Many people find making decisions difficult especially when it is necessary to take risks. In addition, there is the fear of possibly being transformed into what is new. Of course the decision will change you. A lot more will be different: It might be the way your day develop, where you live, your circle of friends, and acquaintances. All this can alter. The greatest change, however, will be in you. That is precisely what most people fear. However, truthfully, do you truly want to remain the way you are? Or would you rather grow and change in a beneficial manner? Growth and change are always introduced by a decision. There is a great fear of making a wrong decision. It is the dread of leaving the known and “safe” ground for something unknown. This step, however, signifies the chance to grow. This is where each person has one’s great opportunity. With every decision we choose an opportunity to detach ourselves simultaneously from every other possibility. Whoever truly makes a serious decision actually consciously blocks access to other possibilities.  When it comes right down to it, successful businesses have an abundance of customers. Large or small, companies that are doing well have more customers than they can handle—which means they are easily able to cover their cost, reinvest in the company, and expand. Unfortunately, many small businesses struggle to reach this level of success, to find an admiring target market, and to develop business relationships with enough customers to stay in business. They struggle because they are not using all the marketing tools they can; that is, their marketing is weak. Fortunately, there is a lot that can be done to turn the situation around or to get a business on the right foot. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

However, if you already have a successful big business, you make not want to alienate your target market by taking on a social cause because the goal of running a business is to make profits and when you are dealing with other people’s money, you have an obligation to make responsible decisions. For the truly vital decisions in our lives, we are actually confronted with a choice between the past and the future. We can decide to hold on to what we have. If so, we would not be free to have another opportunity. It also means that we have decided to sever ourselves from our dreams and a vision of a fulfilling future. We can also choose to let go. Then we souls have both hands free to achieve our goals and dreams. It is impossible to hold on to that which gives us “security” and to reach for a vision at the same time. You must separate yourselves either from your “security” or from the possibility of fulfilling your dreams. Winners do not cling; they do not frantically hold on to a situation that they consider unsatisfactory. They can assume risks because they know that anything is better than an unfulfilling minimal existence. For most Europeans, poverty does not mean suffering from hunger, rather, it signifies living a senseless life. There is an enormous difference between playing in order not to lose and playing to win. Whoever endeavours only not to lose is concentrating on the risks and dangers. Whoever it betting on winning, however, has the possibility of victory in view. Which one of the two do you think is happier? Make decision. A person who cannot make decisions loses faith in oneself. Aside from that, it is impossible not to make a decision. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Even when you think you have not made a decision, you really have. You have chosen that everything remains the way it is. Or you have selected indecision. This state cost an enormous amount of energy It weigh heavily You are not free and cannot move around with ease. Why do so many individuals find it so difficult to make decisions? It is owning to the fear of making a “wrong” decision! Yet, that is not even possible because with that choice you have decided against an alternative. You will therefore never know how your life would have turned out had you decided otherwise. Once you have thought about it for a while, you will realize that any decision is better than no decision. Another reason why it is so difficult to make a decision is caused by the illusion that it should be easy and painless. The ideal decision, however seems to be the one that downright forces itself on you. Therefore, people often tend to wait until only one alternative remains. The other alternatives have with time become unattractive. We overlook the fact that it is no longer a matter of making a decision. It is then no longer a choice: it is an escape. Your choice will only really have power when you assess both alternatives. The more you evaluate the alternative that you do not choose, the more you enable the choice that you did favour. We take it to be the unique new task of the contemporary American family and its official helpers to prepare each member for continual reinvolvment and resocialization as a member of the various changing institutions in which one participates outside one’s family. The aim which must accordingly run across all family research and all action by family agencies is to endow every family member with competence for genuine participation, the ability to develop shared commitments to some defined and defining values in every sector of one’s life activity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

It used to be taken for granted that one’s family, social-psychologically speaking, would automatically be identical with one’s biological kin. There have always been exceptions to this correspondence, however, and in the perspective of the present it is conspicuously evident that there may be the widest divergence between one’s circle of intimates—one’s quasi-family of significant others—and one’s actual parents, relatives, mate, or children. The period of adolescence is the classical example of this divergence. The classical picture of the adolescent in revolt against parents seeking still to control one is the classical example of this divergence. The classical picture of the adolescent in revolt against parents seeking still to control him as if he were a child, however, has been superseded in subtle but crucial ways. In the transition of the past half a century from patriarchalism toward liberal, equalitarian relations between parents and children, a transition which children have received greater leeway for developing individuality and self-direction than in the past. They have less need to revolt, or perhaps it could be said that their revolt has been successful. At any rate, restrictions upon the development of a personal style of life and a set of companions to support it have diminished. Yet it is doubtful if parents and children have been brought closer to each other, or, on the other hand, if the children have found the degree of unquestioning support from nonfamily intimates that in the past they expected and got from their families. The gap between generations, so wide in America because of the rapid rate of social change and relatively provincial origins of parents, has if anything continued to widen, despite the countervailing influence of mass media of communication. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

It is almost commonplace to expect that children will see thing differently from their parents. However, the dilemma is that if they are going to see things differently from their parents, how are they going to see them, and what other groups of identification are going to fortify their views? In becoming detached from the values of their parents, millions have not become reattached and committed to alternative, more timely, values. Those in this condition may be compared to a ship which has neither anchor nor rudder nor sails. It would undoubtedly be futile for parents, assuming they themselves hold firm to definite values, to attempt to fasten these on their children, yet nothing can give, or should give, parents more concern than the belief that their children are merely drifting. Moreover, more and more parents themselves seem to have no stable values, and when the obligations of marriage and parenthood are not strengthened through mutual commitment to common value, requiring faithful collaboration through the years, they are seriously weakened. If, therefore, the problem of the guidance of youth is solved, it is likely that it will be solved for whole families at once, and not just for their adolescent members. It would be fatuous to wish for a return of hardships. Yet for the millions of young Americans, especially for those middle-class homes, the problem seems to be that of finding some powerful purpose in life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Merely to find a job, raise a family, and feed their children seems insufficient for them. It is too easy; it calls for no courage, no great struggle, no sacrifice, no threat of failure, no test of self. And it leaves vast potentials unused. To attempt to divert these unused human resources to unplanned recreation—to kill time by having fun—does not do it, or does it only in part, as in the deliberate seeking of danger. Certain thoughtful union and industry leaders are groping for a more challenging conception of “more,” not more in the sense of material gain, but more use of the talents of the man who works. Probably the average student in the liberal arts college at the present time is typical. The most favored of American youth, one yet often is the least happy, because happiness comes from the realization of values, and one’s values are inchoate or not really one’s. Many parents today seem unable to divine the nature of the problem facing their children. Some quite frankly admit to being baffled. “What more can we do?” they say. Like the theorists of adjustment, they only imagine fulfilling wants. What might be more effective is the exact reverse. The creation of wants may seem absurd, until one witnesses the frequent resentment of young adults when their parents solve all their problems for them, thus preventing the from doing things for themselves. Success in struggle is very satisfying. The levity and flippancy now so characteristic of youth only poorly conceals a craving for challenging purposes. If family agencies can transcend the outlook of the older generation and articulate these values, then the potential energies of youth will be directed to new and promising uses. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

If moreover, not youth alone, but parents also, can be imbued with these emergent values and involved in their attainment, the rent between generations could be narrowed. The problems of adolescence (which might justly be called “problems of obsolescence of parental norms”) might then become memorials of that turning point in industrial society when, freed at last from the bonds of scarcity, and recognizing their freedom, human beings began to re-create themselves through their children in a more ideal and versatile image than as slaves of nature. If family agencies construe their tasks in terms most appropriate to the present, they will take the responsibilities of community leadership by attending to emergent values and organizing action for their realization, and in getting the involvement and participation of families and quasi-families. To foster such involvements means to start with the child in the family, for it is here that one’s identity and capacity for further identification are cultivated or discouraged. It is also necessary to think of leadership in nonauthoritarian terms and in a way that is most evocative of spontaneous self-expression. The bulk of the current professional literature on strengthening the family, about the widespread longing for love and commitment, and about the meaning of the small group, revolves around this matter of identification. Modern man is in search of a soul. That is, in secular terms, in search of an identity to which he can be firmly committed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

The family is the ideal type of all social bonds. Marriage is the ideal type of formal commitment to a tie of common identity. Courtship is the ideal type of experimentation in finding others to whom full commitment appears promising. Parenthood is the ideal type of identification with the welfare of posterity. The solidarity of the whole community cannot surpass the solidarity of these its nuclear constituents. The solidarity of the whole community cannot surpass the solidarity of these its nuclear constituents. The family will be solid as long as there are vales for which it may function; its members will unite with others in the community as their families endow them with competence for sharing the orientation of others. If a child can make such commitments, no parent need worry about sending one out into the World; without them—or the capacity for making them—the child most removed from want is still in peril, even while in the custody of one’s parents. In the cause of husband and wife, also, since personality is never formed but always in the process of being formed regardless of age, it is likewise true that only as there exists the capacity for widening and deepening involvement will the marriage progress. The salvation of the family, of the person, and of the community, in today’s dynamic World, is through continual reinvolvements, adventures in scaling the heights of social responsibility for the optimal development of each. Mr. Calvin’s doctrine believed in predestination. He assumes that God not only predestine some for grace, but decides that others are destined for eternal damnation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Salvation or damnation are not results of anything good or bad a man does in life, but are predetermined by God before man ever comes to life. Why God chose the one and condemned the other is a great secret man mut not try to delve. He did so because it pleased Him to show His unlimited power in that way. Mr. Calvin’s God, in spite of all attempts to preserve the idea of God’s justice and love, has all the features of a tyrant without any quality of love or even justice. In blatant contradiction to the New Testament, Mr. Calvin denies the supreme role of love and says: “For what the Schoolmen advance concerning the priority of charity to faith and hope, is a mere reverie of a distempered imagination.” The psychological significance of the doctrine of predestination is a twofold one. It expresses and enhances the feeling of individual powerlessness and insignificance. No doctrine could express more strongly than this the worthlessness of human will and effort. The decision over man’s fate is taken completely out of his own hands and there is nothing man can do to change this decision. He is a powerless tool in God’s hands. The other meaning of this doctrine, like that of Mr. Luther’s consists in its function to silence the irrational doubt which was the same in Mr. Calvin’s and his followers as in Mr. Luther. At first glance the doctrine of predestination seems to enhance the doubt rather than silence it. Must not the individual be torn by even more torturing doubts than before to learn that he was predestined either to eternal damnation or to salvation before he was born? Although Mr. Calvin did not teach that there was any concrete proof of such certainty, he and his followers actually have the conviction that they belonged to the chosen one. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

They got this conviction of belonging to the chosen ones by the same mechanism of self-humiliation. Having such conviction, the doctrine of predestination implied utmost certainty; one could not do anything which would endanger the state of salvation, since one’s salvation did not depend on one’s own actions but was decided upon before one was ever born. Again, as with Mr. Luther, the fundamental doubt resulted in the quest for absolute certainty; but though the doctrine of predestination gave such certainty, the doubt remained in the background and had to be silenced again and again by an ever-growing fanatic belief that the religious community to which one belonged represented that part of mankind which had been chosen by God. Mr. Calvin’s theory of predestination has one implication which should be explicitly mentioned here, since it has found its most vigorous revival in Nazi ideology: the principle of the basic inequality of men. For Mr. Calvin there are two kinds of people—those who are saved and those who are destined to eternal damnation. Since this fate is determined before they are born and without their being able to change it by anything they do or do not do in their lives, the equality of mankind is denied in principle. Men are created unequal. This principle implies also that there is no solidarity between man, since the one factor which is the strongest basis for human solidarity is denied: the equality of man’s fate. The Calvinists quite naively thought that they were the chosen ones and that all others were those whom God had condemned to damnation. It is obvious that this belief represented psychologically a deep contempt and hatred for other human beings—as a matter of fact, the same hatred with which they had endowed God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

While modern thought has led to an increasing assertion of the equality of men, the Calvinists’ principle had never been completely mute. The doctrine that men are basically unequal according to their racial background is confirmation of the same principle with a different rationalization. The psychological implications are the same. Another and very significant difference from Mr. Luther’s teachings is the greater emphasis on the importance of moral effort and a virtuous life. Not that the individual can change his fate by any of his work, but the very fact that he is able to make the effort is one sign of his belonging to the saved. The virtues man should acquire are: modesty and moderations (sobrietas), justice (iustitia) in the sense of everybody being given what is his due share, and piousness (pietas) which unite man with God. In the further development of Calvinism, the emphasis on a virtuous life and on the significance of an unceasing effort gains in importance, particularly the idea that success in Worldly life, as a result of such efforts is a sign of salvation. However, the particular emphasis on a virtuous life which was characteristic for Calvinism had also a particular psychological significance. Calvinism emphasized the necessity of unceasing human effort. Man must constantly try to live according to God’s word and never lapse in his effort to do so. This doctrine appears to be a contradiction of the doctrine that human effort is of no avail with regard to man’s salvation. The fatalistic attitude of not making any effort might seem like much more appropriate response. Some psychological considerations, however, show that this is not so. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

The state of anxiety, the feeling of powerlessness and insignificance, and especially the doubt concerning one’s future after death, represents a state of mind which is practically unbearable for anybody. Almost no one stricken with this fear would be able to relax, enjoy life, and be indifferent as to what happened afterwards. One possible way to escape this unbearable state of uncertainty and the paralyzing feeling of one’s own insignificance is the very trait which became so prominent in Calvinism: the development of a frantic activity and a striving to do something. Activity in this sense assumes a compulsory quality: the individual has to be active in order to overcome his feeling of doubt and powerlessness. This kind of effort and activity is not the result of inner strength and self-confidence; it is a desperate escape from anxiety. This mechanism can be easily observed in attacks of anxiety panic in individuals. A man who expects to receive within a few hours the doctor’s diagnosis of his illness—which may be fatal—quite naturally is in a state of anxiety. Usually he will not sit down quietly and wait. Most frequently his anxiety, if it does not paralyze him, will drive him to some sort of more or less frantic activity. He may pace up and down the floor, start asking questions and talk to everybody he can get hold of, clean up his desk, write letters. He may continue his usual kind of work but with added activity and more feverishly. Whatever form his effort assumes it is prompted by anxiety and tends to overcome the feeling of powerlessness by frantic activity. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

A doubt generally first pierces the mind either from truth pointed out by others, or arises from some flaw in the experience which arrests the attention of the believer. In the case of some supernatural manifestation, for instance, which bore the appearance of being device, there was some slight contradiction which perplexed the soul. And as no contradictions can possibly occur in any of the workings of the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of Truth, one single contradiction is sufficient to reveal a lying spirit at work. This axiom must not be ignored. For instance, a believer declares under supernatural “power”—assumed to be divine—concerning one who is ill, that God purposes the restoration of that one, yet the sick one dies. This is a “contradiction” which should be fully examined, and not put aside as among things “not to be understood”; for the supernatural element in the declaration could not be of the Spirit of God, who cannot depart from truth in His revelation of the will of God. To “prove the spirits” (1 John 4.1), so as to discern between the “Spirit of Truth” and the “spirit of error,” is a clear command to the children of God, as well as to “prove all things and “hold fast to that which is good” (1Thessalonians 5.21); bring “to the proof…with all longsuffering” (2 Timothy 4.2). To question until all things have stood the test of full examination is the safest course, and is far removed from the doubting of God Himself, in His faithfulness and love—the only doubt which is sin. The newness of the New Being, the beginning that heralds the end, has appeared in a that heralds the end, has appeared in a personal life, and could not be otherwise. For the only being which has finite freedom is a person. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Only where existence is most radically existence—in home who is finite freedom—can existence be conquered. However, the manifestation of the New Being in a personal life still has cosmic significance, not quantitatively, but qualitatively, since in man all levels of being are present. The New Being inaugurates a new cosmos. The Christ is the bearer of New Being in the totality of His being which must be distinguished from its modes of expression. The biblical picture of the Christ expresses His being in His words, deeds, and sufferings. However, underlying these expressions is the very being of the New Being. Hence, as the Word, He is more than all the words He has spoken, for being precedes speaking. His deeds are not models to by piously imitated, but rather actions which render his being transparent. His sufferings are not works of supererogation that effect atonement, but an inescapable implication of His appearance within the sphere of existence. The New Being which shines through its concrete expression in the New Testament is analogous to divine being as the power of being. The power of being conquers non-being. The New Being in Jesus as the Christ overcomes the non-being which is existential estrangement. New Bing is essential God-manhood. Man is the only being who possesses a genuine finiteness because he is the only being who possesses a potential infinity; for finiteness has meaning only in correlation with infinity. In essential man finitude and infinity are related. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Consequently, the phrase “essential God-manhood” should not come as a shock. It simply indicates that divine self-objectification and essential manhood belong together, because man is essentially the divine image, and anthropomorphism contain an indestructible element of truth. Incarnation could take place only in the personal life of a human being. In the man Jesus, who faith accepts as the Christ, essential God-manhood appears in history and not only does not succumb to the disruptive forces of existence, but unleashes the power to transform them. The New Being, manifest in the picture of Jesus as the Christ, represents the essential unity between finiteness and infinity, or the undisrupted unity between man God. Essential God-manhood means that there is one man in whom God found His image undistorted, and who stands for all mankind—the one, who for this reason, is called the Son and the Christ. It must be emphasized, however, that the paradox lies not in the essential union of the divine and the human, but in the maintenance of this union within and under the conditions of existence. Jesus as the Christ is in permanent unity with God, a unity which does not exclude the consequences of existence, not even death, but transcends them. Moreover, true altruism no longer exists. Most people who seem altruistic are only doing so because they get recognition from the media or from others. However, a community is more likely to condemn a person, than to advocate to help or save that individual because Satan’s hold over this World has grown. Most people no longer turn to the message of Jesus as the Christ for their spiritual food, they now turn to the television, which is full of negativity, not family values. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

The United States of America was once a Christian Nation, but now it has become one nation under Satan. Satan has been able to take hold over this nation because…people no longer fear God nor think about their future in the afterlife. They cannot be bothered with that. Instant gratification feels so good and with these dollar-for-dollar installment plans, everyone can now afford to be superficial. Times are no longer hard, like they were during the Medieval Times, so this has lessened people’s dependence on God because their will always been food on the table or a new job to be had. Even the people who actually do good are doing so for some reason. It may have a benefit for them, even if their goal is not to exploit anyone else. Calling attention to a charity or a business can make one feel good about themselves, make one feel productive, and it feels good to see them thrive. However, it is better to seek joy in building, instead of destroying. Agency is a precious gift from God; it is essential to His plan for His children. In Satan’s rebellion against God, Satan “sought to destroy the agency of man” (Moses 4.3). He said: “I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefor give thine honour” Moses 4.1. Satan persuaded “a third part of the hosts of Heaven” to turn away from the Father (Doctrine and Covenants 29.36). As a result of this rebellion, Satan and his followers were cut off from God’s presence and denied the blessing of receiving a physical body. Individuals do not have to give in to Satan’s temptations. Each person has the power to choose good over evil, and the Lord has promised to help all who seek Him through sincere prayer and faithfulness. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

The 1787 Constitution of the United States of America sensed that a civilization was dying and a new one was being born. The founding parents, men and women, the farmers, merchants, artisans, lawyers, printers, pamphleteers, shopkeepers and soldiers who together created a new nation on the distant shores of America, could foresee the future. That piece of paper, with the Bill of Rights added in 1791, is clearly one of the stunning achievements of human history. They were driven to it—were compelled, carried along by the tidal force of events, fearing the collapse of an ineffective government paralyzed by inappropriate principles and obsolete structures. Even now their principles move us, as they have moved countless millions around the planet. It is difficult for us to read certain passages of Jefferson or Paine, for example, without being brought to the edges of tears by their beauty and meaning. We thank you, the revolutionary dead, for having made possible our lives as American citizens under a government of laws, not men, and particularly for that precious Bill of Rights, which has made if possible for us to think, to express unpopular views, however foolish or mistake at times. Time has come for us to imagine, to discuss, dissent, debate, and design from the ground up the democratic architecture of tomorrow. Not in a spirit of anger or dogmatism, not in a sudden impulsive spasm, but through the widest consultation and peaceful public participation, we need to join together to reconstitute America. As new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must also advance, and keep pace with the times. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Failure to report is itself a deviation from equilibrium and brings on the punishment. This is necessary because reporting is costly and victims would otherwise not supply this public good to the group. However, it vastly raises the cost of the mechanism, because in a well-functioning system, trade with good outcomes of the mechanism, because in a well-functioning system, trades with good outcomes constitute the vast majority of all trades. Instead, we rely on the natural tendency of victims to complain to their neighbours, and theirs to pass on the gossip along the network. This is a probabilistic mechanism that decays with distance, but that is also realistic. Consider traders each of whom is connected to a subset of the others by a network of contacts, which allows information about the history of a trader to disseminate to others over time. This focus on the dynamic process by which spontaneous order may emerge, not on comparing different systems of governance. It improves our understanding of how information transmission becomes less good as the size of the group expands. It gives us the limits of global self-governance in terms of parameters that capture the efficacy of the technologies of matching and communication. We see that in communities that are too large for full self-governance, there emerge neighbours that can sustain honesty in dealings among people sufficiently close to each other. The civil society in the United States of America and some other modern societies have frayed or disappeared. Churches, charities, local social and business associations like Rotary Clubs—serve many purposes. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Among other things, they provide the contacts and information networks, and repositories of social norms and sanctions, which make it possible for individuals to build reputations, and for the society to achieve self-governance in economics. As economies become larger and more globalized, such self-governance must eventually give way to formal rule-based governance. Then the communal networks eventually give way to formal rule-based governance. Then the communal networks lost some of their purpose, and their relative decline become understandable. If this is true, then at least from an economic perspective the decline of civil society may be less damaging. The jobs of social capital are getting one in other ways. Of course, I recognize the complexity of the phenomenon, and would not regard this economic explanation as contributing more than a small and speculative part of its explanation. Terminating a miscreant’s membership in a group or network constitutes a harsher punishment if that reduces the efficacy of one’s search for trading partners. Therefore joint models of search and governance may yield some further insights and results. Happy are they that are upright, and walk in the law of the Lord. Happy are they that keep His teachings, that seek Him with their whole heart. The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the teaching of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandments of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The ordinances of the Lord are true, they are righteous altogether. Happy is the man that walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law he mediates day and night. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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With the rapid increase of technology, it is possible that automation could be making the World more dangerous. Drivers may soon get speeding tickets without ever being stopped by an officer. If Assembly Bill 645 is passed, speed limit cameras will be placed on freeways and automatically send drivers going over 11 miles per hour a speeding ticket. The new pilot program will be implemented as soon as January 2024 in several major cities including: San Jose, Oakland, Glendale, Los Angeles, Long Beach and the city and county of San Francisco, California. The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Laura Friedman of Glendale. The legislators responsible for this bill program found that speeding was a major factor in traffic collisions. In 2019, 26 percent of all vehicle crashes occurred because of a speeding driver. The bill would require cities and counties participating in the program to send drivers warnings, rather than tickets, for the first 60 days of the program. It would also require these cities to make records confidential, and specify that the speeding violation is subject to civil penalties, among other requirements. The bill was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 11, 2023, in a 10-1 vote. Next, it will go on to the House Committee on Appropriations, after the senate returns from summer recess after August 15, 2023. However, three amendments need to be added in order to pass this bill, which include clarifying the angle of the camera, how long records of penalties will be retained, and how many occurrences of street racing would enable the installation of a camera. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

The speed safety system shall capture images of the rear license plate of vehicles that are traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit and notices of violation shall be issued to vehicles based on that evidence. Fines would start at $50 for going 11 miles per hour over the posted speed limit and increase from there. However, this bill is troubling for several reasons. First of all, because traffic patrol will be automated, it will reduce the number of highway patrol officers on the road, which will make the road more dangerous. Highway Patrol often keeps people safe by making sure they are not littering. They make sure that vehicles are in proper operating condition and safe to be on the road. Officers also keep an eye out for suspicious activity, rescue drivers in need of help. Help to prevent accidents simply with their presence being known and by spacing traffic out. With them being on the road, they are able to apprehend suspect faster. Also, officers are able to make sure the drivers have headlights that are properly adjusted and safe to use on the road, as many new cars sometimes have lights so bright that they can blind a diver and cause an accident. Officer also make sure that fluid are not leaking from cars, that taillights are properly functioning, and that people are not being held hostage or being attacked in their car. Some other concerns is what if a big rig is coming in your lane and does not see you and you need to speed up to avoid getting ran off the road, but are in too much fear of getting a ticket? Some drivers also go so slow that it makes road conditions dangerous. More drivers may also start driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol, medication, and while sleepy with less officers on the road. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

Other concerns are that people will start stealing license plates and using them when they travel on the road. If they find a car similar to their, they could get away with this for a long time. Some drivers may simply remove the plates from their cars when they travel on the highway, which would make identifying them nearly impossible. Therefore, it is recommended that Assembly Bill 645 is not passed. Because a ticket in the mail may not safe a life in that moment. By pulling people over in the act of speeding, several lives have been saved. Assembly Bill 645 is essentially a tax, much like the bag ban.  If it is, as many already know, the program will eventually go nationwide. Much like in the Middle Ages, as we have seen, the old order is breaking down. The individual has lost the security of certainty and is threatened by new economic forces, by capitalists and monopolies; the corporative principle is being replaced by competition; the lower classes feel that pressure of growing exploitation. During the Middle Ages, the appeal of Lutheranism to the lower classes differed from its appeal to the middle classes. The poor in the cities, and even more the peasants, were in a desperate situation. They were ruthlessly exploited and deprived of traditional rights and privileges. They were in a revolutionary mood which found expression in peasant uprising and in revolutionary movement in the cities. The Gospel articulated their hopes and expectations as it had done for the slaves and labourers of early Christianity, and led the poor to seek for freedom and justice. In so far as Mr. Luther attacked authority and made the word of the Gospel the center of his teachings, he appealed to these restive masses as other religious movements of an evangelical character had done before him. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Although Mr. Luther accepted their allegiance to him and supported them, he could do so only up to a certain point; he had to break the alliance when the peasants went further than attacking the authority of the Church and merely making minor demands for the betterment of their lot. They proceeded to become a new revolutionary class which threatened to overthrow all authority and to destroy the foundations of a social order in whose maintenance the middle class was vitally interested. For, in spite of all the difficulties we described, the middle class, even its lower stratum, had privileges to defend against the dames of the poor; and therefore it was intensely hostile to revolutionary movements which aimed to destroy not only the privileges of the aristocracy, the Church, and the monopolies, but their own privileges as well. The position of the middle class between the very rich and the very poor made its reaction complex and, in many ways, contradictory. They wanted to uphold law and order, and yet they were themselves vitally threatened by rising capitalism. Even the more successful members of the middle class were not wealthy and powerful as the small group of big capitalists was. They had to fight hard to survive and make progress. The luxury of the moneyed class increased their feeling of smallness and filled them with envy and indignation. As a whole, the middle class was more endangered by the collapse of the feudal order and by rising capitalism than it was helped. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Mr. Luther’s picture of man mirrored just this dilemma. Man is free from all ties binding him to spiritual authorities, but this very freedom leaves him alone and anxious, overwhelms him with a feeling of his own individual insignificance and powerlessness. This free, isolated individual is crushed by the experience of his individual insignificance. Mr. Luther’s theology gives expression to this feeling of helplessness and doubt. The picture of man which he draws in religious terms describes the situation of the individual as it was brought about by the current social and economic evolution. The member of the middle class was as helpless in face of the new economic forces as Mr. Luther described man to be in his relationship to God. However, Mr. Luther did more than bring out the feeling of insignificance which already pervaded the social classes to whom he preached—he offered them a solution. By not only accepting his own insignificance but by humiliating himself to the utmost, by giving up every vestige of individual will, by renouncing and denouncing his individual strength, the individual could hope to be acceptable to God. Mr. Luther’s relationship to God was one of complete submission. In psychological terms his concept of faith means: if you completely submit, if you accept your individual insignificance, then the all-powerful God may be willing to love you and save you. If you get rid of your individual self with all its shortcomings and doubts by utmost self-effacement, you free yourself from the feeling of your own nothingness and can participate in God’s glory. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Thus, while Mr. Luther freed people from the authority of the Church, he made them submit to a much more tyrannical authority, that of a God who insisted on complete submission of man and annihilation of the individual self as the essential condition to his salvation. Mr. Luther’s “faith” was the conviction of being loved upon the condition of surrender, a solution which has much in common with the principle of complete submission of the individual to the state and the “leader.” Mr. Luther’s awe of authority and his love for it appears also in his political convictions. Although he fought against the authority of the Church, although he was filled with indignation against the new moneyed class—part of which was the upper strata of the clerical hierarchy—and although he supported the revolutionary tendencies of the peasants up to a certain point, yet he postulated submission to Worldly authorities, the princes, in the most drastic fashion. “Even if those in authority are evil or without faith, nevertheless the authority and its power is good and from God…Therefore, where there is power and where it flourishes, there it is and there it remains because God has ordained it.” Or he says, “God would prefer to suffer the government to exist no matter how evil, rather than allow the rabble to riot, no matter how justified they are in doing so…A prince should remain a prince no matter how tyrannical he may be. He beheads necessarily only a few since he must have subject in order to be a ruler.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

The other aspect of Mr. Luther’s attachment to and awe of authority becomes visible in his hatred and contempt for the powerless masses, the “rabble,” especially when they went beyond certain limits in their revolutionary attempts. In one of his diatribes he writes the famous words: “Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one must kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him, he will strike you, and a whole land with you.” Mr. Luther’s personality as well as his teachings shows ambivalence toward authority. On the one hand he is overawed by authority—that of a Worldly authority and that of a tyrannical God—and on the other hand he rebels against authority—that of the Church. He shows the same ambivalence in his attitude toward the masses. As far as they rebel within the limits, he has set he is with them. However, when they attack the authorities he approves of, an intense hatred and contempt for the masses comes to the fore. When we look at the psychological mechanisms of escape, we shall show that this simultaneous love for authority and the hatred against those who are powerless are typical traits of the “authoritarian character.” At this point, it is important to understand that Mr. Luther’s attitude towards secular authority was closely related to his religious teachings. In making the individual feel worthless and insignificant as far as one’s own merits are concerned, in making one feel like a powerless tool in the hands of God, he deprived man of the self-confidence and of the feeling of human dignity which is the premise for any firm stand against oppressing secular authorities. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

In the course of the historical evolution the results of Mr. Luther’s teachings were still more far reaching. Once the individual had lost his sense of pride and dignity, he was psychologically prepared to lose the feeling which had been characteristic of the medieval thinking, namely, that man, his spiritual salvation, and his spiritual aims were the purpose of life; he was prepared to accept a role in which his life became a means to purposes outside of himself, those of economic productivity and accumulation of capital. Mr. Luther’s views on economic problems were typically medieval, still more so than Mr. Calvin’s. He would have abhorred the idea that man’s life should become a means for economic ends. However, while his thinking on economic matters was the traditional one, his emphasis on the nothingness of the individual was in contrast and paved the way for a development in which man not only was to obey secular authorities but had to subordinate his life to the ends of economic achievements. In our day this trend has reached a peak in the Fascist emphasis that it is the aim of life to be sacrificed for “higher” powers, for the leader on the racial community. Mr. Calvin’s theology, which was to become as important for the Anglo-Saxon countries as Mr. Luther’s for Germany, exhibits essentially the same spirit as Mr. Luther’s, both theologically and psychologically. Church and the blind acceptance of its doctrines, religion for him is rooted in the powerlessness of man; self-humiliation and the destruction of human pride are the Leitmotiv of his whole thinking. Only he who despises this World can devote himself to the preparation for the future World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

He teaches that we should humiliate ourselves and that this very self-humiliation is the means to reliance on God’s strength. “For nothing arouses us to repose all confidence and assurance of mind on the Lord, so much as diffidence of ourselves, and anxiety arising from a consciousness of our own misery.” He preached that the individual should not feel that he is his own master. “We are not our own; therefore neither our reason nor our will should predominate in our deliberation and actions. We are not our own; therefore, let us not propose it as our end, to seek what may be expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own; therefore, let us, as far as possible, forget ourselves and all things that are ours. On the contrary, we are God’s; to Him, therefore, let us live and die. For, as it is the most devastating pestilence which ruins people if they obey themselves, it is the only haven of salvation not to know or to want anything oneself but to be guided by God who walks before us. For, as compliance with their own inclinations lead men most effectually to ruin, so to place no dependence on our own knowledge or will, but merely to follow the guidance of the Lord, is the only way of safety. Man should not strive for virtue for its own sake. That would lead to nothing but vanity: “For it is an ancient and true observation that there is a World of vices concealed in the soul of man. Nor can you find any other remedy than to deny yourself and discard all selfish considerations, and to devote your whole attention to the pursuit of those things which the Lord requires of you, and which ought to be pursued for this sole reason, because they are pleasing to Him. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

Mr. Calvin, too, denies that good works can lead to salvation. We are completely lacking them: “No work of a pious man ever existed which, if it were examined before the struct judgment of Gd, did not prove to be damnable.” If we try to understand the psychological significance of Mr. Calvin’s system, the same holds true, in principle, as has been said about Mr. Luther’s teachings. Mr. Calvin, too, preached to the conservative middle class, to people who felt immensely alone and frightened, whose feelings were expressed in his doctrine of the insignificance and powerlessness of the individual and the futility of his efforts. However, we may assume that there was some slight difference; while Germany in Mr. Luther’s time was in a general state of upheaval, in which not only the middle class, but also the peasant and the poor of urban society, were threatened by the rise capitalism, Geneva was a relatively prosperous community. It had been one of the important fairs in Europe in the first half of the fifteenth century, and although at Mr. Calvin’s time it was already overshadowed by Mr. Lyons in this respect, it had preserved a good deal of economic solidity. On the whole, it seemed safe to say that Calvin’s adherents were recruited mainly from the conservative middle class, and that also in France, Holland, and England his main adherents were not advanced capitalistic groups but artisans and small businessmen, some of which whom were already more prosperous than others but who, as a group, were threated by the rise of capitalism. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

To this social class Calvinism had the same psychological appeal that we have already discussed in connection with Lutheranism. It expressed the feeling of freedom but also of insignificance and powerlessness of the individual. It offered a solution by teaching the individual that by complete submission and self-humiliation he could hope to find new security. Rich people have suffered many symbolic challenges as economic income inequality has emerged as a dominant issue on the national stage. Although images of the wealthy proliferate in the media, we know very little about what it is like to be wealthy in the current historical moment. Contemporary scholarly accounts of elite experience are in short supply, due largely to the difficulty of gaining access to wealthy people. The few studies of elite consumption that do exist focus on its explicitly or implicitly competitive dimensions, whether they embody Mr. Veblenian conspicuous consumption or other forms of social distinction. Other research on elite lifestyles looks at how privileged people maintain and reproduce their privilege through social closure in elite clubs and elsewhere. Researchers are skeptical of allusions to hard work, interpreting them mainly as shallow justifications. Notably, being morally worthy and avoiding entitlement involve behaving and feeling in particular ways. Practices of working hard, consuming prudently, and giving back are matched by affects of independence, modest desire, and appreciation rather than a feeling of being “owed things.” Yet it is not easy to adhere to all of these imperatives of merit or to interpret oneself as adhering to the. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

Partners look to each other for recognition of themselves as worthy workers and consumers, but they do not always find this recognition. They clash over what kind of needs are legitimate. And they experience gendered conflicts over whether unpaid labour “counts” symbolically as a contribution to the family’s lifestyle. Anxieties about the entitlement of their children are especially prominent. Parents want to raise nonmaterialistic hard-working, nice people rather than “lazy jerks.” Of course this desire is widespread among parents regardless of class. However, for these affluent people the concern about entitlement harbours a deep contradiction. They want their children to see themselves as “normal” (and therefore just like everyone else) but also to appreciate their advantages (which make the different from others). In the end, they instill and reproduce ideas about how to occupy privilege legitimately without giving it up—how to be a “good person” with wealth. Formerly, time for recreation was won with difficulty from the onerous demand of work, and no questions arose over the desirability of leisure. Ways of utilizing leisure seemed endless, its maximization, an unquestioned good, not a problem. Yet today for many Americans the extension of leisure had created a vacuum (an abyss, Riesman ominously calls it) which they are perplexed to fill. People can be as much at a loss for something to do with themselves when surrounded with opportunities for recreation as when lacking. For some time to come, there will continue to be the community problem of providing certain kinds of recreational facilities, yet complete success along the lines will yet fall short of solving the emerging crisis of mass boredom. Boredom is a great threat to American society as the atom bomb. Boredom is lack of involvement. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Recreation, as our classification of its forms suggests, still bears a mysterious representational relation to all the binding concerns of life. The various kinds of recreation seems worthwhile according to how much they correspond to these concerns of life. When the serious concerns lose their value, recreation also begins to pall. Thus the mere pursuit of fun is no guarantee of relief from boredom, which may derive from a basic lack of involvement in serious pursuits. Even in play, human beings find it necessary to invent and devise ends, even though they may be purely symbolic. On the other hand, the deliberate effort to have fun—to make fun the end itself, and to pursue it directly—often stultifies the possibility of having it. By contrast, the person who is able to give himself fully and freely to any serious pursuit is likely to have fun without requiring—though he may periodically enjoy—standard forms of recreation. Theories of leisure and recreation are still very tentative, and any interpretation is risky. Nonetheless, it seems safe to conclude that the major emergent problem of recreational agencies, as of all other types of family agencies, is no longer that of further expanding leisure and recreational facilities—though such expansion will continue—but of leading in the creation of recreational values in which families may become deeply involved and committed. To a large degree, of course, such a program calls for the organization of recreational groups which will generate or expand their own specific values and morale. This may be the place to propose a general recreational value, least the preceding words seem to lack reference or contradict each other. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

This may be the place to propose a general recreational value, lest the preceding words seem to lack reference or to contradict each other. The concept of self-transcendence describes such value. It lacks the misleading connotations of the popular term “growth,” which raises question of the organic analogy, naturally predetermined sequences, and quantitative accretion without differentiation. Self-transcendence implies only that exploration and extension of capacities will occur, but does not specify the forms their exercise will take. Self-transcendence is possible at all ages, but not in all directions at all ages. In adulthood, it goes beyond pretense and vicariousness to exercise movement from potentiality to actuality. As a principal value to be sought and found in recreation, the concept of transcendence is congenial with several major theories of recreation which her been proposed so far—Groos’ practice theory, Piaget’s theory of representative activity, Erikson’s idea of ego-mastery, Huizinga’s notion of “stepping out of common reality into a higher order.” Play furnishes the perfect model for free involvement and commitment. As such, approached with discrimination, it offers some promise to the contemporary person who wishes to “declare his own values,” id est, who recognizes that he needs rules to live by, yet wishes not to be inescapably bound by them. A person can if he left himself become deeply involved in a game, yet know it for only a game; he may be fully committed to his role, but for only the duration of an agreed upon period. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

Precise sociological and psychological analyses of the process of progressive involvement and commitment (phrases which have been significantly used to define courtship and marriage) may thus help to define the means for solving the widespread problem of aimlessness in society. When it was taken for granted that what was needed was simply more health, more economic means, more opportunity for participation, more freedom for self-development, more education, more leisure and recreation, the old situation looked simple by contrast with the present. In spite of all its bad memories of the depression, and the uncertainties of war-imposed separation, the coming generation is the uneasy position of being the heir to a fortune. Being forced to do nothing and free to do anything, the young person finds that he does not integrate unless he can become a valued part of some activity with others which makes demands on him; that he cannot esteem himself unless he finds a way to win the esteem of others by contributing productively to a goal which he shares with them. Countless parents today, in releasing their children (and in some case, wives or husbands) from all obligations of effort, rob them of their chances to achieve social worth and self-esteem. In place of crude necessity they should introduce some chosen values, values shared by a company of others who will support these values and reinforce the child’s conception of who he is when his parents can do so no more. With the best of intentions, that is, the most living parents may accomplish the worst of consequences, through a mistaken, obsolete interpretation of the wants of youth, for example, by refusing to give any negative or positive criticism when asked for appraisal of performance. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

Doubt of the experience or “manifestation” being of God. We cannot emphasize too strongly the need of not quenching and not ignoring the first doubt, for the “doubt” is actually the initial penetration of truth to the mind, and hence the first step to deliverance. Some have instantly quenched the first doubt, fearing to “doubt God,” and in doing so have closed their minds to the first ray of light which would have led them into liberty. They have looked upon doubt as temptation, and resisted it, overlooking the distinction between true and evil, right and wrong “doubt.” This has its root in the mind of most Christians in associating only evil with such words as “judging,” “criticizing,” “doubting,” and “enmity,” “hatred,” “unbelief,” et cetera—all of which dispositions and actions they though to be evil, and evil only, whereas they are evil or good according to their source in spirit or soul, and in relation to their object. For example, “enmity” against Satan is God-given (Gen 3.15), “hatred” toward sin is good, and “unbelief” of spirit manifestations is commanded until the believer is sure of their source (1 John 4.1). To doubt God—which means not to trust Him—is a sin; but a doubt concering supernatural manifestations is simply a call to exercise the faculties which all spiritual believers should use to discern “good and evil.” The deep doubt concerning some supernatural experiences is therefore not a “temptation” but is really the Holy Spirit moving the spiritual faculties to action according to 1 Corinthians 2.15: “He that is spiritual judgeth—id est, examineth—all things,” the “things of God” thus being “spiritually discerned” (v. 14, KJV). #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

The New Being will first be considered under the aspect of “newness.” The old eon is estrangement, the split between essential and existential being. The Christ as the New Being ushers in the new eon by manifesting undistorted essential being withing the conditions of existence. The New Being is new in contrast to the merely potential character of essential being; and it is new over against the estranged character of existential being. Those who are “in Christ” are “new creatures.” “In Christ” means participation in him. “Those who participate in him participate in the New Being, though under the condition of man’s existential predicament and, therefore, only fragmentarily and by anticipation.” The real, but imperfect, state of participation can be explained as the interim period between the first and second coming of the Christ. In this period the New Being is present in the Christ; in him the eschatological expectation is fulfilled in principle. The appearance of the New Being is the beginning of fulfilment, and, consequently, it marks the end of the old situation. It signals the end of the reign of law, the law of the “man’s essential being standing against his existence, the existence which is estrangement, ambiguity, and disintegration. It announces the end of history in the sense that “nothing qualitatively new in the dimension of the ultimate can be produced by history which is not implicitly present in the New Being in Jesus as the Christ.” The end of history is here understood not as a temporal terminal point, but as the ultimate aim that imparts meaning to the whole process. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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We live in a World of unprecedented opulence, of a kind that would have been hard to even imagine a century or two ago. Capitalism is a particular form of social organization of production and exchange. Based on an advanced division of labour, capitalism is a system in which production is oriented toward the needs of others, toward exchange. It is therefore a system in which even the people who directly participate in transforming nature into useful products—the immediate producers—cannot physically survive on their own. Furthermore, capitalism is a system in which those who do not own the instruments of production must sell their capacity to work. Workers obtain a wage, which is not a title to any part of the specific product which they generate but an abstract medium for acquisition of any goods and services. They must produce profit as a condition of their continued employment. The product is appropriated privately in the sense that workers have no institutional claim to its allocation or distribution in their role as immediate producers. Capitalist, who are profit-takers, decide under multiple constraints how to allocate or distribution in their role as immediate producers. Capitalists, who are profit-takers, decide under multiple constraints how to allocate the product, in particular what part of it to invest, where, how, and when. These allocations are constrained by the fact that capitalist compete with each other and that they can be influenced by the political system. The ownership of the means of production also endows the proprietors with the right to organize (or to delegate the organization of) production. Capitalists, as employers, regulate the organization of work, although they may be again constrained by rules originating of work, although they may be again constrained by rules originating from the political system. As immediate producers, workers have no institutional claim to directing the productive activities in which they participate. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

Significant changes in the psychological atmosphere accompanied the economic development of capitalism. A spirit of restlessness began to pervade life toward the end of the Middle Ages. The concept of time in the modern sense began to develop. Minutes became valuable; a symptom of this new sense of time is the fact that in Nurnberg the clocks have been striking the quarter hour since the sixteenth century. Too many holidays began to appear as a misfortune. Time was so valuable that one felt one should never spend it for any purpose which was not useful. Work became increasingly a supreme value. A new attitude toward work developed and was so strong that the middle class grew indignant against the economic unproductivity of the institutions of the Church. Begging orders were resented as unproductive, and hence immoral. The idea of efficiency assumed the role of one of the highest moral virtues. At the same time, the desire for wealth and material success became the all-absorbing passion. “All the World,” says the preacher Martin Butzer, “is running after those trades and occupations that will bring the most gain. The study of the arts and sciences is set aside for the basest kind of manual work. All the clever heads, which have been endowed by God with a capacity for the nobler studies, are engrossed by commerce, which nowadays is so saturated with dishonesty that is it the last sort of business an honourable man should engage in.” One outstanding consequences of the economic change we have been describing affected everyone. The medieval social system was destroyed and with it the stability and relative security it had offered the individual. Now with the beginning of capitalism all classes of society started to move. There ceased to be a fixed place in the economic order which could be considered a natural, unquestionable one. The individual was left alone; everything depended on his own effort, not on the security of his traditional status. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

Each class, however, was affected in a different way by this development. For the poor of the cities, the workers and apprentices, it meant growing exploitation and impoverishment; for the peasants also it meant increased economic and personal pressure; the lower nobility faced ruin, although in a different way. While for these classes the new development was essentially change for the worse, the situation was much more complicated for the urban middle class. We have spoken of the growing differentiation which took place within its ranks. Large sections of it were put into an increasingly bad position. Many artisans and small trader had to face the superior power of monopolists and other competitors with more capital, and they had greater and greater difficulties in remaining independent. They were often fighting against overwhelmingly strong forces and for many it was a desperate and hopeless fight. Other parts of the middle class were more prosperous and participated in the general upward trend of rising capitalism. However, even for these more fortunate ones the increasing role of capital, of the market, and of competition, changed their personal situation into one of insecurity, isolation, and anxiety. The fact that capital assumed decisive importance meant that a suprapersonal force was determining their economic and thereby their personal fate. Capital had ceased to be a servant and had become a master. Assuming a separate and independent vitality it claimed the right of a predominant partner to dictate economic organization in accordance with its own exacting requirements. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

The new function of the marker had a similar effect. The medieval market had been a relatively small one, the functioning of which was readily understood. It brought demand and supply into direct and concrete relation. A producer knew approximately how much to produce and could be relatively sure of selling his products for a proper price. Now it was necessary to produce for an increasingly large market, and one could not determine the possibilities of sale in advance. It was therefore not enough to produce useful goods. Although this was one condition for selling them, the unpredictable laws of the market decided whether the products could be sold at all and at what profit. The mechanism of the new marker seemed to resemble the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, which taught that the individual must make every effort to be good, but that even before his birth it had been decided whether or not he is to be saved. The market day became the day of judgement for the products of human effort. Another important factor in this context was the growing role of competition. While competition was certainly not completely lacking in medieval society, the feudal economic system was based on the principle of co-operation and was regulated—or regimented—by rules which curbed competition. With the rise of capitalism these medieval principles gave way more and more to a principle of individualistic enterprise. Each individual must go ahead and try his luck. He had to swim or to sink. Others were not allied with him in a common enterprise, they became competitors, and often he was confronted with the choice of destroying them or being destroyed. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Certainly the role of capital, the market, and individual competition, was not as important in the sixteenth century as it was to become later on. At the same time, all the decisive elements of modern capitalism had already by that time come into existence, together with their psychological effect upon the individual. While we have just described one side of the picture, there is also another one: capitalism freed the individual. It freed man from the regimentation of the corporative system; it allowed him to stand on his own feet and to try his luck. He became the master of his fate, his was the risk, his the gain. Individual effort could lead him to success and economic independence. Money became the great equalizer of man and proved to be more powerful than birth and caste. This side of capitalism was only beginning to develop in the early period which we have been discussing. It played a greater role with the small group of wealthy capitalists than with the urban middle class. However, even to the extent to which it was effective then, it had an important effect in shaping the personality of man. We find the same ambiguity of freedom in the socioeconomic changes on the individual in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which we have discussed before. The individual is freed from the bondage of economic and political ties. He also gains in positive freedom by the active and independent role which he has to play in the new system. However, simultaneously he is freed from those ties which used to give him security and a feeling of belonging. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Life has ceased to be lived in a closed World the center of which was man; the World has become limitless and at the same time threatening. By losing his fixed placed in a closed World man loses the answer to the meaning of his life; the result is that doubt has befallen him concerning himself and the aim of life. He is threatened by powerful suprapersonal forces, capital and the market. His relationship to his fellow men, with everyone a potential competitor, has become hostile and estranged; he is free—that is, he is alone, isolated, threatened from all sided. Not having the wealth or the power which the Renaissance capitalist has, and also having lost the sense of unity with men and the universe, he is overwhelmed with a sense of his individual nothingness and helplessness. Paradise is lost for good, the individual stands alone and faces the World—a stranger thrown into a limitless and threatening World. The new freedom is bound to create a deep feeling of insecurity, powerlessness, doubt, aloneness, and anxiety. These feelings must be alleviated if the individual is to function successfully. The country was to be led, by candid and honest criticism, to assert her better self and do her full duty to the humans she had cruelly wronged. No nation can salve her conscience by plastering it with gold. This problem could not be settled by diplomacy and suaveness, by “policy” alone. If worse came to worst, could the moral fiber of this nation survive the slow throttling and genocide of the less fortunate? America has a duty to perform, a duty stern and delicate, a forward movement to thrift, patience, and industrial training for the masses, we must to this day still strive for this, rejoicing honours and glorying in the strength of this nation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

America apologized for injustice, and encourages her people to rightly value the privilege and duty of voting, and to not participate in in the emasculating effects of caste distinctions. Americans must also cherish the higher training and ambition of our brighter minds. By every civilized and peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the World accords to humans, clinging unwaveringly to those great words which the sons of the Fathers would fain forget: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among thee are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Economic arrangements play a dual role in the promotion of a free society. On the one hand, freedom in economic arrangement is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In the second place, economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom. The first of these roles of economic freedom needs special emphasis because intellectuals in particular have a strong bias against regarding this aspect of freedom as important. They tend to express contempt for what they regard as material aspects of life, and to regard their own pursuit of allegedly higher values as on a different plane of significance and as deserving of special attention. For most citizens of the country, however, if not for the intellectual, the direct importance of economic freedom is at least comparable in significance to the indirect importance of economic freedom as a means to political freedom. Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the development of capitalist institutions. So also did political freedom in the golden age of Greece and in the early days of the Roman era. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

Being free is an act that permits discernment of alternatives (if any) in a situation, deliberation about those alternatives, choice of one of them, and ability to put that choice into practice as a culmination or outcome for which a person is required to take responsibility as his or her own goal-guided action. A free action must always occur in a casual context, but it must not be entirely determined by that context. And it must above all else be an action that is ultimately under a person’s control and one for which that person can rightly be regarded as its ultimate source. If there are circumstances at any particular time that prevent all aspects of such personal control, then one can be said to be unfree in those circumstances. This description of freedom requires that there be significant aspects of openness in oneself and in the World, openness that permits real alternatives, outcomes that cannot even in principle be predictable in advance, and novel achievements. It also requires that there be such a thing as teleological or goal-guided behaviour and not just behaviour produced by efficient causes. The description of genuine freedom can be extended to include being other than humans, to the extent that these beings possess the capabilities described. Every civilized and rational person today is in favour of freedom because they recognize as the struggle for basic liberties, societies are based upon open dialogue, human rights and democracy. However, in keeping predetermined mindsets we chain ourselves to the past and to our genetic shortcomings. Our quality of life suffers when we make decisions with predetermined mindsets because the structure that these mindsets impose on ourselves and our experiences do not necessarily fit or make sense. Although seeing these mental structures in ourselves is difficult, and rooting them out in search of new ones even more so. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

One shortcoming of these predetermined mindsets is the judgement of the experiences that result from our decisions. Because we make decisions based on certain mindsets, we come to expect a set of results from those decisions that reflect our mindsets, and all ensuing experiences are internally judged or qualified based on those expectations. If we took a job only for financial gain, then we would measure the success of our careers solely in terms of money. This pre-qualification of our experiences based on predetermined mindsets is devastating for two reasons. First, it paints experiences under the guise of success and failure according to how well expectations are met, a guise that short-changes those experiences. What if we do not get the bonuses we expected because of economic conditions? To think that the past years spent on the job were thus consequently wasted would be devastating. All experiences are of some value, didactic or otherwise, and to box them into qualified successes or failures is to waste that value. The second problem with qualifying experiences based on mindsets is the flips side of the first—it blinds us to the lighter characteristics and/or the learnings of an experience if they do not lie within the real of expectations. The shortcomings of predetermined mindsets are waste and harm, but without greater insight, acclimatization causes us to mistake them for being a natural part of life. Euphemistically, and tragically, they become tolerable. Ignorance is bliss, if the human condition is one of unwitting masochism. However, far worse, and far better, is to have hindsight into the waste and harm these mindsets cause. Even more abhorrent is the feeling of regret that accompanies the acknowledgement of the waste and harm. We have all experienced regret and it grows with every realization of a poor decision using bad faith; a decision that leads to a missed opportunity or a deleterious outcome.  #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

Regrets make predetermined mindsets painful, making them far more detrimental by demon whiskey to creature a severe inflammation. However, regrets can also make the situation far better when the inflammation becomes intolerable inciting the person proactive. The intolerable pain of regret opens up our eyes to our inherent freedom of self-invention. This freedom is the key to ensuring that the decision we make in life, and the paths we choose to take, will not be made according to mindsets and structures of which we are unaware, and thus of which we will regret. Although it is reasonable and necessary to make decisions based on structures and mindset, those mindsets need to be chosen with great discernment rather than predetermined for full freedom of choice. The principles and ideals by which we live are forms of mindsets and structure, but as long as we have chosen to live by those principle instead of having developed them as biases, then we have not forfeited our freedom. Freedom of expression allows us to be heard and to construct our identities as communicative human beings. Possessing free will, we have the capacity to choose how we individual will act. We are thus particular and subjective entities. At the same time, however, we are each endowed with reason and are consequently able to discern the same universal and objective truths. We are thus also universal and objective entities. Development can be seen as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy. If we have reasons to want more wealth, we have to ask: What precisely are these reasons, how do they work, on what are they contingent and what are the things we can “do” with more wealth? In fact, we generally have excellent reasons for wanting more wealth. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

The usefulness of wealth lies in the things that it allows us to do—the substantive freedoms it helps us to achieve. However, this relation is neither exclusive (since there are significant influences on our lives other than wealth) nor uniform (since the impact of wealth on our lives varies with other influences). It is as important to recognize the crucial role of wealth in determining living conditions and the quality of life as it is to understand the qualified and contingent nature of this relationship. An adequate conception of development must go much beyond the accumulation of wealth and the growth of gross national product and other income-related variables. Without ignoring the importance of economic growth, we must look well beyond it. The ends and means of development require examination and scrutiny for a fuller understanding of the development process; it is simply not adequate to take as our basic objective just the maximization of income or wealth, which is, as Aristotle noted, “merely useful and for the sake of something else.” For the same reason, economic growth cannot sensibly be treated as an end in itself. Development has to be more concerned with enhancing the lives we lead and the freedoms we enjoy. Expanding the freedoms that we have reason to value not only makes our lives richer and more unfettered, but also allows us to be fuller social persons, exercising our own volitions and interacting with—and influencing—the World in which we live. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

There are two distinct reasons for the crucial importance of individual freedom in the concept of development, related respectively to evaluation and effectiveness. First, in the normative approach used here, substantive individual freedoms are taken to be critical. The success of a society is to be evaluated, in this view, primarily by the substantive freedoms that the members of our society enjoy. This evaluative position differs from the informational focus of more traditional normative approaches, which focus on other variables, such as utility, or procedural liberty, or real income. Having greater freedom to do the things one has reason to value is significant in itself for the person’s overall freedom, and important in fostering the person’s opportunity to have valuable outcomes. Both are relevant to the evaluation of freedom of the members of the society and thus crucial to the assessment of the society’s development. The second reason for taking substantive freedom to be so crucial is that freedom is not only the basis of the evaluation of success and failure, but it is also a principal determinant of individual initiative and social effectiveness. Greater freedom enhances the ability of people to help themselves and also to influence the World, and these matters are central to the process of development. The concern here relates to what we my call (at the risk of some oversimplification) the “agency aspect” of the individual. The United States of America has no family policy. Many American students of the family, as shown by their reactions to this phrase, do not know what it means. In the absence of an explicit family policy, they not only find it difficult to imagine what one might be, but are inclined to question if one would be desirable. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Perhaps the absence of a declared policy is typical of the pragmatic American temper. Yet whether this question is thought about by the public at large or not, both family researchers and professional practitioners in family agencies can postpone at peril of sterile futility the effort to state an over-all policy to guide their activities. What the researcher needs if one’s findings are to prove relevant is the designation of dependent variables of vital interests to the subjects of one’s study; what the practitioner needs if one is to evaluate the effect and efficiency of one’s efforts is the specification of definite goals. It may be argued that a family policy is already discernible in implicit form. It may also be argued that nothing would be gained by striving to articulate its essentials; indeed something might be lost in the way of future flexibility by trying to fix on paper the nature of such a labile entity. This view though plausible in the abstract does not hold up when tested against the benefits of knowing what one is doing. Nor is it correct to charge that when purposes are made explicit they become less easy to alter. To state the objectives of research and of action makes them easier to criticize and modify on the basis of experience than when they remain behind the veil of sacred assumptions. In particular instances outcomes can be legitimately judged only in relation to defined intentions. A national policy for the American family, though derived from implicit views and common practices, would have to be discussed and agreed upon before it could become official. One could surmise it main outlines, since these are embodied in occasional statements of goals we have been discussing. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

Interpreters differ the closer they approach the concrete instance. It would be presumptuous, therefore, to do more than suggest that the concept of interpersonal competence, which allows for an open-ended view of personality, could stand for the optimal product of family performance. Yet there can be no doubt that the development of the individual member would hold first place among the goals of a family policy. A family policy includes not only general goals but specifies appropriate means for their realization. The typical family agencies of the American urban community are the nearest we have to self-conscious instruments of a coherent family policy. However, as we have found in examining them, all six types are hesitant to avow a positive program for constructing some optimal pattern of family living for American communities. Whether taken separately or in combination, they seem to abjure any responsibility for family development more inclusive than current clienteles and their recognized problems. In part this diffidence seems to be based upon the specializations among the multiple, segmented agencies, though this fact of proliferation could also be used as argument for a coherent policy. In part the tendency to limit responsibility seems also to derive from the therapeutic approach. All dreams also, as well as visions, can be classed, as to their source, under three heads: divine; human; or of a psychopathological offender—each to be known, first by the condition of the person, and second by the principle distinguishing the work of God or a psychopathological offender. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

The principle distinguishing divine from psychopathological in relation to dreams is, in the first instance, by their import and exceptional value (Gen. 37.5-7; Matt. 1.20, 2.12), and in the latter, their “mystery,” absurdity, emptiness, folly, et cetera, as well as by their effects on the person. In the first, the recipient is left normal, calm, quiet, reasonable, and with an open, clear mind. In the second, elated or dazed, confused and unreasonable. The presentations of evil spirits at night can be the cause of morning “dullness” of mind and heaviness of spirit. The sleep has not been refreshing because of their power, through the passivity of the mind during sleep, to influence the whole being. “Natural” sleep renews and invigorates the faculties and the whole system. Insomnia may be the work of psychopathological offenders adapting their workings to the overwrought condition of the person, so as to keep their attacks under cover. Believers who are open to the supernatural World should especially guard their nights by prayer, and by definite rejection of the first insidious working of psychopathological offenders along these lines. How many say, “The Lord woke me,” and place their reliance upon a “revelation” given in a state of half-consciousness, even though the mind and will were only partially alert to discern the issues of the “guidance” or “revelation” given to them. Let such believers observe the results of their obedience to night-revelations, however, and they will find many traces to the deceitful workings of the enemy. They will find, too, how their faith is often based upon a beautiful experience given in the early hours of the morning; or, vice versa, is shaken by accusations, suggestions, attacks and conflicts manifestly of the psychopathological one, instead of an intelligent reliance upon God Himself in His changeless character of faithfulness and love to His own. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

All workings of the enemy at night can be made to cease by recognizing them as of a psychopathological offender, and definitely refusing them in the name of the Lord. Existence is always both fact and act. Although freedom is not destroyed, it is always in bondage to destiny. Therefore, no individual act within existence can overcome estrangement; existence itself become destiny. In spite of his inner freedom, man cannot achieve reunion with God. Certain individual acts can be performed which express fleetingly and fragmentarily man’s essential goodness, but thee reveal only what is indispensable for victory over existence, namely, reunion with the ground of being. In order to overcome the old state of estrangement, man needs to receive new being, for new being precedes new acting just as estrangement precedes conduct disorder. Union with God, with the power of being, must be re-established. This is the quest for the New Being. The history of religion records man’s attempts and failures to find the New Being, to save himself. Religion is the sphere where the New Being is sought; it is contrasted with the split between essence and existence. Myth and cult are indispensable for existential man, because, in the state of existence, reason cannot penetrate to its depth in the ground of being. However, religion is ambiguous, for the very fact of the quest indicates the presence, at least germinally and fragmentarily, of the New Bing, and at the same time the quest degenerates into futile efforts at self-salvation. These vain attempts, which are found in all religions and not only in particular ones, can be listed as follows: legalism, asceticism, mysticism, sacramentalism, doctrinablism, and emotionalism. Yet, even in their inadequacy they are salutary in a minimal way, for awareness of estrangement and desire for reunion indicate the presence of a saving power. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

The quest for the New Bing is universal because the human predicament and its ambiguous conquest are universal. This utopian expectation, religious in substance, is often cloaked under a secular form. Although the character of the quest constantly changes, we can distinguish two major types: the non-historical and the historical expectation of the New Being. The non-historical attitude, exemplified primarily in Far Eastern religions, does not expect salvation through history, but rather in the negation of all beings and the affirmation of the Ground of Being alone. The historical attitude, on the other hand, assets the essential goodness of being and awaits the New Being as a transformation of reality through a historical process which is unique, unrepeatable, irreversible. The symbol of “Christ” or “Messiah” expresses the universal expectation of the New Being. Although the messianic idea is thoroughly historical, it is capable of incorporating the non-historical type. The cosmic Messiah of apocalyptic literature, the personification of divine Wisdom, the Son of Man, the Logos of the Fourth Gospel, the mysticism of Paul and his doctrine of the Spirit—all these transhistorical elements build a bridge across which non-historical expectations can enter into Christianity. The non-historical type, however, is unable to embrace the historical type. Consequently, Christianity is the universal type of the universal quest for the New Being set in motion by a universal revelation. Yet it is not universally acknowledged as such, for man’s estrangement, futile self-salvation, and consequent despair generate a self-understanding and an expectation which is contradicted by the New Being in Jesus as the Christ. The New Being of Christianity is “paradoxical” in the root meaning of the word; it runs counter to the expectations of the whole of human experience. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

The Christ is the symbol for the expectation of the New Being. How is it to be interpreted? Traditionally he has been called the “mediator” in that he makes the ultimate concrete and saves by reuniting. The mediator, however, is not a third reality between God and man, for all mediation and salvation is from God. The Christ is essential man. He represents man to man, that is, He shows what man essentially is. However, He also represents God to man, because essential man had embedded within him the image of God. Therefore, essential manhood and essential God-manhood are identical. It is important to note that the paradox of the Christian message is not that essential humanity includes the union of God and man, but rather, that in one personal life essential manhood has appeared under the condition of existence without being conquered by them. Another term often used to interpret the symbol of the Christ is “incarnation.” It is a concept commonly found in pagan religions, we have grave reservations about it because it is so vulnerable to misunderstanding. For instance, if incarnation is taken to mean “God has become man,” then it is nonsense, because the words do not mean what they say. Obviously, God does not change into something that is not God. Again, incarnation carries polytheistic connotations of divine beings besides God and mythological connotations of anthropomorphism. However, we do accept incarnation in the Johannine sense of “the Logos became flesh.” “Logos” is the principle of divine self-manifestation, “flesh” signifies historical existence, and “became” indicates that God participates in that which is estranged from Him. Thus, the Johannine phrase means that “God is manifest in a personal life-process as a saving participant in the human predicament. The question of existence terminates in the quest for the New Being. We have remained on the level of expectation, even though it has been described in Christian terminology. The next step is the actual appearance of the Christ in Jesus, the event which fulfills al expectations. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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