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But Why do You Want an Ornament for the Nursery?—You Who had Your Child Killed!
Concerning self-inflicted injuries of my own experience, I cannot report anything in clam times, but under extraordinary conditions, I do not believe myself incapable of such acts. When a member of my family complains that he or she has bitten his tongue, bruised her finger, and so on, instead of the expected sympathy, I put the question, “Why did you do that?” However, I have most painfully squeezed my thumb, after a youthful patient acquainted me during the treatment with his intention (naturally not to be taken seriously) of marrying my eldest daughter, while I knew that she was then in a private hospital in extreme danger of losing her life. One of my boys, whose vivacious temperament was wont to put difficulties in the management of nursing him in his illness, had a fit of anger and threatened to kill himself: a way out suggested to him by the newspapers. In the evening, he showed me a swelling on the side of his chest which was supposedly the result of bumping against the doorknob. To my ironical question why he did it, and what he meant by it, the twelve-year-old child explained, “That was my attempt at suicide which I threatened this morning.” However, I do not believe that my views on self-inflicted wounds were accessible to my children at that time. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
My son had been behaving different, ever since he went to the mall with one of his friends from work, and would not tell me why. He had also recently fallen out with the love of his life and they ended their relationship. He locked himself up in his room and was sad, and I could feel his pain. Whoever believes in the occurrence of semi-intentional self-inflicted suicide, there also exists semi-intentional annihilation—with unconscious intention—which is capable of aptly utilizing a threat against life and masking it as a casual mishap. Such mechanisms are by no means rare. For the tendency to self-destruction exists to a certain degree in many more persons than in those who bring it to completion. Self-inflicted injuries are, as a rule, a compromise between this impulse and the forces working against it, and even where it really comes to suicide, the inclination has existed for a long time with less strength or as an unconscious and repressed tendency. Even suicide consciously committed chooses its time, means, and opportunity; it is quite natural that unconscious suicide should wait for a motive to take upon itself one part of the causation and thus free it from its oppression by taking up the defensive forces of the person. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Some argue that the only rationally acceptable philosophy is that there is no ethical value in living just any sort of life; the only life that is worth living is the good life. We may define the good differently, but no matter what or conception of the good life is, it presupposes a physical basis—a certain indispensable minimum of physical and social well-being—necessary for even a limited realization of that good life. Where that minimum is failing together with all rational probability of attaining it, to avoid a life that at its best can be only vegetative and at its worst run the entire gamut of degradation and obloquy, what high-minded person would refuse the call of the poet mourir entre les bras du sommeil? We must recognize no categorical imperative to live, but to live well. A common thought is that is life ceases to be a pleasure, the remedy for a free person is to end it because it is regarded as part of human freedom that an individual should only continue to live by one’s own consent. Some philosophers believe that the most excusable incitements to suicide are pain, and the fear of suffering a worse death. In 1644, it was expressed that the prohibition of suicide was merely a part of the economic enslavement of laborers, who could not be allowed to escape from the tasks expected of them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
The most excusable cause seems to be an emaciated body, when a person labours under the torture of an incurable disorder, and seems to live only to be a burden to oneself and one’s friends. And in contrast to the view expressed above, some see death as a necessity for the economy. For instance, in China, the population has been aging rapidly, increasing the stress on an already troubled health care system. There is currently 1.4 billion people living in China, the population is expected to grow 1.45 billion by 2050, and the number of elderly people is expected to reach over 330 million by 2050. The problem is many of the elderly are cared for by family and only 2 percent are institutionalized. China also does not have a system that can accommodate the elderly, and many of their children are investing their money into the care of their own children, leaving the elderly to fend for themselves. To afford medication, some of the elderly are cutting back on the amount of food they eat. If the aged and the sick did not die within no long span after they have ceased to be self-supporting, the burden on society will be disastrous. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
So, therefore, death plays a wholly favourable, indeed, essential part in human economy because the by 2050, China’s dependency ratio for retirees-those aged 65 or older divided by the total working population is expected to be 44 percent. Still, humanitarians, like myself do not believe death is the best option. Euthanasia of humans is indirectly evil, and it leads to the danger of abuse. In America, in 2014, it was ruled that terminally ill patients have the right to have assistance in self-killing, making it legal for a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a terminally ill patient. The problem is with the elderly, disabled, and ill to be looked at as a burden on society is dangers because it can lead to abuse; the risk of an incorrect diagnosis, so someone can conduct research, kill their enemy, harvest organs, or steal someone’s material and non-material assets. Also, the risk of administering euthanasia to a person who could have later been cured by new medical developments; and the wedge argument (condoning euthanasia would lead to general disrespect for the sanctity of human life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
No great mistake, whether acted or endured, in our mortal sphere, is every really set right. Time, the continual vicissitude of circumstances, and the invariable inopportunity of death, render it impossible. Another problem with euthanasia is that the physician, whether or not he or she may rightfully help to shorten life, may rightfully desist from attempting to prolong the life of a patient in great pain and may rightfully supply or administer pain-killing drugs even though one realizes that their effect may be not only to kill the pain, but also to shorten life. Of all the events which constitute a person’s biography, there is scarcely one to which the World so easily reconciles itself, as to one’s death. In addition, some people are also trying to kill American citizens, so they can steal their identities and sell them to illegal immigrants, then swap identities and no one would know. God alone, it is never lawful for one on one’s own authority to kill the innocent directly. When dealing with suicide, the sixth commandment can be invoked, which is regarded as applicable to self-murder. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
The mental agony of approaching death is part of the sacrifice that God demands for the sins and faults of life. Suicide is an error on the ground that it affords an apparent and not a real release from the sufferings of life. Such a release is only apparent because the will as a thing-in-itself is outside of space and time, and the person committing suicide cannot destroy the will itself, but only its manifestation at this place and time. At the same time, some do not believe that suicide should be considered a sin nor a crime. It could be considered preposterous to view suicide as a crime when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the World to which every person has a more unassailable title than to one’s own life and person. Although it is now universally conceded to be useless and harmful to punish those who attempt suicide for any reason, because the punishment of one who attempts suicide can only increase one’s depression and render a renewed attempt more likely, prevailing opinion still holds that it is right and efficacious to punish those who knowingly and willfully assist in suicides (or kill with consent), even though they act from the strongest humanitarian motives. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
There are also cases of apparently accidental misfortune which are now known to me whose surrounding circumstances justified the suspicion of suicide. For example, during an officers’ horse-race one of the riders fell from his horse and was so seriously injured that a few days later he succumbed to his injuries. His behavior after regaining consciousness was remarkable in more than one way, and his conduct previous to the accident was still more remarkable. He had been greatly depressed by the death of his beloved father, had crying spells in the society of his comrades, and to his trusted friend has spoken of the taedium vitae. He had wished to quit the service in order to take part in a war in Africa which had no interest for him. Formerly a keen rider, he had later evaded a riding whenever possible. Finally, before the horse-race, from which he could not withdraw, he expressed a sad foreboding; in the light of our conception that it is quite comprehensible without any further cause that a person in such a state of nervous depression cannot manage a horse as well as on normal days. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
I was quite agreeable that depression could affect the way ability to handle a horse, only I should like to look for the mechanism of this motor inhibition through nervousness in the intention of self-destruction here emphasized. It is evident that the situation of a battlefield is such as to meet the requirement of conscious suicidal intent with, nevertheless, shuns the direct way. “They said he wished to die.” Suicide is probably a problem of psychiatry or social engineering rather than of abstract morals. The rejection of suicide is implicit in the belief that life is worth living. Another analysis of an apparently accidental self-inflicted wound, detailed to me by an observer, recalls the saying, “He who digs a pit for others falls in himself.” Mrs. X, belonging to a good middle-class family, is married and has three children. She is somewhat nervous, but never needed any strenuous treatment, as she could sufficiently adapt herself to life. One day, she sustained a rather striking through transitory disfigurement of her face in the following manner: She stumbled in a street that was in the process of repair and struck her face against the house wall. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The whole face was bruised, the eyelids blue and oedematous, and as she feared that something might happen to her eyes, she sent for the doctor. After she was calmed, I asked her, “But why did you fall in such a manner?” She answered that just before the accident she warned her husband, who had been suffering for some months from a joint affection, to be very careful in the street, and she often had the experience that is some remarkable way those things occurred to her against which she warned others. I was not satisfied with this as the determination of her accident, and asked her whether she had not something else to tell me. Yes, just before the accident, she noticed a picture in a shop on the other side of the street, which she suddenly desired as an ornament for her nursery, and wished to buy it at once. She thereupon walked across to the shop without looking at the street, stumbled over a heap of stones, and fell with her face against the wall without making the slightest effort to shield herself with her hands. The intention to buy the picture was immediately forgotten, and she walked back to the house in haste. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
I asked her why was she not more careful. She told me it was perhaps only a punishment for that episode which she had confided to me. I could not believe that episode was still bothering her. However, she said that she regretted it very much; and considered herself wicked, criminal, and immoral, but at the time, she was almost crazy with nervousness. She was talking about an abortion which was started by a quack and had to with the consent of her husband, as both wished on account of their pecuniary circumstances to be spared from being additionally blessed with children. She said that she often reproached herself with the words, “You really had your child killed,” and she feared that such a crime could not remain unpunished. After I assured her there was nothing seriously wrong with her eyes, she was quite assured that she had already been sufficiently punished. This accident, therefore, was on the one hand a retribution for her sin, but on the other hand it may have served as an escape from a more dire punishment which she had feared for many months. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16In the moment that she ran to the shop to buy the picture, the memory of this whole history, with its fears (already quite active in her unconscious at the time she warned her husband), became overwhelming and could perhaps find expression in words like these: “But why do you want an ornament for the nursery?—you who had your child killed! You are a murderer! The great punishment is surely approaching!” This thought did not become conscious, but instead of it she made sue of the situation—I might say of the psychological moment—to utilize in a commonplace manner the heap of stone to inflict upon herself this punishment. It was for this reason that she did not even attempt to put probably lesser, determinant of her accident was obviously the self-punishment for her unconscious wish to be rid of her husband, who was an accessory to the crime in this affair. This was betrayed by her absolutely superfluous warning to be very careful in the street on account of the stones. For, just because her husband had a weak leg, he was very careful in walking. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
If such a rage against one’s own integrity and one’s own life can be hidden behind apparently accidental awkwardness and motor insufficiency, then it is not a big step forward to grasp the possibility of transferring the same conception to mistakes which seriously endanger the life and health of others. Human life is of no more importance to the Universe than that of an oyster. If the disposal of human life were reserved to the Almighty, almost any action would become an encroachment of his privilege. “If I was attacked by a gang and robbed and suffered a fatal blow to the head, I disturb the course of nature and I invade the peculiar providence of the Almighty by lengthening out my life beyond the period, which, by the general laws of matter and motion, he has assigned it to. However, are we not all guilty of extending our lives beyond their natural capacity with medical care, vaccines, and the like? In considering the true nature of God, one must first consider the nature of human beings and the Universe, for without understanding oneself or the Universe in which one lives, how can we approach an understanding of God? #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
Each human possesses a consciousness independent of any other creature. One is aware of a separation between oneself and the World around one. One experiences images, sounds, scents, tastes, and physical forms through what one perceives as one’s physical body. Each one of us also experience thoughts, emotions, and other phenomena which do not manifest either visibly or audibly but which influence us nonetheless and which we perceive as coming from within or consciousness. From the earliest time, human beings have attempted to reconcile this condition of separation from the Universe. Early humans, in terror of the images and sounds which bombarded them from all directions and of the Earth which seemed ready to swallow these beings once more as if the Universe itself realized that is had made a terrible mistake, scared of this thing called life and yet equally scared of death, began to imagine hideous gods and demons all about them. These monsters appeased or else death could be imminent. As human beings survived fire and flood, disease and famine, the anxiety they felt concerning their condition lessened. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
Humans learned to live and even thrive in a hostile and evil World. Civilizations rose to power and raised animistic deities as gods who now demand worship and sacrifice in return for their beneficence and bleeding. The threat was no longer against an individual human, but against an entire society. To gain the favor of the gods, these deities had to be appeased or else famine, pestilence, or war might come upon a nation and destroy it. Ultimately, the priests of many of these gods decided that their particular deity was the true God, that all other gods were Devils, and that the followers of other gods had to be converted or destroyed. Satan has certainly been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years. On Saturday night, I see men and women at the club lusting after half-naked guys and ladies dancing on the dance floor, talking about “Booty me down.” On Sunday morning, these same people are sitting in the pews with their wives, husbands, lovers, and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday, they are back at the club turning tricks. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
The battle with these demons will either be won or lost. Find out what all of their legal rights are with that person, then get all of them properly taken care of and broken with the Lord, and then the demons will have absolutely nothing else left to be able to hold onto. If those heavier types of sins are being done on some kind of regular basis for quite a long period of time with no intent by the person to try and pull out of it, that means you are committing direct and willful sins against the Lord, and that is a major door opener for demons. Many people believe that God will turn a blind eye to the sin of fornication. However, if by chance you are fornicating with a partner who has demons attached to them, then you will give full legal rights for the demons to be able to come directly after you if God will allow a hole to occur in the protective armor that he has set up on you and your life. Dear Lord in Heaven, you are all our riches, and you suffice for us. God, you are justice and moderation, peace, joy, and gladness. You are our protector and defender, courage, faith, and our great consolation. God, you are our eternal life, Great and Wonderful Lord. God Almighty, Merciful Savior please protect us all, and let people know, young and antiquated that their lives are valuable. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
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Those who do Not Remember the Past are Condemned to Repeat it
Rituals are part of everyday life. They both constitute and celebrate defining group characteristics. Human beings require a rational soul that is immaterial, hence indivisible, hence immortal. The fundamental right to punish belongs to society. Society, alone, and not the individual, can mete out that amount of evil that is necessary to preserve the well-being of humanity, and can oppose the criminal impulse with a moral counterimpulse. Society develops through the synthesis of national character (tradition) with stimulation—spontaneous, free, and renewing—according to a law of convenience, with all parts of the nation tending toward an equilibrium of force and utility through the balance of interests and powers. This dialectic of civilization is a work of art, even the highest work of art of a humanity striving for perfection. Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you will put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you will hold on really hard and realize there is no choice, but to let go. Acceptance is a small quiet room. The decline of spiritual values is due to internal degeneration or disintegration within the person and the society, and only seldom to external pressure. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
Advertisers, politicians, educators, religious organizations, and others actively seek to alter attitudes and opinions. To an extent, their persuasive efforts resemble brainwashing, but there is an important difference: Brainwashing, or forced attitude change, requires a captive audience. If you are offended by a TV commercial, you can just tune it out. Prisoners in the POW (prisoner of war) camps in Korea (and later Vietnam) were completely at the mercy of their captors. Complete control over the environment allows a degree of psychological manipulation that would be impossible in a normal setting. How does captivity facilitate persuasion? The target person is isolated from other people who would support his or her attitude; the target is made completely dependent on his or her captors for satisfaction of basic needs; and the indoctrinating agent is in a position to reward the target for changes in attitudes or behavior. Brainwashing beings with attempts to make the target person feel completely helpless. Physical and psychological abuse, lack of sleep, humiliation, and isolation serve to unfreeze, or loosen, former values and beliefs. The benefits of rituals have been well documented. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
When exhaustion, pressure, and fear become unbearable, change occurs as the person abandons former beliefs. Typically, prisoners who reach the breaking point sign a false confession or cooperate to gain relief. When they do, they are suddenly rewarded with praise, privileges, food, or rest. Continued pairing of hope and fear with additional pressures to conform then serves to refreeze (solidify) new attitudes. There have been cases where people are virtually held hostage in society, and if they attempt to go anywhere other than where they are allowed, someone will run into their car, try to run them over or assault the target person. Fearing injury, the person stays within the boundaries, where they are tracked and subjected to other forms of abuse. However, dramatic shifts in attitudes induced by brainwashing are usually temporary. In the United States of America, an estimated 2 to 5 million people have succumbed to the lure of cults. A cult is a group in which the leader’s personality is more important than the beliefs she or he preaches. Cult members give their allegiance to this person, who is regarded as infallible, and they follow his or her dictates without question. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Almost always, cult members are victimized by their leaders in one way or another. Recruiting new members, cults use a powerful blend of guilt, manipulation, isolation, deception, fear, and escalating commitment. In this respect, cults employ high-pressure indoctrination techniques similar to brainwashing. The cult can control the flow and interpretation of information individuals receive and there is a numbing effect of acceleration as autoamputation of the sense. The body as a sensing, experiencing, feeling, living totality has been autoamputated, an effect of fear spread throughout the World of an individual as a result of the power of destructiveness over all of life. The numbing of the body and emotions needs to be recognized and re-enlivening must occur. Some individuals lose themselves and overtime become automatons that look like human beings from the outside, but are hollow inside. Some people are recruited by cults, even in modern times, for human sacrifice, which is the act of killing one or more human beings, usually as an offering to a deity, as part of a ritual. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
In times of emotional and financial chaos, rituals offer the comfort and hope of stability. Rituals facilitate continuity, provide a link between past and future. Human sacrifice has been practiced in various cultures throughout history. Victims were typically ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease gods, spirits, or the deceased. In a society which condemns human sacrifice, the term ritual murder is used. Isolation from non-cult members is used. Drills, discipline, and rituals (all-night meditation or continuous chanting, for instance) keep recruits continuously occupied. These rituals also wear down physical and emotional resistance and generate feelings of commitment. Many cults make cleaver use of their foot-in-the-door technique. At first, recruits make small commitments (to stay after a meeting, for example). Then, larger commitments are encouraged (to stay an extra day, to call in sick at work, and so forth). Why do people stay in cults? Most former members mention guilt and fear as the main reason for not leaving when they wished they could. Most have been reduced to child-like dependency on the group for meeting all their daily needs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
After they leave, many cult members suffer from anxiety, panic attacks, and emotional disturbances much like post-traumatic stress syndrome. Ritual killings are not that common in America, as they are in India. Because of blind superstitions and rampant illiteracy, a woman in India sacrificed a boy. Sumitra Bushan, in 2006, lived in Barha for most of her life, and at age 43, she thought she was cursed. Her husband left her, and she was deep in debt and was basically a slave. Her sons, Satbir, age 27, and Sanjay, age 23, were living a lifestyle of leisure. She and her family started having visions. And she was told by a travelling man that she must sacrifice a boy from her village. So they crept into their neighbour’s house and abducted three-year-old Aakash Singh, as he slept. They dragged him into their house and performed a puja ceremony, reciting a mantra and waving incense, and then they used a knife and mutilated him, and life him bleeding in from of an image of their goddess. This has been going on for centuries, as some people are still living in the dark ages. That same year, there were 28 human sacrifices in western Uttar Pradesh within four months. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
Many people blame the turn to the occult on the increasing economic hardships, as people have debts spiraling out of control. Human sacrifices have also been happening along the U.S. Mexico border. An alleged member of a cult sacrificed, two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman to Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, a figure adored mostly by outlaws but whose popularity is growing across Mexico and among Hispanics in the United States of America. The throats and the wrists of the victims were cut with knives and axes and their blood was spread on a Santa Muerte altar. Their bodies where then buried near the shacks where the alleged cult members live. Cult members usually ask around to find the right person, and it usually only takes a week or so. There is an emphasis on virginity, and they do not believe in choosing victims based on outdated patriarchal belief, but rather on the basis of equality for all. These types of rituals are international, and not specific to either rural places or cities. They can happen anywhere, and there is usually some kind of symbolic evidence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
In many ritual killings, there is usually symbols carved into the body, symbols painted on the floor, the body might be positioned a certain way. And there is usually a significance of dates, like significant holidays specific to different ideologies. These people have usually crossed over to the dark side, which would be Satanism. When a person is held captive, forced attitude change (brainwashing) is possible. However, in most cases the effects or brainwashing are only temporary. When people join cult-like groups, more profound and lasting alterations of their belief systems are possible. A lot of people do not believe that ritual killings happen in America. People do this because they are true believers, ritual killings are required as part of their belief system, like a sacrifice that is required on a Blue Moon. Or they may feel they have to target a certain person. If it is a true criminal, they might be doing it because it satisfies other needs and they are using it as sort of an excuse. However, most of the time, they motivation is they think magically and they think it is going to give them power or protect them. They believe that ritual killings will give them more control over their life. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
When poverty joins high levels of economic and social aspirations, the stage is set for criminal activities—particularly official corruption, ritual killings, robbery and dealing in illegal goods and services. People who are thwarted in attaining desired social and economic goals legally may seek to obtain them illegally. Psychologically, aggression is always a consequence of frustration while frustration leads to some form of aggression. Every day, police stations are inundated with reports of all manner of crimes involving fraudsters, missing persons many of whom end up in the hands of ritualists. Less than 10 percent of such missing persons return home. A scary percentage of them are not found and the bodies of negligible number that are eventually seen, are dumped either on the roadsides, bush paths or inside gutters, mutilated and their vital organs removed. Usually, victims are taken to the forests and butchered for money rituals. In countries like Nigeria, there are over 4,000 ritual killings a year, and not only civilians, but sometimes police personnel are victims. Sometimes even the rich engage in these practices to keep their wealth. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
The Morning Star is the Evening Star
Life and the World around us is a painted veil, an illusion though which we penetrate to the reality behind. Religion and virtue seem in many respect to be so nearly related that they are generally presumed to be inseparable companions. We are so willing to think well of their union that we hardly allow it to be permissible to speak or even think of them separately. However, it may by questioned whether this attitude can be theoretically justified. We certainly do sometimes encounter cases that seem to go against this general supposition. We have known people who have the appearance of great zeal in religion, but have lacked even the common affections of humanity, and shown themselves extremely degenerate and corrupt. Others who have paid little regard to religion and been considered as mere atheists have been seen to practice the rules of morality and in many cases to act with such good meaning and affection towards humankind that one seems forced to admit that they are virtuous. In our everyday lives, our wiliness to have dealings with someone may depend on one’s answer to “What are his or her morals?” A person who is aware of the superior pleasures to be found in virtuous action will naturally prefer virtue to mere self-interest. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Our notions of God are projections of our own humor, as we are, so shall we think God to be. God must necessarily be good humored. However, we can never understand this quality unless we possess it ourselves. Hence, the necessity for permitting good humor in the discussion of religion. I give a lot of credence to the grace of God because much of what we do, in fact, more of what we do than we do not do has to do with our fortune and misfortune. And I think there are people who the miseducation has taken a greater toll on than me. And you know, but for the grace of God, I would have been confused about my identity. We cannot understand qualities of mind and character which we do not possess ourselves. The best foundation for rendering a just account of human nature is thorough knowledge of oneself. No one who knows oneself can possibly believe that all human action stem from selfish motives. God is a good-tempered, benevolent being who orders the World. Sincere the affection for virtue is natural, religion is unnecessary to its presence in us. However, theistic opinions about a benevolent God may reinforce the affection. Yet, so many the good example of others and rewards and punishment. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
When religion and morality are separated, a selfish interest in one’s own welfare is not all that is left to provide a foundation for morality. There is more than accounting for the possibility of morality than a simple choice of religion. It is the function of both poetry and religion to provide people with a coherent view of the World that will help them understand both themselves and their fellow human beings, and to provide it in a form that will kindle the imagination as well as the intellect. The ultimate solution is a community small enough for each member to know the other members as individuals. Such intimate person knowledge will bring understanding and sympathy, so that people will be prepared to cooperate for the common good, without the coercion of law. People will indeed value their neighbors’ opinions, but they will not take their neighbors’ opinion on trust. To do so would be useless, because even a true opinion is of little value unless one understands the grounds for holding it. It is only when people see things as they are, in all their intricate interconnections, that they will feel the right emotions and thus lead happy and virtuous lives. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
People see life as if through a veil—the veil of their own prejudices, which are imposed by social institutions. We must transcend their prejudices in order to understand and love our fellow humans. If we are to fear the wrath of God, then there must be some principle by which we regulate our fears. If we are to fear God’s blame, we must already know what is blame worthy. Nothing is blameworthy simply because it displeases God. God and human beings must share a sense of deformity which enables them to identify the morally odious. There is no divine monopoly here. Morality may arise independently of religion. Virtue is natural because human nature provides a foundation for virtue. Why should selfishness or self-interest be the only natural passion? Social feeling or sense of partnership with humankind may be natural. The social feeling must be natural, for how could there be society if this feeling did not exist first? If society is a set of conventional arrangements, then the existence of society implies the pre-existence of a disposition among people to make conventions. Thus, the selfish picture of human nature cannot be the whole story, for if selfishness were the only natural feeling, there would be no society. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
What is more, since the existence of a social feeling is sufficient to account for the origin of society, appeals to the religious sanctions for society are necessarily subsequent to the actual foundation of society and therefore of secondary importance. Virtue is the pursuit of the public interest. There is no real love of virtue without the knowledge of public good. We are disposed to act virtuously by our affection for virtue. This affection for virtue is called the moral sense. This sense is like a harmony in music and a sense of proportion in architecture and art. In a creature capable of forming general notions of things, not only the outward beings which offer themselves to the sense are objects of the affection, but the very actions themselves and the affections of pity, kindness, gratitude, and their contraries, being brought into the minds by reflection become objects. So that by means of this reflected sense, there arise another kind of affection towards those very affections themselves, which have been already felt, and are now become the subject of a new liking or dislike. One way we evaluate ourselves is to compare ourselves to others and to our own ideal self-image. If an ideal image cannot be met, it may have to be discarded or revised, but this is not easy to do. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Once we remove the veil of unreality, the World will be seen as a unity—both in the sense in which science may be said to be a unity (the truth about one field of study cohering with and illuminating the truth about another), and in the sense that a true understanding of our fellow humans will give rise to virtuous behavior. This is the indestructible order that it is the business of poetry to reveal. We live surrounded by an infinite multitude of mysteries. For God, all things are possible, even what one may considered a logical absurdity, that is, causing what has in fact happened not to have happened. The fundamental property of life is daring; all life is creative daring and this an eternal mystery, irreducible to anything finished or intelligible. In human’s very existence, thought has discovered something improper, a defect, a sickness, or sin, and has demanded that this be overcome at its foundation by a renunciation of existence. Disclosure by talking seriously and honestly together on an equal level is the necessary condition for reducing the mystery that one person is for another. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
We need to take better care of ourselves mentally, physically, and spiritually. Because the times that are coming up are going to be challenging times. Progress come both in the realization of the need for re-education and further in the re-education process itself. A good beginning to understanding and appreciating life fully is knowing that at some point it will end. Games prevent honest, intimate, and open relationships between the players. Yet people play them because they fill up time, provoke attention, reinforce early opinions about self and others, and fulfill a sense of destiny. We have to learn to make the time period between life’s only two certainties, birth and death meaningful and significant. Human beings place far too much stress upon defining the purpose in and of our lives. Our only purpose in life if purpose is needed, is to be what we are fully, vitally and in context of other people having the same right. We each need to find a purpose or goal in our existence but we should not dwell on it. People are known and respected for their commitment and dedication to the uplift of people. Each of us must know that others may try to push us down or disqualify us, but we will be able to fulfill our destinies. The rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Randolph Harris II International Institute 