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Lay Bare the Secret You Keep from Each Other
It was a lie. A lie I would never forget for as long as I walked the Earth. He would tell us nothing of himself but that he was “a fool,” to be frightened by their talk, and that the rattle of a window, or the dropping of a pin was enough to scare him now. He was now asleep on the sofa. The candles were flaring, and there was a wavering shadow at the door that looked like the head of a man with a long neck, and a long, sharp nose, peeping and drawing back. The fugitive shadow seemed to be breaking up, rearranging itself oddly. I rose, and walking slowly to him, I stood over him and looked at him, at the blood that soaked his lace shirt and stained his face. He did not open his eyes. However, I felt his sorrow. I felt its immensity, and I wished I did not feel it, and for the moment I understood the gulf that divided us, and the gulf that divided his attempt to overpower me from my rather simple defense of myself. And with his eyes closed, and his hand open beside him, he appeared the abandoned offspring of time and supernatural accident, someone as miserable as myself. What had he done to become what he was? His family was ruined, I believe, in some civil wars, long ago. Through the hall door, I could see the moonlight was beautiful. As the night waned on, the young man recovered slowly from his brain fever, but not perfectly. He was not sufficiently strong to remove for change of scene and air, which were necessary for his complete restoration. In the dead of the night, Haze Austin was suddenly awakened. And in this broken child were centuries of evil and centuries of knowledge, and out of him there came no ignominious entreaty but merely the soft and bruised sense of what he was. Old, old evil, eyes that had seen dark ages of which I only dream. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
I shall never forget this sight, for he looked the perfect incarnation of hate. His green eyes blazed with lurid fire, and his white teeth seemed to almost shine through the blood which dabbled his mouth. Desperately he tried to vanquish what he did not comprehend. He was so exquisitely beautiful and so lost. “Is there a chill in the air, dear?” I said. “I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? You look ill, Mrs. Winchester; a little faint,” said Haze. “I am better now. How do you feel now, Haze?” I said. I was beginning to take alarm. Natural enough, was it not, that one of his own should take him away from Llanada Villa. “Papa would be grieved beyond measure,” he said. “If he thought we were inconveniencing you at all.” In a moment he was standing on his own feet. And then he walked drowsily beside me, my arm about his shoulder, bolstering him and steadying him, until we were moving towards his father’s cottage on my estate. I only half glanced at the figures passing us, until I saw a familiar shape under the trees. Somewhere far off in the darkened gardens, other were near. When he pushed open the door to his father’s home, he was laying dead upon the floor. His cravat was drawn halter-wise tight round his throat, and he had done its work well. The body was cold, and had been long dead. In due course the coroner held his inquest, and the jury pronounced that the deceased, Mac Austin, had died by his own hand, in a state of temporary insanity. However, Haze had his own opinion about his father’s death, though his lips were sealed, and he never spoke about it. He went and lived for the residue of his days in York, where there are still people who remember him, a taciturn and surly young man, who attended church regularly, and also drank a little, and was know to have saved some money. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to even startle even Haze’s languid nature. When I returned to my drawing-room, and sat down to coffee and chocolate, Elizabeth joined me, and we had a little card party. When the game was over, Elizabeth and I sat down on the sofa, and I asked her, a little anxiously, whether she had heard from her mother since her arrival. She answered “No.” I then asked her whether she knew where a letter would reach her at present. “I cannot tell,” she answered, ambiguously, “but I have been thinking of leaving you; you have been already too hospitable and too kind to me. I have given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to take a carriage to-morrow, and post in pursuit of her; I know where I shall ultimately find her, although I dare not tell you.” “But you must not dream such a thing,” I exclaimed. “I cannot afford to lose you so, and I will not consent to your leaving us, except under the care of your mother, who was so good as to consent to your remaining with us till she should herself return. I should be quite happy if I knew that you heard from her; but this evening the accounts of the progress of the mysterious disease that has invaded our community, grow even more alarming; and my beautiful guest, I do feel the responsibility, unaided by advice from your mother, very much. However, I shall do my best’ one thing is certain, that you must not think of leaving Llanada Villa without her distinct direction to that effect. We should suffer too much in parting from you to consent to it easily.” “Thank you, Mrs. Winchester, a thousand times for your hospitality,” Elizabeth answered, smiling bashfully. “You have all been too kind to me; I have seldom been so happy in all my life before, as in your beautiful mansion, under your care, and in the society of your dear niece.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
I accompanied Elizabeth to her room, and sat and chatted with her while she was preparing for bed. She turned around, “Do you think that you will ever confide fully in me about your home?” “Now, Elizabeth, you are gong to talk your wild nonsense again,” I said hastily. “Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims and fancies; for your sake I’ll talk like a sage. Did you ever have a ball in the Grand Ballroom? What was it like? How charming it must be.” “I almost forget, it is years ago.” I laughed. “Mrs. Winchester, you are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.” “I remember everything about it—with an effort. I see it all, as divers see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but transparent. There occurred that night what has confused the picture, and made it colours faith I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here,” I touched my breast, “and never was the same since.” “Were you near dying?” “Yes, a very—cruel love—strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifices without blood. Let us go to sleep now; I feel lazy.” I bid her good-night, crept from the room with an uncomfortable sensation, locked her door and retired to my chambers. I was lying in bed, with my hands buried in my rich wavy hair, under my cheek, and my head upon the pillow. I often wondered whether my pretty guest ever said her prayers. I certainly had never seen her upon her knees. In the morning she never came down until long after our family prayers were over, and at night she never left the drawing room to attend our brief evening prayers in the hall. Ever since the midnight invaders, I locked all the doors in the house at night, and my whimsical alarms about prowling assassins required me to have the servants search every room in the house to make sure there were no lurking assassins or robbers “ensconced.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
After these measures were taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep. A light was burning in my room. This was an old habit, of very early date, ad which nothing could have tempted me to dispense with. Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. However, dreams come through walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths. I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. However, I was equally conscious of being in my room, and lying in bed, precisely as I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and its furniture just as I had seen it last, except tht it was very dark, and I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not accurately distinguish. However, I soon saw that it was a sooty-black figure that resembled a man. He appeared to me about five or six feet tall, he floated around the room hither and tither with the lithe sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry out, although as you ay supposed, I was terrified. Its pace was growing faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark that I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it spring lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face, and I could see it was Haze. He looked at me with centuries of evil blazing in his eyes, but there was not the slightest stir or respiration. And I felt a shudder. My heart expanded slightly, against my will. “I curse you,” he said. As I stared at him, I felt danger again, terrible danger. Then he appeared to have changed his place, and was now nearer to the door; then, close to it, the door opened, and he vanished. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
It would be vain my attempting to tell you the horror with which, even now, I recall he occurrence of that night. It seemed to deepen by time, and communicated itself to the room and the very furniture that had encompassed the apparition. Later that day, I had another strange experience; I walked into the parlor that afternoon where Daisy and Elizabeth had been sitting, and a saw Haze upon the sofa. However, then I realized that he was invisible to the others. He got up and walked toward me—I was not afraid—and then—seemed to dissolve into the air. And so I wondered…whether I might have fallen into a trance. I clasped my hands and struggled to control my breathing. We know that, in the mesmeric trance, a subject may acquire unusual mental powers; The Frenchman Didier, who could read minds, play cards blindfolded, and identify the contents of sealed containers with great accuracy, is one of the best-known instances. Ancient houses, it has always seemed to me, are like Leyden jars, quietly accumulating the influences of the past…and my home is a special case. I lay awake into the small hours, worrying over these anxieties as they became more and more nightmarish until I sank into a troubled sleep. Sleeping had become so difficult one night that I wandered through this vast mansion, searching for a precious jewel William had given me. The jewel had been lost; I did not know how, but I knew that my own carelessness was to blame. To make matter worse, I could not remember what kind of stone it was, for as I went from room to room, a voice kept chanting, “Emerald, sapphire, ruby, diamond,” over and over, and none of them seemed right, because the lost stone was a different, a more beautiful colour than any of those, and I knew I ought to be able to picture it, and thus recall its name, but I could not. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The mansion was absolutely silent; the light throughout, even in corridors was a pale, uniform grey like that of an overcast sky. The rooms were modestly furnished; each one seemed to have its own miniature flight of stairs, up or down two or three steps, and the corridors kept changing levels in similar fashion. Though the house itself was not especially sinister, my anxiety over the fate of the jewel grew steadily more acute until it had risen to an unbearable pitch. Then it occurred to me that I still had not searched the Venetian Dining Room. The thought precipitated a vertiginous change of scene; the light sank to a dim, murky brown, and I was standing in the doorway of the room where we had dined that night. The curtains were drawn, the candles snuffed; the room seemed to be empty, but as I crept toward the table, I saw, above the back of the chair in which I usually sat, the dark outline of a head. There was time to slip away quietly; but perhaps the jewel had fallen into the lining of my chair, and if I were to tiptoe forward, I might be able to see it. I was within two feet of the motionless figure when a voice spoke from the doorway behind me, a word that rang like a loud gong, louder and louder until it became my own cry of “No!” and I woke in grey dawn light to find myself standing at the head of the stairs. And then I thought I caught sight of a shape, dak in space and light, through the door in one of the bedrooms. There was a tall figure in what I could have sworn was a black top hat, staring directly back at me. The figure was dressed formally in black morning suit. And then, with a movement so spasmodic and sudden, the man turned and stated to walk eastward, out of sight. I dismissed it, as one of the Winchester’s passing enigmas. There was much about the curse of the Winchester Mansion that I did not understand. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Spirits of Llanada Villa, I awaken the powers of darkness which dwell within you by the power of the blood of the three heeded Dragon Zohak that you may serve to empower Mrs. Winchester’s great work! Through serving the greater cause of dark magick which break the shackles that bind the Blackened Fire of Spirit, may you be uplifted and liberated! Awaken and empower the forbidden rites of Angra Mainyu! Awaken to empower the Mrs. Winchester’s great work of counter creation as an Apostle of the Lord of Darkness eternal and as a warrior of the path of the Lemegeton. I adjure thee, Emperor Lucifer, as the agent of the strong living God, of His beloved Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to appear instantly, or to send thy Messenger Astarot, forcing thee to forsake thy hiding-place, wheresoever it may be. Aeshma, Div of wrath and fury! He who wields the bloody mace! Aeshma who is demon of the wounding spear I call you forth into this temple of counter creation! Through devotion to my becoming on this path, your spiritual weapon has been made manifest in this corporeal World through my will and counter creative power so you may fill it with your essence and might! Empower it so that it may serve me here upon the corporeal plane! May it serve as a key to the realms above and below unlocking the power and wisdom for the spirits of the Winchester’s glory and ascent! Fill this weapon with your powers of wrath and fury that it may seek out spiritual attacks made and render them useless and impotent! #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
One Halloween, a tour guide saw a little boy who was no more than six years old. He was dressed in a black hood, and long black robe, and it looked like he did not have a face, as he had a black, opaque nylon covering the opening in the hood. The tour guide asked him who he was supposed to be, and the little boy said, “I’m the Angel of Life.” The tour guide then asked him who the Angel of Life is. The boy replied, “The Angel of Life is someone who comes to talk to you. He tells you things about your life.” The conviction on the little boy’s face and the non-hesitant way in which he explained who he was made the tour guide think that the boy had some knowledge of what he was talking about. Shortly after, objects in the gift shop started floating about, and glimpses of a shadowy figure were spotted in the basement. In the café, according to a female patron, she had been sitting at a table in a back corner of the room when a man suddenly appeared in a chair across the table from her. The man stared straight ahead and refused to react in any way. The female patron looked away to get the waitress’s attention and when she looked back, the man was gone. The woman related that the elusive figure was wearing old-fashioned clothes. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Return in the Darkening Twilight
Llanada Villa is a prime example of Victorian architecture. Its exterior is stately, refined, with a touch of Gothic elegance. Its front doors welcome, even as it seems to be hiding something. Inside the floors creak without warning, without any sense of someone there. The wood is thick with the humidity, as if the walls and floor breathe. Through the years, guest have reported feeling cold spots, or seeing strange, wispy streaks of light. The sense of the uncanny cries out for an explanation. Ghosts bridge the past to the present; they speak across the seemingly insurmountable barriers of death and time, connecting us to what we thought was lost. The townsfolk whispered tales of its dark history, of unspeakable horrors that occurred within the walls of my homes. As I climbed the grand staircase, each step seemed to release a flurry of hidden memories. Voices whispered incantations that send shivers down my spine. I must not faint, I told myself, and summoning all my resolve, made my way to the safety of the back parlour. There I collapsed into a couch, with my head already beginning to throb. The pain soon became so excruciating that I lost all sense of time until someone, I could not tell who, brought me a sleeping draught, and I sank at last into merciful oblivion. Next morning, I was at first bewildered to find myself fully dressed upon the parlour sofa. The parlourmaid, Trinity, brought me a cup of tea. She had set my skin crawling with fear. At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon the road, arrested out attention. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I was haunted with a terror of robbers. My house was robbed once, and two servants murdered, so I always lock my door. It had become a habit. Still, it was a fine autumnal sunset, and melancholy lights and long shadows spread their peculiar effects over the landscape. I was looking out of one of the long drawing-room windows, when there entered the court-yard, a figure of a wanderer who I knew very well. He used to come by twice a year asking to tour my home. He was a tall man, with sharp learn features. He wore a pointed black bread, and he was smiling from ear to ear, showing his white fangs. He was dressed in buff, black, and scarlet, and crossed with more straps and belts than I could count, from which hung all manner of things. Behind, he carried a magic-lantern, and two boxes, which I well knew, in one of which was a salamander, and in the other a mandrake. These monsters used to my Mr. Hansen laugh. They were compounded of parts of monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together with great neatness and startling effect. He had a fiddle, a box conjuring apparatus, a pair of foils and masks attached to his belt, several other mysterious cases dangling about him, and a black staff with copper ferrules in his hand. His companion was a rough spare dog, that followed at his heels, but stopped short, suspiciously at the front gate, and in a little while began to howl dismally. In the meantime, the mountebank, standing in the midst of the court-yard, raised his grotesque hat, and made us a very ceremonious bow, paying his compliments very volubly in execrable French, and German not much better. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Then, disengaging his fiddle, he began to scrape a lively air, to which he sang with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous airs and activity, that made me laugh, in spite of the dog’s howling. Then he advanced to the window with many smiles and salutations, and his hat in his left hand, his fiddle under his arm, and with a fluency that never took breath, he gabbled a long advertisement of all his accomplishments, and the resources of the various arts which he placed at our service, and the curiosities and entertainments which it was in his power, at my bidding to display. “Will your ladyship be pleased to buy an amulet against the oupire, which is going like the wolf, I hear, through these woods,” he said, dropping his hat on the floor. “They are dying of it right and left, and here is a charm that never fails; only pinned to the pillow, and you may laugh in his face.” These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic ciphers and diagrams upon them. I instantly purchased one. He was looking up, and I was smiling down at him, amused. His piercing black eye, as he looked up in my face, seemed to detect something that fixed for a moment his curiosity. “I told you that I am charmed with you in the most particulars,” he said. “You are slender, and wonderfully graceful. Your complexion is rich and brilliant; your features are small and beautifully formed; your eyes large, dark, and lustrous; your hair is quite wonderful, I never saw hair so magnificently think and long when it is down about your shoulder. It is exquisitely fine and soft, and in colour a rich very dark brown, with something of gold.” “Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you,” I replied. And so he walked on, and I heard no more. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Within the space of a week, my colour had returned, and I was sleeping so soundly that I was scarcely aware of my dreams. I walked miles on my estate each day, and I began to see it with new eyes. Every field, every path, even every hedgerow had its own name and its own history. I considered the amulet I purchased as an omen of good luck—and placed in beneath my pillow, to guard against further visitation. That evening, as I reached the top of the stairs, I heard a peculiar flickering sound. Entering my dressing room in the darkness, I made my way to the familiar dressing table on the right side of the room. Now the noise was even more pronounced. It sounded to me as if someone were turning the pages of book, a sound for which there was no rational source. Move over, I suddenly became away of a clammy, cold feeling around me. Since it was a warm evening, this too surprised me. In the dark, I could not be sure if there were not someone else in the dressing room. I quickly existed the room and went to bed. But this night, I was awakened by a violent shaking of my bed. I could see, in the very imperfect light, two figures at the foot oof it, holding each a bedpost. A voice said, “We’ll hang you!” Trembling, I climbed over to the footboard; and saw the figure at the other side, little more than a black shadow, begin also to scale the bed; and there was instantly a dreadful confusion and uproar in the room, and such a gabbling and laughing; I could not catch the words. I found myself on the floor. The phantoms and clamour were gone, but a crash and ringing of fragments was in my ears. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
The great china bowl, from which for generations the Winchester had been baptized, had fallen from the mantelpiece, and was smashed on the hearthstone. I warned the servants not to disregard oaths and curses. A mourning coach drove up, and two gentlemen in black cloaks, and with crape to their hats, got out, and without looking to the right or the left, went up the steps to the Winchester mansion. Mr. Hansen followed them slowly. The carriage had, he supposed, gone round to the yard, for, when he reached the door, it was no longer there. So he followed the two mourners into the house. In the hall he found a fellow servant, who said he had seen two gentlemen, in black cloak, pass through the hall, and go up the stair without removing their hats, or asking leave of anyone. This was very odd, Mr. Hansen thought, and a great liberty; so upstairs he went to make them out. But he could not find them then, nor ever. And from that hour the house was troubled. In a little time there was not one of the servants who had not something to tel. Step and voices followed them sometimes in the passages, and tittering whispers, always minatory, scared them at the corners of the galleries, or from dark recesses; so that they would return panic-stricken. I, myself, had also heard these voices, and with this formidable aggravation, they came always when I said my prayers. I was scared at such moments by dropping words and sentences, which grew, as I persisted, into threats and blasphemies. These voices were not always in the room. They called, as I fancied, through the walls, very thick in this house, from the neighbouring rooms, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other; sometimes they seemed to holla from distant lobbies, and came muffled, but threateningly, through the long paneled passages. As they approached they grew furious, as if several voices were speaking together. Whenever I applied myself to my devotions, these horrible sentences came hurrying towards the door, and, in panic, I would start from my knees, and all then would subside except the thumping of my heart against my stays, and the dreadful tremours of my nerves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
What these voices said, I never could quite remember one minute after they had ceased speaking; one sentence chased another away; gibe and menace and impious denunciation, each hideously articulate, were lost as soon as heard. And this added to the effect of these terrifying mockeries and invectives, that I could not, by any effort, retain their exact import, although their horrible character remained vividly present to my mind. Camile who acted as a housemaid, would not sleep in the house, but walked home, in trepidation, to her father’s, under the escort of her little brother, every night. Mrs. Rendell, the kitchenmaid, endured the nightly terrors. Mr. Hansen was testy and captious about these stories. He was already uncomfortable enough by reason of the entrance of tow muffled figures into the house, about which there could be no mistake. His own eyes had seen them. He refused to credit the stories of the servants. I made a decision not to fuel the stories of the ghost to keep the servants. “If you see ghosts here, it is no place for you, and it is time you should pack,” I would say. Here has been the cook with the kitchenmaid, as white as pipeclay, all in a row, to tell me I must have a parson to sleep among them, and preach down the devil! Upon my soul, I would not allow my home to fall into utter chaos and disarray. “Mrs. Winchester, I know you are no fool,” said the cook. “But supposed there was a such thing as a ghost here, don’t you see, it ain’t just women telling stories.” “I will not dignify such ideas,” I replied. The women left the kitchen, the cook and the butler went down, not altogether unused to such condescension in the household. The fire had gone down and I was chilled. The candles were expiring in the socket and threw on the white all long shadows, that danced up and down from the ceiling to the ground, and their black outlines I fancied resembled the two men in cloaks, whom I remembered with profound horror. I took the candle, with all the haste I could, getting along the passage, on whose walls the same dance of black shadows was continued, very anxious to reach my room before the light should go out. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
On night in 1990, there was an unusual buzzing sound in The Winchester Mystery House, one of the staff encountered a dark, hooded figure standing at the door-to-nowhere. In the dim light issuing through the stained glass windows from an outside light, he could see that the intruder, who looked very much like a cowled monk, was waving his arms in a particular manner. Interpreting his movement as threatening, he approached the man and asked him to leave. At the very moment, the employee says he never felt so weak and helpless.
He collapsed in a heap backward onto the floor. He remembered that he actually began to weep in fear and confusion. He was completely at the mercy of whoever or whatever was standing at the door. It was then that the hooded being spoke. “Don’t be afraid,” it said in a quiet whisper. “We won’t hurt you.” And the next thing he knew, the morning sunlight was making him squint into wakefulness. As he reflected on the incident, he became more and more convinced that an actual visitation had occurred and that some kind of entity had come into the mansion. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Some Move to Suburbia Out of Fear of those Unlike them
Sarah L. Winchester stirred, rolling onto her side and clutching her pillow. She had been caught in a strange netherworld between sleep and wakefulness, her uneasy rest punctured by nightmares of loss connections with her daughter and husband, but a noise downstairs had brought her back to reality. Every criminal offense is comprised of a set of behavioural (actus reus) and mental (mens reus) prerequisites. These statutory provisions are clearly sated in the criminal code and establish what an individual must do and think to be in violation of the law. Criminal events transpire when offenders, victims, and audience members intersect in a given setting. These participants engage in a dynamic set of actions and counteractions to produce the criminal outcome. The term “criminal transaction” is used to describe this exchange process. A full discussion of the criminal transaction must consider broad-based issues such as the demographics of the actors, the environment in which the crimes occur, and the way that these events tend to play themselves out. In the case of the offender-victim relationship, it is noted the violent crimes tend to take on a one-on-one offender-victim dynamic. Conversely, property offenders, public order offenders, and many organizational criminals are prone to work in small groups. What is more, robbery, burglary and common property offense are described as stranger crimes while other crimes tend to involve a victim and perpetrator(s) who know one another. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Faith motivated individuals, faith-based organizations, and the transformative power of faith itself are proven keys in reducing crime and improving the effectiveness of our criminal justice system. We now know that intentional partnerships between congregations and law enforcement can lead to dramatic improvement in police-community relations and reductions in crime, youth violence, and gang activity. We also known that faith-based programs can provide an antidote to the harmful culture that permeates so many of our correctional facilities. In this way, religion can help change prisons from an environment for learning even more deviant behaviour to places where rehabilitation is a realistic possibility. Additionally, faith-motivated mentors and faith-based groups can provide both the support and supervision necessary to help not only prisoners but also those former prisoners stay crime-free by learning moral and productive lives. The American suburbs are part of what is called a “global project.” Across the planet, after World War II, America’s image as a democracy and as World economic leaders also became a cultural model for consumerism and community-building. American images and ideas central to the lifestyle of its new suburbs—supermarkets, automobiles, super-highways, and motels—were exported to other nations. The American post-war dream was concretized in the form of the single-family suburban home, the cul-de-ac community, the local shopping center, and the family car, as opposed to the crowded, high crime, industrial cities. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
To middle class families the suburbs give a safe, sanitary environment, new houses in styles somewhat in keeping with the conception of family life, and permanent neighbourhoods of people with similar outlook. In an atmosphere of rapid change, the income-graded neighbourhoods render two important service to their residents. Relative evenness of wealth meant neighbours who would reinforce an individual family’s efforts to pass on its values to its children. The surrounding evenness of wealth also gave adults a sense of a community of shared experience, and thereby gave some measure of relief from the uncertainties inherent in a World of highly competitive capitalism. Even those excluded from them, the suburbs offered a physical demonstration that the rewards of competitive capitalism might be within the reach of all. The suburban life is also a spiritual quest. These suburbs are the latest version of the promise of the American frontier—blank slates on which new residents can write their stories. The pioneers who move to these suburbs have made a startling leap into the unknow. The places have no past, no precedent, no settled conventions. The residents have no family connections here. However, people move here with the hope that there soon will be communities and relationships developed among people in the same yacht as themselves. Fellow pilgrims on the journey, as it were. Many people are struck by the significance of suburban living as a spiritual quest or pilgrimage. They are all looking for something. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
People live in the suburbia for any number of reasons. They may have come here because of a job change or for a relationship. They come in search of affordable housing, good school, or safe communities. Or they may have grown up in suburbia by default; indeed, over half of the American population now lives in suburbia, and many of them have been suburbanites for two or three generations. Whatever the case, those who live in suburbia have aspirations for a certain kind of life. For some it is an optimistic vision, while others may be more cynical about ever seeing such a life to come. However, it is still a spiritual longing in either case. Even those who come to suburbia for less than noble reasons do so out of a particular vision of their ideal life. Some move to suburbia out of fear of those unlike them, fleeing from racial diversity and searching for a place “safer” and more comfortable to their preexisting prejudices. Others care little for their neighbours and fashion suburban lives of self-centered materialism, acquisition of possessions and status climbing. These too point to spiritual needs, however misguided or impure the motivations might be. Whenever people describe suburbia, invariably they use phrases like “a good place to raise kids,” or “where people settle down and start a family.” Inherent in these comments is an aspiration of hope for their future and a dream of a good life for their children. Suburbia is the context and the setting for the fulfillment of people’s hopes and dreams. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The suburbs had always promised prosperity, upward mobility, a healthy life in an unpolluted environment, safety and tranquility, and above all, the best place to bring up kids. Although this promise still fuels many dreams and infuses a nostalgic political rhetoric, the future is hopeful. It is a place many people can hear the voice of God. The suburban Christian ought not uncritically absorb all the characteristics of the suburban World but rather should thoughtfully asses and discern how Christians ought to live in this environment, without either capitulating to the culture or abandoning it by fleeing the suburbs and relocating to the country. Given suburbia’s new centrality, Christians, especially suburban Christians, must take the suburbs seriously. In order to detect the “voice of God,” we need to understand that the Holy Spirit alone is charged to communicate the will of God to the believer, and that He works from within the spirit of the disciple, enlightening the understanding so as to bring one into intelligent co-working with the mind of God. No matter where you live, the purpose of the Holy Spirit is, briefly, the entire renewal of the redeemed one, in spirit, soul and body. God therefore directs all His working to the liberation of every faculty, and never in any way seeks to direct a human as a passive machine, even into good. God work in one to enable one to choose the good, and strengthens one to act, but never—even for “good”—dulls one or renders one incapable of free action. One would nullify the very purpose of Christ’s redemption on Calvary, and the purpose of His own coming. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
When the self-actualized understands these principles, the “voice of psychopathological offenders” is recognizable: when it comes from outside the human, or within the sphere of one’s perception, and not from the central depth of one’s spirit where the Holy Spirit abides; when it is imperative and persistent, urging sudden action without time to reason or intelligently weigh the issues; when it is confusing and clamorous, so that humans are hindered from thinking. For the Holy Spirit desires the believer to be intelligent, as a responsible being with a choice, and will not confuse one so as to make one incapable of coming to a decision. The speaking of psychopathological offenders can also be a counterfeit of the apparent inner speaking of the human oneself, as if one were oneself “thinking,” and yet with no concentrated action of the mind; exempli gratia, a persistent and ceaseless “commentary” going on somewhere within, apart from volition or mind action, commenting on the human’s own actions or the actions of others, such as “You are wrong,” “You are never right,” “God has cast you off,” “You must not do that,” et cetera, et cetera. Humans do not grasp God through symbols, but in the experience of faith one is grasped by an ultimate concern expressed in symbols. Every symbol descriptive of ultimate reality originates in an experience of ultimate concern and continues to live only insofar as it can introduce someone into the revelatory constellation by arousing a similar experience. Religious symbols participate in the power of being not merely ontologically, but experientially. They concretely convey the experience of ultimacy, of seizure by an ultimate concern. And lest this affirmation of the symbol open the door to the demonic, we insist upon the negation of the symbol by the ultimate to which it points. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Analogia is more negative-protesting than positive-affirming. Religious symbols participate in that which they symbolize, being-itself; they participate by sharing in the ground of being, as do all finite beings; and they participate by expressing the experience of ultimacy. This last element is decisive. One expresses the experience of the ground being through the religious symbols which are formed in the crucible of the experience itself. God is being-itself is the only nonsymbolic statement about God. The religious experience of God is had through finite beings which participate in being-itself. The principle of analogy justifies this. The expression of this experience is through religious symbols which participate in the experience itself. Theology elaborates the meaning of religious symbols by using ontology. Analogy permits and even demands this procedure. We use the principle of analogy for two purposes: to permit a religious encounter with God through finite beings and to justify the theological use of ontology. Theology speaks ontologically about religious symbols which express the encounter with God, our ultimate concern. The word “creation” is one of the great symbol-words describing the relation of God to the Universe. The doctrine of creation depicts a state; it does not relate an event that happened “once upon a time.” Humans ask the question of their finitude and of finitude in general, and creation answers it by pointing to the situation of creatureliness and to its correlate, the divine life; it is beyond potentiality and actuality. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Hence the question whether creation is a necessary or contingent act of God is meaningless. For nothing higher than God necessitates His creativity; neither does it happen to one as an accidental act. The divine life and the divine creativity are one. All three modes of time must be used to symbolize the infinite scope of the divine dynamism. Therefore creativity originates (the past) sustaining creativity (the present), and directing creativity (the future). The classical phrase to express the Christian doctrine of creation is creatio ex nihilo. We see in it the exclusion of the pagan idea of me on, of the “given” which resists the divine creativity. Though ouk on, absolute nothingness, suffices to explain nihilo, the ex demands something more positive to describe the origin of the creature. The solution lies in the dialectic of being and non-being. Ex nihilo indicates the “heritage of nonbeing” which is the lot of every creature. Yet the creature is; it participates in the power of being which holds nonbeing in check. Being a creature include both the heritage of nonbeing (anxiety) and the heritage of being (courage). Creation is essentially good, for it is not the offspring of me on, of some semi-divine power that opposes being-itself. The way to incarnation lies open, for finitude essentially is not in conflict with God. Secondly, the element of nonbeing in creatureliness provides the potentiality for tragic disruption within finitude itself. Eschatology is forbidden to do violence to the finite by eliminating the possibility of conflict, by locating salvation in an unreal World above or finite, tragic World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The simple theoretical analysis of the evolution of family agencies into three phases appears to be corroborated by the growth in all six types of agencies of what may indeed be called quasi-families—that is, small groups of persons similarly affected by some distinctive problem, condition or interest, who come together voluntarily to solve, correct, or pursue it by concerted actions, meanwhile providing each other with a degree of understanding, encouragement, and support which they have not found elsewhere in the community. Most of these have only arisen within the past five or six decades. While they are predominately found in urban areas, since only in such centers are there enough persons of any one type of category, exempla gratia, the Townsend Clubs, which considerably outlived the depression. While some of these quasi-families have been the products of invention and experiment by therapists, so many have sprung up apparently quite spontaneously (exempla gratia, child study groups attached to cooperative nursery schools) as to suggest that they are a particularly fitting response to current situations confronted by members of the community. Their fraternal rather than patriarchal structure does not negate the value of construing them as quasi-families; indeed, to recognize their correspondence with the more fraternal character of contemporary families improves the analogy. The desire of many public and private agencies to foster participation “at the grass roots” is most successful when the grass roots consist of strong, intimate, small groups, not collections of strangers. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Under urban conditions, such groups do not as a rule get constituted on a neighbourhood basis, but out of common interests; they may primarily focus on these interests, yet they frequently have corrective and therapeutic effects on their members. While the characteristic quasi-family has a fairly homogenous membership, draw from some limited segment of a community, this does not mean that one had to regard them as simply the result of an ever more refined division of labour or fragmentation of interests. An urban quasi-family often recruits only one member of a family, which makes it quite different from those farm organizations whose local units aim to provide some engrossing activity for every member of a family. Yet every quasi-family so rapidly takes on an elaborates other functions, that few persons would ever need or want to belong to more than two or three quasi-families at most. Every member can remain as convinced of one’s own individuality within a quasi-family as within one’s actual family. In fact, scrutiny reveals a number of respects in which membership in quasi-families offers certain advantages which real families cannot. Involvement in these groups, however highly committed and intense it may be, is more like becoming a member of a club or a team in a game. Family commitments, by contrast, have still an inescapable character posing the gravest consequences for the unwilling participant. It is unlikely that individual counseling can or should be dispenses with. Yet, the theoretical shift to recognition of the family origin and interpersonal nature of personality difficulties, justifies the support counseling activity gives to voluntary group procedures. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Sociologists long ago recognized the threat to individual psychological existence in the breakdown of ancient primary group supports. Though the rural village, like Humpty Dumpty, cannot be put back together again, the incessant reorganizing of the various institutions of the urban community can well take account of the means whereby citizens continually reintegrate their selves. If it is granted that small, intimate groups of significant others play a vital part in supporting every self, it is probable that groups formed solely for the sake of such mutual support will be less durable and successful than those which accomplish this in the process of pursuing other ends. It is improbable, therefore, that individual counseling agencies could produce a full solution ever under ideal conditions, since the problem involves the whole structure of the community as this bears upon personality. What the best solutions will be is known to on one, and will only be approached through imaginative experiments of many kinds. However, no matter what, people believe that the United States of America will continue to be a great manufacturing power. There just will not be as high a percentage of people working in factories. Explaining the difference between traditional manufacturing methods and the way Macintosh computers were then being produced, she pointed out that the United States of America was surely one of the great good producers of the World with fewer than two percent of the work force engaged in agriculture. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
However, many people would like America to returned to its agricultural roots, while we still have farmland, and to increase the amount of meat, poultry, and produce that is created in America so we will stop importing it, feed our own people, and export our products to other nations. This will help reduce the national deficit and be a step in the right way to help America return to being a creditor nation. Also, the American population will expand, and the labour force is also likely to expand, so more people will be willing to work on farms. While the United States of America is likely to generate 10,000 new jobs a day for the next decade, it is important to regain a presence in the manufacturing business. We do not want to leave the economy hollowed out. Nonetheless, the shift away from Second Wave manual labour toward Third Wave service work and super-symbolic activity has become widespread, dramatic and irreversible. In the United States of America today, these activities account for fully three-quarters of the work force. The great transition is reflected globally in the surprising fact that World exports of services and “intellectual property” are now equal to those of electronics and automobiles combined, or of the combined exports in foods and fuels. Futurists foreshadowed this massive shift as early as the 1960s. However, because the early warnings were ignored, the transition has been unnecessarily rocky. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Mass layoffs, bankruptcies and other upheavals swept through the economy as old rust-belt industries, late to install computers, robots and electronic information systems and slow to restructure, found themselves gutted by more fleet-footed competition. Many blamed their troubles on foreign competition, high or low interest rates, overregulation and a thousand other factors. Some of these no doubt played a role. However, equally to blame was the arrogance of the most powerful smokestack companies—auto makers, steel mills, shipyards, textile firms—that had for so long dominated the economy. Their managerial myopia punished those in the society least responsible for industrial backwardness and least able to protect themselves—their worker. The fact that aggregate manufacturing employment in 1988 was at the same level as 1968 does not mean that the workers laid off in between simply returned to their old jobs. On the contrary, with mote Third Wave technologies in place, companies needed a radically different kind of work force as well. The Old Second Wave factories needed essentially interchangeable workers. By contrast, Third Wave operations require diverse and continually evolving skills—which means that workers become less and less interchangeable. And this turns the entire problem of unemployment upside down. In Second Wave or smokestack societies an injection of capital spending or consumer purchasing power could stimulate the economy and jobs. Given one million jobless, one could, in principle, prime the economy and create one million jobs. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Once consumers have the money, they will rush out and buy things. This in turn leads to manufacturers to expand their plants and hire more workers. Good-bye, unemployment. Monetarists urge manipulation of interest rates or money supply instead, to increase or decrease purchasing power as needed. In today’s global economy, pumping money into the consumer’s pocket may simply send it flowing overseas without doing anything to help the domestic economy. An American buying a new TV set or compact disc player merely sends dollars to Japan, Korea, Malaysia, or elsewhere. The purchase does not add jobs at home. However, there is a far more basic flaw in the old strategies: they still focus on the circulation of money rather than knowledge. Yet it is no longer possible to reduce joblessness simply by increasing the number of jobs because the problem is no longer merely numbers. Unemployment has gone from quantitative to qualitative. The jobless desperately need money if they and their families are to survive, and it is both necessary and morally right to provide them with decent levels of public assistance. However, any effective strategy for reducing joblessness in a super-symbolic economy must depend less on the allocation of wealth and more on the allocation of knowledge. Furthermore, as these new jobs are not likely to be found in what we think of as manufacture, we will need to prepare people through schooling, apprenticeships and on-the-job learning for work in such fields as the human services—helping to care, for example, for our fast-growing population of the elderly, providing child care, health services, personal security, training services, leisure and recreation services, tourism and the like. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
We will also have to begin according human-service jobs the same respect preciously reserved for manufacture rather than snidely denigrating the entire service sector. The service industry cannot stand as the sole symbol for range of activities that includes everything from teaching to working at a pet groomer or in a hospital radiology center. What is more, if, as is often charged, wages can be below what people need to survive on their own in the service sector, then the solution is to increase service productivity and to invent new forms of work-force organization and collective bargaining. Unions, primarily designed for the crafts or for mass manufacturing, need to be totally transformed or else replaced by new-style organizations more appropriate to the super-symbolic economy. To survive they will have to support rather than resist such things as work-at-home programs, flextime and job-sharing. The rise of the super-symbolic economy compels us to reconceptualize the entire problem of unemployment from the ground up. To challenge outworn assumptions, however, is also to challenge those who benefit from them. The Third Wave system of wealth creation thus threatens long-entrenched power relationships in corporations, unions and governments. China, already a major importer of fuels and many minerals, is getting equipped for such a competition especially fast: With its rapidly growing, highly energy- and resources-intensive economy, the consequences of resource supply irregularities may be fatal. In the days of the Iraq war Beijing already resorted to eventually a panic buying of petroleum, overstanding the global market. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
In today’s World, if you cannot obtain your own resources domestically, to avoid supply troubles, it is considered preferable to establish long-term relationships with particular resource-rich countries, getting a stake in their resource development and extraction. Perhaps more than any other country, China is making big steps to obtain direct access to fuel and mineral resource in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The United States of America and European countries are supplied a significant portion of the natural resources they consume by major multinational companies such as Exxon-Mobil, Royal-Dutch Shell, Rio-Tinto, or BHP Billiton. In Japan and South Korea, a key role is played by the resource supply channels of leading trading houses like Mitsubishi Corporation, Itochu, SK Corporation, or Hanwha Trading. State-owned resource companies play their part, too. In most other countries, China included, supplies are provided first of all by state-owned oil and mining corporations. Currently, with strong support from the state, China’s natural resources heavyweights—PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC, Chinalco, China Metallurgical Group and the like—are establishing themselves among the leading global players, not at all inferior to Western majors or Japanese and Korean trading houses. On its part, the Chinese government is coming out with an innovative model of tapping natural resources in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In broader terms, this model helps China to strengthen its overall presence and influence in the World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Economic and legal scholars who study business disputes (and other events such as accidents where some economic consequences are at issue) recognize that the initial allocation of legal entitlements, the expectation and uncertainty about a court’s decision in the matter, and the costs of using the legal system all affect the parties’ choice between going to the law and settling the dispute by private negotiation. Rolling back one more step along a game tree, the same considerations also affect individuals’ decisions about engaging in activities that can lead to accidents or disputes. Consider two parties involved in an economic dispute. One of them (plaintiff) could sue the other (defendant) in a court of law. Their expectation for the time being assumed to be commonly held and known, is that the court will aware AP to the plaintiff and AD to the defendant. (If the defendant is ordered to make restitution or pay a fine, his payoff Ad can be negative.) In addition, each side has to bear some cost for using the court; this can be monetary in the form of court costs and lawyers’ fees, or non-monetary in various forms, such as time, mental strain, or damage to reputation. The costs can depend on the legal system; for example, in the American system each side bears its own court and lawyer costs, whereas in the British system the loser bears both sides’ cost. Denote the overall monetary equivalent costs by CP for the plaintiff and Cd for the defendant. Thus the expected net payoffs from recourse to the court are (AP-CP) for the plaintiff and (AD-CD) for the defendant. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The two parties could negotiate a settlement, either before a suit is filled at all, or after a suit is filed but before trial. Doing so enables them to avoid some or all of the costs of using the law. If the court is expected to levy a fine in addition to mandating some transfer between the parties, and the proceeds of the fine go to the government, then the negotiation avoids the fine and leaves a larger sum of money available for dividing between them. Suppose S is the total available for them to bargain over, and S> (AP – CP) + (AD – CD). The excess of the left-hand side of this inequality over the right-hand side constitute the “surplus” that is available for them to negotiate over. Denote the sums they can get through bargaining by XP and XD, respectively, then XP + XD= S is the bargaining frontier. The bargaining frontier is a straight line of slope -1. If the negotiation fails and the plaintiff has to sue, their payoffs in the court will be (AP – CP, AD – CD). This point is therefore the threat point that lies behind their bargaining. The generalized Nash bargaining solution then says that each party will get its threat-point payoff, plus a share of the surplus equal to its bargaining power. This bargaining power can be explained in terms of the two parties’ relative impatience, but we will simply assume that the plaintiff’s bargaining powers is and that of the defendant (1 –
). Then the outcomes of the negotiation is (figure 2.1) XP = (AP – CP) +
[S – (AP – CP) – (AD – CD), (Figure 2.2) XD = (AD – CD) + (1 –
) [S – (SP – CP) – (AD – CD)] = (1 –
)(AP – CP) + (AD – CD). These expressions yield several simple implications. For example, they tell us how different rules about the allocation of legal costs affect the outcome of pretrial negotiation. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Supposed the expectation is the plaintiff will win. Under the American system, each side would pay its own monetary legal costs. Under the British system, the monetary part of the plaintiff’s legal costs would be shifted to the defendant. Denote this by M. Then the British system, as compared with the American, CP is lower and CD higher by M. Therefore (2.1) shows that XP is higher by M, and (2.2) shows that XD is lower by M, in the British system than in the American. In turn, we can calculate how the expectation of this outcome affects the incentive of the parties to engage in activities that may lead to such disputes. This argument assumes that the expected payoffs AP and AD when the parties go to the court are the same in the two systems. If the courts adjusted the payoffs to offset the stipulated allocation of costs, then the threat points of the two systems would be the same, and therefore so would the Nash solution of the negotiation. However, this simple model has some flaws. Most obviously, in the model the negotiation succeed and the threat of going to court is never invoked. This is less egregious than it may appear at first sight, because only 10 percent of disputes go to trial. Simple extensions of the model explain why and which disputes are likely to go to trial. The main cause is the parties’ inconsistent expectations about the outcome in court. If the plaintiff expects AP to be high, and the defendant simultaneously expects AD to be high, then each may think that there is no surplus to bargain over. The simple figure and algebra I have developed here promising foundations for formal models of such extensions, but I will leave developments along these lines for future work. The model can readily be extended to apply another situation. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
My discussion of the court that generates the threat-point payoff in this model treated it as a well-meaning but costly system. However, it could easier be a corrupt system, or a predatory or kleptocratic government. Economic activities and transactions in such a country would try to proceed in secrecy. However, the threat of disclosure, and the consequent exposure to extortion by the state’s agents, would underlie all negotiations. By interpreting CP and CD as the expected amounts the state would extort from the two parties, the model can cover this situation. Now, let us focus on how a Christian suburb is to be. Better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house feasting amidst strife. Yea, better to ear herbs where love is, than the choicest food and hatred therewith. Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Through wisdom is a house builded, and by understanding is it established. By knowledge is the home filled with all that is pleasant and precious. Make your house a meeting place for the learned, and give heed to their words. If three people have eaten at one table and have spoken the word of the Christian Bible or Book of Mormon, it is as though they had eaten at God’s table. Blessed is that home where the woman regards the ways of her household. Blessed is the man who has a good wife, for the number of his days shall be doubled. Blessed is he who loves his wife and honours her, and direct his children into paths of righteousness. When husband and wife are worthy of each other, the divine spirit rests upon them. A home where a man loves his wife as himself, and honours her beyond his own person, shall be blessed everlastingly. A home where children honour their parents is a home in which God dwells, and He Himself is honoured. How goodly are your homes, and your dwellings, O America. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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I’m a Pharmacist, I Know What I am Doing
Recreational drug use is often portrayed in popular culture and music. To further highlight this illustration, probably the best known musical cliché of recent decades was “sex, drugs, and rock’ n’ roll,” while the Billbooard charts have been filled with songs involving drugs, such as Eric Clapton’s Cocaine or the Rolling Stones’ Sister Morphine and Mother’s Little Helper. Popular culture portrays not just recreational drug use but tragedy associated with drugs, for example, the deaths of guitarist Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison and many others. Of course, not all common-use drugs are understood as dangerous or associated with tragedy. We found clear evidence of two very different modes of entry among the respondents, namely recreational abusers and therapeutic self-medicators. However, it is important to note tht these were not mutually exclusive categories of offenders. In other words, these two categories were not completely dichotomous. As is usually the case, real life seldom fits cleanly into nice, neat categories. In fact, we were able to identify a number of cognitive and behavioural themes that were common to almost all of the drug-using pharmacists interviewed. These themes were expressed by nearly all of the drug-abusing pharmacists that we interviewed, regardless of how the individual initially began their illicit drug abuse career. The existence of these common themes suggest that pharmacy-specific occupational contingencies play a center role in the onset and progression of illicit use of prescription medicines. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Intuitively, it should not be surprising that pharmacists would steal prescription medicines as a way of treating their own physical ailments. After all, they have been exposed to years of pharmacy training that emphasized the beneficial, therapeutic potential of these medicines. Each pharmacist has dispensed the medicines to hundreds of patients and then watched the drugs usually produce the predicted beneficial results. They have all read the literature and drug inserts detailing the chemical composition of drugs and studied the often dramatic curative effects of the chemical substances. Pharmacists, more so than any other member of society, are keenly aware of how and why drugs work. There was strong evidence to suggest that both the therapeutic self-medicators and the recreational abusers actively used the years of pharmacological knowledge that they had acquired. In their eyes, it made perfect sense that they should put their pharmacy knowledge to work on themselves. This application of knowledge can be seen in the comments of a 40-year-old female self-medicator: “So, in 1986 I was sent to the psychologist. That was when I was forced to recognize that I had an alcohol problem. And I recognized that I had to do something. And in my brilliant analysis, I made a decision that since alcohol was a central nervous system depressant, the solution for me was to use a central nervous system stimulant. That would solve my alcohol problem. So I chose the best stimulant that I had access to, and that was [pharmaceutical grade] cocaine. I started using cocaine in 1986. I never thought that it would progress. I never thought it was going to get worse. I thought, ‘I’m just going to use it occasionally.’” #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Similar trends were observed among the recreational abuser group, only here, the applied use of drugs was based upon more recreational motives. Almost all of the therapeutic self-medicators and recreational abusers described how they became masters of quickly diagnosing their own ailments or emotional needs and then identifying the appropriate pharmacological agent that would remedy the problem. Moreover, as professionals, they were confident that they would be able to self-regulate their drug intake so as to never become addicted. All of the respondents drew upon their social status as pharmacists to convince themselves that their drug use would not progress into dependency. They recall being adamant in their view that personally they were immune from such problems, believing that only stupid, naïve people became addicted to drugs. As a 40-year-old female self-medicator put it, “I’m a pharmacist, I know what I am doing.” A 39-year-old male self-medicator went so far as to say: “I mean, we know more [about the effect of drugs] than doctors. We have all the package inserts. We have the knowledge. We know a lot about the drugs, so what’s the big deal?” Elsewhere we refer to this denial mechanism as a “paradox of familiarity,” because familiarity can breed consent, not contempt toward prescription drug use. Members of both categories of pharmacists claimed that they had never been warned about the dangers of drugs, insisting instead that their training had only stressed the beneficial side of prescription medication. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
To further highlight this illustration, a 48-year-old male misuser stated: “I never had anybody come right out and tell me that [prescription drug abuse] was probably unethical and illegal because they assumed that we knew that. But nobody ever said this is something that is not done.” Let without guidance on the issues, some pharmacists assumed that self-medication was acceptable behaviour. To this end, a 39-year-old female self-medicator said: “It’s [self-medication] just part of it [the pharmacy job]. It’s just accepted because we know so much. I’m sure it’s the same way when the doctors do it. It wasn’t a big stretch to start going “You know, I got a headache here, maybe I should try one of these Percocets [narcotic analgesic]?” Many pharmacists spoke about their prescription drug theft/use as if it were an entitlement that went along with being a pharmacist. Much like a butcher always has fresh meat at home or a car dealer always drives a state-of-the-art automobile, pharmacists will always have the best drugs. This theme is illustrated in an exchange that occurred between the interviewer and a45-year-old-male pharmacist: “Why take plain Aspirin or plain Tylenol when you’ve got this [Percocet-narcotic analgesic]? It works better….[so] you don’t even have to struggle with it. I really believed that I had license to do that…as a pharmacist. I mean with all that stuff sitting there, you know. Oh, my back was just killing me during that period of time and this narcotic pain reliever is sitting right there. I thought, ‘why should [I] suffer through back pain when I have this bottle of narcotics sitting here?” #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The above-mentioned themes involve cognitive dimensions of the pharmacists’ drug abuse in that they speak to common motivational and justification themes that were present in all of the interview. Perhaps more important is the fact that there was a common behavioural characteristic shared by all 50 pharmacists. In ever case, occasional prescription drug abuse eventually gave way to an advanced addictive state that was marked by an enormous intake of drugs, unmistakable habituation, and the constant threat of physical withdrawal. Members of the recreational abuser and therapeutic self-medicator groups alike routinely reported daily use levels exceeding 50-100 times the recommended daily dosage. One pharmacist reported that his drug use regimen progressed to 150 Percocets [strong narcotic analgesic] per day. Another individual reported injecting up to 200 mg of Morphine each day. Still another respondent described a daily use pattern that, among other things, included 5g of cocaine. Invariably, these advanced levels of drug use led to clear signs of habituation and the constant threat of physical withdrawal. At this point, the individual recalls growing increasingly desperate. Consider the following quote from a 44-year-ol male pharmacist who was in charge of ordering the narcotics at the independent retail pharmacy where he worked: “I was ordering excessive quantities and chasing down tracks. That’s what I used to do. I was really reaching my bottom. I would chase these delivery trucks down in the morning because I didn’t come to my store until mid-afternoon. I was in withdrawal in the morning and I was without drugs, so I had to have it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
“I was just going nuts. Many mornings I had gone to work sweating. It would be 30 degrees (Fahrenheit), it would be January, and the clerk would say, ‘you look sick,’ and I would say, ‘It’s the flu.’ So I would pay the delivery guys extra money to deliver my drugs first or I would chase the delivery trucks down in the morning. I knew the trucks delivered at 6 in the morning, they came by my area, and I would get up early and chase the trucks down the highway. I would go in excess of 100 miles an hour trying to catch up with this truck and flag it down.” The advanced stages of drug addiction invariably produced traumatic physical psychological outcomes. Eventually, “out-of-control” drug use patterns along with the realization of chemical dependency left the pharmacists in a problematic mental state. It was at this point that al of the pharmacists recalled coming to grips with their addiction. This personal realization was accompanied by a shift in the way they thought about their drug use. They no longer denied that situation by drawing upon recreational or therapeutic explanations. Instead, they finally admitted the dire nature of their situation and became more and more reclusive. In short, all of the respondents grew to realize that they had a drug problem, turning then to fear and ignorance to foster the final weeks or months of their drug addiction. Two identifiable criminal career trajectories were observed among the pharmacists who we interviewed: recreational abusers and therapeutic self-medicators. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Careful scrutiny of contemporary drug theory, policy, and practice in all areas, from prescription pharmaceuticals to illegal recreational drugs, reveals numerous apparent inconsistencies and pervasive incoherence. This results, in part, from a kind of silo thinking in which attention to drug theory and drug policy, however sophisticated in its own realm, is encapsulated within distinct professional, practical, and economic spheres or “silos.” Silos are descriptively and prescriptively dense but stand isolated from each other in an empty landscape. In other words, people in one arena of drug theory, policy, or practical programs have plenty to say to each other about the way things are and the way things should be with respect to drugs, but they don’t talk much across the open spaces between their areas of focus. Not only do they not talk much between their fields, for reasons to be explored, they cannot really do so. Clearly, our discussion of the therapeutic self-medicator category goes far beyond what is present in the existing literature. However, the first documentation of recreational drug use among health professionals, had minimal impact on the way that the various healthcare professions think about or address problem of substance abuse within their ranks. The pharmacy profession has been especially reluctant to address the reality of the prescription drug abuse situation. For instance, existing self-reports and interview research on drug using pharmacists largely ignores the recreational origins of drug use and, instead, describes the affected individuals as having misplaced therapeutic motivations. This assumption is reinforced by published biographical accounts of recovering drug using pharmacists. While principally intended to raise awareness among fellow pharmacists, these confessionals consistently emphasize the well-intentioned motives behind the individuals’ destructive drug use past. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Information is called observable when it is available symmetrically to both parties, and verifiable when it can be proved to third parties such as a court. In practice, this is a matter of cost, and the standard of proof required. Contracts that are intended to be enforced in a court of law can only stipulate actions that are conditioned on verifiable information; courts cannot judge whether a breach of the contractual terms has occurred if they cannot verify whether the circumstances that call for an action have actually transpired. However, observable information can be the basis for contracts that are enforced by extralegal or private methods, because the two parties can know fully well whether a breach has occurred. Such extralegal methods of enforcement come in to broad types. One is enforcement by insider third parties with specialized knowledge that enables them to verify information that outsider general courts of law cannot; arbitrators in industry associations are the most prominent enforcers of this kind. The second is based on a relationship or ongoing interaction between the parties; a breakup of this relationship constitutes the punishment that may deter one of the parties from breaching. This covers many possibilities. The same two parties may meet repeatedly; the two may not have a direct repeated interaction with each other, but each may interact with others in a group or network that transmits information about any breach to all members and collectively sanctions the miscreant, using ostracism in business interactions or social relationships or both. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The distinction between observable and verifiable information is standard in the economic theory of contracts. The New York Stock Exchange developed its internal rules and procedures for dispute resolution, and even Taiwanese shoe manufacturers and Western fashion houses performed dispute-resolution functions in addition to their primary matchmaking ones. One may think that these alternative methods of private ordering must suffer a crippling disadvantage relative to the government’s courts, namely their lack of coercive power to ensure that their decisions are obeyed. However, the difficulty is often nonexistent or easily overcome. First, the sanctions available for private ordering are often very effective. Breach of contract can be deterred in ongoing relationships by the threat that the miscreant will be barred from future business with this particular partner or the group; this can be buttressed by social ostracism if the group fosters social ties among its business members. Sometimes this threat may be even more severe than the fines that courts would impose in the matter. If the threat is credible, in the sense of being a part of the strategies in the subgame-perfect equilibrium of the repeated game that constitutes the ongoing relationship, then the contract is self-enforcing. Second, arbitrators may have similar sanctions at their disposal; if they can bar the miscreant from the industry association, they can instantly put one out of business, which can be a more effective sanction than the fines the courts will impose. Of course, the feasibility of such sanctions depends on the availability of the requisite information, and in the case of repeated interactions, on how highly the participants value the future relative to the present. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Finally, courts recognize the informational advantage of the alternative institutions. Therefore when a relational or implicit contract serves such an informational purpose, courts refuse to intervene to modify its terms, or to insert missing provisions, or to overrule the availability of discretion to one party. They also enforce the awards of industry arbitration tribunals, using the government’s power of coercion to obtain compliance if the loser in the arbitration attempts to defy the ruling. In the United States of America, this has been so since 1920; in the international context, over 100 countries now accede to the 1958 New York Convention of the Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards. By providing for the appointment of industry-expert arbitrators, who can make many factual determinations more accurately and less expensively than a judge or jury can, the rules greatly expand the “contractible” aspects of an exchange. The use of stream-lined procedures together with the appointment of expert adjudicators transforms considerations that in the public legal system would have been only observable to the parties…into considerations that are also verifiable…thereby encouraging transactors to enter into more complete contracts. The point is not that arbitrators have access to more information. Any relevant information can be elicited and brought before the court by either party to the dispute through the legal process of discovery. Conversely, many arbitration forms do not allow discovery, although the arbitrator can request additional information. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The key is how information is used; industry arbitrators can use their expertise to interpret it—make factual determinations—more accurately and at a lower cost than non-specialized courts can. This is the sense in which verifiability should be interpreted in this context. Arbitration is used in other contexts for other reasons. In international transactions, each party may suspect that the other country’s courts will be biased in favour of its own nationals; this can deter them from entering into contrast that may end up in national courts. Therefore both may agree ex ante to settle any disputes in an agreed international forum of arbitration. Several of these exist, based in London, Paris, Stockholm, et cetera. They differ in their procedures (degree of formality, time taken, fees charged, et cetera) and the range of legal traditions they cover (civil, common, Islamic, et cetera). These affect the choice of forum by the parties to each transaction. These forums usually lack the expertise that industry-specific forums can provide. Therefore they are not likely to lower costs or improve verifiability and permit more complete contracts; instead, removing the suspicion of bias may be their most important function. The different modes of private and official governance can interact in various ways. To further highlight the illustration, if an ongoing relationship based on the superior observability of information by the two parties breaks down, the best alternative available to the parties may be recourse to a contract based on verifiable information enforceable in a court of law, not total cessation of transactions. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
And if an arbitrator’s award is not enforceable by direct sanctions such as fines, it may nonetheless form part of a relational arrangement where the arbitrator can terminate the miscreant’s access to future trades. Not only do modes like arbitration evolve and apply to provide governance for transactions where they have an informational advantage and can reduce transaction costs, but also transactions take forms that adapt to the available information and governance. As for the emergence and prevalence of barter and countertrade in post-Soviet Russia in this way: The advantage of paying with goods rather than money is that they can be earmarked s property of the creditor. Money is fungible and liquid; a buyer can hide money easily if he chooses to renege on his promised payment to the seller. Goods in a barter or countertrade contract are more difficult to hide, and therefore can act as deal-specific collateral that mitigates opportunism. When it comes to systems of integration, rising complexity in the economy calls for more sophisticated integration and management. In a not atypical case Nabisco, the food company, as to fill 500 orders a day for literally hundreds of thousands of different products that must be shipped from 49 factories and 13 distribution centers, and at the same time take into account 30,000 different sales promotional deals with its customers. Managing such complexity requires new forms of leadership and an extremely high order of systemic integration. That, in turn, requires greater and greater volumes of information to pulse through the organization. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
To hold everything together—to track all the components and products, to synchronize deliveries, to keep engineers and marketers appraised of each other’s plans, to alert the R&D people to the needs of the manufacturing side and, above all, to give management a coherent picture of what is going on—billions of dollars are being poured into electronic networks that link computers, data bases and other information technologies together. This vast electronic information structure, frequently satellite based, knits whole companies together, often linking them into the computers and networks of suppliers and customers as well. Other networks link networks. Japan has targeted $250 billion to develop better, faster network. All these changes further accelerate the pace of operations and transactions. Economies of speed replace economies of scale. Competition is so intense and the speeds required so high that the old “time is money” rule is increasingly updated to “every interval of time is worth more than the one before it.” Time becomes a critical variable as reflected in “just-in-time” deliveries and a pressure to reduce DIP or “decisions in process.” Slow, sequential, step-by-step engineering is replaced by “simultaneous engineering.” Companies wage “time-based competition.” Expressing the new, it is clear that money moves at the speed of light. Information has to move faster. Thus acceleration pushed Third Wave business closer and closer to real time. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Taken together, these ten features of the Third Wave economy, among many others, add up to a monumental change in how wealth is created. The conversion of the United States of America, Japan and Europe to this new system, though not yet complete, represents the single most important change in the global economy since the spread of factories brought about by the industrial revolution. This historical transformation, picking up speed in the early-to mid-1970, was already fairly well advanced by the 1990s. Unfortunately, much of America’s economic thinking was left behind. Global markets of energy and mineral resources are undergoing far reaching irreversible changes, and so are perceptions about the policies needed to provide their stable supply. Global demand is surging due to a dramatic increase of consumption by the fast-growing large emerging economies. Experts project that, absent significant changes in policy or technology, global energy consumption will increase nearly 50 percent over the next 30 years. Energy consumption is growing faster than the GDP in many countries. On the supply side, uncertainties and destabilization risks are exacerbating due to rising political instability in exporting countries, periodical redirections of sales from external to domestic markets by leading suppliers, and, to a certain extent, a depletion, in some major producing countries, of existing deposits in the absence of new ones whose discovery and exploitation could make up for the loss. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Therefore, oil and some other natural resources are becoming more and mor attractive targets for speculators. In these circumstances, countries highly dependent on natural resources imports, especially those that do not have their own powerful resource multinationals, get increasingly concerned about supply destabilization risks. Predictions about an all-out resource war or bitter fights among buyers for limited amounts of oil or metallic ores look like an exaggeration. However, buyers’ competition for particular kinds of resources within particular periods of time due to particular circumstances is becoming a more frequent phenomenon. For instance, the Philippines and Vietnam protested to China against its patrol boats hindering their oil exploration activities near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. China demanded that its neighbours stop exploration work in this area. Tensions rose as the United States of America declared that the South China Sea was in the sphere of its national interest and that it would stand by the Philippines as its ally. Now, when it comes to supernatural affairs, the angels are “sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation,” reports Hebrews 1.14, but not to take the place of Christ or the Holy Spirit. The apocalypse seems to show that this ministration of angels to the saints on Earth is a ministration for war in the spiritual realm against the forces of Satan; but there is little indication given of ministry in any other way. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
After the first Advent, when there was great angelic activity over the wondrous event of the Father brining the “Firstborn: of the new race (Romans 8.29) into the inhabited Earth (Hebrew 1.6), and again at the Advent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost to begin His work of forming a Body like unto the Risen Head—and during the early years of the Church—the employment of an angel in direct and visible communication with believers seems to give way to the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. The entire work of witnessing to Christ, and leading the Church into all truth, has been committed to the Holy Spirit. Therefore all intervention of “angels” or of audible voices from the spiritual realm purporting to be from God may be taken as counterfeits of psychopathological offenders, whose supreme object is to substitute the workings of their own wicked offenders in the place of God. In any case, it is best and safest in these days of peril to keep in the path of faith and reliance upon the Holy Spirit of God working through the Word of God. Man, the microcosm, the mirror of reality has structures of beings found in him, and are found analogously in the subhuman realm. Selfhood, inner awareness, freedom and destiny—all are verified analogously in subhuman beings. Furthermore, the concepts of courage, love, power, and justice are used to describe analogously the characteristics of all beings and of being-itself. The point we wish to make is that this use of analogy based on human experience seems to yield valid knowledge. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Moving up now to the relationship between man and God, one would expect that on the same principle, but with proper adjustments, man could get an analogous knowledge of God. Symbols are not a means of knowing God, but rather a way of speaking about Him. If one wishes to talk about God, finite material must be used, and this is justified by the fact that all finite beings participate in being-itself. Without such an analogy nothing could be said about God. However, the analogia entis is in no way able to create a natural theology. It is not a method of discovering truth about God; it is the form in which every knowledge of revelation must be expressed. In this sense anlogia entis, like “religious symbol,” points to the necessity of using material taken from finite reality in order to give content to the cognitive function in revelation. What is boils down to is that analogy or symbolism is the expression of an encounter with God. Through the revelatory experience is far more than an intellectual communication—it is primarily a reunion with the ground of being—it contains a cognitive element conveyed by symbols which are qualified as channels of communication by their participation in being-itself. Yet, it seems not, for every creature participates in being-itself, and yet not everything is a religious symbol, although it has the potentiality to become one. What is the decisive ingredient of symbolism beyond ontological participation? These symbols are not arbitrary interpretations of the concrete revelatory experiences. However, they appear within this experience itself. They are not created intentionally, but they are born in the same dimension in which the revelatory experience takes place. In and through its symbols the religious encounter with reality opens up the dimension of reality in which ultimacy appears. There is no other way of expressing our encounter with the holy than in symbols. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
From the standpoint of the counselor who finds one’s role ambiguous, it seems more than likely that exploration of a developmental perspective would help resolve the conflicts implicit in one’s professionalization. For the psychotherapist who thinks of oneself as a physician who cures sickness, or who avoids this and speaks only of the “difficulties of living,” there may appear to be no conflict in one’s role. One may be satisfied to reduce symptoms of disorder, to solve the problem presented and to think of oneself primarily as someone who relieves distress, without defining one’s goals beyond that. However, apparently more and more thoughtful counselors do not think they can stop there, or do any permanent good, unless they leave their patients better able to cope with later problems and future strains. Some even feel that their job to plan for the optimal development of their clients, or to organize clients to plan for their own. The ambiguous feelings of the professional who presumes to assist in the personal problems of family members may be all to the good if these are construed in a framework of family relations which includes oneself. The concept of transference goes only part way. The client in the course of the counselor-client interaction frequently construes the counselor as a figure representative of previous others, with whom relations have been unresolved but are thus worked out through the interviews. The difficulty, however, from the client’s standpoint, is that no matter how versatile one’s counselor may be, and no matter how facile or fantastic one’s own imagination, the range of persons with whom a person needs intimate discourse in order to achieve one’s optimal development of self far exceeds the resources of this single relationship. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Moreover, there is the fact that the client must pay in cold cash for the kind of communication which the best families afford on a basis of affectional reciprocity; thus the most sacred disclosures hover at times on the verge of something equivalent to prostitution. Regardless of ethics and their enforcement by professional insistence upon its eventual termination, and the limitation of reciprocity to monetary reward; in a word, the elaboration of this relationship lead nowhere. The best hope for fruition of any gains that accrue is tht they serve as a bridge to the regeneration of their client’s involvement in a quasi-family constellation which includes near-rivals and critics, models and admirers, other ages and other genders, in both work and play. Only through others can one obtain the continual characterizations of self essential to valid knowledge of self. Research and experience have already shown that the human being, from birth until death, almost to the degree that the fish requires water, thrives only in social interaction. Neglect, isolation, loneliness, solitary confinement, and deteriorative influences very hard to endure, even though every physical condition of survival is met. And among all kinds of interaction, the most potent of all for personal development are those characterized by the unconditional acceptance of family relations. Only here is the listener who always finds more in the person than one presents in one’s actual behaviour. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Only here is the audience that never grows tried. Only here is the person of similar background, for whom every aspect of the culture—of class and ethic experience—resonates with comparable meaning. That a counselor could ever aspire to duplicate these functions of the optimal family is beyond the hope of those who have thought and written about it. In a sense this analysis of the implicit or potential demands on the counselor’s role both justifies and specifies a therapeutic approach. It also shows that one’s role must be transcended by more adequate institutions for providing each client with a stable constellation of significant others, who can be the precisely appropriate self-definers at each critical stage in one’s personal development. For the person whose actual family has failed one the solution suggested by this analysis is the invention of effective quasi-families. The process by which each person contributes to the self-knowledge of others, and others contribute to one’s knowledge of oneself, it immanent in human society. Where self-knowledge and self-control are deficient relative either to norms or ideals, the best means for reversing these deficiencies is effective utilization of all available knowledge of how selves originate, operate, and co-operate. Recognition that some tasks are beyond the powers of the unassisted individual does not mean that society must be divided into two classes, therapists and their patients. It means, or at least can be made to mean, joint action to perform these tasks. Such an approach is as relevant and applicable to the tasks of counseling agencies as to the other types of family agencies. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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The Mystery Before Us Which We Have Raised
Drugs are everywhere, both figuratively and literally. At any given moment, a large percentage of people nearly everywhere in the World are using one or more drugs as a medical requirement, a lifestyle choice, or to satisfy a desire or addiction. The consequences of drug use, from prescription pharmaceuticals to illicit substances, are felt on a daily basis by the individual and society at large. The recreational abusers unanimously agreed that there was no shortage of socially acceptable experimental drug use while in pharmacy school. For those who were interested, this environment provided ample opportunity to refine and expand their usage. One 48-year-old male pharmacist described the makeup of his pharmacy school cohort as follows: “There was a third of the pharmacy students in school because Mom and Dad or Grandfather or Uncle Bill were pharmacists, and they looked up to them and wanted to be one. Good enough. They had never seen a pharmacy. A [second] third had been in the [Vietnam] war. They were a pharmacy tech in the war or had worked in a pharmacy. They had the experiential effect of what pharmacy is and found a love for it or a desire to want it…Then you had the other third over here, and we were just drug addicts…It had nothing to do with altruism. We didn’t know what the practice was all about, but we did know that we got letters after our names, guaranteed income if we didn’t lose our letters, and we had access to anything [drugs] we needed.” Many of the recreational abusers claimed that they specifically sought out fellow pharmacy students who were willing to use prescription drugs. The most common locus for these associations were in pharmacy-specific fraternities. The respondents said that there was usually ample drug use going on in these organization and that they allowed them the opportunity to cautiously scout out and identify with other drug users. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Once they were connected with other drug users, the prescription drug use of all involved parties increased. This type of small-group drug use allowed for access to an expanded variety of drugs, a broader pharmacological knowledge base, and even larger quantities of drugs. However, numerous respondents clearly stated that these drug-based associations were tenuous and temporary in nature. Over time, as the intensity of their drug use increased, the recreational abusers described how they became more reclusive and guarded and selective in their relationships, fearing that their heightened use of prescription drugs would come to be defined as a problem by their fellow pharmacy students. One 43-year-old male pharmacist said: “You get the sense pretty quickly that you are operating [using] on a different level. Those of us that were busily stealing [prescription drugs] from our internship sites began to tighten our social circle. We might party a little bit with the others but when it came to heavy use, we kept it hush, hush.” Unlike other pharmacy students who were genuinely experimenting with drugs on a short-term basis, these recreational abusers noticed an added intensity associated with their own prescription drug use. While most of these recreational abusers entered pharmacy school with some prior experiences in recreational street drug use, their pre-college prescription drug use was usually not extensive. As such, it was not until they got into pharmacy school that they began to develop more pronounced street an prescription drug use habits. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
A 38-year-old female pharmacist discusses this transition into increased usage in the following interview excerpt: “I went off to pharmacy school. That was a 3-year program. I had tried a few things [before that], but I would back off because it was shaming for me not to get straight A’s. The descent to hell started when I got to pharmacy school. There were just so many things [prescription drugs] available and to many things that I thought I jut had to try. It might be a different high; it might be a different feeling, anything to alter the way that I just felt. I was pretty much using on a daily basis by the time I got to my last year.” Once the recreational abusers got into a permanent practice setting, they quickly deduced that they had free reign over the pharmacy stock. At first, they referenced other pharmacists for normative or behavioural guidance in access or using the prescription drugs. However, they soon realized that their nearly unrestricted access meant that they could not try any drugs that they wanted without guidance, and most did. More importantly, increased access allowed the young pharmacists to habitually and secretly use the drugs that they liked most. Not surprisingly the levels and frequency of their drug use usually skyrocketed shortly after entering pharmacy practice and going more solo with their use. A 41-year-old male pharmacist explained: “By the time I got to pharmacy school in 1971, I was smoking dope probably every day or every other day, and drinking with the same frequency, but not to the point of passing out kind of stuff. Then in 1971, that was also the year that I discovered barbs [barbiturates]. I had never had barbs up until I got to pharmacy school. So it was like ’75 or ’76 [when I got out of pharmacy school], I was using heavy Secondals and Quaaludes and Ambutols [all barbiturates]. I withdrew and it [the heavy misuse] just took off.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
At the start, the recreational abusers’ drug use was openly displayed and took on an air of excitement, much like others’ experimentation with street or prescription drugs. However, as it intensified over time, the majority described how they slowly shielded their use from others. They thought it important to appear as though they still had the situation under control. As physical tolerance and psychological dependence increasingly progressed, these individuals began to lose control. Virtually all of the recreational abusers eventually developed serious prescription drug use habits. Using large quantities and sometimes even multiple drug types, their prescription drug use careers were usually marked by a steep downward spiral. This trend was clearly evidenced in the hand-sketched life history timeline that was drawn by each respondent. What started out as manageable social drug experimentation persistently progressed to increasingly more secretive drug abuse. In almost every case, it took several years for the drug use to reach its peak addictive state. The intense physical and psychological effects of the drug use meant that the recreational abuser’s criminal/deviant career was punctuated by a very “low bottom.” Commonly identified signs of “bottoming out” included life-threatening health problems, repeated dismissals from work, having action taken against their pharmacy licenses, habitual lying, extensive cover-ups, divorces, and suicide attempts. By all accounts, the personal and professional lives of these recreational abusers suffered heavily from their drug abuse. In the end, most were reclusive and paranoid—what started out as collective experimentation ended in a painful existence of solitary addiction. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
The criminal/deviant career paths of the remaining 27 interviewees (54 percent) fit a different substantive theme. To differentiate these individuals from the recreational abusers, we call this latter group of pharmacists “therapeutic self-medicators.” One of the defining characteristics of this ground was that they had little or no experience with street or prescription drug use prior to entering pharmacy school. In fact, many of these individuals did not even use alcohol. What little drug involvement they did report was usually occasional experimentation with marijuana or other “soft” drugs. If they had ever used prescription drugs, it was done legitimately under the supervision of a physician. Members of this group did not begin their illicit prescription drug use until they were well into their formal pharmacy careers. The onset of the therapeutic self-medicators’ drug use was invariably attributed to a problematic life situation, accident, medical condition, or occupationally related pain. When faced with such problems, these pharmacists turned to familiar prescription medicines for immediate relief. Rather than reporting a recreational, hedonistic, or pleasure motivation, these pharmacists simply decided to use readily available prescription drugs to treat their own medical maladies. The therapeutic self-medicators unanimously insisted that their prescription drug use was never recreational—that they never used drugs solely for the euphoric effects. Instead, their drug use was focused on specific therapeutic goals. This trend is illustrated in the comments of a 33-year-old male pharmacist: “There was no recreation involved. I just wanted to press a button and be able to sleep during the day. I was really having a touch time with this sleeping during the day. I would say by the end of that week I was already on the road [to dependency]…the race had started.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Other pharmacists described how their drug use began as a way of treating insomnia, physical trauma (exempli gratia, a car accident, sports injury, or a broken bone), or some chronic occupationally induced health problem (exempli gratia, arthritis, migraine headaches, leg cramps, or back pain). It is important to point out that during their earliest stages of their drug use, these individuals appeared to be “model pharmacists.” Most claimed to have excelled in pharmacy school. Moreover, occupational and career success usually continued after they entered full-time pharmacy practice. Personal appraisals, as well as annual supervisory evaluations, routinely described these individuals as hard working and knowledgeable professionals. Since they were usually treating the physical pain that resulted from the rigors of pharmacy work, all of the therapeutic self-medicators described how their prescription drug use started and progressed under seemingly innocent, or even honorable, circumstances. In many cases, they were treating the physical pain that resulted from the rigors of work. Instead of taking time off from work to see a physician, they chose to simply self-medicate their own ailments. A 50-year-old male pharmacist described this situation as follows: “When I got to Walgreen’s the pace there was stressful. We were filling 300 to 400 scripts a day with minimal support staff and working 12, 13 hours days. The physical part bothered me a lot. My feet and my back hurt. So, I just kept medicating myself until it got to the point where I was up to 6 to 8 capsules of Fiorinol-3 [narcotic analgesic] a day. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Without exception, the therapeutic self-medicators described how they always engaged in solitary and secretive drug use. Although they usually kept their drug use to themselves, many claimed that their initial use was shaped by their interactions with co-workers. That is, they got the idea to begin self-medicating from watching a co-worker do so or merely followed the suggestion of a concerned senior pharmacist who was seeking to help them remedy a physical malady, such as a hangover, anxiety, physical pain. To further highlight this illustration, a 38-year-old male pharmacist described an incident that occurred soon after being introduced to his hospital supervisor: ‘I remember saying one time that I had a headache. [He said] “got take some Tylenol-with-Codeine elixir [narcotic analgesic].’ I would never have done that on my own. He was my supervisor at the time, and I said, ‘okay, if you think I should.’ He said, ‘that’s what we do.’ I guess that started the ball rolling a little bit mentally.” Members of the therapeutic self-medicator group took notice of the drug-related behaviours and suggestions of their peers but never acted upon them in the company of others. Instead, they maintained a public front condemning illicit prescription drug use but quietly followed through on the suggestive behaviours when in private. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
Whereas the recreational abusers used drugs to get high, the therapeutic self-medicators saw drug use as a means to a different end. Even as their drug use intensified, they were able to convince themselves that the drugs were actually having a beneficial effect on their work performance. This was not all together inaccurate, since they began using the drugs to remedy some constraining health problem that was detracting from their work efficiency. Some therapeutic self-medicators looked to their notion of professional obligation to justify their drug use. To further highlight this illustration, in describing his daily use of Talwin, a Schedule II narcotic analgesic, a 43-year-old male pharmacist maintained: “I thought I could work better. I thought I could talk better with the nurses and patients. I thought I could socialize better with it.” This type of convenient, altruistic-based explanation was quite common among the therapeutic self-medicators. That is, they were adept at convincing themselves that their patients and employers needed them to produce at a certain level. When their performance fell below this level, they turned to prescription medicines as a way of neutralizing whatever inhibiting force that was deemed responsible. At first, the pharmacists’ therapeutic self-medication behaviours seemed to work well. They remedied the problematic situation (pain, insomnia, et cetera) which allowed them to return to normal functioning. However, over time, they began to develop a tolerance for the drugs and thus had to take larger quantities to achieve the same desired effects. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
The following interview excerpt from a 50-year-old male pharmacist offers a good overview of the life history of a therapeutic self-medicator: “Well, I didn’t have a big problem with that [early occasional self-medication behaviour]. I wasn’t taking that much. It was very much medicinal use. It was not an everyday thing. It really was used at that point for physical pain. But that’s when I started tampering with other things and started trying other things. I would have trouble sleeping so I would think, ‘You know, let’s see what the Dalmane [benzodiazepine] is like?’ When I was having weight problems… ‘Let’s give this Tenuate [amphetamine] a try.’ And I just started going down the line treating the things that I wanted to treat. And none of it got out of hand. It wasn’t until I came down here [to Sacramento]…that things really started to go wild.” In generally took between 5 and 10 years for these pharmacists to progress into the later stages of drug abuse. That is, they were able to control their use for a long time without it interfering with their personal or professional life. A handful of therapeutic self-medicators were not so lucky. For them, there was less time between the onset of their use and their entry into drug treatment. Their progression was much faster. This trend is illustrated by the comments of a 49-year-old male pharmacist: “About two or three years after I had my store, I was working long, long hours. Like 8.00 to 8.00 Monday through Saturday and some hours on Sunday. And my back hurt one day. It was really killing me and I started out with two Empirin-3 [narcotic analgesic]. Just for the back pain. I mean I hurt, my back hurt, my head hurt. I don’t know why, but I just reached for that bottle and I knew it was against the law to do that, but I did it any way. Man I felt good. I was off and running. This was eureka. That was it. It progressed. I started taking more and more then I finally…” #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
The key to self-medicator’s fast-paced progressive drug use seemed to lie in the given individual’s perceived need to treat a wider and growing array of physical ailments. It got to the point that many “drug thirsty” pharmacists recognize that they were actively seeking out or inventing ailments to treat in themselves. As a 40-year-old female put it, “I had a symptom for everything I took.” Several other quotes illustrate this tendency for therapeutic self-medicators to invent ailments. In all, there were 27 pharmacists who fit into the category of therapeutic self-medicators. These individuals were admittedly naïve about drug abuse when they entered their pharmacy careers. They were either counseled or convinced themselves that there was no harm in the occasional therapeutic use of prescription medicines. The normative and behavioral advanced in their deviance were gained largely by exploiting or manipulating their professional position and knowledge. The therapeutic self-medicators always used their drugs in private and kept their use from others around them. Over time, their false confidence and denial that allowed their drug use to significantly progress. Once their façade was broken, these pharmacists awoke to the reality that they were chemically dependent on one or more of the drugs that they so confidently had been dispensing to themselves. If you have a drug addiction, consider seeking help from the church or a trusted medical professional. Counseling of family members by persons and agencies outside their family is very old, probably as old as humanity. Nevertheless, the process of differentiation, specialization, and professionalization which had brough into being agencies staffed by full-time counseling personnel is decidedly recent. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
And the application of the concepts and findings of social science to counseling is more recent still. Since counseling agencies were started a few decades ago their methods and philosophy have only become systematized in some areas of their work. The rapidity and unevenness of their growth—further consumed by conflicting schools of thought—makes generalization risky, but for any appraisal of their place in the institutions affecting American families some rough summery of their emergence is necessary. The development of family counseling agencies can be schematized in several ways. When their characteristic techniques in successive periods are considered, it may be said that they proceeded from moral exhortation and sanction, through individual guidance or therapy, to procedures adapted to work with groups. Some of these group methods are oriented to conventional individual psychology, others stress interactional conceptions. When the doctrines rather than the techniques of the agencies are considered, it appears that successive periods saw emphasis on religion and morals, then on individual psychology or psychiatry, and finally on social psychology or sociology. As mentioned before, these phases of development have overlapped and still do. Also, certain family agencies primarily devoted to activities like medical care or economic rehabilitation carry on family counseling, although it is not their main duty. Every family-serving professional, whether lawyer, clergyman, teacher, or even architect, can rarely avoid being asked to advise on matter for which the psychiatrist, social worker, and clinical psychologist are especially trained. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
The quest for guidance goes far beyond a mere demand for information. Similarly, many agencies listed as primarily engaged in counseling do not always limit their work to guidance, advice, and insight, but may offer such services as recreation, participation in clubs, or education. From the standpoint of their personnel, it might be fairer to survey and evaluate counseling agencies according to their success in reaching goals they have set for themselves. The main focus of attention of counselors in the strict sense intended is the personalities of their clients. To be sure, questions of vocational guidance or family budgeting frequently involve personality questions, and cannot be avoided or isolated in a doctrinaire manner from economic concerns. It is only when personality problems are paramount in the concern and responsibility of the agency, however, that it will be called a counseling agency. Or all types of family agencies, the counseling agencies are most conspicuously bunched at the second or therapeutic phase. They show an especially lively interest and experimental attitude to group therapy. A number of mental hospitals are actively experimenting with various forms of milieu and play therapy as major tools for providing large numbers of patients not merely with custody but with psychiatric care. Crime prevention bureaus in certain cities are exploring the value of clubs for delinquent modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous, and some experiments in group rehabilitation are actually going on with correctional institutions. While much of the development through official and professional channels is still handicapped by an individualistic approach, some agencies in theory and procedure are adopting a much more interactional outlook. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Yet even where community organizers have set up community councils and conducted community self-surveys, the therapeutic motive had in the end predominated, and tended to lead to clinics and casework. Inevitably such observations appear disparaging, yet the intent is not to criticize or condemn but merely to note the direction these developments have taken. The feeling that progress is not as rapid as originally hoped, and that some sort of ceiling is soon reached by efforts aimed only at correction psychopathology, had pervaded several studies of social work. Various kinds of families in trouble had characteristic persons or groups to which they turned when in trouble. In the same way, each family counseling agency appears to attract a characteristic clientele. When an agency had recruited as its clientele all that segment of the community which habitually turns with its kind of problem to that kind of agency, its operations are likely to settle into a routine procedure. Its progress then becomes measured mainly in terms of technique, such as its interview methods or efficiency in spending its means. Only where it can set before citizens a creative succession of new and positive goals does it have a fair chance to avoid such a ceiling of routinization. There are still immense areas and many strata of communities in the United States of America which barely enjoy the philanthropic or charitable phase of development of counseling agencies; there are many more which have yet to reach professional standards at the therapeutic phase; and there are only a handful who have made the step from individual casework to group work. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
It may thus seem premature to suggest inadequacies in the therapeutic approach. Yet there is no apparent reason, other than the failure to conceive goals beyond adjustment, to prevent the adoption of a beneficial, planning approach to the functions of counseling agencies. Psychological offenders are able to counterfeit the voice of God because of the ignorance of believers that they can do so, and their ignorance also of the true principle of God’s way of communication with His children. The Lord said: “My sheep know My voice….,” id est, My way of speaking to My sheep. He did not say this voice was an audible voice, nor a voice giving directions which were to be obeyed apart from the intelligence of the believer; but, on the contrary, the word “know” indicates the use of the mind, for although there is knowledge in the spirit it must reach the intelligence of the man, so that spirit and mind become of one accord. The question whether God now speaks by His direct voice audibly to men needs consideration at this point. A careful study of the epistles of Paul—which contain an exhaustive summation of God’s will for the Church, the Body of Christ, even as the books of Moses contained God’s will and laws for Israel seems to make it clear that God, having “spoke to us in His Son,” no longer speaks by His own direct voice to His people. Nor does it appear that, since the coming of the Holy Spirit to guide the Church of Christ into all truth, He frequently employs angels to speak or to guide His children. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
God must be approached cognitively through the structural elements of being-itself because God is the ground and the structure of being. The structural elements serve as symbols which are rooted in and point toward their ground. However, before speaking symbolically of God, the theologian must make at least one nonsymbolic statement about Him. Otherwise there would be an infinite series of symbols pointing ever onward, for it is the nature of symbols not to rest in themselves, but to point. That statement that God is being-itself is a nonsymbolic statement. It means what it says directly and properly. After this, nothing else can be said about God as God which is not symbolic. Our ability to speak about God depends upon whether or not the finite can be used to asset something about the infinite. The infinite is being-itself, and everything finite participates in it. The analogia entis gives us our only justification of speaking at all about God. Thus, by its participation in the ground of being, them meaning of the symbol is affirmed. Yet, at the same tie, its proper meaning is negated, for the ground of being transcends its structural elements; the ground is also the abyss. Religious symbols operate in two directions. They bring the infinite down to the finite by concretizing it; and they elevate the finite by revealing its participation in the infinite. For example, if God is symbolized as “father” or “king,” He is brought down to the level of human relationships. Yet simultaneously fatherhood and kingship are consecrated, for their theonomous depth, their holy character is revealed. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
When it comes to resolving disputes, there are reasons for using private ordering when pertaining to information. In this context we have a threefold key distinction, between private, observable, and verifiable information. Consider a transaction between two parities. Information is private when it is available to one of the parties but not the other. Sometimes the informed party wants to convey the information truthfully to the other party, but must do so in a credible way because the uninformed party will be wary of strategic misrepresentation. Id the two parties’ interests are well aligned, mere declaration (cheap talk) may work. Otherwise the informed party has to look for a costly action (signal) that credibly conveys the truth of the matter, because that action would not have been optimal had the information been different. Sometimes the uninformed party can devise tests (screening or mechanism design), requiring the informed party to undertake actions that will reveal the truth. They theory of asymmetric information is now a standard part of economic theory. Signaling and screening can be parts of contracts between the two parties. For example, if the seller of a car knows its quality much better than the buyer can find our by inspection, then a warranty may serve as a signal of quality. However, the terms of such a contract cannot specify actions to be taken under circumstances that only one of the parties can observe, because that party would have every reason to misrepresent the circumstances so as to avoid taking a costly action. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Thus the warranty cannot specify the circumstances under which a part of the car has to be replaced in such a ways that only one party can observe them. If the buyer is the sole judge of whether the transmission operates satisfactorily, he may claim that it is unsatisfactory at the slightest excuse and obtain a new one. Contracts must implicitly or explicitly give each party the discretion to act on the basis of its private information. To address environmental challenges of our time, it is crucial to overcome existing global stereotypes and think of alternative approaches. The time is ripe to go far beyond the UNFCCC framework (though it does not mean a call to bury it altogether) and, first of all, to make it clear that today’s environmental issues should be looked upon from a much wider angle than the one of the climate change talks. We are facing a really big global problem of the deterioration of the natural environment on our Mother Earth, which includes deforestation, extinction of many species of plants and animals, air pollution, water contamination, more and more frequent extreme weather events, unbearable noise levels in the cities, and so on. Obviously, the problem is not limited to CO2 emissions or rising temperatures. Every country or groups of countries must do their utmost to find and implement the solutions taking into account their development stage, economic and social conditions, financial and technological capabilities, and so on. Comprehensive environmental solutions have to be well balanced with policies and measure aimed at achieving other key social and economic goals. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Countries should actively exchange information and experience in this area, launch joint projects (both at the bilateral and multilateral level) where possible, and set binding or nonbinding environmental targets for themselves if they consider them useful. The UN should not be looked upon as the only coordinator of international efforts—furthermore, it is unlikely to be the most efficient coordinator. Definitely, the West should actively assist developing countries working to preserve and improve their natural environment—financially, technologically, and intellectually. However, it has to be made clear that, especially in the area of financing, limits exist as most Western economies themselves are facing touch fiscal constraints. Perhaps other countries should be willing to accept the role of one of the major sources of global environmental financing. With the economies of Japan and Europe recovering from World War II, American firms face heavy competitive fire. Constant innovation is needed to compete—new ideas for products, technologies, processes, marketing, finance. Something on the order of 1,000 new products are introduced into America’s supermarkets every month. Even before the model 486 computer replaced the model 386 computer, the new 586 chip was on its way. Thus smart firms encourage workers to take initiative, come up with new ideas and, even if necessary, to “throw away the rulebook.” Work units shrink. The scale of operations is miniaturized along with many of the products. Vast numbers of workers doing much the same muscle work are replaced by small, differentiate work teams. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Big businesses are getting smaller; small businesses are multiplying. In just 30 years, the number of IBM employees has gone from 370,000 to 288,300. As its employees are being pecked to death by small manufacturers around the World, to survive, it lays off many workers and splits itself into thirteen different—smaller—business units. In the Third Wave system, economies of scale are frequently outweighed by diseconomies of complexity. The more complicated the firm, the more the left hand cannot anticipate what the right hand will do next. Things fall through the cracks. Problems proliferate that may outweigh any of the presumed benefits of sheer mass. The old idea that bigger is necessarily better is increasingly outmoded. Struggling to adapt to high-speed changes, companies are racing to dismantle their bureaucratic Second Wave structures. Industrial-era complies typically had similar tables of organization—pyramidal, monolithic and bureaucratic. Today’s markets, technologies, and consumer needs change so rapidly and put such varied pressures on the firm, that bureaucratic uniformity is on its way out. The search is on for wholly new forms of organization. “Re-engineering,” for example, the current buzzword in management, seeks to restructure the firm around processes rather than market or compartmentalized specialties. Relatively standardized structures give way to matrix organizations, “ad hocratic” project teams, profit centers, as well as to a growing diversity of strategic alliances, joint ventures and consortia—many of these crossing national boundaries. Since markets change constantly, position is less important than flexibility and maneuverability. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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My Soul to Nothingness, but I Will Strive
Many persons accustomed to travelling the old country side were sure so fair a place was never seen. Of all that charmed the romantic eye, it seemed an emerald through the clouds of fleecy white, and cerulean sky. As the sun crowned its lawny crest, smiling upon the flowers and trees, bright eyes reflected the majesty of Llanada Villa. The lively and robust body of this remarkable house contrasts its physicality against the darkness, secrets, and void of the dense ancient elms. Tall ornamental hedges maintain the privacy of the dwelling. The fruit orchard much like an enchanted forest, in which the bluebirds returning to their nest, guard the fruit from pests, as the straggling deer who peep from beneath the branches, do not startle the natural and undisturbed dominion. Heightened by euphoria, delightful shapes of mystery and fear clear in youthful bloom of its immortal spirit. On stormy nights, as the guard described, one can hear the doors clapping inside, and the howl and sobbing of the wind through it ornate galleries. I carried with me some blessings and a good many curses. I was woken in the early morning, by hearing my name called softly. I rose and went to my door in my nightgown, but there was no one in the passage. The voice sounded like my niece Daisy’s, but when I came to her door, it was closed. All was silent; the bathroom door stood slightly open; there was the morning room beyond; then the landing and the staircase. I heard my name called again, only this time the voice boomed like a gong inside my head; the light failed, as if a candle had been snuffed, and something rushed at me out of the gloom. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
I screamed and struggled until the light came back with the sound of running feet and I realized that the demon who had seized me was, in fact, a Welsh priest. A fornight or so later—certainly, after the doctor had pronounced me well on the way to recovery—I was sitting up in bed reading when my grandmother came into the room and sat down in the chair beside me, looking exactly as he had when we first met: the same calf length frock coat, double-breasted vet, and wool trousers, with his hair parted on the left and neatly combed to the side, the same familiar scent of alone wood, orange flower, musk and spices. The chair creaked as he settled himself in it, smiled at me and took up his work, just as if he had only been gone for five minutes, rather than resting in the Evergreen Cemetery for nine years. I was vaguely aware that my husband was supposed to be dead, but somehow this did not matter; his presence at my bedside seemed entirely natural and comforting. And though my own tranquil acceptance of the visit would later seem, to me, as strange as the visit itself, we sat in companionable silence for an indefinite interval until my husband gathered up his work, smiled once more at me and went slowly from the room. Daisy came in so soon after that I thought they must have passed each other in the hall, so I asked, “Did you see your uncle William?” I saw from her look of consternation that I had best not pursue the subject, and agreed that I must have been dreaming. As with the strange radiance of William’s appearance was followed by one of the worst headaches I had ever endured. But I felt certain I had been wide awake. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Even after the strangeness of the experience had become fully apparent to me, I found I could not think of my visitant as a ghost. My reading in sensational literature had enhanced an already vivid imagination of how ghosts ought to conduct themselves: a hint of transparency and one or two bloodcurdling groans was surely the least that could be expected, whereas William had been—well, just my husband. And though nothing like this had ever happened to me before, I had not felt in the slightest afraid. Dr. Wayland had declared me well enough to get up, and the memory of my husband’s visit had faded to the point where I could almost believe it had been a dream, when one evening after dinner I saw my father-in-law crossing the hall ahead of me. He was no more than ten paces away, I heard the floor creak under his tread. Looking neither right nor left, he entered his study and closed the door behind him, just as he would have done in life. Again I felt no fear; only an overwhelming impulse to go up to the door and knock. When there was no answer, I tried the handle. The door opened readily, but there was no one there, only the familiar cracked brown leather armchairs on the worn Persian rug, the elaborate desk with its feet carved into the fierce face carved into faces of angels, the bookshelves crammed with Blue Book and army lists and regimental histories and accounts of gun dealers, the lingering faint scent of timber, leather and bindings. I remained in the doorway for a long time, lost in a trance of recollection. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
I picked up one of Willian’s old letters and went out into the garden and sat down on a charming bench, under a group of magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendour being the horizon, and the fountains wound through a group of noble trees, almost at my feet, reflecting in their current the fading crimson of the sky. His letter was extraordinary. So much so that I read it twice over—the second time to the spirits. It said, “I miss you my darling wife, for as such I love you. During these last days of my illness, I was too weak to write you. Before then I had no idea of the danger. I will soon no longer be with you. Thank you for the hospitality. Thank you for receiving me into your heart, gaiety, and for being a charming companion. Heaven! I devote my remaining days to the gleaming light that you cast upon my heart. I hope you may accomplish your merciful purpose. I curse my conceited incredulity for unduly leaving you to mourn my absence. If only I could live for eternity, I would remain by your side. Farewell. I love you, my beloved.” My eyes filled with tears at his passion and intelligence. The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time gone back inside. It was a soft evening, and I loitered, speculating upon seeing him again. I could hear his voice in animated dialogue and recall how proud he was to be a father, and turned about to admire the beautiful scene. The glade which I had just walked lay before. At the left narrow of the path wound away under the clumps of lordly trees, and was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
At the right of the path stands the Observational Tower, which guarded the estate. Over the grounds, a thin film of mist was stealing, like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and there I could see the fountains flashing in the moonlight. No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. I enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood looking silence over the expanse beneath me. Standing a little way behind me, discoursed upon the scene, and were upon the eloquent moon. When the moon shone with a light so intense it is well known that it indicates a special spiritual activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy is manifold. It acts on dreams, it acts on lunacy, it acts on nervous people; it has a marvellous physical influence connected with life. One of the carpenters, having taken a nap on the balcony on such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light of the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side. The moon, this night, is full of odylic and magnetic influences—and when one looks behind at the front of the mansion, how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendour, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests. There are indolent states of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the stars. But I felt as is some great misfortune were hanging over me. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
O THOU great, powerful, and mighty KING AMAIMON, who bearest rule by the power of the SUPREME GOD EL over all spirits both superior and inferior of the Infernal Orders in the Dominion of the East; I do invocate and command thee by the especial and true name of God; and by they Thou Worshippest; and by the Seal of thy creation; and by the most mighty and powerful name of GOD, IEHOVAH TETEAGRAMMATON who cast thee out of Heaven with all other infernal spirits; and by all the most powerful and great names of God who created Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, and all things in them contained; and by their power and virtue; and by the name PRIMEUMATON who commandeth the whole host of Heave; that thou mayest cause, enforce, and compel the Spirit Murmus—The Fifty-fourth Spirit and His 30 Legions of Spirits, Lord of darkness and liberation come forth! Murmus awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the God of limitation Ahura Mazda! Murmus, Zairich, and Tairich, unholy fever and thirst come forth! Murmus awaken! Tairich awaken! Zairich awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Amardad! Akiman, demon of evil mind come forth! Akoman awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Vohuman! Naikiyas, Div or rebellion and discontent come forth! Naikiyas awake! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Andar, Div of antinomian fire come forth! Andar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fllen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Arwahist! Taromat, beautiful Div of rebellion come forth! Taromat awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! Aeshma, wielder of the bloody mace! Demon of the wounding spear and bringer of wrath come forth! Aeshma awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Srosh! Sovar, merciless leader of Divs come forth! Sovar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel shahrewar! I stand alone as the embodiment of the Adversary known as Ahriman, the Black Dragon of Chaos and becoming! I devour the natural order of stasis brought forth by Ahura Mazda and forge my destiny through the power of the Black Sun! By the figurative mystery of this holy mansion, I will clothe it with the armour of salvation in the strength of the Most High, ANCOR, AMICAR, AMIDES, THEDONIAS, ANITOR, that so the end which I desire may be effected, O ADONAI, through Thy strength, to whom be praise and glory for ever and ever. I adjure thee, Emperor Lucifer, as the agent of the strong living God, of His beloved Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to appear instantly, or to send thy Messenger Astarot, forcing thee to forsake thy hiding-place, wheresoever it may be, an warning thee that it thou didst not manifest this moment, I still straightway smite thee and all thy race with the Blasting Rod of the great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
In 2007, while closing up The Winchester Mystery House, Jeff kept catching sight of a shadow moving. He would turn quickly to see if it was a person, but nothing was there. It unnerved him, not knowing what was taking place. The activity picked up when they started to decorate for the Christmas season. Finally, he consulted one of the guests about the strange occurrences. He was very talkative, and would relate experiences about a ghost. During one conversation with the guest, Jeff related that he heard people upstairs laughing and thumping around in the Grand Ballroom, almost like they were dancing country-western style. When he investigated, he would find nothing out of place and no living person upstairs. When opening the mansion in the morning, they found linen that had been neatly arranged, laying on the floor, yet no one had been in the mansion since he had closed it the night before.
One morning he found an entire display sitting at the foot of the stairs. Everything had been moved during the night. His first thoughts were that someone had broken into the place, but there were no signs of an intruder. Early another morning, Jeff and a few other employees heard a music box playing. They went deep in the mansion to find the source. After searching for hours, they found nothing in the mansion, until they went up the dark stairs to the fourth floor. The stairs were steep, and when Jeff got to the top, he snapped a picture down the stairway. He took the picture at that moment because he had a strange feeling. After the investigated the fourth floor, Jeff said he felt a cold draft come by him, as though it was rushing past them down the stairs. The resulting picture was a tragic and forlorn figure dressed in nineteenth century clothes. People have reported seeing her figure walking toward doors that lead to parts of the mansion that are off limits to guest and that she passes unimpeded through locked doors. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Do Injustice and Evil Rule Over the Progress of Humanity?
Those who have never lost by death some one deeply loved have never sounded the depths of despair, have never bruised themselves against the closed door of the tomb. We seek, and an impenetrable wall rises inexorably before the terror that confronts us. If the existence of human beings leads to nothing, what is this comedy all about? It is hard not to desire an answer to the formidable question that presents itself when we think of our destiny, or when a cruel death has taken from us someone we love. How is it possible not to ask whether or not we shall find each other again, or if the separation is for eternity? Does a Deity or Goodness exist? Do injustice and evil rule over the progress of humanity, with no regard for the feelings that nature has placed in our hearts? And what is this nature itself? Has it a will, an end? Could there be more intelligence, more justice, more goodness, and more inspiration in our infinitesimally small minds than in the great Universe? How many questions are associated with the same enigma! We shall die; nothing is more certain. When the Earth on which we live shall have turned only a hundred times more around the sun, not one of us, dear readers, will still be on this World. Ought we to fear death for ourselves, or for those whom we love? From among the many symbols of the divine, we select that of “personal God” in order to illustrate in one stroke the theory and symbolism, the implications of God as being-itself, and one aspect of the living God. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
The religious encounter, the experience of the holy, demand an I-Thou relationship. God cannot be an “It.” Anything less than a personal God is incapable of arousing an ultimate concern in man. A sub-personal God is not God. That is the reason that the symbol of the Personal God is indispensable for living religion. However, there are difficulties. Is not God as being-itself an impersonal God? Nothing seems more incompatible than the warmth of a person and the bleakness of being-itself. Moreover, if God is a person, is He not reduced to the status of a being along side other beings? Due to these difficulties, particularly the latter, the personal God is a confusing symbol. The solution is the divine transcendence. Calling God a person does not necessarily pull Him down to the same level as other persons and beings, for the absolute individual is also the absolute participant. The other polar element of participation guarantees that God remains being-itself who participates in all beings as their ground. Furthermore, God as being-itself means that God is the ground of everything personal and the He carries within Himself the ontological power of personality. He is the Personal-Itself, the ground and abyss of every person. God is transpersonal in the sense the He includes the personal, but transcends it. Religiously speaking, man encounters the personal God. Theologically speaking, he encounters the ground of everything personal. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
However, in either case the symbol of the personal God indicates that our personal center is grasped by the manifestation of the inaccessible ground and abyss of being. God declares that are bodies are His temple, and we are to keep them pure. This also means abstaining from fornication and drugs. One-time drug abuse can be harmful, and in the few cases where people are sensitive to the drug, it can be lethal. Continued recreational use of drugs cause brain damage and increasingly compromises your ability to make decisions. Habit forming drugs not only affect your body, but as you surrender your body and will to them, they will also destroy the other command center of your body—your spirit. Choosing to disobey the Word of Wisdom will lead you away from the Lord. Trying drugs “just once” can physically harm you in some cases. However, “just once” will always harm you spiritually. Narcotic addiction serves the design of the psychopathological offender, for it disrupts the channel to the holy spirit of truth…Addiction has the capacity to disconnect the human will and nullify moral agency. It can rob one of the power to decide. Agency is too fundamental a doctrine to be left in such jeopardy. Stay away from illegal drugs. If the federal government forbids their use, that means they are illegal. Drugs will take away your powers of reason. They will enslave you in a vicious and terrible way. They will destroy your mind and your body. They will build within you such cravings that you will do anything to satisfy them. The same goes for abusing prescription drugs or any other addictive substance, including alcohol and tobacco. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
The need for governance arises because, in its substance, individuals pursing their own interests would generate an inferior equilibrium outcome. American pharmacists fill over 4 billion controlled drug/mediation prescription orders annually. This is up from 1.4 billion in 1994. Every day, hundreds of thousands of Americans walk into their local drug stores and rely on pharmacist to accurately dispense their medications. What the public does not realize, however, is that some of themselves using the drugs that they are entrusted to dispense. Self-report studies reveal that somewhere between forty and sixty-five percent of all practicing pharmacists have engaged in illicit prescription drug use. Moreover, these inquiries tell us that roughly twenty percent of practicing pharmacist use drugs on a regular basis and that five to ten percent consider themselves to be drug abusers. Given our specific interest in the various career aspects of deviant behaviour, after examining the transcripts of the interview it became apparent that the initiation and subsequent progression of pharmacist’ illicit prescription drug use followed one of two criminal career trajectories: recreational abusers and therapeutic self-medicators. Of the 50 pharmacists interviewed, 23 (46 percent) could be classified as recreational abusers. One of the defining characteristics of recreational abusers is that they all began experimenting with street drugs, such as marijuana, cocaine, alcohol, and various psychedelics, while in high school or during their early college years. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
These pharmacists described their early drug use as exclusively recreational. The motivation behind this use was quite simple, they were adventurous and wanted to experience the euphoric, mind altering effects that the drug offered. Because of procurement problems, these individuals reported that they engaged in little, if any prescription drug use before entering pharmacy school. For the recreational abuser, the onset of the illicit prescription drug use career usually began shortly after entering pharmacy training. These respondents were quick to point to the recreational motivations behind their early prescription drug use. As one 42-year-old-male pharmacist stated, “I just wanted the effect, I really just wanted the effect. I know what alcohol is. But what is you take a Quaalude and drink with it? What happens then?” Similarly, a 36-year-old male pharmacist said: “It was very recreational at first, year. It was more curiosity…experimental. I had read about all these drugs. Then I discovered I had a lot of things going on with me at that time and that these [drugs] solved the problem for me instantly. I had a lot of self-exploration issues going on at that time.” Trends in the data indicate that pharmacy school provided these individuals with the requisite access to prescription drugs. They recalled how they exploited their newly found access to prescription drugs in an effort to expand or surpass the euphoric effects that they received from weaker street drugs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
To further highlight this illustration, a 27-year-old male pharmacist said: “It was a blast. It was fun…It was experimentation. We smoked a little pot. And then in the “model pharmacy” [a training facility in college], there was stuff [prescription drugs] all over the place. ‘Hey this is nice…that is pretty nice.’ If it was a controlled substance then I tried it. I had my favorites, but when that supply was exhausted, I’d move on to something else. I was a ‘garbage head!’ It was the euphoria…I used to watch Cheech and Chong [movies]. That’s what it was like. I wasn’t enslaved by them [or so I thought]. They made the World go round.” Over half of the recreational abusers claimed that they specifically chose a career in pharmacy because they expected that it would offer them an opportunity to expand their drug use behaviours. For example, a 37-year-old male pharmacists said: “That’s one of the main reasons I went to pharmacy school, because, I’d have access to medications if I needed them.” Further evidence of this trend can be seen in the comments of a 41-year-old male pharmacist: “I [had to] change my major. So I [based my choice] on nothing more than: ‘well, it looks like fun and…gee all the pharmacy majors had drugs.’ The guys [pharmacy students] that I knew…every weekend when they came back from home, they would unpack their bags and bags of pills would roll out. I thought, ‘Whoa, I got to figure out how to do this.’ [I would ask:] ‘How much did you pay for this?’ [They would respond:] ‘I haven’t paid a thing, I just stole them. Stealing is okay. I get sh*t wages so I got to make it up somehow. So we just steal the sh*t.’ Well, I thought, ‘this is it, I want to be a pharmacist.’ So I went to pharmacy school.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
While many of these recreational abusers entered pharmacy school with prior experiences in drug use, their pre-college drug use was usually not extensive. It was not until they got into pharmacy school that they began to develop more pronounced and progressive drug habits. A 41-year-old male pharmacist discusses this transition into increased usage, in the following interview excerpt: “It [pre-college use] had been recreational type use. It was pretty consistent. But I was still just experimenting. I hadn’t, at that point, become actively addicted. [I was] smoking pot and drinking beer, [doing] psychedelics and Quaaludes [depressant]. Just whatever [I] would come across, if [I] came across [it], great, if I didn’t, no big deal…That was before pharmacy school. By the time I got into pharmacy school, the recreational drug use turned into a fairly steady drug use. Certainly not more than a month to two months would go by without something…I really started drinking and drugging. A lot of my friends after high school said, ‘Oh great, you’re going into pharmacy school. You can wake up on uppers and go to bed on downers,” all that stuff. At first, [I said] no. The first time I ever [used prescription drugs] I thought, ‘no, that’s not why I’m doing it. No, I’m doing it [in pharmacy school] for the noble reasons.’ But then after a while I thought, well, maybe they had a point there after all. Once in pharmacy school, the recreational abusers consistently described how they adopted an applied approach to their studies. For example, if they read about particularly interesting drugs in pharmacy school, they wanted to try them. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
If they were clerking or interning in a pharmacy setting which offered them access to prescription medicines, they wanted to steal drugs and use them. If a teacher or employer told them about the unusual effects of a new drug, they recalled how they wanted to experiment with it. This meant that these individuals usually began using prescription drugs soon after entering pharmacy school or while working in the pharmacy during school. This pattern of application-oriented learning is exemplified in the comments of a 44-year-old male pharmacist: “When we studied Valium [benzodiazepine], I had to find out what Valium was…If I studied a class of drugs, I had to say, ‘Well, I don’t know that. I don’t understand that. What did they mean by tranquilizer? What did they mean?’ I’d have to find out. Then, of course, I found the ones that I liked and the ones I didn’t…got worse when I got on the job. It was so fascinating to me, reading the prescriptions and going and finding the drug back there [on the shelf]…I would take inserts home and read about it. It was just so fascinating to me. That’s when I was learning about it and reading it as much as I could…That’s where it [the use] definitely…definitely started.” They explained that they wanted to experience the drug effects that they read about in pharmacy textbooks. These individuals adeptly incorporated their newly found scientific training and professional socialization in a way that allowed them to excuse and redefine their use. They began to see their own drug use as beneficial to their future patients. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
This adaptation strategy is illustrated in the comments of a 59-year-old male recreational abuser: “In a lot of ways, it [college drug use] was pretty scientific. [I was] seeing how these things affected me in certain situations….testing the waters…‘better living through chemistry.’ I thought, ‘I’ll be able to counsel my patients better the more I know about the side effects of these drugs. I’ll be my own rat. I’ll be my own lab rat. I can tell [patients] about the shakes and chills and the scratchy groin and your kin sloughing off. I can tell you all about that stuff.” We will continue this discussion on “socially acceptable drug use in pharmacy school” in the next few days. As one’s spiritual life develops, the believer knows to a great extent the true guidance of the Spirit of God. One knows true inward constraint to act, and restraint from action in like manner—such as when to speak to another about one’s soul, when to rise and testify in a meeting, et cetera. However, after a time one may cease to watch for this pure inward moving of the Spirit—often through ignorance of how to read the monitions of one’s spirit—and may begin to wait for some other incentive or manifestation to guide one in action. This is the time for which the psychopathological offenders have been watching. Since at this point the self-actualized has ceased, unknown to oneself, to cooperate with the inward spirit action—to use one’s volition, and to decide for oneself—one is not watching for some parallel, supernatural indication of the way to go, or the course to take. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Hence one must have “guidance” somehow—some “text,” some “indication,” some “providential circumstance,” et cetera, et cetera. This is the moment of opportunity for a deceiving spirit to gain one’s attention and confidence. And so some words are whispered softly—words that are exactly in accordance with the inward drawing that one has had, but which one does not recognize as from another source. The Holy Spirit, however, led via a deep inner constraining and restraining of one’s spirit. The soft whisper of the deceiving spirit is so delicate and gentle that the believer listens to and receives the words without question, and begins to obey this soft whisper, yielding more and more to it, without any thought of exercising mind, judgment, reason or volition. The “feelings” are now in the body, but the believer is unaware that one is ceasing to act from one’s spirit and by the pure unfettered actions of one’s will and one’s mind, which, under the illumination of the Spirit, are always in accord with one’s spirit. This is a time of great danger if the believer fails to discriminate the source of one’s “drawing” feelings and yields to them before finding out. One should examine one’s basic principle of decision, especially when it has to do with feeling, lest one should be led away by a feeling without being able to say where it comes from and whether it is safe for one to go by it. One should know there are physical feelings, soulish feelings, and feelings in the spirit—any of which can be divine or unholy in their source; therefore reliance on “feelings”—feeling drawn, et cetera—is a source of great mischief in the Christian life. From this point deceiving spirits can increase their control, for the believer had begun the listening attitude, which can be developed acutely until one is always watching for an “inner voice” or the voice of God in the spirit; and thus the believer moves and acts as a passive slave to “supernatural guidance.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Generally speaking, the development of social competence is a matter of learning by doing. If one family member has the opportunity to meet strangers, to plan and conduct parties, to speak before audiences, to obtain the co-operation of others in group activities which one leads, one develops social competence. One learns not only how to avoid giving offense to others, but how to elicit their approval, sympathy, and collaboration—“how to win friend and influence people.” If such experience is not available to one, one’s potentialities for social growth remain undeveloped. Moreover, one’s social ineptitude is not merely an embarrassing handicap or distressing lack to one; it is a serious impediment to the equal exercise of one’s right as a citizen to participate in group matters involving one’s welfare. Inequalities of this character are hazards to the genuine enjoyment of that political equality which is supposedly guaranteed by law. As long as individuals were relatively independent and government was minimal, the one-man-one-vote principle displayed on election day may well have been sufficient evidence of political and legal equality. However, now with the increasing requirement for individuals to participate daily in large organizations, something more than the mere opportunity to vote in periodic elections becomes more conspicuously necessary—namely, the power and ability to exercise one’s voice in governing the conduct from day to day of these enveloping organizations. Otherwise, as critics of Anglo-American political democracy contend, membership in the community for large numbers of presumed citizens becomes formal and empty, conveying no sense of sharing in its control. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
It has always been recognized that experience in forming and operating voluntary associations has been the best training ground for responsible citizenship outside the family itself. In this sense at least, all voluntary associations, whatever their concrete aims, might be termed family agencies for the development of the necessary competence. For this reason, it is impossible to list here as legal and political agencies all the countless voluntary associations which exist. Instead, when we come to consider potential changes in the operation of the various other types of family agencies, the function of equipping individuals for active citizenship will have to be considered as distributed among all of them. The emphasis of historians and other observers of American society upon our characteristic plethora of voluntary associations may well deserved. Nevertheless, numerous as the many forms of association are, membership in them is confined to a relatively small segment of each community (one-third is a generous estimate), and activity to an even smaller segment. Where members of one family may belong and hold office in half a dozen organizations, another half-dozen families belong to none at all. In almost every community, the cry goes up constantly that leadership, activity, and influence are concentrated in a few hands, and among the older rather than the young people. This cry goes up no more often as a complain from critics than as a plea from the leaders themselves. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
In public as well as in private forms of association, the complaint is chronic that far too few people exercise their rights to vote, to petition representatives, to keep informed on issues and to exert influence upon their outcome. Perhaps these persistent exhortations and condemnations are but the negative expression of our national ideal of full and equal citizenship; perhaps they point to a grievous deficiency which demands remedy; in either case there is a need for a considerable development of competence if there is to be successful working with others in accomplishing common ends. From this standpoint alone we can presume to suggest that ways are needed whereby family agencies can contribute a great deal more to universalizing such competence. From this standpoint also, it seems fair to point to legal and political agencies as the type of family agencies which have done the least to go beyond the mere redress of correction of grievances, into the therapeutic and positive planning stages of development. Even in modern advanced economies where the state promulgates and enforces laws bearing on economic conduct, these laws rarely govern all detailed aspects of transactions and contracts. Most business transactions between, as well as within, firms are conducted using various informal arrangements, such as handshakes and oral agreements, ongoing relationships, and custom and practice. If disputes arise, the parties first attempt to resolve them by direct negotiation. The law is available if these attempts at private settlement fail, but recourse to it is usually the last step, not the first, and often signifies the end of an ongoing relationship. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Evidence bearing on this goes back at least as far as the classic article of Macaulay (1963), and covers many countries with well and poorly functioning legal systems alike. Such private ordering in the shadow of the law arises for different reasons, and takes different forms that attempt to respond appropriately to each reason. Perhaps the simplest of these reasons is the cost of using the formal legal system. The cost can arise in many ways. Firs, even in countries with well-functioning state civil law, obtaining and enforcing a judgement in the court system takes a long time; three years is not uncommon. The court may include interest when calculating damages, but for most traders who are somewhat constrained in access to capital markets, the interest rate used in this calculation is likely to be an underestimate of the rate at which they discount the future. Next, in its calculation of damages, the court may underestimate or even leave out items like lost profit that are speculative and can be overstated by the plaintiff. Third, judges in state courts have to cover all conceivable matters that could arise under civil law, and therefore lack the expertise that insiders would be able to acquire about a specific industry. Therefore their verdicts in commercial disputes can be less predictable than those available in alternative specialized forums. Both parties to a dispute dislike this unpredictability. Finally, courts may require public both parities to the dispute would prefer to keep secret. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Sometimes the parties wish to avoid public knowledge of the mere fact that they were involved in litigation, because potential future transactors may think of them as inflexible and unwilling to renegotiate deals in response to changed circumstances. When the operation of the law is costly, both parities can benefit by resolving their dispute through bargaining or renegotiation, in which the expected outcome of recourse to legal systems constitutes the fallback, or the best alternative to negotiated agreement (BATNA) in Harvard Business School jargon. In turn, their initial contract and economic choices will be affected by this prospect of future renegotiation. This view of bargaining in the shadow of the law is well developed in the Law and Economics literature. Mass production, the defining characteristic of the Second Wave economy, becomes increasingly obsolete as firms install information intensive, often robotized manufacturing systems capable of endless inexpensive variation, even customization. The revolutionary result is, in effect, the demassification of mass production. The shift toward smart flex-techs promotes diversity and feeds consumer choice to the point that a Wal-Mart store can offer the buyer nearly 110,000 products in various types, sizes, models and colours to choose among. However, Wal-Mart is a mass merchandiser. Increasingly, the mass market itself is breaking up into differentiate niches as customers need diverge and better information makes it possible for businesses to identify and serve micro-markets. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Specialty stores, boutiques, superstores, TV home-shopping systems, computer-based buying, direct mail and other systems provide a growing diversity of channels through which producers can distribute their wares to customers in increasingly de-massified marketplace. Visionary marketers no longer focus on “market segmentation.” They now focus on “particles”—family units and even single individuals. Meanwhile, advertising is targeted at smaller and smaller market segments reached through increasingly de-massified media. The dramatic breakup of mass audiences is underscored by the crisis of the once great TV networks, ABS, CBS, and NBC, at a time when digital streaming offers virtually an infinite number of TV programs that can be ported into your home via WiFi and play on your television. And you select the times when you want to watch a program and what program you want to watch. Such systems means that sellers will use stealth advertising to target buyer with even great precision. The simultaneous de-massification of production, distribution and communication revolutionizes the economy and shifts it from homogeneity to ward extreme heterogeneity. Work itself is transformed. Essentially interchangeable muscle work drove the Second Wave. Mass, factory-style education prepared workers for routine, repetitive labour. By contrast, the Third Wave is accompanied by a growing non-interchangeability of labour as skill requirements skyrocket. Muscle power is essentially also hard to find because over time the body breaks down and some people are not as strong or skilled as others. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Thus a worker who quits or is fired cannot always be replaced quickly, and training is also expensive. Organizations sped an average of $3,678 per employee on training and development initiatives, and it also takes time. Therefore, the rising level of skill in white-collar jobs and blue-collar jobs makes finding the right person with skills harder and more costly. Although one may face competition from many other jobless muscle worker, it still takes time to learn the systems and procedures. The electronics engineer who has spent years building satellites does not necessarily have the skills needed by a firm doing environmental engineering. A gynecologist cannot do brain surgery. Rising specialization and rapid changes in skill requirements reduce the interchangeability of labour. Now, when it comes to climate change and the green energy scheme, it definitely looks better not to hurry too much with the launch. Along with more research on CO2, and other pollutants’ contribution to global warming and, maybe, on the danger of global warming as such, it is vital to have a deeper look at and put a stronger emphasis on the relationship between emission cuts on the one hand and economic growth and people’s lives on the other. A few think tanks, especially in Europe, have published very optimistic estimates about the effects these cuts will have on economic growth and employment, emphasizing the role of investment in an array of environment-friendly industries. The tough reality, however, is that, though opening a range of new business opportunities, emission cuts will also force both households and industries to make sacrifices. And it looks very strange that the UN-sponsored talks are based just on the calculations of the CO2 emissions cuts necessary to keep the temperature rise within two degrees, while detailed estimates of the effects those cuts will have on the other countries’ economic growth and development, employment, consumption, and living standards are on the table. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Absolute emissions cuts may cause a really serious slowdown in the global economy, possibly causing a social explosion—a revolt of hundreds of millions of people deprived of any real chance they had to overcome poverty and rise from primitive to modern lifestyles. The poor and the middle class are totally suffering and being ignored, but they are often times our essential workers, both with their labour and technical skills. Keep in mind that the United States of America is only responsible for 25 percent of the total emissions, while most of the rest comes from transportation, commercial, and residential use. However, on per capita basis, China emits 78 percent less than the United States of America, and emissions by an average urban Chinese household are estimated to still be around one-third those by an average household in the West. Therefore, it seems our technology is not really the problem. We are having a people problem. The World is, perhaps, overpopulated. Also, surprisingly, Western negotiators are not much concerned about the fact that imposition of too harsh emission constraints on China, the main engine of today’s global growth, may have negative consequences for the West itself, as China’s slowdown will squeeze the most dynamically expanding market, crucially important sources of many products’ supply, and, after all, one of the major channels of financing of Western governments and businesses. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Cresleigh Homes are so beautiful that I could spend all day looking at them. Marvelling about the space, and how I would use it; enjoying the rolling green lawns and picturing myself relaxing in my backyard, and of course, enjoying the architecture.
Many of these homes are so large that they even come with walk-in closets in the secondary bedrooms. I always say, even if you do not need it, but can afford it, considering getting the largest home. That way, you could turn the closets into home offices or a library, and if they get messy, just close the door and still enjoy your model home.
However, the single story homes are very spacious, and sometimes buying a smaller home is a good idea if you want to add a lot of custom features.
People often wonder, “What would I do with a 4,000 square foot house?” well, they do come with a few extra spaces, like next generation suits, which are like apartments with in your home, where your grown kids or parents can live, and many of them have their own kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom and laundry room so they are self-contained, but still part of the house, and has its own separate entrance.
Also, in these homes, you will notice the spaces are larger, so that is why they are so big. It is still like a traditional home, but with all the space you wish you had. You could even add Murphy Doors and have hidden rooms that only you know about. There are so many options and so many things you can do with your house. Some of the single-story homes are nearly 3,000 square feet. https://cresleigh.com/magnolia-station/
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This is the Presence You Have Longed for
Despite—or perhaps because of—the great public and policy interest, organized crime remains a fuzzy and contested umbrella concept. The understanding of organized crime has since the 1920s shifted back and forth between two rivaling notions: a set of stable organizations illegal per se or whose members systematically engage in crime; and a set of serious criminal activities, particularly the provision of illegal goods and service, mostly carried out for monetary gain. The general public, the media, and most policy-makers primarily use the expression “organized crime” to refer to criminal organizations, such as the Sicilian and America Cosa Nostra, the Japanese Yakuza, Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, and other large-scale criminal grounds around the World though to have a hierarchical lasting structure. However, even some of your local news stations may be involved in organized crime. There exists variation in the skills and techniques that go along with crimes that are committed within an organizational context. Organizational (id est, corporate) and state-authority occupational crimes tend to take on relatively sophisticated forms. To further highlight this illustration, we found evidence of complex and collective offending in our analysis of the savings and loan scandal. We grouped these offenses into three categories: desperation dealing, collective embezzlement, and cover-ups. Desperate dealing took shape as a series of complicated, high-risk investment and loan actions employed by executive to save their sinking financial institutions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
These practices included writing multiple loans to insolvent borrowers, inadequate loan underwriting practices, and other “go for broke” investment schemes. The term collective embezzlement refers to self-interested “looting” or unauthorized spending sprees that corporate executives pursued using investors’ money. The authors contend that extravagant parties and high ticket purchase were the order of the day as executives sought to enjoy the last days of their sinking business enterprises. Once things began to come unglued, cover-up practices were used to keep their insolvent ships afloat. These scams ran the gamut from criminal accounting practices (id est, misrepresenting capital reserves or capital-to-assets ratios) to money laundering, to hush money that was delivered to high-ranking state authorities and policy makers. Crimes that are committed by state agencies or institutions also tend to take on an elaborate character. To further highlight this illustration, numerous discussions, including one which documents how Nazi Germany and other rogue states have systematically embarked on genocidal plans to exterminate certain classes or creeds of people. Mr. Hitler’s “final solution for the Jewish problem” included a concerted effort of persecution, mass murder, and cover-up. Similarly, the hearings of the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s taught us that our own government is capable of hatching and carrying out some complex and especially devious criminal plans. By comparison, acts of professional occupational crimes or individual occupational crime tend to be much more simplistic. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
More often than not, the employee simply pockets the money or materials and makes little or not effort to cover his or her tracks. A similar trend has been observed among embezzlers. The same can be said about most crimes that are perpetrated by professionals. For example, we will discuss how pharmacists who steal and use prescription drugs on the job tend to rely on simple and predictable routines. White-collar crime and criminals are spread throughout the landscape of the American industrial complex. No one type of business/industry, or even any one type of job role (secretaries versus executives), is disproportionately represented in the available samples of known offenders. In light of this observation, researchers have begun to adopt a more individual-level focus, targeting the role that occupational settings play in the spread of deviance. Companies that operate in autonomous space, free of external social and regulatory control, will be more likely to engage in criminal behavior. This type of free-wheeling, self-regulatory work environment allows profit motives to blur the lines between acceptable and unacceptable “business practices.” High levels of internal or external competition and cut-throat inter-office or industry-level politics appear to exacerbate matters. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Organizational offenders are disproportionately, European-American, middle-aged men who possess modest to high levels of social capital. In our case files, there are 968 white-collar offenders who were sentences in seven U.S.A. district courts over a 3-year period. The bast majority of the offenders were men. The sample was also lopsided in terms of race, as better than 75 percent of the subjects were European-America. The average offender was well into his thirties and several offense types (antitrust, securities, tax, and bribery offenses) were dominated by offenders over 40 years of age. The participant’s elevated social capital was evident by the fact that most were salaried employees with modest financial assets. Most of the perpetrators were married homeowners with college degrees. Many occupied supervisory positions in their organization. Organizational offenders do not usually have squeaky clean pasts. We found that 36 percent of the 965 white-collar criminals in our sample had at least one prior arrest and 67 percent had been arrested more than once in the previous 8 years. Of the repeat offenders, 33 percent recorded five or more arrests. We found little evidence of criminal specialization. Of the 465 repeat offenders, only 15 percent were exclusively arrested on white-collar charges. Repeat offenders tended to stay away from violent crimes, but they often drifted into property or public order offering. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
However, the longer the person’s rap sheet, the more likely that one would face additional white-collar charges. Faced with comparisons to traditional street criminals, using arrest as indicator of offending, white-collar criminal careers begin and end later, and include smaller numbers of recorded criminal events, than do those of street criminals. However, they are similar to common crime careers in that they are unlikely to evidence a high degree of specialization, and that offenders seem to age out of crime. Moreover, the same variables that predict recidivism in street criminals (id est, marital status, history of drug use, prior record, gender, employment states) are predictive recidivism in white-collar offenders. Criminal intent is a difficult concept to nail down in the case of most crimes committed with an organizational context. This is partly a result of the fact that there are so many cognitive and behavioral variations present in these criminal events. Different jobs take on different cultural forms. For example, the term “hawk jobs” refer to those work environments that stress entrepreneurial creativity. Persons working in this type of environment are drawn toward innovative offenses directed toward enhancing their self-image among peers. Academics and business owners are examples of hawks. The term “donkey jobs” refers to those environments that are known for their “isolated subordination.” Deviance in this workplace manifests itself as sabotage or resentment and stems from low job satisfaction. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Some cashiers and non-unionized line workers provide good examples of donkeys. The term “vulture jobs” characterize occupations with loose work groups and high levels of individual-level decision-making power (exempli gratia, outside salespeople). These persons will involve themselves in self-interested abuses intended to enhance their standing in the incentive-based reward system. Finally, “wolfpack jobs” were described as environments with tight work groups, for example, union employees and police officers. These persons will engage in habitual and collective forms of deviance intended to enhance group solidarity and camaraderie. Instrumental motivation is a cornerstone of crimes that are committed within an organizational context. Regardless of whether the outcome is monetary or physical loss, most of these crimes can be traced back to greed or a thirst for power. The vast majority of the incarcerated embezzlers in our sample suffer from an “unsharable problem.” This might include a self-imposed financial pinch resulting from promiscuous or seedy pursuits away from the job, sudden losses from a part-time business or investment venture, or the inability to finance an ever-increasing social status. Faced with the knowledge and skills of their jobs, these embezzlers came to exploit their position of trust as a means of alleviating the problem. We have also observed a slightly different motivational pattern among the female embezzlers; namely, the women tended to steal in order to provide for their families. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Analyses of corporate and/or state violators reveal that executives and politicians tend to commit their crimes to keep pace with the competition or to protect their own position within the organization. For example, most agree that former President Clinton committed perjury in an effort to avoid the political fallout associated with having extramarital sex in the White House. Regardless of the gender or organizational standing of the offender, these tend to be persons who commit their crimes because they see them as a way of alleviating some sort of specific threat. It is difficult to assess the amount of planning that goes into the commission of organizational crimes, since most of them come about as exaggerations of normal operating procedures. In the end, onlookers have difficult discerning where normal planning and implementation ends and where illegal and unethical cognition and behaviours begins. Persons who steal from their employers tend to construct their thefts as fringe benefits or simple extensions of normal business practices. To further highlight this illustration, a bank embezzler might claim that they simply loaned him or herself the money. A person who steals scrap metal from a manufacturing plant might say that they were simply taking out the trash. By equating these thefts to everyday business, it is difficult to determine how much planning exists. For decades, scholar have maintained that normative neutralizations play a central part in the initial and repeated offending that takes place among organizational offenders. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
More often than not, the source of these rationalizations and justifications can be found in the very workplace from which the offending emanates. To further highlight this illustration, in our seminal study of embezzlers, we use the term “vocabularies of adjustment” to describe how thieves routinely implied a sense of ownership or borrowing over the money that they stole as a means of denying their guilty mind. Some manufacturing employees adhere to a “cognitive mapping of property. Most of the materials in the factor are afforded a status as either personal or company property and thus rarely subject to theft. However, other property is afforded a status as “property of uncertain ownership” and thus fair game for theft. The workers reason that taking scrap material or component parts is not the same as taking a coworker’s wallet or an assembled television set in a box, but it is. You know, this really puts workplace theft into perspective. Stealing from work is a lot like if you went to a friend’s house and walked out with a glass, or their silverware. Through adequate education and upraising children properly and putting things in perspective, we can really train them to be model citizens. A tangential set of cognitive excuses has been uncovered among deviant professionals and corrupt state authorities. Blue ribbon commissions charged with investigating police misconduct have repeatedly unearthed evidence of a mindset in which habitual offenders deny criminal responsibility for their actions. The rogue officers claim that they were simply playing within the rules of aggressive crime fighting or explicitly following orders. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
We have documented how workgroups norms centering around the need for effective and efficient patient care can lead nurses to excuse their repeated theft of hospital supplies and medications. Irrespective of the profession, we find that employees do not have to look or far to find the normative definitions that they use to neutralize their acts of wrongdoing; more often than not, they are derived from established workgroup norms or accepted business practices. Institutions are the overarching framework of rules and constraints, formal and informal, that govern interactions among individuals; constitutions and social norms are examples. Organizations are groups of individuals that operate within the general framework of institutions, and implement the rules and norms of the institutions; examples are legislatures, political parties, and universities. Of course there are interactions and feedbacks between institutions and organizations. The rules and constraints imposed by institutions do not eliminate all freedom for organizations to act, and since organizations have members with differing interest and abilities, interesting issues of “the play of the game” at this level must be analyzed. Institutions can then evolve to alter the rules of the game so as to achieve better outcomes from the play at the organizational level. Finally, individuals interact within the frameworks set up b both institutions and organizations, and these transactions have their costs of information, commitment, and so on. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Institutions and organizations attempt to economize on transaction costs, but usually fall short of optimality, especially when changing economic and technological conditions require changed or new institutions. There are two categories of reasons for the long lags and bottlenecks in the process of institutional change: first, resistance by powerful special interests with stakes in the old system; and second, multiple equilibria and historical accidents. A regularity in social behaviour that is agreed to by all members of society, specifies behaviour in specific recurrent situations, and is either self-policed or policed by some external authority. Thus, the strategies that the individuals choose, include aspects of the play of the game as well as the rules, and also specifies the equilibrium that is to be played. An individual’s expectation of the response to one’s action is often an important part of the institutional environment; that is, the institutional environment also serves to coordinate beliefs and select equilibria. At the (highest or most basic) level stand informal institutions, such as religion, social customs and norms. These are slow to change, over the timescale of centuries or millennia. At the second level is the institutional environment, consisting of formal rules, such as constitutions and laws. The timescale of evolution of these is measured in decades. The play of the game occurs at the third level, and this includes the choice of appropriate modes of governance for each type of transaction, or organization, the aim being to economize on transaction costs. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Finally, the fourth and lowest level contains routine economic activities such as production, employment, market equilibration. Societies make conscious efforts to instill some norms into their members, enlisting the help of parents, teachers, media, and leaders of opinion because norms and other informal institutions have mainly spontaneous origins and have a lasting grip on the way society conducts itself. Man of the norms pertain to civic duties such as voting, but others pertain to honestly in economic matters. This process of social conditioning and education can respond to changing needs much faster than the evolutionary timescale. Many of the communities facing collective-action problems treat laws, like prices, as incentives for behavior. Various branches of civil law—liability, tort, contract, property—govern situations where two or more individuals can enter into a contractual relationship, explicit or implicit, as well as ones where one person’s actions have spillover effects on others without any voluntary agreement on their side. These legal rues affect the incentives of individuals to take actions, or to refrain from actions, that carry benefits or costs to others, and that in turn affect overall economic outcomes and efficiency. Many changes in the society’s knowledge system translate directly into business operations. This knowledge system is an even more pervasive part of every firms environment than the banking system, the political system, or the energy system. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Apart from the fact that no business could open its doors if there were no language, culture, data, information and knowhow, there is the deeper fact that of all the resources needed to create wealth, none is more versatile than knowledge. Take Second Wave mass production. In most smokestack factories it was inordinately expensive to change any product. It required highly paid tool-and- die makers, jig setters and other specialists, it and resulted in extended downtime during which the machine were idle and ate up capital, interest and overhead. That is why cost per unit went down if you could make longer and longer runs of identical products. This gave rise to the theory of economies of scale. However, the new technology stands Second Wave theories on their heads. Instead of mass production, we are moving towards de-massified production. The result is an explosion of customized and semicustomized products and services. The latest computer-driven manufacturing technologies make endless variety possible and inexpensive. New information technologies, in fact, push the cost of diversity toward zero and reduce the once vital economies of scale. Or take materials. A smart computer program hitched to a lathe can cut more pieces out of the same amount of steel than most human operators. Making miniaturization possible, new knowledge leads to smear, lighter products, which, in turn, cuts down on warehousing and transportation. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Up-to-the-minute tracking of shipments—id est, better information—means further transportation savings. New knowledge also leads to the creation of totally new materials ranging from aircraft composites to biologicals and increases our ability to substitute one material for another. Deeper knowledge now permits us to customize materials at the molecular level to produce desired thermal, electrical or mechanical characteristics. The only reason we ship huge amounts of raw materials like bauxite or nickel or copper the planet is that we lack the knowledge to convert local materials into usable substitutes. Once we acquire that know-how, further drastic savings in transportation will result. In short, knowledge is a substitute for both resources and shipping. The same goes for energy. Nothing illustrates the substitutability of knowledge for other resources better than the recent breakthroughs in superconductivity, which at a minimum will drive down the amount of energy that now must be transmitted for each unit of output. In addition to substituting for materials, transportation and energy, knowledge also saves time. Time itself is one of the most important of economic resources, even though it show up nowhere on a Second Wave company’s balance sheet. Time remains, in effect, a hidden input. Especially when change accelerates, the ability to shorten time—for instance, by communicating swiftly or by bringing new products to market fast—can be the difference between profit and loss. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
New knowledge speeds things up, drives us toward a real-times, instantaneous economy, and substitutes for time. Space, too, is conserved and conquered by knowledge. GE’s Transportation System division builds locomotives. When it began using advanced in formation processing and communications to link up with its suppliers, it was able to turn over its inventory twelve times faster than before and to save a full acre of warehouse space. Not only miniaturized products and reduced warehousing but other savings are possible. Advanced information technologies, including document scanning and new telecommunications capacity based on computers and advanced knowledge, make it possible to disperse production out of high-cost urban centers and to reduce energy and transport costs even further. There is currently an economic war going on. It is the war for dominance and wealth on a global scale, and political establishments and business elites are involved. It is also the fight to survive, involving myriads of small and medium businesses and hundreds of millions of ordinary working people. It is one of the strangest wars in World history. America is fighting at full strength, but unlike previous wars, even economic, America does not want its rival to suffer a complete defeat. America needs to remain rich, economically and socially stable, and technologically-progressive, it also needs to rebound and become cash abundant. America has to remain sufficiently healthy and strong and keep on running. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
This war for global dominance is a real war. The country that is the superpower is the one who gets to determine the rules of conduct on the global economic arena and the ways key international issues are approached. This is important because some governments are predatory or kleptocratic. As time goes by, America needs to keep the situation on the battlefield under control. Bargaining power, though absolutely nonquantifiable, exerts decisive influence on how key international economic issues are handled. To maintain status as a World Superpower, it is important for citizens become mature and competent individuals. There are extrinsic conditions for the development of competent personalities other than the kind of income possessed, and there are conditions intrinsic to family structure which may give even children within the same family differing starts in life. If individuals are to enjoy equal opportunity for the development of competent personalities, and this is limited by the resources of their families, then the objective of a community sharing such an ideal must be to provide these families, if not unlimited availability, at least some fair minimum of such resources. In general, this has been a guiding principle, though sometimes none too consciously, for the development of the agencies concerned. Equality before the law has been, of course, the bedrock principle upon which all these protective activities have been founded. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Pursuit of this ideal virtually require the state to take over and monopolize the function of securing justice for individuals when they were injured or threatened by other individuals, rather than leaving retribution to private feuds. The state taking over the elementary protection of life, liberty, and property could thus be regarded as the earliest and most irrevocable of transfers to another institution of a family function. There is, however, a function centered on family life which was in the hands of another institution even earlier than that, although it is not a function which the family itself ever possessed. That is the legitimation in the eyes of the community, through ritual and certain binding commitments, of marriage and parenthood. While the enforcement of these responsibilities has long since been concentrated in the state, in a society such as ours where there are so many faiths and churches the element of ritual with which these monogamic commitments are solemnly chartered by the community still remains conspicuous. The ritual testifies to the view that from its beginning any family is as much the creation and concern of the community as of its principals. In addition to formal legitimation of marriage (and of course of its rupture through divorce), there is a large area of family law, exempli gratia, inheritance of estates, administered through the appropriate legal institutions. The legal responsibility of a husband for the economic support of his wife, his children up to certain ages, and even his parents and siblings, remain in effect, though some of the economic burden has been taken over by family agencies. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Specific provisions vary widely among the states. Proposals for change in family law are more often concerned with codification on a national basis than with release of family members from their responsibilities. Indeed the notion, however fallacious, that by stringent limitation of divorce, family stability is somehow conserved, has served to arrest the liberalization that might narrow the gap between profession and practice; while efforts to move into a therapeutic phase, exempli gratia, family courts, have been largely resisted. How the powers of psychological offenders counterfeit the presence of God to those ignorant of their devices may be somewhat as follows. At some moment when the believer is yearning for the sense of God’s presence, either alone or in a meeting, and certain conditions are fulfilled, the subtle foe approaches, and wrapping the senses round with a soothing, lulling feeling—sometimes filling the room with light, or causing what is apparently a “breath from God” by a movement of the air—either whispers, “This is the presence you have longed for,” or leads the believer to infer that it I what one has desired. Then, off one’ guard, and lulled into security that the psychopathological offender is far away, some thoughts are suggested to the mind, accompanied by manifestations which appear to be divine. A sweet voice speaks, or a vision is given, which is at once received as “divine guidance,” given in the “divine presence,” and hence beyond question as from God. If accepted as from God when actually from the psychopathological offender, the first ground is gained. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
The human is now sure that God has bidden one do this or that. One is filled with the thought that one has been highly favored of God and chosen for some high place in His Kingdom. The deeply hidden self-love is fed and strengthened by this, and one is able to endure all things by the power of this secret strength. One has been spoken to by God! One has been singled out for special favor! One’s support is not within—based upon one’s experience—rather than established upon God Himself and the written Word. Through this secret confidence that God has specially spoken to one, the human becomes unteachable and unyielding, with a beneficial trending on infallibility. One cannot listen to others now, for they have not had this “direct” revelation from God. One is in direct, special, personal communion with God, and to question any “direction” given to one becomes the height of sin. Obey one must, even though the direction given is contrary to all enlightened judgment and the action commanded is opposed to the spirit of the Word of God. In brief, when the human at this stage believes one a “command” from God one will not use one’s reason, because one thinks it would be “carnal” to do so. “Common sense” is lack of faith, and therefore sin; and “conscience,” for the time being, has ceased to speak. Some of the suggestions made to the believer by psychopathological offenders at the time may be: “You re more advanced than others”—working to blind the soul to sober knowledge of itself. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
“You are a special instrument for God”—working to feed self-love; “You are different from others”—working to make one think one needs special dealing by God; “You must take a separate path”—a suggestion made to feed the independent spirit; You must give up your occupation and live by faith”—aiming at causing the believer to launch out on false guidance, which may result in the ruin of one’s home, and sometimes the work for God in which one is engaged. All these suggestions are made to give the human a false concept of one’s spiritual state; for one is made to believe one is more advanced than one actually is, so that one may act beyond one’s measure of faith and knowledge (Romans 12.3), and consequently be more open to the deceptions of the beguiling foe. Ontological categories of time, space, causality, and substance are the basic forms of thought and being through which the mind makes contact with reality. Since they are forms of finitude, they express a mixture of being and nonbeing, positive and negative elements which we discuss in terms of courage and anxiety. Humans’ experience of time includes the anxiety of transitoriness and the courage of a self-affirming present. Space is not only physical, but also social—a sphere of influence, a place in the framework of value and meaning. The anxiety of insecurity arises from the danger of losing one’s place, only to be met by the courage to carve out a niche for oneself. Causality brings forth the anxiety of contingency, the awareness that one does not possess one’s own power of being. However, courage is there too, for causality affirms the reality of being by pointing to its sources in the power of being. Substance expresses the anxiety of change, of loss off identity, along with the courage to affirm the finite by laboring to produce cultural creations. Significance expresses the union of being and nonbeing in everything finite. They articulate the courage which accepts the anxiety of nonbeing. The question of God is the question of the possibility of this courage. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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Look at those Big Bad Pimps—Americans Want to Pay for their Lunch!
Whenever a single wave of change predominates in any given society, the pattern of future development is relatively easy to discern. Writers, artists, journalists and others discover the “wave of the future.” Thus, in nineteenth-century Europe many thinkers, business leaders, politicians and ordinary people held a clear, basically correct image of the future. They sensed that history was moving toward the ultimate triumph of industrialism over premechanized agriculture, and they foresaw with considerable accuracy many of the changes that the Second Wave would bring with it: more powerful technologies, bigger cities, faster transport, mass education and the like. This clarity of vision had direct political effects. Parties and political movements were able to triangulate with respect to the future. Preindustrial agricultural interests organized a rearguard psychological action against encroaching industrialism, against “big business,” against “union bosses,” against “sinful cities.” Labor and management grappled for control of the main levers of the emergent industrial society. Ethnic and racial minorities, defining their rights in terms of an improved role in the industrial World, demanded access to jobs, corporate positions, urban housing, better wages and mass public education. This industrial vision of the future had important effects as well. The shared image of an industrial future tended to define options, to give individuals a sense not merely of who or what they were but of what they were likely to become. It provided a degree of stability and a sense of self, even in the midst of extreme social change. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
This industrial vision of the future had important psychological effects as well. The shared images of an industrial future tended to define options, to give individuals a sense not merely of who or what they were but of what they were likely to become. It provided a degree of stability and a sense of self, even in the midst of extreme social change. In contrast, when a society is struck by two or more giant waves of change and none is yet clearly dominant, the image of the future is fractured. It becomes extremely difficult to sort out the meaning of the changes and conflicts that arise. The collision of wave fronts creates a raging ocean full of clashing currents, eddies and maelstorms which conceal the deeper, more important historic tides. In the United States of America—and in many other countries—the collision of Second and Third Wave creates social tensions, dangerous conflicts and strange new political wave fronts that cut across the usual divisions of class, race, gender, or party. This collision makes a shambles of traditional political vocabularies and makes it very difficult to separate progressive from reactionaries, friends from enemies. All the old polarizations and coalitions break up. The apparent incoherence of political life is mirrored in personality disintegration. Psychotherapists and gurus do a land-office business, people wander aimlessly amid competing therapies. They slip into cultus and covens or, alternatively, into a pathological privatism, convinced that reality is absurd, insane or meaningless. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Life may indeed be absurd in some large, cosmic sense. However, this hardly proves that there is no pattern in today’s events. In fact, there is a distinct, hidden order the becomes detectable as soon as we learn to distinguish Third Wave changes from those associated with a diminishing Second Wave. The crosscurrents created by these waves of change are reflected in our work, family life, sexual attitudes and personal morality. They show up in life-styles and voting behavior. For in our personal lives and political acts, whether we know it or not, most of us in the rich countries are essentially Second Wave people committed to maintaining a dying order. Third Wave people constructing a radically different tomorrow or a confused, self-canceling mixture of the two. The conflict between Second and Third Wave groupings is, in fact, the central political tension cutting through our society today. The more basic political question, as we shall see, is not who controls the last days of industrial society but who shapes the new civilization rapidly rising to replace it. On one side are the partisans of the industrial past; on the other, growing millions who recognize that the most urgent problems of the World can no longer be resolved within the frame work of an industrial order. This conflict is the “super struggle” for tomorrow. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
This confrontation between the vested interest of the Second Wave and the people of the Third Wave already runs like an electric current through the political life of every nation. Even in the nonindustrial counties of the World, all the old battle lines have been forcibly redrawn by the arrival of the Third Wave. The old war of agricultural, often feudal interests against industrializing elites, either capitalist or socialists, takes on a new dimension in light of the coming obsolescence of industrialism. Now that Third Wave civilization is making its appearance, does rapid industrialism imply liberation from neocolonialism and poverty, or does it, in fact, guarantee permanent dependency? It is only against this wide-screen background that we can begin to make sense of the headlines, to sort out our priorities, to frame sensible strategies for the control of change in our lives. Once we realize that a bitter struggle is now raging between those who seek to preserve industrialism and those who seek to supplant it, we have a new tool for changing that World. To use this tool, however, we must be able to distinguish clearly those changes that extend the old industrial civilization from those which facilitate the arrival of the new. We must, in short, understand both the old and the new, the Second Wave industrial system into which so many of us were born and the Third Wave civilization that we and our children have inhabited. America has a lot of structural problems. Almost all of them are similar to those faced by developing nations. However, they are more acute and visible to the World because of America’s unique status. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
The list is well-known. We no longer manufacture a significant portion of products we use in our own country. Although we are technologically advanced, new technology is often not used in many buildings and infrastructure because older technology is more cost efficient. And there is a battle between polluting enterprises and green technology, both of which pose problems for the environment. There is high latent unemployment and underemployment in rural and urban areas. Large-scale migration to the cities overstrains their infrastructure causing a lot of ultra-urbanization pains. Obviously mismatch exists between the labor supply (and those willing to work for lower wages, tend to get most of the work). And so on, and so forth. Discussion of America’s present and future usually focuses on a gentlemanly set of problems. They are often looked upon as critical and posing a threat of abrupt and disruptive economic downturn, social and political turmoil or, in the extreme case, the country’s collapse. Such views do not look convincing. The gentlemanly set of problems is manageable, especially for America with its remarkable ability to address crucial issues a gradual, evolutionary, but persistent change. Let us have a loot at a conventional Problem List. Aging Population and Labor Shortages? Yes, population of the working age is apparently approaching its peak and will start to decline in the second half od this century. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
However, labor force constraints can and most likely will be offset by further gains in labor productivity. Also, there is still a lot of underused human resources in the countryside (about 40 percent of all American worker live in suburban areas) whose migration to the cities will continue to boost labor supply. However, many businesses are now leaving the decaying urban centers, for the suburbs, and many people are working from their electronic cottages. As a result, more businesses will move to the suburbs, which should decrease inner state traffic. As for the growing number and share of elderly people, America with its high migration rates, unhealthy public finance, extremely high social spending, and high dependency toward social safety nets in the future, is in a good position to address the population aging issues in a realistic and financially sustainable way. However, many senior citizens are now small business owners and in good health and are working and support their families, while their kids go to college to obtain degrees, and one day may take over the family business and expand it. Also, the genetic engineer and stem cell technology, we may be able to prevent and cure disabilities. Therefore, most of the population will be in the condition to work and pay taxes. One day, scientists may even find a cure for aging. So, there is a lot of hope for the future. Growing Income Gaps? Well, indeed, they are growing, but, on the other hand, low-income families are mostly elevating their earnings and consumption standards; social safety nets are improving; and, overall, today’s America provides a lot of opportunities to enhance revenues and life a better life to those who really want to make it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Intra-Regional Development Gaps Threatening the Country’s Integrity? Not at all. It is not a critical problem as less developed provinces are becoming the country’s major growth engines and the state has enough financial and other resources to support and amplify the trend. Environmental Damage Endangering the Very Basis of Human Life? No doubt, a whole lot of issues have become critical. However, America is more and more establishing the position of the World leaders in most areas of sustainable smokestack energy, as these companies like Standard Oil are starting to tackle the environmental problems in the same gradual, evolutionarily, but persistent manner it tackled the other ones. And, finally, is there a threat of a big political and social turmoil that may occur as people’s anger with the authoritarian Capitalist regime and democratic political system bursts out and they take to the streets again? Fringe groups of Americans have also been dissatisfied with law and order and hard work, and their anger with the regime is really strong and apparently growing, impacted by numerous cases of power abuse, rampant corruption, disrespect for law enforcement, abuse elder and contempt for leaders, and a lack of respect for patriots and Americana, and other violations of basic human rights. A fresh memory of mine…Some three or four years ago, during a reception in hour of a group of American professors visiting Africa, two of them approached me for a greeting and asked a tough question: “Sir, why don’t you write plainly the America’s present political system is outdated and has to be changed? It worked, but now it has ceased to work. For us it is kind of problematic to write such a thing. Why don’t you?” #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
What could I say to this? For sure, democracy and human rights have a basic, universal value and are perhaps not less (or even more?) important than economic growth and rising living standards, but really all of that is intertwined. Generally speaking, people are disrespected because they do not have enough money, because the color of their skin, religion, physical appearance and what type of house they live in and the car they drive. However, as standards of living increases, through economic growth, people become more rational, better education, and have more money to defend themselves in a court of law, so people reconsider violating these peoples’ human rights because they know they may suffer dire financial and legal consequences as a result, which could impact their freedom and reputation. However, on a macro level, we are seeing people raging against the capitalistic regime and they are actually fighting to restrict freedoms and destroy human dignity; information block-outs are now occurring because a handful of corporations own the media outlets and are fighting to conceal the truth; as well as cynical politicians consorting with the World’s most dictatorial and criminal regimes, which often get a helping hand from Washington when the global community tries to do something to put an end to their brutalities (notably, America tends to mind its own business and condemns brutal regimes for massacres of all people or for developing weapons of mass destruction; it always repeats honest and genuine calls to resolve issues peacefully and not to interfere with internal affairs when possible), naturally, this causes resentment, anger, and indignation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
It is a moral and historical obligation of all America and all honest people in the World who care about justice, the rule of law, mortality, and individual freedom to do their best to send the global leadership a clear message about it. On the other hand, values, ideals, and emotions are not the right starting point when your task is to analyze the logic of the evolution of the country’s political system. And there the truth is that America is approaching the task of changing its political system in the very same way it has approached the task of the economic reforms; gradual, evolutionary, but persistent. Its ruling elite is really trying to find workable answers to key and very difficult questions, while avoiding, by all means, any abrupt revolutionary change. At the dawn of 2020, President Trump proclaimed that everything which is good for a human being is capitalism, that is it not so important if you drive a Cadillac or BMW as long as it is made in America or Europe, and that there is no problem with some Americans becoming rich earlier than others. A variety of forms of ownership is encouraged to give a boost to private enterprise and less the burden on social programs. Many affluent people, this may come to a surprise to some, when they retire, it is funded 100 percent by private investments. Wealthy and upper-class Americans have always felt shameful to use government resources, that is why they believe in capitalism. They want to pay for their lunch. After his election, President Trump boosted the stock market to record highs, we saw property value soar (which is a good thing because it puts money in the banks of homeowners), and unemployment reach a historic low. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Also, although President Trump is a Republican, he is also a business owner. He fought to make sure each and every America, no matter if they pack income taxes or not, and every business received stimulus money. This helped avoid a depression that would have been much more severe than the Great Depression. Because people have hope, they did not jump from buildings to end their lives like they did during the great depression. President Trump also made sure all Americans has access to medical care, that they had food on the table and that fuel prices remained low so people could get back to work and school. He also told people that they have a right to tell authorities about their grievances, in a respectful manner, but that is they got out of line that the situation would be dealt with by using necessary force. He also told Congress and state and local leaders that they are to listen to what the people say, as long as they are respectful, and seek solutions for the issues they pose. Also, perhaps, America is the World leader in terms of the number of high-ranking officials executed for corruption-related crimes. The FBI prosecuted several government officials in Sacramento when they raided the state capitol. Again, any changes America makes will not be abrupt: from one party of rule to full-fledged multiparty politics, but evolutionary and very gradual, which is why it is very important to people to actually to research about political issues and politicians and vote accordingly. Many people used to vote democratic because they wanted high welfare benefits and more social programs, but as you see, many democrats are using the money to build sports complexes and remodel state buildings and put in bike lanes and resurface sidewalks, while affordable housing needs are ignored. So a Republican may be your best bet. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
As any business owner will tell you, if your employees cannot take care of themselves, they will not take good care of your business. Therefore, a business owner might make a better President, than a politician because they are used to dealing with human concerns. Citizens are being encouraged by federal law enforcement to stop criticizing the ruling party too strongly because otherwise they may face tough penalties—for example, for disturbing the social order or for being a public nuisance. President Trump was even in the works of making a government news broadcast channel, like FOX News or CNN, so you could get the information directly and unfiltered from the government. That way, private entities and special interest groups will not be able to distort the information for profit. In other words, the major trend is and will be a shift from an outdated communist dictatorship of the traditional type to a more sophisticated political system with a democratic base. This will make the information projected over the airwaves more legitimate in the eyes of World and public opinion or at least to argue that it is legitimate and that it cares about democracy. Look around you and you will see: America is one of the best countries in the World. Now, prostitution is an economic activity, and it is one many people turn to when they cannot feed their families, and this is why the government likes to keep social programs because no matter how rich a person is or what political party, they are part of, their kids could become involved in prostitution if they have no other way to survive. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The prostitutes-as-business-women and prostitutes-as-loving-partners identifications were made possible by a men-as-expense symbolic landscape where men were defined in relation to money because involvement with them was seen as necessitating payment in the form of “opportunity costs” (id est, vales which must be given up in order to achieve something) and “hidden costs” (id est values which are unknown at the time of calculation). The men-as-expense symbolic nexus was a construction of involvement with men in general rather than involvement with men in the context of engagement in prostitution. Hence, Sophie (aged 28) made the comment: “If you get involved with a man—ANY MAN—there’s always a price to pay. There’s always responsibility to give him money or something. You never can get away with it for free.” Throughout all the respondents’ talk there were differences drawn between the actual opportunity cost incurred by relationships with different categories of men. Involvement with pimps, boyfriends and the police were described as necessitating an opportunity cost in that the women understood involvement with all these men as providing them with “sanctuary” from prostitution or protection from prostitution-related risks, but at different and specific prices. “What I was left with was absolute fear and terror—a loneliness on a level I didn’t know existed. I didn’t feel like a human being anymore,” Michelle shares of her heartbreaking story of addiction—an addiction that eventually drove her to become a prostitute. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Most of the women spoke about boyfriends with whom they were or had been involved and who gave them sanctuary from prostitution through financially supporting them. However, the women described such involvement as costing them their independence and it was their unwillingness to pay this price that, they believed, lead to the break up of those relationships. Similarly, involvement with policemen was seen as offering the women protection from prostitution-related violence, especially against violence from pimps. In her moments of deepest darkness, Michelle began entertaining the idea that maybe God could help her, maybe He could provide hope and light like to one else could. “My World changed. You don’t life a life like that and then have things change overnight. It took some time,” she says. Indeed, two other women recalled that it was only after the intervention of the police that they were able to leave their pimps. However, here, the police did not arrest the pimps, rather they arrested the women and took them to hostels or other helping agencies. The price for this was understood as being both provision of information to the police, and more importantly being “indebted” to the particular policeman who provided the help. In one of her moments of desperation, Michelle heard a knock on the door. Two police officers were on her doorstep and wanted to share a message with her. “I needed to know that Heavenly Father loved me. Once I started to believe that—to believe that I was a child of God, that I want not the sum of my behavior, that I was not too broke and not too damaged. I was not unlovable. I was loveable and I was worth it, and He would send His police officers to knock on the door to make me feel loved that night.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Lastly, in relation in relation to pimps, more than half of the interviewees talked of making calculations about the quality of protection that pimps could offer them (against violence from johns or intimidation by other pimps) in exchange for the financial exploitation to which they would have to submit. This was most clearly seen in the women’s discussion of “big, bad pimps.” “Once they know who you’re working for and what status he’s got—like who’s the baddest, who’s got the gun and who hasn’t. You have only to mention his name and that was that. People leave you alone. Other [pimps] and other girls just leave you be. They don’t meddle because he’s psychotic! He’s notorious! He’s one very sick and twisted individual. People are afraid of him. (Anna, aged 36.) Of course, the obvious irony is that, although the women understood involvement with their pimps as a form of opportunity cost, providing them with protection, in reality, these pimps provided them with little protection and, in fact, exposed to them further violence and certainly to further financial exploitation. (I supposed they must have shorted him on his money.) In contrast, involvement with men as partners was described by the women as incurring “hidden costs.” In two cases, the hidden cost was initial entrance into prostitution. Both women talked about “having the knickers charmed off” them and being talked into engaging in prostitution. The cost was hidden because it only emerged after their relationships with these men were established. More commonly, however, was the woman’s understanding of the cost of maintaining their relationships as being their continued involvement in prostitution. As Anna (aged 36) stated: “There’s a lot of pressure. You have to do it, coz you need the money yourself. Then you get mixed up with someone and you have to do it again to help him, to keep a hold of him.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
A community committed to the optimal development of all its citizens will usually find—unless it is very small—that it has an array of all six types of agencies, both public and private. At the national level these are mostly grouped in the new Department of Health, Education and Welfare; at the local level, the city departments (plus some units of county and state) tend to cover the range, though very unevenly, and so do the councils of social agencies on the private side. Together they make up an impressive complement of personnel and machinery. From the administrative standpoint, not more machinery but its co-ordination to sever the family as a unit, appears to be the most pressing demand. From the standpoint of the citizen and family, however, the salient point is the effect achieved by the expenditure of resources; what matters is whether the agencies encourage dependency or foster development. Expressed in terms of values rather than functions, does the family agency attempt to define and achieve an optimal family, or does it avoid such responsibility, and merely seek to supply the most obvious and agreed-on deficiencies, as if these deficiencies were objective facts, not subject to different interpretations? In most parts of the United States of America, the hospital rather than the home is the place where babies are born and where patients with the more acute illnesses are cared for. Professional nurses and subordinate assistants have largely displaced kind relatives and helpful neighbors. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Yet while the hospitals have been taking over certain medical functions from the home, the biological scientists have been urging that greater responsibilities for nutrition, sanitation, and mental hygiene should fall upon the family itself. The vast and burdensome scale of mental disease in particular, which cannot possibly be reversed solely by psychiatric treatment at the point of breakdown, as well as an increased consciousness of the contribution of disturbed mental states to physical illness, have led physicians to expect more from the family than in the past. Nursing education steadily includes more social science. Likewise, the modern knowledge of bacterial and other origins of disease, and the biochemistry of healthful nutrition, have led to the elaboration of genuinely new functions, whereby the family may contribute to the physical competence of its members. Even if desirable, it would not be possible to have a psychiatrist, a bacteriologist, and a dietitian stand over every living unit of the community. If there is to be a rise in health along these lines, the members of each living unit must co-operate in supervising their own hygiene. It is not easy to think of a better institution for performing these functions than the competent family. There is a conspicuous problem for present families who attempt to cultivate the physical competence of their members. This is not really a medical problem at all but an economic one. It is the problem of hospital and doctor bills, and of spreading the risks of chronic or catastrophic illness. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The believer needing deliverance from the condition of passivity must first seek to understand what should be one’s normal or right condition, and then test or examine oneself in the light of it to discern if psychopathological offenders have been interfering. To do this, let one recollect a moment in one’s life which one would call one’s “best”—either in spirit, soul and body, or in one’s whole being—and then let one look upon this as one’s normal condition, one which one would want to be maintained, and never rest satisfied below it. Since the passivity has come about gradually it can only end gradually, as it is detected and destroyed. The full cooperation of the human is necessary for its removal—a major reason for the long period needed for deliverance. Deception and passivity can only be removed as the human understands, and cooperates by the use of one’s volition in the refusal of both the deception and the ground upon which it was based. It is important to keep perpetually in mind the standard of the normal condition, and should at any time the believer drop below it, to find out the cause, so as to have it removed. Whatever faculty or part of one’s being has been surrendered into passivity, and therefore lost for use, must be retaken by the active exercise of the will, and thus brought back into personal control. The ground which had been given—which caused the fall into bondage to the enemy—must be eliminated and then refuse persistently, in a steady resistance to the spirits of evil in their hold of it. Remember, the powers of psychopathological offenders will fight against the loss of any part of their kingdom in human, just as any Earthly government would fight to protect its own territory and subjects. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
However, the “Stronger than he” is the Conqueror, and will strengthen the believer for the battle and full recovery of the spoil. First of all, the method of correlation is seen in action, the posing of existential questions followed by theological answers in the form of Christian symbols. Up to now the method of correlation has not been explicitly operative; rather, we have synthesized the union of religion and culture. Second, God, the Christ, the church, history—corresponds to the major divisions of Systematic Theology, and so we gradually progress systematically and express a lifetime of theological endeavor. The existential question is the question of being, and the answer is God. Also treated is the problem of the natural-supernatural and the problem of symbolism, or the way to speak about God. Thus we probe into the depth-dimension which underlies theonomous cultural forms, the holy which shines through the secular, the ground of being which alone can command the ultimacy of an ultimate concern. God is the answer to the question implied in being. We are nominalist by birth. And as nominalist we are inclined to dissolve our World into things. However, the true ontological question does not try to describe the nature of beings, either in their universal, generic qualities, or in their individual, historical manifestation. It simply asks: What does it mean to be? The profundity and the seriousness of the question is realized only in a “metaphysical shock”—the shock of possible nonbeing. The question, “Why is there something, why not nothing” produces the shock by peering into the abyss of possible nothingness. However, the answer to the question is always in terms of being, which permits it to be posed again and again in infinite regression. Furthermore, nonbeing cannot answer it, for nonbeing depends upon being. Therefore, we cannot go beyond being in order to explain being. However, there could be something, a state, beyond being and nonbeing that we cannot comprehend. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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In a Few Years, California Will be the Capitol of Mexico
I confess that what I saw during my time of travel and investigation left me with a very heavy heart. The work to be done in order to lift these people up seemed almost beyond accomplishing. The debate over the nature and extend of the relationship between heroin used and criminal activity is a long-standing one which has generated a voluminous literature. An increase in criminality commonly occurs in conjunction with increased heroin use in the United States of America. The addict of lower socioeconomic class is generally a criminal primarily because illicit narcotics are costly and because one can secure one’s daily requirements more readily by committing crimes that will pay for them. The Heroin addict has a criminality that maybe a consequence of addiction, albeit an indirect one. As physical dependence upon and tolerance for heroin increases, and the cost of progressively larger dosages of heroin increase proportionally, some addicts seem to be driven to criminal means to satisfy his or her habit. Empirically, this hypothesis predicts a linear increase in heroin consumption and a corresponding increase in criminal activity necessary to support it. In contrast, a second hypothesis maintains that the principal explanation for the association between drug abuse and crime is likely to be found in the subcultural attachment comprised of the criminal associations, identifications, and activities of those persons who eventually become addicted. The basis for this hypothesis can only be understood in the context of the contemporary sociolegal milieu in which narcotics use takes place. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Since the criminalization of heroin in 1914, the social World of narcotics has become increasingly intertwined with the broader criminal subculture. Consequently, would-be narcotics users inevitably associate with other criminals in the highly criminal copping areas of inner cities, and, indeed, are often recruited from delinquent and criminal networks. Through these criminal associations, therefore, the individual is introduced to heroin, and both crime and heroin use are facilitated and maintained. Empirically, this second hypothesis predicts increases in heroin use following or coinciding with periods of criminal association and activity. A shorthand title for the first hypothesis is “Drugs cause crimes”; for the second “Crimes cause drugs.” Our contribution to understand the dynamics of the drugs-crime connection is based upon life-history interviews with 32 hard core heroin addicts in the Sacramento, California area. We purposely selected the respondents on the basis of their extensive involvement in the heroin subculture. All of the respondents had extensive contact with the criminal justice system. At the time of interview, 24 of the 32 respondents were incarcerated or under some form of correctional authority supervision (exempli gratia, supervised custody, work release, parole, or probation). While this places certain limits on the generalization that can be made from these data, the focus of this study is the dynamics of addiction among heavily-involved street addicts. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
To further highlight this experience, controlled users or “chippers” will not have experienced many of the dynamics reported here. Similarly physicians, nurses, and middle class “prescription abusers” are not typically subject to many of the constraints experienced by lower-class street users. Hence, it is important to emphasize that the findings we report here are intended to describe “hard core” urban heroin addicts. Women are slightly overrepresented, constituting 14 of the 32 respondents. Ethnically, the sample consist of 23 African-Americans and nine European-Americans; Hispanic-Americans are not represented because there was no access to them at the time of this study. Respondents were paid five dollars per hour for their interview time, which undoubtedly contributed to the 100 percent response rate. The interviews ranged from 10 to 25 hours in length, with each interview session averaging between three and four hours. With a single exception, all of the interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. Respondents and most of the street respondents were selected with the assistance of treatment personnel who were carefully instructed regarding the goals of the research and selection criteria. This strategy proved invaluable for two reasons. First, by utilizing treatment personnel in the screening process, we were able to avoid the time-consuming task of establishing the “appropriateness” of respondents for the purposes of this research: the treatment personnel were already intimately familiar with the drug-using and criminal histories of the respondents. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Second, the treatment personnel had an unusually positive relationship with Sacramento-area drug users. The treatment counselor in the prison system was regarded as an ally in the quest for better living conditions, appeals for early release, et cetera, and was regarded as highly trustworthy in the prison subculture. His frequent confrontations with prison inmates. Similarly, the treatment counselor who assisted in the selection of street respondents was carefully selected on the basis of his beneficial involvement with street addicts. His relationship with area addicts is a long-standing and multifaceted one. His reputation among street addicts was firmly established when he successfully negotiated much needed reforms in one of the local treatment agencies. Because of the long-standing beneficial relationship they had with area addicts, this initial contact by treatment personnel greatly facilitated our establishing necessary rapport. After a few initial interviews were completed, several broad focal areas emerged which formed the basis for future questioning. Respondents were interviewed regarding: childhood and early adolescent experiences which may have served as predisposing factors for eventual drugs/criminal involvement: initial encounters with various types of drugs and criminality; the evolution of their drug and criminal careers; their patterns of activity during peak periods of drug use and criminality, including descriptions of typical days during these periods; their preferences for types of crimes and drugs; the structure of understanding guiding drug use and criminal activity; and their perception of the nature and effectiveness of drug treatment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Structuring the life-history interviews in this way insured that most relevant career phases were covered while at the same time it permitted the respondents a great deal of flexibility in interpreting their experiences. One of the earliest strategies for testing the Drug-cause-crime versus Crimes-cause-drugs hypotheses involved trying to establish that a pattern of regular or extensive criminal behavior typically precedes heroin addiction, that finding would tend to support the Crimes-cause-drugs hypothesis. Conversely, is a pattern of regular or extensive criminality tends to develop after the onset of heroin addiction, that finding would tend to support the Drugs-cause-crimes hypothesis. Previous research on this question is mixed, but mixed in a systematic way. Most of the early studies found little criminality before the onset of opiate addition. Later studies, by contrast, have shown a high probability of criminality preceding heroin addiction. Our life-history interviews are consistent with the findings of the recent studies. All of our respondents reported some criminal activity prior to their first use of heroin. However, for nearly all of our respondents, both their criminal careers and their heroin-using careers began slowly. For the respondents in our study, a median of 3.5 years elapsed between their first serious criminal offense and subsequent involvement in criminal activity on a regular basis. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Likewise, all of our respondents reported at least occasional use of other illicit drugs prior to their first experience with heroin. Moreover, many of our respondents indicated that they spent substantial periods of time—months and even years—using heroin on an occasional basis (“chipping” or “chippying”), either inhaling the powder (“sniffing” or “snorting”), injecting the prepared (“cooked”) mixture subcutaneously (“skinpopping”), or receiving occasional intravenous injections from other users before becoming regular users themselves. Perhaps most importantly, virtually all of our respondents reported that they believed that their criminal and drug careers began independently of one another, although both careers became intimately interconnected as each evolved. In the earliest phases if their drug and crime careers, the decision to commit crimes and the decision to use drugs were choices which our respondents believed they freely chose to make and which they believed they could have discontinued before either choice became a way of life. From our interviews it appears that two very general factors shape and influence the drug and crime careers of our respondents, not only during the early stages of each career but as each career evolves through different stages. The first of these factors in the availability of heroin rather than the level of physical tolerance the user has developed “The more you had the more you did,” explains “Mona” a thirty-year-old female. “And if all you have was $10 than that’s all you did…But if you had $200 then you did that much.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Addicts are able to adjust to periods of sharply decreased availability (exempli gratia “panic” periods when supplies of street heroin disappear) by reducing consumption or my using alternative drugs (exempli gratia methadone). They are also able to manipulate availability, increasing or decreasing it in ways and for reason we will discuss. As we use the term, availability also means something more than access to sellers of heroin who have quantities of the drug to sell. By availability we also mean the resources and opportunities to buy the drug to sell. By availability we also mean the resources and opportunities to buy heroin or obtain it in other ways as well as the skills necessary to use it. In short, availability is understood to include considerations of all of those opportunities and obstacles which may influence a heroin user’s success in introducing a quantity of the drug into his or her bloodstream. The second general factor shaping the drugs and crime careers of our life-history interviewees is life-structure. By “life structure” we mean regularly occurring patterns of daily domestic, occupational, recreational, or criminal activity. Recent ethnographic accounts of heroin-using careers in several major cities reveal that, like their “straight” counterparts, most addicts maintain reasonably predictable daily routines. Throughout their lives or respondents fulfilled, to one degree or another, conventional as well as criminal and other subcultural roles. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
In fact, during most periods of their crime and drug careers, our interviewees spent far more time engaged in conventional as well as criminal and other subcultural roles. In fact, during most periods of their crime and drug careers, our interviewees spent far more time engaged in conventional role activities than in criminal deviant ones. Many worked conventional jobs. Women with children performed routine housekeeping and child-rearing duties. Many leisure-time activities did not differ from those of non-addicts. These hard-core addicts spent time grocery shopping, tinkering with cars, visiting relatives, talking with friends, listening to records, and watching television in totally unremarkable fashion. Life structure in the hard core criminal addict’s life can be also provided by some rather stable forms of criminal activity. Burglars spend time staking out business establishments. Shoplifters typically establish “runs,” more or less stable sequences of targeted stores from which to “boost” during late morning, noon, and early afternoon hours, saving the later afternoon for fencing what they have stolen. Prostitutes typically keep a regular evening and night-time schedule, which runs from 7 P.M. to 3 A.M. Mornings are usually spent sleeping and afternoons are usually occupied with conventional duties. It is within this structure of conventional and criminal roles that buying (“copping”), selling (“dealing”), and using (“shooting”) heroin takes place. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Likewise, prostitutes seek to manage their drug use so that neither withdrawal symptoms (“joneses”) nor periods of heroin-induced drowsiness will interfere with their work. In order to meet the demands of criminal or conventional roles, addicts in our sample often used other drugs (exempli gratia marijuana, barbiturates, alcohol, amphetamines, methadone) to alter their moods and motivations, saving heroin as a regard for successful completing a job or meeting other obligations. Of one thing I felt more strongly convinced than ever, after spending time in seeing the actual life of these people, and that was that, in order to life them up, something must be done more than merely imitate New England education as it existed. I saw more clearly than ever the wisdom of the system which General Armstrong had inaugurated at Hampton. To take these people, and each day give them a few hours of education, I felt would be almost a waste. The shock is great when one first apprehends the truth of deception as possible for oneself; but as the ultimate issue is realized, the joy of the one who sets oneself to understand and fight through to full deliverance is more than words can tell. Light pours in upon the unsolved problems of years, in both one’s personal experience and in the perplexities surrounding one, as well as on the conditions in the Church and in the World. As one seeks for light from the ultimate concern, the subtle inroads of the deceiving spirits into one’s life slowly become clear to the open-minded believer; and their many devices to deceive one stand revealed as the searchlight of truth goes far back into the past, uncovering the cause of unaccountable difficulties in experience and life, and many mysterious happenings which had been accepted as “the inscrutable will of God.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
PASSIVITY! How many have fallen into it, little knowing their state! Through the misuse of their faculties much time is lost in dependence upon the help of outward circumstances and environment. In the lives of so many there is much “doing,” with so little accomplished…many beginnings, and few endings. How familiar we are with the words, “Yes, I can do that,” and the impulse is there, but by the time the need for action has come the passive man has lost his momentary interest. This is the key to much of the lamented “apathy” and the dulled sympathy of Christians to really spiritual things, while they are keenly alive to the social or Worldly elements around them. The Worldling can be stirred in acutest feeling for the sufferings of others, but many of the children of God have, unknowingly, opened themselves to a supernatural power which has dulled them in thought and mind and sympathy. Ever craving for comfort and happiness and peace in spiritual things, they have sung themselves into a “passivity”—id est, a passive state of “rest,” “peace” and “joy”—which has given opportunity to the powers of darkness to lock them up in the prison of themselves, and thus make them incapable of sensitively understanding the needs of a suffering World. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
The equilibrium between cultural substance and form is achieved in a theonomy which embraces the truth of autonomy and heteronomy while avoiding their errors. Theonomy rejects both a divine law imposed by outside authority and a self-sufficient reason divorced from its depth. It demands that man seek a superior law which is at the same time rooted in the divine ground of being that lies at the depth of reason. The result is a theonomous culture which expresses in its creation an ultimate concern and a transcending meaning not as something strange but as its own spiritual ground. Theonomous creations are vessels of a spiritual content. Religion is the substance of culture, and culture the form of religion. Theonomy, autonomy, and heteronomy as cultural types constantly act and interact in dialectical fashion. The shallowness of an autonomous, secularized culture creates a vacuum of despair, a sacred void which preludes the advent of a theonomous period in which empty cultural forms receive substance and depth. Theonomy, however, tends to degenerate into an oppressive heteronomy which, in turn, provokes an autonomous reaction, and so the cycle begins anew. For instance, Clement and Origen created a Christian theonomy which later came under the heteronomous influence of Athanasius and Augustine. The Middle Ages stated a theonomy and ended in heteronomy. The Renaissance had theonomous qualities, but deteriorated into autonomy. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
The Reformation itself developed into the heteronomy of Protestant orthodoxy and then succumbed to the triumphant autonomy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These examples illustrate that theonomy, though realizable, is ever fragile and incomplete. Its victory is always fragmentary because of the existential estrangement underlying human history, and its defeat is always limited by the fact that human nature is essentially theonomous. A description of the general qualities of a theonomous culture serves to highlight the reciprocal influence of the three cultural types. The first characteristic of theonomy is that it communicates the experience of holiness, of something ultimate inbeing and meaning, in all its creations. This theonomous style appears even in the most limited vehicles of meaning—a painted flower, a family habit, a technical tool, a form of social intercourse, the vision of a historical figure, an epistemological theory, a political document, and so on. The second characteristic is the affirmation of the autonomous forms of the creative process. The moment theonomy fails to respect legitimate autonomy and the freedom of the human spirit, it becomes heteronomy. The third characteristic of a theonomous culture is its permanent struggle against both an independent autonomy and an independent heteronomy. Only theonomy can prevent them from inflicting upon mankind either a meaningless or a destructive culture. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Asking which nations will dominate the 21st century is an exciting game. However, it is, in fact, the wrong question to ask—or at least the wrong form on which to ask it—because it overlooks what could turn out to be the biggest change in global affairs since the rise of the nation-state: the coming of the Global Gladiators. A new group of power-seekers are leaping onto the World stage and seizing sizable chunks of the clout once control by nations alone. Some are good; some, decidedly psychopaths. When a blood-besotted Ayatollah Khomeini called for a martyr to murder Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses Mr. Khomeini denounced as blasphemous, he sent a historic message to all the World’s governments. That message was instantly communicated via satellite, television, and print. The message, however, was totally misunderstood. One may argue that Mr. Rushdie’s book was in bad taste, that it deliberately offended many Muslims, that it derided an entire religion, that it violated the Koran. Indeed, Mr. Khomeini said these things. However, that was not the real message. Mr. Khomeini was telling the World that the nation-state is no longer the only, or even the most important, actor on the World stage. Superficially, Mr. Khomeini seemed to be saying that Iran, itself a sovereign state, had the “right” to dictate what the citizens of other equally sovereign nations could or could not read. In claiming this right, and threatening to enforce it with terrorism, Mr. Khomeini suddenly catapulted censorship from a matter of domestic concern to the level of a global issue. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
In a World that is witnessing the glocalization of the economy and the globalization of the media, Mr. Khomeini was demanding the globalization of mind-control. Other religions, in past eras, have asserted a similar right, and burned heretics at the stake. However, in threatening cross-border assassination, Mr. Khomeini was doing more than attacking Salman Rushdie—a British citizen. He was challenging the most fundamental right of any nation-state, the right to protect its citizens at home. What Mr. Khomeini was really telling us was that “sovereign” states are not sovereign at all, but subject to a higher Shiite sovereignty, which he alone would define—that a religion or church had rights that supersede those of mere nation-states. He was, in fact, challenging the entire structure of “modern” international law and custom, which until then had been based on the assumption that nations are the basic units, they key players on the global stage. This assumption pictured a planet neatly divided into states, each with its flag and army, its clearly mapped territory, a seat in the U.N., and certain reasonably defined legal rights. It is no accident that, to much of the World, Mr. Khomeini seemed a cruel throwback to the preindustrial era. He was. His assertion of the rights of religion over nation-states paralleled the doctrine medieval Popes expressed during centuries of bloody church-state conflict. The reason this is important is that we may well be circling back to the kind of World system that existed before industrialism, before political power was packaged into clearly defined national entities. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
That pre-smokestack World was a hodgepodge of city-states, pirate-held ports, feudal princedoms, religious movements, and other entities, all scrambling for power and asserting rights that we, today, assume belong only to governments. What we might now call nations were few and far between. It was a heterogeneous system. By contrast, the nation-state system that evolved during the smokestack centuries was far more standardized and uniform. We are now moving back to a more heterogeneous global system again—only in a fast-changing World of high technology, instantaneous communication, nuclear missiles, and chemical warfare. This is an immense leap that carries us forward and backward at the same time, and propels religion once more to the center of the global stage. And not just Islamic extremism. A totally different case in point is the growing global power of the Catholic Church. Papal diplomacy has figured recently in major political changes from the Philippines to Panama. In Poland, where the church won admiration for its courageous opposition to the communist regime, it has emerged as a dominant force behind the first noncommunist government. Vatican diplomats claim that the recent changes all across Eastern Europe were, in large measure, triggered by Pope John Paul II. The Pope is no fanatic and has reached out to other religions. He has spoken out against interethnic violence. Yet echoes of a long-distant pre-secular past are heard in his call for a “Christian Europe” and his repeated criticism of Western European democracies. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
The Pope’s policies call to mind a long-forgotten document that was circulated in European capitals in 1918 urging the creation of a Catholic superstate made up of Bavaria, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Bohemia, Slovakia, and Poland. The Pope’s proposed Christian (though presumably not exclusively Catholic) Europe today embraces all of Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, with a population of nearly 800 million people. Such religious stirrings are part of the gathering attack on the secular assumptions that underpinned democracy in the industrial era and kept a healthy distance between church and state. (If Europe is Christian, as distinct from secular, where do nonbelievers fit in, or Hindus or Jews, or the 13 million Muslim immigrants encouraged to come to Europe to serve as affordable labor in the recent past? (Some Muslim fundamentalists actually dream of Islamicizing Europe. Says the director of the Institute of Islamic Culture in Paris: “In a few years Paris will be capital of Islam, just as Baghdad and Cairo were in other eras.”) The emerging global power game in the decades ahead cannot be understood without taking into account the rising power of Islam, Catholicism, and other religions—or of global conflicts and holy wars among them. I know that one who makes a mistake does so because of one’s own lack of opportunity for the highest growth. I pity those type of people because I know that they are trying to stop the progress of the World, and because I know that in time the development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make one ashamed of one’s weak and narrow position. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Self-regulation and autonomy have emerged as key predictors of health and well-being in several areas of psychology. Autonomy has been provisionally defined as the ability to be one’s self. Analytically considered, it involves and requires knowing one’s self; having or finding an unambiguous identity to refer to in each situation; and being able to govern one’s self in the sense of being able to choose among alternatives. The development of autonomy is not synonymous with the development with a self, though emergence of a self is indispensable. The growth of autonomy is taken as measurable and as varying within and among individuals over time. Preliminary work indicates that a satisfactory index can be devised, although the invention of such a measure requires considerable analysis of the pattern in which autonomy is exhibited, so as to differentiate these as consequents from the reproducible condition hypothecated as their regular antecedents. The giving and receiving of characterizations of self and others not only exhibit various degrees of ease and constraint, but whether one’s self-concept is ratified rather than enforced by others is often ambiguous. That human beings are characterized by the possession of selves. Experimentally, it requires that the antecedent conditions conducive to increase in autonomy be distinguishable from autonomy as a dependent variable. Because autonomy is perhaps more vulnerable than any other component of competence to being constructed as a state of affairs, a trait, or a form of virtuous conduct following definite commandments, it is important to reiterate that it is here regarded as an acquired ability to handle certain aspects of problematic interpersonal situations with greater or lesser success. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Health which itself is one of the components of competence, significantly conditions all the other components including autonomy. The condition of health—nutrition, rest, hygiene—are therefore indirectly biological conditions of autonomy. However, there are a few biological conditions which more directly affect autonomy than through their influence upon physical health. In marriage and family living, these concern sexual adequacy and fertility, where these enter into self-respect and sense of worth, in the estimation of self and others. To the extent that sexual adequacy and skill can be improved by knowledge, practice, or medical treatment, a contribution is made by knowledge, practice, or medical treatment, a contribution is made to autonomy, id est, the person becomes more able to handle interpersonal situations making demands upon one’s sexual competence. The fact that there is a circular relationship here, in which autonomy significantly affects sexual functioning, implies the reverse proposition as a corollary hypothesis worthy of investigation. Fatigue as a biological variable distinguishable from health significantly conditions autonomy, and is also often the product of absence of autonomy. If practices are followed by which energy is fostered and fatigue diminished, at those times when the severest demands are made upon autonomy, autonomous capacity is itself increased. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Association in play exclusively with those with whom one is at a physical disadvantage, especially in the same family, leads to recurrent experiences of failure and submission which inhibit the development of autonomy. The optimal distributional of success and failures occurs when physical opponents are evenly matched in competition. The more adequate sexual satisfaction is in marriage, the less frequent is extra-marital sexual experience and consequent threats to mutually supported self-esteem. Cultivation of physical appearance—ccomplexion, weight, grace, posture, grooming—contributes to the growth of autonomy. Space for physical privacy and quiet—reduction of stimulation—facilitates the integration of new conceptions of self, especially during adolescence, and thus contributes to the development of autonomy. Autonomy is positively corelated with children’s opportunity progressively to earn money for performance of economically significant work and to gain practice in the management of their own economic affairs. (Safeguards against exploitation are assumed.) Economic independence develops autonomy, while chronic dependence undermines autonomy, unemployment undermines autonomy. Work which continually challenges the capacities of the person without taxing them beyond their limits enhances autonomy. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Continuous employment at work far below one’s level of capacity reduces autonomy. Continuous employment at work which exceeds one’s capacities and causes a chronic judgment of failure by others and self reduces autonomy. Continual exposure to marked differences of reward for comparable effort reduces autonomy, whereas recognition of differences of effort by differences of reward enhances autonomy. Autonomy develops in direct proportions to the experience of participation in governing the conditions of economic life. Constant exposure to the inducement of wants which cannot realistically be satisfied reduces autonomy, whereas the inducement of wants which cannot realistically be satisfied reduces autonomy, whereas the inducement of wants within the range of realistic anticipation of achieving the means of realizing them encourages the growth of autonomy. Exclusive evaluation of personal worth by monetary standards reduces autonomy, whereas making available multiple criteria of personal worth cultivates autonomy. Voluntary and informed participation in the production of valued goods and services develops autonomy. Team play means that you alone cannot get too far out ahead of the troops. You cannot because in our company it is necessary to consult and check over everything. Someone will ask whether this does not lead to a certain amount of mediocrity. It does. There is an optimal balance of work and leisure which maximizes autonomy. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
It would be safe to say that overall, China has been fighting excessive lending and financial bubbles more persistently and successfully than most countries in the West. Chinese financial institutions do not play with tricky structured financial instruments the way their Western counterpart do—both because of tight government regulations and the lack of market infrastructure as well as financiers who are versed in such transactions. It goes without saying that financial sectors in China and in the West are going through different development stages. However, in the global economic arena China and the West are competing in a real-time format—and in this competition, paradoxically, China’s earlier stage works as a source of strength, shielding it from financial gambling risks the West is fighting, often unsuccessfully. Also, there is little doubt that from now on, while further developing its financial instruments, China will act much more cautiously than most of its Western counterparts, paying much more attention to accommodating and minimizing associated risks. In the West it is often argued that a wide variety of financial instruments, including risky ones, is needed to create money, which is invested in various industries. Nevertheless, China provides plenty of funds for the country’s industries—sometimes, according to Chinese financial authorities, even more than necessary. Today it is Western businesses that are facing a tighter credit squeeze. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 