in its three main forms into itself. The way in which it deals with the anxiety about fate as been described. This is especially remarkable in a highly competitive society in which the security of the individual is reduced to almost nothing. The anxiety conquered in the courage to be as a part in the productive process is considerable, because the threat of being excluded from such a participation by unemployment or the loss of an economic basis is what, above all, fate means today. Only in the light of this situation can the tremendous impact of the great crisis of the 1930’s on the American people, and the frequent loss of the courage to be in it, be understood. The anxiety about death is met in two ways. The reality of death is excluded from daily life to the highest possible degree. The dead are not allowed to show that they are dead; they are transformed into a mask of the living. The other and more important way of dealing with death is the belief in a continuation of life after death, called the immortality of the soul. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
The immortality of the soul is not a Christian and hardly a Platonic doctrine. Christianity speaks of the resurrection and eternal life, Platonism of a participation of the soul in the transtemporal sphere of essences. However, the modern idea of immortality means a continuous participation of the soul in the transtemporal sphere of essences. However, the modern idea of immortality means a continuous participation in the productive process—time and World without end. It is not the eternal rest of the individual in God but his unlimited contribution to the dynamics of the Universe that gives one the courage to face death. In this kind of hope, one can tell God is always in their picture, regardless of if you have scientific proof or not. God is understood as the productive process itself. “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand,” reports Isaiah 41.10. The anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness is potentially as great as the anxiety of fate and death. It is rooted in the nature of finite productivity. Although, as we have seen, the tool as a tool is not important but rather the tool as a result of human productivity, the question: for what? cannot be suppressed completely. It is silenced but always ready to come into the open. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
Today, we are witnessing a rise of this anxiety and a weakening of the courage to take it into itself. The anxiety of guilt and condemnation is deeply rooted in the American mind, first through the influence of puritanism, then trough the impact of the evangelical-pietistic movements. It is strong even if its religious foundation is undermined. However, in connection with the predominance of the courage to be as a part in the productive process it has changed its character. Guilt is produced by manifest shortcomings in adjustments to and achievements within the creative activities of society. It is the social group in which one participates productively that judges, forgives, and restores, after the adjustments have been made and the achievements have become visible. This is the reason for the existential insignificance of the experience of justification or forgiveness of sins in comparison with the striving for sanctification and the transformation of one’s own being as well as one’s World. A new beginning is demanded and attempted. This is the way in which the courage to be as a part of the productive process takes the anxiety of guilt into itself. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
Participation in the productive process demands conformity and adjustment to the ways of social production. This necessity became stronger the more uniform and comprehensive the methods of production became. Technical society grew into fixed patterns. Conformity in those matters which conserve the smooth functioning of the big machine of production and consumption increased with the increasing impact of the means of public communication. World political thinking, the struggle with collectivism, forced collectivist features on those who fought against them. This process is still going on and may lead to a strengthening of the conformist elements in the type of the courage to be as a part which is represented by America. Conformism might approximate collectivism, not so much in economic respects, and not too much in political respects, but very much in the pattern of daily life and thought. Whether this will happen or not, and if it does to what degree, is partly dependent on the power of resistance in those who represent the opposite pole of the courage to be, the courage to be as oneself. Since their criticism of the conformist and collectivist forms of the courage to be as part is a decisive element of their self-expression, it is worth looking into more deeply. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
We are extremely blessed to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. It brings hope to a troubles World. Christ is the personal antidote we need to find peace in a World that is absolutely unfair. “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the World ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the World,” reports John 16.33. None of us makes it through this life without problems and challenges—and sometimes tragedies and misfortunes. After all, in a large part we are here to learn and grow from such events in our lives. We know that there are times when we will suffer, when we will grieve, and when we will be saddened. “Adam fell that mortals might be; and mortals are, that they might have joy,” reports 2 Nephi 2.25. We should be able to see joy in our entire life. Sometimes moments can be difficult, but many of us have had many successes over a lifetime and let that joy inspire you and carry you on until it is your time to shine again. “How might we have joy in our lives, despite all that we may face? Again from the scriptures: ‘Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you,’” reports Doctrine and Covenants 68.6. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
Dedicated to Mrs. Bonnie Faye Todd and Ms. Crystal Faye Todd
No Cause to be Awake as My Best was Gone to Sleep and Morn a New Politeness Took and Failed to Wake them
Life cannot be understood in the light of merely contributing factors as a frontier situation, the need to amalgamate many nationalities, the long isolation from active World politics, the influence of religion and so on. In order to understand life one must ask: Which is the type of courage underlying certain features which have endured throughout history, how does it deal with the anxieties in human existence and how is it related to the manifestation of the courage to be as oneself? Broadly, one who leads a marginal existence lives on the borders of one group (the individual may be a nominal member) but practices the lifestyle of a different group. Visually a mortal may obviously be a member of the African American race but he or she lives, works and plays in an all-White environment (as do many African American children in suburbia). As a neighbor, co-worker, friend, one is often faced with a conflict of roles. In addition to having to decide whether one is a spokesperson for one group or the other, one may carry inside of oneself the tension of not fully knowing who he or she is, or of not liking who he or she is. Many young people are faced with the task of keeping the best of their heritage while moving into the present and future. The marginal person is often forced to sort among the various aspects of oneself and live out only those that are easiest. However, the conflicts can be devastating. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
Present-day America has received, since the 1930’s, influences from Europe and Asia which represent extreme forms of the courage to be as oneself, like Existentialist literature and art, or attempts to overcome the anxiety of our period by different forms of transcendent courage. However, these influences are still limited to the intelligentsia and to people whose eyes have been opened by the impact of the World historical events to the questions asked by Existentialism. They have not reached the masses of people in any social group and they have not changed the basic trends of feeling and thought and the corresponding attitudes and institutions. On the contrary, the trends toward being as a part and toward affirming one’s being by participation in given structures of life are rapidly increasing. Conformity is growing, but it has not yet fully manifested. The economic system which has become dominant in the West since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is Capitalism. Common features of Capitalism are: the existence of politically and legally free people; the fact that free mortals (workers and employees) sell their labor to the owner of capital on the labor market, by contract; the existence of the commodity market as a mechanism by which prices are determined and the exchange of the social product is regulated; the principle that each individual acts with the aim of seeking profit for oneself, and yet that, by the competitive actions of many, the greatest advantage is supposed to accrue for all. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
While these features are common to Capitalism throughout the last few centuries, the changes within this period are as important as are the similarities. The technique and industry were in the beginning compared with the development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and at the same time the practices and ideas of medieval culture still had a considerable influence on the economic practices of this period. Thus it was supposed to be un-Christian and unethical for one merchant to try to lure customers from another by force of lower prices or any other inducements. If there were overgrown tradesmen who had more money than their competitors, and thus were not forced to use credit, bought their wares directly from the producer, transported them himself, instead of through a middleman, and sold them directly to the retailer, thus enabling the latter to sell the material for one penny cheaper per yard. The result of this whole method is only to enrich this covetous man, and to enable another person to buy his cloth a little cheaper, a very small advantage which is in no relation to the damage done by the businessman. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
We find similar prohibitions against underselling in ordinances in Germany and France throughout the eighteenth century. It is well known how skeptical people were in that period toward new machines, inasmuch as they threatened to take work away from mortals. Machines were considered the pernicious enemy of labor because they would diminish the number of workers. The various attitudes just mentioned are based on principles which had determine the life of mortals for many centuries. Most important of all was the principle that society and economy exist for mortals, and not mortals for them. If it hurt the group within the society, no economic progress was supposed to be healthy that could do such a thing. Needless to say this concept was closely related to traditionalist thoughts in so much as the traditional social balance was to be preserved, and any disturbance was believed to be harmful. By transforming the courage to accept fate passively into an active wrestling with fate, it actually prepared the way of courage in America. In the symbolism of Renaissance art fate is represented as the wind blowing on the sails of a vessel, while mortals stand at the steering wheel and determines the direction as much as it can be determined under the given conditions. Mortals try to actualize all their potentialities; and their potentialities are inexhaustible. For mortals are the microcosm, in whom all cosmic forces are potentially present, and who participates in all sphere and strata of the Universe. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
Through mortals the Universe continues the creative process which first has produced one as the aim and the center of creation. Now mortals have to shape their World and themselves, according to the productive powers given to them. In humans, nature comes to its fulfillment, it is taken into their knowledge and their transforming technical activity. In the visual arts, nature is drawn into the human sphere and mortals are posited in nature, and both are shown in their ultimate possibilities of beauty. The bearer of this creative process is the individual who, as an individual, is a unique representative of the Universe. Most important is the creative individual, the genius, in whom, the unconscious creativity of mortals breaks into the consciousness of mortals like Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo da Vinci, Giordano Bruno, Shaftesbury, Sarah Winchester, William Randolph Hearst, Goethe, Juila Morgan, Harriet Tubman, Schelling were all inspired by this idea of a participation in the creative process of the Universe. In these people enthusiasm and rationality were untied. Their courage was both the courage to be as oneself and the courage to be as a part. The doctrine of the individual as the microcosmic participant in the creative process of the macrocosm presented them with the possibility of this synthesis. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
Through God’s compassion, kindness, and love, we will all receive more than we deserve, more than we can ever earn, and more than we can ever hope for. We believe in truth, justice, and mercy and that good will win in the end. However, in this fallen World, things are not always fair or equal. For some, this is a difficult concept to swallow. At times, greater faith is necessary to maintain course and perspective. Most of us experience some measure of what is called the furnace of affliction. Though the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through challenges can help us achieve what God desires us to become. However, when a person is not rewarded for their efforts, on someone suffers from infirmary, the think that life is not fair. As adults our sense of fairness gets offended when we perceive the way people in power seem to get away with things. Why should some people be born into affluence, while some are born into poverty? Why should some people be healthier, prettier or more charismatic than others? The World has never been fair. Our lives might not look like the way we imagine they should be. “My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep. God hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh. God has confounded mine enemies, unto the causing them to quake before me,” 2 Nephi 4.20-12. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
Mortal’s productivity moves from potentiality to actuality in such a way that everything actualized has potentialities for further actualization. This is the basic structure of progress. In parts of the ancient World, some people see the movement from potentiality to actuality as vertical, going from the lower to higher forms of being. In modern progressivism the movement from potentiality to actuality is horizontal, temporal, futuristic. And this is the main form in which the self-affirmation of modern Western humanity manifested itself. “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility,” reports 2 Nephi 2.11. It was courage, for it had to take into itself an anxiety which grew with the growing knowledge of the Universe and our World within it. The Earth had been thrown out of the center of the World by Copernicus and Galileo. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
It had become small, and in spite of the heroic affect which Giordano Bruno divided into the infinity of the Universe a feeling of being lost in the ocean of cosmic bodies and among the unbreakable rules of their motion crept into the hearts of many. The courage of the modern period was not simple optimism. It had to take into itself the deep anxiety of nonbeing in a Universe without limits and without a humanly understandable meaning. This anxiety could be taken into the courage but it could not be removed, and it came to the surface any time when the courage was weakened. This is the decisive source of the courage to be as a part in the creative process of nature and history, as it developed in Western civilization and, most conspicuously, in the New World. However, it underwent many changes before it turned into the conformistic type of the courage to be as a part which characterize present-day American system. The cosmic enthusiasm of the Renaissance vanished under the influence of Protestantism and rationalism, and when it reappeared in the classic-romantic movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries it was not able to gain much influence in industrial society. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
The synthesis between individuality and participation, based on the cosmic enthusiasm, was dissolved. A permanent tension developed between the courage to be as oneself as it was implied in Renaissance individualism and the courage to be as a part as it was implied in Renaissance Universalism. Extreme forms of liberalism were challenged by reactionary attempts to re-establish a medieval collectivism or by attempts to produce a new organic society. Liberalism and democracy could clash in two ways: liberalism could undermine the democratic control of society or democracy could become tyrannical and a transition to totalitarian collectivism. Besides these dynamic and violent movements, a more static and unaggressive development could take place: the rise of a democratic conformity which restrains all extreme forms of the courage to be as oneself without destroying the liberal elements that distinguish it from collectivism. This was, above all, the way of Great Britain. The tension between liberalism and democracy also explains many traits behind the American democratic conformism. However, behind all these changes remained one thing, the courage to be as part in the productive process of history. And this is what makes the present-day American courage one of the great types of the courage to be as a part. Its self-affirmation is the affirmation of oneself as a participant in the creative development of humankind. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
There is something astonishing in the American courage for an observer who comes from Europe: although mostly symbolized in the early pioneers it is present today in the large majority of people. A person many have experienced a tragedy, a destructive fate, the breakdown of convictions, even guilt and momentary despair: one feels neither destroyed nor meaningless nor condemned nor without hope. When the Roman Stoic experienced the same catastrophes, they took them with the courage of resignation. The typical American, after one has lost the foundations of one’s existence, works for new foundations. This is true of the individual and it is true of the nation as a whole. One can make experiments because an experimental failure does not mean discouragement. The productive process in which one is a participant naturally includes risks, failures, catastrophes. However, they do not undermine courage. “Do you supposed that the Lord will still deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us?” reports Alma 60.21. This means that it is the productive act itself in which the power and the significance of being is present. This is a partial answer to a question often asked by foreign observers, especially if they are theologians: the question For What? #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
What is the end of all the magnificent means provided by the productive acidity of American society? Have not the means swallowed the ends, and does not the unrestricted production of means indicate the absence of ends? Even many born Americans are today inclined to answer the last question affirmatively. However, there is more involved in the production of means. It is not the tools and gadgets that are the telos, the inner aim of production; it is the production itself. The means are more than means; they are felt as creations, as symbols of the infinite possibilities implied in mortal’s productivity. Being—itself is essentially production itself. The way in which the originally religious word creative is applied without hesitation by Christian, and non-Christian, alike to mortal’s productive activities indicates that the creative process of history is felt as divine. As such it includes the courage to be as a part of it. “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of the Lord’s throne; love and faithfulness go before you. Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O LORD. They rejoice in your name all day long; and they exult in your righteousness” reports Psalm 89.14-16. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
Not Knowing When the Dawn Will Come I Opened Every Door so Heaven Would Look Upon Us
I wrapped myself in comforting phantasms and envisioned bowers of love, places of Divine safety foreordained beyond good and evil. In reaction to the predominance of the courage to be as oneself in modern Western history, movements of a neocollectivist character has arisen: fascism, Nazism, and communism. It is all an attempt to put a leader or a group above God and dedicate oneself to the mission of the authority figure or the group. America is a Capitalistic country, but we currently have democrats who cannot seem to respect the laws and government of the land. They feel that they have taken the only right way in which to reach their own fulfillment. If these democrats affirm themselves by affirming the collective in which they participate, they receive themselves back from the collective, filled and fulfilled by it. They give much of what belongs to their individual self, perhaps its existence as a particular being in time and space, but these liberals receive more because their true being is enclosed in the being of the group. In surrendering themselves to the cause of the collective liberals surrender that in them which is not included in the self-affirmation of the collective; and this they do not deem worthy of affirmation. In this way the anxiety of the individual nonbeing is transformed into anxiety about the collective, and anxiety about the collective is conquered by the courage to affirm oneself through participation in the collective. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
As in every human being the anxiety of fate and death is present in the convinced Communist, which many democrats are becoming. No being can accept its own nonbeing without a negative reaction. The terror of a totalitarian democratic state would be meaningless without the possibility of producing terror in its subjects, and they are doing this by threatening to vanquish law enforcement and criticizing branches of government who are defending us and also passing laws to prevent branches of law enforcement from protecting us, and at the same time legalizing drugs and letting dangerous criminals out of jail early. This is fear is also reinforced with the threat of open boarders, and people fear that their safety is being compromised and the ways of the Wild, Wild, West may be becoming back where it is everyone for themselves because there will be no one there to protect the, no privacy, no laws, and that their personal property will be liquidated for the collective as well as their wages renegotiated to the point where doctors are making the same wages as the cashier at the local Steak N Shake. In some countries, doctors are working for free and being paid as little as $8 USD per hour because of budget problems. Through the participation in the communist type of government he liberals are trying to form, one affirms that which may become destructive fate or even cause the death for oneself. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
A more penetrating analysis shows the following structure in the democratic plan: Participation is partial identity, partial nonidentity. Fate and death may hurt or destroy part of oneself that is not identical with the collective in which one participates. However, there is another part according to the partial identity of participation. And this other part is neither hurt nor destroyed by the demands and actions of the whole. It transcends fate and death. It is eternal in the sense in which the collective is considered to be eternal, namely as an essential manifestation of being universal. All this need not be conscious in the members of the collective. However, it is implicit in their emotions and actions as they replace God with their leader and this moment, this Earth is all they have. Therefore, they are infinitely concerned about the fulfillment of the group. And from this concern they derive their courage to be. However, the term eternal and immortal should not be confused with finite. Immortal is the soul, but not yet the body and that would the body would go on living indefinitely. Eternal is living forever with God, leaving this planet and the body behind and having the power to create our own Worlds. #RandolpHarris 3 of 15
Finite is what we currently are. Our physical bodies can only live for so long. There is no idea of the individual mortality in old and new collectvism. The collective in which one participates replaces individual immortality. One the other hand, it is not a resignation to annihilation—otherwise no courage to be would be possible—but it is something above both immortality and annihilation; it is the participation in something which transcends death, namely the collective, and through it, in being-itself. One who is in this position feels in the moment of the sacrifice of one’s life that one is taken into the life of the collective and through it into the life of the Universe as an integral element of it, even if not as a particular being. The liberal political party has become a serious alternative to Christianity, and the anxiety of fate and death is taken into the courage to be as a part. The meaning of life for them is the meaning of the collective. Even those who live as victims of the terror at the lowest level of the social hierarchy do not doubt the validity of the democratic principles. What happens to them is a problem of fate and demands the courage to overcome the anxiety of fate and death and not the anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness. This is one of the reasons for the expulsion and prohibition of most of the modern forms of expression in many developed nations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
There have been some benefits from communism in the arts and literature, but it not a system most Americans want to participate in. However, the democrats are using the immigration debacle to make their party look humane, when all they want is to get sympathy and votes and enforce their communist rule, where the people have no say. And it is not their person sin that produces anxiety of guilt, anything they do is seen as necessary means to gain power. The collective, in this respect, replaces for themselves the God of judgment, repentance, punishment, and forgiveness. To the collective they accept judgment and punishment. To it they direct their desire for forgiveness and their promise of self-transformation. If one is accepted back by it, their guilt is overcome and a new courage to be is possible. These most striking features in the communist way of life can hardly be understood if one does not go down to their ontological roots and their existential power in a system which is based on the courage to be as a part. “The Lord had blessed them so long with the riches of the World that they had not been stirred up to anger, to wars, nor to bloodshed; therefore they began to set their hearts upon their riches; yea, they began to seek to get gain that they might be lifted up one above another; therefore they began to commit secret murders, and to rob and to plunder, that they might get gain,” reports Helaman 6.17. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
Mental health cannot be discussed meaningfully as an abstract quality of abstract people. If we are to discuss now the state of mental health in contemporary Western mortals, and if we are to consider what factors in one’s mode of life make for in-sanity and what others are conducive to sanity, we have to study the influence of the specific conditions of our mode of production and of our social and political organization on the nature of mortals; we have to arrive at such a picture of the personality of the average mortal living and working under these conditions. Only if we can arrive at such a picture of the social character, tentative and incomplete as it may be, do we have a basis on which to judge the mental health and sanity of modern mortals. What is mean by social character? I refer in this concept to the nucleus of the character structure which is shared by most members of the same culture in contradistinction to the individual character in which people belong to the same culture differ from each other. The concept of social character is not a statistical concept in the sense that it is simply the sum total of character traits to be found in the majority of people in a given culture. It can be understood only in reference to the function of the social character which we shall now proceed to discuss. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
Each society is structuralized and operates in certain ways which are necessitated by a number of objective conditions. These conditions include methods of production and distribution which in turn depend on raw materials, industrial techniques, climate, size of population, and political and geographic factors, cultural traditions and influences to which society is exposed. These is no society in general, but only specific social structures which operate in different and ascertainable ways. Although these social structures do change in the course of historical development, they are relatively fixed at any given historical period, and society can exist only by operating within the framework of it particular structure. The members of the society and/or the various classes or status groups within it have to behave in such a way as to be able to function in the sense required by the social system. It is the function of the social character to shape the energies of the members of society in such a way that their behavior is not a matter of conscious decision as to whether or not to follow the social pattern, but one wanting to act as they have to act and at the same time finding gratification in acting according to the requirements of the culture. In other words, it is the social character’s function to mold and channel human energy within a given society for the purpose of the continued functioning of this society. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
Modern, industrial society, for instance, could not have attained its ends had it not harnessed the energy of free mortals for work in an unprecedented degree. Mortals had to be molded into a person who was eager to spend most of their energy for the purpose of work, who acquired discipline, particularly orderliness and punctuality, to a degree unknown in most other cultures. It would not have sufficed if each individual had to make up one’s mind consciously every day that one wanted to work, to be on time, etcetera, since any such conscious deliberation would lead to many more exceptions than smooth functioning of society can afford. Nor would threat and force have sufficed as a motive, since the highly differentiated tasks in modern industrial society can in the long run only be the work of free mortals and not of forced labor. The necessity for work, for punctuality and orderliness had to be transformed into an inner drive for these aims. This means that society had to produce a social character in which these strivings were inherent. “Yea, O God, and thou wast merciful unto me when I did cry unto thee in my field; when I did cry unto thee in my prayer, and thou didst hear me. And again, O God, when I did turn to my house thou didst hear me in prayer. Yea, O God, thou hast been merciful unto me, and heard my cries in the midst of thy congregations,” reports Alma 33.5-6 and 9. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
The genesis of the social character cannot be understood by referring to one single cause but by understanding the interaction of sociological and ideological factors. Inasmuch as economic factors are less easily changeable, they have a certain predominance in this interplay. This does not mean that the drive for material gain is the only or even the most powerful motivating force in mortals. It does mean that the individual and society are primarily concerned with the task of survival, and that only when survival is secured can they proceed to the satisfaction of other imperative human needs. The task of survival implies that mortals have to produce, that is, one has to secure the minimum of food and shelter necessary for survival, ad the tools needed for even the most rudimentary process of production. The method of production in turn determines the social relations existing in a given society. It determines the mode of practice in life. However, religious, political and philosophical ideas are not rooted in the social character, they in turn also determine, systematize and stabilize the social character. “See that ye take care of these sacred things, yea, see that ye look to God and live. Go unto this people and declare the word, and be sober,” reports Alma 37.47. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
Let me state again, in speaking of the socioeconomic structure of society as molding mortal’s character, we speak only of one pole in the interconnection between social organization and mortal. The other pole to be considered is mortal’s nature, molding in the social conditions in which one lives. The social process can be understood only if we start out with the knowledge of the reality of mortals, one’s psychic properties as well as one’s physiological ones, and if we examine the interaction between the nature of humans and the nature of the external conditions under which one lives and which one has to master if one is to survive. While it is true that mortals can adapt themselves to almost any conditions, one is not a blank sheet of paper on which culture writes its text. Needs like striving for happiness, harmony, love and freedom are inherent in one’s nature. They are also dynamic factors in the historical process which, it frustrated, tend to arouse psychic reactions, ultimately creating the very conditions suited to the original strivings. As long as the objective conditions of the society and the culture remain stable, the social character has a predominantly stabilizing function. If the external conditions change in such a way that they do not fit any more with the traditional social character, a lag arises which often changes the function of character into an element of disintegration instream of stabilization, into dynamite instead of a social mortar, as it were. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
Provided this concept of the genesis and function of the social character is correct, we are confronted with a puzzling problem. Is not the assumption that the character structure is molded by the role which the individual has to play in one’s culture contradicted by the assumption that a person’s character is molded in one’s childhood? Can both views pretend to be true in view of the fact that the child in one’s early years of life has comparatively little contact with society as such? This question is not as difficult to answer as it may seem at first glance. We must differentiate between the factors which are responsible for the particular contents of the social character and the methods by which the social character is produced. The structure of society and the function of the individual in the social structure may be considered to determine the content of the social character. The family on the other hand may be considered to be the psychic agency of society, the institution which has the function of transmitting the requirements of society to the growing child. The family fulfills this function in two ways. First, and this is the most important factor, by the influence the character of the parents has on the character formation of the growing child. Since the character of most parents is an expression of the social character, they transmit in this way the essential features of the socially desirable character structure to the child. The parents’ love and happiness are communicated to the child as well as their anxiety or hostility. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
In addition to the character of the parents, the methods of childhood training which are customary in a culture also have the function of molding the character of the child in a socially desirable direction. There are various methods and techniques of child training which can fulfill the same end, and on the other hand there can be methods which seem identical but which nevertheless are different because of the character structure of those who practice these methods. By focusing on methods of child training, we can never explain the social character. Methods of child training are significant only as a mechanism of transmission, and they can be understood correctly if we understand first what kinds of personalities are desirable and necessary in any given culture. The problem, then, of the socioeconomic conditions in modern industrial society which create the personality of modern Western mortals and are responsible for the disturbances in one’s mental health require an understanding of those elements specific to the capitalistic mode of production, of an acquisitive society in an industrial age. Sketchy and elementary as such a description by noneconomist must necessarily be, I hope it is nevertheless sufficient to form the basis for the following analysis of the social character of mortals in present-day Western society. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
Our individual accomplishments, opinions, and contributions enable us to know our own unique identity and to take pleasure in feeling that we are significant member of the human family. However, at times, differences in the way we act, look, dress, or think can separate us from those around us. The young person who want to repudiate his group identities can go to the extremes of grab and speech that show the World that he does not want to be just another one of the crowd, another manipulable warm body. Since society needs solidarity and conformity to get its work done, people tend to react to the nonconformer in a number of different ways. There can be the hostile, resentful reactions that were illustrated in the climax of the great film of 2001, Romeo Must Die. Here, two major families of relatively conforming parties are competing for land it starts a war, especially when their child starting dating. Sometimes we simply point the finger of scorn: “Why do you not shape up, you weirdo?” When are you going to rejoin the human race?” This attempt may not be so much to get them to conform as to make them feel contemptible, lowly. Often, the reaction is exile, driving the nonconformers away. They can be figuratively ridden out of town on a rail, or literally made to feel that their presence is noxious and that they would be doing everyone a favor by moving on. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
There are, of course, other ways, but the overall pattern is one of separating the nonconformer from the conforming group. It seems that may people living conforming, comfortable, not too differentiated lives are ill at ease, awkward, uncomfortable, or even angry with those who choose to live differently. Often these nonconformers live differently because they are trying to experience more of their total selfhood than the larger group is willing to risk. There is a variety of reactions on the part of the nonconformers, too. Many of them choose to drop out, to live apart from the larger group. They set up housekeeping in solitary camps, abandoned cars, or communes, or they drift from place to place, disdaining to take on the way of life of those they feel are only experiencing themselves partially. Naturally, not all the drop-outs are in the category of self-actualizers, but an increasing number of young people do feel that this is the only way to grow. Again, knowing who the true hippie or hipster is and who the commercializers or opportunist are is a matter of becoming personally acquainted with them. Separateness is not an emotional illness per se. It is a conscious choice on the part of the separated or a conscious movement on the part of the larger group. It consists of creating separate and different living spaces for each of them. It may be an opportunity for the separated one to grow in selfhood, or it may lead to marginality. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
However, seeking and receiving the acceptance of the Lord will lead to the knowledge that we are chosen and blessed by him. The feeling of being accepted by someone we love is a basic human need. Being accepted by good people motivates us. It increases our sense of self-worth and self-confidence. Those who cannot find acceptance from desirable sources often seek it elsewhere. They may look at people who are not interested in their well-being. They may attach themselves to false friends and do questionable things to try to receive the acknowledgment they are seeking. They may seek acceptance by wearing a particular brand of clothing to generate a feeling of belonging or status. For some, striving for a role or a position of prominence can also be a way of seeking acceptance. They may define their worth by a position they hold or a status they obtain. Seeking acceptance from the wrong sources or for incorrect reasons puts us on a dangerous path—one that is likely to lead us astray and even to destruction. Instead of feeling cherished and self-confident, we will eventually feel abandoned and inferior. Therefore, see that you look to God and live. The ultimate source of empowerment and lasting acceptance is our Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ. They know us. They love us. They do not acceptance of because of our title or position. They do not look at our status. They look into our hearts and accept us for who we are and what we are striving to become. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15
Not with a Club the Heart is Broken, Nor with a Stone—I think that Earth Seems so to those in Heaven!
Oh, and it is the same old beat with you, Erich, you Devil, you want to do it, you want to, you want to see it, you greedy little beast, you cannot give her over to the Angels and you know they are waiting! You know the God who can sanctify her suffering has purified her an will forgive her last cries. Mental health is to be determined objectively and society has both a furthering and a distorting influence on mortals, contradicts not only the relativistic view, discussed in the past, but two other views which I want to discuss now. One, decidedly the most popular one today, wants to make us believe that contemporary Western society and more especially, the American way of life corresponds to the deepest needs of human nature and that adjustments to this way of life means mental health and maturity. Social psychology, instead of being a tool for the criticism of society, thus becomes the apologist for the status quo. The concept of maturity and mental health in this view, corresponds to the desirable attitude of a worker or employee in industry or business. Maturity is the ability to stick to a job, the capacity to give more on any job than is asked for, reliability, persistence to carry out a plan regardless of the difficulties, the ability to work with other people under organization and authority, the ability to make decisions, a will to life, flexibility, independence, and tolerance. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12
Maturity is the virtues of a good worker, employee or soldier in the big social organizations of our time; they are the qualities which are usually mentioned in advertisements for a junior executive. To one, and many others who think like one, maturity is the same as adjustment to our society, without ever raising the question whether this adjustment is to a healthy or a pathological way of conducting one’s life. “And now my beloved beings, I had said these things unto you that I might awaken you to a sense of your duty to God, that ye may walk blameless before him, that ye may walk after the holy order of God, after which you have been received,” reports Alma 7.22. If you remain true, you will get the sign that God is with you. When you come to your wits’ end and feel inclined to panic—do not! Stand true to God, and he will bring out his truth in a way that will make your life an expression of worship. Put into practice what you have learned. Make a determination to trust in God. “The house of the LORD God is to be here,” reports 1 Chronicles 22.1. If you have always prided yourself on your sensitivity to the needs of others, you may find resistance when you adopt toughness. Sometimes when people look at it, it is like someone turned on the Christmas lights, it makes them giddy and full of joy. Will you be accepted? #RandolphHarris 2 of 12
Maturity is the same as adjustment to our society, without ever raising the question whether this adjustment is to a healthy or a pathological way of conducting one’s life. However, in contrast to this view is the one which runs from Dr. Freud, and which assumes a basic and unalterable contradiction between human nature and society, a contradiction between human nature and society, a contradiction which follows from the alleged asocial nature of mortals. For Dr. Freud, mortals are driven by two biologically rooted impulses: the craving for sexual pleasure, and for destruction. The aim of one’s sexual desire is complete sexual freedom, that is, unlimited access to all women and men one might find desirable. Some mortals discovered by experience that sexual (genital) love affords them their greatest gratification, so that it becomes in affect the prototype of all happiness to him or her. These types of people must have been impelled to seek their happiness further along the path of sexual relations, to make genital erotism the central point of one’s life. Primitive humans have yet to cope with no, or exceedingly few restrictions to the satisfaction of those basic desires. #RandolphHarris 3 of 12
Primitive mortals can give vent to their aggression, and there are few limitations to the satisfaction of one’s sexual impulses. In actual fact, most primitive mortals knew nothing of any restrictions on their instincts, some do not even “feel” that they have instincts. Civilized humans have exchanged some part of their changes of happiness for a measure of security. The happy savage’s aggressiveness has two sources: one, the innate striving for destruction (death instinct) and the other the frustration of one’s instinctual desires, imposed upon him or her by society. While mortals may channel part of one’s aggression against oneself, through the Super-Ego, and while a minority can sublimate their sexual desire into love of humanity, aggressiveness remains ineradicable. Mortals will always compete with, and attack each other, if not for material things, then for the prerogatives in sexual relationships, which must arouse the strongest rancor and most violent enmity among men and women who are otherwise equal. Let us suppose this were also to be removed by instituting complete liberty in sexual life, so that the family, the germ-cell of culture, ceased to exist; one could not, it is true, foresee the new paths on which cultural development might then proceed, but one thing one would be bound to expect and that the ineffable feature of human nature would follow wherever it led. #RandolphHarris 4 of 12
Since for Dr. Freud love is in its essence sexual desire, he is compelled to assume a contradiction between love and social cohesion. Love, according to him, is by its very nature egotistical and antisocial, and the sense of solidarity and humanly love are not primary feelings rooted in mortal’s nature, but aim-inhibited sexual desires. One the basis of his concept of mortals, that of their inherent wish for unlimited sexual satisfaction, and of his destructiveness, Dr. Freud must arrive at a picture of the necessary conflict between civilization and mental health and happiness. Primitive mortals are healthy and happy because one is not frustrated in one’s basic instincts, but one lacks the blessings of culture. Civilized humans are more secure, enjoy art and science, but they are bound to be neurotic because of the continued frustration of one’s instincts, enforced by civilization. For Dr. Freud, social life and civilization are essentially in contrast to the needs of human nature as he sees it, and mortals are confronted with the tragic alternative between happiness based on the unrestricted satisfaction of one’s instincts, and security and cultural achievements based on instinctual frustration, hence conducive to neurosis and all other forms of mental sickness. Civilization, to Dr. Freud, is the product of instinctual frustration and thus the cause of mental illness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 12
Dr. Freud’s concept of human nature as being essentially competitive (and asocial) is the same as we find it in most authors who believe that the characteristics. Dr. Freud’s theory of the competitive struggles for survival. It can also be translated into the sphere of economy. There are basically two types of people, the homo sexual is and the homo economicus. One is after sex, the other is after money. Both the economic mortal and the sexual mortal are convenient fabrications whose alleged nature—isolated, asocial, greedy and competitive—makes Capitalism appear as the system which corresponds perfectly to human nature, and places it beyond the reach of criticism. The necessary conflict between human nature and society, imply the defense of contemporary society and they both are one-sided distortions. Furthermore, most ignore the fact that society is only in conflict with the asocial aspects of mortals, partly produced by itself, but often also with one’s most valuable human qualities, which is suppresses rather than furthers. #RandolphHarris 6 of 12
An objective examination of the relation between society and human nature must consider both the furthering and the inhibiting impact of society on humans, taking into account the nature of mortals and the needs stemming from it. The neglected pathogenic function of modern society needs to be highlighted. Many of the self-defeating behaviors are motivated by conscious needs. For instance, there appear to be people all around us who have a strong dislike for themselves. In each of us there may be a tinge of dislike for some aspect of our self: freckles, hair, teeth, vocabulary, color, accent. However,most of us manage to combine our dislike of parts of ourselves with very good feelings about the rest of the package. A few people, though, manage to reach a point where they entertain active hatred for their entire beings. They manage to pull off some of the greatest self-defeating stunts since the six hundred marched into the Valley of Death in the Crimean War! Some of these people do it with alcohol, using it precisely because they know it will put them into a state in which they will commit self-defeating or losing behavior. They drink to get courage or strength enough to hurt themselves. There are many who do the same with drugs of various kinds. Again, this is not to dispute the physiological factors of addiction or habituation. It is simply to emphasize that even before the physiological hook gets into some people, they hook themselves onto a drug or habit that will inevitably bring them down. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12
An example of the conscious needs that motivate self-defeating behavior is dependency. Some people refuse to take their medicine because they like or need to be dependent on their doctors or they need their family’s concerns. Others get themselves in trouble with authorities because they need to keep themselves tied to their parents or spouses; they build a bond of trouble-rescue-restriction-release-trouble, a cycle that repeats itself week after month after year in some cases. Why? It is a bit too simple to say that the needs are always entirely conscious or even always entirely unconscious.Just as our physiques are three-dimensional, our complexities encompass behaviors that have horizontal, vertical, and depth dimensions as well. Add to this the dimensions that we call time and space and you have a model of human behavior that cannot be sketched on a flat piece of paper. Therefore, we must keep in mind the person, who will play more roles in one’s life, but—like an actor—the mortal is one person and all one’s roles are the individual, too. This multi-dimensioned person is each of us. Mixed in with all the motivations we have described as being universal are the ones that are unique to each of us. There is, therefore, no one answer to the “why?” of the behavior, whether it is the behavior of one or many. It may be instructive, but only instructive, to see what may cause actions in particular cases. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12
If a mortal has a strong need to enter into complicated situations from which one cannot extricate oneself, we may uncover some of the reasons why, but only some of them. If you do something, even after an authority figure has told you to stop, changes are that among your individually unique needs is the need to engage in whatever destructive behavior you have been warned to stop, apparently this need is stronger than your need to stay out of danger. Some people engage in bad behavior because they feel a strong need to be punished. They feel that they can only be satisfied or happy when they are being pushed out or put into a situation where they are in some sort of danger of losing out. When these types of people win or achieve something, they feel and empty, hollow sort of triumph. Only when these individuals have guilt so ingrained in their being are punishing themselves or being punished can they admit to feelings of satisfaction. It is hard for guilt given people to admit this to friends. Not even their wives or husbands have ever heard them say these things, but their spouses notice over the years that they only seem completely happy and at ease when they are being pressured, when they are driving themselves to take on unnecessary extra work. It seemed to one woman that her husband was “trying to kill himself,” with his overly emotional and wild criminal behaviors. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12
Dr. Freud thought we each have an instinctive death wish. We do not find the evidence for this to be either conclusive or impressive. However, we know that many people learn to deal with their guilt feelings or their negative self-concepts by punishing themselves or by being punished. Without using the term as a diagnosis, this behavior is often called masochism. A person who is still doing something dangerous, even after being warned not to, is a symbol of all the things one does that one has been told one should not do. One is almost totally absorbed by and concerned with guilt. The diagnosis of potential death and danger us almost like a priestly issue of penance: this is what one must undergo to purge oneself of one’s guilt. Some people are begging to be punished because they want to get their just desserts, which could even be death, for being the bad person they are. “No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing,” reports 1 Chronicles 21.24. This long example, we repeat, deals only with one person. It is not meant to explain all people who engage in risky behaviors or careers, all compulsive people, or to condemn all teachings about guilt. It is, however, instructive. Guilt, as experienced by most of us, is the feeling we have when we have let ourselves down, when we have not lived up to our own expectations. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12
As such, it is a good motivator: guilt enables us to shift our gears and try a different speed or direction in our behavior. We should feel guilt for committing certain social indiscretions or violations of necessary and expected behaviors. If I step on the foot a woman by accident, both my love for people and my social responsibility will produce guilt feelings. Hopefully, I will be a more careful walker in the future. However, if I tore up my feet, sold my shoes, and swore never to go near people again, I would probably be labeled neurotic—given to extreme guilt reactions. When anxiety and other strong emotions produce fears or self-defeating responses in us, we are experiencing a form of neurosis. This particular problem in living is quite common in the lives of most of us. Each of us at times, precisely because we view our many facets as separate, lets this imagined separateness become virtually real. As the gaps in our thinking about our selves grow, so the gaps and distortions really grow in our everyday behavior. It we imagine that we have a good self and a bad self, any attempt to emphasize the one we want or need to emphasize exaggerates our behaviors in that direction, almost as if we were to say: “See? That other part of me does not even exist!” #RandolphHarris 11 of 12
Of course it exists, It is just as real and as important apart of your total self as any other part. However, it is only a part. However,it is only a part. It is so interwoven and inextricably tied in with all the other facets that often you do not know which one is which. That in itself is not bad, either. Rather than trying to single out which part is which, one would be much better off simply accepting and living with the entire package. However, this is so simple to say and so difficult to do. We are encouraged by our society’s values, by its mores, by so many things, to live only partially. Some of the negative consequences of such splitting up are separateness, marginality, and alienation. “There is a God, and he created all things, both the Heavens and the Earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon,” reports 2 Nephi 2.14. As children of our Heavenly Father, we have been blessed with the gift of moral agency, the capacity and power of independent action. Endowed with agency, we are agents, and we primarily are to act and not merely be acted upon—especially as we seek learning by study and also by faith. As gospel learners, we should be doers of the word, and not just hearers only. Our hearts are open to the influence of the Holy Ghost as we properly exercise agency and act in accordance with correct principles—and we thereby invite God’s teachings and testifying power. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12
Sun Goes Down and Her Voice Among the Aisles Incites Timid Prayer Willing Silence Everywhere
You are a mocking little thing. Do you like to fight? Fighting with mortals is no fun because it is no fair. The concepts of carousel of mental health follows from the very conditions of human existence and it is the same for mortals in all ages and all cultures. Mental health is characterized by the ability to love and to create, by the emergence from incestuous ties to clan and soil, by a sense of identity based on one’s experience of self as the subject and agent of one’s powers, by the grasp of reality inside and outside of ourselves, that is, by the development of objectivity and reason. This concept of mental health coincides essentially with the norms postulated by the great spiritual teachers of the human race. This coincidence appears to some modern psychologists to be proof that our psychological premises are not scientific but philosophic or religious ideals. They find it difficult, apparently, to draw the conclusion that the great teachings of all cultures were based on rational insight into the nature of mortals, on the conditions for one’s full development. This latter conclusion seems also to be more in line with the face that in the most diverse places of this globe, at different periods of history, the awakened ones have preached the same norms, with none, or with little influence from one upon another. Ikhnaton, Moses, Confucius, Lao-tse, Buddha, Isaiah, Socrates, Jesus have postulated the same norms for human life, with only small and insignificant differences. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12
Mental health is not physical, but it is about the total human personality in its interaction with the World, nature and morals; it is the human practice of life as it results from the conditions of human existence. To understand a living being, one has to take the action of mortals and their interaction with their fellow humans and wit nature as the basic empirical datum for the study of a real being. Our concept of mental health leads into a theoretical difficulty if we consider the concept of human evolution. There is reason to assume that the history of mortals, hundreds of thousands of years ago, starts out with a truly primitive culture, where mortal’s reason has not developed beyond the most rudimentary beginnings, where one’s frame of orientation as little relation to reality and truth as we now know it. However, should we speak of these primitive mortals as lacking in mental health, when they are simply lacking in qualities which only further evolution could give them? Indeed, one answer could be given to this question which open up an easy solution; this answer is based in the obvious analogy between the evolution of the human race, and the evolution of the individual. “Now these mysteries are not yet fully made known unto me; therefore I shall forbear,” reports Alma 37. 11. #RandolphHarris 2 of 12
If an adult had the attitude and orientation of a one-moth-old child, we would certainly classify that individual as unusual. For the one-month-old baby, however, the same attitude of sleeping all day, laughing and acting cute, crying at night when they want attention, food, or a nappy change is normal and healthy, because it corresponds to the stage of psychic development for the point in life. The mental sickness of the adult, then, can be characterized as a fixation or regression to an orientation which belongs to a former evolutionary state, and which is not adequate any more, considering the state of development the person should have reached. And when someone is in a state of regression, there is no question to it. It is similar, for example, to a girl sixteen years of age, who suddenly starts acting and talking like she is possessed by a five-year-old girl and doing things like having a tea party with a set of dolls and speaking like she is younger than she is. However, in regression, she has no idea of her age because of her mind trying to protect itself by taking her to another era, she is basically unconscious and unaware of her biological age. And until she is able to work through the trauma, she will not return to he normal state of development. #RandolphHarris 3 of 12
In the same way one could say that the human race, like the infant, starts out with a primitive orientation, which correspond to the adequate state of human evolution; while one would call sick those fixations or regressions which represent earlier states of development after the human race has already passed through them. Attractive as such a solution is, it does not take into account one fact. The child one-month-of age has not yet the basis for a completely mature attitude. Therefore, one may not under normal circumstances think, feel or act like a mature adult. Mortals, on the contrary, for hundreds of thousands of years, have had all the organic equipment for maturity; their brain, bodily co-ordination, physical strength have not changed in all that time. One’s evolution depended entirely on one’s ability to transmit knowledge to future generations, and thus to accumulate it. Human evolution is the result of cultural development, and not of an organic change. The infant of the most primitive culture, put into a highly developed culture, would develop like other children in this culture, because the only factor determining one’s development is the cultural factor. #RandolphHarris 4 of 12
In other words, while the child who is one month of age may not have spiritual maturity of an adult—whatever the cultural conditions are—any mortal from the primitive stage on, could have the perfection of mortals at the peak of one’s evolution provided one was given the cultural conditions for such maturity. It follows that to speak of primitive, incestuous, unreasonable mortals, as being in a normal evolutionary phase is different from making the same statement about the infant. Yet, on the other hand, the development of culture is a necessary condition for human development. Thus, there does not seem to be a completely satisfactory answer to this problem; from one standpoint we may speak of a lack in mental health; from another standpoint we may speak of an early phase in development. However, the difficulty is great only if we deal with the problem in its most general form; as soon as we come to the more concrete problems of our time, we find the problem much less complicated. We have reached a state of individuation in which only the fully developed mature personality can make fruitful use of freedom; if the individual has not developed one’s reason and one’s capacity for love, one is incapable of bearing the burden of freedom and individuality, and tries to escape into artificial ties which give one a sense of belonging and rootedness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 12
Any regression today from freedom into artificial rootedness in state of race is a sign of mental illness, since such regression does not correspond to the state of evolution already reached and results in unquestionably pathological phenomena. However, the unconscious mechanisms for protecting personality are essential; they help maintain a balance that enables us to make a sane way through life. Yet, sometimes the mechanism is weighty enough to upset the balance in unusual ways. Consider the follow case: A student enters a psychology class, consciously setting out to do a good job,learn a lot, and get a very good grade in the course. He has the tools: a good head (brain), lots of motivation, and a fair background. He gets good grades in classroom discussion and on his papers. However, on exams, he constantly gets F’s (denotes failure to comprehend the material). In his consternation, he comes to visit the professor. “What is this?” He asks both himself and the instructor. “I knew this stuff. I understand everything you are talking about. Your lectures are clear and understandable. The book is no problem. I can read and write well. I do not do this in other classes. What gives?” #RandolphHarris 6 of 12
The instructor and the student begin talking about the student’s home life, his motivations, his goals, and dreams. After a few weeks, a startling thing is unveiled: the student admits that he really dislikes his father. The father is a tyrant, unyielding and unresponsive to the student. The instructor tries something risky: he asks the student if there is anything about him—the instructor—that reminds the boy of his father. “No, of course not!” the boy begins. Then, he smiles. “Except….He is about the same height. He is very self-confident, like you are. Hey! There is a hecka lot about you that reminds me of my old man!” The young man has acquired a rather strong dislike for all authority figure because of the strong negative feelings he has for his father. He goes on to admit that he hates policemen and judges, he hated his commanding officer in the Army, and he has generalized this dislike to some of his male teachers. As it turns out, the young man continued to do poorly in this particular class. At the suggestion of the instructor, he entered into psychotherapy with a psychologist in his home country. Though he continued to have trouble with exams in this professor’s class, he managed to work out an arrangement with the teacher whereby exams were done in a different matter. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12
After working with the professors, the student got better grades than he might have otherwise. However, what particular problem did the exam represent? The student later told the instructor that he felt the exams represented a power struggle between the students and the instructors. His hostility toward his father was such a source of concern and guilt to him that he did everything he could to minimize competition. He felt that if he lost the competition in exam-taking to the instructor, he would be doing some sort of penance for his hostility. Regardless of whether we speak of mental health or of the mature development of the human race, the concept of mental health or of maturity is an objective one, arrived at by the examination of the human situation and the human necessities and needs stemming from it. It follows that mental health cannot be defined in terms of the adjustments of the individual to one’s society, but, on the contrary, that it must be defined in terms of the adjustment of society to the needs of mortals, of its role in furthering or hindering the development of mental health. Whether or not the individual is healthy, is primarily not an individual matter, but depends on the structure of society. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12
A healthy society furthers mortal’s capacity to love their fellow living beings and other organic and inorganic life. Another goal for a healthy society is to work creatively, to develop one’s reason and objectivity, to have a sense of self which is based on the experience of one’s own personal powers. An unhealthy society is one which creates mutual hostility, distrust, which transforms mortals into an instrument of use and exploitation for others, which deprives one of a sense of self, except inasmuch as one submits to others or becomes an automation. Society can have both functions; it can further mortal’s healthy development, and it can hinder it; in fact most societies do both, and the question is only to what degree and in what direction their beneficial and negative influence is exercised. Two things happened in the ancient World which separate medieval collectivism definitively from primitive collectivism. One was the discovery of personal guilt—called by the prophets guilt before God: the decisive step to the personalization of religion and culture. The other was the beginning of autonomous questions-asking in Greek philosophy, the decisive step to the problematization of culture and religion. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12
Both elements, culture and religion, were transmitted to the medieval nations by the Church. With them went the anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness. As in later antiquity could have led to a situation in which the courage to be as oneself was necessary. However, the Church gave an antidote against the threat of anxiety and despair, namely itself, its traditions, its sacraments, its education, and its authority. The anxiety of guilt was taken into the courage to be as part of the sacramental community. The anxiety of doubt was taken into the courage to be as a part of the community in which revelation and reason are united. In this way the medieval courage to be was, in spite of its difference from primitive collectivism, the courage to be as a part in the powerful participation of the universal. Some people believed in the self-respect of the individual as self-affirmation as the follower of a feudal lord or a member of guild or as the student in an academic corporation or as a bearer of a special function like that of a craft or a trade or a profession. The tension created by this situation is theoretically expressed in the attack of nominalism on medieval realism and the permanent conflict between them. Nominalism attributes ultimate reality to the individual and would have much earlier than it actually did to a dissolution of the medieval system of participation if the immensely strengthened authority of the Church had not delayed it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12
In religious practice the same tension was expressed in the duality of the sacraments of the mass and of penance. The former mediated the objective power of salvation in which everybody was supposed to participate, if possible by being present at its daily performance. In consequence of this universal participation guilt and grace were felt not only as personal but also as communal. The punishment of the sinner had representative character representative character in such a way that the whole community suffered with one. And the liberation of the sinner from punishment on Earth and in purgatory was partly dependent on the representative holiness of the saints and the love of those who made sacrifices for one’s liberation. Nothing is more characteristic of the medieval system of participation than this mutual representation. The courage to be as a part and to take upon oneself the anxieties of nonbeing is embodied in medieval institutions as it was in primitive forms of life. However, medieval semi collectivism came to an end when the anticollectivist pole, represented by the sacrament of penance, came to the fore. The principle that only contrition, the personal and total acceptance of judgment and grace, can make the objective sacraments effective was impelling toward reduction and even exclusion of the objective element, of representation and participation. “And now, it has hitherto been wisdom in God that these things should be preserved; for behold, they have enlarged the memory of his people,” reports Alma 37.8 #RandolphHarris 11 of 12
In the act of contrition everybody stands alone before God; and it was hard for the Church to mediate this element with the objective one. Finally it proved impossible and the system disintegrated. At the same time the nominalistic tradition became powerful and liberated itself from the heteronomy of the Church. In Reformation and Renaissance the medieval courage to be as apart, its semicollectvist system, came to an end, and developments started which brought the question of the courage to be as oneself to the fore. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the Heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. When feelings of anxiety and inferiority surface, we can get at the roots of the problems, not just the symptoms. Hearing and understanding the feelings of those we love makes them feel loved. It helps us as parents adjust our behavior to deal with them more effectively. “And we never took the time to see where we were going. We were only passing by and we never questioned why; the river keeps flowing; the beauty of the ride. If I could all you for a day just to hear the words you would, I would,” Colours by Emma Hewitt. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12
After a Hundred Years Great Streets of Silence Led Away as the Bells at Distance Called
It occurred to me with uncommon strength that I had grown too fond of all these people, and I was impressed that the Japanese invented ice cream that can stand at room temperature for an hour without melting. I hear it is popular and gorgeous treat. The concept of mental health depends on our concept of the nature of mortals. The needs and passions of mortals stem from the peculiar condition of their existence. Those needs which mortals shares with the animals—hunger, thirst, need for sleep and physical intimacy—are important, being rooted in the inner chemistry of the body, and when they remain unsatisfied, they can become all powerful. (This holds true, of course, more of the need for food and sleep than of physical intimacy, which is not satisfied never assumes the power of the other needs, at least not for physiological reasons.) However, even their complete satisfaction is not a sufficient condition for sanity and mental health. These depend on the satisfaction of those needs and passions which are specifically human, and which stem from the conditions of the human situation: the need for relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, the need for a sense of identity and the need for a frame of orientation and devotion. The great passions of mortals, their lust for power, their vanity, their search for truth, their passion for love and fellowship, their destructiveness as well as their creativeness, every powerful desire which motivates mortal’s actions, is rooted in their specific human source, not in the various stages of their libido. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Mortal’s solution to their physiological needs are, psychologically speaking, utterly simple; the difficulty here is a purely sociological and economic one. Human’s solution to their mortal needs are exceedingly complex, it depends on many factors and last, not least, on the way one’s society is organized and how this organization determines the human relations within it. The basic psychic needs stemming from the peculiarities of human existence must be satisfied in one form or other, unless mortals are to become insane, just as one’s physiological needs must be satisfied lest one die. However, the way in which the psychic needs can be satisfied are manifold, and difference between various ways of satisfaction is tantamount to the differences between various degrees of mental health. If one of the basic necessities has found no fulfillment, insanity is the result; if it is satisfied but in an unsatisfactory way—considering the nature of human existence—considering the nature of human existence—neurosis (either manifest or in the form of a socially patterned defect) is the consequence. Mortals have to relate themselves to others; but if they do it in a symbiotic or alienated way, they lose their independence and integrity; they are weak, suffers, become hostile, or apathetic; only if one can relate oneself to others in loving ways does one feel one with them and at the same time preserve their integrity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Only by productive work does one relate oneself to nature, becoming one with her, and yet not submerging in her. As long as mortals remain rooted incestuously in nature, family, clan, one is blocked from developing one’s individuality, one’s reason; one remains the helpless prey of nature, and yet one can never feel one with her. Only if one develops one’s reason and one’s love, if one can experience the natural and the social World in a human way, can one feel at home, secure in oneself, and the master of one’s life. It is hardly necessary to point out that of two possible forms of transcendence,destructiveness is conducive to suffering, creativeness to happiness. It is also easy to see that only a sense of identity based on the experience of one’s own powers can give strength, while all forms of identity experience based on the group, leave people dependent, hence weak. Eventually, only to the extent to which one grasps reality, can one make this World one’s own possession; if one lives in illusions, one never changes the conditions which necessitate these illusions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
Critical has to do with a crisis. The Chinese characters for the word “crisis” are actually made up of the pictograms for two works, “dangerous”and “opportunity.” A crisis, in the Eastern perspective, is a dangerous opportunity. It may be that we can find some useful insight here as we assess the matter of crises. For instance, a critical conflict situation may be that moment in time, full of threat, full of risk, yet full of potential, that provides a turning point, a crossroad encounter, a chance to try something new or untried. Some of the conflict we encounter are strong reminders that parts of the self are not working harmoniously, that we are not together. One of the things we humans often do, mostly because we do have choices in so many things, is to get ourselves into messed-up situations. In our attempts to give meaning and significance to our lives, we often do things that are at cross-purposes. We make two dates or appointments for the same times, often for places that are miles apart! Say for the same one thing (“I am going to stay home and catch upon my work.”) and do another (“Well, okay, I will meet you for just one Harvey Wall Banger.”). We have a strong urge to commit an act (tell a person off) and we do the opposite (nod agreement). These are some of the things we do that illustrate what we call “self-defeating actions.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
What happens, of course, is that our motivations run headlong into each other or into something else. “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley,..” Scottish poet Robert Burns tells us, and how right he is. Our plans, no matter how well-planned, often go “a-gley” or fall flat on their faces. The conflict that described for us are partly to blame. Yet, we find too many people who enter into self-defeating situations for reasons. Some of these are unconscious. Now, as much choice-making as any of us can do, there are still some decisions that seem to make themselves, or get made for us by others or by circumstances. Though we have much control, there is still a lot of chance or circumstance at work. Things happen, people change, and times change. Circumstantial conflicts are all about. At the unconscious level there are many motivations working that a person may be unaware of. We have to acknowledge that things like Repression do operate. Repression is one of those unconscious operations that Dr. Freud and his followers called defense mechanism. The purpose of these mechanisms is to guard the fragile personality from ideas, thoughts, experiences and behaviors that might to damage. Sleep is sometimes considered a defense against conflict. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Amnesia is also another way people defend against conflict, as any soap operas like Criminal Minds, Dynasty, All American, Law and Order SVU, Supernatural, S.W.A.T, Manifest, Midnight Texas, Blue Bloods, Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire, Poldark, New Amsterdam, Black Lighting, Big Little Lies, All in the Family and many others will attempt to show. Common forgetfulness is often a repression of an experience that is threatening or beyond control at the time it occurs. Placing blame outside oneself, various compulsions—defense mechanisms come in many forms. Nonebeing in the form of the threat of loss of self in the group has not yet appeared. Self-affirmation within a group includes the courage to accept guilt and its loss of self in the group includes the courage to accept guilt and its consequences as public guilt, whether one is oneself responsible or whether somebody else is. It is a problem of the group which has to be expiated for the sake of the group, and the methods of punishment and satisfaction requested by the group are accepted by the individual. Individual guilt consciousness exists only as the consciousness of a deviation from the institutions and rules of the collective. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
Truth and meaning are embodied in the traditions and symbols of the group, and there is no autonomous asking and doubt. However, even in a primitive collective, as in every human community, there are outstanding members, the bearers of the traditions and leaders of the future. They must have sufficient distance in order to judge and to change. They must take responsibility and ask questions. This unavoidably produces individual doubt and personal guilt. Nevertheless, the predominant pattern is the courage to be as a part in all members of the primitive group. “For since the beginning of the World have not mortal heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath any eye seen, O God, besides thee, how great things thou hast prepared for one that waiteth for thee,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 133.45. God is in his work to being pass the salvation and exaltation of his children. Our desire is that faith in the Heavenly Father’s plan and in the Savior’s redeeming mission might increase the Earth and that God’s everlasting covenant might be established. Our only objectives are to facilitate continuing conversation to the Lord and to love more completely and serve more effectively our human, plant, animal, and others beings in our family. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
The purpose and purification, the happiness and joy, and the continuing conversion and protection that come from yielding our hearts unto God and receiving his image in our countenances cannot be obtained merely by performing and checking off all the spiritual things we are supposed to do. Rather, the power of the Savior’s gospel to transform and bless us flows from discerning and applying the interrelatedness of its doctrine, principles, and practices. Only as we gather together in one all things Christ, with firm focus on him, can gospel truths synergistically enable us to become what God desires us to become and endure valiantly to the end. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a magnificent tapestry of truthfully framed and woven together. As we learn and link together revealed gospel truths, we are blessed to receive precious perspective and increased spiritual capacity through eyes that can see the Lord’s influence in our lives and ears that can see the Lord’s influence in our lives and ears that can hear his voice. And the principle of gathering together in one—even in him—can assist us in changing the traditional checklists into a unified, integrated, and complete whole. “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing,” Zephaniah 3.17. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
I Felt a Clearing in My Mind as if My Brain Had Split—God’s Residence is Next to Mine!
The fact that mortals have reason and imagination leads not only to the necessity for having a sense of one’s own identity, but also for orienting oneself in the World intellectually. This need can be compared when the child can walk by oneself, touch and handle things, knowing what they are. However, when the ability to walk and to speak has been acquired, only the first step in the direction of orientation has been taken. Mortals find themselves surrounded by many puzzling phenomena and, having reason, one has to make sense of them, has to put them in some context which one can understand and which permits one to deal with them in one’s thoughts. The further one’s reason develops, the more adequate becomes one’s system of orientation, that is, the more it approximates reality. However, even if a person’s frame of orientation is utterly illusory, it satisfies one’s need for some picture which is meaningful to one. Whether one believes in the power of a totem animal, in a rain god, or in the superiority and destiny of one’s own race, one’s need for some frame of orientation is satisfied. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Quite obviously, the picture of the World which one has depends on the development of one’s reason and of one’s knowledge. Although biologically the brain capacity of the human race has remained the same for thousands of generations, it takes a long evolutionary process to arrive at objectivity, that is, to acquire the faculty to see the World, nature, other persons and oneself as they are, and not distorted by desires and fears. The more mortals develop this objectivity, the more one is in touch with reality, the more one matures, the better can one can create a human World in which one is at home. Reason is mortal’s faculty for grasping the World by thought, in contradiction to intelligence, which is mortal’s ability to manipulate the World with the help of thought. Reason is mortal’s instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is mortal’s instrument for manipulating the World more successfully; the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the terrestrial aspect of mortal. Reason is a faculty which must be practiced, in order to develop, and it is indivisible. By this I mean that the faculty for objectivity refers to the knowledge of nature as well as to the knowledge of mortals, of society and of oneself. If one lives in illusions about one sector of life, one’s capacity for reason is restricted or damaged, and this the use of reason is inhibited with regard to all other sectors. #RandolpHarris 2 of 8
Reason in this respect is like love. Just as love is an orientation which refers to all objects and is incompatible with the restriction to one object, so is reason a human faculty which must embrace the whole of the World with which humans are confronted. The need for a frame of orientation exists on two levels; the first and the more fundamental need is to have some frame or orientation, regardless of whether it is true or false. Unless mortal have such a subjectively satisfactory frame of orientation, one cannot live sanely. On the second level the need is to be in touch with reality by reason, to grasp the World objectively. However, the necessity to develop one’s reason is not as immediate as that to develop some frame of orientation, since what is at stake for mortals in the latter case is one’s happiness and serenity, and not one’s sanity. This become very clear if we study the function of rationalization. However unreasonable or immoral an action may be, mortals have an insuperable urge to rationalize it, this is, to prove to oneself and to others that one’s action is determined by reason, common sense, or at least conventional morality. One has little more difficulty in acting irrationally, but it is almost impossible for one not to give one’s action the appearance of reasonable motivation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
If mortals were only a disembodied intellect, one’s aim would be achieved by a comprehensive thought system. However, since one is an entity endowed with a body as well as a mind, one has to react to the dichotomy of one’s existence not only in thinking but in the total process of living, in one’s feelings and actions. Hence any satisfying system of orientation contains not only intellectual elements but elements of feeling and sensing which are expressed in the relationship to an object of devotion. The answers given to mortal’s need for a system of orientation and an object of devotion differ widely both in content and in form. There are primitive systems such as animals and totemism in which natural objects or ancestors represent answers to mortal’s quest for meaning. There are nontheistic systems like Buddhism, which are usually called religion although in their original form there is no concept of God. There are purely philosophical systems, like Stoicism, and there are monotheistic religious systems which give an answer to mortal’s quest for meaning in reference to this concept of God. However, whatever their contents, they all respond to mortal’s need to have not only some thought system, but also an object of devotion which gives meaning to one’s existence and to one’s position in the World. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Only the analysis of the various forms of religion can show which answers are better and which are worse solutions to mortal’s quest for meaning and devotion, better or worse always considered from the standpoint of mortal’s nature and one’s development. Th courage to be as a part is the courage to affirm one’s own being by participation. One participates in the World to which one belongs and from which one is at the same time separated. However, participating in the World becomes real through participation in those sections are actual with which one is partially identical. The more self-relatedness a being has the more it is able, according to the polar structure of reality, to participate. Mortals as the completely centered being or as a person can participate in everything, but one participates through that section of the World which makes one a person. Only in the continuous encounters with other persons does the person become and remain a person. The place of this encounter is the community. Mortal’s participation in nature is direct, insofar as one is a definite part of nature through one’s bodily existence. One’s participation in nature is indirect and mediate through the community insofar as one transcends nature by knowing and shaping it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Without language there are no universals; without universals no transcending of nature and no relation to it as nature. However, language is communal, not individual. The section of reality in which one participates immediately is the community to which one participates immediately is the community to which one belongs. Though it and only through it participation in the World as a whole and in all its parts is mediated. Therefore, one who has the courage to be as a part has the courage to affirm oneself as a part of the community to which one participates. One’s self-affirmation is a part of the self-affirmation of the social groups which constitute the society to which one belongs. This seems to imply that there is a collective and not only an individual self-affirmation, and that the collective self-affirmation is threatened by nonbeing, producing collective anxiety, which is met by collective courage. One could say that the subject of this anxiety and this courage is a we-self as against the egoselves who parts of it are. However, such an enlargement of the meaning of “self” must be rejected. Self-hood is self-centeredness. Yet there is no center in a group in the sense in which exists in a person. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
There may be a central power, a king, a queen, a president, an emperor, an empress, or a dictator. One may be able to impose his or her will on the group. However, it is not the group which decides if he or she decides, though the group may follow. Therefore it is neither adequate to speak of a we-self nor useful to employ the terms collective anxiety and collective courage. When describing the three periods of anxiety, we pointed out that masses of people were overtaken by a special type of anxiety-producing situation and because outbreaks of anxiety are always contagious. There is no collective anxiety save an anxiety which has been overtaken many or all members of a group and has been intensified or changed by becoming universal. The same is true of what is wrongly called collective courage. There is no entity we-self as the subject of courage. There are selves who participate in a group and whose character is partly determined by this participation. The assumed we-self is a common quality of ego-selves within a group. The courage to be as a part is like all forms of courage, a quality of individual selves. A collectivist society is one in which the existence and life of the individual are determined by the existence and institutions of the group. In collectivist societies the courage of the individua is the courage to be as a part. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Looking at so-collective primitive societies one finds typical forms of anxiety and typical institutions in which courage expresses itself. The individual members of the group develop equal anxieties and fears. And they use the same methods of developing courage and fortitude which are prescribed by traditions and institutions. This courage is the courage which every member of the group is supposed to have. In many tribes the courage to take pain upon oneself is the test of full membership in the group, and the courage to take death upon oneself is a lasting test in the life of most groups. The courage of one who stands these tests is the courage to be as a part. One affirms oneself through the group in which one participates. The potential anxiety of losing oneself in the group is not actualizes, because the identification with the group is complete. I wish I was one of those saints. Maybe that is why I had to write this chapter. However, I am not a saint. And that did not even take five minutes for you to know it, so do not complain. It is just that I cannot forget my passion to be officially canonized. “My God hath been support; he hath led me through mine afflictions s in the wilderness; and he hath prescribed me upon the water of the great deep. He hath filled me with his love, even consuming my flesh. He hath confounded mine enemies, unto the causing them to quake before me,” reports 2 Nephi. 420-23. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
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After Dinner Light for Flowers and Let the Music Go to Sweeten Your Heart
There are so many things I am not free to tell. Mortals were not the Virgin; they were alone, facing a severe and strict God whose mercy one could obtain only by an act of complete surrender. The beneficial aspect showed itself in the increasing spirit of rationality and objectivity and in the growth of individual and social conscience. The flowering of science in our day is one of the most impressive manifestations of rational thought thee human race has ever produced. Chinese scientist He Jiankui delivered the World’s first genetically edited babies. The twin girls have been born with deoxyribonucleic acid (a self-replicating material present in nearly all living organisms as the main constituent of chromosomes. It is the carrier of genetic information) altered to make them resistant to human immunodeficiency virus. This is a groundbreaking move because these are the first so-called designer babies. Human equality, of the sacredness of life, of all mortal’s right to share in the fruits of nature, found expression in the ideas of natural law, humanism, enlightenment philosophy and the objectives of forming a perfection Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings to Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
Common to all these ideas is the concept that all mortals are children of Mother Earth and have a right to be nourished by her, and to enjoy happiness without having to prove this right by the achievement of any particular status. The humanity of all people implies that they are all the sons and daughters of the same mother, who have an unalienable right to love and happiness. However, the average person today obtains one’s sense of identity from belonging to a nation, rather than from being the son or daughter of man. Many people think that this fixation is warped, while others understand it. These people judge others from other lands with different criteria than the member of their own clan. Their feelings toward the stranger are not considered fair by all. Those who are not familiar by bonds and soil (expressed by common language, customs, food, song, etc.) are looked upon with suspicion, and paranoid delusions about them can spring up at the slightest provocation. The person who has not freed oneself from the oaths to blood and soil is not yet fully born as a human being; one’s capacity for love and reason are not fully developed; one does not experience one’s self nor one’s fellow mortals in their—and one’s own—human reality. However, expecting people to obey the laws is totally reasonable. “Perceive the words of understanding,” reports Proverbs 1.2. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14
Nationalism and Patriotism is considered a cult because people put their own nation above others, and base this foundation on truth and justice with a loving interest in one’s own nation, which is the concern with the nation’s spiritual as much as with its material welfare—never with its power over other nations. The national feeling can be seen in the reaction to the violations of clan symbols, a reaction which is very different from that to the violation of religious or moral symbols. Let us picture a person who takes the flag of one’s country to a street of one of the cities of the Western World, and tramples on it in view of other people. One would be lucky not to be lynched. Almost everybody would feel a sense of furious indignation, which hardly permits of any objective thought. The person who desecrated the flag would have done something unspeakable; one would have committed a crime which is not one crime among others, but the crime, the one unforgivable and unpardonable. Not quite as drastic, but nevertheless qualitatively the same would be the reason of the person who says, “I do not love my country,” or, in the case of war, “I do not care for my country’s victory.” Such a sentence is areal sacrilege, and a person saying it becomes a monster, an outlaw in the feelings of one’s fellow people. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14
In order to understand the particular quality of the feeling aroused by people not being loyal to their country, we may compare this reaction to one which would occur if a person got up and said, “I am in favor of killing all mentally ill people, or all poor people; I am in favor of starting a war in order to conquer South America.” Indeed, most people would feel that this was an unethical, inhuman opinion. However, the crucial point is that the particular feeling of an uncontrollable deep-seated indignation and rage would not occur. Such an opinion is just bad, but it is not a sacrilege, it is not an attack against the sacred. Even if a person should not speak disparagingly of God, one would hardly arouse the same feeling of indignation as against the crime, against the sacrilege which is the violation of the symbols of the country. It is easy to rationalize the reaction to a violation of the national symbols by saying that a person who does not respect one’s country shows a lack of human solidarity and of social feeling; but is this not also true of the person who advocates war, or the killing of innocent people, or who exploits others of one’s own advantage? Undoubtedly, lack of social responsibility and of human solidarity, as are the other acts mentioned here, but the reaction to the violation of the flag is fundamentally different from the reaction to the denial of social responsibility in all other aspects. The one object is sacred, a symbol of clan worship; the others are not. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14
Only when humans succeed in developing one’s reason and love further than one has done so far, only when one can build a World based on human solidarity and justice, only when one can feel rooted in the experience of universal humanity, will one have found a new, human form of rootedness, will one have transformed this World into a truly human home. Ontological principles have a polar character according to the basic polar structure of being, that of self and World. The first polar elements in individualization and participation. Their bearing on the problem of courage is obvious, if courage is defined as self-affirmation age is obvious, if courage is defined as the self-affirmation of being in spite of nonbeing. If we ask: What is the subject of this self-affirmation, we must answer: the individual self which participates in the World, i.e. the structural Universe of being. Mortal’s self-affirmation has two sides which are distinguishable but not separable: one is the affirmation of the self as a self; that is of separated, self-centered,individualized, incomparable, free, self-determining self. This is what one affirms in every act of self-affirmation. This is what one defends against nonbeing and affirms courageously by taking nonbeing upon oneself. The threatened loss of its is the essence of anxiety, and the awareness of concrete threats to it is the essence of fear. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14
Ontological self-affirmation precedes all differences of metaphysical, ethical, or religious definition of the self. Ontological self-affirmation is neither natural nor spiritual, neither good nor evil, neither immanent nor transcendent. These differences are possible only because of the underlying ontological self-affirmation of the self as self. In the same way the concepts which characterize the individual self are possessed below the differences of valuation: separation is not estrangement, self-centeredness is not selfishness, self-determination is not sinfulness. They are structural descriptions and the condition of both love and hate, condemnation and salvation. It is time to end the bad theological usage of jumping with moral indignation om every work in which the syllable “self” appears. Even moral indignation would not exist without a centered self and ontological self-affirmation. The subject of self-affirmation is the centered self. As centered self it is an individualized self. It can be destroyed but it cannot be divided: each of its parts has the mark of this and no other self. Nor can it be exchanged: its self-affirmation is directed to itself as this unique,unrepeatable, and irreplaceable individual. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14
The theological assertion that every human soul has an infinite value is a consequence of the ontological self-affirmation as an indivisible, unexchangeable self. It can be called the courage to be oneself. However, the self is self only because it as a World, a structured Universe, to which it belongs and from which it is separated at the same time. Self and the World are correlated, and so are individualization and participation. For this is just what participation means: being part of something from which one is, at the same time, separated. Literally, participation means taking part. This can be used in a threefold sense. It can be used in the sense of sharing, as for instance, sharing a room; or in the sense of having in common, the participation of the individual in the universal; or it can be used in the sense of being a part, for instance of a political movement. In all these cases participation is a partial identity and a partial non-identity. A part of a whole is not identical with the whole to which it belongs. However, the whole is what it is only with the part. The relation of the body and its limbs is the most obvious example. The self is part of the World which it has as its World. The World would not be what it is without this individual self. One says that somebody is identified with a moment. This participation makes one’s being and the being of the movement partly the same. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14
To understand the highly dialectical nature of participation it is necessary to think in terms of power instead of in terms of things. The partial identity of definitely separated things cannot be shared by all its citizens, and in an outstanding way by its rulers. Its power is partly their power, although its power transcends their power and their power transcends its power. The identity of participation is an identity in the power of being. In this sense the power of being of the individual self is partly identical with the power of beings of one’s World, and conversely. For the concepts of self-affirmation and courage this means that the self-affirmation of the self as an individual self always includes the affirmation of the self as an individual self always includes the affirmation of the power of being in which the self participates. The self affirms itself as participant in the power of a group, of a movement, of essences, of power of being as such. Self-affirmation, if it is done in spite of the threat of nonbeing, is the courage to be. However, it is not the courage to be as oneself, it is the courage to be as a part. The phrase “courage to be as a part” presents a difficulty. While it obviously demands courage to be as oneself, the will to be as a part seems to express the lack of courage, namely the desire to live under the protection of a larger whole. Not courage but weakness seems to induce us to affirm our selves as a part. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14
However, being as a part points to the fact that self-affirmation necessarily includes the affirmation of oneself as participant, and that this side of our self-affirmation is threatened by nonbeing as much as the other side, the affirmation of the self as an individual self. We are threatened not only with losing our individual selves but also with losing participation in our World. Therefore self-affirmation as a part requires courage as much as does self-affirmation as oneself. It is one courage which takes a double threat of nonbeing into itself. The courage to be is essentially always the courage to be as a part and the courage to be as oneself, in interdependence. The courage to be as a part is an integral element of the courage to be as oneself, and the courage to be as oneself is an integral element of the courage to be as a part. However, under the conditions of human finitude and estrangement that which is essentially united becomes existentially split. The courage to be as a part separates itself from unity with the courage to be as oneself, and conversely; and both disintegrate in their isolation. The anxiety they had taken into themselves is unloosed and becomes destructive. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14
Our perception of a situation determines the feeling we experience. “This day we perceive that the Lord is among us,” reports Josh 22.31. Competing needs, feelings, hungers, attitudes, and ideas fill our life’s experiences with conflicts. These add to both the grandeur and the misery of human life. One day you may experience enough of these conflicts, piled on top of each other to make you shout out: “Enough! I have had enough. I want to simplify! I must clear away the cobwebs, the entanglements, the complexities. I must get back to a simple, easily lived existence.” So you will stop doing certain things, resign from a few responsibilities, drop out of a few entanglement, give up a few unnecessary friends, enemies, tasks, pleasures. The pity is that this scarcely untangles or simplifies the picture. Your life is all the things you have experienced and will usually continue to be all these things, plus the decision you make to simplify! Take the following situation as an example: Randy, 20, earns a better-than-comfortable income, has been married eight years, has two healthy children. He likes his work, though it does not excite, stimulate, or satisfy him. He keeps to it because he needs the money, the security, and the idea that he is steadily employed and rising. However, he feels gnawing frustrations. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14
Randy decides one day to quit the job, take his family to a simpler part of the country, where job pressures and societal pressures are reduced. He moved from the hustle-and-bustle of Manhattan to the relative leisure of a small farming town in Sacramento. His skills get him a job, though the salary is one third that of his Manhattan salary. His home is smaller, and is wife, Erin, must take on new skills. His children have some difficulty adjusting to the new climate, social and cultural pattern, and a school where both are in the same classroom, with children younger and older. The new job is less challenging, but Randy is determined to believe that he has at last found “Utopia.” He refuses to complain and chides his wife and children when they grumble or long for their previous life. After six months, the family moves back to Manhattan.When asked by his friends to explain his moves, Randy chuckles and says he guesses he is not cut out for rural life. Randy had come to accept, at leas to feel “at home” in a very complex urban environment. He had a job that suited his aptitudes, but it failed to meet some of his other needs. His restlessness was a byproduct of his feeling that something was missing from his life. The decision to move was based on several things, particularly a desire to get un-stuck from what he perceived to be an entangling lifestyle. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14
Randy also found that he had rather enjoyed the urban entanglements, or at least that he had had some part to play in these patterns.In the Sacramento rural community he felt very unimportant, unneeded. Add tot his the strain on his family which was relayed back to him and you see some of the difficulty in his situation. Randy had the objectivity to see that maybe the restlessness and dissatisfaction were in him, not in the home or job. He sought vocational guidance and together he and the counselor looked at the various needs he had and found a job better suited to meet those needs. Do you remember how good it felt the last time you were recognized for your work? Research proves that appreciation is not only the number one thing employees declare their boss could do t inspire great work from them, but it also shows that is must be given in timely fashion. However, receiving praise for your hard work long after the result of your work can be considered offensive by many employees. Yes, this means that when we do something great at work, we expect a timely response. It is important to understand that you hold the power, the words, and the giddy-up to cheer people up along the way—by giving them instant gratification. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14
We also live in a society where too many people are trying to combat bullying and bad vibes by being nice to people and paying compliments that they do not really mean. For example, people often say, “I appreciate you,” just for you someone saying hello, thanking them or following the rules, but it is kind of an empty comment because these are things we are meant to do. So, if you have people in your life who are going out of their way for you, be sure to show them that they really are appreciated. And also, be willing to accept gifts, it is a way of bonding and showing people who much you care. They want you to have things that you will cherish and when you look at them you will be filled with good memories. When people are gone,they want you to have something to remember them by. “No power of influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness,and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 121.41-42. We always know when Jesus is at work because he produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14
Everyone faces hard things: the death of a loved one,divorce, a wayward child, illness, trials of faith, a lost job, or any other difficulty. To help us travel and triumph over our hard times with such glimpses of eternity, we must face hard things, first, by forgiving others and, second, by giving ourselves to Heavenly Father. Forgiving those who may have caused our hard things and reconciling ourselves to the will of God can be very difficult. It can hurt must when our hard thing is caused by a family member, a close friend, or even ourselves. The Lord needs you to look like, sound like a true disciple of Jesus Christ. That can be a hard thing, yet, we can do it—with joy. As we face hard things in the Lord’s way, may we lift up our heads and rejoice. At this sacred opportunity to testify to the World, our Savior lives and guides us. Lesson taught through the traditions we establish in our homes, though small and simple, are increasingly important in today’s World. We are urged to make our home sanctuaries of faith. It is an effort driven by our faith—our belief that one day the seeds sown in their youth will take root and begin to sprout and grow. The power of the Savior’s gospel to transform and bless us flows from discerning and applying the interrelatedness of its doctrine, principles, and practices. The Holy Ghost will enlighten each of us as we consider our increased responsibilities as individuals and families to our time and enhance our lives. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14
One Blessing I had So Large to My Eyes is a Soul I Forgot!
A significant and vital movement occurring in our society, and in most societies the World over, it the emergence of the young. In the past, young people have merely been tolerated; now they are beginning to feel personal significance. Also in the past, young people were expected to patter themselves after their parents and come out much like those role models. However, a new mood has come on the young people. Though the old-timers will scoff and say that youth has always been in revolt, they have failed to consider the expanded mobility and the communication facilities that have produced not only quantitative differences but qualitative ones too. For instance, 40 percent of young adults, ages 18 to 29 year of age, motivated by social issues turned out to vote in the 2018 midterm elections. That is compared with 26 percent in 2014. And as of 2016, there are a record of nearly 11 millionaires nationwide. That is more than ever before and marks a 400,000 person increase from the previous year. Many of the youth no longer fit into stereotypical roles because there are too many individuals with too many different characteristics to make the kinds of generalization many people want. These people do not know what it is like to have only one TV in this house, or be without TV. They have the internet, have never suffered an economic depression, have mobile phones, and self-propelled skateboards. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
Most of the youth have never known real hardships, at least not economic ones. The young of today are in many ways putting their parents’teachings to the test. If parents and authorities are going to talk about freedom, equality, fair play, sharing, love, and peace, then many people are going to have to see to it that they can follow through on such teachings. Confusion reigns. Truth and honesty are at a premium. Certainly this is one of the most exciting periods of history, with all kinds of changes being the norm. None of us will ever be the same as we once were, nor should we wish it. None of us can ever return to a previous period of life or history. However, many people today, viewing the disorder in the streets and on the campuses, wish it were over and we could get back to business as usual. This is unrealistic. Change is the name of the game. Many of the youth today will join the Establishment; many will not. We have a lot of confidence in the sense of idealism and promise shown by many of the new youth. In each of us are many varied facets of our integrated, holistic self. Notice we do not say “varied selves.” One of our earnest goals is to get away from the analytic, pluralistic way of thinking that so many of us have developed. We are not many selves. We are human beings with emerging concepts of selfhood. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
In the selfhood of any one of us, multiple images or pictures or representations pop up. No one of them alone is all that we are. A whole diamond cannot be experienced by studying or seeing only one facet of that diamond; we must view the entire gem. Now, of course, we cannot. We cannot see all the facets of a diamond at one time, nor can we see or experience or know all aspects of selfhood at one time. Year or lifetimes many be required to experience all of the self of any one person. That includes our own self. None of us is completely aware of all that we are. None of us knows the complete answer to the question, Who am I? Part of the self is submerged beneath layers of time, experiences, feelings, and defenses, and even if some know-it-all machine or technique were devised, it is unlikely that everything could be uncovered. Furthermore, it may not be advisable to know the whole thing—if it were possible to encompass the whole thing in any one time sequence. We have buried some parts of ourselves for very good reasons. Considering all the complexities that have gone into our personalities, to know them all at once would be similar to perceiving all of history in one complete picture. How, then, are we to understand and actualize our fullest selfhood? What are the things that make it difficult? #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
A life process which shows balance and with it power of being has, in biological terms, vitality, i.e. life power. The right courage therefore must, like the right fear, be understood as the expression of perfect vitality. The courage to be is a function of vitality. Diminishing vitality consequently entails diminishing courage. To strengthen vitality means to strengthen the courage to be. Neurotic individual and neurotic periods are lacking in vitality. Their biological substance has disintegrated. They have lost the power of full self-affirmation, of the courage to be. Whether this happens or not is the result of biological processes, it is biological fate. The periods of a diminished courage to be are periods of biological weakness in the individual and in history. The three main periods of unbalance are periods of reduced vitality;they are ends of an era and could be overcome only by the rise of vitality powerful groups that replaced the vitally disintegrated groups. Biologically speaking, anxiety is more destructive than protective. While fear can lead to measures that deal with the objects of fear, anxiety cannot do so because it has no objects. The fact, already referred to, that life tries to transform anxiety into fear shows that anxiety is biologically useless and cannot be explained in terms of life protection. It produces self-defying forms of behavior. Anxiety therefore by its very nature transcends the biological argument. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
Vitality, power of life, is correlated to the kind of life to which it gives power. Vitality is the power of creating beyond oneself without losing oneself. The more power of creating beyond itself a being has the more vitality it has. We have defined intentionality as being directed toward meaningful contents. Mortals live in meanings, in that which is valid logically, esthetically, ethically, religiously. In the development of the human race the degree to which mortals are aware of oneself as a separate self depends on the extent to which one has emerged from the clan and the extend to which the process of individuation has developed. The development of Western culture went in the direction of creating the basis for the full experience of individuality. By making the individual free politically and economically, by teaching one to think for oneself and freeing one to feel “I” in the sense that one is the center and active subject of one’s powers and experienced oneself as such. For the majority, individualism was not much more than a façade behind which was hidden the failure to acquire an individual sense of identity. Many substitutes for a truly individual sense of identity were sought for, and found. Nation, religion, class and occupation serve to furnish a sense of identity. “I am an American,” “I am a Protestant,” “I am a business person,” are the formulae which help a person experience a sense of identity after the original clan identity has disappeared and before a truly individual sense of identity has been acquired. #RandolpHarris 5 of 10
These different identifications are, in contemporary society, usually employed together. They are in a broad sense status identifications,and they are more efficient if blended with older feudal remnants, as in European counties. In the United States, in which so little is left of feudal relics, and in which there is so much social mobility, these status identifications are naturally less efficient, and the sense of identity is shifted more and more to the experience of conformity. Inasmuch as I am not different, inasmuch as I am like the others, and recognized by them as a regular fellow, I can sense myself as “I.” I am—“as you desire me”—as of the pre-individualistic clan identity, a new herd identity develops, in which the sense of identity, a new herd identity develops, in which the sense of identity rests on the sense of an unquestionable belonging to the crowd. That this uniformity and conformity are often not recognized as such, and are covered by the illusions of individuality, does not alter the fact. The problem of the sense of identity is not, as it usually understood merely a philosophical problem, or problem only concerning our mind and thought. The need to feel a sense of identity stems from the very condition of human existence, and it is the source of the most intense strivings. Since I cannot remain sane without this sense of “I,” I am driven to do almost anything to acquire this sense. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
Behind the intense passion for status and conformity is this very need, and it is sometimes stronger than the need for physical survival. What could be more obvious than the fact that people are willing to risk their lives,to give up their love, to surrender their freedom to sacrifice their own thoughts, for the sake of being one of the herd, of conforming, and thus of acquiring a sense of identity, even though it is an illusory one. To be loved means to be alive, to be rooted, to be at home. Every adult is in need of help,of warmth, of protection, in many ways differing and yet in many ways similar to the needs of the child. It is surprising to find in the average adult a deep longing for the security and rootedness of a loving home? The person who does not belong to the same clan is considered as alien and dangerous—as not sharing in the same human qualities which only the clan can possess. We either approach or are attracted to those things we life, or we avoid or are repelled by those things we dislike. You are a child of your parents, the sibling of your sibling, the friend of so-and-so, the enemy of such-and-such, and you perceive yourself and your World in terms of these various people and experiences. You may have fond memories of an old house, the family homestead, or a broken-down shanty, in which you spent your younger days. That house, or your experience of it, has become part of you. If the memories are somewhat less than fond, they still have developed something in you. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
The memories we have are the part of us that comes to life when we think or hear of houses, homes, or dwellings. We have pictures or images o these experiences and they have much to do with our present perceptions and thoughts and with how we will react to things. As a complex and highly variable individual we have a multiplicity of motivations, things that push or pull you to behave the ways you do. If someone insists he or she knows the things that makes all human begins tick, be charitable; that person is well-meaning, but misguided! No one experience or thing causes all behavior, nor is it even likely to be the most influential thing in the total life of large groups of people. Human’s behavior is multi-determined, caused by a whole smorgasbord off actors. First of all, of course, we have to look at the importance of our physiological motives. These needs, usually involving some kind of tissue lack or tension, are vital for physical survival or well-being. We develop attitudes and emotional reactions to these needs that become definite part of the composite self. We then have the acquired or secondary motives, usually social in nature, involving other people in some way. We develop feelings and attitudes about these as well, and another set of facets is added to the gem of selfhood. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
One might think that all we are doing is taking flat experiences or attitude and pasting them on a raw, blank personality, and in the end coming up wit a gem or mosaic of human selfhood. In fullest terms, the analogy is pitifully inadequate. Humans are much more than a surface covered with mosaic. These varying aspects of selfhood run throughout the person’s being, connecting and interconnecting with each other. There are organic as well as functional connections. Some go together structurally as part of the system or systems. Others go together functionally, meaning that they work together or on each other or as part of a larger and more complex system or process. The complexity can never be fully or meaningfully depicted in any graphic forms. Some people distort their own great discoveries because they may have some unsolved problems. Certainly courage is a function of vitality, but vitality is not something which can be separated from the totality of mortal’s being, language, creativity,spiritual life, and ultimate concern. One of the unfortunate consequences of the intellectualization of human’s spiritual life was that the word spirit was lost and replaced by mind or intellect, and that the element of vitality which is present in spirit was separated and interpreted as an independent biological force. Mortals were divided into bloodless intellect and a meaningless vitality.#RandolphHarris 9 of 10
The middle ground between them, the spiritual soul in which vitality and intentionality are united, was dropped. At the end of this development it was easy for a reductive naturalism to derive self-affirmation and courage from a merely biological vitality. However, in mortal nothing is merely biological as nothing is merely spiritual. Every cell of the mortal body participates in one’s freedom and spirituality, and every act of one’s spiritual creativity is nourished by one’s vital dynamics. Unity is a virtue that combines strength and value, the power of being and the fulfillment of meaning. Vitality and intentionality are united in this ideal of human perfection, which is equally removed from barbarism and moralism. Pure vitality in humans is never pure but always distorted, because human’s power of life is one’s freedom and the spirituality in which vitality and intentionality are united.The biological interpretation of courage is a matter of fate. It is the power of self-affirmation. One cannot command courage to be and one cannot gain it by obeying command. Religiously speaking, it is a matter of grace. Humans are in the likeness of God; hence all people are equal—equal in their common spiritual qualities, in their common reasons, and in their capacity of love for humanity. We have no other source of knowledge than that which the Lord himself feels it is important to give to us in our Earthly condition. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Stars Amid Profound Galaxies–Those Who Read the Revelations Must Not Criticize
We are all American by virtue of our location of birth, but our parents and language and food and lifestyle may differ. We want the right to life as full human beings, which means we will not be separated from our past and present. We can acknowledge only a fractional part of the time in which Black Americas have actually been shown any kind of equality of rights and opportunity. Many Black Americans are discovering a sense of appreciation for their heritage and they are attempting to identify with their American citizenship. There are many African Americans who are living fully in American society, and who are middle-class and upper-middle class and wealthy. There is an increasing tendency in the Black community to display cultural pluralism, which means to be as American as possible, but to identify and retain pride in the heritage of being African American. Many Blacks see their own identity is far more important than either accepting or rejecting somebody’s stereotyped identity. So, they are taking pride in their heritage, finding some satisfaction in greater acceptance of things labelled soul. Black is Beautiful means to honor your features and accept who you are as a person so that you can see how beautiful you are, and it does not mean that any other culture or race is less attractive. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
Black is beautiful also means of many: I am a human being, real and alive, and only recently aware of myself as a person with unlimited potential. I like who and what I am. I can be real now. I am a human being and my identity is something I can develop and feel good about. Self-acceptance and self-appreciation are definitely part of what self-actualization as a process is all about. Knowing your part inhumanity is a vital concept in self-actualization. This may mean coming to a fuller, deeper, more holistic appreciation of all that you are: body, color, heritage, intellect, and certainly emotions. This is also a current definition of together. Much like other Americans, Black want full acceptance of their status as human beings who happen to have a special ancestry and heritage. The drastic change or destruction of stereotypes upsets or upends our comfortable ways of handling our environment. We are challenged to react in ways in which we have little or no experience. However, it is an important transition stage for any person undergoing the emergence of one’s fullest identity. It is our hope that enough Americans can learn to accept and like and experience their own self-identities that they can also enjoy and appreciate this in people who may differ in pigmentation and heritage. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
Anxiety and courage have a psychosomatic character. They are biological as well as psychological. From the biological point of view one would say that fear and anxiety are the guardians, indicating the threat of nonbeing to a living being and producing movements of protection and resistance to this threat. Fear and anxiety must be considered as expressions of what one could call self-affirmation on its guard. Without the anticipating fear and the compelling anxiety no finite being would be able to exist. Courage, in this view, is the readiness to take upon oneself negatives, anticipated by fear, for the sake of a fuller positivity. Biological self-affirmation implies the acceptance of want, toil, insecurity, pain, possible destruction. Without this self-affirmation life could not be preserved or increased. The more vital strength a being has the more it is able to affirm itself in spite of the dangers announced by fear and anxiety. However, it would contradict their biological function if courage disregarded their warnings and prompted actions a directly self-destructive character. There is a right mean between cowardice and temerity.# RandolphHarris 3 of 11
Biological self-affirmation needs a balance between courage and fear. Such a balance is present in all living beings which are able to preserve and increase their being. If the warnings of fear no longer have an effect or if the dynamics of courage have lost their power, life vanishes. The drive for security, perfection, and certitude to which we have referred is biologically necessary. However, it becomes biologically destructive if the risk of insecurity, imperfection, and uncertainty is avoided. Conversely, a risk which has a realistic foundation in our self and our World is biologically demanded,while it is self-destructive without such a foundation. Life, in consequence, includes both fear and courage as elements of a life process in a changing but essentially established balance. As long as life has such a balance it is able to resist nonbeing. Unbalanced fear and unbalanced courage to destroy the life whose preservation and increase are the function of the balance of fear and courage. Humans are thrown into this World without their knowledge, consent, or will. Or they simply do not remember these things after soul amnesia. In respect, humans are not different from the animals, from the plants, or from inorganic matter. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
However, mortals are endowed with reason and imagination,and cannot be content with the passive role of a creature, with the role of dice cast out of cup. Mortals are driven by the urge to transcend the role ofthe creature, the accidentalness and passivity of their existence. Mortals can create life. This is the miraculous quality which they indeed share with all living beings, but with difference the one alone is aware of being created and of being a creator. Mortals can create life, or rather, women can create life, by giving birth to a child, and by caring for the child until it is sufficiently grown to take care of his or her own needs. Man—man and woman—can create by planting seeds, by producing material objects, by creating art, by creating ideas, by loving one another. In the act of creation mortals transcend themselves as a creature, raises oneself beyond the passivity and accidentalness of their existence into the realm of purposefulness and freedom. In human’s need for transcendence is possessed one of the foundations for love, as well as for art, religion and material production. “And they were also distinguished for their zeal towards God, and also towards mortals; for they were perfectly honest and upright in all things; and they were firm in the faith of Christ,” reports Alma 27.27. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
To create presupposes activity and care. It presupposes love for that which one creates. How then do mortals solve the problem of transcending oneself, if one is not capable of creating, if one cannot love? There is another answer to this need for transcendence: if I cannot create life, I can destroy it. To destroy life makes me also transcend it. Large sections of mortal’s civilization serve the purpose of giving one safety against the attack of fate and death. One realizes that life demands again and again the courage to surrender some or even all security for the sake of self-affirmation. Nevertheless, mortals try to reduce the power of fate and the threat of death as much as possible. Pathological anxiety about fate and death impels toward a security which is comparable to the security of a prison. One who lives in this prison is unable to leave the security given to one by one’s self-imposed limitations. However, these limitations are not based on a full awareness of reality. Therefore the security of the neurotic is unrealistic. The individual fears what is not to be feared and one feels to be safe what is not safe. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
Indeed, that mortals can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that mortals can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, mortals set themselves above life; they transcend oneself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for mortals, inasmuch as one is driven to transcend oneself is to create or destroy, to love or to hate. The anxiety which humans are not able to take upon themselves produces images of having no basis in reality, but it recedes in the face of things which should be feared. That is, one avoids particular dangers, although they are hardly real, and suppresses the awareness of having to die although this is an ever-present reality. Misplaced fear is a consequence of the pathological form of the anxiety of fate and death. The same structure can be observed in the pathological forms of the anxiety of guilt drives the person towards attempts to avoid this anxiety (usually called the uneasy conscience) by avoiding guilt. Moral self-discipline and habits will produce moral perfection although one remains aware that one cannot remove the imperfection which is implied in human’s existential situation, one’s estrangement from one’s true being. Neurotic anxiety does the same thing but in a limited, fixed, and unrealistic way. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
To say that mortals are capable of developing their primary potentiality for love and reason does not imply naïve belief in mortal’s goodness. Destructiveness is secondary potentiality, rooted in the very existence of mortals, and having the same intensity and power as any passion can have. However—and this is the essential point of my argument—it is only the alternative to creativeness. Creation and destruction, love and hate, are not two instincts which exist independently. They are both answers to the same need for transcendence, and the will to destroy must rise when the will to create cannot be satisfied. However, the satisfaction of the need to create leads to happiness; destructiveness to suffering, most of all, for the destroyer him or herself. The anxiety of becoming guilty, the horror of feeling condemned, are so strong that they make responsible decision and any kind of moral action almost impossible. However, since decision and actions cannot be avoided they are reduced to a minimum which, however, is considered absolutely perfect; and the sphere were they take place is defended against any provocation to transcend it. Here also the separation from reality has the consequence that the consciousness of guilt is misplaced. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
The moralistic self-defense of the neurotic makes one see guilt where there is no guilt or where one is guilty only in a very indirect way. Yet the awareness of real guilt and the self-condemnation which is identical with mortal’s existential self-estrangement are repressed, because the courage which could take them into itself is lacking. The pathological forms of the anxiety of the emptiness and meaninglessness show similar characteristics.Existential anxiety of doubt drives the person toward the creation of certitude in systems of meaning, which are supported by tradition and authority. In spite of the element of doubt which is implied in mortal’s finite spirituality, and in spite of the threat of meaninglessness implied in a mortal’s estrangement,anxiety is reduced by these ways of producing and preserving certitude.Neurotic anxiety builds a narrow castle of certitude which can be defended and is defended with the utmost tenacity. Mortal’s power of asking is prevented from becoming actual in this sphere, and if there is a danger of its becoming actualized by questions asked from the outside one reacts with fanatical rejection. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
However, the castle of undoubted certitude is not built on the rock of reality. The inability of the neurotic to have a full encounter with reality makes one’s doubts as well as one certitude unrealistic. One puts both in the wrong place. One doubts what is practically about doubt and one is certain where doubt is adequate. Above all, one does not admit the question of meaning in its universal and radical sense. The question is in the individual, as it is in every person as mortal under the conditions of existential estrangement. However, one cannot admit it because one is without the courage to take the anxiety of emptiness or doubt and meaninglessness upon oneself. Existential anxiety has an ontological character and cannot be removed but must be taken into the courage to be. Pathological anxiety is the consequence of the failure to take the anxiety upon itself. Pathological anxiety leads to self-affirmation on a limited, fixed, and unrealistic basis and to a compulsory defense of this basis. Pathological anxiety, in relation to the anxiety of fate and death, produces an unrealistic security; in relation to the anxiety of guilt and condemnation, an unrealistic perfection; in relation to the anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness, an unrealistic certitude. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
Pathological anxiety, once established, is an object of medical healing. Existential anxiety is an object of priestly help. Neither the medical nor the priestly function is bound to its vocational representatives: the minister may be a healer and the psychotherapist a priest, and each human being may be both in relation to the neighbor. However, the function should not be confused and the representatives should not try to replace each other. The goal of both of them is helping mortal to reach full-self affirmation, to attain the courage to be. We want to realize and appreciate the position we occupy before God and the great blessings and privileges that are within our reach. We have just commenced, as it were, it the great work. We do not always comprehend these things, and hence we labor under difficulties pertaining to this matter, because we do not see, we do not comprehend the position and relationship that subsists between us and our God. God is our Father; we are his children. God has brought us into his covenant, and it is our privilege to go on from wisdom to wisdom, from intelligence to intelligence, from understanding of one principle to that of another, to go forward and progress in the development of truth until we can completely comprehend God. “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven,” reports Matthew 6.9-10. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
Randolph Harris II International Institute 