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Know Your Prices, Keep Smiling, Create an Alarm–There is More than One Way to Arrive at a Redemption from Phoniness!

June 4, 2020 12:50 am

The doctrine that maintains that what I cannot have I must teach myself not to desire; that a desire eliminated or successfully resisted, is as good as a desire satisfied, seems to me a sublime form of the doctrine of sour grapes: What I cannot be sure of, I cannot truly want. Complex modern democratic societies the Second World War face the task of securing three public goods. These are legitimacy, economic welfare, and a viable sense of collective identity. These are “goods” in the sense that their attainment is considered worthy and desirable by most members of such societies; furthermore, not attaining one or a combination thereof would cause problems in the functioning of these societies such as to throw them into crises. These goods stand in a complex relation to one another: excessive realization of one such good may be in conflict with may jeopardize the realization of others. For example, economic welfare may be attained at the cost of sacrificing legitimacy by curtailing union rights, by limiting a more rigorous examination of business accounting practices, or by encouraging the unfair use of protectionist state measures. Too great an emphasis on collective identity may come at the cost of marginalized workers and dissidents whose civil and political rights may be impinged upon by a revival of a sense of collective identity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

Thus legitimacy claims and collective identity demands, particularly if they take a nationalist tone, may come into conflict. There can also be conflicts between the claims of economic welfare and the demands of collective identity, as when excessive forms of protectionism and nationalism isolate countries in the World economic context, possibly leading to declining standards of living. Conversely, too great an emphasis on economic welfare may undermine a sense of collective identity by increasing competition among social groups and by weakening the claims of political sovereignty vis-à-vis other state. In a well-functioning democratic society the demands of legitimacy, economic welfare, and collective identity ideally exist in some form of equilibrium. The present essay is concerned with one good among others which democratic societies must attain: the good of legitimacy. I am concerned to examine the philosophical foundations of the democratic legitimacy. I will argue that legitimacy in complex democratic societies must be thought to result from the free and unconstrained public deliberation of all about matter of common concern. Thus a public sphere of deliberation about matters of mutual concern is essential to the legitimacy of democratic institutions. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Democracy, in my view, is best understood as a model for organizing the collective and public exercise of power in the major institutions of a society on the basis of the principle that decisions affecting the well being of a collectivity can be viewed as the outcome of a procedure of free and reasoned deliberation among individuals considered as moral and political equals. Certainly any definition of essentially contested concepts like democracy, freedom, and justice is never a mere definition; the definition itself already articulates the normative theory that justifies the term. Such is the cause with the preceding definition. My understanding of democracy privileges a deliberative model over other kinds of normative considerations. This is not to imply that economic welfare, institutional efficiency, and cultural stability would not be relevant in judging the adequacy of a normative definition of democracy. Economic welfare claims and collective identity needs must also be satisfied for democracies to function over time. However, the normative basis of democracy as a form of organizing our collective life is neither the fulfillment of economic welfare nor the realization of a stable sense of collective identity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

For just as the attainment of certain levels of economic welfare may be compatible with authoritarian political rule, so too antidemocratic regimes may be more successful in assuring a sense of collective identity than democratic ones. The practical rationality embodied in democratic institutions has a culture-transcending validity claim. This form of practical reason has become the collective and anonymous property of cultures, institutions, and traditions as a result of the experiments and experiences, both ancient and modern, with democratic rule over the course of human history. The insights and perhaps illusions resulting from these experiments and experiences are sedimented in diverse constitutions, institutional arrangements, and procedural specifics. When one think through the form of practical rationality at the core of democratic rule, Hegel’s concept of “objective Spirit” (objekiver Geist) appears to me particularly appropriate. The moral life is the perfection of spirit objective—the truth of the subjective and objective spirit itself. The failure of this latter consists—partly in having its freedom immediately in reality, in something external therefore, in a thing—partly in the abstract universality of its goodness. The failure of spirit subjective similarly consists in this, that it is, as against the universal, abstractly self-determinant in its inward individuality. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

When these two imperfections are suppressed, subjective freedom exists as the covertly and overtly universal rational will, which is sensible of itself and actively disposed in the consciousness of the individual subject, whilst its practical operation and immediate universal actuality at the same time exist as moral usage, manner and custom—where self-conscious liberty has become nature. The consciously free substance, in which the absolute “ought” is no less an “is,” has actuality as the spirit of a nation. The abstract disruption of this spirit singles it out into persons, whose independence it, however, controls and entirely dominates from within. However, the person, as an intelligent being, feels that underlying essence to be one’s own very being—ceases when so minded to be a mere accident of it—looks upon it as one’ absolute final aim. In its actuality one sees not less an achieved present, than somewhat one brings about by one’s action—yet somewhat which without all question is. Thus, without any selective reflection, the person performs one’s duty as one’s own and as something which is; and in this necessity one has oneself and one’s actual freedom. It is the rationality intrinsic to these anonymous yet intelligible rules, procedures and practices that any attempt aiming at the reconstruction of the logic of democracies must focus upon. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

The more we realize what infinite harm neurotic conflicts inflict on the personality, the more stringent appears the need truly to resolve them. However, since, as we now understand, this cannot be done by rational decision nor by evasion nor by the exertion of will power, how can it be done? There is only one way: the conflicts can be resolved only by changing those conditions within the personality that brought them into being. This is a radical way, and a hard one. In view of the difficulties involved in changing anything within ourselves, it is quite understandable that we should scour the ground for short cuts. Perhaps that is why individuals—and others as well—so often ask: If one sees one’s basic conflict, is that enough? The answer is clearly, no. Even when the analyst—discerning quite early in the analysis just how the individual is divided—is able to help one recognize this split, the insight is of no immediate profit. It may bring a certain relief in that the individual begins o see a tangible reason for one’s troubles instead of simply being lost in a mysterious haze; but one cannot apply it to one’s life. A perception of how one’s divergent parts operate and interfere with one another makes one no les divided. One hears these facts as one hears a strange message; it seems plausible, but one cannot realize its implications for oneself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

One is bound to invalidate the facts by manifold unconscious mental reservations. Unconsciously one will insist that the analyst is exaggerating the magnitude of one’s conflicts; that one would be quite all right if it were not for outside circumstances; that love or success would rid one of one’s distress; that one can evade one’s conflicts by keeping away from people; that though it may be true of ordinary folk that they cannot serve two masters, one with one’s unlimited powers of will and intelligence could manage to do so. Or one may feel-again unconsciously—that the analyst is a charlatan or a well-meaning fool, feigning professional cheerfulness; that one ought to know the individual is ruined beyond repair—which means that the individual responds to the analyst’s suggestions with one’s own feelings of hopelessness. Since such mental reservations point to the fact that the individual either clings to one’s particular attempts at solution—these being much more real to one than the conflicts themselves—or that one fundamentally despairs of recovery, all the attempts and all their consequences must be worked through before the basic conflict can profitably be tackled. The search for an easier road has given rise to another questions, lent weight by Dr. Freud’s emphasis on genesis: Is it enough to relate these conflicting drives—once they have been recognized—to their origins and early manifestations in the childhood situation? #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

Again the answer is, no—and again, for the most part, the same reasons apply. Even the most detailed recollection of one’s early experiences gives the individual little beyond a more lenient, ore condoning attitude toward oneself. It in no way make one’s present conflicts any less disrupting. A comprehensive knowledge of early environmental influences and the changes they effected in the child’s personality, though it has little direct therapeutic values, does have a bearing on our inquiry into the conditions under which neurotic conflicts develop. As is generally recognized, this knowledge is also of great prophylactic value. If we know what environmental factors are helpful to a child’s development and what factors delay and limit it, a way is opened to the prevention of the rank growth of neuroses in future generations. It was, after all, the changes in one’s relations with oneself and others that originally brought about the conflicts. Briefly, a child may find oneself in a situation that threatens one’s inner freedom, one’s spontaneity, one’s feeling of security, one’s self-confidence—in short the very core of one’s psychic existence. One feels isolated and helpless, and as a result one’s first attempts to relate oneself to others are determined not by one’s real feelings but by strategic necessities. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

One cannot simply like or dislike, trust or distrust, express one’s wishes or protest against those of others, but has automatically to devise ways to cope with people and to manipulate them with minimum damage to oneself. The fundamental characteristics that evolve in this way may be summarized as an alienation from the self and others, a feeling of helplessness, a pervasive apprehensiveness, and a hostile tension in one’s human relations that ranges from general wariness to definite hatred. As long as these conditions persist, the neurotic cannot possibly dispense with any of one’s conflicting drives. On the contrary, the inner necessities from which they stem become even more stringent in the course of the neurotic development. The fact that the pseudo solutions increase the disturbance in one’s relations with others and with oneself means that real solutions become less and less attainable. The goal of therapy, therefore, can only be o change the conditions themselves. The neurotic must be helped to retrieve oneself, to become aware of one’s real feelings and wants, to evolve one’s own set of values, and to relate oneself to others on the basis of one’s feelings and convictions. If we could achieve this by some magic, the conflicts would be dispelled without their having even to be touched upon. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

As there is no magic, we must know what steps have to be taken to being about the desired change. Therapy affords insight and helps the individual grow. It helps makes one more empathic and gives theory more experiential meaning. If affords more faith in one’s understanding life. The real aristocrats among those in therapy are those who have had nervous breakdowns. Everybody else is kind of “square.” Therapy can yield a fuller awareness of the extent to which one has been inauthentic in one’s everyday existence, and some help and encouragement to dare to be genuine in one’s everyday existence. This experience can also be gotten out of a good platonic relationship, probably. There is more than one way to arrive at redemption from phoniness. Such experience can enhance one’s sensitivity to phoniness, to inauthenticity in another person; and it also gives one an opportunity to be a role model of authenticity of others. Now, if you can get this courage to be authentic in some way other than therapy, so much the better; but I suspect it is rather difficult to. There may be some wise seniors who have knocked around a lot, and who have worked in every kind of work—who have cheated, lied, stolen, and sinned. They have paid the consequences of all these things #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

After paying the consequences for their bad behaviour, on their own, they may have realized how they shortchanged themselves. They may have arrived at the authentic way, and can be regarded as natural untrained graduates of a therapeutic program. Since they have been one, they can spot phony. They are experts. They are more expert at phoniness than the others. They can help an individual grope for a way to be more genuine and at the same tie be effective in life. They can help a person realize that one does not have to be destroyed when one is genuine, that one will not inevitably be divorced, fired, or run out of town if one presents oneself as one is In 50 or 60 years, a human may discover authenticity and have some therapeutic capacity. However, a training analysis or bout of therapy may expedite this. The corporate World has a toe and heel, and each performs a different function: one delivers a service, the other collects payment for it. When an organization seeks to create demand for a service and then deliver it, it uses the smile and the soft questioning voice. Behind this delivery display, the organization’s worker is asked to feel sympathy, trust, and good will. On the other hand, when the organization seeks to collect money for what it has sold, its workers may be asked to use a grimace and the raised voice of commands. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

Behind this collection display of beneficial and comforting emotions and expressions, the worker is asked to feel distrust and sometime positive bad will. Some companies assign the function of debt collecting to outside agencies in order to preserve pleasant and morally satisfying associations with the company name. The builder’s billing department explained: “We use eight or nine collection agencies around the country. No one initiates actions in this office. We prefer that the agency be the bad guy or gal and we be he nice people.” Just over 1 percent of customers do not pay their bills. After solicitations, some 40 percent pay, and 33 percent of that goes to the collection agency. In each kind of display, the problem for the worker becomes how to create and sustain the appropriate feeling. The reason for describing the polar extremes of emotional labour, as represented by a sale agent and the bill collector, is that it can give us a better sense of the great variety of emotional task required by jobs that fall in between. It can help us see how emotional labour distributes itself up and down the social classes and how parents can train children to do the emotional labour required by different jobs. Now this is tremendously important for us today as it has been in the past. Perhaps we are in a time when it is more important that ever. The prospering of God’s cause on Earth depends upon His people thinking well. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

Today we are apt to downplay or disregard the importance of good thinking to strong faith; and some, disastrously, even regard thinking as opposed to faith. They do not realize that in so doing they are not honoring God, but simply yielding to the deeply anti-intellectualist currents in the New World. They do not realize that they are operating on the same satanic principle that produced the “killing fields” of Cambodia, where those with any sign of education—even the wearing of glasses—were killed on the spot or condemned to starvation and murderous labour. We too easily forget that it is great thinkers who have given direction to the people of Christ in their great moments: Paul, John, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley, to name a few. At the head of the list is Jesus Christ Himself, who was and is the most powerful thinker the World has ever known. Logical is a great design of a noble science that allows us to rescue our reasoning powers from their unhappy slavery and darkness; and thus, with all due submission and deference, it offers an humble assistance to divine revelation. Its chief business is to relieve the natural weakness of the mind by some better efforts of nature; it is to diffuse a light over the understanding in our inquiries after truth. And it renders its daily service to wisdom and virtue. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

Bluntly, to serve God well we must think straight; and crooked thinking, unintentional or not, always favours evil. And when the crooked thinking gets elevated into group orthodoxy, whether religious or secular, there is always, quite literally “hell to pay.” That is, hell will take its portion, as it has repeatedly done in the horrors of the World history. To take the “information” of the Scripture into a mind thinking straight under the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, by contrast, is to place our feet solidly on the high road of spiritual formation under God. “The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes,” reports Psalm 19.7-8. And “Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee,” reports Psalm 119.11. “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path,” reports Psalm 119.105. “I love Thy commandments above gold, yes, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem right all Thy precepts concerning everything,” reports Psalm 119.127-128. “Those who love Thy law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble,” reports Psalm 119.165. Worship does not just “happen.” Worship requires careful preparation on the part of minister and congregations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

I have experienced both side of this, and I know Sunday morning can be the worst time of the week. It is probably true that couples, especially those with young children, have more disagreements on Sunday morning than on any other day of the week. Sometimes by the time we get to church, worship is an impossibility—unless, perhaps, the sermon is on repentance! The answer to the problem begins Saturday (on Friday night for those who attend church on Saturday) preparation. (Any men who interpret the following as women’s work are wrong. Both husband and wife should share responsibility for the practical and spiritual preparations for the Lord’s Day.) It is advisable that young families have their clothing clean and laid out of Saturday (or Friday) night, and even breakfast be decided upon. The whereabouts of Bibles and lessons should be known, and even better, ought to be collected and ready. There should be an agreed-upon time to get up which leaves plenty of time to get ready for church. Going to bed at a reasonable hour is also a good idea. Spiritually, prayer about the Lord’s Day is essential—prayer for the service, the music, the pastors, one’s family and one’s self. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

The Puritans understood this well. As one of their great preachers, George Swinnock, quaintly expressed it: Prepare to meet thy God, O Christian! Betake thyself to thy chamber on the Saturday (of Friday) night. The oven of thine heart thus baked, as it were, overnight, would be easily heated the next morning; the fire so well raked up when thou wentest to bed, would be the sooner kindled when thou shouldst rise. If thou wouldst thus leave thy heart with God on the Saturday (or Friday) night, thou shouldst fine it with him in the Lord’s Day morning. On Sunday (or Saturday) everyone needs to get up on time, eat at a set hour, and leave plenty early, ideally after a short time of family prayer asking that God will be glorified and speak to each family member. If you do this, Sunday (or Saturday) worship will ascend to new heights. Next you ought to come expecting to uniquely meet God in corporate worship. Congregational worship makes possible an intensity of devotion which does no as readily come in individual worship. On the tragic level, a mob tends to descend to a much deeper level of cruelty than individuals by themselves. It is also understood that the appreciation and enjoyment of an informed group of music lovers at a symphony is more intense than that of a single listener at home. This holds true for worship as well, because corporate worship provides a context where passion is joyously elevated and God’s Word comes with unique power. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

“At home in my own house there is no warmth or vigour in me, but in church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through,” reports Martin Luther. We must come with great expectation—for we will experience just what we expect. Anything may be found in symbol. However, how do we know that what it points to is not itself a more abstract symbol. In order to speak of symbolic knowledge one must delimit the symbolic realm by an unsymbolic statement. Were there no limit to symbolism, there would be no knowledge either. Faith would imply an indefinite progress from symbol to further symbol, without any ultimate encounter with the Unsymbolic. That is, it would be a regress, an acknowledgement of the ultimacy of despair, of the impossibility of making sense out of the human situation, of the universal fallacy of thinking that revelatory situations truly are revelatory, or revelation without content. Some argue that the human intellect is fallen, depraved, darkened, and blinded, and therefore human reason is irrelevant or suspect when it comes to becoming or growing as a Christian. Now, even if this point is granted in the case of evangelizing unbelievers, it does not follow that Christians should not use or cultivate their intellects once they become disciples. Moreover, from the fact that reasoning alone will not bring someone to Christ, it does not follow that we should not persuade or reason with people. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

Preaching alone will not save people without the Spirit’s work, but will still preach and work on our messages. We should do the same thing with our use of reason in evangelism. This will is fallen and depraved too, but God still commands people to make a choice to believe. The doctrine of total depravity does not mean that the image of God is effaced, that sinners are as evil as they could possibly be, or that the intellect, emotions, and will are gone or completely useless. Rather, total depravity means that the entire person, including the intellect, has been adversely affected by the Fall and is separate from God. The sinner alone cannot extricate oneself from this condition and cannot merit God’s favour or commitment oneself to God on the basis of one’s own righteousness. Further, the entire personality is corrupt but no inoperative, and every aspect of our personality has a natural inclination to fun in ways contrary to God’s ways. However, none of this means that reason, considered itself, is bad. “Behold, my brethren, do ye not remember to have read the words of the prophet Zenos, which he spake unto this house of Israel, saying: Hearken, O ye house of Israel, and hear the words of me, a prophet of the Lord. For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree, which a human took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and became to decay. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive three began to decay; and he said: I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not. And it came to pass that he pruned it, and digged about it, and nourished it according to its word. And it came to pass that after many days it began to put forth somewhat a little, young and tender branches; but behold, the main top thereof began to perish. And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard saw it, and he said unto his servant: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, go and pluck off those branches which are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire hat they may be burned. And behold, saith the Lord of the vineyard, I take away many of these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will; and it mattereth not that if it so be that the root of this tree will perish, I may preserve the fruit thereof unto myself; wherefore, I will take these young and tender branches, and I will graft them whithersoever I will. Take thou branches of the wild olive tree, and graft them in, in the stead thereof; and these which I have plucked off I will cast into the fire and burn them, that they may not cumber the ground of my vineyard. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“And it came to pass that the servant of the Lord of the vineyard did according to the word of the Lord of the vineyard, and grafted in the branches of the wild olive tree. And the Lord of the vineyard caused that is should be digged about, and pruned, and nourished, saying unto his servants: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, that perhaps I might preserve them unto myself the natural branches of the tree; and also that I may lay up fruit thereof against the season, unto myself; for it grieveth me that I should lose this tree and the fruit thereof. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard went his way, and hid the natural branches of the tame olive tree in the nethermost parts of the vineyard, some in one and some in another, according to his will and pleasure. And it came to pass that a long time passed away, and the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant: Come, let us go down into the vineyard, that we may labour in the vineyard. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard, and also the servant, went down into the vineyard to labour. And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Behold, look here; behold the tree. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard looked and beheld the tree in the which the wild olive branches had been grafted: and it had sprung forth and begun to bear fruit. And he beheld that it was good; and the fruit thereof was like unto the natural fruit. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“And he said unto the servant: Behold, the branches of the wild have taken hold of the moisture of the root thereof, that the root thereof hath brought forth much strength; and because of the much strength of the root thereof the wild branches have brought forth tame fruit. Now, if we had not grafted these branches, the tree therefore would have perished. And now, behold, I shall lay up much fruit, which the tree thereof I shall lay up against the season, unto mine own self. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto the servant: Come, le us go to the nethermost part of the vineyard and behold if the natural branches of the tree have not brought forth much fruit also, that I make lay up of the fruit thereof against the season, unto mine own. And it came to pass that they went forth whither the master had hid the natural branches of the tree, and he said unto the servant: Behold these; and he beheld the first that it had brought forth much fruit; and he beheld also that it was good. And he said unto the servant: Take of the fruit thereof, and lay it up against the season, that I may preserve it unto mine own self; for behold, said he, this long time have I nourished it, and it hath brought for much fruit,” reports Jacob 5.1.20. O Taste and see how good the Lord is Alleluia. Bless the Lord in the Heavens, Alleluia. Bless Him in the highest, Alleluia. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

Bless the Lord, all ye Angels of His, Alleluia. Bless Him, all His host, Alleluia. What blessings or thanksgiving can we offer for this Sacrament? Thee only, O Jesus, do we bless, with the Father and the most Holy Spirit, now and forever. Blessed Creator, Thou hast promised Thy beloved sleep: Please give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow’s toil; if dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil. Let Thy Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of His holy presence. May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death, the bed I approach remind me of the grace, the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing. Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to Thy presence. Weaken my attachment to Earthly things. May I hold life loosely in my hand, knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender; as pain and suffering betoken transitory health, may I not shrink from a death that introduces me to the freshness of eternal youth. I retire this night in full assurance of one day awaking with Thee. All glory for this precious hope; for the gospel of grace, for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus, for the fellowship of the Trinity. Withhold not Thy mercies in the night season; Thy hand never weariness, Thy power needs no repose, Thine eye never sleeps. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

Help me when I helpless lie, when my conscience accuses me of sin, when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts, when my eyes are held awake by person anxieties. Show Thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power; Thou hast a balm for every wound, a solace for all anguish, a remedy for every pain, a peace for all disquietude. Permit me to commit myself to Thee awake or asleep. “For, as I have often old you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on Earthly things. However, our citizenship is in Heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to being everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body, reports Philippians 3.18-21. Chris is administering the Bread of the Saints and the Cup of life for remissions of sins. Thou art Christ our Lord and Saviour, Who wast born of the Virgin Mary. While we receive this most holy Cup, please deliver us from all sin. The Spiritual dispeller of darkness, the Spiritual Father is not only holy Himself but is also an experienced teacher of the way to holiness for others. One who takes upon oneself the task of guiding disciples should possess sure-footed experience gained by years of work with the most varied kinds of apprentices. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

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Tell Me, Pretty Maiden, are there Any More at Home Like You?

May 29, 2020 1:27 am

Nobody starts off stupid. You have only to watch babies and infants, and think seriously about what all of them learn and do, to see that, except for some who face natural limitations, they show a style of life, and a desire and ability to learn that in a more mature person we might call genius. Hardly an adult in a thousand, or ten thousand, could in any three years of one’s life learn as much, grow as much in one’s understanding of the World around one, as every infant learns and grows in one’s first three years. When people are expected to behave in specific ways or are told that they are stupid or bright or ugly or lovable, they often begin to act in these ways. This is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. These expectations may come from parents and other authority figures, but they can also come from peers. In childhood, and especially in adolescence, peer pressure and peer evaluation become very important. It would be better to take words like “stupid” and “dumb” out of the vocabulary you use with any child. In our culture, which places a premium on intelligence, a person who is called stupid often enough is very unlikely to take risks or do anything challenging. (“Why try? I am so dumb I cannot do it.”) Often students who do not speak out in class fear that what they have to say may sound uneducated, and the instructor and other students may laugh at or ridicule them. So these students sit, mute, in class after class. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

Persons in the grip of neurotic hopelessness manage to “carry on” in one way or another. If their capacity to be creative has not been too greatly damaged by their neurosis, they may be able fairly consciously to resign themselves to the state of their personal lives and concentrate on a field in which they can be productive. They may submerge themselves in a social or religious movement or in the work of an organization. Their work may be useful; the fact that they lack zest can be outweighed by their having no personal ax to grind. Others, in adapting themselves to their particular frame of life, may cease to question it but yet not attach much meaning to it, trying merely to fulfill their obligations. It is, I believe, the state of a defect condition, in contrast to neurosis. I interpret it, however, as the outcome of neurotic processes. They may, on the other hand, give up all serious or promising pursuits and turn to the periphery of life, trying to snatch from it some bit of enjoyment, finding their interest in a hobby or in incidental pleasures like good eating, interior design, or gardening. Or they may drift and deteriorate, let themselves go to pieces. Unable to do any consistent work, they take to drink, gambling, whoring. The kind of alcoholism described by Charles Jackson in The Lost Week-End, where a binge drinker mostly of rye, fancies himself as a writer. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

And in his state of neurosis, he lapses into foreign phrase and quotes Shakespeare even while attempting to steal a woman’s purse, trying to pawn a typewriter for drinking money. This represents and end stage of such a condition. In this connection it might be interesting to examine whether an unconscious determination to go to pieces may not supply a powerful psychic contribution to such chronic diseases as tuberculosis and cancer. Finally, persons without hope may turn destructive, but at the same time make an attempt at restitution by living vicariously. This, in my opinion, is the meaning of sadistic trends. Because Dr. Freud regarded sadistic trends as instinctual, psychoanalytical interest has been largely focused on the so-called sadistic perversions. Sadistic patterns in everyday relationships, though not ignored, have not been strictly defined. Any kind of assertive or aggressive behaviour is conceived of as a modification or sublimation of instinctual sadistic trends. Dr. Freud, for instance, regarded a striving for power as such a sublimation. It is true that a striving for power can be sadistic; but in a person who sees life as a battle of all against all, it can merely represent a struggle for survival. Actually, it need not be neurotic at all. The result of this lack of discrimination is that we have neither a comprehensive picture of the forms sadistic attitudes may take nor any criteria as to precisely what is sadistic. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

It is left pretty much to individual intuition to determine what may rightly be called sadism and what may not—a situation hardly conductive to sound observation. The mere act of hurting others is in itself no indication of a sadistic tendency. A person may be engaged in a struggle of a personal or general nature in the course of which one had to hurt not only one’s adversaries but one’s associates as well. Hostility toward others may also be merely reactive. A person can feel hurt or frightened and want to hit back with a force that, while disproportionate to the objective provocation, is subjectively quite in keeping with it. It is easy, however, to deceive oneself on this score: all too often a justifiable reaction is claimed when actually a sadistic tendency was in operation. However, the difficulty in distinguishing one from the other does not mean that reactive hostility is nonexistent. Finally, there are all those offense tactics of the aggressive type who feels one is fighting for survival. I should not call any of these aggressions sadistic; others may get hurt in the process, but the hurting or damaging is an inevitable by-product rather than a prime intention. To put it simply, we could say that although the kinds of action we refer to here are aggressive or even hostile, they are not perpetrated in a mean spirit. There is no conscious or unconscious satisfaction derived from the very fact of hurting. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

It has been repeatedly argued that equality undermines liberty. Some would say that a society in which principles like my radical egalitarian principles were adopted, or even the liberal egalitarian principles of Rawls or Dworkin were adopted, would not be a free society. My arguments have been just the reverse. I have argued that it is only in an egalitarian society that full and extensive liberty is possible. Perhaps the egalitarian and the anti-egalitarian are arguing at cross purposes? What we need to recognize, it has been argued, is that we have two kinds of rights both of which are important to freedom but to rather different freedoms and which are freedoms which not infrequently conflict. We have rights to fair terms of cooperation but we also have rights to non-interference. If a right of either kind is overridden our freedom is diminished. The reason why it might be thought that the egalitarian and the anti-egalitarian may be arguing at cross purposes is that the egalitarian is pointing to the fact that rights to fair terms of cooperation and their associated liberties require equality while the anti-egalitarian is pointing to the fact that rights to fair terms of cooperation and their associated liberties require equality while the anti-egalitarian is pointing to the fact that rights to noninterference and their associated liberties conflict with equality. They focus on different liberties. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

What I have said above may not be crystal clear, so let me explain. People have a right to fair terms of cooperation. In political terms this comes to the equal right of all to effective participation in government and, in more broadly social terms, and for a society of economic wealth, it means people having a right to a roughly equal distribution of the benefits and burdens of the basic social arrangements that affect their lives and for them to stand in such relations to each other such that no one has the power to dominate the life of another. By contrast, rights to non-interference come to the equal right of all to be left alone by the government and more broadly to live in a society in which people have a right peacefully to pursue their interests without interference. The conflict between equality and liberty comes down to, very essentially, the conflicts we get in modern societies between rights to fair terms of cooperation and rights to noninterference. As Joseph Schumpeter saw and J.S. Mill before him, one could have a thoroughly democratic society (at least in conventional terms) in which rights to noninterference might still be extensively violated. A central anti-egalitarian claim is that we cannot have an egalitarian society in which they very precious liberties that go with the rights to non-interference would be violated. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

Love, power, and justice are united in God and they are united in the new creation of God in the World. Humans are estranged from the ground of their being, from themselves, and from their World. However, they are still humans. One cannot completely cut the tie with their creative ground, one is still a centred person and in this sense united with oneself. One still participates in one’s World. In other words: The reuniting love, the power of resisting non-being, and the creative justice are still active in one. Life is not unambiguously good. Then it would not be life but only the possibility of life. And life is not unambiguously evil. Then non-being would have conquered being. However, life is ambiguous in all its expressions. It is ambiguous also with respect to love, power, and justice. We have touched on this fact in many places in our previous discussions. We must now consider it in the light of the new creation within the World of estrangement, which I suggest calling the holy community. In an anticipating summary I would say: in the holy community the agape quality of love cuts into the libido, eros, and philia qualities of love and elevates them beyond the ambiguities of their self-centeredness. In the holy community the spiritual power, by surrendering compulsion, elevates power beyond the ambiguities of its dynamic realization. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

In the holy community justification by grace elevates justice beyond the ambiguities of its abstract and calculating nature. This means that in the holy community love, power, and justice in their ontological structure are affirmed but that their estranged and ambiguous reality is transformed into a manifestation of their unity within the divine life. Let us first consider the ambiguities of love and the work of love as agape in the holy community. Libido is good in itself! We have defended it against Dr. Freud’s depreciation of what he described as the infinite libidinous drive with its ensuing dissatisfaction and death instinct. We have accepted this as the description in estrangement, but not of libido in its creative meaning. Without libido life would not move beyond itself. The Bible knows this as well as recent depth psychology, and we should be grateful that our new insights into the deeper levels of human nature have rediscovered the Biblical realism which was covered by several strata of idealistic and moralistic self-deception about humans. Biblical realism knows both that libido belongs to human’s created goodness and that it is distorted and ambiguous in the state of human’s estrangement. Libido has become unlimited and has fallen under the tyranny of the pleasure principle. It uses the other being not as an object of reunion but as a tool for gaining pleasure out of one. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

Desire for pleasures of the flesh is not evil as the breaking of conventional laws, but the desires for the pleasures of the flesh in autonomy in pleasures of the flesh are evil if they bypass the center of the other person—in other words, if they are not united with the two other qualities of love, and if they are not under the ultimate criterion of the agape quality of love. Agape seems the other one in one’s center. Agape sees one as God sees one. Agape elevates libido into the divine unity of love, power, and justice. The same is true of eros. We have, following Plato, defined eros as the driving force in all cultural creativity and in all mysticism. As such eros has the greatness of divine-human power. It participates in creation in the natural goodness of everything created. However, it also participates in the ambiguities of life. The eros quality of love can be confused with the libido quality and be drawn into its ambiguities. Witness for this is the fact that the New Testament could not use the word eros any more because of its predominantly sexual connotations. And even the mystical eros can express itself in symbols which are not only taken from the life involving pleasures of the flesh but which draw the love to God to an openly ascetic, hiddenly passionate level in pleasures of the flesh. However, more is involved when we speak of the ambiguity of the eros quality of love. It is the aesthetic detachment which can take hold of our relation to culture and makes eros ambiguous. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

The aesthetic stage of humans spiritual development is not a stage but a Universal quality of love exposed to dangers. The ambiguity of cultural eros is its detachment from the realities which it expresses and consequently the disappearing of existential participation and ultimate responsibility. The wings of eros becomes wings of escape. Culture is irresponsibly enjoyed. It has not received the justice which it can demand. Agape cuts into the detached safety of a merely aesthetic eros. It does not deny the longing toward the good and the true and its divine source, but it prevents it from becoming an aesthetic enjoyment without ultimate seriousness. Agape makes the cultural eros responsible and the mystical eros personal. The ambiguities of the philia quality of love appeared already in its first description as person-to-person love between equals. However large the group of equals may be, the philia quality of love establishes preferential love. Some are preferred, the majority are excluded. This is obvious not only in intimate relations as family and friendship, but also in the innumerable forms of sympathetic person-to-person encounters. The implicit or explicit rejection of all those who are not admitted to such a preferential relation is negative compulsion and can be as cruel as any compulsion. However, such a rejection of others is tragically unavoidable. Nobody can escape the necessity to exercise it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

There are special forms of love with philia quality which are called a symbiotic relation and which make this tragic necessity rather clear. If the one partner of the philia-relation is used by the other one either for the sake of masochistic dependence or of sadistic domination or of both in interdependence, something which seemed to be friendship of highest quality is in reality compulsion without justice. Again, agape does not deny the preferential love of the philia quality, but it purifies it from a subpersonal bondage, and it elevates the preferential love into universal love. The preferences of friendship are not negated, but they do not exclude, in a kind of aristocratic self-separation, all the others. Not everybody is a friend, but everybody is affirmed as a person. Agape cuts through the separation of equals and unequals, of sympathy and antipathy, of friendship and indifference, of desire and disgust. It needs no sympathy in order to love; it loves what it has to reject in terms of philia. Agape loves in everybody and through everybody love itself. What agape does to the ambiguities of love, Spiritual power does to the ambiguities of natural power. The ambiguities of power are rooted in the dynamic character and the compulsory implications of power. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

Spiritual power is not the conquest of these ambiguities by resignation of power, because this would mean resignation of being. I would be the attempt to annihilate oneself in order to escape guilt. Spiritual power is not the denial of power dynamics. In many stories about the working of the Spiritual power bodily effects are mentioned, like elevation, removal from one place to the other, shock, and horror. There are always psychological effects visible. Spirit is power, grasping and moving out of the dimension of the ultimate. It is not identical with the realm of ideas or meanings. It is dynamic power, overcoming resistance. Hen what is its difference from the other forms of power? The Spiritual power works neither through bodily nor through psychological compulsion. It works through a human’s total personality, and this means, through one as finite freedom. It does not remove one’s freedom, but it makes one’s freedom free from the compulsory elements which limit it. The Spiritual power gives a center to the whole personality, a center which transcends the whole personality and, consequently, is independent of any elements. And this is ultimately the only way of uniting the personality with itself. If this happens human’s natural or social power of being becomes irrelevant. One may keep them, one may resign some of them or even all of them. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

The Spiritual power works through them or it works through the surrender of them. One may exercise Spiritual power through words or thought, through what one is and what one does, or through the surrender of them or through the sacrifice of oneself. In all these forms one can change reality by attaining levels of being which are ordinarily hidden. This is the power which elevates the holy community above the ambiguities of power. I do not need to say much about the relation of grace and justice. The act of forgiving has been mentioned in connexion with the encounter of person and person. If based on reuniting love, in justification by grace, mutual forgiveness is justice. Only God can forgive, because in Him along love and justice are completely united. The ethics of forgiveness are rooted in the message of divine forgiveness. Otherwise they are delivered to the ambiguities of justice, oscillating between legalism and sentimentality. In the holy community this ambiguity is conquered. Agape conquers the ambiguities of love, Spiritual power conquers the ambiguities of power, grace conquers the ambiguities of justice. This is true not only of the encounters of humans with humans, but also in the encounter of humans with oneself. Humans can love oneself in terms of self-acceptance only if one is certain that one is accepted. Otherwise one’s self-acceptance is self-complacency and arbitrariness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

Only in the light and in the power of the “love from above” can one love oneself. This implies the answer to the question of human’s justice toward oneself. One can be just towards oneself only in so far as ultimate justice is done to one, namely the condemning, forgiving, and giving judgement of “justification.” The condemning element in justification makes self-complacency impossible, the forgiving element saves from self-condemnation and despair, the giving element provides for a Spiritual center which unites the elements of our personal self and makes power over oneself possible. Justice, power, and love towards oneself is rooted in the justice, power, and love which we receive from that which transcends us and affirms us. The relation to ourselves is a function of our relation to God. We have a question about the reunion of humankind in terms of love, power, and justice. It is not easy to find an answer that can be given on the level of political organization. Is there an answer out of the relation to the ultimate? It is the merit of pacifism that, in spite of its theological shortcomings, it has kept this question alive in modern Christianity. Without it the Churches probably would have forgotten the torturing seriousness of any religious affirmation of war. On the other hand, pacifism has usually restricted a much larger problem of human existence to the question of war. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

However, there are other questions of equal seriousness in the same sphere. One of them is the question of armed conflicts within a power group, always going on potentially in the use of police and armed forces for the preservation of order, sometimes coming into the open in revolutionary wars. If successful, they are later on called “glorious revolutions.” Does the union of humankind mean that not only national but also revolutionary wars are excluded? And if so, has the dynamics of life come to an end: and des this mean that life itself has come to an end? One can ask the same question with respect to the dynamics of the economic life. Even in a static society such as that of the Middle Ages, the economic dynamics were important and had tremendous historical consequences. One should remain aware of the fact that often more destruction and suffering is produced by economic than by military battles. Should the economic dynamics be stopped and a static World system of production and consumption be introduced? If this were so the whole technical process would also have to be stopped, life in most realms would have to be organized in ever repeated processes. Every disturbance would have to be avoided. Again the dynamics of life and with life itself would have come to an end. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

Let us assume for a moment that this were possible. Under an unchangeable central authority all encounters of power with power are regulated. Nothing is risked, everything decided. Life has ceased to transcend itself. Creativity has come to an end. The history of humans would be finished, post-history would have started. Humankind would be a flock of blessed animals without dissatisfaction, without drive into the future. The horrors and sufferings of the historical period would be remembered as the dark ages of humankind. And then it might happen that one or the other of these blessed humans would feel a longing for these past ages, their misery and their greatness, and would force a new beginning of history upon the rest. This image will show that a World without the dynamics of power and the tragedy of life and history is not the Kingdom of God, is not the fulfilment of humans in their World. Fulfilment is bound to eternity and no imagination can reach the eternal. However, fragmentary anticipations are possible. The Church itself is such a fragmentary anticipation. And there are groups and movements, which although they do not belong to the manifest Church, represents something we may call a “latent Church.” However, neither the manifest nor the latent Church is the Kingdom of God. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

Many problems connected with the all-embracing subject of this essay have not been mentioned at all. Others have been touched on only briefly, and others have been treated rather inadequately. However, I hope that I have proved one thing: that the problems of love, power, and justice categorically demand an ontological foundation and a theological view in order to be saved from the vague talk, idealism, and cynicism with which they are usually treated. If they do not see them in the light of their own being and of being-itself, humans cannot solve any of their great problems. Many Christians have never thought through the meaning and importance of worship. It is not an overstatement to say that our pleasure-centered culture has produced many who work at their play and play at their worship. Why this confusion and tragic failure regarding worship? The answer lies in another question: Why do we worship—is it for God or for humans? The unspoken but increasingly common assumption of today’s Christendom is that worship is primarily of us—to meet our needs. Such worship services are entertainment-focused, and the worshipers are uncommitted spectators who are silently grading the performance. From this perspective preaching becomes a homiletics of consensus—preaching to felt needs—human’s conscious agenda instead of God’s. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

Such preaching is always topical and never textual. Biblical information is minimized, and the sermons are short and full of stories. Anything and everything is judged by how it affects humans. This terribly corrupts one’s theology. The telltale sign of this kind of thinking is the common post-worship question, What did you think of the service today? The real questions ought to be, What did God think of it and of those who worshipped? and What did I give to God? It is so easy to forget that in going to worship our main concern should be to “worship in spirit and in truth,” as reported in John 4.24—not to receive a lift for ourselves. Therefore, it is important that we understand, in distinction to the popular view that worship is for us, that worship begins not with humans as its focus, but God. Worship must be orchestrated and conducted with the vision before us of an august, awesome, holy, transcendent God who is to be pleased and, above all, glorified by our worship. Everything in our corporate worship should flow from this understanding. What about our needs then? When we worship and adore God in our singing and prayer and listening to the Word, His shalom will well in our souls so that we will leave with a glad sense of personal blessings—a great lift. However, this is a byproduct, not a goal, a further evidence of the generous grace of God. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

The fact that there have been higher beings who have gone beyond the mass in goodness and insight, in serenity and radiant self-mastery, can be taken as a hint of re-embodiment’s purpose. One speaks or writes as one who is perfectly at home in these higher levels of consciousness. If an illuminated teacher or an illuminating book cannot lead anyone into the Kingdom of Heaven and keep one there, they can at least give everyone a clue which, if followed up, may lead there. “And now I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a human speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of humans. However, behold, there are many that harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, that it hath no place in them; wherefore, they cast many things away which are written and esteem them as things of naught. However I, Nephi, have written what I have written, and I esteem it as of great worth, and especially unto my people. For I pray continually for them by day, and mine eyes water my pillow by night, because of them; and I cry unto my God in faith, and I know that he will hear my cry. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

“And I know that the Lord God will consecrate my prayers for the gain of my people. And the words which I have written in weakness will be made strong unto them; for it persuadeth them to do good; it maketh known unto them of their fathers; and it speaketh of Jesus, and persuadeth them to believe in him, and to endure to the end, which is life eternal. And it speaketh harshly against sin, according to the plainness of the truth; wherefore, no human will be angry at the words which I have written save he shall be of the spirit of the devil. I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell. I have charity for my people, and great faith in Christ that I shall meet many souls spotless at his judgment-sent. I have charity for the Jew—I say Jew, because I mean them from whence I came. I also have charity for the Gentiles. However, behold, for none of these can I hope expect they shall be reconciled unto Christ, and enter into the narrow gate, and walk in the strait path which leads to life, and continue in the path until the end of the day of probation. And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the Earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all people that they should do good. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

“And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded of hm to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness. And I pray the Father in the name of Christ that many of us, if not all, may be saved in his kingdom at that great and last day. And now, my beloved brethren, all those who are of the house of Israel, and all ye ends of the Earth, I speak unto you as the voice of one crying from the dust: Farewell until that great day shall come. And you hat will not partake of the goodness of God, and respect the words of the Jews, and also my words, and the words which shall proceed forth out of the mouth of the Lamb God, behold, I bid you an everlasting farewell, for these words shall condemn you at the last day. For what I seal on earth, shall be brought against you at the judgment bar; for thus hath the Lord commanded me, and I must obey. Amen,” reports 2 Nephi 33.1-15. We beseech Thee, O Lord, in Thy mercy to sanctify these gifts, and having received the offering of the spiritual sacrifice, to make us a perpetual oblation unto Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Please look mercifully, O Lord, on these present offerings, that they may avail both for our devotion and our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

My God, I bless Thee that Thou hast given me the eye of faith, to see Thee as Father, to know Thee as a covenant God, to experience Thy love planted in me; for faith is the grace of union by which I spell out my entitlement to Thee: Faith casts my anchor upwards where I trust in Thee and engage Thee to by my Lord. Be pleased to live and move within me, breathing in my prayers, inhabiting my praises, speaking in my words, moving in my actions, living in my life, causing me to grow in grace. Thy bounteous goodness has helped me believe, but my faith is weak and wavering, its light dim, its steps tottering, its increase slow, its backsliding frequent; it should scale the Heavens, but lies groveling in the dust. Lord, fan this divine spark into glowing flame. When faith sleeps, my heart becomes an unclean thing, the fount of every loathsome desire, the cage of unclean lusts all fluttering to escape, the noxious tree of deadly fruit, the open wayside of Earthly tares. Lord, awake faith to put forth its strength until all Heaven fills my soul and all impurity is cast out. Remember, O Lord, Thy servants and handmaids here present, whose faith and devotion are discerned and known by Thee. Please let me enjoy the Earth. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

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Please have mercy, O Lord, upon Thy children for whom I offer this sacrifice of praise to Thy Majesty; that they may be able to lead a good life in this World, and happily to attain eternal blessedness.
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The Spirit of Liberty is the Spirit Which is Not too Sure that it is Right and Seeks to Understand Minds

May 27, 2020 11:28 pm

The great want which humankind labours under at this present moment is sleep. The World should recline its vast head on the first convenient pillow and take an age-long nap. Which is a more effective learning strategy: reward or punishment? This question is still undecided. At present, evidence for each side is about equal. The following guidelines, however, can be applied in teaching situations, especially those involving young children. In general, rewarding desired behaviours is more effective than punishing undesired behaviours—you can still catch more files with honey than with vinegar. If punishment is necessary, it is most effective if used immediately after the undesired response. For instance, if a child must be punished, it is best done right after the child has acted incorrectly. If one parents says to the child, “Just wait until your father (or mother) gets home—then, you will get it,” the child learns to fear the arrival of the punisher and, in the process, often forgets the offense for which he or she is being punished. If punishment must be used, the reason for the punishment should be explained. “I am only doing this for your own good,” or “This hurts me more than it does you,” is less likely to teach a child a specific behaviour than saying, “I am not letting you go to the movies because you socked your little brother. This hurts him and makes him cry, and I do not want you to do it again.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

If it is possible, combine reward and punishment. If necessary, punish the undesired behaviour, but also be sure to reward the desired behaviour. For example, do not just spank a child for playing in the street; also praise and reward the child for playing in the yard instead. Punish the undesired behaviour, not the behaver. For instance, communicate to a child that you feel his or her behaviour is “bad”—not that you think the child is bad. Most punishment do not work on very young children. Under about one year of age, children do not understand that some behaviours are acceptable and some are not and why this is so. They may think they are being punished just for being there, and more often than not they begin to associate the punisher with punishment. When you feel emotionally charged, especially if you are filled with rage, never, never, never punish a child. Adults often forget their own strength. Children are fragile and easily hurt. The only thing a child learns through abuse is hatred and fear. There is a great distinction between negative reinforcement and abusive punishment. In many cases, punishment only suppresses or limits the undesired behaviour; it does not really extinguish it. The self-actualized open to all qualified and eager seekers the mysteries and treasures of one’s own inner experience, that they may profit by one’s past struggles and present success. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

The self-actualized brings revelations to meet our gropings, inspirations to meet our doubts. One becomes, for those docile enough to receive them, a bearer of grace and a vessel of truth, a bestower of comfort and a dispenser of confidence. Prophets and the self-actualized, teachers and saints receive the urge to share their knowledge and experience with others. Whence does this urge derive? Both lower and higher, personal and nonpersonal sources are possible. However, if from the highest, then we may say that God sends His messages to humankind through these channels. The self-actualized who starts a movement or puts one’s thoughts out, acts as a lighthouse which guides many a fumblings but aspiring soul. If one does not accept disciples individually it is because one serve humans otherwise. Those who try to get such acceptance and find themselves rebuffed may consider one selfish, cold, remote. However, they will be greatly mistaken. One can serve humankind—not each person separately but in groups or masses—and one may do this by lecturing, by writing or simply by directing one’s prayer in the appropriate way. For a writer’s books spread not only one’s ideas but also something of oneself. One can put thought on a high level but the way in which one does this depends upon one’s circumstances. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

The self-actualized can put thought on a high level personally as a private teacher, impersonally as a public lecturer or writer, or anonymously as a proficient contemplative. All these people who have attained Reality inevitably leave a record for others or for posterity, but not necessarily with their name attached. Has anyone of the self-actualized ever vanished without leaving behind a trace of Power, knowledge, goodness, and inspiration? Even if not in words or deeds, something is left in the unseen atmosphere. They are not usually members of any sect, but circumstances or necessity may sometimes render it desirable that they be such. The self-actualized may or may not descend into the arena of action but if not one will still find ways and means to inspire, guide, or ennoble the actions of other people. One does this by teaching them and travelling among the, or by sitting still and meditating alone, or by disseminating writings among them. Even when one is unheard publicly one can help by the concentrated mind’s great power. One does what one can to introduce here and there into the consciousness of others, through whatever means one possesses, the seeds of higher ideas. These seeds may not grow and certainly may not fructify for many years, but that is not one’s affair. One knows that the vitality in these seeds and depth of mental ground in which they have been sown will inevitably lead to some result. It is enough. One has sown seed. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

One does not have to wait for roots to form, stems to grow, fruits to appear. One’s work is done. In this momentous period the true self-actualized has special work to do in trying to protect the human race from its own folly. One way is intercessory prayer which may help to mitigate the effects of the World crisis. This requires solitude. It is an impersonal contemplation and must not be disturbed by those who break into it, either to unload their personal problems or to offer personal service which in the end has the same result. Yes, some of us are genuinely aware of the soul’s existence and intimately know its freedom and blessedness. Modesty has hitherto imposed silence upon us about the fact, although compassion induced us to break it on occasions. However, we mystics must now stand on our own dignity. It is time that the World, brough to its inevitable and by us expected materialistic dead-end, should realize at last that we are not talking out of our hats but out of a real and impeccable experience. It would be an unpardonable treachery to our duty in the final and terrible World-crisis of this materialistic age if, out of false modesty or fear of intimidation by a cynical society, we who daily feel and commune with the divine presence, who realize its tremendous importance for humanity’s present condition and future life, fail to testify to its existence and reality. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

If today we venture to speak more freely and frequently, our ideas may drop into a few hospitable minds and sublimely penetrate their consciousness. It is not the self-actualizer’s function to tackle the Worldly problems which governments usually deal with: the social, political, economic, and technical ones. One’s particular work is concerned with, first, one’s ordinary duty of professional service through whatever skill one possesses to earn one’s livelihood, and second, making truth available. The mere existence of one who succeeds in identifying oneself with God benefits every sensitive person who meets one, even for a minute or two. Further, it inspires spiritual seekers who never get the chance to meet one but who hear favourably about one and respectfully receive what they hear. Finally, posterity benefits from the records left about one. Each teacher—if one is divinely commissioned—leaves a deposit of truth after he or she dies. The Master who leaves a record of one’s own climb, or a testimony to the goal’s existence, or a path pioneered for those who would follow, or an instructed disciple here and there, leaves something of oneself. Even where help may not directly and outwardly be given when difficult circumstances press on a human, it may yet be indirectly and inwardly given to one’s mind, which has to deal with, or endure, them. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

One can awaken some persons to this divine presence within themselves, but not all. One may do this mysteriously by some unknown process, or one may do it deliberately and with the display of one’s technique. The abstract does not appeal to the masses, because it gives them nothing. However, an embodied human can be seen, heard, and touched, to that extent can be understood, to that extent one gives them something; one can be followed, admired, feared, reverenced, or worshipped. Secure as one is in one’s own peace of mind, it is inevitable that the more sensitive among those who meet one feel it too. However, those who come with hostility, personal or intellectual, will be avoided if possible or find their time cut to the shortest if not. Such a person has a catalytic action on the minds and even on the lives of those who come into sympathetic contact with one. Just by being oneself one makes the philosophic virtues real to others. One does not need to be conscious of a clearly defined mission before one sets about doing something for the enlightenment of others. There is always some means open to one, some little thing one can do to make this knowledge available or to set an example of right living. It is one’s duty to communicate what one feels there, what one finds there, to those who are excluded from it. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

If at times, and with sympathetic auditors, one’s duty becomes one’s joy, at other times and with insensitive auditors it becomes one’s cross. Jesus exemplified this in His own history. The illuminate practices a wiser philanthropy than those who are presented as models of this virtue. One has no wish to take charge of anyone’s life or undertake the management of anyone’s affairs. One is not allowed by the code of ethics corresponding to one’s knowledge to make other people’s decisions for them. Hence one can say neither yes nor no to such highly personal questions. However, one can point out the consequences which are likely to follow in each case. Basically, people are just like children. They need attention. Sometimes people are really nervous when meeting people or dealing with new situations. And some of the troublemakers really just want your attention. The people-as-child analogy can be extended to cover sibling rivalry: You cannot play cards with just one person because the other people will get jealous. Think of unruly people just as you would think of a child and that will widen tolerance of them. If their needs are like those of a child, those needs are supposed to come first. The worker’s right to anger is correspondingly reduced; as an adult one must work to inhibit and suppress anger at children. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

Should the analogy to children fail to induce the necessary deep acting, surface-acting strategies for handling “irate” can be brought into play. People are urged to “work” the customers name in, as in “Yes, Mr. Camdenski,” it is true construction of your new home is talking a little longer than expected.” This reminds the individual that he is not anonymous, that there is at least some pretension to a personal relation and that some emotion management is owed. Again, workers are told to use terms of empathy. Whatever happens, you are supposed to say, I know just how you feel. Lost your light fixture? I know just how you feel? Late for a walk though? I know just how you feel. Did not get that lot you were counting on? I know just how you feel. Employees reports that such expressions of empathy are useful in convincing people that they have misplaced the blame and misaimed their anger. Remember, to treat people like they are guests in your living room, and guests are to be made comfortable and their emotional outburst are expected to be met by support. Never get super angry with a customer, they are the source of revenue. Supervisors never speak officially of an obnoxious or outrageous customer, only of an uncontrolled customer. The term suggests that a fact has somehow attached itself to this customer—not that the customer has lost control or even had any control to lose. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

Again, the common phrase “mishandled customer” suggests a bungle somewhere up the line, by someone destined to remain lost in the web of workers that stretched from curbside to architecture. By linguistically avoiding any attribution of blame, the idea of a right to be angry at the customer is smuggled out of discourse. Linguistically speaking, the customer never does anything wrong, so he or she cannot be blamed or made the object of anger. One time, a man was waiting for a special ordered light fixture, and one of the other home buyers sagged it and had it installed in her house. The builder responded by saying politely, “I notice this man’s light fixture was installed in your house.” The dirty deed was done, but, the implication was, by no one in particular. Such implicit reframing dulls a sense of cause of effect. It separates object from verb and verb from subject. The home buyer does not feel accused, and the builder does not feel as if he or she is accusing. Emotion work has been accomplished, but it has hidden its tracks with words. Company language is aimed not only at diffusing anger, but at minimizing fear. As in the case when a refrigerator was specially ordered and delivered to the wrong address. This was labeled an incident. The term incident calms the nerves. How could we be terrified at an incident? #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

Thus, the words that workers use and do not use help them avoid emotions inappropriate to a living room full of guest. Dealing with difficult people is part of the job. It makes us angry sometimes. And anger is part of stress. So that is why I would like to talk to you about being angry. I am not saying you should do this [work on your anger] for your corporation. I am not saying you should do it for the home buyers. I am saying do it for yourselves. The only question to be seriously discussed is “How do you rid yourself of anger?” From my experience in supervisory work I know that the problem of hopelessness is often not clearly envisaged by the analyst and hence not properly dealt with. Some of my colleagues have been so overwhelmed by the individual’s hopelessness—which they recognized but did not see as a problem—that they became hopeless themselves. This attitude is of course fatal to an analysis, for no matter how good the technique or how brave the effort, the individual senses that the analyst has really given him or her up. The same holds true outside the analytical situation. Nobody can be a constructively helpful friends or mate who does not believe in the possibility of the companion’s fulfilling one’s own potentialities. Sometimes colleagues have made the opposite mistake of not taking the individual’s hopelessness seriously enough. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

They felt the individual needed encouragement and gave it—which is commendable, but quite insufficient. When this happens, the individual, even if one appreciates the analyst’s good intentions, is quite justified in being annoyed with one, since deep down one knows that one’s hopelessness is not just a mood that can be dissipated by well-meant encouragement. In order to take the bull by the horns and tackle the problem directly, it is necessary first to recognize from indirect indications like the ones cited above that the individual feels hopeless and the extent to which one feels so. Then it must be understood that one’s hopelessness is fully warranted by one’s entanglements. The analyst must realize and explicitly convey to the individual that one’s situation is hopeless only so long as the status quo persists and is regarded as unchangeable. In simplified form, the whole problem is illustrated by a scene from Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard. The family, faced with bankruptcy, are in despair at the thought of leaving their estate with its beloved cherry orchard. A man of affairs offers the sound suggestion that they build modest homes for rent on a part of the estate. With their hidebound views, they cannot countenance such a project, and since there is no other solution they remain without hope. They ask helplessly, as if they had not heard the suggestion, whether nobody can advise or help them. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

If their mentor were a good analyst he would say: “Of course the situation is difficult. However, what makes it hopes is your own attitude toward it. If you would consider changing your claims on life there would be no need to feel hopeless.” The belief that the individual can really change, which means essentially that one can really resolve one’s conflicts, is the factor that determines whether or not the therapist dare to tackle the problem and whether one can do it with a reasonable chance of success. It is here that my differences with Dr. Freud come into clear relief. Dr. Freud’s psychology and the philosophy underlying it are essentially pessimistic. This is patent in his outlook on the future of humankind as well as in his attitude toward therapy. And on the basis of his theoretical premises, he cannot be anything but pessimistic. Humans are driven by instincts which at best are only to be modified by “sublimation.” His instinctual drives for satisfaction are inevitably frustrated by society. His “ego” is helplessly tossed about between instinctual drives and the “superego,” which itself can only be modified. The superego is primarily forbidding and destructive. True ideals do not exist. The wish for personal fulfillment is narcissistic. Humans are by nature destructive and a death instinct compels them either to destroy others or to suffer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

All these theories leave little room for an optimistic attitude toward change and limit the value of the potentially splendid therapy Dr. Freud originated. In contrast, I believe that compulsive trends in neuroses are not instinctual but spring from disturbed human relationships; that they can be changed when these improve and that conflicts of such origin can really be resolved. This does not mean that therapy based on the principles I advocate has no limitations. Much work remains to be done before we can clearly determine these limitations. However, it does mean that we have well-founded reasons for believing in the possibility of radical change. Why, then, is it so important to recognize and tackle an individual’s hopelessness? In the first place, this approach is of value in dealing with special problems like depression and suicidal tendencies. We can, it is true, lift an individual depression by merely uncovering the particular conflicts in which the person is caught at the time, without touching upon one’s general hopelessness. However, if we want to prevent recurring depressions it has to be tackled because it is the deeper source from which the depressions emanate. Nor can insidious chronic depression be coped with unless one goes to this original source. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

The same hold true for suicidal conditions. We know that such factors as acute despair, defiance, and vindictiveness lead to suicidal impulses; but it is often too late to prevent suicide after the impulse has become manifest. By paying minute attention to the less dramatic signs of hopelessness and by taking up the problem with the patient at the proper time, it is probable that many suicides could be averted. It is not that collective talk determines the mood of the workers. Rather, the reverse is true: the needed mood determines the nature of the worker’s talk. To keep the collective mood stripped of any painful feelings, serious talk of death, divorce, politics, religion, and news is usually avoided. People want to forget about COVID-19 and feel safe in the modest castles, which they imagine to be in a storybook fairytale. On the other hand, when there is time for it, mutual morale raising is common. As one said: “When one sales agent is depressed, thinking, ‘I am ugly, what am I doing as a sales representative?’ other sales representatives, even without quite knowing what they are doing, try to cheer her up. They straighten her collar for her, to get her up and smiling again. I have done it too, and needed it done.” Once established, team solidarity can have two effect. It can improve morale and thus improve service. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

However, team solidarity can also become the basis for sharing grudges against the homebuyers or the corporation. Perhaps it is the second possibility that manager meant to avoid wen in Recurrent Training they offered examples of “bad” social emotion management. One teacher cautioned her students: “When you are angry with a homebuyer, do not head for the galley to blow off steam with another sales representative.” In the galley, the second sales representative, instead of calming the angry worker down, may further rile him or her up; one may become an accomplice to the aggrieved worker. Then, as the instructor put it, “There will be two of you hot to trot.” The message is, when you angry, go to a trusted therapist who will calm you down. Consider calling him or her for a phone appoint so not to drive while angry. Even if you are not suicidal, but cannot afford a therapist, a suicide hotline may be worth trying out. Support for anger or a sense of grievance—regardless of what inspires it—is bad for service and bad for the corporation. Thus, the informal ways in which workers check on the legitimacy of a grievance or look for support in blowing off steam become points of entry for company suggestions. Corporations sometimes have Ghost-Buyers who occasionally Ghost-Buy a house, and there may be senior representative on the crew, the base supervisor, and the plainclothes company supervisors who occasionally monitor employee behaviour. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

One homebuyer was asked to fill out a company-elicited passenger opinion poll and fill out a questionnaire, and the results were presented by letter to the workers. As one male sales representative, seven years with the corporation describes it: We get told how we are doing twice a year when we are sent homebuyer evaluations. They show how the builder is competing. Oh, the homebuyers are asked to rank sales representatives: “genuinely concerned, made me feel welcome. Spoke to me more than required. Wide awake, energetic, eager to help. Seemed sincere when talking to the potential homebuyers and confirmed homebuyers. Helped established a relaxed community atmosphere. Enjoying their jobs. Treated homebuyers as individuals.” We see how this builder is doing in the competition. We are supposed to really get into it. Supervision is thus more indirect than direct. It relies on the sales representative’s sense of what homebuyers will communicate to management, who will, in turn, communicate to workers. Supervisors do more than oversee workers. Even when people are paid to be nice at all times, and when their efforts succeed, it is a remarkable accomplishment. This is possible because of emotion work, feeling rules, and social exchange. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

A profit motive is slipped in under acts of emotion management, under the rules that govern them, under the gift exchange. Who benefits now, and who pays? The lesson in deep acting—acting “as if the office is your home” and “as if this unruly homebuyer has a traumatic past”—are themselves a new development in deskilling. The mind of the emotion worker, the source of the ideas about what mental moves are needed to settle down an irate, has moved upstairs in the hierarchy so that the worker is restricted to implementing standard procedures. Of more general significance is the fact that the individual’s hopelessness constitutes a hindrance to the cure of any severe neurosis. We have to deal with a counterplay of meticulous and forward-moving forces, with resistance and incentive. Resistance is a collective term for all the forces within the individual that operate to maintain the status quo. One’s incentive, on the other hand, is produced by the constructive energy that urges one on toward inner freedom. This is the motive power with which we work and without which we could do nothing. It is the force that helps that individual overcome resistance. It makes one’s associations productive, there by giving the analyst a chance for better understanding. It gives one the inner strength to endure the inevitable pain of maturing. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

It makes one willing to take the risk of abandoning attitudes that have given one a feeling of safety and to make the leap into the unknown of new attitudes toward oneself and others. The analyst cannot drag the individual through this process; the individual oneself must want to go. It is this invaluable force that is paralyzed by a condition of hopelessness. And in failing to recognize and tackle it the analyst deprives oneself of one’s best ally in the battle against the individual’s neurosis. The individual’s hopelessness is not a problem that can be solved by any single interpretation. There is already a substantial gain if, instead of being engulfed by a feeling of doom that one regards as unalterable, the individual begins to recognize it as a problem that may eventually be solved. This step liberates one sufficiently to go ahead. There will, of course, be ups and downs. One may feel optimistic, even overoptimistic, if one acquires some helpful insight, only to succumb to one’s hopelessness again as soon as one approaches a more upsetting one. Each time the matter must be tackled anew. However, the hold it has on the individual will relax as one realizes that one can really change. One’s incentive will grow accordingly. It may be limited, at the beginning of the analysis, to a mere wish to get rid of one’s most disturbing symptoms. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

However, the incentive gains strength as the individual becomes increasingly aware of one’s shackles, and as one gets a taste of how it feels to be free. When we shall apprehend the meaning of life, we may discover that it provides its pre-self-actualized in such prodigies. The highest service one can render is in silent contemplation, which inspires so many aspiring souls to a higher life. This is the truth. If one is sensitive, reflective, and penetrative, the mere fact that these prophets, these light-bringers and way-showers have exited at all is enough to change a human’s life. Even if one does no more than open the human mind to its higher possibilities, one does enough. Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost—humans must pray and gain knowledge for themselves from the Holy Ghost. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And now, behold, my beloved brethren, I suppose that ye ponder somewhat in your hearts concerning that which ye should do after ye have entered in by the way. However, behold, why do ye ponder these things in your hearts? Do ye not remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of Angels? And now, how could ye speak with the tongue of Angels save it were by the Holy Ghost? Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the word of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark. For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do. Behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and there will be no more doctrine given until after he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh. And when he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh, the things which he shall say unto you shall ye observe to do. And now I, Nephi, cannot say more; the Spirit stoppeth mine utterance, and I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of humans; for they will not search knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be. And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a human to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a human to pray, but teacheth one that one must not pray. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

“However, behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform anything unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul,” reports 2 Nephi 32.1-9. Please send forth, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the Holy Spirit, to make these present offerings Thy Sacrament unto us, and purify our hearts for its reception. Privileges—O Lord God, please teach e to know that grace precedes, accompanies, and follows my salvation, that it sustains the redeemed soul, that not one link of its chain can ever break. From Calvary’s cross wave upon wave of grace reaches me, deals with my sin, washes me clean, renews my heart, strengthens my will, draws out my affection, kindles a flame in my soul, rules throughout my inner human, consecrates my every thought, word, work, teaches me Thy immeasurable love. How great are my privileges in Christ Jesus! Without him I stand far off, a stranger, an outcast; in him I draw near and touch his kingly sceptre. Without him I dare not lift up my guilt eyes; in him I gaze upon my Father-God and friend. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

Without him I hide my lips in trembling shame; in him I open my mouth in petition and praise. Without him all is wrath and consuming fire; in him is all love, and the repose of my soul. Without him is gaping hell below me, and eternal anguish; in him its gates are barred to me by his precious blood. Without him darkness spreads its horrors in front; in him an eternity of glory is my boundless horizon. Without him all within me is terror and dismay, in him every accusation is charmed into joy and peace. Without him all things external call for my condemnation; in him they minister to my comfort, and are to be enjoyed with thanksgiving. Praise be to thee for grace, and for the unspeakable gift of Jesus. Although by the revelation of grace in this life we cannot know of God “what He is,” and thus are united to Him as to one unknown; still we know Him more fully according as many and more excellent of His effects are demonstrated to us, and according as we attribute to Him some things known by divine revelation, to which natural reason cannot reach, as, for instance, that God is Thee and One. For the images either received from sense in the natural order, or divinely formed in the imagination, we have so much more excellent intellectual knowledge, the stronger the intelligible light is in humans; and thus through revelation given by the images a fuller knowledge is received by the infusion of the divine light. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

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Even Hell is a Creation of the Divine Love—Let Us be Happy and Live within Our Means!

May 27, 2020 1:27 am

Games prevent honest, intimate, and open relationships between the players. Yet people play them because they fill up their time, provoke attention, reinforce early opinions about self and others, and fulfill a sense of destiny. Perhaps the problem is simply that people in different places do things differently, and that my “different” behaviour might be acceptable in another culture or land. This is the cultural relativity position, which assumes that there are no absolute rules. Even today, when the laws forbid I, it is “normal” for a widow in some parts of the Old World to want to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her husband. So there is something to be said for relativity. There are cultural patterns in each society and social class that appear strange to people outside that group. However, this does not tell us if there are any cross cultural, or universal, patterns of “normal” or “abnormal” behaviour. Many people are content to allow authority figures to call the shots. If someone with an impressive array of credentials or degrees or a well-known name speaks out on a matter, or if a social institution or a book makes a statement, the matter is “settled.” However, authority figures are subject to error, just as any of us are. If I do not keep my mind open to this possibility, then I may ignore my own feelings on a subject. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

Laws, religious teachings, and tradition are all powerful authority forces for defining normal or acceptable behaviour. Tradition itself, whether part of the legal, moral, or religious life of a group of people, is still effective as a force for making people’s behaviour conform. Today’s society is relaxing somewhat in attitudes about tradition. However, it still dictates to many. An aristocratic woman attending an offbeat hipster wedding where none of the usual traditions were observed, described it to her neighbour as “the craziest thing I have ever seen. I doubt that they are even married!” And indeed, it probably did seem “crazy” to her to ignore the traditional procedures for getting “properly” married. The principles of radical egalitarian justice I have articulated are meant to apply globally and not just to particular societies. However, if applied globally, it is certainly fair to say that not a few would worry that such principles of radical egalitarian would force the people in wealthier sections of the World to a kind of financial hara-kiri. There are millions of desperately impoverished people. Indeed millions are starving or malnourished and things are not getting any better. People in the affluent societies cannot worry about whether they face a bottomless pit. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

Many believe that meeting, even in the most minimal way, the needs of the impoverished is going to put an incredible burden on people—people of all classes—on the affluent societies. Indeed it will, if acted on non-evasively, bring about their impoverishment, and that is just too much to ask. Radical egalitarianism is forgetting Rawl’s admonitions about “the strains of commitment”—the recognition that in any rational account of what is required of us, we must at least give a minimal healthy self-interest its due. We must construct our moral philosophy for human beings and not for saints. Human nature is less fixed than conservatives are wont to assume, but it is not so elastic that we can reasonably expect people to impoverish themselves to make the massive transfers between North and South—the industrialized and the developing World—required to begin to approach a situation where even Rawls’ principles would be in place on a global level, to say nothing of my radical egalitarian principles of justice. The first thing to say in response to this is that my radical egalitarian principles are meant actually to guide practice, to directly determine what we are to do, only in a World of extensive abundance where, as Marx put it, the springs of social wealth flow freely. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

If such a World where social wealth flows freely cannot be attained within a hybrid capitalist society, then such radical egalitarian principles can only remain as heuristic ideals against which to measure the distance of our travel in the direction of what would be a perfectly just society. We do not want the impoverishment of people in affluent societies, but desire to achieve a global fairness. There is no need for there to be massive transfers of wealth, but there should be a way to make sure that people who are involved in the factors of production can earn a wage that they could afford healthy care, housing that is up to building codes and safe, and live in nations that have law and order. There need be no undermining of the quality of the lives of the affluent. The capitalist elites are not to be impoverished nor reduced to some kind of bleak life, nor should they find their life styles altered. Already, many of them like philanthropy and charity so there seems to be a way to increase wages for factory workers and find a way for employees to afford homes in their towns that would be beneficial to everyone and reduce the burden on taxpayers. Everyone deserves a life that can be lived with verve and zest. I know that these ideals currently lack the blueprint to make them realistic, but maybe one day they will be achievable. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Afterall, it was only about 50-70 years ago where corporations were the factor in developing communities. Developers would build suburban communities to house the people at corporations like Texas Instruments, and a clerk at a grocery store could afford a nice home on his or her salary. True justice is applied to God equally in an ultimate and therefore symbolic sense. God is symbolized as the righteous judge who judges according to the law He has given. This is the material taken out of our experience. It also must be thrown into the mystery of the divine life and in it both preserved and transformed. It has become a true symbol of the relation of the ground of being to that which is grounded in it, especially to humans. The divine law is beyond the alternative of natural and positive law. It is the structure of reality and of everything in it, including the structure of the human mind. In so far as it is this, it is natural law, the law of continuous creation, the justice be being in everything. At the same time it is positive law, posited by God in His freedom which is not dependent on any given structure outside Him. In so far as it is natural law, we can understand the law in nature and humankind and formulate it deductively. In so far as it is positive law we have to accept what is given to us empirically and we have to observe it inductively. Both sides are rooted in God’s relation to the justice in things. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

To see love, power, and justice as true symbols of the divine life, means to see their ultimate unity. Unity is not identity. An element of separation is presupposed when we speak of unity. There are present, in the symbolic application of our three concepts to God, also some symbols of tension. The first is the tension between love and power. The exclamation has been and will be repeated innumerably: How can an all-powerful God who is, at the same time the God of love, allow such misery? Either He has not sufficient love or He has not sufficient power. As an emotional outburst this question is very understandable. As a theoretical formulation it is rather poor. If God had produced a World in which physical and moral evil were impossible, the creatures would not have had the independence of God which is presupposed in the experience of reuniting love. The World would have become a paradise of dreaming innocence, an infant’s paradise, but neither love, nor power nor justice would have become real. Actualization of one’s potentialities includes, unavoidably, estrangement; estrangement from one’s essential being, so that we may find it again in maturity. Only a God who is like a foolish mother, who is so afraid about the well-being of her child that she keeps him in a state of enforced innocence and enforced participation in her own life, could have kept the creatures in the prison of a dreaming paradise. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

And, as in the case of the mother, this would have been hidden hostility and not love to keep the creates in a prison that reflected a paradise. And it would not have been power either. The power of God is that He overcomes estrangement, not that He prevents it; that He takes it, symbolically speaking, upon Himself, not that He remains in a dead identity with Himself. This is the meaning of the age-old symbol of the God participating in creaturely suffering, a symbol which in Christianity was applied to the interpretation of the Cross of Him who was said to be the Christ. This is the unity of love and power in the depth of reality itself, power not only in its creative element but also in its compulsory element and the destruction and suffering connected with it. These considerations give theology a key to the eternal problem of theodicy, the problem of the relation of the divine love and the divine power to non-being, namely to death, guilt, and meaninglessness. The ontological unity of love and power is this key which certainly does not open up the mystery of being but which can replace some rusty keys to misleading doors. While the tension between love and power refers basically to creation, the tension between love and justice refers basically to salvation. The analysis of transforming justice as an expression of creative love makes it unnecessary for me to reject the ordinary contrast between proportional justice and super-added love. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

In this sense, there can be no conflict between justice and love in God. However, in another sense there could be, in a sense which is very similar to that in which love and power have been contrasted. Love destroys, as its strange work, what is against love. It does so according to the justice without which it would be chaotic surrender of the power of being. Love, at the same time, as its own work, saves through forgiveness that which is against love. It does so according to the justifying paradox without which it would be a legal mechanism. How can these two works of love be one? They are one because love does not enforce salvation. If it did it would commit a double injustice. It would disregard the claim of every person to be treated not as a thing but as a centred, deciding, free, and responsible self. Since God is love and His love is one with His power, He has not the power to force somebody into His salvation. He would contradict Himself. And this God cannot do. At the same time such an act would disregard the strange work of love, namely the destruction of what destroys love. It would violate the unconditioned character of love and with it the divine majesty. Love must destroy what is against love, but not one who is the bearer of that which is against love. For as a creature, one remains a power of being or a creation of love. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

However, the unity of one’s will is destroyed, one is thrown into a conflict with oneself, the name of which is despair, mythologically speaking, hell. Dante was right when he called even Hell a creation of the divine love. The hell of despair is the strange work that loves does within us in order to open us up for its own work, justification of one who is unjust. However, even despair does not make us into a mechanism. It is a test of our freedom and personal dignity, even in relation to God. The Cross of Christ is the symbol of the divine love, participating in the destruction into which it throws one who acts against love: This is the meaning of atonement. Love, power, and justice are one in God. However, we must ask: What do love, power, and justice do within an estranged World? According to a relatively common view in the wider Christian culture, Heaven and Hell are essentially deserved compensations for the kind of Earthly lives we live. Good people go to heaven as a deserved reward for a virtuous live, and bad people go to Hell as a just punishment for an immoral life; in that way, the scales of justice are sometimes thought to balance. While the sources of hopelessness are always unconscious, the feeling itself can be fairly conscious. A person may have a pervasive sense of doom. Or one may express it in philosophical terms, saying in effect that life is essentially tragic and only fools deceive themselves about human’s unalterable fate. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

Already in the preliminary interview one may get an impression of the patient’s hopelessness. One will be unwilling to make the smallest sacrifice, to undergo even a minor inconvenience, to take the slightest risk. One may give the appearance then of being too self-indulgent. However, the fact is that one sees no compelling reason to make sacrifices when one expects to gain nothing from them. Similar attitudes can be seen outside analysis. People remain in thoroughly unsatisfactory situations which with a bit of effort and initiative could be bettered. However, a person may be so completely paralyzed by one’s hopelessness that moderate difficulties seem to one insurmountable obstacles. Sometimes a chance remark will bring this condition to the surface. A patient may respond to the analyst’s simply saying that a certain problem is not yet solved and requires more work with the question: “You do not think it is hopeless?” And when one become aware of one’s despair one usually cannot account for it. One will be likely to ascribe it to various external factors, ranging from one’s job or one’s marriage to the political situation. However, it is not due to any concrete or temporary circumstance. One feels hopeless about ever making anything of one’s life, ever being happy or free. One feels forever excluded from all that could make one’s life meaningful. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

All despair is fundamentally a despair of being ourselves. Philosophers of all times have stressed the pivotal significance of being ourselves and the despair attendant on feeling barred from its approximation. What other significance can our existence have than to be ourselves fully and completely? Hopelessness is an ultimate product of unresolved conflicts, with its deepest root in the despair of ever being wholehearted and undivided. A mounting scale of neurotic difficulties leads to this condition. Basic is the sense of being caught in conflicts like a bird in a net, with no apparent possibility of ever extricating oneself. On top of this come all the attempts at solution which not only fail but increasingly alienate the person from oneself. Repetitive experience serves to intensify the hopelessness—talents that never lead to achievement, whether because again and again energies are scattered in too many directions or because the difficulties arising in any creative process are enough to deter the person from further pursuit. This may apply as well to love affairs, marriages, friendships, which are shipwrecked one after another. Such repeated failures are as disheartening as is the experience of laboratory animals when, conditioned to jump into certain opening for food, they jump again and again only to find it barred. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

There is, furthermore, the factually hopeless enterprise of trying to measure up to the idealized image. It is hard to say whether this may not be the most potent of the factors producing hopelessness. There is no question, however, that in analysis hopelessness comes into full relief when the patient becomes aware that one is far from being the uniquely perfect person one sees in one’s imagination. One feels hopeless at such a time not only because one despairs of ever attaining those fantastic heights but even more because one responds to this realization with profound self-contempt, detrimental to the expectation of ever attaining anything, whether in love or in work. Final among the contributing factors are all the processes that cause a person’s centre of gravity to shift from within oneself and that make one cease to be the active propellant in one’s life. The outcome of it all is that one loses faith in oneself and in one’s development as a human being; one tends to give up—an attitude which, although it may pass unnoticed, is in its consequences grave enough to be called a psychic death. However, despite the fact [of one’s despair] one may nevertheless be perfectly well able to live on, to be a human, as it seems, to occupy oneself with temporal things, get married, beget children, win honour and esteem—and perhaps no one notices that in a deeper sense one lacks a self. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

About such a thing as that not much fuss is made in the World; for a self is a thing the World is least apt to inquire about, and the thing of all things the most dangerous for a human to let people notice that one has it. The greatest danger, that of losing one’s self, may pass off as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, that of an arm, a leg, give dollars, a wife, excreta, is sure to be noticed. We have talked about some of the areas in which we practice legalism with each other and with ourselves: fences, differing opinions, spiritual disciplines, and fear of what others think. There are others. Expected attendance at all church meetings, or at the activities of our various para-church organizations, is another fertile area for legalism. Another old bogey is “Worldliness,” which in the minds of some people can be seen in the amount of skin a woman shows or how many tattoos a man has. Aggravating all of these areas is a class of people who have come to be known as “controllers.” These are people who are not willing to let you live your life before God as you believe He is leading you. They have all the issues buttoned down and have cast-iron opinions about all of them. These people only know black and white. There are no gray areas to them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

They insist you live your Christian life according to their rules and their opinions. If you insist on being free to live as God wants you to live, they will try to intimidate you and manipulate you on way or another. Their primary weapons are “guilt trips,” rejection, or sleezy gossip. These people must be resisted. We must not allow them to subvert the freedom we have in Christ. Paul treated the legalism in the Galatian church as heresy, and he called down a curse on its perpetrators. I am not prepared to go that far with our present-day legalists/controllers, but I want to tell you their actions are no incidental matter. Their presence in our evangelical ranks is much more than a minor irritant, such as a reporter buzzing around our heads. There are spiritual casualties all over our nation today because of the effects of legalistic controllers in their lives. Controllers have been around a long time. Over three hundred years ago—in 1645—the Puritan Samuel Bolton wrote these very instructive words on the issues of Christian freedom: Let us never surrender our judgments or our consciences to be at the disposal and opinions of others, and to be subjected to the sentences and determinations of humans. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

It is my exhortation therefore to all Christians to maintain their Christian freedom by constant watchfulness. You must not be tempted or threatened out of it; you must not be bribed or frightened from it; you must not let either force or fraud rob you of it. We must not give up ourselves to the opinion of other people, though they be never so learned, never so holy, merely because it is their opinion. The apostle directs us to try all things and to hold fast that which is good. “Test everything. Hold onto the good. Avoid every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you though and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it,” reports 1 Thessalonians 5.21-24. It often happens that a high esteem of others in respect of their learning and piety makes humans take up all upon trust from such, and to submit their judgments to their opinions, and their consciousness to their precepts. This should not be so. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. That is just as true in the spiritual as in the political realm. Freedom and grace are two sides of the same coin. We cannot enjoy one without the other. If we are to truly live by grace, we must stand firm in the freedom that is ours in Christ Jesus. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

The reason why God has no name, or is said to be above being named, is because His essence is above all that we understand about God, and signify in word. “And now I Nephi, make an end of my prophesying unto you, my beloved brethren. And I cannot write but a few things, which I know must surely come to pass; neither can I write but a few of the words of my brother Jacob. Wherefore, the things which I have written sufficeth me, save it be a few words which I must speak concerning the doctrine of Christ; wherefore, I shall speak unto you plainly, according to the plainness of my prophesying. For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of humans. For the Lord God giveth light unto their understanding. Wherefore, I would that ye should remember that I have spoken unto you concerning that prophet which the Lord showed unto me, that should baptize the Lamb of God, which should take away the sins of the World. And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfil all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water! And now, I would ask of you, my beloved, wherein the Lamb of God did fulfil all righteousness in being baptized by water? #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

“Know ye not that he was holy? However, notwithstanding he being holy, he showeth unto the children of humans that, according to the flesh he humbleth himself before the Father, and witnesseth unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments. Wherefore, after he was baptized with water the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove. And again, it showeth unto the children of humans the straitness of the path, and the narrowness of the gate, by which they should enter, he having set the example before them. And he said unto the children of humans: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my bellowed brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father? And the Father said: Repent ye, repent ye, and be baptized in the name of my Beloved Son. And also, the voice of the Son came unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are wiling to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Saviour down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of Angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

However, behold, my beloved brethren, thus came the voice of the Son unto me, saying: After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yes, even with the tongue of Angels, and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me. And I heard a voice from the Father, saying: Yea, the words of my Beloved are true and faithful. He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. And now, my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a human shall endure to the end, in following the examples of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved. Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh remission of yours sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost. And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yes, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father of the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promises which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

“And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who mighty to save. Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all humans. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father; Ye shall have eternal life. And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under Heaven whereby humans can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen,” reports 2 Nephi 31.1-21. We give thanks to Thee, O Lord God, Father Almighty, together with Thy Son our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit; and we offer unto Thee, O Lord, from the rising of the Sun unto the going down thereof, from the north and from the south;–for great is Thy Name in all nations, and in every place incense and sacrifice and oblation are offered unto Thy holy Name. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

God All-Sufficient—O Lord of Grace, the World is before me this day, and I am weak and fearful, but I look to thee for strength; if I venture forth alone I stumble and fall, but on the beloved’s arms I am firm as the eternal hills; if I left to the treachery of my heart I shall shame thy name, but if enlightened, guided, upheld by Thy Spirit, I shall bring Thee glory. Be thou my arm to support, my strength to stand, my light to see, my feet to run, my shield to protect, my sword to repel, my Sun to warm. To enrich me will not diminish Thy fullness; all Thy lovingkindness is in Thy Son, I bring Him to Thee in the arms of faith, I urge His saving name as the one who died for me. I plead His blood to pay my debts of wrong. Accept His worthiness for my unworthiness, His sinlessness for my transgressions, His purity for my uncleanness, His sincerity for my guile, His truth for my deceits, His meekness for my pride, His constancy for my backslidings, His love for my enmity, His fullness for my emptiness, His faithfulness for my treachery, His obedience for my lawlessness, His glory for my shame, His devotedness for my waywardness, His holy life for my unchaste ways, His righteousness for my dead works, His death for my life. “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this World is coming. He has no hold on me, but the World must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my father has commanded me,” John 14.30. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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Receive, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the sacrifices of our worship; and by the glorious oblation please purify the hearts of those that are subject unto Thee.

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Half the Failures in Life Arise from Pulling in One’s Horse as He or She is Leaping!

May 23, 2020 12:57 am

It is not clear that we must take into account what the environment does to an organism not only before but after it responds. Behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences. If we ourselves are clear as to exactly what is meant by taking responsibility for oneself, we will understand that it is hard, if not impossible, for any neurotic to assume it. It means in the first place to acknowledge in a matter-of-fact way—to oneself and others—that such-and-such were one’s intentions, one’s words or one’s actions, and to be willing to take the consequences. This would be the opposite of lying or of putting the blame on others. To take responsibility for oneself in this sense would be hard for the neurotic because as a rule one does not know what one is doing or why one is doing it and has a keen subjective interest in not knowing. That is why one often tries to wriggle out by denying, forgetting, belittling, inadvertently supplying other motivations, feeling misunderstood, or getting confused. And since one tends to exclude or absolve oneself, one readily assumes that one’s wife, one’s business partner, one’s analyst are responsible for any difficulty that arises. Another factor that frequently contributes to one’s inability to take the consequences of one’s actions or even to see them is a hidden feeling of omnipotence, on the basis of which one expects to do whatever one pleases and get away with it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

To recognize the inescapable consequences of one’s actions would shatter this feeling of being a god. A final factor that is relevant here looks at first glance like an intellectual incapacity to think in terms of cause and effect. The neurotic commonly gives the impression of being inherently able to think only in terms of punishment. Almost every patient feels that the analyst is blaming one, whereas actually the analyst is only confronting one with one’s difficulties and their consequences. Outside the analytical situation one may feel like a culprit always under suspicion and attack and therefore constantly on the defensive. In reality this is an externalization of intrapsychic processes. As we have seen, the source from which these suspicions and attacks stem is one’s own idealized image. It is this inner process of fault finding and defense, plus its externalization, that makes it almost impossible for one to conceive of a cause-and-effect relation where one oneself is concerned. However, where difficulties of one’s own are not involved one can be just as matter-of-fact as anyone else. If the streets get wet because it is raining one does not ask whose fault it is but accepts the causal connection. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

When we speak of assuming responsibility for the self we mean, in addition, the capacity to stand up for what we believe is right and a willingness to take the consequences if our action or decision should prove to be wrong. This, too, is difficult when a person is divided by conflicts. For which of the conflict trends within oneself should one or could one stand up? None of them represents what one really wants or believes in. One really could stand up only for one’s idealized image. This, however, does not permit of the possibility of being wrong. Hence if one’s decision or action leads to trouble, one must falsify matters and ascribe the adverse consequences to someone else. A comparatively simple example will illustrate this problem. A person at the head of an organization craves unlimited power and prestige. Nothing may be done or decided without one; one cannot bring oneself to delegate functions to others who by virtue of their particular training might be better equipped to handle certain affairs. There is, in one’s own mind, nothing one does not know best. Besides, one does not want anyone else to feel or to become important. If only because of limitations of time and energy, one’s expectations of oneself would be impossible to measure up to. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

However, this particular individual wants not only to dominate; one is also complaint and needs to be superhumanly good. As a result of one’s unresolved conflicts one has all the earmarks we have described—inertia and need for sleep, indecision and procrastination, and hence cannot organize one’s time. And since one feels the keeping of appointments as intolerable coercion, one secretly enjoys making people wait. In addition, one does many unimportant tings merely because they flatter one’s vanity. Finally, one’s urge to be a devoted family person consumes much of one’s time and thought. Naturally, then, things do not function very well in the organization; but seeing no flaw in oneself, one puts the blame on others or on untoward circumstances. Again let us ask, for which part of one’s personality could one take responsibility? For one’s tendency to dominate, or for one’s tendency to comply, appease, and ingratiate oneself? To begin with, one is unaware of either. However, even if one were aware of them one could not uphold one and discard the other, because both are compulsory. Furthermore, one’s idealized image does not allow one to see anything in oneself but ideal virtues and unlimited capacities. Hence one cannot take responsibility for the consequences that inevitably follow from the operation of one’s conflicts. To do so would bring into clear relief all that one is so anxious to conceal from oneself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

Generally speaking, the neurotic is especially averse—unconsciously—to assuming responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions. One shuts one’s eye to even the very obvious ones. Unable to do away with one’s conflicts, one insists—again unconsciously—that one, all powerful as one is, should be able to cope with them. Consequences, one believes, may catch up with other, but for one they do not exist. One must therefore keep on dodging any recognition of the laws of cause and effect. If one would only open one’s mind to them, they could teach one a powerful lesson. They demonstrate in a foolproof way that one’s system of living does not work, that for all one’s unconscious cunning and trickery one cannot budge the laws that operate in our psychic life with the same inexorability as in the physical sphere, but there is an astonishing lack of understand of these psychic laws in the New World. As a matter of act, the whole subject of responsibility has little appeal for one. One sees—or dimly senses—only its negative aspects. What one does not see, and learn to appreciate only gradually, is that by turning one’s back on it one defeats one’s ardent strivings for independence. One hopes to attain independence by defiantly excluding all commitments, whereas in reality the assuming of responsibility for oneself and to oneself is an indispensable condition of real inner freedom. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

In order not to recognize that one’s problems and one’s suffering stem from one’s inner difficulties, the neurotic resorts to any of three devices—and often to all of them. Externalization may be applied to the hilt at this point, in which case everything from food, climate, or constitution to parents, wife, or fate is blamed for the particular calamity. Or one may take the attitude that since nothing is one’s fault it is unfair that any misfortune should befall one. It is unfair that one should tall ill, get old, or die, that one should be unhappily married, have a problem child, or think one’s work remain unrecognized. This kind of thinking, which may be conscious or unconscious, is doubly wrong, for it eliminates not only one’s own share in one’s difficulties but also all the factors independent of oneself that have a bearing on one’s life. Nevertheless, it has a logic of its own. It is the typical thinking of an isolated being who is centered exclusively upon oneself and whose egocentricity makes it impossible for one to see oneself as only a small link in a greater chain. One simply takes it for granted that one should derive all the good of living at a particular time in a particular social system, but resents being linked with others for good or ill. Therefore one cannot see why one should suffer from anything in which one has not been personally implicated. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

The third device is connected with one’s refusal to recognize cause-and-effect relationships. Consequences appear in one’s mind as isolated occurrences, unrelated to oneself or one’s difficulties. A depression or a phobia, for instance, may seem to descend upon one from the blue. This, of course, might be due to psychological ignorance or lack of observation. However, in analysis we can see that the patient offers a most tenacious resistance to taking cognizance of any impalpable connections. One may remain incredulous or forget them; or one may feel that the analyst, instead of speedily removing the troublesome disturbances—which was what one came for—puts the “blame” on one and cleverly saves one’s own face. Thus a patient may have become familiar with factors relevant to one’s inertia but close one’s mind to the obvious fact that one’s inertia slows up not only one’s analysis but everything else one does. Or another may have become aware of one’s aggressive-derogatory behaviour toward people but cannot understand why one often has quarrels and is disliked. That these difficulties exist within one is one thing, but one’s actual day-to-day problems are something else again. This separation of one’s inner troubles from their effect on one’s life is one of the mainsprings of the whole tendency to compartmentalize. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

Resistance toward recognizing the consequences of neurotic attitudes and drives is for the most part deeply concealed and may be easily overlooked by the analyst for the very reason that to one the connection is so obvious. This is unfortunate, because unless the patient is made aware that one blinds oneself to consequences and the reasons for which one does so, one cannot possibly realize to what an extent one interferers with one’s own life. Awareness of consequences is the most powerful curative factor in analysis in that it impresses on the patient’s mind that only by changing certain things within oneself can one ever attain freedom. If, then, the neurotic cannot be held accountable for one’s pretenses, one’s arrogance, one’s egocentricity, one’s shirking of responsibility, can we speak in terms of morals at all? The argument will be raised that, as physicians, we need only be concerned with the patient’s illness and cure, and that one’s morals are not our province. It will be pointed out that one of Dr. Freud’s great merits was to have overthrown the “moralistic” attitude I seem to advocate! Such arguments are deemed scientific; but are they tenable? Can we really exclude in matters of human behaviour judgment as to right and wrong? #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

If analysts decide what needs analytical examination and what does not, do they not really proceed on the basis of the very judgments they consciously reject? There is a danger, however, in such implicit judgments: they are likely to be made on either too subjective or too traditional a ground. Thus an analyst may feel that a man’s philandering need not be analyzed, while a woman’s deserves scrutiny. Or if one believes in an unbridled living out of drives in dealing with pleasures of the flesh, one may decide that faithfulness, whether in a man or a woman, needs analysis. Actually, judgments should be made on the basis of the particular patient’s neurosis. The question to be decided is whether an attitude the patient has assumed has consequences injurious to one’s development and to one’s relations with people. If it has, it is wrong and needs to be tackled. The reasons for the analyst’s conclusion should be explicitly stated to the patient in order to enable one to make up one’s own mind in the matter. And finally, do not the above arguments contain the same fallacy as exists in the patient’s thinking—namely, that morals are only a question of judgment and not primarily one of fact couple with consequences? Let us take neurotic arrogance as an example. It exists as a fact no matter whether the patient is responsible for it or not. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

The analyst believes that arrogance is a problem for the patient to recognize and eventually overcome. Does one assume this critical attitude because one has learned in Sunday school that arrogance is sinful and humility a virtue? Or is one’s judgment determined by the fact that arrogance is unrealistic and has adverse consequences, the burden of which is inevitably that patient’s—again regardless of one’s responsibility. The consequences, though, in the case of arrogance bar the patient from knowing oneself, and so thwart one’s development. Also, the arrogant patient is apt to be unfair to others, and this again has its repercussions—not merely in subjecting one to occasional clashes with others but in alienating one from people generally. This, however, only drives one deeper into one’s neurosis. Because the patient’s morals in part result from one’s neurosis and in part contribute to its maintenance, the analyst has no choice but to be interested in them. Interestingly enough, those who share a particular stigma can often rely upon mutual aid in passing, again illustrating that those who can be most threatening are often those who can render most assistance. For example, when one homosexual accosts another, the action may be carried out in such a way that normal are unaware that anything out of the ordinary is occurring. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

If we watch very carefully, and know what to watch for in a “gay” bar, we begin to observe that some individuals are apparently communicating with each other without exchanging words, but simply by exchanging glances—but not the kind of quick glance which ordinarily occurs between people of the same gender. The same kind of cooperativeness is to be found among the circles of stigmatized persons who know one another personally. For example, former mental patients who knew each other in the institution may maintain tactful control of this fact on the outside. In some cases, as when one of the individuals is with normal, the individual may give and be given the “go by,” the passing by of each other as though they were unacquainted. Where a greeting does occur, it may be handled discreetly; the context of the initial acquaintanceship is not made explicit, and the individual whose situation is the more delicate is accorded the right to pace the acknowledgment and the sociable exchange that follows from it. Former mental patients are not alone here of course: The professional women of the evening has a code regulating her relations with the client. For example, it is customary for a woman of the evening never to show any signs of recognizing a client when she meets one in public, unless he greets her first. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

Where this kind of discretion is not afforded, one can sometimes expect the discredited individual to take active disciplinary action, as Reiss, in his paper on juvenile entrepreneurs, illustrates by quoting an informant. “I was walkin’ down the street with my steady girl when this gay drives by that I had been with once before and he whistles at me and calls, ‘Hi, Sweetie.’ And, was I mad…so I went down to where the boys was and we laid for him and beat on him ‘til he like to a never come to…ain’t gonna take nothin’ like that off’n a queer.” It is expected to be that voluntary maintenance of various types of distance will be employed strategically by those who pass, the discreditable here using much the same devices as do the discredited, but for slightly different reasons. By declining or avoiding overtures of intimacy the individual can avoid the consequent obligation to divulge information. By keeping relationships distant one ensures that time will not have to be spent with the other, for, as already stated, the more time that is spent with another the more chance of unanticipated events that disclose secrets. Examples may be cited from the stigma management work done by wives of mental patients. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

“But I have cut off all our other friends [after citing five who “knew”]. I did not tell them that I was giving up the apartment and I had the phone disconnected without telling anyone so they do not know how to get in touch with me. I have not gotten too friendly with anyone at the office because I do not want people to know where my husband is. I figure that if I got too friendly with them, then they would start asking questions, and I might start talking, and I just think it is better if as few people as possible know about Joe.” By maintaining physical distance, the individual can also restrict the tendency of others to build up a personal identification of one. By residing in a region with a mobile population, one can limit the amount of continuous experience others have of one. By residing in a region cut off from one one ordinarily frequents one can introduce a disconnectedness in one’s biography: whether intentionally, as in the case of an unmarried young lady with an unborn child going out of state to have her baby, or of small-town homosexuals going to New York, Los Angeles, or Paris for relatively anonymous activity; or unintentionally, as in the case of the mental patient who gratefully finds that one’s place of commitment is far out of town and hence somewhat cut off from one’s ordinary contacts. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

By staying indoors and not answering the phone or door, the discreditable individual can remove oneself from most of those contacts in which one’s disgrace might be established as part of the biography others have of one. A final possibility must now be considered, one that allows the individual to forego all the others. One can voluntarily disclose oneself, thereby radically transforming one’s situation from that of an individual with information to manage to that of an individual with uneasy social situations to manage, from that of a discreditable person to that of a discredited one. Once a secretly stigmatized person has given information about oneself it becomes possible, of course, for one to engage in any of the adaptive actions previously cited as being available to the known-to-be stigmatized, this accounting in part for one’s policy of self-disclosure. One method of disclosure is for the individual voluntarily to wear a stigma symbol, a highly visible sign that advertises one’s failing wherever one goes. There are, for example, hard of hearing persons who wear hearing devices that are nearly invisible; the partly blind who affect a collapsible white cane; Jewesses who wear a Star of David as a necklace. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

It should be noted that some of these stigma symbols, such as a Knights of Columbus lapel button indicating that the wearer is Catholic, are not frankly presented as disclosures of stigma, but purportedly attest rather to membership in organizations claimed to have no such significance in themselves. It should be noted also that militant programs of all kinds can be served by this device, for the self-symbolizing individual ensures one’s being cut off from the society of normal. The manner in which a sect of New York Jews present themselves provides an example: “Obgehitene Yiden, ‘Guardian Jews,’ include those so-called ultra-Orthodox Jews who not only observe the Shulhan Aruch in the most minute detail but are most meticulous and zealous in their observance. They perform all the prescribed commandments and precepts with greatest care. These people are overtly identifiable as Jews. They wear beards and/or special traditional clothing for the exclusive purpose of being externally identified as Jewish: beards so that the ‘image of God should be upon their faces,’ traditional garments so that they ‘may refrain from any possible sin.’” Stigma symbols have the character of being continuously available for perception. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

Some less rigid means of disclosure are also used. Fleeting offerings of evidence may be made—purposeful slips, as it were—as when a person has not disclosed their preference for same sex relationships and voluntarily commits the clumsy act of showing someone pictures one of which is private picture of himself as a way of informing new comers of his sigma. There is also disclosure etiquette, a formula whereby the individual admits one’s own failing in a matter of fact way, supporting the assumption that those present are above such concerns while preventing them from trapping themselves into showing that they are not. Thus the “good” Jew or mental patient waits for “an appropriate time” in a conversation with strangers and calmly says: “Well, being Jewish has made me feel that…” or “Having had first-hand experience as a mental patient I can…” Earlier it was suggested that learning to pass constitutes one phase in the socialization of the stigmatized person and a turning point in one’s moral career. I want to suggest now that if an individual can come to accept oneself and respect oneself, that the stigmatized individual can come to feel that one should be above passing, and will feel no need to conceal one’s failing. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

After laboriously learning to conceal, then, the individual may go on to unlearn this concealment. It is here that voluntary disclosure fits into the moral career, a sign of one of its phases. It should be added that in the published autobiographies of stigmatized individuals, this phase in the moral career is typically described as the final, mature, well-adjusted one—a state of grace I will attempt to consider later. Many false churches will be built up in the last days—they will teach false, vain, and foolish doctrines—apostasy will abound because of false teachers—the devil will rage in the hearts of humans—he will teach all manner of false doctrines. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And now, behold, my brethren, I have spoken unto you, according as the Spirit hath constrained me; wherefore, I know that they must surely come to pass. And the things which shall be written out of the book shall be of great worth unto the children of humans, and especially unto our seed, which is a remnant of the house of Israel. For it shall come to pass in that day that the churches which are built up, and not unto the Lord, when the one shall say unto the other: Behold, I, I am the Lord’s; and the others shall say: I, I am the Lord’s; and thus shall every one say that hath built up churches, and not unto the Lord– #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

“And they shall contend one with another; and their priests shall contend one with another, and they shall teach with their learning, and deny the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance. And they deny the power of God, the Holy One of Israel; and they say unto the people: Hearken unto us, and hear ye our precept; for behold there is no God today, for the Lord and the Redeemer hath done his work, and he hath given his power unto humans; behold, hearken ye unto my precept; if they shall say there is a miracle wrought by the hand of the Lord, believe it not; for this day he is not a God of miracles; he hath done his work. Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us. And there shall also be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea lie a little, take advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbour; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God. Yea, and there shall be many which shall teach after this manner, false and vain and foolish doctrines, and shall be puffed up in their hearts, and shall seek deep to hide their counsels from the Lord; and their works shall be in the dark. And the blood of the saints shall cry from the ground against them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“Yea, they have all gone out of the way; they have become corrupted. Because of pride, and because of false teachers, and false doctrine, their churches have become corrupted, and their churches are lifted up; because of pride they are puffed up. They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries; they rob the poor because of their fine clothing; and the persecute the meek and the poor in heart, because in their pride they are puffed up. They wear stiff necks and high heads; yea, and because of pride, and wickedness, and abominations, and whoredoms, they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of humans. O the wise, and the learned, and the rich, that are puffed up in the pride of their hearts, and all those who preach false doctrines, and all those who commit whoredoms, and pervert the right way of the Lord, wo, wo, wo be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell! Wo unto them that turn aside the just for a thing of naught and revile against that which is good, and say that it is of no worthy! For the day shall come that the Lord God will speedily visit the inhabitants of the Earth; and in that day that they are fully ripe in iniquity they shall perish. However, behold, if the inhabitants of the Earth shall repent of their wickedness and abominations they shall not be destroyed, saith the Lord of Hosts. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“However, behold, that great and abominable church, the whore of all the Earth, must tumble to the Earth, and great must be the fall thereof. For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish; for behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of humans, and stir them up to anger against that which is good. And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell. And behold, other he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whsipereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance. Yea, they are grasped with death, and hell; and death, and hell, and the devil, and all that have been seized therewith must stand before the throne of God, and be judged according to their works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment. Therefore, wo be unto ne that is at ease in Zion! Wo be unto one that crieth: All is well! #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“Yea, wo be unto one that hearkeneth unto the precepts of humans, and denieth the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost! Yea, wo be unto one that saith: We have received, and we need no more! And in fine, wo unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God! For behold, one that is built upon the rock receiveth it with gladness; and one that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest one shall fall. And in fine, wo unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God! For behold, one that is built upon the rock receiveth it with gladness; and one that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest one shall fall. Wo be unto one that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more of the word of God, for we have enough! For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of humans line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto one that receiveth I will give more; and for them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have. Cursed is one that putteth one’s trust in humans, or maketh flesh one’s arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of humans, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

“Wo be unto the Gentiles, saith the Lord God of Hosts! For notwithstanding I shall lengthen out mine arm unto them from day to day, they will deny me; nevertheless, I will be merciful unto them, saith the Lord God, if they will repent and come unto me; for mine arm is lengthened out all the day long, saith the Lord God of Host,” reports 2 Nephi 28.1-32. O Lord our God, Who hast called us Christians after the Name of Thine Only-begotten Son, and hast given us Baptism in the Font for the remission of sins; make us, we beseech Thee, worthy now to receive this Communion for the remission of our sins, and to glorify Thee with thanksgiving. O God, may I never be a blot or a blank in life, cause the way of truth to be evil spoken of, or make my liberty an occasion to the flesh. May I by love serve others, and please my neighbour for one’s good edification. May I attend to what is ornamental as well as essential in religion, pursuing things that are lovely and of good report. May I render my profession of the gospel not only impressive, but amiable and inviting. May I hold forth the way of Jesus with my life as well as my lips. May I say to all I meet, I am journeying towards the Lord’s given place, some with me for your good. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

May I be prepared for all the allotments of this short, changing, uncertain life with a useful residence in it, a comfortable journey through it, a safe passage out of it. May I ne in character and conduct like the dew of Heaven, the salt of the Earth, the light of the World, the fullness of the fountain. May I never be ashamed of Jesus or His words, never be deterred from fulfilling a known duty through fear, never be discouraged from attempting it through weakness. May I see all things in a divine light so that they may inform my judgment and sanctify my heart. And by all the disciplines of Thy providence, and all the ordinances of religion, may I be increasingly prepared for life’s remaining duties, the solemnities of a dying hour, and the joys and services that lie beyond the grave. Have mercy, O Lord, upon Thy servants for whom I offer this sacrifice of praise to Thy Majesty; that they may be able to lead a good life in this World, and happily to attain eternal blessedness. Remember, O Lord, Thy servants and handmaids here present, whose faith and devotion are discerned and known by Thee. Look mercifully, O Lord, on these present offerings, that they may avail both for our devotion and our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Send forth, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the Holy Spirit, to make these present offerings Thy Sacrament unto us, and purify our hearts for its reception. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

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Humans were Born Free, and Everywhere Humans are in Chains!

May 20, 2020 12:41 am

When people are regarded superficially their differences are accentuated. However, as we understand each other, differences fade and the oneness of humans emerges—the same needs, the same fears, the same struggles, the same desires. Here comes everybody! Education stands firmly as the cornerstone of our great nation. A commitment to education is a commitment to our children and their future. Our children are our most precious resource and we, as citizens and communities, must never forget that the skills and knowledge we provide our children with today will become the foundation of tomorrow. We must make certain that the opportunity for a quality education is available for all children. The dedication and tireless efforts put forth by our educators to enhance the learning process is essential to the growth and prosperity of our communities and our nation. If you lecture upon morality, or political economy, official bodies will be found to make this request to the Government: That henceforth science be taught not only with sole reference to free exchange (to liberty, property, and justice), as has been the case up to the present time, but also, and especially, with reference to the facts of legislation (contrary to liberty, property, and justice) that regulate French industry. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24

That, in public lecterns salaried by the treasury, the professor abstain rigorously from endangering the slightest degree the respect duet to the laws now in force. So that is a law exists that sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or plunder, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned—for how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect that it inspires? Still further, mortality and political economy must be taught in connection with this law—that is, under the supposition that it must be just, only because it is law. Another effect of this deplorable perversion of the law is that it gives to human passions and to political struggles, and, in general, to politics, properly so called, an exaggerated importance. I could prove this assertion in a thousand ways. However, I shall confine myself, by way of an illustration, to bringing it to bear upon a subject which has of late occupied everybody’s mind: universal suffrage. Whatever may be thought of it by the adepts of the school of Rousseau, which professes to be very far advanced, but which I consider 20 centuries behind, universal suffrage (taking the word in its strictest sense) is not one of those scared strict and rigid doctrines with respect to which examination and doubt are crimes. Serious objections may be made to it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24

In the first place, the word universal conceals a gross sophism. There are, in France, 67,000,000 inhabitants. To make the right of suffrage universal, 67,000,000 electors should be reckoned. The most extended system reckons only 18,000,000. Approximately 74 percent, then, are excluded. Upon what principle is this exclusion founded? Upon the principle of incapacity. Universal suffrage, then, means: universal suffrage of those who are capable. In point of fact, who are the capable? Are age, gender, and judicial condemnation the only conditions to which incapacity is to be attached? On taking a nearer view of the subject, we may soon perceive the reason why the right of suffrage depends upon the presumption of incapacity; the most extended system differing from the most restricted in the conditions on which this incapacity depends, and which constitutes not a difference in principle, but in degree. This motive is, that the elector does not stipulate for oneself, but for everybody. If, as the republicans of the Greek and Roman tone pretend, the right of suffrage had fallen to the lot of every one at one’s birth, it would be an injustice to adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why were women in the past, and minors currently prevented from voting? Because they are presumed to be incapable. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24

And why is incapacity a reason for exclusion from voting? Because the elector does not reap alone the responsibility of one’s vote; because every vote engages and affects the community at large; because the community has a right to demand some assurances, as regards the acts upon which its well-being and its existence depend. I know what might he said in answer to this. I know what might be objected. However, this is not the place to settle a controversy of this kind. What I wish to observe is that, that this same controversy (in common with the greater part of political questions) that agitates, excites, and unsettles the nations, would lose almost all its importance if the law had always been what it ought to be. In fact, if law were confined to causing all persons, all liberties, and all properties to be respected—if it were merely the organization of individual right and individual defense—if it were the obstacle, the check, the chastisement opposed to all oppression, to all plunder—is it likely that we should dispute much, as citizens, on the subject of the greater or lesser universality of suffrage? Is it likely that it would compromise that greatest of advantages, the public peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would not quietly wait for their turn? Is it likely that the enfranchised classes would be very jealous of their privileges? And is it not clear, that the interest of all being one and the same, some would act without much inconvenience to others? #RandolphHarris 4 of 24

However, if the fatal principle should come to be introduced, that, under pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law may take from one party in order to give to another, help itself to the wealth acquired by all the classes that it may increase that of one class, whether that of the agriculturists, the manufacturers, the ship owners, or artist and comedians; then certainly, in this case, there is no class which may not try, and with reason, to place its hand upon the law, that would not demand with fury its right of election and eligibility, and that would overturn society rather than not obtain it. Even beggars and vagabonds will prove to you that they have an incontestable title to it. They will say: “We never buy wine, tobacco, or salt, without paying the tax, and a part of this tax is given by law in perquisites and gratuities to humans who are rich than we are. Others make use of the law to create an artificial rise in the price of bread, land, meat, dairy, fuel, water, iron, or cloth. Since everybody traffic in law for one’s own profit, we should like to do the same. We should like to make it produce the right to assistance, which is the less affluent human’s plunder. To effect this, we ought to be electors and legislators, that we may organize, on a large scale, alms for our own class, as you have organized, on a large scale, protection for yours. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24

“Do not tell us that you will take cause upon yourselves, and throw to us $1,400,000 francs to keep us quiet, like giving us a bone to pick. We have other claims, and, at any rate, we wish to stipulate for ourselves, as other classes have stipulated for themselves!” How is this argument to be answered? Yes, as long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true mission, that it may violate property instead of securing it, everybody will be wanting to manufacture law, either to defend oneself against plunder, or to organize it for one’s own profit. The political question will always be prejudicial, predominant, and absorbing; in a word, there will be fighting around the door of the Legislative Palace. The struggle will be no less furious within it. To be convinced of this, it is hardly necessary to look at what passes in the Chambers in France and England; it is enough to know how the question stands. With this understanding, let us examine the value, the origin, and the tendency of this popular aspiration, which pretends to realize the general good by general plunder. The Socialists say, since the law organizes justice, why should it not organize labour, instruction, and religion? Why? Because it could not organize labour, instruction, and religion, without disorganizing justice. For remember, that law is force, and that consequently the domain of the law cannot properly extend beyond the domain of force. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24

When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing upon one but a mere negation. They only oblige one to abstain from doing harm. They violate neither one’s personality, one’s liberty, nor one’s property. They only guard the personality, the liberty, the property of others. They hold themselves on the defensive; they defend the equal right of all. They fulfill a mission whose harmlessness is evident, whose utility is palpable, and whose legitimacy is not to be disputed. This is so true that, as a friend of mine once remarked to me, to say that the aim of the law is to cause justice to reign, is to use an expression that is not rigorously exact. It ought to be said, the aim of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is not justice that has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The results from the absence of the other. However, when the law, through the medium of its necessary agent—force—imposes a form of labour, a method or a subject of instruction, a creed, or a worship, it is no longer negative; it acts positively upon humans. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own will, the initiative of the legislator for their own initiative. They have no nee to consult, to compare, or to foresee; the law does all that for them. The intellect is for them a useless encumbrance; they cease to be humans; they lose their personality, their liberty, their property. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24

Try to imagine a form of labour imposed by force, that is not a violation of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, that is not a violation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling this, you are bound to conclude that the law cannot organize labour and industry without organizing injustice. When, from the seclusion of one’s office, a politician takes a view of society, one is struck with the spectacle of inequality that presents itself. One mourns over the sufferings that are the lot of so many of our brethren, sufferings whose aspect is rendered yet more sorrowful by the contrast of luxury and wealth. One ought, perhaps, to task oneself whether such a social state has not been caused by the plunder of ancient times, exercised in the way of conquests; and by plunder of more recent times, effected though the medium of the laws? One ought to ask oneself whether, granting the aspiration of all humans to well-being and improvement, the reign of justice would not suffice to realize the greatest activity of progress, and the greatest amount of equality compatible with that individual responsibility that God has awarded as a just retribution of virtue and vice? One never gives this thought. One’s mind turns towards combinations, arrangements, legal or factitious organization. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24

One seeks the remedy in perpetuating and exaggerating what has produced the evil. For, justice apart, which we have seen is only a negation, is there any one of these legal arrangements that does not contain the principle of plunder? You say, “There are people who have no money,” and you apply to the law. However, the law is not a self-supplied fountain, whence every stream may obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public treasury, in favour of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens and other classes have been forced to send to it. If everyone draws from it only the equivalent of what one has contributed to it, your law, it is true, is no plunder, but it does nothing for people who want money—it does not promote equality. It can only be an instrument of plunder. Examine, in the light, the protection of tariffs, subsidies, right to profit, right to labour, right to assistance, free public education, progressive taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and you will always find at the bottom legal plunder, organized injustice. You say, “There are people who want knowledge,” and you apply to the law. However, the law is not a torch that sheds light that originates within itself. It extends over a society where there are people who have knowledge, and others who have not; citizens who want to learn, and other who are disposed to teach. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24

The law can only do one of two things; either allow a free operation to this kind of transaction, id est, let this kind of want satisfy itself freely; or else preempt the will of the people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay professors commissioned to instruct others for free. However, in this second case, there cannot fail to be a violation of liberty and property—legal plunder. You say, “Here are people who are wanting in mortality or religion,” and you apply to the law; but law is force, and need I say how far it is a violent and absurd enterprise to introduce force in these matters? As the result of its systems and of its efforts, it would seem that socialism, notwithstanding all its self-compliancy, can scarcely help perceiving the monster of legal plunder. However, what does it do? It disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organization, association. And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we only ask it for justice, it alleges that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. We can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization, but forced organization. It is not free association, but the forms of association that they would impose upon us. It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity. It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is only an unjust displacement of responsibility. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24

In any encounter of humans with humans, power is active, the power of the personal radiation, expressed in language and gestures, in the glance of the eye and the sound of the voice, in face and figure and movement, expressed in what one is personally and what one represents socially. Every encounter, whether friendly or hostile, whether benevolent or indifferent, is in some way, unconsciously or consciously, a struggle of power with power. In this struggle decisions are made continuously about the relative power of being, actualized in all those who are involved in the struggle. Creative justice does not deny these encounters and the conflicts implicit in them. For this is the price which must be paid for the creativity of life. Such struggles start in the life of an individual in the moment of one’s conception and go on up to the moment of one’s last breath. They permeate one’s relations to everything and everybody one encounters. Justice is the form in which these struggles lead to ever-changing decision about the power of being in each of the struggling beings. The impression given by this picture, the truth of which can hardly be denied, is the complete dependence of justice in personal encounters on the power of relation between person and person. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24

However, this impression is false because it does not take into consideration that every being which enters the struggle of power with power has already a definite power of being. It is a plant and not a stone, a beast and not a tree, a man and not a dog, a female and not a male. These and innumerable other qualities are given before the struggle in the personal encounter starts and they are the basis for the intrinsic claim for justice, which every being has. However, this claim has a large margin of indefiniteness, rooted in the dynamic side of every power of a being. And it is this undefined element in the power of a being about which new decision are always me. This of course is also the source of all injustice. If the new decision destroy the essential claim of a being, they are unjust. It is not unjust that in the struggle between power and power one of the beings involved shows a superior power of being. The manifestation of this fact is not unjust but creative. However, injustice occurs if in this struggle the superior power uses its power for the reduction or destruction of the inferior power. This can happen in all forms of personal encounters. Most frequent are those forms in which the personal encounter occurs within the frame of an institutional structure and the preservation and growth of the institution gives the pretext for unjust compulsion. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24

There is unjust psychological compulsion in family relations, in educational relations and in all other authority relations. It often happens that parents who look at a young child with an especially severe or angry expression become responsible for a life-long abnormal anxiety of the child. It feels rejected and loses any self-assurance concerning the power and justice of its own being. Its just claims are repressed or transformed into unjust ones, exempli gratia unconscious destructiveness against itself or against others. This, on the other hand, gives the parents a feeling of being resisted or avoided by the child. Their intrinsic claim as parents is not fulfilled either. Authority can, besides its external compulsory power, exercise a psychological compulsion which conflicts with the justice of person-to-person encounters. Here the large problem arises as to whether there is a type of authority which is, by its very nature, unjust, and another one which is by its very nature just. This seems to be the case: there is “authority in principle” and there is “authority in fact.” Authority in principle means that a person has authority by the place one occupies and that one is beyond criticism because of the place. So—to give the most famous example—the Pope as Pope is ultimate authority for every Catholic believer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24

Thus, the Bible as Bible is ultimate authority for every orthodox Protestant. Thus, the dictator as dictator is ultimate authority in a totalitarian system. Thus, parents are authority for infants and try to remain in this place for ever. So teacher become authorities for pupils without trying to liberate the pupils from their authority. All this “authority in principle” is unjust authority. It disregards the intrinsic claim of group, or, as it is called if it has a manifest center, a social organism. An organism is the more developed and has a greater power of being, the more different elements are united around an acting center. Therefore, humans produce the richest, most universal and most powerful social organisms. However, the individuals who constitute this organism are each independent centers for themselves, and so they can resist the unity of the social organism to which they belong. And there the limits of the analogy between biological and social organism becomes visible. In a biological organism the parts are nothing without the whole to which they belong. This is not the case in social organisms. They destiny of an individual who is separated from the group to which one belongs may be miserable but the separation is not necessarily fatal. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24

The fate of a limb which is cut off from the living organism to which it belongs is in decay. In this sense no human group is an organism in the biological sense. Neither is the family the cell of a quasi-biological organism, nor is the nation something like a biological organism. This statement is politically significant. Those who like to speak of social organisms do it usually with a reactionary tendency. They want to keep dissenting groups in conformity and they use for this purpose biological metaphors in a literal sense. Prussian conservatism and Roman Catholic family glorification agree at this point. However, the individual person is not a limb of a body; one is an ultimate, independent reality, with both personal and social functions. The individual human is a social being, but the society does not create the individual. They are interdependent. Another moral problem is the inability to take a definite stand and the undependability that goes with it. The neurotic rarely takes a stand in accordance with the objective merits of a person, idea, or cause but rather on the basis of one’s own emotional needs. Since these, however, are contradictory, one position can easily be exchanged for another. Hence many neurotics are readily swayed—unconsciously bribed, as it were—by the lure of greater affection, greater prestige, recognition, power, or “freedom.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 24

This applies to all their personal relationships, whether individual or as part of a group. They often cannot commit themselves to a feeling or opinion about another person. Some unsubstantiated gossip may alter their opinion. Some disappointment or sight, or what is felt as such, may be reason enough to drop a “very good friend.” Some difficulty encountered may turn their enthusiasm into listlessness. They may change their religious, political, or scientific views because of some personal attachment or resentment. They may take a stand in a private conversation but give way under the slightest pressure by some authority or group—often without knowing why they changed their opinion or even that they have do so at all. A neurotic may unconsciously avoid obvious wavering by not making up one’s mind in the first place, but “sitting on the fence,” leaving every alternative open. One may rationalize such an attitude by pointing to the actual intricacies of the situation, or one may be determined by a compulsive “fairness.” Unquestionably a genuine striving to be fair is valuable. It is true also that a conscientious wish to be fair makes it harder to take a definite stand in many situations. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24

However, fairness can be a compulsory part of the idealized image, and its function then is to make taking a stand unnecessary, while at the same time allowing the person to feel “anointed” for being above prejudiced struggle. In this case there is a tendency to be indiscriminate in believing that two viewpoints are really not so contradictory, or that in a dispute between two persons there is right on both sides. It is a pseudo objectivity which prevents a person from recognizing the essential issues in any matter. Earlier I mentioned our various list of “do’s and do not’s.” We have looked at some typical “do not’s”: do not go to the beach, do not play pool, do not eat peanut butter. If this list seems humorous to you, you are wondering how anyone could have such unusual notions, consider that your own list could look just as foolish to someone else. However, foolish or not is not the issues. The issue is that God has not appointed any of us to be the Thought Police or other believer. However, what about the “do’s.” By the “do’s” I am thinking particularly of activities I call spiritual disciplines: having regular private devotions, studying the Bible, memorizing Scripture, meeting with a group Bible study, or faithfully attending a weekly prayer meeting. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24

Spiritual disciplines are provided for our good, not for our bondage. “Spiritual disciplines were made for human, not humans for spiritual disciplines,” reports Mark 2.27. We can become just as legalistic about our “do’s” as we can about the “do nots.” In fact, newer believers coming into our fellowship from totally unchristian backgrounds usually do not have many cultural “do nots.” However, the spiritual disciplines are fertile ground for legalistic thinking. They can easily become a performance measurement by which we gauge whether to expect God’s blessing or not. If I have been doing pretty well, having a regular quiet time, studying my Bible, and so on, then I am hopeful about God’s blessing. However, if I have not been doing so well—have not “been faithful” as we say—then, I might as well go back to bed. We get more legalistic about spiritual disciplines with others. We try subtly (or maybe not so subtle) coercion by communicating ever so slightly that a person who is not practicing the same disciplines we are is not “committed.” Or we do not allow a person into our “in” group if he or she is not doing what we do. Again we think God should lead everyone else in spiritual growth as He does us. I do not think we should actively promote spiritual disciplines. They are absolutely necessary for growth in our Christian lives. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24

And since ours is a largely undisciplined age, many believers are losing out on the benefits of those disciplines that could help them grow to maturity in Christ. However, we should promote them as benefits, not as duties. Perhaps we should stop talking about being “faithful” to have a quiet time with God each day, as if we were doing something to earn a reward. It would be better to talk about the privilege of spending time with the God of the Universe and the importance for our own sake of being consistent in the practice. If we are involved in a one-to-one discipling relationship, we must remember Paul’s attitude when he wrote, “Not that we Lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm,” reports 2 Corinthians 1.24. In a one-to-one discipling relationship, we are there to serve, not to Lord it over the other person. We should encourage the use of spiritual disciplines and do all we can to help the person succeed in them, but we should never require them as a condition of acceptance—either by God or by us. We must remember that the methods of spiritual disciplines are a means to the end, not the ends themselves. We need to teach grace before commitment, because, as we saw, grace understood and embrace will always lead to commitment. However, commitment required will always lead to legalism. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24

Christ will minister to the Nephites—Nephi foresees the destruction of his people—they will speak from the dust—the Gentiles will build up false churches and secret combinations—the Lord forbids humans to practice priestcrafts. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And after Christ shall have risen from the dead he shall show himself unto you, my children, and my beloved brethren; and the words which he shall speak unto you shall be the law which ye shall do. For behold, I say unto you that I have beheld that many generations shall pass away, and there shall be great wards and contentions among my people. And after the Messiah shall come there shall be signs given unto my people of his birth, and also of his death and resurrection; and great and terrible shall that say be unto the wicked, for they shall perish; and they perish because they cast out the prophets, and the saints, and stone them, and slay them; wherefore the cry of the blood of the saints shall ascend up to God from the ground against them. Wherefore, all those who are proud, and that do wickedly, the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, for they shall be as stubble. And they that kill the prophets, and the saints, the depths of the Earth shall swallow them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; and mountains shall cover them, and whirlwinds shall carry them away, and buildings shall fall upon them and crush them to pieces and grind them to powder. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24

“And they shall be visited with thunderings, and listenings, and Earthquakes, and all manner of destructions, for the fire of the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against them, and they shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall consume them, saith the Lord of Hosts. O the pain, and the anguish of my soul for the loss of the slain of my people! For I, Nephi, have seen it, and it well nigh consumeth me before the presence of the Lord; but I must cry unto my God: They ways are just. However, behold, the righteous that hearken unto the words of the prophets, and destroy them not, but look forward unto Christ with steadfastness for the signs which are given, notwithstanding all persecution—behold, they are they which shall not perish. However, the Son of Righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them, and they shall have peace with him, until three generations shall have passed away, and many of the fourth generation shall have passed away in righteousness. And when thee things have passed away a speedy destruction cometh unto my people; for, notwithstanding the pains of my soul, I have seen it; wherefore, I know that it shall come to pass; and they sell themselves for naught; for, the reward of their pride and their foolishness they shall reap destruction; for because they yield unto the devil and choose works of darkness rather than light, therefore they must go down to hell. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24

“For the Spirit of the Lord will not always strive with a human. And when the Spirit ceaseth to strive with a human then cometh speedy destruction, and this grieveth my soul. And as I spake concerning the convincing of the Jews, that Jesus is the very Christ, it must needs be that the Gentiles be convinced also that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God. And that he manifesteth himself unto all those who believe in him, by the power of the Holy Ghost; yea, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, working mighty miracles the children of humans according to their faith. However, behold, I prophesy unto you concerning the last days; concerning the days when the Lord God shall bring these things forth unto the children of humans. After my seed and the seed of my brethren shall have dwindled in unbelief, and shall have been smitten by the Gentiles; yea, after the Lord God shall have camped against them round about, and shall have laid siege against them with a mount, and raised forts against them; and after they shall have been brought down low in the dust, even that they are not, yet the words of the righteous shall be written, and the prayer of the faithful shall be heard, and all those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not be forgotten,” reports 2 Nephi 26.1-15. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24

We beseech Thee, O Lord, please let the earnest desire of Thine obedient people move Thy pity, and let their faithful supplication obtain Thy mercy; that what they cannot claim by merits they may receive by the abundance of Thy pardon; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Great God, in public and private, in sanctuary and home, may my life be steeped in prayer, filled with the spirit of grace and supplication, each prayer perfumed with the incense of atoning blood. Please help me, please defend me, until from praying ground I pass to the realm of unceasing praise. Urged by my need, invited by Thy promises, called by Thy Spirit, I enter Thy presence, worshipping Thee with Godly fear, awed by Thy majesty, greatness, glory, but encourage by Thy love. I am all poverty as well as all guilt, having nothing of my own with which to repay Thee, but I bring Jesus to Thee in the arms of faith, pleading his righteousness to offset my iniquities, rejoicing that he will weigh down the scales for me, and satisfy Thy justice. I bless Thee that great sin draws out great grace, that, although the least sin deserves infinite punishment because done against an infinite God, yet there is mercy for me, for where guilty is most terrible, there Thy mercy in Christ is most free and deep. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24

Please bless me by revealing to me more of his saving merits, by causing Thy goodness to pass before me, by speaking peace to my contrite heart; strengthen me to give Thee no rest until Christ shall reign supreme within me, in every thought, word, and deed, in a faith that purifies the heart, overcomes the World, works by love, fastens me to Thee, and ever clings to the cross. O God of Heavenly powers, Who givest more than we ask or deserve; please grant, we beseech Thee, that what we cannot have by reliance on our own deserts may be granted to us by Thy mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. May Thy perpetual gifts, O Lord, be confirmed to Thy faithful servants, that in receiving them they may seek Thee, and in seeking Thee may endlessly receive them; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless, O Lord, Thy family in Heavenly places, and fill them with Thy spiritual gifts; grant them love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, hope, faith, chastity; that being replenished with all Thy gifts, they may attain their desires of coming safe unto Thee; through our Lord. Take away from us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, all our iniquities, and the spirit of pride and arrogance, which Thou resistest, and fill us with the spirit of fear, and give us a contrite and humbled heart, which Thou dost not despise,–that we may be enabled with pure minds to enter into the Holy of Holies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24

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Wonders are Many, and None is More Wonderful than Humanity!

May 15, 2020 1:09 am

Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. The social self is the image we think other people have of us, and the way we ourselves present to other people because of this view. One problem is that, in order to project this image, we may sometimes feel compelled to do or say things we do not really feel. This can turn into a sort of game that keeps us from really communicating with people. So-called satellite relationships may be formed by either partner, and this often causes great pain as well as enriching growth. Satellite relationships means a close secondary relationship outside the marriage which may or may not involve pleasure of the flesh, but which is valued for itself. It seems much preferable to such terms as “extramarital pleasures of the flesh” or “an affair” or “mistress” or “lover.” When two persons in a partnership learn to look upon each other as separate persons, with separate as well as mutual interests and needs, they are likely to discover that outside relationships are one of those needs. And when that outside relationship involves the possibility of intimacy involving pleasures of the flesh, it poses problems for the primary partners. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Larke, for example, gives her partner Radley, the freedom to date other women, and knows that the dating can lead to pleasures of the flesh. Intellectually this has her full approval, but her emotional lag behind this logical stance. She is often jealous and hurt, yet also feels confirmed by the fact that Radley always prefers her, returns to her. I often observe in encounter groups, or groups where couples are involved, the beginning development of such satellite relationships. An emotional, volatile wife who is resentful of her husband’s compulsive dedication to his research forms a new relationship with another man in the group. He is playful, which her husband is not. He is feelingful and expressive of emotions, qualities lacking in her husband. The relationship becomes very close. The woman is very open with both her husband and her new-found love about her excitement and satisfaction in the new alliance, and also the confusion and conflict it generates in her. Her husband had a great many good qualities, and she feels disloyal to him, but–. As for her researcher-husband, who has described himself in the group as being without feelings, he discovers a depth of jealousy and anger in himself that frightens him. He is suffering intensely. He and his wife talk and talk, sometimes bitterly, sometimes caringly, at times really understanding one another, at other times experiencing nothing but anger. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Because of all of this was so much in the open, the group and I were a part of the situation. We could not help but observe the sharp swings in mood between husband and wife, the alternating closeness and distancing in the satellite relationship. Different members of the group listened understandingly to all three members f the triangle, especially to the pain and anger and conflict experienced by the wife and her husband. As the group experience came to an end, I wondered whether a person-centered approach would be responsible for breaking up a marriage which, with all its flaws, had lasted for many years. It is a heavy question to ponder. Months later a member of the group told me of a letter she had received from the wife. Their marriage, she said, had never been better. They were talking with each other in ways they had never done before, sharing feelings they would previously have hidden. The marriage had more value, to each of them, than in all its previous years. The dynamics of their marriage has drastically changed. Previously the hard-working, achieving husband cared for and looked after the woman he regarded as overemotional and needing restraint. Meanwhile his wife resented his dedication to his work, felt unfulfilled, regarded herself as definitely his inferior. Now it has come much closer to being a partnership of equals. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

This is a pattern I have observed on numerous occasions. There is no doubt in my mind that when partnerships are exposed to a person-centered approach satellite relationship become more likely. Individuals—both men and women—discover that it is possible to feel love for more than one person at a time. One or both may experience a second love, outside of their primary relationship. This nearly always leads to jealousy, pain, and fear and loss. Yet that crisis can be lived through with a consequent enrichment of the partnership. The core of the problem is jealousy, and the depth of its roots. Jealousy characterizes the relationship in which one seeks more power than love. Many do not believe that jealousy has any place in open marriage. The frequency of jealousy has made me wonder whether it is simply the result of cultural conditioning, in which case it might disappear in a generation or two, or whether it has some basic biological foundation, like the territoriality that we find in animals, birds, and ourselves. There is evidence in the lives of many couples to indicate that feelings of jealousy can be modified and worked through, though not without feelings of hurt. To the extent that jealousy is made up of a sense of possessiveness, any alteration in that feeling makes a profound difference in the politics of the marriage relationship. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Feelings of jealousy can also be modified and worked through to the degree that each partner becomes truly a free agent, then the relationship only has permanence if the partners are committed to each other, are in good communication with each other, accept themselves as separate persons, and live together as persons, not roles. This is a new and mature kind of relationship toward which many couples are striving. One woman, speaking out of her own personal experience in her marriage and also a counselor, expresses a point of view full of person-centered wisdom: “I think that there is one essential condition for living through the crises and enriching the relationship. It is the ability to believe that you have the right to experience what you are experiencing, and that you do not need the permission of your partner to do it. At the same time, you care enough for your partner to stay with him while he is having his feelings, and listen to them without feeling overresponsible and letting them control your behaviour. What I see frequently happening is that the partner who is involved in another relationship feels controlled, guilty, and angry when he is not received fully by his mate. That increases the feeling of threat and abandonment in the other, who becomes more clinging. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Pretty soon they are involved in a terrible vicious cycle that is very hard to break. I think the ideal situation is when one can tell the partner: “I need and I owe it to myself to experience this other relationship now. I am hearing your hurt, your jealousy, your fear, your anger; I do not like to receive them, but they are a consequence of the choice I am making, and I love you enough to want to be available to work through them with you. If I decide not to have this other experience it is because I choose to do so, and not because I let you stop me. In that way I will not feel resentful of you, and I will not punish you for my lack of courage in making my choices and being responsible for the consequences.” This is a mature kind of striving for both independence and richness. In general, the characteristics of an impairment of moral integrity are a decrease in sincerity and an increase in egocentricity. It is interesting to note that this connection that in Zen Buddhist writings sincerity is equated with wholeheartedness, pointing to the very conclusion we reach on the basis of clinical observation—namely, that nobody divided within oneself can be wholly sincere. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Sincerity, that is, not-deceiving, means putting forth one’s whole being, technically known as the whole being in action in which nothing is kept in reserve, nothing is expressed under disguise, nothing goes to waste. When a person lives like this, one is said to be a golden-haired lion; one is a symbol of virility, sincerity, wholeheartedness; one is divinely human. Egocentricity is a moral problem in so far as it entails making others subservient to one’s own needs. Instead of their being regarded and treated as human beings in their own right they come to be merely means to an end. They have to be appeased or liked for the sake of allaying one’s own anxiety; they have to be impressed for the sake of lifting one’s own self-respect; they have to be blamed because one cannot assume responsibility for oneself: they have to be defeated because of one’s own need to triumph, and so on. The particular ways in which these impairments manifest themselves vary with the individual. Most of them have already been dealt with in some other connection and need only be reviewed here in a more systematic fashion. I shall not attempt to be exhaustive. That would be difficult, if for no other reason than that we have not yet discussed sadistic trends and must postpone doing so because they are to be regarded as an end state of neurotic development. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

Starting with the most obvious, whatever course a neurosis takes, unconscious pretenses are always a factor. Outstanding are the following: The pretense of love. The variety of feelings and strivings that can be covered by the term love or that are subjectively felt as such is astonishing. It may cover parasitic expectations on the part of a person who feels too weak or too empty to live one’s own life. In a more aggressive form it may cover a desire to exploit the partner, to gain through one success, prestige, and power. It may express a need to conquer someone and to triumph over one, or to merge with a partner and live through one, perhaps in a sadistic way. It may mean a need to be admired, and so secure affirmation for one’s idealized image. For the very reason that love in our civilization is so rarely a genuine affection, maltreatment and betrayal abound. We are left with the impression, then, that love turns into contempt, hate, or indifference. However, love does not swing around so easily. That fact is that the feelings and strivings prompting pseudo love eventually come to the surface. Needless to say, this pretense operates in the parent-child relationship and in friendship as well as in pleasures of the flesh. The pretense of goodness, unselfishness, sympathy, and the like is akin to the pretense of love. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

The pretense of goodness is characteristic of the complaint type and is reinforced by a particular kind of idealized image as well as by the need to blot out all aggressive impulses. The pretense of interest and knowledge is most conspicuous in those who are alienated from their emotions and believe that life can be mastered by intellect alone. They have to pretend that they know everything and are interested in everything. However, it appears also in a more insidious way in persons who seem to be devoted to a particular calling, and without being aware of it use this interest as a steppingstone to success, power, or material advantage. The pretense of honesty and fairness is most frequently found in the aggressive type, especially when one has marked sadistic trends. One sees through the pretenses of love and goodness in others and believes that because one does not subscribe to the common hypocrisies of feigning generosity, patriotism, piety, or whatever, one is particularly honest. Actually one has one’s own hypocrisies of a different order. One’s lack of current prejudices may be a blind and negativistic protest against any traditional values. One’s ability to say no may be not strength but a wish to frustrate others. One’s frankness may be a wish to deride and humiliate. A desire to exploit may be behind the legitimate self-interest to which one confesses. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

The pretense of suffering must be discussed in greater detail because of the confused views that circulate around it. Analysts who adhere strictly to Dr. Freud’s theories share with the layman the belief that the neurotic wants to feel abused, wants to worry, has a need for punishment. The data supporting the concept that the neurotic wants to suffer are well known. However, the term wants actually covers a variety of intellectual sins. The authors who propound the theory fail to appreciate that the neurotic suffers much more than one knows and that one usually becomes aware of one’s suffering only when one begins to recover. What is even more relevant, they do not seem to understand that suffering from unresolved conflicts is inevitable and entirely independent of one’s persona wishes. If a neurotic lets oneself go to pieces, one certainly does not bring such harm on oneself because one wants it but because inner necessities compel one to do so. If one is self-effacing and offers the other cheek, one—at least unconsciously—hates doing so and despises oneself for it; but one is in such terror of one’s own aggressiveness that one must go to the opposite extreme and let oneself be abused in some way or other. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Another characteristic that has contributed to the notion of a propensity for suffering is the tendency to exaggerate or dramatize any affliction. It is true that suffering may be felt and displayed for ulterior motives. It may be a plea for attention or forgiveness; it may be unconsciously used for purposes of exploitation; it may be an expression of repressed vindictiveness and be employed then as a means to exort sanctions. However, in view of the inner constellation, these are the only ways open to the neurotic to achieve certain ends. It is true also that one often lays one’s suffering to false causes and so gives the impression of wallowing in suffering for no good reason. Thus one may be disconsolate and attribute it to one’s being “guilty,” while in reality one suffers from not being one’s idealized image. Or one may feel lost when separated from a loved one, and though one attributes one’s feeling to one’s deep love, in reality—being torn within oneself—one cannot bear living alone. Finally, one may falsify one’s affects and believe that one suffers when actually one is filled with rage. A woman, for instance, may think she is suffering when her lover has not written at the appointed time, but is really angered because she wants things to happen exactly as she expects them or because she feels humiliated at any seeming lack of attention. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Suffering, in this case, is unconsciously preferred to recognizing the rage and the neurotic drives responsible for it, and is emphasized because it serves to cover up the duplicity involved in the whole relationship. In none of these instances, however, can it be inferred that the neurotic wants to suffer. What is expressed is an unconscious pretense of suffering. However, the self-actualized has a greater power, and seeks less publicity. It is only if one knows that a mission has to be performed calling for public notice that one is likely to abrogate this rule. Yet, of course, there will be no egoism and no vanity behind the abrogation. Such a prophet is like a bell, calling its hearers to attend the true church within themselves. One’s work is being done within the inner life of hundreds of human beings. One’s altruism is active more often behind the scenes of the World-stage than before its footlights. The masters rarely emerge from their obscurity to positions of influence and prominence but their disciples may and occasionally do. One will be content to plant seed-thoughts, and wait and work patiently, knowing and believing in the inherent power of true ideas to grow in their proper time into mature, fruitful existence. The perfect concentration that reigns within one’s being can have the same effect when deliberately directed upon sensitive and sympathetic minds as the concentration of the burning lens upon dry paper. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

The devotee can be inspired, exalted, and illumined. Once one has uttered the sacred Word, once one has revealed to humans what they have not been able to know for themselves, one has done one’s work. If it fails to be accepted, if one gains no converts to belief in human’s higher purpose, the blame is not one’s. One cannot give spiritual peace to the spiritually peaceless as a lasting gift, but one can show them that it does exist as a reality and is no mere figment of the imagination. And one makes this demonstration by being just what one is and acting just as one does. The self-actualized starts no cult oneself and founds no church. This is usually done by the disciples who gather together because one would not gather them around. Merely to remember with devotion that such a being is living on Earth is to know, in some mysterious telepathic way, that there is inward sustenance. The last thing one wants to do is to leave a sect behind one. Like Jesus Christ, one wants people to depend on the truth rather than on a person. The words of a person so inspired, so wise, directly act on our minds and evoke our intuition. The self-actualized will help people on one’s own terms, not theirs, and guide them in one’s own way, again not necessarily the expected way. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Could we but trace some of these higher movements of history, we would have to trace their course back to the secret inspiration of some illuminates who live quietly and serve humankind without advertising the fact. That which the illuminate will give out as doctrine will depend upon the conditions and needs of one’s epoch and place. One will be neither too active nor ultramodernistic. In classical Christianity, faith implies the assumption of humans into redemption by Christ, one’s purification from the stain of original sin contracted in the First Man. Faith remains saving; it saves from estrangement by revealing that estrangement is, after all, not estranging. This estrangment is “sin,” incurred by the very fact that we are created. The correlation of faith and sin remains; the classical language may be used, but voided of its substances. There is no faith without a concrete content, corresponding to the objective knowledge of Revelation in classical theology, but the traditional terms have been given a radical reinterpretation. The formulas in which faith conveys its concrete content are only symbolic attempts to identify the Unconditioned. The real purpose of faith is to grasp the power of being, conquering non-being, to experience our ultimate concern, this purpose expresses itself in symbols and myths which point to the depth of reason and its mystery. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Objective statements of faith, whether made inside or outside the Christian tradition, are symbols and myths, pointers to the ultimate ground of being, to the absolute meaning of reality. Religion, whether pagan or Christian, is a system of symbolic statements and symbolic rites trying to express an experience of the Unconditioned. Religion is also the state of being grasped by the power of being-itself. As such it is a universal phenomenon lying at the root of atheism, agnosticism, and the loftiest mysticism: faith tends to become the stuff of all life. The case is the same, in this context, with religion: In some cases the religious root is carefully covered, in others it is passionately denied; in some it is deeply hidden and in others superficially. However, it is never completely absent. For everything that is participates in being-itself, and everybody has some awareness of this participation, especially in the moments which one experiences the threat of non-being. The religious situation of our age is implicitly surfacing in science, metaphysics, art, politics, ethics, unchurched mysticism, and eschatological movements. The religious situation is there identified with an unconscious, self-evident faith which lies at a deeper level than the apparent antithesis of belief and unbelief. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Images increase the danger of inadequate ideas. They have the power to obsess and to hypnotize, as well as to escape critical scrutiny. The image one has of oneself, for example, can override everything else and cause one to act in ways contrary to all reality and good sense. Those who have been rejected or abused as children or have lived with addicted or “cold” parents, have distorted images of themselves and of “reality.” These are constantly present to their minds and force them into the disastrous “lifescape” of thought where they then must live. In groups, shared images lead to fads, group-think, and mob hysteria that, once again, has no regard to fact or reasonableness. Individuals who suffer from a poor image of themselves are caught up in self-rejection and have no defenses against group pressures. They do not see themselves as the objects of God’s love, and they have no place to make a stand. Success, popularity and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often some from the way they are part of a much larger temptation of self-rejection. We have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions to our desolate condition. We accept it as a fact that we deserve to be pushed aside and rejected. We see ourselves that way. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the scared voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence. However, this profound truth will have little or no effect without powerful images of ourselves as God’s beloved. Self-rejection is, ultimately, our soul’s reproach to God’s, deriving from false images of oneself and one’s World. To manipulate images—and thereby people—is the work of the propagandist and the advertiser. Unfortunately, is often done in the name of Christ to achieve some desired result. By contrast, to loosen the grip of fallen imagery and its underlying idea structure is a fundamental part of what mental healthy professionals must do to assist their patients. It is also essential to the Christian ministries of inner healing and evangelism. In the millennial day all people will praise the Lord—He will dwell among them—Compare Isaiah 12. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And in that day thou shalt say: O Lord, I will praise thee; though thou wast angry with me thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation. Therefore, with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

“And in that day shall ye say: Praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted. Sing unto the Lord; for he hath done excellent things; this is known in all the Earth. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion; for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee,” reports 2 Nephi 22.1-6. O Benignant King of ages and Master of all creation, relieve Thy Church approaching Thee through Christ; fulfil for each of us what is good for him; bring us all to perfection, and make us meet for the grace of Thy sanctification, uniting us together in Thy Holy Church, which Thou hast purchased with the precious Blood of Thine Only begotten Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; with Whom, and with Thine All-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, Thou art blessed and glorified forever. Lord Jesus, please grant me the favour of being led by Thee, under the directions of Thy providence and Thy word. Grant me Thy blessings with bitter things, to brighten and quicken me, not to depress and make me lifeless; please grant me, like Gideon of old, way-tokens, by removing things that discourage me; grant me succour beneath the shadow of Thy sympathy when I am tempted. Accept my unceasing thanks that I am not cast off from Thy hand as a darkened star or a rudderless vessel. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Suffer not my life to extend beyond my usefulness; cast me not under the feet of pride, injustice, riches, Worldly greatness, selfish oppression of humans; please help me to wait patiently, silently upon Thee, not to be enraged or speak unadvisedly. Let Thy mercy follow me while I life, and give me assistance to resign myself to Thy will. Take my heart and hold it in Thy hand; write upon it reverence to Thyself with an inscription that time and eternity cannot erase. To Thy grace and the care of Thy covenant I commit myself, in sickness, and in health, for Thou hast overcome the World, fulfilled the law, finished justifying righteousness, swallowed up death in victory, and taken all power everywhere. Make this covenant with thine own blood in the court of forgiving mercy; attach unto in Thy name in which I believe, for it is sealed by my unworthy mortal hand. The self-actualized announces one’s revelation to one’s contemporaries in the mode that is one’s and theirs. Ina scientific age one will present facts and reason logically. Great Adepts are content to make history rather than figure in it, although their figures have glowed brightly in history like shooting stars and then disappeared. One’s success in communicating truth will depend, on one’s audience’s side, both on the degree of understanding it possesses and feelings it envinces toward one. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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A Fear of a Different Order is Generated—the Fear that Something May Jeopardize these Treasures!

May 8, 2020 12:24 am

Sometimes it takes falling into an open well to discover what we need. All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents. As for me, all I know is that I know nothing. In its crucial features the ideal speech situation is strictly formal. To arrive at it we abstract from all social circumstances and institutions, as well as particular technical economic, political and cultural circumstances. The ideal speech situation abstracts out any interests speakers might have other than an interest in discursive consensus, and assumes for the speakers that all their experience and feeling is communicable. It also abstracts from the speaking situation those real material factors that require us to cut discussion short (such as having to eat, sleep, and so forth) and to acquire the means for doing so. Only this complete formality of the ideal speech situation permits it to have a universal character. Given the correctness of the theory of communication in which it is embedded, the ideal speech situation implicitly underlies any act of speaking which aims at understanding, as a quasi-transcendental condition for that speaking. This universality provides a theory of justice with a grounding that makes it less arbitrary than some other starting points. It also can provide a critical theory of justice with its needed capacity to distance itself from any and all actual social circumstances. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

There is a price for this universalizing distance, however. Because the ideal speech situation is formal and abstract, it cannot itself serve as a standard or goal of justice. The ideal speech situation offers the vision of social relations free from domination, the ideal of pure democracy and social reciprocity. It offers this as a mere vision, however; it is no more than an unreal projection that interests thought. It is too abstract to serve as a means of evaluating particular social circumstances. Nor can principles of the evaluation of a society be derived from the ideal speech situation directly. As we have already seen, it is illegitimate to derive substantive normative principles from a purely formal beginning. To use the ideal speech situation for developing a conception of justice applicable to the evaluation of actual societies, we must introduce material premises derived from actual social circumstances. Habermas suggests a method for the introduction of such material content into the ideal speech situation. Utilization of the ideal speech situation, on the other hand, entails incorporating specific knowledge of the particular society one seeks to evaluate. The participants in the discussion know at least the following things about their society: They know the basic natural constraints of their location, such as climate, topography, the character and general amount of land and material resources to which they have access, and so on. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

People involved in the discussion also have basic demographic knowledge such as how much relative space they have and how much food can be produced relative to the given and projected population. They know the sort of problems their technology can solve and the general level of productive capacity they have at their disposal. All the above say in concrete terms that the persons here know approximately at what point their society lies on the scale between social scarcity and social abundance. As I interpret this model, moreover, the members of the discussion also know much about the culture and traditions of their particular society. They have a notion of the tastes of their artistic and decorative traditions of their particular society. They have a notion of the tastes of their artistic and decorative tradition and a set of shared symbols and stores. They know their language, the games they play, their educational practices, and so on. In principle, if they were in a situation of equality and reciprocity in this model of reasoning about justice, the only things abstracted from real society are those conditions of domination which prevent people in real society from pressing interests that all would agree to as legitimate. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

This model of reasoning must be purely hypothetical, of course, since in reality material conditions and relations of domination are inextricably linked. Imagining persons with these material constraints as standing in the ideal speech situation—even though no such persons could exist—provides a means of locating the sources of domination. Given discussion unconstrained by domination, the model has individuals choose first principles of social organization that best serve what they judge as their collective needs and legitimate individual interests, given the material constraints under which they operate. They choose, that is, the basic rules of interaction, authority relations, and forms of decision making within and among institutions. Among the principles and rules chosen, of course, are those relating to the distribution of the benefits of social cooperation. Such principles of distribution, however, would be dependent on prior determination of institutional forms, conditions and relations of production and authority relations, as well as on the level of material abundance of which the society is capable. For without the prior knowledge of the forms of social organization, we do not know what sort of social benefits are to be distributed, nor what sort of social positions and interest groups there are to decide among in distributing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

The conception and principles of justice which emerge in this way from the application for the formal conditions of the ideal speech situation to the material situation of a particular society are thus quite particular. Unlike most theories of justice, this model of reasoning about justice does not call for the construction of an idea of the just society in general. Rather, the model allows for, even requires, a multitude of conceptions of justice, each derived from the particular conditions of the society and applicable only to them. The model thus satisfies the condition developed in the previous section, that a theory of justice recognize the historical specific of conceptions of justice. It grants that it is not in fact possible to articulate a substantive conception of justice that applies to the evaluation of all or many societies. This form of reasoning about justice in effect measures a society against itself rather tan measuring the society directly against an ahistorical set of principles. The conception of justice resulting from application of the ideal speech situation to particular social conditions, expresses the interests of all insofar as they are compatible. It thus shows that latent possibilities of the society given its historical and material conditions with the systemic sources of its conflicts of interest removed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

This process of reasoning about justice serves two purposes. Its main function is to identify sources of domination in the social arrangements of a particular society. The thought experiment discovers relations of domination in the process of setting up its starting point of reasoning. For every social relation whose justice one wishes to examine one asks whether there are aspects of it that tend to create asymmetries in the situation of discussion. The hypothetical models abstracts from them, but not from the material conditions and constraints. The second function served by the model is to project a vision of an alternative organization of that society which is free from domination. Therefore, utilization of the ideal speech situation in a model of reasoning about justice that applies it to the particular material and cultural situation of given society satisfies both the requirements for a theory of justice which have been raised in this essay. First, since the ideal speech situation focuses on relations of interaction and its application reveals the sources of domination, a theory of justice that uses it focuses primarily on forms of social organization. Secondly, the method of applying the ideal speech situation to particular material and cultural conditions points to a theory of justice that contains an a priori universal aspect without producing a conception of justice which claims transhistorical application. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Transhistorical is the quality of holding throughout human history, not merely within the frame of reference of a particular form of society at a particular stage of historical development; it is eternal. In searching for the deeper meaning of any neurotic problem we can easily lose our bearings in a maze of intricacies. Since we cannot hope to understand neurosis without facing its complexity, this is not unnatural. It is helpful, though, to stand aside from time to time in order to regain our perspective. We have followed the development of the protective structure step by step. We have seen how one defense after another is built up until a comparatively static organization is established. And the element that impresses us most deeply in all this is the infinite labour that has gone into the process, a labour so tremendous that we are led again to wonder what it is that drives a person along so arduous a path and one so fraught with cost to oneself. We ask ourselves what are the forces that make the structure so rigid and so difficult to change. Is the motive power of the whole process simply the fear of the disruptive potency of the basic conflict? An analogy may clear a way to the answer. Like any analogy it is not a precise parallel and so can only be applied in the broadest terms. Let us assume that a man with a shady past has found his way into a community by false present. He will, of course, live in dread of his former state’s being disclosed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

In the course of tie his situation advances; he makes friends, secures a job, founds a family. Cherishing his new position, he is best with a new fear, the fear of losing these goods. His pride in his respectability alienates him from his unsavory past. He gives large sums to charity and even to his old associates in order to wipe out his old life. Meanwhile the changes that have been taking place in his personality proceed to involve him in new conflicts, with the results that in the end his having commenced his present life on false premises becomes merely an undercurrent in his disturbance. So in the organization the neurotic has established, the basic conflict remains but is transmuted. Tempered in some respect, it is enhanced in others. Due, however, to the vicious circle inherent in the process, the ensuing conflict become more urgent. What sharpens them most is the fact that every fresh defensive position further impairs one’s relations with oneself and others—the soil, as we have seen, out of which conflicts grow. Moreover, as new elements, however wrapped in illusion—love or success, an achieved detachment or an established image—come to play an important part in one’s life, a fear of a different order is generated, the fear that something may jeopardize these treasures. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

And all the while, one’s increased alienation from oneself deprives one more and more of the capacity to work on oneself and so get rid of one’s difficulties. Inertia sets in, taking the place of a directed growth. The protective structure, for all its rigidity, is highly brittle and itself gives rise to new fears. One of these is a fear that its equilibrium will be disturbed. While the structure lends a sense of balance, it is a balance that is easily upset. The person oneself is not consciously aware of this threat, but one cannot help feeling it in a variety of ways. Experience has taught one that one can be thrown out of gear for no apparent reason, that one becomes infuriated, elated, depressed, fatigued, inhibited when one least desires it. The sum total of such experiences gives one a feeling of uncertainty, a feeling that one cannot rely on oneself. It is as if one were skating on thin ice. One’s imbalance may also be expressed in gait or posture, or in lack of skill in anything requiring physical balance. The most concrete expression of this fear is a fear of insanity. When that is present in a marked degree it can be the paramount symptom that drives a person to seek psychiatric help. In such instance the fear is also determined by repressed impulses to do all sorts of “crazy” things, mostly of a destructive nature, without feeling responsible for them. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

The fear of insanity, however, is not to be construed as an indication that the person may actually go insane. Usually it is transitory and emerges only under conditions of acute distress. Its most poignant provocations are a sudden threat to the idealized image, or a mounting tension—most commonly due to unconscious rage—that puts excessive self-control in jeopardy. A woman, for example, who believed herself to be both even-tempered and courageous had an onset of panic when, in a difficult situation, she was struck with a feeling of helplessness, apprehension, and violent anger. Her idealized image, which had held her together as with a band of steel, suddenly burst and left her with a fear of going to pieces. We have already spoken of the panic hat may seize a detached person when one is pulled from one’s shelter and brought into close proximity to others—when, for instance, one has to join the army or live with relatives. This terror, too, may be expressed as a fear of insanity; and in this instance psychotic episodes may actually occur. In analysis a like fear will emerge when a patient who has gone to great lengths to create an artificial harmony suddenly recognizes that one is divided. That fear of insanity is most frequently precipitated by unconscious rage is demonstrated in analysis, when, this fear having subsided, its residues take the form of an apprehension that one may insult, beat or even kill people under conditions where self-control is impossible. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

The commission of an act of violence in sleep or under the influence of drink, anesthesia, or excitement involving pleasures of the flesh will then be feared. The rage itself may be conscious or it may appear in consciousness as an obsessive impulse toward violence, unconnected with any affect. On the other hand, it may be entirely unconscious; in that case all the person feels are sudden spells of vague panic, accompanied perhaps by perspiration, dizziness, or a fear of fainting—signifying an underlying fear that the violent impulses might get out of control. Where the unconscious rage is externalized, the person may have a terror of thunderstorms, ghosts, burglars, snakes, and so on—that is, of any potentially destructive force outside oneself. However, after all, fear of insanity is comparatively rare. It is simply the most conspicuous expression of the fear of losing equilibrium. Ordinarily that fear operates in more hidden ways. It appears then in vague, indefinite forms and can be precipitated by any change in life’s routine. Persons subject to it may feel profoundly disturbed at the prospect of making a journey or of moving or changing jobs or employing a new maid or whatever. Wherever possible they try to avoid such changes. Its threat to stability may be a factor in deterring patients from being analyzed, particularly if they have found a way of living that permits them to function fairly well. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

When they discuss they advisability of analysis they will be concerned about questions that at first glance seem reasonable enough: Will analysis uproot their marriage? Will it temporarily incapacitate them for work? Will it make them irritable? Will it interfere with their religion? As we shall see, such questions are in part determined by the patient’s hopelessness; one does not think it worth while to take any risks. However, there is also a real apprehension behind one’s concern: one needs to be reassured that analysis will not upset one’s equilibrium. In such cases we can safely assume that the equilibrium is particularly shaky and that the analysis will be a difficult one. Can the analyst give the patient the assurance one wants? No, one cannot. Every analysis is bound to create temporary upsets. What the analyst can do, however, is to go to the root of such questions, to explain to the patient what one really is afraid of, and tell one that while analysis will upset one’s present balance it will give one an opportunity to attain an equilibrium more solidly grounded. Faith is not distinctly Christian phenomenon. All philosophers have tried to reach the bottom of human’s self-awareness. They have attempted to overcome the distinction between subject and object. That all this has been done since philosophy began is not surprising: for this effort is none other than that of making ourselves like God. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Unity with God is a natural desire which is at least implicit in the heart of humans. Humans may or may not be able to give a name to God. At any rate, they tend to God as the goal of their fulfilment. They seek him in the dark along the winding roads of their anxieties, through the ups and downs of their fevers. And there is a sense in which they words that Pascal places on the lips of the Lord are true: “You would not seek for me, had you not already found me.” Other descriptions of faith, like Paul Tillich’s, when it describes human’s seeking and inclining towards God, is extremely valuable. Yet as we have seen, human’s search for God remains essentially ambiguous. The coincidence of guilt and forgiveness may be understood in two ways: either guilt I subsumed in forgiveness, or guilt already is forgiveness. An option between these two interpretations completely changes the meaning of guilt. Or, take faith as the acceptance of being accepted. If we are accepted, we are accepted, whether we accept it or not. What does our acceptance add to our being accepted? Strictly nothing. The conscious element of faith (our acceptance) is tacked on to a more basic element (our being accepted). If Paul Tillich thinks he is being radical in seeing this acceptance as faith, his radicalism can be outdone: faith is our being accepted. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Everything is accepted; all is love; all is forgiveness. It is better, for our own peace, to know this experientially; but at bottom it makes no difference. We are accepted in any case. Faith is no longer a free act of human’s entire personality. It is the stuff of all human life. Tillich comes dangerously near to saying this when he underlines the universality of faith: “Every religious and cultural group and, to a certain extent, every individual is the bearer of a special experience and content of faith.” “There is no human being without an ultimate concern and, in this sense, without faith.” If every person cannot help having faith, what is unique in the Christian faith? Between classical theology, Catholic or Protestant, and Tillich something has intervened. What has happened is that Tillich has ontologized the concept of faith. Catholicism, followed by the Reformation, sees faith as a freely accepted act. Humans can reject faith. It is also an act of God: God enlightens the soul; and the soul, accepting or rejecting this light, believes or disbelieves. With Tillich, faith underlies everything. Doubt itself stems from underlying faith. Only faith can attempt to refute faith. “Our ultimate concern can destroy us as it can heal us…But we never can be without it.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Some people are distinguished from others, not in that they freely accept God’s light and believe, but rather in that they suddenly, ecstatically, realize what is common to all, though hidden, namely, that estrangement is also reunion, that life has an ultimate meaning. Personally, with this understand, I take worship of the Lord serious, and I also try to give my best time to prayer—which for me is never the time just before going to bed. One’s last waking moments should never be given to powerful intercessory prayer (except, perhaps, for students who have a final exam in the morning). Here Jesus’ habit is instructive: “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed,” reports Mark 1.35. The early birds get the prime time. The real question for you is, when is your best time? For some it may be at lunch or before dinner. A certain person could not find the right posture for prayer. One tried praying on one’s knees, but that was not comfortable; besides, it wrinkled one’s slacks. One tried praying standing, but soon one’s legs got tired. One tried praying seated, but that did not seem reverent. Then one day as one was walking though a field, one fell headfirst into an open well. And did one ever pray! #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Seriously, one’s prayer posture can make a difference. While the Scriptures mention numerous postures for prayer, none is prescribed. What is important is that your posture enhance reverent attention. Sometimes I kneel, sometimes I walk about the house, often I sit at my desk with list in hand. There are times when I lift my hands, and other time I have been on my face. Heart attitude is the key factor. As to preparation for prayer, honest practicality is of greatest importance. Sometimes a person needs a shower and to get other grooming hygiene matters taken care of. If you are into coffee like I am, a good cup of coffee is a divine cordial. Again, it is not the physical details that are of prime importance but the condition and stance of the heart. Whatever helps you focus on the Lord. Often the best prayers are short and passionate. Luther himself said: “Look to it that you do not try to do all of it, do not try to do too much, lest your spirit grow weary. Besides, a good prayer must not be too long. Do not draw it out. Prayer ought to be frequent and fervent.” A legalistic commitment to duration can kill one’s prayer life because it takes a lot of energy and you make look at it as a big, exhausting obstacle. So the best thing to do is just to get into and be honest and pour out your heart. It may surprise you where you go. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

If you go long enough without a bath even the fleas will let you alone. Isaiah see the Lord—Isaiah’s sins are forgiven—he is called to prophesy—he prophesies of the rejection by the Jews of Christ’s teachings—a remnant will return—Compare Isaiah 6. About 559-545 Before Christ. “In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole Earth is full of His glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I: Wo is unto me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips; and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Host. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said: Lo, this has touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said; Here am I; send me. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

“And he said: Go and tell this people—Hear ye indeed, but they understood not; and see ye indeed, but they perceived not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes—lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and be healed. Then said I: Lord, how long? And he said: Until the cities he wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate; and the Lord have removed people far away, for there shall be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. However, yet there shall be a tenth, and they shall return, and shall be eaten, as a teil tree, and as an oak whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof,” reports 2 Nephi 16.1-13. O God Who art rich in mercy to all, O Father of glory, Who madest Thy Son to be a Light to the Gentiles, to proclaim redemption to the captives and sight to the blind; do Thou, Who by Christ art bounteous in compassion, grant them remission of sins, and a portion among the Saints through faith. Lord of immortality, before whom Angels bow and Archangels veil their faces, enable me to serve Thee with reverence and Godly fear. Thou who art Spirit and requirest truth in the inward parts, help me to worship Thee in spirit and in truth. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Thou who art righteous, please let me not harbour sin in my heart, or indulge a Worldly temper, or seek satisfaction in things that perish. I hasten towards an hour when Earthly pursuits and possessions will appear vain, when it will be indifferent whether I have been rich or poor, successful or disappointed, admired or despised. However, it will be of eternal moment that I have mourned for sin, hungered and thirsted after righteousness, loved the Lord Jesus in sincerity, gloried in His cross. May these objects engross my chief solicitude! Produce in me those principles and dispositions that make Thy service perfect freedom. Expel from my mind all sinful fear and shame, so tat with firmness and courage I may confess the redeemer before humans, go forth with one bearing one’s reproach, be zealous with one’s knowledge, be filled with one’s wisdom, walk with one’s circumspection, ask counsel of one in all things, repair to the Scriptures for one’s orders, stay mind on one’s peace, knowing that nothing can befall me without one’s permission, appointment and administration. The notion of infinity implies that it cannot be extended, and whoever understands this will not look in this World for anything which contradicts the implication. The tremendous monumentality of the World-Idea, the staggering breadth of its scope and variety are a mere hint of the divine wisdom behind both. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Anybody Can Win, Unless there Happens to be a Second Entry—Draw Your Salary Before Spending it!

May 7, 2020 2:00 am

The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different—to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possess. Philosophers generally stipulate that a conception of justice should be held independently of particular social or historical circumstances, or practices, as a necessary condition for objectivity. In the effort to achieve this universality and objectivity, most modern philosophical accounts seek correct normative principles of social life by adopting a strategy of deriving such principles from a hypothetical starting point. Whether called the state of nature, the original position, the moral point of view, the ideal observer, and so on, this hypothetical starting point purportedly escapes the specificity of actual historical circumstances. The starting point aims to remove all natural and social contingency from human life, leaving only its formal and universal elements. Then political theorists can claim to derive the correct conception of the just social order from this universal and formal starting point. As we have seen, however, each account smuggles into the starting point substantive premises derived more or less directly from the theorist’s social circumstances. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

The theory of the just social order which emerges, then, merely reflects in idealized and systematized form the actual structure of the society in which the theorist dwells. Thus, many writers argue that classic liberalism makes substantive assumptions about human nature (for example, that human beings are essentially acquisitive) which reflect the particular needs of an emergent bourgeois and capitalist social order. This presents us with a dilemma. If one cannot derive a substantive conception of justice from a formal starting point alone, then it appears inevitable that substantive theories must have substantive premises derived from particular social circumstances. Theories do not err in introducing substantive premises into the starting point, since this is logically necessary if they are to arrive at substantive conclusions. Rather, the error lies in presenting these substantive premises as ahistorical and thus claiming that the substantive conception applies across different social and historical circumstances. Most contemporary social theorists conclude from this that the philosophical ideal of a rationally grounded conception of justice independent of particular social circumstances is an unattainable or fanciful hope or scheme, and a dangerous one at that. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Many Marxists, for example, argue that the search for correct, rationally grounded, universal principles of justice is illusory. Each social formation has its own normative principles which arise from and serve to reproduce the particular social relations of that society. Juridical forms, and the principles of justice that govern them, are specific to modes of production. There is, moreover, no transhistocial conception of justice by which these social practices can be judged unjust. There can be no “justice in itself” independent of the particular economic forms and social relations which engender and embody particular economic forms and social relations which engender and embody particular conceptions and principles of justice. It follows that any claim to have a universal and objective theory of justice is necessarily ideological; it makes as disinterested truth what really expresses the interests and values of the dominant class. Similarly, many contemporary non-Marxist social scientists regard with scepticism the possibility of arriving at a normative conception of justice that is not a mere reflection of norms actually operative in a society. For much contemporary social science norms exist only as facts: One can give an account of the norms people actually adhere to and follow in a society. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

One can show their social origins and give a functional account of how they contribute to the maintenance of social integration. No basis exists, however, for saying that some norms are right while others are not. Given the logical problem outlined above, the traditional philosophical search for a rationally grounded theory of justice appears to be illusory. Yet this conclusion leads to undesirable consequences. The thesis of the impossibility of a rationally grounded conception of justice that is more than a mere reflection of actual social circumstances implies the impossibility of rational social criticism. To criticize a set of social circumstances, and to judge them unjust, one should be able to take a sufficient distance from them that they no longer appear normal or inevitable. This seems to imply that one needs some means of transhistocial evaluation. Herbert Marcuse, was a German-American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. He argued that the traditional appeal to normative universals like truth, beauty, freedom and justice serves just its critical function. The projection of universalistic ideas of what ought to be opens up possibilities for thinking, which otherwise would be conditioned by what actually exists. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

The absence of such philosophical ideals creates the one-dimensional thinking characteristic of contemporary culture. Yet the appeal to universals is necessarily abstract. In the classical philosophical tradition while the motive for the development of an ideal conception of justice may have been critical, the outcome more often than not has been ineffectual. Reflection on the philosophic ideal of just society has most often served as a means of turning one’s back on the real social circumstances and retreating into rarified contemplation. A theory of justice is thus presented with a dilemma. It must provide a means of distancing social criticism from the concrete social conditions under evaluation. The tradition of philosophical criticism has found such a means of distancing only in a priori formal ideal. For a conception of justice to have any substance, however, it must be anchored in the particular social circumstances in which it exists and which it purports to evaluate, and hence be limited in application only to them. So the project of a properly critical theory of justice appears to be contradictory. It must develop a conception of justice independent of particular social circumstances, and yet at the same time derive from particular circumstances and be applicable only to them. I suggest that utilization of the ideal speech situation in what Habermas calls the “model of the suppression of generalizable interests” does just this. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning. The common idea that it s primarily used to justify oneself or to bring one’s motives and actions into accord with accepted ideologies is only valid up to a point; the implication there would be that persons living in the same civilization all rationalize along the same lines, whereas actually there is a wide range of individual differences in what is rationalized as well as in the methods employed. That this should be so is only natural if we view rationalization as one way of supporting neurotic attempts to create artificial harmony. In each of the planks of the defensive scaffolding built around the basic conflict, the process can be seen at work. The predominant attitude is strengthened by reasoning—factors that would bring the conflict into sight are either minimized or so remodeled as to fit in with it. How this self-deceptive reasoning assists the streamlining of the personality shows up when one contrasts the complaint type with the aggressive. The former ascribes one’s desire to be helpful to one’s sympathetic feelings, even though strong tendencies to dominate are present; and if these are too conspicuous one rationalizes them as solicitousness. The latter, when one is helpful, firmly denies any feeling of sympathy and lays one’s action entirely to expediency. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

The idealized image always requires a good deal of rationalization for support: discrepancies between the actual self and the image must be reasoned out of existence. In externalizing, it is brought to bear to prove the relevance of outside circumstances or to show that the traits unacceptable to the individual oneself are merely a “natural” reaction to the behaviour of others. The tendency towards excessive self–control can be so strong that I at one tie counted it among the original neurotic trends. Its function is to serve as a dam against being flooded by contradictory emotions. Though in the beginning it is often an act of conscious will power, in time it usually becomes more or less automatic. Persons who exert such control will not allow themselves to be carried away, whether by enthusiasm, excitement in pleasures of the flesh, self-pity, or rage. In analysis they have the greatest difficulty in associating freely; they will not permit alcohol to lift their spirits and frequently prefer to endure pain rather than undergo anesthesia. In short, they seek to check all spontaneity. This trait is most strongly developed in individuals whose conflicts are fairly out in the open, those who have not taken either of the steps that ordinarily help to submerge the conflicts; clear predominance has not been given to one of the conflicting sets of attitudes, nor has sufficient detachment been developed to put the conflicts out of operations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

Such persons are held together merely by their idealized image; and apparently its binding power is insufficient when unaided by one or the other of the primary attempts at establishing inner unity. The image is particularly inadequate when it takes the form of a composite of contradictory elements. The exertion of will power then, consciously or unconsciously, is needed to keep the conflicting impulses under control. Since the most disruptive impulses are those of violence prompted by rage, the greatest degree of energy is directed toward the control of rage. Here a vicious circle is set in motion; the rage, by reason of being suppressed, attains explosive strength, which in turn requires still more self-control is brought to one’s attention one will defend it by pointing to the virtue and necessity of self-control for any civilized individual. What one overlooks is the compulsive nature of one’s control. One cannot help exerting it in he most rigid way and is seized by panic if for any reason it fails to function. The panic may appear as a fear of insanity, which clearly indicates that the function of the control is to ward off the danger of being split apart. Arbitrary rightness has the twofold function of eliminating doubt from within and influence from without. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Doubt and indecision are invariable concomitants of unresolved conflicts and can reach an intensity powerful enough to paralyze all action. In such a paralyzing state of doubt, a person is naturally susceptible to influence. When we have genuine convictions we will not be readily swayed; but if all out lives we stand at a crossroad, undecided whether to go in this direction or that, outside agencies can easily be the determining factors, if only temporarily. Moreover, indecision applies not only to possible courses of action but also includes doubts about one-self, one’s rights, one’s worth. All these uncertainties detract from our ability to cope with life. Apparently, however, they are not equally intolerable to everyone. The more a person sees life as a merciless battle, the more will one regard doubt as a dangerous weakness. The more isolated one is and insistent upon independence, the more will susceptibility to foreign influence be a source of irritation. All my observation points to the fact that a combination of predominant aggressive trends and detachment is the most fertile soil for the development of rigid rightness; and the nearer to the surface the aggression, the more militant the rightness. It constitutes an attempt to settle conflicts once and for all by declaring arbitrarily and stick and rigidly that one is invariably right. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

In a system so governed by rationality, emotions are traitors from within and must be checked by unswerving control. Peace may be attained but it is the peace of the grave. As would be expected, such persona loathe the idea of analysis because it threatens to disarrange the tidy picture. Almost polar to rigid rightness, but likewise an effective defense against it the recognition of conflicts, is elusiveness. Patients inclined toward this kind of defense often resemble those characters in fairy tales who when pursued turn into fish (The Little Mermaid); if not safe in this guise, they turn into deer (Bambi); if the hunter catches up with them, they fly away as birds (Icarus). You can never pin them down to any statement; like Mitt Romney, they always deny having said it or assure you they did not mean it that way. Much like Bernie Sanders, they have a bewildering capacity to becloud issues. These people are also very similar to Hilary Clinton, in the sense that it is often impossible for them to give a concrete report of any incident; should they try to do so the listener is uncertain in the end just what really did happen. The same confusion reigns in their lives. Like Sarah Michelle Gellar (who is similar to Fallon on Dynasty) they are vicious one moment, sympathetic the next; at times overconsiderate, ruthlessly inconsiderate at others; domineering in some respects, self-effacing in others. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

People who suffer from arbitrary rightness also reach out for a dominating partner, like we have seen Andrew Cuomo do with his relationship with the federal government, only to change to a “doormat,” then back to the former variety. After treating someone badly, they will be overcome by remorse, attempt to make amends, then feel like a “sucker” and turn to being abusive all over again. Nothing is quite real to them. The analyst may well find oneself confused, and, discouraged, feel there is no substance to work with. There one is mistaken. These are simply patients who have not succeeded in adopting the customary unifying procedures: they have not only failed to repress parts of their conflict, but they have established no definite idealized image. In a way they may be said to demonstrate the value of these attempts. For no matter how troublesome the consequences, persons who have so proceeded are better organized and not nearly so lost as the elusive type. On the other hand, the analyst would be equally mistaken were one to count on an easy job by virtue of the fact that the conflicts are visible and need not therefore be dragged out of hiding. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Nevertheless one will find oneself up against the patient’s aversion to any transparency, and this will tend to defeat one unless one oneself understands that this is the patient’s way of warding off any real insight. A final defense against the recognition of conflicts is cynicism, the denying and deriding of moral values. A deep-seated uncertainty in respect to moral values is bound to be present in every neurosis, no matter how strict and rigidly the person adheres to the particular aspects of one’s standards that are acceptable to one. While the genesis of cynicism varies, its function invariably is to deny the existence of moral values, thereby relieving the neurotic of the necessity of making clear to oneself what it is one actually believes in. Cynicism can be conscious, and then become a principle in the Machiavellian tradition and be so defended. All that counts is appearance. You can do as you please as long as you do not get caught. Everyone is a hypocrite who is not fundamentally stupid. This kind of patient may be as sensitive to the analyst’s using the term moral, regardless of the context, as those of Dr. Freud’s time were to the mention of pleasures of the flesh. However, cynicism may also remain unconscious and be concealed by lip service to the prevalent ideologies. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Unaware though one may be of the hold one’s cynicism has upon one, the way one lives and the way one talks about one’s life will reveal that one acts upon its principles. Or one may involve oneself unwittingly in contradictions, like the patient who was sure one believed in honesty and decency yet was envious of anyone who indulged in crooked maneuvers and resented the fact that one oneself never “got away” with that kind of thing. In therapy it is important to being the patient’s cynicism to full awareness at the proper time and help one to understand it. It may also be necessary to explain why it is desirable for one to establish one’s own set of moral values. The foregoing, then, are the defenses built around the nucleus of the basic conflict. For simplicity I shall refer to the whole system of defenses as the protective structure. A combination of defenses is developed in every neurosis; often all of them are present, though in varying degrees of activity. To change governing ideas, whether the individual or the group, is one of the most difficult and painful things in human life. Genuine “conversation” is a wrenching experience. It rarely happens to the individual or group expect in the form of divine intervention, revolution, or something very like a mental breakdown. It can cause deep and permanent damage to the most intimate of relationships, as Jesus forewarned. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

“Do you think I came to bring peace on Earth? No, I will you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law,” reports Luke 12.51-53. In fact, we are now undergoing an ever more profound change than in the sixties, though it is less noisy, with the emergence of mass “spirituality” at the end of the twentieth century. This change is the equivalent of a “soul Earthquake” that leaves nothing unshaken and many individuals hurt or destroyed. From one essential perspective, of course, Jesus himself confronted and undermined an idea system and its culture, which in turn killed him. He proved himself greater than any idea system or culture, however, and lives on. He is continuing the process of a Worldwide idea shift that is crucial to his perpetual revolution, in which we each are assigned a part. The Lord’s vineyard (Israel) will become desolate, and His people will be scattered-woes will come upon them in their apostate and scattered state—the Lord will lift an ensign and gather Israel—Compare Isaiah 5. About 559-545 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

“And then will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved, touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine-press therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes it brought forth wild grapes. And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard—I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down; and I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, and behold, oppression; for righteousness, but behold, a cry. Wo unto them that join house to house, till there can be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the Earth! #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

“In mine ears, said the Lord of Hosts, of a truth many houses shall be desolate, and great and fair cities without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of a homer shall yield an ephan. Wo unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night, and wine inflame them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, either consider the operation of one’s hands. Therefore, my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honourable people are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore, hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and one that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. And the mean person shall be brought down, and the mighty person shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled. However, the Lord of Hosts shall be exalted in judgement, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed after their manners, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. We unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope; that say: Let one make speed, hasten one’s work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

“We unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Wo unto the wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight! Wo unto the mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink; who justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from one! Therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, their root shall be rottenness, and their blossoms shall go up as dust; because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Thereofre, is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them; and the hills did tremble, and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out. And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the Earth; and behold, they shall come with speed swiftly; none shall be weary nor stumble among them. None shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken; whose arrows shall be sharp, and all their bows bent, and their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind, their roaring like a lion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

“They shall roar like young lions; yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry away safe, and none shall deliver. And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea; and if they look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the Heavens thereof,” reports 2 Nephi 15.1-30. I intreat Thee, O Lord, holy Father, everlasting God, command the way of Thy truth and of the knowledge of Thee to be shown to Thy servants who wander in doubt and uncertainty amid the darkness of this World; that the eyes of their souls may be opened, and they may acknowledge Thee, the One God, the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father, with the Holy Spirit, and enjoy the fruit of this confession, both here and in the World to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. One seeks no power over others, no claim to rulership over their lives, no disciples of one’s own, no train of followers clinging to one’s coat-tails. Yet one will not refrain from helping where such help is imperative, nor from giving counsel where the young, the inexperienced, the bewildered seekers have desperate need of it. However, the moment after one will appear to have forgotten what one has done, so gracious is one’s delicacy, so strong one’s desires to leave others quite free and unobligated. I pray Heaven to bestow the best blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise people rule under this roof. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

O Lord, whose power is infinite and wisdom infallible, other things that they may neither hinder, nor discourage me, nor prove obstacles to the progress of Thy cause; stand between me and all strife, that no evil befall, no sin corrupt my gifts, zeal, attainments; may I follow duty and not any foolish device of my own; permit me not to labour at work which thou wilt not bless, that I may serve Thee without disgrace or debt; let me dwell in Thy most secret place under Thy shadow, where is safe impenetrable protection from the arrow that flieth by day, the pestilence that walketh in darkness, the strife of tongues, the malice of ill-will, the hurt of unkind talk, the snares of company, the perils of youth, the temptations of middle life, the mournings of old ages, the fear of death. I am entirely dependent upon Thee for support, counsel, consolation. Uphold me by Thy free Spirit, and may I not think it enough to be preserved from falling, but may I always go forward, always abounding in the work Thou givest me to do. Strengthen me by Thy Spirit in my inner self for every purpose of my Christian life. All my jewels I give to the shadow of the safety that is in Thee—my name anew in Christ, my body, soul talents, character, my success, wife, children, friends, work, my present, my future, my end. Take them, they are thine, and I am thine, now and forever. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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The Better Part of Valour is Descretion—And Flights of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest!

May 6, 2020 12:45 am

Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work of many generations. All this is put in your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honour it, add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children. Jurgen Habermas is a German philosopher and sociologist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere. One of Habermas’s most central concerns has been to lay the philosophical foundation for an expanded conception of rationality that applies to normative claims as well as facts. The positivist spirit appropriately spurned traditional effects to ground normative reason in a theological or metaphysical basis. In so doing, however, the positivist spirit we inherit abandoned entirely the project of providing the rational ground to normative discourse. Thus since norms have been judged to lack an objective basis comparable to that given to scientific reason, moral and political discourse has been reduced either to technical reason or the expressions of preference. In several words Habermas discusses the implications this dominance of technical reason over political life has for the continuance of contemporary forms of domination. He suggests that emancipatory interests can be expressed only if appeals to normative ideals regain a public discourse. Thus the concern to give a rational foundation to normative discourse is not merely theoretical, but practical as well. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Habermas claims we can find the foundations of all rationality, both normative and non-normative, in the conditions of the possibility of communication which underlie and are presupposed by any speech act. He provides a theory of what he calls “universal pragmatics” to elaborate these conditions. I shall not summarize that theory here, but only touch enough of its outlines to indicate the place of the ideal speech situation in it. Any act of speaking which aims to be understood, according to Habermas, implicitly involves four validity claims. The speaker makes a claim to comprehensibility, that the speech itself makes sense in terms of the grammar and syntax of the speakers; truth, that the asserted relation to the World made by the speech is true; truthfulness, that the speaker himself or herself speaks sincerely and does not deceive or hide his or her motives, feeling, interests, and so forth; rightness, that in speaking the speaker acts in accordance with intersubjectively recognized norms apply in the situation. In situations of ongoing interaction when persons understand each other and act on projects together in harmony, these four validity claims remain entirely implicit. Any one of them, however, open to challenge, at which point they become explicit. A challenge obliges the speaker to make good on the claims. One can make good on claims to comprehensibility and truthfulness by appropriate actions. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

One makes good on claims to truth and rightness, on the other hand, only by entering another level of discourse which calls the claims explicitly into question and in which reasoned justification must be offered for them. The possibility of entering such argumentative discourse, Habermas claims, lies behind any act of speaking insofar as it aims to be understood. It is a condition for the possibility of such speaking. Discourse takes pace within the normative context Habermas describes as the ideal speech situation. This describes the formal conditions of a community of speakers engaged in discourse in which they have removed themselves from the immediacy of action in order to test a claim. The ideal speech situation expresses those conditions of interaction necessary for participants in such a discussion to reach a rationally motivated consensus. In a rationally motivated consensus, the participants assent to a conclusion solely on the grounds that t is most reasonable. Habermas states three conditions which must be met in the ideal speech situations: All those standing in the speaking situation have the same opportunity to speak and to criticize the speeches of others, and there are no limits on the content of speeches; all participants must have the same opportunity to express their attitudes, feelings, intentions, interests and motives; all have the equal opportunity, that is, to require recognition of their individuality. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Furthermore, all the participants have the equal right to give commands to the others and to require others to justify themselves in terms of mutually recognized norms and rules of interaction. Since the ideal speech situation abstracts from all contents of social interaction other than speech, and from all interests other than that of arriving at consensus in discussion, it is necessarily unrealizable. As emptied of all material content and reference to material needs, it is a pure, formal ideal. As such a formal ideal, however, it actually underlies communication as a universal condition. Insofar as any act of speaking aims at being understood and accepted, it anticipates the ideal speech situation as the condition for achieving understanding and acceptance. We would never try to achieve understanding unless we implicitly grasped the conditions required for achieving it. Thus even though the ideal speech situation is unrealizable, it has a real influence on interaction, as the motive of our attempts to achieve understanding. In this way Habermas intends to ground normative reason in the conditions of actual speaking lie. Communication itself depends on the implicit understanding of a situation of interaction guided by norms that participants in discourse appeal to and abide by in order to guarantee the objectivity and freedom of their consensus. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

These norms that define the ideal speech situation, according to Habermas, embody the universal ideals of truth, freedom and justice. The ideal speech situation represents the idea of justice as a structure of institutionalized relations that are free from domination. The attainment of a rationally motivated consensus requires that the organization of interaction contains relations of equality, mutual recognition of the individuality of each, and reciprocity. Structures of domination create conflicts of interest that prevent commitment to consensus. These structures also prevent individuals from knowing their real interests, or expressing them even if they know them. To the degree that such structural asymmetries exist, an interaction situation declines from the ideal of justice. I have suggested, then, that the ideal speech situation can direct a theory of justice to focus its questioning on forms of social organization and relations of domination. It is important to note, however, that the ideal speech situation can direct a theory of justice to focus its questioning on forms of social organization and relations of domination. It is important to note, however, that the ideal speech situation does not itself constitute a standard or set of principles by which actual social arrangements ought to be evaluated. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

The ideal speech situation expresses the ideal of justice in a purely formal way that abstracts from all particular social and historical content. A very widely employed strategy of the discreditable person is to handle one’s risks by dividing the World into a large group to whom one tells nothing, and a small group to whom one tells all and upon whose help one then relies; one co-opts for one’s masquerade just those individuals who would ordinarily constitute the greater danger. In the case of close relationships one already has at the time of acquiring the stigma one may immediately “bring the relationships up to date,” by means of a quiet confidential talk; thereafter one may be rejected, but one retains one’s standing as someone who relates honourable. Interestingly, this kind of information management is often recommended by medical practitioners, especially when they have to be the first to inform the individual of one’s stigma. Thus, medical officials who discover a cause of COVID-19 may suggest that that new secret be kept among the doctors, the patient, and one’s immediate family, perhaps offering this discretion in order to ensure continued cooperation from the patient. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

In the case of post-stigma relationship that have gone past the point where the individual should have told, one can stage a confessional scene with as much emotional fuss as the unfairness of one’s past silence requires, and then throw oneself on the other’s mercy as someone doubly exposed, exposed first in one’s differentness and secondly in one’s honesty and untrustworthiness. There are fine records of these touching scenes, and a need to understand the huge amount of forget-and-forgiveness they can call forth. No doubt a factor in the rate of success of these confessions is the tendency for the concealer to feel out the concealed-form to make sure beforehand that the revelation will be received without complete rupture of the relationship. Note that the stigmatized individual is almost foredoomed to these scenes; new relationships are often ones that can easily be discouraged before they take hold, making immediate honesty necessarily costly and hence often avoided. As already implied, a person who is in a position to extort is also often in a position to help the blameworthy individual maintain one’s secret; moreover one is likely to have many motives for doing so. Thus, managers of resort establishments often enforce a privacy policy that protects the martial truants who sometimes stay or play in these places. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

Sometimes people who are procuring or pandering the facilitation or provision of a man or woman of the evening in the arrangement of pleasures of the flesh with customers are sometime solicitous: The people rented rooms in respectable hotels, on the first floor above the lobby, so that their customers could use the stairways without being seen by the concierge. As are their colleagues: If their clients are prominent people the girls will not readily identity them or name them in conversation even with each other. Similarly one reads of the role of a hairdresser employed by the girls in a “first-class” house of pleasures of the flesh in exchange for money: Indeed, he was ore than an artist; he was a sincere friend every girl in the house, and “Charlie” heard confidences that were seldom given to others, and gave much common-sense advice. Moreover, in his own home on Michigan Avenue he received the mail of girls who were keeping their profession secret from families and friends, and his house served as a place where the girls could meet relatives who came unexpectedly to Chicago. “The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

“Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift one has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms,” reports Revelations 4.7-10. Sometimes it happens that we receive the power to say “yes” to ourselves, that peace enters into us and makes us whole, that self-hate and self-content disappear, and that our self is reunited with itself. Then we can say that grace has come upon us. This is the experience of faith: to accept estrangement to the point where it becomes union. It is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name if which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek anything. Simply accept that fact that you are accepted. If that happens to us we experience grace. Faith thus appears to be the accepted of being accepted, and it is analysed as such. In other words, it is the acceptance of estrangement, the acceptance of sin. Sin and grace, or sin and faith, belong together like estrangement and union. Faith is the awareness that they are one. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Then estrangement is reunion: despair is hope; anxiety is peace. Humans have the certainty of total forgiveness in the situation of total guilt. This reversal of values is beautifully illustrated in the sermon, “Is There Any Word from the Lord?” Faith is the word from the Lord which breaks through the human situation and transforms it. It does not add something to our situation, yet it adds a dimension to the dimension in which we ordinarily live. Faith is from above, since it is from the Lord, or at least it seems so to the mythical imagination. In reality the word from the Lord is the word which speaks out of the depth of our situation. It is, one could say, the deepest meaning of the situation. This faith changes nothing in the circumstances and the structure of life. Yet it reverses our attitude. The word from the Lord, the voice out of the depth of our situation, ends the anxiety of the possible and gives the courage to affirm the real with its many questionable elements. At this stage right and wrong may be questionable elements. At this stage right and wrong may be interchanged: If you realize that in relation to God humans are always wrong, your wrong may turn out to be right. Faith is the ecstatic discovery that despair is meaningful; it is the certainty that doubt too is belief. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Justice was defined as the form in which power of being actualizes itself in the encounter of power with power. Justice is immanent in power, since there is no power of being without its adequate form. However, whenever power of being encounters power of being, compulsion cannot be avoided. The question then is: What is the relation o justice to the compulsory element of power? The answer must be: it is not compulsion which is unjust, but a compulsion which destroys the object of compulsion instead of working towards its fulfilment. If the totalitarian State dehumanizes those for the sake of whom it enforces its laws, their power of being as persons is dissolved and their intrinsic claim is denied. It is not compulsion which violates justice, but a compulsion which disregards the intrinsic claim of being to be acknowledged as what it is within the context of all beings. It may well be that a compulsion which prevents the punishment of a law-breaker destroys one’s power of being and violates one’s claim to be reduced in one’s power of being according to proportional justice. This is the truth in Hegel’s formula that the criminal has a right to punishment. A power structure in which compulsion works against the intrinsic justice of its elements is not strengthened but weakened. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

The unacknowledged, justified claims, although suppressed, do not disappear. They are effective against the whole in which they are suppressed and they may ultimately destroy a power structure which is neither able to accept them as participants, nor able to throw them out as strange bodies. The intrinsic claim in everything that is cannot be violated without violating the violator. This is equally true of biological, psychological, and sociological structures of power. The mental power of human beings, for instance, can express itself in three forms. It can suppress elements which belong to it, as special desires or hopes or idea. In this case the suppressed elements remain and turn the mind against itself, driving it towards disintegration. Or the mental power of a human being can receive resisting elements which belong to it, elevating them into unity with the whole. Or the mental power can throw them our radically as foreign bodies whose claim to belong to the whole is successfully rejected. In the second and the third case the human mind exercises justice in opposite directions towards the resisting elements. In the first cast it violates the intrinsic claim of a being and endangers itself. This psychological example is also valid for biological and sociological structures of power. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

As in power, justice is immanent in love. A love of any type, and love as a whole if it does not include justice, is chaotic self-surrender, destroying one who loves as well as one who accepts such love. Love is the drive for reunion of the separated. It presupposed that there is something to be reunited, something relatively independent that stand upon itself. Sometimes the love of complete self-surrender has been praised and called the fulfilment of love. However, the question is: What kind of self-surrender is it and what is it that is surrenders? If a self whose power of being is weakened or vanishing surrenders, one’s surrender is worth nothing. One is a self which has not received from oneself the justice to which one is entitled, according to one’s intrinsic claim for justice. The surrender of such an emaciated self is not genuine love because it extinguishes and does not unite what is estranged. The love of this kind is the desire to annihilate one’s responsible and creative self for the sake of participation in another self which by the assumed act of love is made responsible for himself or herself and oneself. The chaotic self-surrender does not give justice to oneself. It is justice to oneself to affirm one’s own power of being and to accept the claim for justice which is implied in this power. Without this justice there is no reuniting love, because there is nothing to unite. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

This leads to the question of justice towards oneself, a question which is analogous to the questions of self-love and self-control. In both cases we spoke of a metaphorical use of the term. We must do so also in the case of justice towards oneself. There is no independent self which could decide about the claim for justice by another self with which it happens to be identical. However, there is a definite sense in which the sense that the deciding center is just towards the elements of which it is the center. Justice towards oneself in this sense decides, for instance, that puritan form of self-control is unjust because it excludes elements of the self which have a just claim to be admitted to the general balance of strivings. Repression is injustice against oneself, and it has the consequence of all injustice: it is self-destructive because of the resistance of the elements which are excluded. This, however, does not mean that the chaotic admittance of all strivings to the central decision is a demand of the justice toward oneself. It may be highly unjust, in so far as it makes a balanced center impossible and dissolves the self into a process of disconnected impulses. This is the danger of the romantic or open type of self-control. It can become as unjust towards oneself as the puritan or closed type of self-control. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

To be just towards oneself means to actualize as many potentialities as possible without losing oneself in disruption and chaos. This is a warning not to be unjust towards oneself in the relation of love. For this is always also an injustice towards one who accepts the injustice which we exercise towards ourselves. One is prevented from being just because one is forced to abuse by being abused. Love does not do more than justice demands, but love is the ultimate principle of justice. Love reunites; justice preserves what is to be united. It is the form in which and through which love performs its work. Justice in its ultimate meaning is creative justice, and creative justice is the form of reuniting love. Next you need some quiet. I am well aware that quiet is a relative term in today’s World where there is virtually no silence. Many of us never experience silence during our waking hours. We wake up to the most annoying sound in the World—a leaf blower or two, then our clock radio, shave or put makeup on to the news, drive through grid iron, noisy traffic, enter a noisy, busy office, return home listening to the radio for rush-hour reports, “relax” in front of the TV, and drift off to sleep as the house pulsates with the family stereo speakers slappin’ to some obscene pop music. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

What is more, the occasional silence we do encounter can be distracting because it heightens other distracting noises. With the deep quietness of a monastery, a cough repeated at predictable intervals can destroy every possibility of collected thought. Silence is sometimes louder than the noise you are trying to ignore! So one need to choose the situation that works best for one. It may be dominated by road noise, but if that is the atmosphere one need to concentrate, use it. Along with this you must find a place where you will not be disturbed. Early in my ministry, my office was in a one-bedroom apartment. My part-time sectary was on the other side of a thin wall. I could hear everything! If that was not enough, the whole apartment shook when the train came by. My solutions were many, and all off the premises—the beautiful old and always open and empty sanctuary of a neighbouring church, the park, the wonderful anonymity of my car parked at a busy shopping center. Even today, though I now have a quiet office, I often go to similar places for my devotions. The apostle Paul, who of course understood and taught about these things, warned us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the Word forces of this mobidness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the Heavenly places,” reports Ephesians 6.12. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

These higher-level powers and forces are spiritual agencies that work with—constantly try to implement and support—the idea systems of evil. These systems are their main tool for dominating humanity. By contrast, we who have been rescued “from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1.13) are to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2.5). This is an essential way of describing the substance, the underlying reality, of Christian spiritual formation. We are, in Paul’s familiar language, transformed precisely be the “renewing of our mind,” reports Romans 12.2. Zion and her daughters will be redeemed and cleansed in the millennial day—Compare Isaiah 4. About 559-545 Before Christ. “And in that day, seven women shall take hold of one man, saying: We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach. In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious; the fruit of the Earth excellent and comely to them that are escaped of Israel. And it shall come to pass, they that are left in Zion and remain in Jerusalem shall be called holy, every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem—when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

“And the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shinning of a flame fire by night; for upon all the glory of Zion shall be a defence. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and a covert from storm and from rain,” reports 2 Nephi 14.1-6. Almighty and everlasting God, Who repellest not even the faithless Jews from Thy Mercy; hear our prayers, which we offer unto Thee for that blinded people; that by acknowledging the Light of Thy truth, which is Christ, they may be rescued from their own darkness; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Eternal Father, it is amazing love, that thou hast sent Thy Son to suffer instead in my stead, that Thou hast added the Spirit to teach, comfort, guide, that Thou hast allowed the ministry of Angels to wall me round; all Heaven subserves the welfare of a poor worm. Permit Thy unseen servants to be ever active on my behalf, and to rejoice when grace expands in me. Suffer them never to rest until my conflict is over, and I stand victorious on salvation’s shore. Grant that my proneness to evil, deadness to good, resistance to Thy Spirit’s motions, may never provoke Thee to abandon me. Suffer them never to rest until my conflict is over, and I stand victorious on salvation’s shore. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Please Grant that my proneness to evil, deadness to good, resistance to Thy Spirit’s motions, may never provoke Thee to abandon me. May my hard heart awake Thy pity, not Thy wrath, and if the enemy gets an advantage through my corruption, let it be seen that Heaven is mightier than hell, that those for me are greater than those against me. Arise to my help in richness of covenant blessings, keep me feeding in the pastures of Thy strengthening word, searching Scripture to find Thee there. If my waywardness is visited with a scourge, enable me to receive correction meekly, to bless the reproving hand, to discern the motive of rebuke, to respond promptly, and do the first work. Let all Thy fatherly dealings make me a partaker of Thy holiness. Grant that in every fall I may sink lower on my knees, and that when I rise it may be to loftier heights of devotion. May my every cross be sanctified, every loss be gain, every denial be a spiritual advantage, every dark a light of the Holy Spirit, every night of trial a song. Almighty and everlasting God, Who desirest not the death, but always the life of sinners; mercifully receive our prayer, and deliver the Heathen from idolatry, and gather them into Thy holy Church, to the praise and glory of Thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Please Grant, O God, that all the inhabitants of the World may come to be sons and daughters of Abraham, and to hold the dignity of Israelites, through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Rancho Cordova, CA |

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Randolph Harris II International Institute

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