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O Wicked Wit and Gifts that Have the Power So to Seduce!
I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange story. Almost all humans are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a lister’s internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a devil, would have no fear mentioning it; but the same traveller having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental impression, would hesitate considerably before one would own to it. To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of these subjective things, as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequences is, that the general stock of experiences in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably imperfect. The Devil had been raised among us, and his rage was vehement and terrible; and, when he shall be silenced, the Lord only knows. It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain Murder was committed in Boston in 1688, which attracted great attention. We hear more than enough of Murders as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and if I could, I would bury the memory this this atrocious eminence, as hi body was buried, in the Witch House’s basement. When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell—or I ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicious fell—on the man who was afterwards brought to trial. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
As no reference was at the time made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any description of him at that time have been given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered. Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the paper, I was aware of a flash—rush—flow—I do not know what to call it—no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive—in which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief observed the absence of the dead body from the bed. As the circumstances of the Murder, gradually unravelling, took stronger and stronger posses of the public mind, I kept them away from mine, by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the universal excitement. John Hathorne asked most of the questions and established the judicial attitude that was to prevail throughout most of the examinations and the trials. Many people suspected that the devil killed this man and he had been summoned by Sarah Good because she had also been accused of bewitching a few girls in the town. Mr. Hathorne asked the children to look at Sarah God and say whether she was one who afflicted them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
They accused her to her face, “upon which they were all dreadfully tortured and tormented for a short space of time.” When they recovered from their fits, they charged her with causing them, saying that her specter had come and tormented them although her body remained “at a considerable distance from them.” This was spectral evidence, that is, evidence concerning a specter or apparition of the accused, rather than her bodily person. It was eventually to become the central legal issue of the trials, but at the moment we need only see why it seemed initially so convincing to the examining magistrates. Here were girls afflicted with violent physical symptoms which had no known physical cause, but which a physician had attributed to witchcraft. There was a malicious old woman accused of causing them. When the sufferers accused her they were immediately thrown into convulsions. What could be more plausible than that the convulsions were inflicted as revenge for the accusation? Yet such behaviour was still unfamiliar enough in Salem so that one of the recorders noted that “none here see the [specters of the] witches but the afflicted and themselves.” However, the change was so startling that I fully believed the girls derived their impression in some occult manner. For instance, we knew there was something occult going on because the throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defense, it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat in the dreadful condition referred to. Yet, it would have been impossible for such a wound to be self-inflicted by either hand. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Certainly, Mr. Hathorne was convinced; when the children had recovered and repeated their accusation he turned to the accused woman. “Sarah Good, do you not see now what you have done? Why do you not tell us the truth? Why do you this torment these people children?” Certainly many of her neighbours though her malicious, since they attributed to her a number of inexplicable events, including the death of a cow which perished in a “sudden, terrible and strange unusual manner.” Such testimony was common in witchcraft cases, and it has caused much unseemly hilarity among the modern historians. It is likely, they have asked, that His Satanic Majesty the Devil or any of his minions would stop to concern themselves with the fate of a New England cow? The answer is that nothing is more likely. What else would a fertility god concern himself with but the health or sickness of crops, of animals, and of humans? From the standpoint of a society that still remembered who the Devil was, no testimony could be more relevant. As a matter of fact, the village witches who still exist in rural England are often expert in folk medicines, human and animal, as well as charms, and until recently many of them were midwives. Sarah Osburn also denied that she had hurt anyone, but the girls feel again into fits. Mr. Hathorne asked her how this happened. Perhaps, she said, the Devil went about in her likeness doing harm, but she knew nothing about it. Sarah Osburn was the first at Salem to assert the principle that the Devil can impersonate an innocent person. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Whether the devil could or not was a matter of debate in the seventeenth century, but most Protestant authorities agreed with Goodwife Obsurn that, as Hamlet put it, “The Devil hath power/ to assume a pleasing shape.” However, the principle was not discussed at this hearing, since Sarah Osburn was a likely a suspect as Sarah Good, if for no other reason than her lying. Lying was still considered a serious sin in the seventeenth century, and a crime as well, legally punishable by the courts. Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages, neither, I believed, had any one in Court. When Mr. Hathorne tried to find out how well Sarah Osburn knew Sarah Good she said she did not know her by name. Mr. Hathorne asked if Sarah Osburn had been tempted by the devil, and she said no. Why then, he asked, had not she been at church? She had been sick, she said, and unable to go. However, her husband and others contradicted her. “She had not been at meeting,” they said, “this year and two months.” To understand why the matter of church attendance was considered so significant one must remember that the seventeenth century saw witchcraft as literal Devil worship, and therefore as a rival religion to Christianity. This is why the magistrates sometimes asked accused persons, as they asked Sarah Good, what God they served. And if the accused person avoided speaking the name of God (as Sarah Good did), they had reason to think it a suspicious circumstance. The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the judge, on the other side of the court. He slowly shook a great grey veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form. Then he collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
The examinations of Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn afford grounds for suspicion and for further examination. However, the major event of that first day of March was the examination of Tituba. It began like the others, but it changed very quickly: “Tituba, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?” “None.” “Why do you hurt these children?” “I do not hurt them.” “Who is it then?” “The Devil, for aught I know.” “Did you never see the Devil?” “The Devil,” said Tituba, “came to me and bid me serve him.” She went on, with a minimum of judicia prodding, to provide a detailed confession of witchcraft, the first of approximately fifty that were made during the Salem trials. On March first and second, in her examination, Tituba said that the Devil had come to her in the shape of a man—a tall man in black, with white hair. Other times he had come in the shape of an animal. He had told her he was God, that she must believe him and serve him six years, and he would give her many fine things. He had shown her a book and she had made a mark in it, a mark that was “red like blood.” Many people thought this to be a revelation. “Then I saw another beast, coming out of the Earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He exercised all authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to comedown from Heaven to Earth in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the Earth. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
“He ordered them to set up an image in honour of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless one had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name,” reports Revelation 13.11-17. Sarah Osburn was to die there on the tenth of May. Tituba, like later confessors, was never brought to trial. She lay in jail until she was sold to pay the jailer’s fees, her master refusing to pay them. Sarah Good was brought to trial. Another reaction to Tituba’s confession was to confirm the community in its fear of witchcraft, and particularly its fear of the three accused women. The night of March First William Allen and John Hughes heard a strange noise; it continued frightening them, but the approached and “saw a strange and unusual beast lying on the ground. Going up to it, the said beast vanished away and in the said place started up two or three women fled, not after the manner of other women but swiftly vanished out of sight, which women we took to be Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and Tituba.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
The next night William Allen again had hallucinations: “Sarah Good visibly appeared to him in his chamber, said Allen being in bed, and brought an unusual light with her. The said Sarah came and sat upon his foot. The said Allen went to kick at her, upon which she vanished and the light with her.” Notice that in this hallucination as in many others the hallucination stops as soon as the subject is able to move or speak. A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular, “curse” may refer to such a wish or pronouncement made effective by a supernatural or spiritual power, such as a god, or gods, a spirit, or natural force, or else as a kind of spell by magic or witchcraft. The Winchester rifle is a handsome gun that legend has it was forged in Hell. Whoever possesses the cursed rife either suffers disaster or fortune. Oliver Fisher Winchester was an American businessman and politician, best known as being the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Oliver Winchester was born November 30, 1810 and dead December 10, 1880. Oliver Winchester was known for manufacturing and marketing the Winchester repeating rifle, which was a much re-designed descendant of the Volcanic rifle of some years earlier. Mr. Winchester was more learned than his kind in the mysteries of a deep and thrilling lore of peculiar fascination. He was a man highly honoured for his natural gifts and knowledge of learned books which nobody else could read, that was when he took his second orders the bishop gave him a mantle of scarlet silk to wear upon his shoulders in which, and his lordship had put such power into it that, when the parson has it rightly on, he could govern any ghost or evil spirit, and even stop an Earthquake. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Such a powerful man, in combat with supernatural visitations discovered that a division of Smith & Wesson firearms was failing financially with one of their newly patented arms. Having an eye for opportunity, Mr. Winchester assembled venture capital together with other stockholders and acquired the Smith & Wesson division, better known as the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, in 1855. By 1857, Mr. Winchester had positioned himself as the principle stockholder in the company and relocated to New Haven, Connecticut, and changed the name to New Haven Arms Company. After experiencing a slow start, and then a booming success with the Henry rifle, the company reorganized once again and the first Winchester rifle was the Model 1866, which had been nicknamed the Yellow Boy. The gun was called Yellow Boy because it should be remembered that, howsoever strange and singular it may sound to us that a mere lad should formally solicit such a performance at his own hands. Gradually Mr. Winchester amassed a considerable fortune. When Mr. Oliver Winchester died on December 10, 1880, his ownership in the company passed to his son, William Wirt Winchester (who married Sarah Lockwood Pardee in 1862), and died March 7 1881 at the young age of 43. The couple has also had a child, Annie Pardee Winchester, born June 15, 1866, and died 6 weeks later on July 25, 1866. Mrs. Winchester was deeply troubled by the loss of her daughter. In the course of her daily walk, she had to pass a certain heath or down where the road wound along through tall blocks of granite with open spaces of grassy sward between them. #RandpolphHarris 9 of 13
There in a certain spot, and always in the same place, she declared that she encountered, every day, a baby with a pale and troubled face, clothed in a little dress of white pique, made with two skirts. The pique was cut slightly Gabriele, and rounded off in the front with scallops, bound with white braid, with a button in each scallop, and ribbon-sash, tied at the left side, with one hand always stretched forth, and the other pressed against her side. “She is my baby,” Mrs. Winchester would say, and she often used to come to her parents house in New Haven; but that which troubled her was, that she had now been dead three years, and she had seen her body laid in the grave at her burial, this that she saw every day must needs be her soul or ghost. The hair of the appearance, sayth Mrs. Winchester, is not like anything alive, but it is so soft and light that it seemth to melt away while you look; but her eyes are set, and never blink—no, not when the sun shineth full upon her face. She maketh no steps, but seemth to swim along the top of the grass; and her hand, which is stretched out alway, seemth to point to something far away, out of sight. It is her continual coming; for she never failth to meet Mrs. Winchester, and to pass on, that hath quenched her spirits; and although she never seeth her by night, yet cannot she get her natural rest. Mrs. Winchester went to see a doctor who told her, “The case is strange but by no means impossible. It is one that I will study, and fear not to handle, if you will be free with me, and fulfill all that I desire.” Mrs. Winchester was overjoyed, but she perceived that the doctor turned pale, and was downcast with some thought which, however, he did not express. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
The doctor knew that this might be a doemonium meridianum, the most stubborn spirit to govern and guide that any human can meet, and the most perilous withal. He made an appointment to go with Mrs. Winchester to the spot where she had these encounters. They had hardly reached the accustomed spot, when they both saw her at once gliding towards them; punctually as the ancient writers describe their “lemures, which swoon along the ground, neither marking the sand nor bending the herbage.” The aspect of the baby girl was exactly that which had been related by Mrs. Winchester. There was a pale and stony face, the strange misty hair, the eyes firm and fixed, that gazed, yet not on them, but on something that they saw far, far away; one hand and arm stretched out, and the other grasping the girdle of her waist. She floated along the field like upon a stream, and glided past the spot where they stood, pausingly. But so deep was the awe that came over the doctor, as he stood there in the light of day, face to face with a human soul separate from her bones and flesh, that his heart and purpose both failed him. He had resolved to speak to the spectre in the appointed form of words, but he did not. He stood like one amazed and speechless, until she had passed clean of out sight. When they returned to the house, and after he had said all he could to pacify Mrs. Winchester, he took leave for that time, with a promise that when he had fulfilled certain business elsewhere, when then he alleged, he would return and take orders to assuage these disturbances and their cause. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
The doctor later told Mrs. Winchester that he thought it was best that they try an exorcism, but his Church, as is well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient powers, on grounds of perversion and abuse. So he referred her to a medium. The medium told Mrs. Winchesters, “There is a danger from the demons, but so there is in the surrounding air every day.” There was a kind of trouble in the air, a soft rippling sound, and all at once the shape appeared, and came towards the medium gradually. She opened her parchment scroll, and read aloud the command. The spirit paused, and seemed to waver and doubt; stood still; then she rehearsed the sentence again, sounding out every syllable like a chant. The spirit then swam into the midst of the circle, and there stood still, suddenly. Her knees shook under her, and the drops of sweat ran down her flesh like rain. But, although face to face with the spirit, the medium’s heart grew calm, and her mind was composed. The spirit then commanded Mrs. Winchester to move West and build a mansion in honour of the spirit killed by the Winchester rifle and “as long as the hammer keep pounding, her heart would continue to beat.” The medium dismissed the troubled ghost, until she peacefully withdrew, gliding towards the west. Mrs. Winchester moved to San Jose, which was near her family Member, Enoch Pardee, an occultist, prominent physician, free mason, and Mayor of Oakland, California USA, had built his family’s mansion in 1868, which is now known as the Pardee House Museum. Masonry has influenced more the modern witchcraft; it has influenced dozens of occult orders. Mrs. Winchester bought a farm house and built a massive mansion. There was something very painful and peculiar in the position of the Winchester mansion through the nineteenth century. The estate in those days was in a transitory state, and Mrs. Winchester, like her formularies, embodied a strange mixture of the old belief with the new interpretation. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
However, the mansion is now flanked by a pleasantness, a beautiful garden and lawn, and it is surrounded by a sole grove of palm trees. It has also the aspect of age and of solitude, and looks the very scene of harmony and supernatural events. A legend might well belong to every beautiful glade of grass around, and there must surely be a haunted room somewhere within its walls. The incredible mansion, scenery of the legend still survives, and, like the field of the forty footsteps in another history, the place is still visited by those who take interests in the supernatural tales of old and new. Freemasons supposedly conducted a séance in the mansion in August of 2019. A phantom made an answer willingly. It stated, “before the next Yule-tide, a fearful pestilence will lay waste the land, and myriads of souls will be loosened from the flesh, until our valleys will be full.” The general facts stated in this diary are to these matters of belief accounted a strong proof of the veracity of the Ghost that the plague, fatal to so many millions, did break out in the global village at the close of the year. How sorely must the infidels and heretics of this generation be dismayed when they know that this Black Death, which is now swallowing its thousands in the streets of the great city, was foretold several months before the outbreak, under the séance of a freemason, by a visible and suppliant ghost! And what pleasure and improvements do such deny themselves who scorn and avoid all opportunity of intercourse with souls separate, and the spirits, glad and sorrowful, which inhabit the unseen World! May they who observe the Sabbath and call it a delight, rejoice in Thy Kingdom. May the people who sanctify the seventh day be sated and delighted with Thy bounty. For Thou didst find pleasure in the seventh day, and didst sanctify it, calling it the most desirable of the days, in remembrance of creation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Today is the return of our guided Mansion Tour! The tour guide-led experience allows guests to access areas of the mansion that have been closed since March 2020. Click the link in our bio for more information. winchestermysteryhouse.com/recent-links
Next to Life and Liberty, We Consider Education the Greatest Blessing!
We had a sense of importance that would have led us to risk our lives for our rhetoric. The precondition of any civilization, old or new, is energy. First Wave societies drew their energy from “living batteries”—human and animal muscle-power—or from sun, wind, and water Forests were cut for cooking and heating. Waterwheels, some of them using tidal power, turned milestones. Windmills creaked in the fields. Animals pulled the plow. As late as the French Revolution, it has been estimated, Europe drew energy from an estimated 14 million horses and 24 million oxen. All First Wave societies thus exploited energy sources that were renewable. Nature could eventually replenish the forests they cut, the wind that filled their sails, the rivers that turned their paddle wheels. Even animals and people were replaceable “energy slaves.” All Second Wave societies, by contrast, began to draw their energy from coal, gas, and oil—from irreplaceable fossil fuels. This revolutionary shift, coming after Newcomen invented a workable steam engine in 1712, meant that for the first time a civilization was eating into nature’s capital rather than merely living off the interest it provided. This dipping into the Earth’s energy reserves provided a hidden subsidy for industrial civilization, vastly accelerating its economic growth. And from that day to this, wherever the Second Wave passed, nations built towering technological and economic structures on the assumptions that cheap fossil fuels would be endlessly available. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
In capitalist and communist industrial societies alike, in East and West, this same shift has been apparent—from dispersed to concentrated energy, from renewable to non-renewable, from many different sources and fuels to a few. Fossil fuels formed the energy base of all Second Wave societies. The leap to a new energy system was paralleled by a gigantic advance in technology. First Wave societies had relied on what Vitruvius, two thousand years ago, called “necessary inventions.” However, these early winches and wedges, catapults, winepresses, levers, and hoists were chiefly used to amplify human or animal muscles. The Second Wave pushed technology to a totally new level. It spawned gigantic electromechnical machines, moving parts, belts, hoses, bearings, and bolts—all clattering and ratcheting along. And these new machines did more than augment raw muscle. Industrial civilization gave technology sensory organs, creating machines that could hear, see, and touch with greater accuracy and precision than human beings. It gave technology a womb, by inventing machines designed to give birth to new machines in infinite progression—id est, machine tools. More important, it brought machines together in interconnected systems under a single roof, to create the factory and ultimately the assembly line within the factory. On this technological base a host of industries sprang up to give Second Wave civilization its defining stamp. At first there were coal, textiles, and railroads, then steel, auto manufacture, aluminum, chemicals, and appliances. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Huge factory cities leaped into existence: Lille and Manchester for textiles, Detroit for automobiles, Essen and—later—Magnitogorsk for steel, and a hundred others as well. From these industrial centers poured million upon endless millions of identical products—shirts, shoes, automobiles, watches, toys, soap, shampoo, camera, machine guns, and electric motors. The new technology powered by the new energy system opened the door to mass production. Mass production, however, was meaningless without parallel changes in the distribution system. In First Wave societies, goods were normally made by handcraft methods. Products were created one at a time on a custom basis. The same was largely true of distribution. It is true that large, sophisticated trading companies had been built up by merchants in the widening crack of the old feudal order in the West. These companies opened trade routes around the World, organized convoys of ships, and camel caravans. They sold glass, paper, silk, nutmeg, tea, wine and wool, indigo and mace. Most of these products, however, reached consumers through tiny stores or on the backs of wagons of peddlers who fanned out into the countryside. Wretched communications and primitive transport drastically circumscribed the market. These small-scale shopkeepers and itinerant vendours could offer only the slenderest of inventories, and often they were out of this or that item for months, even years, at a time. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
The Second Wave wrought changes in this creaking, overburdened distribution system that were as radical, in their ways, as the more publicized advances made in production. Railroads, highways, and canals opened up the hinterlands, and with industrialism came “palace of trade”—the first department stores. Complex networks of jobbers, wholesalers, commission agents, and manufacturers’ representatives sprang up, and in 1871 George Huntington Hartford, whose first store in New York was painted vermilion and had a cashier’s cage sharped like a Chinses pagoda, did for distribution what Henry Ford later did for the factory. He advanced it to an entirely new stage by creating the World’s first mammoth chain-store system—The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. Customer distribution gave way to the mass distribution and mass merchandising that became as familiar and central a component of all industrial societies as the machine itself. What we see, therefore, if we take these changes together, is a transformation of what might be called the “techno-sphere.” All societies—primitive, agricultural, or industrial—use energy; they make things; they distribute things. In all societies energy system, the production system, and the distribution system are interrelated parts of something larger. This larger system is the technosphere, and it has a characteristic form at each stage of social development. As the Second Wave swept across the planet, the agricultural techno-sphere was replaced by an industrial techno-sphere: non-renewable energies were directly plugged into mass production systems which, in turn, spewed goods into a highly developed mass distribution system. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
This Second Wave techno-sphere, however, needed an equally revolutionary “socio-sphere” to accommodate it. It needed radically new forms of social organization. Before the industrial revolution, for example, family forms varied from place to place. However, wherever agriculture held sway, people tended to live in large, multigenerational households, with uncles, aunts, in-laws, grandparents, or cousins all living under the same roof, all working together as an economic production unit—from the “joint family” in India to the “zadruga” in the Balkans and the “extended family” in Weser Europe. And the family was immobile—rooted to the soil. This is why the Victorian homes were so large, often three and four stories, with an average of 5,000 square feet, and several acres of land; so the families could live at home, have their own space without overcrowding the house, and farm to grow their food and meat. As we are now experiencing a global pandemic in 2021, houses are getting larger again, more people are living in multigenerational households, and even growing their own food. As the Second Wave began to move across First Wave societies, family felt the stress of change. Within each household the collision of wave fronts took the form of conflict, attacks on patriarchal authority, altered relationship between children and parents, new notions of propriety. As economic production shifted from the field to the factory, the family no longer worked together as a unit. To the free workers for factory labour, key functions of the family were parceled out to new, specialized institutions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Education of the child was turned over to schools. Care of the aged was turned over to poorhouses or old-age homes or nursing homes. Above all, the new society required mobility. It needed workers who would follow jobs from place to place. Burdened with elderly relatives, the sick, the disabled, and a large brood of children, the extended family was anything but mobile. Gradually and painfully, therefore, family structure began to change. Torn apart by the migration to the cities, battered by economic storms, families stripped themselves of unwanted relatives, grew smaller, more mobile, and more suited to the needs of the new techno-sphere. The so-called nuclear family-father, mother, and a few children, with no encumbering relatives—became the standard, socially approved, “modern” model in all industrial societies, whether capitalist or socialist. Even in Japan, where ancestor worship gave the elderly an exceptionally important role, the large, close-knit, multigenerational household began to break down as the Second Wave advanced. More and more nuclear unis appeared. In short, the nuclear family became an indentifable feature of all Second Wave societies, marking them off from First Wave societies just as surely as fossil fuels, steel mills, or chain stores. As work shifted out of the fields and the home, moreover, children had to be prepared for factory life. The early mine, mill, and factory owners of industrializing England discovered, as Andrew Ure wrote in 1835, that it was “nearly impossible to convert persons past the age of puberty, whether drawn from rural or from handicraft occupations, into useful factory hands.” #RandolpHarris 6 of 21
If young people could be prefitted to the industrial system, it would vastly ease the problems of industrial discipline later of on. The result was another central structure of all Second Wave societies: mass education. Built in the factory model, mass education taught basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, a bit of history and other subjects. This was the “overt curriculum.” However, beneath it lay an invisible or “covert curriculum” that was far more basic. It consisted—and till does in most industrial nations—of three courses: one in punctuality, one in obedience, and one in rote, repetitive work. Factory labour demanded workers who showed up on time, especially assembly-line hands. It demanded workers who would take orders from a management hierarchy without questioning. And it demanded men and women prepared to slave away at machines or in offices, performing brutally repetitious operations. Thus from the mid-nineteenth century on, as the Second Wave cut across country after country, one found a relentless educational progression: children started school at a younger and younger age, the school year became longer and longer (in the United States of America it climbed 35 percent between 1878 and 1956), and the number of years of compulsory schooling irresistibly increased. Mass pubic education was clearly a humanizing step forward. As a group of mechanic and workingmen in New York City declared in 1829, “Next to life and liberty, we consider education the greatest blessing bestowed upon mankind.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Nevertheless, Second Wave schools machined generation after generation of young people into a pliable, regimented work force of the type required by electromechanical technology and the assembly line. Taken together, the nuclear family and the factory-style school formed part of a single integrated system for the preparation of young people for roles in industrial society. In this respect, too, Second Wave societies, capitalist or communist, North or South, were all alike. For many decades the ecological model was “the” model of urban growth. However, during recent decades it has increasingly come under attack by the scholars favouring neo-Marxian or political economy models. These models challenge the mainstream urban ecology perspective by emphasizing that urban patterns are not the result of “hidden hand” economic forces, but rather that urban patterns are deliberately shaped for private profit by elites in business and government. Thus, unlike ecological approaches, which explain suburbanization as occurring as a consequence of technological factors such as street-car or automobile, political economy, or neo-Marxian, views stress the role played by corporate and real estate interests in manipulating land usage and markets. Suburbia is not a consequence of individuals homeowner choice, but a consequence of a deliberate decision by elites to disinvest in the cities. These elites are composed of “the industrial executives, developers, bankers, and their political allies. This approach is sometimes also identified as the “new urban sociology.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
The new urban sociology is usually based on assumptions of neo-Marxism and conflict theory. The term “new urban sociology” is a bit of a misnomer, since advocates of this approach or paradigm often are geographers, urban planners, or political scientists rather than sociologists. Although these perspectives differ in specifics, they all stress that urban development is a consequence of capitalist modes of production, capital accumulation, exploitation of he powerless, and conflictual class relations. Societies are specified according to their mode of production. In the United States of America and Western Europe as well as elsewhere societal development is dominated by the capital accumulation process. A central role in the process of accumulation is assigned to labour power—its use, management, and reproduction. Social spatial relationships, particularly the relationship between capitalistic processes and space, are an intrinsic part of social development. Methodological individualism is overcome through specification of structure and its relationship to the agency, although the articulation of this relationship varies among the new urbanists. Real-estate and its supporting infrastructure constitute a “second circuit” of capital. Certain assumptions are common to the new critical urbanists. These are: Societal interaction is dominated by antagonistic social relationships. Consequently society is not a unified biotic community that experiences change from the outside, but a stratified and highly differentiated form of organization characterized by its own fissures, contradictions, and patterns of uneven development—features that flow from the (for example, the capitalistic) mode of production itself. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Social development is unstable in societies with antagonistic owner relationships. Contradictions of development and inequalities of growth fuel antagonism and define the nature of political activities. Power inequality is a basic element in societal relationships and the exercise of power can be a factor in societal development. No society can be adequately analyzed without reference to either its long-term history or its global context. Urban sociology has become captive of its own comfortable assumptions and resonates strongly with younger academics. Some also believe strongly that the social inequality, social conflict, and social problems in many American cities is the predictable consequences of capitalist political economy determining real estate and land usage because certain groups of people had their homes red tagged (scheduled for demolition) as cities were planning to redevelop them. This led to many years of generational wealth being lost for certain groups of people are these homes appreciated to become worth millions just 40 to 40 years later. However, capitalists tend to be republican, but some of these policies that led to certain groups of people being displaced from the homes they owned and robbed of future equity, for example, were policies created by the governors Pat Brown and his son Jerry Brown, who are both democrats. Even today as California brags about having a nearly $40 billion budget surplus, there is a major homeless crisis that is being overlooked by democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and the TV news media, but they can conjure up sports complexes and have them operational in two years, but no move being made on the construction and management of affordable housing. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
However, there is a conflict about affordable housing because many of their buildings tend to rent to people and do not manage them and there is a lot of violence, crime, rule breaking, and noise, so people do not want income based, or low-income properties in their community because rules are not enforced and it makes the community unlivable for people who pay market rate and often well above market rate prices for their homes. Yet, the answer is not to leave people on the streets to endure unhygienic and unsafe conditions. Well have to acknowledge and deal with gentrification, displacement, and neighbourhood revitalization. We also have to acknowledge the opposite of gentrification is happening: middle- and upper-income residents are moving out, and lower-income residents moving in. Urban space (as well as space at other scales) is the specific effect of the kind of society in which this urban space is developed and the capitalist city is developed according to a logic that is internal to capital itself. The trend of the affluent moving out of their communities has implications for millions of Americans who own a home or are thinking of buying one. In a neighbourhood that is losing its more affluent residents, home prices are likely to underperform, just as they tend to outperform in areas that are gentrifying, as incomes rise. As a buyer, you may value new construction and/or home prices that appreciate above all, and thus be attracted only to rising-income areas where the lawns are all manicured, houses are nice and well-maintained, and not too many cars on the street and in the driveway. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
As a systematic statement of how non-Marxian new sociology political economy approach can be used to study how property markets work as social phenomena is done by understanding that place is valued in two ways: first, as an object of exchange to be bought and sold, and second, when it is used to do business in or live in. In the latter case place has a sentimental and symbolic value associated with jobs, neighbourhood, hometown, and community. However, the urban growth machine of corporate political elites is interested in land strictly as an investment and commodity to be bought and sold. Their interest is in creating a good business environment so that investments and new residents will come to the area and increase market value of the land, and aggregate rent levels will increase. This governmental and corporate emphasis on growth is at the expense of the interest of local residents and their communities. The needs of the general public are captive to the “growth machine” whose principal interest is in the transfer of wealth rentier groups. Use values of the majority are sacrificed for the exchange values of a few. Thus, community groups that advocate slow growth or neighbourhood preservation are fought by the business elites that profit from maintaining the growth machines. For how can the source of the inequality among humans be known unless one begins by knowing humans themselves? And how will humans be successful in seeing themselves as nature formed one, through all the changes that the succession of time and things must have produced in one’s original constitution, and in separating what one derives from one’s own wherewithal from what circumstances and one’s progress have added to or changed in one’s primitive state? #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Like the Winchester mansion, which time, sea, earthquakes, humans, and storms have caused wear and damage to while the owners and historians fight to preserve this priceless treasure some consider a god, the human soul, altered in the midst of society by a thousand constantly recurring causes, by the acquisition of a multitude of bits of knowledge and errors, by changes that to place in the constitution of bodies, by the constant impact of the passions, as, as it were, changed its appearance to the point of being nearly unrecognizable or not fully displaying its original intent. And instead of a being active always by certain and invariable principles, instead of that Heavenly and majestic simplicity whose mark its author had left on it, one no longer finds anything but grotesque contrast of passion which thinks I reasons and an understanding in a state of delirium. What is even more cruel is that, since all the progress of the human species continually moves away from its primitive state, the more we accumulate new knowledge, the more we deprive ourselves of the means of acquiring the most important knowledge of all. Thus, in a sense, it is by dint of studying humans that we have rendered ourselves incapable of knowing them. It is easy to say that it is in these successive changes of the human constitution that we must seek the first origin of the differences that distinguish humans, who, by common consensus, are naturally as equal among themselves as were the terrestrial beings of each species the varieties we now observe among some of them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
In effect, it is inconceivable that these first changes, by whatever means they took place, should have altered all at once and in the same manner all the individuals of the species. However, while some improved or declined and acquired various good and bad qualities which were not inherent in their nature, the others remained longer in their original state. And such was the first source of inequality among humans, which it is easier to demonstrate thus in general than to assign with precision its true causes. Let my readers not imagine, then, that I dare flatter myself with having seen what appears to me so difficult to see. I have begun some lines of reasoning; I have hazarded some guesses, less in the hope of resolving the question than with intention of clarifying it and of reducing it to its true state. Others will easily be able to go farther on this same route, though it will not be easy for anyone to reach the end of it. For it is no light undertaking to separate what is original from what is artificial in the present nature of humans, and to have a proper understanding of a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never existed, which probably never will exist, and yet about which it is necessary to have accurate notions in order to judge properly our own present state. One who would attempt to determine precisely which precautions to take in order to make solid observations on the subject would need even more philosophy than is generally supposed; and a good solution of the following problem would not seem to me unworthy of the Aristotles and Plinys of our century: What experiments would be necessary to achieve knowledge of natural man? And what are the means of carrying out these experiments in the midst of society? #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Far from undertaking to resolve this problem, I believe I have meditated sufficiently on the subject to dare respond in advance that the greatest philosophers will not be too good to direct these experiments, nor the most powerful sovereigns to carry them out. It is hardly reasonable to expect such a combination, especially with the perseverance or rather the succession of understanding and good will needed on both sides in order to achieve success. These investigations, so difficult to carry out and so little thought about until now, are nevertheless the only means we have left of removing a multitude of difficulties that conceal from us the knowledge of the real foundations of human society. It is this ignorance of the nature of humans which throws so much uncertainty and obscurity on the true definition of natural right. For the ideal of right, and even more that of natural right, are manifestly ideas relative to the nature of humans. Therefore, one continues, the principles of this science must be deuced from this very nature of humans, from human’s constitution and state. It is not without surprise and a sense of outrage that one observes the paucity of agreement that prevails among the various authors who have treated it. Among the most serious writers one can hardly find two who are of the same opinion on this point. The Roman jurists—not to mention the ancient philosophers who seem to have done their best to contradict each other on the most fundamental principles—subject human and all other terrestrial beings indifferently to the same natural law, because they take this expression to refer to the law that nature imposes on itself rather than the law she prescribes, or rather because of the particular sense in which those jurists understood the word “law,” which on this occasion they seem to have taken only for the expression of the general relations established by nature among all animate beings for their common preservation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
The moderns, in acknowledging under the word “law” merely a rule prescribed to a moral being, that is to say, intelligent, free, and considered in one’s relations with other beings, consequently limit the competence of the natural law to the only terrestrial being who know of endowed with reason, that is, to humans. However, with each other defining this law in one’s own fashion, they all establish it on some metaphysical principles that even among us there are very few people in a position to grasp these principles, far from being able to find them by themselves. So that all the definitions of these wise humans, otherwise in perpetual contradiction with one another agree on this alone that it is impossible to understand the law of nature and consequently to obey it without being a great reasoner and a profound metaphysician, which humans do not naturally have, and from advantages the idea of which they cannot conceive until after having left the state of nature. Writers begin by seeking the rules on which, for the common utility, it would be appropriate for humans to agree among themselves; and then they give the name natural law to the collection of these rules, with no other proof than the good which presumably would result from their universal observance. Surely this is a very convenient way to compose definitions and to explain the nature of things by virtually arbitrary views of what is seemly. However, as long as we are unaware of natural man, it is futile for us to attempt to determine the law he has received or which is best suited to his constitution. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
All that we can see very clearly regarding this law is that, for it to be law, not only must he will of one who is obliged by it be capable of knowing submission to it, but also, for it to be natural, it must speak directly by the voice of nature. Leaving aside therefore all he scientific books which teach us only to see humans as they have made themselves, and meditating on the first and most simple operations of the human soul, I believe I perceive in it two principles that are prior to reason, of which one makes us ardently interested in our well-being and our self-preservation, and the other inspires in us a natural repugnance to seeing any sentient being, especially our fellow humans, perish or suffer. It is from the conjunction and combination that our mind is in a position to make regarding these two principles, without the need for introducing that of sociability, that all the rules of natura right appear to me to flow; rules which reason is later forced to reestablish on other foundations, when, by its successive developments, it has succeeded in smothering nature. In this way one is not obliged to make a human a philosopher before making one a human. One’s duties toward others are not uniquely dictated to one by the belated lessons of wisdom; and as long as one does no resist the inner impulse of compassion, one will never harm another human or even another sentient being, except in the legitimate instance where, if one preservation were involved, one is obliged to give preference to oneself. By this means, an end can also be made to the ancient disputes regarding the participation of non-human terrestrial beings in the natural law. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
For it is clear that, lacking intelligence and liberty, some terrestrial beings cannot recognize this natural law; but since they share to some extent in our nature by virtue of the sentient quality with which they are endowed, one will judge that they should also patriciate in natural right, and that humans are subject to some sort of duties toward them. It seems, in effect, that if I am obliged not to do any harm to my fellow humans, it is less because one is a rational being than because one is a sentient being: a quality that, since it is common to both non-human terrestrial beings and human beings, should at least give the former the right not to be needlessly mistreated by the latter. This same study or original man, of his true needs and the fundamental principles of his duties, is also the only good means that can be used to remove those multitudes of difficulties which present themselves regarding the origin of moral inequality, the true foundations of the body politic, the reciprocal rights of is members, and a thousand other similar questions that are as important as they are poorly explained. In considering human society from a tranquil and disinterested point of view it seems at firs to manifest merely the violence of powerful men and the oppression of the weak. The mind revolt against the harshness of the former; one is inclined to deplore the blindness of the latter. And since nothing is less stable among men than those external relationships which chance brings about more often than wisdom, and which are called weakness or power, wealth or poverty, human establishments appear at first glance to be based on piles of shifting sand. It is only in examining them closely, only after having cleared away the dust and sand that surround the edifice, hat one perceives the unshakable base on which it is raised and one learns to respect its foundations. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Now without a serious study of man, of his natural faculties and their successive developments, one will never succeed in making these distinctions and in separating, in the present constitution of things, what the divine will has done from what human art has pretended to do. The political and moral investigations occasioned by the important question I am examining are therefore useful in every way; and the hypothetical history of governments is an instructive lesson for man in every respect. In considering what we would have become, left to ourselves, we ought to learn to bless him whose beneficent hand, in correcting our institutions and giving them an unshakable foundation, has prevented the disorders that must otherwise result from them, and has brought about our happiness from the means that seemed likely to add to our misery. Learn whom God has ordered you to be, and in what part of human affairs you have been placed. As it stands, 52 percent of evangelicals do not accept or do not believe in absolute moral truths! What is happening? When the church does not get it right, the World certainly cannot get it right. Revival is coming! The Heavenly messengers will quiet your fears as you learn to find Jesus Christ. “Then I saw another mighty Angel coming down from Heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars. He was holding a little scroll, which lay open in his hand. He planted his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion. When he shouted, the voices of the seven thunders spoke. And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from Heaven say, ‘Seal up what thunders have said and do not write it down.’ #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“Then the Angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right and to Heaven. And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the Heavens and all that is in them, the Earth and the sea and all that is in it, and said, ‘There will be no more delay! However, in the days when the seventh Angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.’ Then then voice that I had heard from Heaven spoke to me once more: ‘Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the Angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.’ So I went to the Angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, ‘Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’ I took the little scroll from the Angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many people, nations, languages and kings,” reports Revelation 10.1-11. With tender regard for human weaknesses, the Angel will give humans time to become accustomed to the divine radiance. Then the joy and glory will no longer be hidden. The whole plain will light up with the bright shinning of the hosts of God. Earth will be hushed, and the Heavens will stoop to listen to the son—“Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will towards humans.” “For the Lord your God is brining you into a good land, a land of flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a long of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
“God is blessing us with a land where we will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and from whose hills you may mine copper, blue sapphires and diamond. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you,” reports Deuteronomy 8.7-11. Tall, lush rain forest dripping in the morning wild orchids banana flowers, thick vines drape los palos del sol and great white cedar; others with five foot green elephant ears flopping, hundreds of butterflies, orange caterpillars, blue birds, pink mushrooms, through billion of green leaves quivering moist in the patchy sunlight. There are exalted but rare occasion when inspiration, peace, and spiritual majesty conjoin their blessed presence within us. It is with one for the flicker of a second—an unfathomable tranquility, an indefinable beauty—and then gone. Some enter into this experience only once in a lifetime; others repeat it a few times. Only a rare individual here and there enters it frequently. In the book of life, blessing, peace, and ample sustenance, may we, together with all Thy people, the house of America, be remembered and inscribed before Thee for a happy life and for peace. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who establishest peace. O Lord, please guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile, and to those who slander me, let e give no heed. May my soul be humble and forgiving unto all. Please open Thou my heart, O Lord, unto Thy sacred Law, that Thy statutes I may know and all Thy truths pursue. Please bring to naught designs of those who seek to do me ill; speedily defeat their aims and thwart their purposes for Thine own sake, for Thine own power, for Thy holiness and Law. That Thy loved ones be delivered, answer us, O Lord, and save with Thy redeeming power. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable unto Thee, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Thou who establishes peace in the Heavens, please grant peace unto us and unto All America. Amen. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Fashionable men and women do not just put on fashionable clothes. The truly fashionable are beyond fashion. Ageism, which refers to discrimination or prejudice based on age, can oppress the young as well as seniors. For instance, a person applying for a job may just as well be told, “You are too young” as “You are too old.” In some societies, ageism is based on respect for the elderly. In japan, for instance, aging is seen as beneficial, and greater age brings with it more status and respect. In most nations in the New World, however, ageism tends to have a negative impact on older individuals. Usually, it is expressed as a rejection of the elderly. The concept of “oldness” is often to expel people from useful work: Too often, retirement is just another name for dismissal and unemployment. Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest. You have almost certainly encountered ageism in one way or another. Stereotyping is a major facet of ageism. Popular stereotypes of the “dirty old man,” “meddling old woman,” ‘senile old fool,” and the like, help perpetuate the myths underlying ageism. Contrast such as images to those associated with youthfulness: The young are perceived as fresh, whole, attractive, energetic, active, emerging, and appealing. Yet, even good stereotypes can be a problem. For example, if older people are perceived as financially well off, wise, or experienced, it can blind others to the real problems of the elderly. The important point is that age-based stereotypes are often wrong. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
A tremendous diversity exists among the elderly—ranging from the infirm and demented to aerobic-dancing grandmothers. The Lord knows and love the elderly among His people. It has always been so, and upon them He has bestowed many of His greatest responsibilities. In various dispensations He has guided His people through prophets who were in their advancing years. God has needed the wisdom and experience of age, the inspired direction from those with long years of proven faithfulness to His gospel. Two apparently contrasting images of the future grip the popular imagination today. Most people—to the extent that they bother to think about the future at all—assume the World they know will last indefinitely. They find it difficult to imagine a truly different way of life for themselves, let alone a totally new civilization. Of course they recognize that things are changing. However, they assume today’s changes will somehow pass them by and that nothing will shake the familiar economic framework and political structure. They confidently expect the future to continue the present. This straight-line thinking comes in various packages. At one level it appears as an unexamined assumption lying behind the decisions of business people, teachers, parents, and politicians. At a more sophisticated level it comes dressed up in statistics, computerized data, and forecasters’ jargon. Either way it adds up to a vision of a future World that is essentially “more of the same”—Second Wave industrialism writ even larger and spread over more of this planet. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Recent events have severely shaken this confident image of the future. As crisis after crisis has crackled across the headlines, as Israel erupted, as Dictator Lukashenko is considered out of control, as oil prices skyrocket, as inflation runs wild, as terrorism spreads, and governments seem helpless to stop it, a bleaker vision has become increasingly popular. Thus, large numbers of people—feed on a steady diet of bad and fake news, disaster movies, apocalyptic Bible stories, and nightmare scenarios issued by prestigious think tanks—have apparently concluded that today’s society cannot be projected into the future because no future. For them, Armageddon is only minutes away. The Earth is racing toward its final cataclysmic shudder. On the surface these two visions of the future seem very different. Yet both produce similar psychological and political effects. For both lead to the paralysis of imagination and will. If tomorrow’s society is simply an enlarged, Cinerama version of the present, there is little we need do to prepare for it. If, on the other hand, society is inevitably destined to self-destruct within out lifetime, there is noting we can do about it. In short, both these ways of looking at the future generate privatism and passivity. Both freeze us into inaction. Yet, in trying to understand what is happening to us, we are not limited to this simpleminded choice between Armageddon and More-of-the-Same. There are many more clarifying and constructive ways to think about tomorrow—ways that prepare us for the present. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
The revolutionary premise assumes that, even though the decades immediately ahead are likely to be filled with upheavals, turbulence, perhaps even widespread violence, we will not totally destroy ourselves. It assumes that the jolting changes we are now experiencing are not chaotic or random but that, in fact, they form a sharp, clearly discernible pattern. It assumes, moreover, that these changes are cumulative—that they add up to a giant transformation in the way we live, work, play, and think, and that a sane and desirable future is possible. In short, what follows begins with the premise that what is happening now is nothing less than a global revolution, quantum jump in history. Put differently, we are working with the assumption that we are the final generation of an old civilization and the first generation of a new one, and that much of our personal confusion, anguish, and disorientation can be traced directly to the conflict within us, and within our political institutions, between the dying Second Wave civilization and the emergent Third Wave civilization that is thundering in to take it place. When we finally understand this, many seemingly senseless events become suddenly comprehensible. The broad patterns of change begin to emerge clearly. Action for survival becomes possible and plausible again. In short, the revolutionary premise liberates our intellect and our will. We Devouts know more about Christ than we do about the Saints. For example, whoever finds the spirit of Christ discovers in the process many “unexpected delights,” if I may use the expression of the Apostle John’s from the Last Book of the New Testament (2.17). #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
However, that is not often the case. Many who have heard the Gospel over and over again thin they know it ll. If there is more to the story, they have little desire to discover it. That is because, as the Apostle Paul diagnosed it in his Letter to the Romans (8.9), “they do not have the spirit of Christ. On the other hand, whoever wants to understand the words of Christ and fully and slowly savour their sweetness has to work hard at making oneself another Christ. if you are not humble, you make the Trinity nervous, and that wretched state what possible good do you get out of standing up in public and disputing to high Heaven about the Trinity as an intellectual entity? The real truth, if only you would learn it, is that highfalutin words do not make us Saints. Only a virtuous life can do that, and only that can make God care for us. “Contemplation” is a good example. The School people at the University—that is to say, the Philosophers and the Theologians—could produce lengthy, perhaps even lacy, definitions of this holy word, but that would not move them one inch closer to the Gate of Heaven. The humble Devout, on the other hand, who can neither read nor write, might very well have experienced compunction every day of one’s life; one’s the one, whether one knows it or not, who will find oneself already waiting at that very gate when the Final Day comes. By the way, I do know what compunction means, and so should you: a prickling or stinging of the conscience. If I may put it the way Paul did in his First Letter to the Corinthians (13.3), are you any the richer for knowing all the proverbs of the Bible and all the axioms of Philosophers, when you re really all the poorer for not knowing the charity and the grace of God? #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
“Vanity of vanities, and everything is vanity,” says the Ancient Hebrew Preacher in Ecclesiastes (1.2). The only thing that is not vanity is loving God and, as Moses preached to the Israelites in Deuteronomy, serving him alone (6.13). That is the highest wisdom, to navigate one’s courses, using the contempt of the World as a chart, toward that Heavenly Port. Just what is vanity? Well, it is many things. A portfolio of assets that are bound to crash. A bird breast of medals and decorations. A brassy solo before an unhearing crowd. Alley-catting one’s “carnal desires,” as Paul so lustily put it to the Galatians (5.16), only to discover that punishment awaits further up and father in. Pining for a long life and at the same time paying no attention to the good life. Focusing both eyes on the present without casting an eye toward the future. Marching smartly in the passing parade instead of falling all over oneself trying to get back to that reviewing stand where Eternal Joy is queen. Do not forget the horary wisdom of the Ancient Hebrew Preacher: “The eye is never satisfied by what they it sees; nor the ears by what they hear” (1.8). With that in mind, try to transfer your holdings from the visible market into the invisible one. The reason? Those who trade in their own sensualities only muck up their own account and, in the process, muddy up God’s final account. To say the changes we face will be revolutionary, however, is not enough. Before we can control or channel them we need a fresh way to identify and analyze them. Without this we are hopelessly lost. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
One powerful new approach might be called social “wavefront” analysis. It looks at history as a succession of rolling waves of change and asks where the leading edge of each wave is carrying us. It focuses our attention not so much on the continuities of history (important as they are) as on the discontinuities—the innovations and breakpoints. It identifies key change patterns as they emerge, so that we can influence them. Beginning with the very simple idea that the rise of agriculture was the first turning point in human social development, and that the industrial revolution was the second great breakthrough, it views each of these not as a discrete, one-time event but as a wave of change moving at a certain velocity. Before the First Wave of change, most humans lived in small, often migratory groups and fed themselves by foraging, fishing, hunting, or herding. At some point, roughly ten millennia ago, the agricultural revolution began, and it crept slowly across the planet spreading villages, settlements, cultivated land, and a new way of life. This First Wave of change had no yet exhausted itself by the end of the seventeenth century, when the industrial revolution broke over Europe and unleashed the second great wave of planetary change. This new process—industrialization—began moving much more rapidly across nations and continents. Thus two separate and distinct change processes were rolling across the Earth simultaneously, at different speeds. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Today the First Wave has virtually subsided. Only a few tiny tribal populations, in South America or Papua New Guinea, for example, remain to be reached by agriculture. However, the force of this great First Wave has basically been spent. Meanwhile, the Second Wave, having revolutionized life in Europe, North America, and some other parts of the globe in a few short centuries, continues to spread, as many countries, until now basically agricultural, scramble to build steel mills, auto plants, textile factories, railroad, and food processing plants. The momentum of industrialization is still felt. The Second Wave has not entirely spent its force. However, even as this process continues, another, even more important, has begun. For as the tide of industrialism peaked in the decades after World War In, a little-understood Third Wave began to surge across the Earth, transforming everything it touched. Many countries, therefore, are feeling the simultaneous impact of two, even three, quite different waves of change, all moving at different rates of speed and with different degrees of force behind them. For our purposes, we shall consider the First Wave era to have begun sometime around 8000 B.C. and to have dominated the Earth unchallenged until sometime around A.D. 1650-1750. From this moment on, the First Wave lost momentum as the Second Wave picked up steam. Industrial civilization, the product of the Second Wave, then dominated the planet in its turn until it, too, created. This latest historical turning point arrived in the United States during the decade beginning around 1955—the decade that saw white-collar and service workers outnumber blue-collar workers for the first time. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
That same decade, which started in 1955 saw widespread introduction of the computer, commercial jet travel, oral contraceptives, and many other high-impact innovations. It was precisely during this decade that the Third Wave began to gather its force in the United States of America. Since then it has arrived—at slightly different dates—in most of the other industrial nations, including Britain, France, Sweden, Germany, Russian, and Japan. Today all the high-technology nations are reeling from the collision between the Third Wave and the obsolete, encrusted economies and institutions of the Second. Understanding this is the secret to making sense of much of the political and social conflict we see around us. A tool that can help us cope with these changes is psychology. What is true of psychology is also true of the other academic disciplines, each of which provides a perspective from which we can study nature and our place in it. These range from the scientific fields that study the most elementary building blocks of nature up to philosophy and theology, which address some of life’s global questions. Which perspective is pertinent depends on what you want to talk about. Take romantic love, for example. A physiologist might describe love as a state of arousal. A social psychologist would examine how various characteristics and conditions—good looks, similarity of partners, sheer repeated exposure to one another—enhance the emotion of love. A poet would express the sublime experience that love can sometimes be. A theologian might describe love as the God-given goal of human relationship. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Since love can often be described simultaneously at various levels, we need not assume that one level is causing the other—by supposing for example, that a brain state is causing the emotion of love or that the emotion is causing the brain state. The emotional and physiological views are simply two complementary perspectives. There is a Partial Hierarchy of Disciplines. The disciplines range from basic sciences that study nature’s building blocks up to more integrative disciplines that study whole complex systems. Successful explanation of human functioning at one level need not invalidate explanation at other levels. At the Top of the scale at the disciplines that are considered Integrative Explanation and at the bottom are Elemental Explanation. Those that fall lower and in between the two extremes are a specific degree combination of the two explanations. At starts off with: Theology, and as we work our way down the scale, we see Literature and Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, and at the very bottom Physics. The hierarchy on the scale does not make one explanation more valuable than another. Nature is, to be sure, all of a piece. For convenience, we necessarily view it as multilayered, but it is actually a seamless unity. Thus the different ways of looking at a phenomenon like romantic love (or belief or consciousness) can sometimes be correlated, enabling us to build bridges between different perspectives. Attempts at building bridges between religion and the human sciences have sometimes proceeded smoothly. A religious explanation of the incest taboo (in terms of divine will or a moral absolute) is nicely complemented by biological explanation (in terms of the genetic penalty that offsprings pay for inbreeding) and sociological explanation (in terms of preserving the marital and family units). #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Other times the bridge-building efforts extending from both sides see not to connect in the middle, as when a conviction that God performs miracles in answer to prayers is met with scientific skepticism and psychological explanation of how people form illusory beliefs. To say that religious and scientific levels of explanation can be complementary does not mean there is never conflict or that any unsupported idea is to be welcomes as truth. It just means that different types of explanation may actually fit coherently together. In God’s World, all truth is one. So we arrive at a simple but basic point that resolves a good deal of fruitless debate over whether the religious or the psychological account of human nature is preferable: different levels of explanation can be complementary. The methods of psychology are appropriate, and appropriate only, for their own purposes. Psychological explanation has provided satisfying answers to many important questions regarding why people think, feel, and act as they do. However, it does not even pretend to answer life’s ultimate questions. Let us therefore celebrate and use psychology for what it offers us, remembering that it is but one aspect of the larger whole. From the admission that God exists and is the author of Nature, it by no means follows that miracles must, or even can, occur. God Himself might be a being of such a kind that it was contrary to His character to work miracles. Or again, He might have made Nature the sort of thing that cannot be added to, subtracted from, or modified. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
Accordingly, the case against Miracles relies on two different grounds. You either think that the character of God excludes them or that the character of Nature excludes them. We will begin with the second which is the more popular ground. The first Red Herring is this. Any say you may hear a human (and not necessarily a disbeliever in God) say of some alleged miracle, “No. Of course I do not believe that. We know it is contrary to the laws of Nature. People could believe it in olden times because they did not know that laws of Nature. We know now that it is a scientific impossibility.” By the “laws of Nature” such a human means, I think, the observed course of Nature. If one means anything more than that one is not the plain human I take one for but a philosophic Naturalist and will be dealt with in later discussions. The human I have in this view believes that mere experience (and specially those artificially contrived experiences which we call Experiments) can tell us what regularly happens in Nature. And one thinks that what we have discovered excludes the possibility of Miracle. This is a confusion of mind. Granted that miracles can occur, it is, of course, for experience to day whether one has done so on any given occasion. However, mere experience, even if prolonged for a million years, cannot tell us whether the thing is possible. Experiment finds out what regularly happens in Nature: the norm or rule to which she works. Those who believe in miracles are not denying that there is such a norm or rule: they are only saying that it can be suspended. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
A miracle is by definition an exception. How can the discovery of the rule tell you whether, granted a sufficient cause, the rule can be suspended? If we said that the rule was A, then experience might refute us by discovering the it was B. If we said that there was no rule, then experience might refute us by observing that there is. However, we are saying neither of these things. We agree that there is a rule and that the rule is B. What has that got to do with the question whether the rule can be suspended? You replay, “But experience shows that it never has.” We reply, “Even if that were so, this would not prove that it never can. However, does experience show that it never has? The World is full of stories of people who say they have experienced miracles. Perhaps the stories are false: perhaps they are true. However, before you can decide on that historical question, you must first discover whether the things is possible, and if possible, how probable.” The idea that the progress of science has somehow altered this question is closely bound up with the idea that people in ancient time believed in them because they did not know the laws of Nature. Thus you will hear people say, “The early Christians believed that Christ was the son of a virgin, but we know that this is a scientific impossibility.” Such people seem to have an idea that belief in miracles arose at a period when humans were so ignorant of the cause of nature that they did not perceive a miracle to be contrary to it. A moment’s thought shows this to be nonsense: and the story of the Virgin Birth is a particularly striking example. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
When Saint Joseph discovered that his fiancée was going to have a baby, he not unnaturally decided to repudiate her. Why? because he knew just as well as any modern gynaecologist that in the ordinary course of nature women do not have babies unless they have lain with men. No doubt the modern gynaecologist knows several things about birth and begetting which Saint Joseph did not know. However, those things do not concern the main point—that a virgin birth is contrary to the course of nature. And Saint Joseph obviously knew that. In any sense in which it is true to say now, “The thing is scientifically impossible,” he would have said the same: the thing always was, and was always known to be, impossible unless the regular processes of nature were, in this particular case, being over-ruled or supplemented by something from beyond nature. When Saint Joseph finally accepted the view that his fiancée’s pregnancy was not due to unchastity but to a miracle, he accepted the miracle as something contrary to the known order of nature. All records of miracles teach the same thing. In such stories the miracles excite fear and wonder (that is what the very word miracle implies) among the spectators, and are taken as evidence of supernatural power. If they were not known to be contrary to the laws of nature how could they suggest the presence of the supernatural? How could they be surprising unless they were seen to be exceptions to the rules? And how can anything be seen to be an exception till the rules are know? If there were ever humans who did not know the laws of nature at all, they would have no idea of a miracle and feel no particular interest in one if it were performed before them. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
Nothing can seem extraordinary until you have discovered what is ordinary. Belief in miracles, far from depending on an ignorance of the laws of nature, is only possible in so far as those laws are known. We must now add that you will equally perceive no miracles until you believe that nature works adducing to regular laws. If you have not yet noticed that the sun always rises in the East you will see nothing miraculous about his rising one morning in the West. If the miracles were offered us as event that normally occurred, then the process of science, whose business is to tell us what normally occurs, would render belief in them gradually harder and finally impossible. The progress of science has in just this way (and greatly to our benefit) made all sorts of things incredible which our ancestors believed; human-eating ants and gryphons in Scythia, humans with one single gigantic foot, magnetic islands that draw all ships towards them, mermaids and fire-breathing dragons. However, those things were never put forward as supernatural interruptions of the course of nature. They were put forward as items within her ordinary course—in fact as “science.” Later and better science has therefore rightly removed them. Miracles are in a wholly different position. If there were fire-breathing dragons our big-game hunters would find them: but no one ever pretended that the Virgin Birth or Christ’s walking on the water could be reckoned on to recur. When a thing professes from the very outset to be a unique invasion of Nature by something from outside, increasing knowledge of Nature can never make it either more or less credible that it was at the beginning. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
In this sense it is mere confusion of thought to suppose that advancing science has made it harder for us to accept miracles. We always knew they were contrary to the natural course of events; we know still that if there is something beyond Nature, they are possible. Those are the bare bones of the question; time and progress and science and civilization have not altered them in the least. The grounds for belief and disbelief are the same today as they were two thousand—or ten thousand—years ago. If Saint Joseph had lacked faith to trust God or humility to perceive the holiness of one’s spouse, one could have disbelieved in the miraculous origin of her Son as easily as any modern human; and any modern human who believes in God can accept the miracles as easily as Saint Joseph did. You and I my not agree, no matter what I say, as to whether miracles happen or not. However, at least let us not talk nonsense. Let us not allow vague rhetoric about the march of science to fool us into supposing that the most complicated account of birth, in terms of genes and spermatozoa, leaves us any more convinced than we were before that nature does not send babies to young women who “know not a man.” The second Red Herring is this. Many people say, “They could believe in miracles in olden times because they had a false conception of the Universe. They thought the Earth was the largest thing in it and Man the most important creature. It therefore seemed reasonable to suppose that the Creator was specially interested in Man and might even interrupt the course of Nature for his benefit. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
“However, now that we know the real immensity of the Universe—now that we perceive our own planet and even the whole Solar System to be only a speck—it becomes ludicrous to believe in them any longer. We have discovered our insignificance and can no longer suppose that God is so drastically concerned in our petty affairs.” Whatever its value my be as an argument, it ay be stated at once that this view is quite wrong about facts. The immensity of the Universe is not a recent discovery. More than seventeen hundred years ago Ptolemy taught that in relation to the distance of the fixed stars the whole Earth must be regarded as a point with no magnitude. His astronomical system was universally accepted in the Dark and Middle Ages. The insignificance of Earth was as much a commonplace to Boethius, King Alfred, Dante, and Chaucer as it is to Mr. H. G. Wells, or Professor Haldane. Statements to the contrary in modern books are due to ignorance. The real question is quite different from what we commonly suppose. The real question is why the spatial insignificance of Earth, after being asserted by Christian philosophers, sung by Christian poets, and commented on by Christian moralist for some fifteen centuries, without the slightest suspicion that it conflicted with their theology, should suddenly in quite modern times have been set up as a stock argument against Christianity and enjoyed, in that capacity, a brilliant career. I will offer a guess at the answer to this question presently. For the moment, let us consider he strength of this stock argument. When the doctor at post-mortem looks at the dead human’s organs and diagnoses poison one has a clear idea of the different state in which the organs would have been if the human had died a natural death. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
If from the vastness of the Universe and the smallness of Earth we diagnose that Christianity is false we ought to have a clear idea of the sort of Universe we should have expected if it were true. However, have we? Whatever space may really be, it is certain that our perceptions make it appear three dimensional; and to a three-dimensional space no boundaries are conceivable. By the very forms of our perceptions therefore we must feel as if we lived somewhere in infinite space: and whatever size the Earth happens to be, it must of course be very small in comparison with infinite. And this infinite space must either be empty or contain bodies. If it were empty, if it contained noting but our own Sun, then that vast vacancy would certainly be used as an argument against the very existence of God. Why, it would be asked, should He create one speck and leave all the rest of space to nonentity? If, on the other hand, we find (as we actually do) countless bodies floating in space, they must be either habitable or uninhabitable. Now the odd thing is that both alternatives are equally used as objections to Christianity. If the Universe is teeming with life other than ours, then this, we are told, makes it quite ridiculous to believe that God should be so concerned with the human race as to “come down from Heaven” and be made man for its redemption. If, on the other hand, our planet is really unique in harbouring organic life, then this is thought to prove that life is only an accidental by-product in the Universe and so again to disprove our religion. We treat God as the policeman in the story treated the suspect; whatever he does “will be used in evidence against Him.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
This kind of objection to the Christian faith is not really based on the observed nature of the actual Universe at all. You can make it without waiting to find out what the Universe is like, for it will fit any kind of Universe we choose to imagine. The doctor here can diagnose poison without looking at the corpse for one has a theory of poison which one will maintain whatever the state of the organs turns out to be. The reason why we cannot even imagine a Universe so built as to exclude these objections is, perhaps, as follows. Man is a finite creature who has sense enough to know that he is finite: therefore, on any conceivable view, he finds himself dwarfed by reality as a whole. He is also a derivative being: the cause of his existence lies not in himself but (immediately) in his parents and (ultimately0 either in the character of Nature as a whole or (if there is a God) in God. However, there must be something, whether it be God or the totality of Nature, which exists in its own right or goes on “of its own accord”; not as the product of causes beyond itself, but simply because it does. In the face of that something, whichever it turns out to be, man must feel his own derived existence to be unimportant, irrelevant, almost accidental. There is no question of religious people fancying that all exists for man and scientific people discovering that is does not. Whether the ultimate and inexplicable being—that which simply is—turns out to be God or “the whole show,” of course it does not exist for us. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
On either view we are faced with something which existed before the human race appeared and will exist after the Earth has become uninhabitable; which is utterly independent of us though we are totally dependent on it; and which, through vast ranges of its being, has no relevance to our own hopes and fears. For no human was, I suppose, ever so mad as to think that man, or all creation, filled the Divine Mind; if we are a smaller thing to God. It is profound mistake to imagine that Christianity ever intended to dissipate the bewilderment and ever the terror, the sense of our own nothingness, which come upon us when we think about the nature of things. It comes to intensify them. Without such sensations there is no religion. Many a human, brought up in the glib profession of some shallow form of Christianity, who comes through reading Astronomy to realise for the first time how majestically indifferent most reality is to humans, and who perhaps abandons one’s religion on that account, may at that moment be having one’s first genuinely religious experience. Christianity does not involve the belief that God loves humans and for their sake became man and died. I have not yet succeeded in seeing how what we know (and have known since the days of Ptolemy) about the size of the Universe affects the credibility of this doctrine one way or the other. The sceptic asks how we can believe that God so “came down” to this one tiny planet. If we knew that there are rational creatures on any of the other bodies that float is space; that they have, like us, fallen and need redemption; that their redemption must be in the same mode as ours; and that redemption in this mode has been withheld from them, the questions would be embarrassing. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
The Universe may be full of happy lives that never needed redemption. It may be full of lives that have been redeemed in the very same mode as our own. It may be full of things quite other than life in which God is interested though we are not. If it is maintained that anything so small as the Earth must, in any event, be too unimportant to merit the love of the Creator, we reply that no Christian ever supposed we did merit it. Christ did not die for human because they were intrinsically worth dying for, but because He is intrinsically love, and therefore loves infinitely. And what, after all, does the size of a World or a creature tell us about its “importance” or value? There is no doubt that we feel the incongruity of supposing, say, that the planet Earth might be more important than the Great Nebula in Andromeda. On the other hand, we are all equally certain that only a lunatic would think a man six-feet high necessarily more important than a man five-feet high, or a horse necessarily more important than a man, or a man’s legs than his brain. In other words this supposed ratio of size to importance feels plausible only when one of the sizes to importance feels plausible only when one of the sizes involved is very great. And that betrays the true basic of this type of thought. When a relation is perceived by Reason, it is perceived to hold good universally. If our Reason told us that size was proportional to importance, then small differences in size would be accompanied by small differences in importance just as surely as great differences in size were accompanied by great differences in importance. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
Your six-foot man would have to be slightly more valuable than the man of five feet, and your leg slightly more important than your brain—which every knows to be nonsense. The conclusion is inevitable: the importance we attach to great differences of size is an affair not of reason but of emotion—of that peculiar emotion which superiorities in seize begin to produce in us only after a certain point of absolute size has been reached. We are inveterate poets. When a quantity is very great we cease to regard it as a mere quantity. Our imaginations awake. Instead of mere quantity, we now have a quality—the Sublime. However, for this, the merely arithmetical greatness of the Galaxy would be no mor impressive than the figures in an account book. To a mind which did not share our emotions and lacked our imaginative energies, the argument against Christianity from the size of the Universe would be simply unintelligible. It is there for from ourselves that the material Universe derives its power to overawe us. Humans of sensibility look up on the night sky with awe: brutal and stupid humans do not. When the silence of the eternal spaces terrified Pascal, it was Pascal’s own greatness that enabled them to do so; to be frightened by the bigness of the nebulae is, almost literally, to be frightened at our own shadow. For light years and geological periods are mere arithmetic until the shadow of human, the poet, the maker of myths, falls upon them. As a Christian I do not say we are wrong to tremble at that shadow, for I believe it to be the shadow of an image of God. However, if the vastness of Nature ever threatens to overcrowd our spirits, we must remember that it is only Nature spiritualized by human imaginations. #RandolphHaris 22 of 25
This suggest a possible answer to the question raised recently—why is the size of the Universe, known for centuries, should first in modern times become an argument against Christianity? Has it perhaps done so because in modern times the imagination has become more sensitive to bigness? From this point of view the argument from size might almost be regarded as a by-product of the Romantic Movement in poetry. In addition to the absolute increase of imaginative vitality on this topic, there has pretty certainly been a decline on others. Any reader of old poetry can see that brightness appealed to ancient and medieval humans more than bigness, and more than it does to us. Medieval thinkers believed that the stars must be somehow superior to the Earth because they looked bright and it did not. Moderns think that the Galaxy ought to be more important than the Earth because it is bigger. Both states of mind can produce good poetry. Both can supply mental pictures which rouse very respectable emotions—emotions of awe, humility, or exhilaration. However, taken as serious philosophical argument both are ridiculous. The atheist’s argument from size is, in fact, an instance of just that picture-thinking to which, as we shall later discover, the Christian is no committee. It is the particular mode in which picture-thinking appears in the twenty-first century: for what we fondly call “primitive” errors do not pass away. They merely change their form. The glimpse in its most elementary form does not come only to specially gifted persons. It belongs to the portrait of every human being as natural and no a mysterious part of one’s life-experience. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
It is simply a part of the feeling for Nature, to whose systems one belongs, and for the Sun which is Nature’s supreme expression. The Sun’s glory, beauty, power, and benignity arouse reverence. Old World faiths mostly recognized this and made prayers obligatory at dawn and twilight. The point which has yet to be made is that these glimpses are no supernatural superhuman and solely religious experiences. When scientific psychology has advanced to the point where it really understands the human being in all one’s height and depth, and not merely one’s surface, it will see this. Although one is normally quite unconscious of this connection with the Overself, once at least in a lifetime there is a flash which visits one and break the unconsciousness. One has a glimpse of one’s highest possibility. However, the clearness of intensity of this glimpse depends upon one’s receptivity. They may amount to little or much. Many people without pretensions to mystical knowledge or belief have had this experience, this glimpse of timeless loveliness, through Nature, art, music or even for no apparent reason at all. And I though over again my small adventures as with a shore-wind I drifted out in my yacht, and thought I was in danger, my fears, those small ones that I thought so big for all the vital things I have to get and to reach. And yet, there is only one great thing; to live to see in hunts and on journeys the great day that dawns, and the light that fills the World. Our God and God of our fathers, accept our rest. Sanctify us through Thy commandments, and please grant our portion in Thy Torah. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
Can the true reason we fear the unknown, be that we know ourselves too well? Please give us abundantly of Thy goodness and please make us rejoice in Thy salvation. Please purify our hearts to serve Thee in truth. In Thy loving favour, O Lord our God, please grant that Thy holy Sabbath be our joyous heritage, and may America who sanctifies Thy name, rest thereon. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hallowest the Sabbath. May they who observe the Sabbath and call it a delight, rejoice in Thy kingdom. May the people who sanctify the seventh day be sated and delighted with Thy bounty. For Thou didst find pleasure in the seventh day, and didst sanctify it, calling it the most desirable of days, in remembrance of creation. May human beings begin to think of and dwell upon he One Infinite Life-Power, filling all space and pervading the entire Universe, existing everywhere, containing and permeating all creatures, all humanity, including one’s self. Accept and stress God’s existence. Next, call on God’s help, then concentrate on the truth of His recuperative power, which develops and sustains every cell of the body from birth, heals its wounds and knits its bones. Imagine God’s power to be flowing into you as White Light. Mentally draw the current into the body, through the forehead, the palms, and the solar plexus. Lastly, bring it to the part of the body that needs healing and concentrate it there. Think of the whole body as being manifestation of Creative Intelligence and as a projection of the higher self. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Seek the Virtuous Citizen Who Will Use the Social Contract to Make Virtue Reign!
We all wear masks, illusions of what we want people to see. But when we hide our true selves from the people we love, what price do we pay for that deception? In America if someone’s wife looks like a new woman, she probably is, so do not ask personal questions or talk about family. Noble acts and momentous events happen in the same way and produce the same impression as the ordinary facts. Significant intuitionist elements enter into determining the good, and in a teleological theory these are bound to affect the right. The classical utilitarian tries to avoid this consequence by the doctrine of hedonism, but to no avail. We cannot, however, stop here; we must find a constructive solution to the problem of choice which hedonism seeks to answer. Thus we are faced once again with the questions: if there is no single end that determines the appropriate pattern of aims, how is a rational plan of life actually to be identified? Now the answer to this question has already been given: a rational plan is one that would be chosen with deliberative rationality as defined by the full theory of the good. It remains to make sure that, within the context of a contract doctrine, this answer is perfectly satisfactory and that the problems which beset hedonism do not arise. A moral personality is characterized by two capacities: one for a conception of the good, the other for a sense of justice. When realized, the first is expressed by a rational plan of life, the second by a regulative desire to act upon certain principles of right. Thus a moral person is a subject with ends one has chosen, and one’s fundamental preference is for conditions that enable one to frame a mode of life that expressed one’s nature as a free and equal rational being as fully as circumstances permit. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Now the unity of the person is manifest in the coherence of one’s plan, this unity being founded on the higher-order desire to follow, in ways consistent with one’s sense of right and justice, the principles of rational choice. Of course, a person shapes one’s aims not all at once but only gradually; but in ways that justice allows, one is able to formulate and to follow a plan of life and thereby to fashion one’s own unity. The distinctive feature of a dominant-end conception is how it supposed the self’s unity is achieved. Thus in a hedonism the self becomes one by trying to maximize the sum of pleasurable experiences within its psychic boundaries. A rational self must establish its unity in this manner. Since pleasure is the dominant end, the individual is indifferent to all aspects of oneself, viewing one’s natural assets of mind and body, and even one’s natural inclinations and attachments, as so many materials for obtaining pleasant experiences. Moreover, it is not by aiming at pleasure as one’s pleasure but simply as pleasure that gives unity to the self. Whether it is one’s pleasure or that of others as well which is to be advanced raises a further matter that can be put aside so long as we are dealing with one person’s good. However, once we consider the problem of social choice, the utilitarian principle in its hedonistic form is perfectly natural. For if any one individual must order one’s deliberations by seeking the dominant end of pleasure and can secure one’s rational personhood in no other way, then it seems that a number of persons in their joint efforts should strive to order their collective actions by maximizing the pleasurable experiences of the group. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Thus just as one saint when alone is to work for the glory of God, so the members of an association of saints are to cooperate together to do whatever is necessary for the same end. The difference between the individual and the social case is that the resources of the self, its mental and physical capacities and its emotional sensibilities and desires, are placed in a different context. In both instances these materials are in the service of the dominant end. However, depending on the other agencies available to cooperate with them, it is the pleasure of the self or of the social group that is to be maximized. Further, if the same sorts of considerations that lead to hedonism as a theory of first-person choice are applied to the theory of right, the principle of utility seems quite plausible. For let us suppose first that happiness (defined in terms of agreeable feeling) is the sole good. Then, as even intuitionists concede, it is at least a prima facie principle of right to maximize happiness. If this principle is not alone regulative, there must be some other criterion such as distribution which is to be assigned some weight. However, by reference to what dominant end of social conduct are these standards to be balanced? Since this end must exist if judgments of right are to be reasoned and not arbitrary, the principle of utility appears to specify the required goal. No other principle has the features necessary to define the ultimate end of right conduct. I believe that it is essentially this reasoning that underlies Mill’s so-called proof of utility. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Mill’s seems to believe that if he can establish that happiness is the sole good, he has shown that the principle of utility is the criterion of right. What we are given is an argument to the effect that happiness alone is good. Now nothing so far follows about the conception of right, but we can set out all the premises in the light of which Mill thought his argument a proof. Now in justice as fairness a complete reversal of perspective is brought about by the priority of right and the Kantian interpretation. To see this we have only to recall the features of the original position and the nature of the principles that are chosen. The parties regard moral personality and not the capacity for pleasure and pain as the fundamental aspect of the self. They do not know what final aims persons have, and all dominant-end conceptions are rejected. Thus it would not occur to them to acknowledge the principle of utility in its hedonistic form. There is no more reason for the parties to agree to this criterion than to maximize any other particular objective. They think of themselves as beings who can and do choose their final ends (always plural in number). Just as one person is to decide upon one’s plan of life in the light of full information (no restrictions being imposed in this case), so a plurality of persons are to settle the terms of their cooperation in a situation that gives all fair representation as moral beings. The parties’ aim in the original position is to establish just and favourable conditions for each to fashion one’s own unity. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Their fundamental interest in liberty and in the means to make fair use of it is the expression of their seeing themselves as primarily moral persons with an equal right to choose their mode of life. Thus they acknowledge the two principles of justice to be ranked in serial order as circumstances permit. We must now connect these remarks with the problem of the indeterminacy of choice with which we began. The main idea is that given the priority of right, the choice of our conception of the good is framed within definite limits. The principles of justice and their realization in social form define the bounds within which our deliberations take place. The essential unity of the self is already provided by the conception of right. Moreover, in a well-ordered society this unity is the same for all; everyone’s conception of the good as given by one’s rational plan is a subplan of the larger comprehensive plan that regulates the community as a social union of social unions. The many associations of varying sizes and aims, being adjusted to one another by the public conception of justice, simplify decision by offering definite ideals and forms of life that have been developed and tested by innumerable individuals, sometimes for generations. Thus in drawing up our plan of life we do not start de novo; we are not required to chose from countless possibilities without given structure of fixed contours. So while there is no algorithm for settling upon our good, no first-person procedure of choice, the priority of right and justice securely constrains these deliberations so that they become more manageable. Since the basic rights and liberties are already firmly established, our choices cannot distort our claims upon one another. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Now given the precedence of right and justice, the indeterminacy of the conception of the good is much less troublesome. In fact, the considerations that lead a theological theory to embrace the notion of a dominant end lose their force. First of all, the purely preferential elements in choice, while not eliminated, are nevertheless confined within the constraints of right already on hand. Since human’s claims on one another are not affected, the indeterminacy is relatively innocuous. Moreover, within the limits allowed by the principles of right, there need be no standard of correctness beyond that of deliberative rationality. If a person’s plan of life meets this criterion, and if one succeeds in carrying it out, and in doing so finds it worthwhile, there are no grounds for saying that it would have been better if one had done something else. We should not simply assume that our rational good is uniquely determined. From the standpoint of the theory of justice, this assumption is unnecessary. Secondly, we are not required to go beyond deliberative rationality in order to define a clear and workable conception of right. The principles of justice have a definite content and the argument supporting them uses only the thin account of the good and its list of primary goods. Once the conception of justice is established, the priority of rights guarantees the precedence of its principles. Thus the two considerations that make dominant-end conceptions attractive for teleological theories are both absent in the contract doctrine. Such is the effect of the reversal of justice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Earlier when introducing the Kantian interpretation of justice as fairness, I mentioned that there is a sense in which the unanimity condition on the principles of justice is suited to express even the nature of a single self. Offhand this suggestion seems to be paradoxical. How can the requirement of unanimity fail to be a constraint? One reason is that the veil of ignorance insures that everyone should reason in the same way and so the condition is satisfied as a matter of course. However, a deeper explanation lies in the fact that the contract doctrines has a structure opposite to that of a utilitarian theory. In the latter each person draws up one’s rational plan without hinderance under full information, and society then proceeds to maximize the aggregate fulfillment of the plans that results. In justice as fairness, on the other hand, all agree ahead of time upon the principles by which their claims on one another are to be settled. These principles are then given absolute precedence so that they regulate social institution without question and each frames one’s plans in conformity with them. Plans that happen to be out of line must be revised. Thus the prior collective agreement sets up from the first certain fundamental structural features common to everyone’s plan. The nature of the self as a free and equal more person is the same for all, and the similarity in basic form of rational plans expresses this fact. Moreover, as shown by the notion of society as a social union of social unions, the members of a community participate in one another’s nature: we appreciate what others do as things we might have done but which they do for us, and what we do is similarly done for them. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Since the self is realized in the activities of many selves, relations of justice that conform to principles which would be assented to by all are best fitted to express the nature of each. Eventually then the requirements of a unanimous agreement connects up with the idea of human beings who as member of a social union seek the values of community. It may be thought that once the principles of justice are given precedence, then there is a dominant end that organizes our life after all. Yet this idea is based on a misunderstanding. To be sure the principles of justice are lexically prior to that of efficiency, and the first principle has precedence over the second. It follows that an ideal conception of the social order is set up which is to regulate the direction of change and the efforts of reform. However, it is the principles of individual duty and obligation that define the claim of this ideal upon persons and these do not make it all controlling. Furthermore, I have all along assumed that the proposed dominant end belongs to a teleological theory in which by definition the good is specified independently from the right. The role of this end is in part to make the conception of right reasonably precise. In justice as fairness there can be no dominant end in this sense, nor as we have seen is one needed for this purpose. Finally, the dominant end of a teleological theory is so defined that we can never finally achieve it and therefore the injunction to advance it always applies. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Recall here the earlier remarks as to why the principle of utility is not really suitable for a lexical ordering: the later criteria will never come into play, except in special cases to break ties. The principles of justice, on the other hand, represent more or less definite social aims and restrictions. Once we realize a certain structure of institutions, we are at liberty to determine and to pursue our good within the limits which its arrangements allow. In view of these reflections, the contrast between a teleological theory and the contact doctrine may be expressed in the following intuitive way: the former defines the good locally, for example, as a more or less homogeneous quality or attribute of experience, and regards it as an extensive magnitude which is to be maximized over some totality; whereas the latter moves in the opposite fashion by identifying a sequence of increasingly specific structural forms of right conduct each set within the preceding one, and in this manner working from a general framework for the whole to sharper and sharper determination of its parts. Hedonistic utilitarianism is the classical instance of the first procedure and illustrates it with compelling simplicity. Justice as fairness exemplifies the second possibility. Thus the four-stage sequence formulates an order of agreements and enactments designed to build up in several steps a hierarchical structure of principles, standards, and rules, which when consistently applied and adhered to, lead to a definite constitution for social action. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Now this sequence does not aim at the complete specification of conduct. Rather the idea is to approximate the boundaries, however vague, within which individuals and associations are at liberty to advance their aims and deliberative rationality has free play. Ideally the approximation should converge in the sense that with further steps the cases left unaccounted for become of less and less importance. The notion guiding the entire construction is that of the original positions and its Kantian interpretation: this notion contains within itself the elements that select which information is relevant at each stage, and generate a sequence of adjustments appropriate to the contingent conditions of the existing society. Recalling one phrase or sentence, readers often project their own wishes and anxieties into the text before them and find in it what they had placed there. One must study society through humans, and humans through society: those who will treat politic and ethics separately will never understand either. Humans are naturally good and it is by their institutions alone that they become evil. The modern World rests on contradictions that already emerged. Many Americas believe themselves to be free. They are greatly mistake; they are only free during the election of the members of Congress. Once they are elected, the populace is enslaved; it is nothing. The use of the American people makes of that freedom in the brief moments of its liberty certainly warrants its losing it. The best of good societies will always be a republic unfettered by a hereditary aristocracy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Ceaselessly occupied with Rome and Athens; living, so to speak, with their great men, myself born a Citizen of a Republic, and son of a father whose patriotism was his strongest passion, I took fire from his example; I thought myself Greek or Roman; I became the personage whose life I was reading. A beneficent God has created this World with its laws and then withdrawn from it to leave virtuous humans to discover its moral rules and live according to its dictates. We must respond to the Christian theology, its moral energy, its gospel of usefulness and simplicity, its call for self-discipline and virtue, and its austerity. To be celebrated are the virtues of candour, maturity, simplicity, self-restraint, good health, reason warmed by love and love ennobled by reason. We must be kind to the young and old. It is kindness with a purpose. Children have to be educated in obedience to the Stoical doctrine that humans must live in accord with nature. The consequences of applying this maximum to the training of the young are far-reaching: the child may be father to the man, but he is the child first. The educator must closely consult the child’s capacities and use them to help one grow. Rote learning and forced reading may be nonsensical: they may only produce a child who is a parrot, not a human. However, it is better than nothing and may be the way to awaken the capacity of the human being. Only the educator who enters empathetically into the nature of the growing child’s development and the range of one’s experience can lastingly enrich one. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
The immoral society of today is making immoral humans, incapable of reforming a culture in whose corruption they cannot help but connive. Hence they are compelled to perpetuate that which they should destroy. The one way to break this impasse is to create a new human who can, in turn, create a new society. It is an essential precondition for this work that the young must be rapidly remove from corrupting influences. If humans are born free and everywhere in chains, who but God can do the work of liberation? Once the community of sanity has been formed, it will govern itself calmly, wisely, and generously. The key element in the citizen’s activity is one’s participation in decision-making, and as a sound citizens one will cast one’s vote by listening not to one’s own selfish interests, but to one’s perception of the public weal. Of course, with the best of intentions, one may confound the two. However, then the decision of the majority—not just any majority, but the intelligent, sensible, uncorrupted majority will recall the straying minority to its duty, to it true, larger interest. The closer private will, approximate the general will, the more likely can that will realize itself in actions. We must seek the virtuous citizen, who will use the Social Contract to make virtue reign. The question for the individual has always been: Why, and whom, should I obey? It is not simply a political question or, rather, the political question is a familial question writ large. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
The question of whom should one obey is a question the child may never consciously ask, but it is lodged somewhere in one’s mind. It is a question that the slave, or the subject wholly habituated to unconditional obedience, may never seriously canvass, but it will occur to one in rebellious moments. Freedom must be given as much scope that seems reasonable. Then we can attempt to establish the respective rights of the sovereign and the citizen. However, this tension is not as a relation to be mapped, but as a paradox to be resolved. By employing the Social Contract, humans surrender all their rights without becoming slaves. To find a form of association which defends and protects with the whole common power the person and property of each associate, and in which each, uniting oneself to all, yet obeys oneself alone, and remains as free as before. We must recognize one principle that humans are good. And they can afford to exchange their natural for their civic freedom, to translate their original goodness into social action. I do not condemn all organized society, and I believe that there is one society, one yet to be constructed, that is infinitely preferable to pre-political conditions. Humans can surrender their natural freedom because, while they become subjects, they remain masters. In the god community one essentially obeys oneself. The Social Contract is certainly not without its difficulties. However, the state is never the master, always the servant. For the body to which the individual yields one’s natural rights is not the government but society—a community of beings like oneself. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Force does not create rights. However, the government holds the monopoly of force, and therefore is always an agent of the citizens to protect it. Although freedom is advocated, the United States of America is a country that was founded on the belief of God, and God is also a part of our government. And while we do preach religious freedom, must like restaurants do not always require people to tip, it is suggested that humans—all humans must have some religious beliefs that will make, and keep, them moral beings. This means that the sovereign of the good society must devise a purely civil profession of faith, the articles of which it belongs to the sovereign to establish, not exactly as dogmas of religion, but as sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible to be a good citizen or faithful subject. The strict and rigid doctrines should be simple and few in number, including belief in the existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent deity, a life to come, the good fortune of the just and the punishment of the wicked, the sacredness of the social contract and of the laws. Whoever does not believe these strict and rigid doctrines can be banished from the state, and whoever has officially subscribed to them and then acts as if one does not believe in them should be put to death. This harsh set of propositions is not a casual or accidental addition to political thinking; it lies squarely at the heart of our commitment o virtue. The dictatorship of virtue is a strenuous and, in many ways, a dangerous ideal. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Has the reestablishment of the sciences and the arts served to purify or to corrupt manner and morals? As a searing emotional upheaval—this is one of the great and finest questions ever debated. There will always be humans destined to be subjugated by the opinions of their century, their country, their society. Integrity is dearer to good humans than erudition is to the studious. What then have I to fear? The enlightenment of the assembly that listen to me? I admit it; but this is owning to the composition of the discourse and not to the sentiment of the speaker. Fairminded sovereigns have never hesitated to pass judgements against themselves in disputes whose outcomes are uncertain; and the position most advantageous for a just cause is to have to defend oneself against an upright and enlightened opponent who is judge in one’s own case. To this motive which heartens me is joined another which determines me, namely that, having upheld, according to my natural light, the side of truth, whatever my success, there is a prize which I cannot fail to receive; I will find it within the depths of my heart. It is a grand and beautiful sight to see humans emerge somehow from nothing by their own efforts; dissipate, by the light of one’s reason, the shadows in which nature has enveloped one; rise above oneself; soar by means of one’s mind into the Heavenly regions; traverse, like the sun, the vast expanse of the Universe with giant steps; and, what is even grander and more difficult, return to oneself in order to study humans and know one’s nature, one’s duties, and one’s end. All of these marvels have been revived in the past few generations. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
America has relapsed into the barbarism of the first ages. Recently, many of the peoples of this part of the World, who had lived such enlightened lives, now live in a state worse than ignorance. Sone nondescript scientific jargon, even more contemptible than ignorance, has usurped the name of knowledge, and posed a nearly invincible obstacle to its return. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is a 19th century story of Lily Bart, a wealthy woman who becomes impoverished, but still belongs to New York’s high society. It is a cautionary tale to be careful with your economics and with whom you love, and also maybe not to be so trusting of your family because in the end you will end up financially ruined, and die from a broken heart by death by suicide. Your prince charming, Lawrence Selden, may not come around and realizes he love you until he finds your lifeless body cold. Simon Rosedale, one who is well-off and wants you for your beauty, may never be enough, and Gus Trenor may help you pay off your “dress maker,” but he will always want to talk under your skirt and is a married man. Sometimes it is just be to be prudent and not live too lavishly, establish your own career and maybe do not set your sites on the wrong partner. Someone who can never love you until it is too late. A revolution is needed to bring humans back to common sense. The art of writing must be joined with the art of thinking—a sequence of events that may seem strange, but which perhaps are only too natural. And the chief advantage of commerce with Muses will being to be felt, namely, that of making humans more sociable by inspiring in them the desire to please one another with works worthy of their mutual approval. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
It should not have taken the fall of the throne of Constantinople to bring Italy the debris of ancient Greece. However, if you are not careful, the failure of Congress and the President to protect the American people and their rights will bring China and the Middles East the debris of America. The Whore of Babylon, refers to both a symbolic female figure and place of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation. “One of the seven Angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. With her the kinds of the Earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.’ Then the Angel caried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Then the Angel said to me: ‘Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and the beast she rides, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the Earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the World will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, not is not, and yet will come. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
“‘This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kinds. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eight kind. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction. The ten horns you saw are ten kinds who have not yet received a kingdom, but who one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast. They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful follows.’ Then the Angel said to me, “The waters you saw, were the prostitute its, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish Hi purpose by agreeing to give the best their power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled. The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the king of the Earth,” reports Revelation 17.1-18. I think the prostitute represent the fake news media dragging the nations of the World into a third World war, for the sake of their ratings and profits and entertainment, and them even making war against Jesus Christ, and the media taking over the government. However, when people wake up and see what a disaster the media has created, they will destroy them and God will take over. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
The reason the media has never been so powerful in the past is because people were proud to be American and voted people in office they thought would do a good job, and not just because of their gender, race, culture, religion, colour, sexual orientation, or celebrity status. The American people trusted the government and they viewed their loyalty to America as sacred as religion. However, today, people want you to be ashamed to be America, they want to put Communists in office and not Patriots, they want to strip you of your rights and guns, so they can lock you in your homes and turn you into slaves, while they tax you, make you poor and give billions of your tax dollars to other nations to make them rich. These communist also want to keep your nation insecure, start race wars and riots, and turn American against Americans and take away your rights to privacy and property. However, be sure to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, One Nation, Under God, with Liberty and Justice for All! Be proud to be American. Be proud to display your American flag. Love thy Neighbour. And Praise God. The mind has its needs, as does the body. The needs of the latter are the foundations of society; the need of the former make it pleasant. While the government and the laws see to the safety and well-being of assembled people, the sciences, letters and the arts, less despotic and perhaps more powerful, spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains with which they are burdened, stifle in them the sense of that original liberty for which they seem to have been born, make them love their slavery, and turn them into what is called civilized people. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
Need raised up thrones; the sciences and the arts have strengthened them. Earthly powers, love talents and protect those who cultivate them! Princes always view with pleasure the spread, among their subjects, of the tastes for pleasant arts and luxuries not resulting in the exporting of money. For, in addition to nurturing in them that pettiness of soul so appropriate to servitude, they know very well that all the needs the populace imposes on itself are so many chains which burden it. Alexander, wishing to keep the Ichthyophagi in a state of dependency, forced them to renounce fishing and to eat foods common to other peoples. And the natives of America who go totally in innocence and live off the fruit of their hunting have never been tamed. Indeed, what yoke could be imposed upon humans who need nothing? Civilized peoples, cultivate them! Happy slaves, you owe them that delicate and refined tastes on which your pride yourselves; that sweetness of character and that urbanity in mores which makes relationships among you so cordial and easy; in a word, the appearances of all the virtues without having any. By this sort of civility, all the more agreeable as it puts on fewer airs, Athens and Rome once distinguished themselves in themselves in the much vaunted days of their magnificence and splendour. By it our century and our nation will doubtlessly surpass all times and all peoples. A philosophic tone without pedantry, manners natural yet engaging, equally removed from Teutonic rusticity as from Italian pantomime. These are the fruits of the taste acquired by good schooling and perfected in social interaction. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
If outer appearances were always the likeness of the heart’s dispositions, if decency were virtue, if our maxims served as our rules, if true philosophy were inseparable from the title of philosopher, how sweet it would be to life among us! However, so many qualities are all too rarely found in combination, and virtue seldom goes forth in such great pomp. Expensive finery can betoken a wealth man, and elegance a man of taste. The healthy and robust human is recognized by other signs. It is in the rustic clothing of the fieldworker and not underneath the gilding of the courtier that one will find bodily strength and vigour of the soul. The good human is an athlete who enjoys competing in innocence. One is contemptuous of all those vile ornaments which would impair the use of one’s strength, most of al which were invented merely to conceal some deformity. Before art had fashioned our manners and taught our passions to speak an affected language, our mores were rustic but natural, and differences in behavior heralded, at first glance, difference of character. At base, human nature was no better, but humans found their safety in the ease with which they saw through each other, and that advantage, which we no longer vale, spared them many vices. You may not have the most of everything but you can make the best of everything! God cannot bless ignorance—He blesses by spiritual intelligence. What you do not know can be harmful to you. God is present in each person’s life and this may seem unbelievable to so large a number of us. Yet it is for those of undergoing the experience certitude, not theory. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
God is the ultimate healer of all our hurts! If we keep trying to get other humans to fix us and make us fully human or angelic—we will remain broken. Stop limiting yourself to getting blessed and believe you have been blessed. These glimpses into eternity are rare, but they are more common and frequent than is generally supposed. It is generally believed that hardly more than a few attain it, but as there are degrees of such an attainment one could say that in the lesser ones there are more successes than people generally know. We call upon the spirits of evolution, the miraculous force that inspires rock and dust to weave themselves into biology. You have stood by us for millions and billions of years—do not forsake us now. Empower us and awaken in us pure and dazzling creativity. You that can turn scales into feathers, sweater into blood, electricity into Cryptocurrency, caterpillars to butterflies, metamorphose our species, awaken in us the power that we need to survive the present crisis and evolve into more aeons of our solar journey. Awaken in us a sense of who we truly are: tiny ephemeral blossoms on the Tree of Life. Make the purposes and destiny of that three our own purpose and destiny. Fill each of us with love for our true Self, which includes all of the creature and plants and landscapes of the World. Fill us with a powerful urge for the wellbeing and continual unfolding of this Self. May we speak in all human councils on behalf of the terrestrial beings and plants and landscapes of the Earth. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
May we shine with a pure inner passion that will spread rapidly through these leaden times. May we all awaken to our true and only nature—none other than the Nature of Gaia, this living planet Earth. We call upon the power which sustains the planets in their orbits, that wheels our Milky Way in its 200-million-year spiral, to imbue our personalities and our relationships with harmony, endurance and joy. Please fill us with a sense of immense time so that our brief, flickering lives may truly reflect the work of vast ages past and also the millions of years of evolution whose potential lies in our trebling hands. O stars, lend us your burning passion. O silence, give weight to our voice. We ask for the presence of the spirit of Gaia. Unto all generations we will declare God’s greatness, and to all eternity we will proclaim Thy holiness. Our mouth shall ever speak Thy praise, O our God, for Thou art a great and holy God and King. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the holy God. (the holy King). Our God and God of our fathers, may there come before Thee the remembrance of our ancestors as they appeared in Thy sacred Temple in the days of yore. How deep was their love of Thee as they brought Thee their offerings each Sabbath day. We pray Thee, please grant us of the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord that lived in their hearts. May we, in their spirit of sacrificial devotion, fulfill our duty toward the rebuilding of Thy Holy Land, the fountain of our life, that we may ever be a blessing to all the peoples and beings and lifeforms of the Earth. There is a moment in most human’s lives when they are close to an understanding of the World’s real nature. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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The Source of those Accusations Was a Committee of Demons Who Had Infested Her!
The infinite power of God to create is far beyond what we can grasp or understand. If the Almighty devoted so much of His Word to prophecy, it certainly benefits every believer to study it. The study of the prophetic scriptures and their fulfillment attests to the authority of the Word of God. Every soul has cost an infinite price, and how terrible is the sin of turning one soul away from Christ, so that for Him the Saviour’s love and humiliation and agony shall have been in vain. Contrary to popular opinion, New England’s record in regard to witchcraft is surprisingly good, as Governor Thomas Hutchinson pointed out in 1750: “more having been put to death in a single country in England from the first settlement until the present time.” Through most of the seventeenth century the record is really astonishing. While Europe hanged and burned literally thousands, executions in New England were few and far between. (Witches were burned on the Continent and in Scotland, where witchcraft was a heresy, but hanged in England and in New England, where it was a felony. Burning a witch seems not to have been motivated by the wish to inflict a particularly painful death; Scottish witches, for instance, were first garroted by the executioner, who then proceeded to burn the corpse and scatter its ashes. Most probably, burning was an attempt to prevent the resurrection of the body.) There are some fascinating accounts in New England that deal with cases of witchcraft before 1692, and we shall look at a few of these for they will illuminate some interesting aspects of the Salem witch trials. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
The first is that of Mrs. Anne Hibbins. Her husband, who died in 1654, had been a man of importance: Boston merchant, a Colonial Agent, and for several years one of the Assistants. Tradition has it that she was a sister of Governor Bellingham. She was apparently quarrelsome—quarrelsome enough so that her church censured her for it—and one quarrel was her undoing. She seems to have come upon two of her neighbours talking, to have told them she knew they were talking about her, and then to have reconstructed their conversation with enough fidelity to convince the she was possessed of “preternatural” knowledge (something Mrs. Sarah Winchester used to also have the ability to do, and a reason she dismissed so many staff members for gossiping). Nonetheless, Mrs. Hibbins was brought to trail in 1655, and the jury brought her in guilty. However, the presiding magistrates refused to accept the verdict, apparently believing her innocent, and their refusal automatically threw the case into the General Court. There again she was found guilty; the governor pronounced the required sentence of death; and in 1656 she was executed. We have seen that some of the magistrates were not satisfied of her guilt, and apparently the same were true of some of the clergy. To masses of people, death was a dread mystery; beyond was uncertainty and gloom. These people were seeking for truth, and to learn them the Spirit of Inspiration was imparted. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
A surviving letter tells us that the Reverend John Norton “once said at his own table” before the Reverend John Wilson and others that Mistress Hibbins “was hanged for a witch only for having more with than her neighbours. It was his very expression; she having, as he explained it, unhappily guessed that two of her persecutors, whom she saw talking in the street, were talking of her—which cost her her life, not withstanding all he could do to the contrary, as he himself told us.” The Hibbins case shows how slender and how circumstantial were the grounds necessary to bring an accusation of witchcraft against anyone with a reputation for malice. It also shows that the popular elements in society (the jury, and the people’s representatives in the General Court) were far more ready to believe in witchcraft than the leaders of society (the magistrates and ministers.) This latter conclusion is reinforced by the fact that before 1692 there were far more acquittals than convictions in New England; there were more people willing to charge their neighbours with witchcraft than magistrates willing to convict them. A case which took place in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1662 is known in rather more detail than that of Mrs. Hibbins. Anne Cole, “a person esteemed pious,” was taken with “strange fits.” As with the Salem girls, the fits were both violent and public. Extremely violent bodily motions she many times had, even to the hazard of her life in the apprehensions of those that saw them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
And very often great disturbances was given in the public worship of God by her and two other women who had also strange fits. Once in especial, on a day of prayer kept on that account, the motion and noised of the afflicted was so terrible that a godly person fainted under the appearance of it. In some of her fits strange voices came from her, voices that were clearly not her own. Such voices are now known to be a consequence of multiple personality, which is the extreme form of the hysterical fugue. However, the seventeenth-century observers of Anne Cole judged them to be the voices of demons who had entered into her, and that judgment was sensible enough in view of the fact that the voices seemed to be plotting ways in which Anne Cole might be further afflicted. Eventually, seeming to realize that they were being overheard, one of the voices announced, “‘Let us confound her language, [that] she may tell no more tales.’” For some time nothing came from her but “unintelligible mutterings”; then the conversation resumed in a Dutch accent, and this time names were mentioned, names of the witches who were responsible for these afflictions. When Anne Cole was out of her fits, she “knew nothing of those things that were spoken by her” during them, but she was understandably distressed to find she had been speaking things which, to the best of her knowledge, had never been in her mind; it was a “matter of great affliction to her.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
It must have been afflicting to the local magistrates as well; they now had accusations of witchcraft against several persons, but the source of these accusations was not Anne Cole; it was a committee of demons who had infested her. The magistrates investigated further, and imprisoned some (and perhaps all) of the accused on suspicion of witchcraft One of these, a “lewd, ignorant, considerably aged woman” named Rebecca Greensmith sent for the two clergymen who has taken down in writing the demonic conversation issuing from the mouth of Anne Cole. She had the transcript read to er, and then “forthwith and freely confessed those things to be true,” confirming the statement of the voiced “that she (and other persons named in the discourse) had familiarity with the Devil.” She confessed to a number of other things as well, including “that the Devil has frequent use of her body with much seeming (but indeed horrible, hellish) delight to her.” Reports of copulation with demons (including the unpleasantness of the experience) are common in the literature of Continental witchcraft, but this is one of the few known cases in New England. What is involved is apparently an erotic fit in which the woman actually goes through the motions of copulation and achieves a climax; similar fits have been observed in mental patients in the twenty-first century. Thus it appears that in the case of Anne Cole the confessor as well as the afflicted person was an hysteric. This pattern we shall see again at Salem. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Rebecca Greensmith was hanged in 1663. So was her husband Nathaniel, although we do not know the grounds for his conviction; according to Increase Mather he did not confess. “Most” of the other persons accused by the demonic voices “made their escape into another part of the country.” What happened to the others we do not know, but they were apparently not executed. And since at least one of those who made her escape had at first been imprisoned in suspicion of witchcraft (Judith Varlet, a relative of Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New York), it can be assumed that the authorities were reluctant to press the matter further. The evidence they had was, after all, highly suspect, coming from demonic voices on the one hand and a confessed witch on the other. (Confessors are a group of women with the power to make anyone they touch love them. This love, however, is more aptly described as a soul-destroying obsession whose objective is pleasing the Confessor in any way possible. Confessors were created by warlocks to travel Medieval lands and act as law enforcers. The Confessors could possess anyone and make them tell the truth in great detail. There were also a few male Confessors, but they became megalomanics and plunged the entire World into a dark age. As a result, after all the male Confessors were defeated and wiped out, the warlocks and female Confessors took up the tradition of killing all male Confessors shortly after birth.) In any event, after the “execution of some and escape of others” Anne Cole’s fits ceased, and did not return. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Twenty years later, in 1682, the Reverend John Whiting reported that “she yet remains maintaining her integrity.” This together with what the voices said, suggests that Anne Cole’s fits probably were caused by her fear of witchcraft and cured by the removal of the fear. A few other cases are remarkable for a number of reasons, one of them being the exemplary thoroughness with which the symptoms of the affiliated persons are described, which makes it possible to say without question that these were pathological cases of hysteria. The first took place in Groton, Massachusetts, in 1671-1671 and was recorded by the Reverend Samuel Willard, then minister of Groton (during the Salem trials he was a member of the Boston Clergy). On 30 October 1671, Elizabeth Knapp began to behave strangely: “In the evening, a little before she went to bed, sitting by the fire she cried out, ‘Oh! My legs!’ and clapped her hands on them; immediately, ‘Oh! My breast!’ and removed her hands thither; and forthwith, ‘Oh! I am strangled’ and put her hands on her throat.” The similarity to Janet’s twentieth-century description of the onset of a typical hysterical fit is unmistakable; it starts, he writes “with a pain or a strange sensation situated at such or such a point of the body…[It] often begins in the lower part of the abdomen [and] seems to ascend and to spread to other organs. For instance, it very often spreads to the epigastrium, to the breast, then to the throat. There it assumes rather an interesting form, which was for a very long time considered as quite characteristic of hysteria. The patient has the sensation of too big an object, as it were, a ball, rising in her throat and choking her.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The chocking sensation we shall find over and over again; it is the bolus hystericus and is related to the “lump in the throat” felt by normal people in moments of extreme stress. The normal person, like the hysteric, tries to relieve it by swallowing; this is why the comic-strip artist has one’s characters say “Gulp” when they are in trouble. The choking sensations in the throat was followed by “fits in which she was violent in bodily motions, leapings, strainings and strange agitations, scarce to be held in bound by the strength of three or four; violent also in roarings and screamings.” The fits continued until 15 January 1692, the date of Willard’s writings. Several of the details he recorded are worth noting. On 15 November, “her tongue was for many hours together drawn into a semicircle up to the roof of her mouth, and not to be removed, for some tried with the fingers to do it.” On 17 December her tongue was drawn “out of her mouth most frightfully, to an extraordinary length and greatness.” Devils appeared to her, and witches; “Oh,” she cried to one of them, “you are a rouge.” On 29 November she had a particularly grotesque hallucination, when she believed a witch in the shape of a dog with a woman’s head was strangling her. The hallucinations and the woman’s sufferings were terrifyingly convincing; Willard noted that when she thought the witch was strangling her, “she did often times seem to our apprehension as of she would forthwith be strangled.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Elizabeth Knapp’s case is strikingly similar to that of Ler—one of the best-known cases of J.-M. Charcot, the nineteenth-century psychologist. Her fits, he wrote, “are characterized in the first stage by epileptiform and tetaniform convulsions; after this come great gesticulations of a voluntary character, in which the patient, assuming the most frightful postures, reminds one of the attitudes which history assigns to the demoniacs…At this stage of the attack, se is a prey to delirium, and raves evidently of the events which seem to have determined her first seizures. She hurls furious invectives against imaginary individuals, crying out, “villains! robbers! brigands! fire! fire! O, the dogs! I’m bitten!”—Reminiscences, doubtless, of the emotions experienced in her youth.” When the convulsive portion of Ler—’s attack was over other symptoms usually followed, including “hallucination of vision: the patient beholds horrible animals, skeletons, and specters” and “lastly, a more or less marked permanent contracture of the tongue.” Charcot drew this contracture of the tongue; it is quite appalling. Willard was not exaggerating in calling it frightful. Elizabeth Knapp displayed still other symptoms are identifiably hysterical, including loss of speech on some occasions, and on others speaking in voices other than her own; once “she barked like a dog, and bleated like a calf.” Willard noted that her fits did not seem to do her any permanent physical damage: “She hath no ways in body or strength by all these fits, though so dreadful, but gathered flesh exceedingly, and hath her natural strength when her fits are off, for the most part.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
This is typical; as Janet remarks, the “hysteric patient, after howling for several hours, feels rather comfortable; she experiences, as it were, a relaxation, and declares she is out of her fits has often raised the question of whether they are genuine. Willard thought they must be, if only for their violence: “such a strength is beyond the force of dissimulation.” (It should be noted that hysterics are not always well in the intervals between their fits. Some, for instance, lose their appetites and starve themselves. It is probably such cases who are referred to in the statue of James I against witchcraft as being “wasted, consumed, pined.) On 1 November, Elizabeth Knapp named one of her neighbour as the probable cause of her afflictions. The accused woman was sent for, and entered the house while the afflicted girl was in a fit. Her eyes were closed, as they usually were in her fits, yet she could distinguish this neighbour’s touch from all others, “though no voice was uttered.” That would have been quite enough to convict the neighbour in many witchcraft cases. However, fortunately she was permitted to pray with the afflicted girl, and at the conclusions Miss Knapp “confessed that she believed Satan had deluded her.” Willian was happy that “God was pleased to vindicate the case and justify the innocent,” and reported that Miss Knapp never again complained of any “apparition or disturbance from this neighbour.” Instead, she turned to accusing the Devil, who had, she said, been offering her a covenant for several years, a covenant she had frequently been tempted to sign. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
The dark shadow that Satan has cast over the World grew deeper and deeper. About a month later Miss Knapp accused another person of witchcraft, this time during a period of hallucinations. Her father brought the woman to the house, and Willard, who had been asked to be present, noted that her fit became particularly violent when this woman entered. However, Willard, wrote, “we made nothing of it” since her fits had been as violent on other occasions. Instead they inquired carefully into the mater and found “two evident and clear mistakes” in the accusation. This was enough to exonerate the second accused woman. Satan had implanted this principle. Wherever it was held, people had no barrier against sin. Elizabeth Knapp was still having fits when Willard wrote about her, and all he could be certain of was that “she is an object of pity.” He did not think she was bewitched, but he did believe she was possessed (that is, that Devils has entered into her). This remained his opinion (and that of most others) when the case was remembered in 1692. He also believed that the girl’s terrible afflictions provided an occasion for the community to examine its collective conscience. Therefore he admonished his congregation in a sermon, “Let us all examine by this Providence [id est, this event] what sins they have been, that have given Satan so much footing in this poor place.” Satan was seeking to shut out from humans a knowledge of God, to turn their attention from the temple of God, and to establish His own kingdom. His strife for supremacy had seemed to be almost wholly successful. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
They robbed God of His glory, and defrauded the World by a counterfeit of the gospel. They had refused to surrender themselves to God for the salvation of the World, and they became agents of Satan for its destruction. They were doing the work Satan designed them to do, taking a course to misrepresent the character of God, and cause the World to look upon Him as a tyrant. The convulsive fits which played so prominent a part in most witchcraft cases, and continued to be one of the most common symptoms of hysteria through the earl years of the twentieth century, have no become relatively rare in Western civilization. D.W. Abse reports fits occurred in only six out of one hundred and sixty-one cases of hysteria treated at a British military hospital during World War II, but that they were the most common symptom among Indian Army hysterics treated at Delhi during the same period. There are a number of possible explanations for this curious fact. Hysterics are notoriously suggestible, so the change may be ascribable to nothing more than the refusal of our culture to give the hysterical fit the respectful and awed attention it used to command. In any case, it seems clear that abnormal behaviour varies with time and place just as normal behaviour does. However, since this particular variation occurred so recently, after the classic studies of hysteria had been completed, it is possible to identify the seventeenth-century Massachusetts fits for what they were. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Mr. William Wirt Winchester, while we were attending lectures, purchased three or four old houses in California, one of which was unoccupied. He resided in the country, and he proposed that he wanted his wife and myself to take up our abode in the untenanted house, so long as it should continue unlet; a move which we would accomplish the double end of settling us nearer alike to our lecture-rooms and to our amusements, and of relieving us from the weekly charge of rent for our lodgings. Our furniture was very scant—our whole equipage remarkably modest and primitive; and in short, our arrangements pretty nearly as simple as those of a bivouac. Mrs. Sarah Winchester’s new plan was, therefore, executed almost as soon as conceived. The front drawing-room was our sitting-room. I had the bedroom over it, and Mrs. Winchester had the back bedroom on the same floor, which nothing could have induced me to occupy. The house to begin with was an incomplete, three-story farm house with a basement. It was very old. Dated back to the sixteenth century, I believe. It had nothing modern about it. The agent who looked into the property titles for Mrs. Winchester told her it was originally sold, along with much other forfeited property in 1702; and it had belonged to John Conduit, whose wife was the niece of Sir Isaac Newton, a father of modern science, although keenly interested in the occult. How old it was then, I cannot say; but, at all events, in had seen years and changes enough to have contracted all the mysterious and saddened air, at once exciting and depressing, which belongs to most old mansions. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
There had been very little done in the way of modernizing details and, perhaps, it was better so; for there was something queer and by-gone in the very walls and ceilings—in the shape of doors and windows—in the odd diagonal site of the chimney-pieces—in the beams and ponderous cornices—not to mention the singular solidity of all the woodwork, from the bannisters to the window-frames, which hopelessly defined disguise, and would have emphatically proclaimed their antiquity through any conceivable amount of modern finery and varnish. An effort had, indeed, been made, to the extent of papering the drawing-rooms; but somehow, the paper looked raw and out of keeping. This woman said, old Judge Sir James Hales (who, having earned the reputation of a particularly ‘hanging judge’, ended by hanging himself, as the corner’s jury found, under an impulse of ‘temporary insanity’, with a child’s skipping-rope, over the massive old bannisters) resided there, entertaining good company, with fine venison and rare old port. In those halcyon days, the drawing-rooms were hung with gilded leather, and, I dare say, cut a good figure, for they were really spacious rooms. The bedrooms were wainscoted, but the front one was not gloomy; and in it the cosiness of antiquity quite overcame its somber associations. However, the back bedrooms, with its two queerly-placed melancholy windows, staring vacantly at the foot of the bed, and with the shadowy recess to be found in most old houses in Dublin, like a large ghostly closet, which, from congeniality of temperament, had amalgamated with the bedchamber, and dissolved the partition. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
At the night-time, this “alcove”—as our “maid” was wont to call it—had, in my eyes, a specially sinister and suggestive character. Mrs. Winchester’s distant and solitary candle glimmered vainly into its darkness. There it was always overlooking her—always itself impenetrable. However, this was only part of the effect. The whole room was, I cannot tell, how repulsive to me. There was, I supposed, in its proportions and features, a latent discord—a certain mysterious and indiscernible relation, which jarred indistinctly upon some secret sense of the fitting and the safe, and raised indefinable suspicious and apprehensions of the imagination. On the whole, as I began saying, nothing could have induced me to pass a night alone in it. We have not been very long in occupation of our respective chambers, when I began to complain of uneasy nights and disturbed sleep. I was, I suppose, the more impatient under this annoyance, as I was usually a sound sleeper, and by no means prone to nightmares. It was not, however, my destiny, instead of enjoying my customary repose, every night to “sup full of horrors.” After a preliminary course of disagreeable and frightful dreams, my troubles took a definite form, and the same vision, without an appreciable variation in a single detail, visited me at least (on average) every second night of the week. Now, this dream, nightmare, or infernal illusion—which you please—of which I was the miserable port, was on this wise: I saw, or thought I saw, with the most abominable distinctness although at the time in profound darkness, every article of furniture and accidental arrangement of the chamber in which I lay. This, as you know, is incidental to ordinary nightmare. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Well, while in this clairvoyant condition, which seemed but the lighting up of the theatre in which was to be exhibited the monotonous tableau of horror, which made my nights insupportable, my attention invariably became, I know not why, fixed upon the windows opposite the foot of my bed; and, uniformly with the same effect, a sense of dreadful anticipation always took slow but sure possession of me. I became somehow conscious of a sort of horrid but undefined preparation going forward in some unknown quarter, and by some unknown agency, for my torment; and, after an interval, which always seemed to me of the same length, a picture suddenly flew up the window, where it remained fixed, as if by an electrical attraction, and my discipline of horror then commenced, to last perhaps for hours. The picture this mysteriously glued to the window-panes, was the portrait of an old man, in crimson flowered silk dressing-gown, the folds of which I could now describe, with countenance embodying a strange mixture of intellect, sensuality, and power, but withal sinister and full of malignant omen. His nose was hooked, like the beak of a vulture; his eyes large, grey, and prominent and lighted up with a more than mortal cruelty and coldness. The features were surmounted by a crimson velvet cap, the hair that peeped from under which was white with age, while the eyebrows retained their original blackness. Well I remember every line, hue, and shadow of that stony countenance, and well I may! The gaze of this hellish visage was fixed upon me, and mine returned it with the inexplicable fascination of nightmare, for what appeared to me to be hours of agony. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
At last—the cock he crew, away then flew, the fiend who had enslaved me through the awful watches of the night and, harassed and nervous, I rose to the duties of the day. I had—I cannot say exactly why, but it may have been from the exquisite anguish and profound impressions of unearthly horror, with which this strange phantasmagoria was associated—an insurmountable antipathy to describing the exact nature of my nightly troubles to Mrs. Winchester. Generally, however, I told her I was haunted by abominable dreams; and, true to the imputed materialism of medicine, we put our heads together to dispel my horrors, not by exorcism, but by a tonic Vin Mariani. However, the evil spirit, who enthralled my senses in the shape of that portrait, may have been just as near me, just as energetic, just as malignant, though I saw him not. Everybody knows how contagious is fear of all sort, but more especially that particular kind of fear under which poor Mrs. Winchester was at that moment labouring. I would not have heard, nor I believe would she have recapitulated, just at that moment, for half the World, the details of the hideous vision which had so unmanned her. “I was sitting in my room,” said Mrs. Winchester “by my fireplace, the door locked when I heard a step on the flight of stairs descending from the attics. It was two o’ clock, and the streets were as silent as a churchyard—the sounds were, therefore, perfectly distinct. There was slow, heavy tread, characterized by the emphasis and deliberation of age, descending by the narrow staircase from above; and, what made the sound more singular, it was plain that the feet which produced it were perfectly bare measuring a descent with something between a pound and a flop, very ugly to hear. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“I knew quite well that you and my attendant had gone away many hours before, and that nobody but myself has any business in the house. It was quite plain also that the person who was coming down stairs had no intention whatever of concealing his movements; but, on the contrary, appeared disposed to make even more noise, and proceed more deliberately, than was at all necessary. When the step reached the foot of the stairs outside my room, it seemed to stop; and I expected every moment to see my door open spontaneously, and give admission to soul killed by the Winchester rifle. I was, however, relieved in a few second by hearing the descent renewed, just in the same manner, upon the stair case leading down to the drawing-rooms, and thence, after another pause, down the next flight, and so on to the hall, whence I heard no more. Now, by the time the sound had ceased, I was wound up, as they say, to a very unpleasant pitch of excitement. I listened, but there was not a stir. I screw up my courage to a decisive experiment—opened my door, and in a stentorian voice bawled over the banisters, ‘Who’s there?’ There was no answer but the ringing of my own voice through the empty old house—no renewal of the movement; nothing short, to give my unpleasant sensations a definite direction. There is, I think, something most disagreeably disenchanting in the sound of one’s own voice under such circumstances, exerted in solitude, and in vain. It redoubled my sense of isolation, and my misgivings increased on perceiving that the door, which I certainly thought I had left open, was closed behind me. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“In a vague alarm, lest my retreat should be cut off, I got again into my room as quickly as I could, where I remained in a state of imaginary blockade, and very uncomfortable indeed, till morning. Next night brought no return of my barefooted fellow-lodger; but the night following, being in my bed, and in the dark—somewhere, I supposed, about the same hour as before, I distinctly heard the old fellow again descending from the garrets. This time I jumped out of bed, clutched the poker as I passed the expiring fire, and in a moment was upon the lobby. The sound had ceased by this time—the dark and chill were discouraging; and, guess my horror, when I saw, or thought I saw, a monster, whether in the shape of a man or a bear I could not say, standing, with its back to the wall, on the lobby, facing me, with a pair of great greenish eyes shinning dimly out. Now, I must be frank, and confess that the cupboard which displayed our plates and cups stood just there, though at that moment I did not recollect it. At the same time I must never could satisfy myself that I was made the dupe of my own fancy in this matter; for this apparition, after one or two shiftings of shape, as if in the act of incipient transformation, began, as it seemed on second thoughts, to advance upon me in its original form. From an instinct of terror rather than of courage, I hurled the poker, with all my force, at its head; and to the music of a horrid crash made my way into my room, and double-locked the door. Then, in a minute more, I heard the horrid bare feet walk down the stairs, till the sound ceased in the halls, as on the former occasion. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“In a vague alarm, lest my retreat should be cut off, I got again into my room as quickly as I could, where I remained in a state of imaginary blockade, and very uncomfortable indeed, till morning. Next night brought no return of my barefooted fellow-lodger; but the night following, being in my bed, and in the dark—somewhere, I supposed, about the same hour as before, I distinctly heard the old fellow again descending from the garrets. This time I jumped out of bed, clutched the poker as I passed the expiring fire, and in a moment was upon the lobby. The sound had ceased by this time—the dark and chill were discouraging; and, guess my horror, when I saw, or thought I saw, a monster, whether in the shape of a man or a bear I could not say, standing, with its back to the wall, on the lobby, facing me, with a pair of great greenish eyes shinning dimly out. Now, I must be frank, and confess that the cupboard which displayed our plates and cups stood just there, though at that moment I did not recollect it. At the same time I must never could satisfy myself that I was made the dupe of my own fancy in this matter; for this apparition, after one or two shiftings of shape, as if in the act of incipient transformation, began, as it seemed on second thoughts, to advance upon me in its original form. From an instinct of terror rather than of courage, I hurled the poker, with all my force, at its head; and to the music of a horrid crash made my way into my room, and double-locked the door. Then, in a minute more, I heard the horrid bare feet walk down the stairs, till the sound ceased in the halls, as on the former occasion. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“If the apparition of the night before was an ocular delusion of my fancy sporting with the dark outlines of our cupboard, and if tis horrid eyes were nothing but a pair of inverted teacups, I had, at all events, the satisfaction of having launched the poker with admirable effect, and in true ‘fancy’ phrase, ‘knocked its two daylights into one,’ as the commingled fragments of my tea-service testified. I did my best to gather comfort and courage from these evidences; but it would not do. And then what could I say of those horrid bare feet, and the regular tramp, tramp, tramp, which measured the distance of the entire staircase through the solitude of my haunted dwelling, and at an hour when no good influence was stirring? Confound it!—the whole affair was abominable. I was out of spirits, and dreaded the approach of night. It came, ushered ominously in with a thunderstorm and dull torrents of depressing rain. Earlier than usual the streets grew silent; and by twelve o’clock nothing but the comfortless patterning of the rain was to be heard. I made myself as snug as I could. I lighted two candles instead of one. I forswore bed, and held myself in readiness for a sally, candle in hand; for, coute qui coute, I was resolved to see the being, if visible at all, who troubled the nightly stillness of my mansion. I was fidgety and nervous and, tried in vain to interest myself with my books. I walked up and down my room, whistling in turn martial and hilarious music, and listening ever and anon for the dreaded noise.” #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Do not Grieve. Anything you lose comes around in another form. The child weaned from mother’s milk now drinks cranberry juice. God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed. As roses, up from ground. Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish, now a cliff covered with vines, now a horse being saddled. It hides within these, till one day it cracks them open. There is the light gold of wheat in the sun, and the gold of bread made from wheat. I have neither, I am only talking about them as a town in the desert looks up to stars on a clear night. The Son of God, looking upon the World, beheld suffering and misery. With pity He saw how humans had become victims of satanic cruelty. He looked with compassion upon those who were being corrupted, murdered, and lost. They had chosen a ruler who chained them to his carriage as captives. God’s glory pervades the Universe; His ministering Angels inquire of one another: Where is the place of His glory? In response they give praise: Praised be the glory of the Lord from His Heavenly abode. From His Heavenly abode may He turn in mercy and bestow grace unto the people who, reciting the Shema evening and morning, twice daily, proclaim in love the unity of His name, saying: Hear, O America: the Lord our God, the Lord is One. He is our God; He is our Father, our sovereign and our Deliverer. In His mercy He will make known in presence of all the living that He will be your God. “I am the Lord your God.” As it is written in holy Scripture: The Lord shall reign forever; Thy God, O America, shall be Sovereign unto all generations. Hallelujah. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Winchester Mystery House
Ghostly tales are bountiful at Sarah Winchester’s Mystery House. What have you experienced? Photos are encouraged!
The Winchester mansion is 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
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“Whoever shadows my every move will not lose me in the dark.” At least that is what Christ says, or what the Evangelist John heard Him say (8.12). He tells us to walk on, through the darkness, with Christ as our only torch. That way, when we mayn’t have gained a step, but we won’t have lost one either. And on into the day we must pursue with dogged tread the life of Jesus Christ. Is this the secret to Mrs. Winchester’s 7-11 staircase?
Affection and Friendship Should Not Interfere with the Fullest Attainment of Our Final End!
Every true American believes with all their hearts that when an American is tired of America, one is tired of life. With certain qualifications, a person is happy when one is in the way of a successful execution (more or less) of a rational plan of life drawn up under (more or less) favourable conditions, and one is reasonably confident that one’s intentions can be carried through. Thus we are happy when our rational plans are going well, our more important aims being fulfilled, and we are with reason quite sure that our good fortune will continue. The achievement of happiness depends upon circumstances and luck, and hence the gloss about favourable conditions. While I shall not discuss the concept of happiness in any detail, we should consider a few further points to brings out the connection with the problem of hedonism. First of all, happiness has two aspects: one is the successful execution of a rational plan (the schedule of activities and aims) which a person strives to realize, the other is one’s state of mind, one’s sure confidence supported by good reasons that one’s success will endure. Being happy involves both a certain achievement in action and a rational assurance about the outcomes. This definition of happiness is objective: plans are to be adjusted to the conditions of our life and our confidence must rest upon sounds beliefs. Alternatively, happiness might be defined subjectively as follows: a person is happy when one believes that one is in the way of a successful execution (more or less) of a rational plan, and so on as before, adding the rider that is one is mistaken or deluded, then by contingency and coincidence nothing happens to disabuse one of one’s misconceptions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
By good luck one is not cast out of one’s fool’s paradise. Now the definition to be preferred is that which best fits the theory of justice and coheres with our considered judgments of value. We have assumed that the parties in the original position have correct beliefs. They acknowledge a conception of justice in the light of general truths about persons and their place in society. Thus it seems natural to suppose that in framing their plans of life they are similarly lucid. Of course none of this is strictly argument. Eventually one has to appraise the objective definition as part of the moral theory to which it belongs. Adopting this definition, and keeping in mind the account of rational plans presented earlier, we can interpret the special characteristics sometimes attributed to happiness. For example, happiness is self-contained: that is, it is chosen solely for its own sake. To be sure, a rational plan will include many (or at least several) final aims, and any of these may be pursed partly because it complements and furthers one or more other aims as well. Mutual support among ends pursued for their own sake is an important feature of rational plans, and therefore these ends are not usually sought solely for themselves. Nevertheless executing the entire plan, and the enduring confidence with which this is done, is something that we want to do and to have only for itself. All considerations including those of right and justice (using here the full theory of good) have already been surveyed in drawing up the plan. And therefore the whole activity is self-contained. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Happiness is also self-sufficient: a rational plan when realized with assurance makes a life fully worthy of choice and demands nothing further in addition. When circumstances are especially favourable and the execution particularly successful, one’s happiness is complete. Within the general conception one sought to follow, there is nothing essential that is lacking, no way in which it could have been distinctly better. So even if the material means that support our mode of life can always be imagined to be greater, and a different pattern of aims might often have been chosen, still the actual fulfillment of the plan itself may have, as compositions, paintings, and poems often do, a certain completeness which though marred by circumstance and human failing is evident from the whole. Thus some become exemplars of human flourishing and models for emulation, their lives being as instructive in how to life as any philosophical doctrine. A person is happy then during those periods when one is successfully carrying through a rational plan and one is with reason confident that one’s efforts will come to fruition. One may be said to approach blessedness to the extent that conditions are supremely favourable and one’s life complete. Yet it does not follow that in advancing a rational plan one is pursuing happiness, not at least as this is normally meant. For one thing, happiness is not one aim among others that we aspire to, but the fulfillment of the whole design itself. However, also, I have supposed first that rational plans satisfy the constraints of right and justice (as the full theory of the good stipulates). #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
To say someone that one seeks happiness does not, it seems, imply that one is prepared either to violate or to affirm these restrictions. Therefore the acceptance of these limits should be made explicit. And secondly, the pursuit of happiness often suggests the pursuit of certain sorts of ends, for example, life, liberty, and one’s own welfare. Thus persons who devote themselves selflessly to a righteous cause, or who dedicate their lives to furthering the well-being of other, are not normally thought to seek happiness. It would be misleading to say this of saints and heroes, or of those whose plan of life is in some marked degree supererogatory. They do not have the kinds of aims that fall under this heading, admittedly not sharply defined. Yet, when their plans succeed, saints and heroes and persons whose intentions acknowledge the limits of right and justice, are in fact happy. Although they do not strive for happiness, they may nevertheless be happy in advancing the claims of justice and the well-being of others, or in attaining the excellences to which they are attracted. However, how in general is it possible to choose among plans rationally? What procedure can an individual follow when faced with this sort of decision? Previously I said that a rational plan is one that would be chosen with deliberative rationality from among the class of plans of all of which satisfy the principles of rational choice and stand up to certain forms of critical reflection. We eventually reach a point though where we just have to decide which plan we most prefer without further guidance from principle. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
There is however one device of deliberation that I have not yet mentioned, and this is to analyze our aims. That is, we can try to find a more detailed or more illuminating description of the object of our desires hoping that the counting principles will then settle the case. Thus it may happen that a fuller or deeper characterization of what we want discloses that an inclusive plan exists after all. Let us consider again the example of planning a holiday. Often when we ask ourselves why we wish to visit two distinct places, we find that all of them can be fulfilled by going to one place rather than the other. Thus we may want to study certain styes of art, and further reflection may bring out that one plan is superior or equally good on all these counts. In this sense we may discover that our desire to go to Paris is more intense than our desire to go to Rome. Often however a finer description fails to be decisive. If we want to see both the most famous church in Christendom and the most famous museum, we may be stuck. Of course these desires too many be examine further. Nothing in the way that most desire are expressed shows whether there exists a more revealing characterization of what we really want. However, we have to allow for the possibility, indeed for the probability, that sooner or later we will reach incomparable aims between which we must choose with deliberative rationality. We may trim, reshape, and transform our aim in a variety of ways as we try to fit them together. Using the principles of rational choice as guidelines, and formulating our desires in the most lucid form we can, we may narrow the scope of purely preferential choice, but we cannot eliminate it altogether. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The indeterminacy of decision seems to arise, then, from the fact that a person has many aims for which there is no ready standard of comparison to decide between them when they conflict. There are many stopping points in practical deliberation and many ways in which we characterize the things we want for their own sake. Thus it is easy to see why the idea of there being a single dominant end (as opposed to an inclusive end) at which it is rational to aim is highly appealing. For if there exists such an end to which all other ends are subordinate, then presumably all desires, insofar as they are rational, admit of an analysis which shows the counting principles to apply. The procedure for making a rational choice, and the conception of such a choice, would then be perfectly clear: deliberation would always concern means to ends, all lesser ends in turn being ordered as means to one single dominant end. The many finite chains of reasons eventually converge and meet at the same point. Hence a rational decision is always in principle possible, since only difficulties of computation and lack of information remain. Now it is essential to understand what the dominant-end theorists wants: namely, a method of choice which the agent oneself can always follow in order to make a rational decision. This there are three requirements: the conception of deliberation must specify: a first person procedure which is generally applicable and guaranteed to lead to the best result (at least under favourable conditions of information and given the ability to calculate). We have no procedures meeting these conditions. A random device provides a general method but it would be rational only in special circumstances. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
In everyday life we employ schemes of deliberation acquired from our culture and modified during the course of our personal history. However, there is no assurance that these forms of reflection are rational. Perhaps they only meet various minimum standards which enable us to get by, all the while falling short of the best that we might do. Thus if we seek a general procedure by which to balance our conflicting aims so as to single out, or at least to identify in thought, the best course of action, the idea of a dominant end seems to give a simple and natural answer. Let us consider then what this dominant end might be. It cannot be happiness itself, since this state is attained by executing a rational plan of life already set out independently. The most we can say is that happiness is an inclusive end, meaning that the plan itself, the realization of which makes one happy, includes and orders most implausible to think of the dominant end as a personal or social objective such as the exercise of political power, or the achievement of social acclaim, or maximizing one’s material possessions. Surely it is contrary to our considered judgments of value, and indeed inhuman, to be so taken with but one of these ends that we do not moderate the pursuit of it for the sake of anything else. For a dominant end is at least lexically prior to all other aims and seeking to advance it always takes absolute precedence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Thus the dominant end is serving God, and by this means saving our soul. Heavenly Father desires that we find true, lasting happiness. Our happiness is the design of all the blessings He gives us—gospel teachings, commandments, priesthood ordinances, family relationship, prophets, temples, the beauties of creation, and even the opportunity to experience adversity. God’s plan for our salvation is often called “the great plan of happiness,” reports Alma 42.8. He sent His Beloved Son to carry out the Atonement so we can be happy in this lie and receive a fulness of joy in the eternities. Furthering the divine intentions is the sole criterion for balancing subordinate aims. It is for this reason alone that we should prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honour to dishonour, a long life to a short one, and, one might add, friendship and affection to hatred and animosity. “Wickedness never was happiness,” reports Alma 41.10. Other seek only to have fun in life. With this as their main goal, they allow temporary pleasure to distract them from lasting happiness. They rob themselves of the enduring joys of spiritual growth, service, and hard work. As we seek to be happy, we should remember that the only way to real happiness is to live the gospel. We will find peaceful, eternal happiness as we strive to keep the commandments, pray for strength, repent of our sins, participate in wholesome activities, and give meaningful service. We must be indifferent to all attachments whatsoever, for these become inordinate once they precent us from being like equalized scales in a balance, ready to take the course that we believe is most for the glory of God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
It should be observed that this principle of indifference is compatible with our enjoying lesser pleasures and for allowing ourselves to engage in play and amusements. For these activities relax the mind and rest the spirit so that we are better fitted to advance more important aims. Thus although Aquinas believes that the vision of God is the last end of all human knowledge and endeavour, he concedes play and amusements a place in our life. Nevertheless these pleasures are permitted only to the extent that the superordinate aim is thereby advanced, or at least not hindered. We should arrange things so that our indulgences in frivolity and jest, in affection and friendship, do not interfere with the fullest attainment of our final end. The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed. Thus if God is conceived (as surely He must be) as a moral being, then the end of serving Him above all else is left unspecified to the extent that the divine intentions are not clear from revelation, or evident from natural reason. Within these limits a theological doctrine of morals is subject to the same problems of balancing principles and determining precedence which trouble other conceptions. Since disputed questions commonly lie here, the solution propounded by the religious ethic is only apparent. And certainly when the dominant end is clearly specified as attaining some objective goal such as political power or material wealth, the underling fanaticism and inhumanity are manifest. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Human good is heterogeneous because the aims of the self are heterogenous. Although to subordinate all our aims to one end does not strictly speaking violate the principles of rational choice (not the counting principles anyway), it still strikes us as irrational, or more likely as mad. The self is disfigured and put in the service of one of its ends for the sake of system. Governments are composed of persons who meet occasionally in a hall to make speeches and to write resolutions; of human studying papers at desks, receiving and answering letters and memoranda, listening to advice and giving it, hearing complaints and claims and replying to them; o clerks manipulating more papers; of inspectors, tax collectors, law enforcement, and soldiers. These officials have to be fed, and often they overeat. They would often rather go fishing, or have pleasures of the flesh, or do anything than shuffle their papers. They have to sleep. They suffer from indigestion and asthma, bile and palpitation, become bored, tired, careless, and have nervous headaches. They know what they happen to learn, they are away of what they happen to observe, they can imagine what they happen to be interested in, they can accomplish only what they can command or persuade an unseen multitude to do. What is so remarkable about America is that millions of people believe more in the power of prayer than in the power of politics; they believe the message to “repent, be converted, and trust Jesus Christ” can topple even an authoritarian leader. They believe their deliverance is spiritual. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Such belief runs counter to the myth that all human problems are political and solvable by all-powerful human institutions. An extreme example was the prominent New Right leader who declared in 1985, after Congress failed to pass his legislative agenda, “The only way to have a genuine spiritual revival is to have legislative reform…I think we have been legislated out of the possibility of a spiritual revival.” Evidently, the work of the Kingdom of God has been defeated by a majority vote in the kingdoms of man. I am sure that individual did not mean to deny the sovereignty of God, but his statement insinuates that nothing can be accomplished except through the government. Jacques Ellul could well have been describing this leader when he wrote that politics has become “the supreme religion of the age.” This political illusion springs from a diminishing belief in God and the growth of big government. What people once expected from the Almighty, they now expect from the almighty bureaucracy. That is bad trade for anyone; but for the Christian, it is rank idolatry. The media encourages the illusion. Stories of spiritual conversion, growth, and revival do not make god thirty-second news spots. While the everyday actions of ordinary citizens lack headline punch, politics offers confrontation, controversy, and scandal. When religion does make the cover of Time or a spot on the network news, it is usually the result of scandal, as extraordinary as the coverage of Jim and Tammy Bakker. That is not a complaint; it I simply the way the news business works, which in turn is merely satisfying the public appetite for sleazy gossip, crime, dramatically suggestive headlines, fiction, outlandish stories, and aggressive reporters. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Although most people claim they do not believe most of what the news reports, yet they are drawn to its promise of insider knowledge and hot scoops about celebrities, politicians, and aliens from outer space. New coverage gravitates to political centers, exalting the momentary, assuring suspense. The public waits expectantly for the next installment in the unfolding political soap opera. On one level media and government are natural antagonists; on another they are natural allies, depending on each other for their influence. News organizations concentrate their resources in political capitals; governments gear their policies and decisions for primetime audiences. The media spotlight politics and political feeds in the media. Because the illusion serves those with the power to perpetuate it, neither side cares to expose it. People watch the news like it a heavy weight fight, listening to reporters give breathless blow-by-blow accounts of propaganda, as they often ignore real news that matters. The view back home sits in front of the TV, like a mindless goldfish, being spoon fed junk news. Thousands of journalist are constantly pounding the pavements, desperate for something to film. Some camera operators shot footage of each other. Others give up and go out for fondue. Much of the news treads perilously close to heresy. If this were the seventh century, many reporters would probably be accused by Dr. William Griggs of having the evil hand upon them. News is a big business, after all, having hundreds of millions riding on Nielsen ratings. National Network personalities hold multimillion dollar contracts, and they, as well as many print journalists, enjoy the handsome rewards of celebrity. Even in nations with public-owned media, the illusion guarantees power, privilege, and access to the elite. These are not willingly surrendered. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
This unwavering focus heightens both the promise and expectations of what government can do. Political rhetoric, therefore, mist offer panaceas to all human ills. If elected, can anyone recall a major candidate who di not claim he or she could solve any problem? However, most politicians know that more than 80 percent of the federal budget—entitlement programs and other congressionally mandated outlays—are beyond their control. Most candidates cannot have a balanced budget and federal judges often strip the president of their power to make changes to the government so society keeps getting worse, instead of improving. Politicians have little choice. Modern technology has reduced all issues to their lowest common denominator. Since there is no time to explain the complexities of the budget process, and since instant perceptions shape voter attitudes, politicians can do no more than create appealing visual impressions. Former Budget Director David Stockman chided Regan aides Baker and Meese for being more interested in the evening network news than in government policy. However, perhaps they were more realistic. Policy has no meaning apart from how it is perceived, and that perception is heavily influenced by newscasters. That is why Lyndon Johnson obsessively watched three evening news programs simultaneously on a three-console television set. He knew public reaction to the televised portrayal of Vietnam would influence opinion far more than battlefield strategies. He was right: the outcome of that war was decided in American living rooms. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
To maintain the illusion, government attempts to shape, even manipulate public perceptions. The White House gives assignments to people to do just that. Staff members work full time studying daily news briefings, monitoring public reactions to presidential speeches, taking daily polls, and feeding positive information to friendly reporters. Often they aggressively try to manipulate public opinion. For example, immediately after every presidential speech, a White House staff member usually unleashes a small army of assistants who will call key leaders in every walk of life. They might make five hundred calls, each following the same script: “The president asked me to call you to find out what your thought of his announced policy.” The reactions are usually collated, typed, and within hours a report surveying the opinions of hundreds of leaders is in the president’s hands. Helpful information, but the staff also influences public reactions toward acceptance of their policy. To be told that the president wants one’s opinion flatters even the cynics. Those called rarely offer a critical reply; most can hardly wait to call their friends and casually mention that “by the way, the president just called” to ask their opinion. So when journalists Tomi Lahren and Yamiche Alcindor has very public interactions with President Trump about their news reports, it was really a big deal to be acknowledged. With the government policy so dependent on public reaction, it is little wonder that the celebrity syndrome has become such a major force in Western politics. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
The subtle danger of all this manipulation is that people no longer view their own circumstances as reality. Only what appears in print and on the screen as well. The humans of the present day suffer from acute television intoxication. They do not believe in their own experiences, one’s own judgment and one’s own thought. In their eyes, a fact becomes true when one has read an account of it in the paper, and one measures the importance by the size of the headlines. This has resulted in people giving out false, distorted, or outdated information because no one calls to the agencies involved to verify if. However, people who do not trust the news actually do verify information before they take it as a fact because they know how dangerous disinformation can be. Still, many individuals gradually loses all sense of continuity. Whether a policy is good or bad, a success or a failure, is of no account; all that matters is the emotion its instant image induces. No one remembers from one day to the next. On a Monday a president can say, “The Russians blinked.” Everyone is happy. The next day it is disclosed the Russians did not blink—we did—but no one remembers. So on to the next night. The process is mesmerizing. Images pile on images, day after day, anesthetizing the public so they feel individually important and that all power resides in images they see on their television screens. This eventually erodes their own sense of political responsibility and makes them easy prey to the appetite of an authoritarian state. The consequence is irresistible. The chief characteristic of tyranny is isolation of the individual, denying one access to the public realm where one would show oneself, see and be seen, ear and be heard. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Even democracies need institutions and agencies through which the individual can resist the tendency of all central governments to grow larger, stronger, and more domineering. For the only thing that stands between the multitudes and totalitarianism are the mediating structures of society: families, small groups of citizens, churches, voluntary associations that are independent and resistant to the collective state. If the American experiment is to succeed, it will require the continued help of voluntary associations. Of all these independent institutions, the church should be the one best able to expose the political illusion. For the message of a transcendent reality is resounding warning against the futility of seeking immorality from the instruments and institutions of this life. Mastery of nature through technology has given modern humans the illusions that one has mastered life itself. The message of the Kingdom is that only God is master of life, and attempts to create alternatives to His rule are futile. The fall of the Roman Empire plainly demonstrated that no work of mortal hands can be immortal, and it was accomplished by the rise of the Christian gospel of an everlasting individual life to its position as the exclusive religion of Western humankind. Both together made any striving for an Earthly immortality futile and unnecessary. The Kingdom of God is not dependent on power in the kingdoms of humans. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. Political kingdoms may rise and fall—but the Kingdom of God goes on forever. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Modern history is replete with similar lessons about the futility of putting ultimate trust in much-vaunted political systems. When a greedy tyrant is overthrown, the idealist replacing him or her promises liberation and hope for the oppressed. The people are jubilant. However, in a short time the “liberator” becomes the oppressor oneself, resplendent in one’s $6,500 designer glasses. When autocracy is replaced by bureaucracy, only the icons change. Ideology, which in so many parts of the World has replaced true religion, is powerless as well. The promised utopias of the twenty-first century., either Marxist of Fascist, are doomed because they accept the essential premises of current civilization and move with its lines of internal development: Thus, utilizing what this World itself offers them, they become slaves, although they think they are transforming it. Even massive weapons of destruction fail to assure anything for today’s mightiest governments. Wars reach no permanent solutions; there is no such things as a lasting peace or, as American so fondly believed, “a war to end all wars.” Terrorists stalk the globe, and government can do little to stop them. Wars proliferate; political solutions fail; frustrations rise. Yet we continue to look to governments to resolve problems beyond their capability. The illusion persists. Nowhere is that more evident than in one troubled corner of the World. However, even there, in the midst of carnage, violence, and hatred, the example of a few people offers hope, pointing the way for civilization to emerge from darkness. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Each of us must gain for oneself the authentic mystical experience. Sugar can be known only by its sweet taste, the Overself only by opening the doors of the mind to consciousness of its presence. Those who have had this overwhelming experience require no arguments to make them believe in the soul. They know that they are the soul. An experience which is so convincing, so real, that no intellectual argument to the contrary can stand against it, is final. Let others say what they will, one remains unswayed. A glimpse is a transitory state of mental enlightenment and emotional exaltation. It I an experience of self-discovery, not the discovery of some other being, whether a guru or a god. These brief flashes bring with them great joy, great beauty, and great uplift. They are, for most people, their first clear vivid awakening to the existence and reality of a spiritual order of being. The contrast with their ordinary state is so tremendous as to shame it into pitiful drabness. The intention is to arouse and stimulate them into the longing for re-entry into the spirit, a longing which inevitably express itself in the quest. In the past these glimpse experiences were regarded as wholly religious. Today the truth about them is better understood. They may be aesthetic, psychological, intellectual, or creative—happening outside the religious circle. All our ordinary experience comes to us through sense responses or intellectual workings. However, here is a kind of experience which does not come through these two channels. It is not a series of sensations nor a series of thoughts. What is it, then? Philosophy says it belongs to the transcendental World. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
The uniqueness of this moment shines out against the relatedness of all other moments. Words only limit it by their precision and their pressure, yet they are all some of us have with which to make a likeness of it to show friends, or to hold before the ardent seekers, or even to return to ourselves in dark and difficult periods. The glimpse may be best compared to a moment of wakefulness in a long existence of sleep. These mystical glimpses have close parallels with the best features of the best types of religious conversion. Indeed, as might be expected, they are deeper and more developed and better controlled forms of them. These glimpses, these transcendental visitations bring joy, serenity, and understanding. No rational explanation has given of the seemingly eccentric characters of these glimpses, no reasonable theory of their why, what, how, and when. The mystical experience may be beyond reasoned analysis but it is not beyond reasonable description. Putting words together on paper to tell how this glimpse lifts one out of the ordinariness of the common existence, is a work anyone must enjoy doing. It is a brief and temporary enlargement of consciousness, in theological language, an improvement of its connection with God. How is one to describe this experience? It is an expansion, and yet also a concentration, of consciousness. It is not enough to say that someone has had a mystical experience. This phrase can over the most opposite, the most widely different experiences. The experience is so beautiful that no description can transfer the feelings it awakens from one heart to another. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
There are the real waking moments of a person’s life: for the rest one is asleep without ever guessing that one is. It is not the highest point of the moral experience, although that approaches it, or can help to being it on, or acts as a preparation for it. It is not the peak of the aesthetic experience, although that fulfills the same services. A long time I have lived with you and now we must be going separately to be together. Perhaps I shall be the wind to blur your smooth waters so that you do not see your face too much. Perhaps I shall be the star to guide your uncertain wings so that you have direction in the night. Perhaps I shall be the fire to separate your thoughts so that you do not give up. Perhaps I shall be the rain to open up the Earth so that your seed may fall. Perhaps I shall be the snow to let your blossoms sleep s that you may bloom in spring. Perhaps I shall be the stream to play a song on the rock so that you are not alone. Perhaps I shall be a new mountain so that you always have a way home. Here are life’s highest processes, an experience beyond thinking and an awareness beyond the sensual. During this period one is in God. These rare moments lift one out of one’s terrestrial self and detach one from one’s lower human self. Only a poet could portray these experiences as they deserve; to write of them with outer photographic exactness only is to half-lose them. In religious language one is in God, and in mystical language God is in one. One has reached a World which is as much beyond good as it is beyond evil. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Magnified and sanctified be the name of God throughout the World which He hath created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom during the days of your life and during the life of your life and during the life of all the house of America, speedily, yea, soon; and say ye, Amen. May His great name be blessed for every and ever. Exalted and honoured be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, whose glory transcends, yea, is beyond all praises, hymns and blessings that humans can render unto Him; and say ye, Amen. When I call upon the Lord, ascribe greatness unto our God. O Lord, open Thou lips and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. Praised art Thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, Go of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, mighty, revered and exalted God. Thou bestowest lovingkindness and possessest all things. Mindful of the patriarchs’ love for Thee, Thou wilt in Thy love bring a redeemer to their children’s children for the sake of Thy name. Please remember us unto life, O King who delightest in life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life so that we may live worthily for Thy sake, O Lord of life. O King, Thou Helper, Redeemer and Shield, be Thou praised, O Lord, Shield of Abraham. Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou callest the dead to immortal life for Thou art mighty in deliverance. Thou causest the wind to blow and the rain to fall. Thou sustainest the living with lovingkindness, and in great mercy callest the departed to everlasting life. Thou upholdest the falling, healest the sick, settest free those in bondage, an keepest faith with those that sleep in the dust. Who is like unto Thee, Almighty King, who decreest death and life and bringest forth salvation? God provides an experience of complete security—so rarely found among people in the World today. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!
Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.
Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District.
Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together!
Cresleigh offers enchanting homes that have all the amenities you have come to expect in a grand home.
This is the Beginning, When People Will Be Opening their Eyes!
Nothing is quite as funny as the unintended humour of reality. The original position is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that is to be adopted in our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice. In taking up this point of view, we are imagining ourselves in the position of free and equal persons who jointly agree upon and commit themselves to the principles of social and political justice. The main distinguishing feature of the original position is “the veil of ignorance”: to insure impartiality of judgment, the parties are deprived of all knowledge of their personal characteristics and social and historical circumstances. The two principles of justice guarantee the equal basic rights and liberties needed to secure the fundamental interests of free and equal citizens and to pursue a wide range of conceptions of good. The second principle provides fair equality of education and employment opportunities enabling all to fairly compete for powers and positions of office; and it secures for all a guaranteed minimum of the all-purpose means (including income and wealth) that individuals need to pursue their interests and to maintain their self-respect as free and equal persons. Persons in the original position give pride of place to their interest in the equal freedoms. The intuitive idea behind the precedence of liberty is that if the persons in the original position assume that their basic liberties can be effectively exercised, they will not exchange a lesser liberty for an improvement in the economic well-being, at least not once a certain level of wealth has been attained. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
It is only when social conditions do not allow the effective establishment of these rights that one can acknowledge their restriction. Only if it is necessary to enhance the quality of civilization so that in due course the equal freedoms can be enjoyed by all can the denial of equal liberty can be accepted. The lexical ordering of the two principles is the long-run tendency of the general conception of justice consistently pursued under reasonably favourable conditions. Eventually there comes a time in the history of a well-ordered society beyond which the special form of the two principles takes over and holds from then on. What must be shown then is the rationality of this ranking from the standpoint of the parties in the original position. Clearly the conception of goodness as rationality and the principles of moral psychology have a part in answering this question. Now the basis for the priority of liberty is roughly as follows: as the conditions of civilization improve, the marginal significance for our god of further economic and social advantages diminishes relative to their interests of liberty, which become stronger as the conditions for the exercise of the equal freedoms are more fully realized. Beyond some point it becomes and then remains irrational from the standpoint of the original position to acknowledge a lesser liberty for the sake of greater material means and amenities of office. This is so because as the general level of well-being raises (as indicated by the index of primary goods the less favoured can expect) only the less urgent wants remain to be met by further advances, at least insofar as human’s wants are not largely created by institutions and social forms. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
At the same time the obstacles to the exercise of the equal liberties decline and a growing insistence upon the right to pursue our spiritual and cultural interests assert itself. Increasingly it becomes more important to secure the free internal life of the various communities of interests in which persons and groups seek to achieve, in modes of social union consistent with equal liberty, the ends and excellences to which they are drawn. In addition humans come to aspire to some control over the laws and rules that regulate their association, either by directly taking part themselves in its affairs or indirectly through representatives with whom they are affiliated by ties of culture and social situation. To be sure, it is not the case that when the priority of liberty holds, all material wants are satisfied. Rather these desires are not so compelling as to make it rational for the persons in the original position to agree to satisfy them by accepting a less than equal freedom. The account of the good enables the parties to work out a hierarchy among their several interests and to note which kinds of ends should be regulative in their rational plans of life. Until the basic wants of individuals can be fulfilled, the relative urgency of their interest in liberty cannot be firmly decided in advance. It will depend on the claims of the least favoured as seen from the constitutional and legislative stages. However, under favourable circumstances the fundamental interest in determining our plan of life eventually assumes a prior place. One reason for this I have discussed in connection with liberty of conscience and freedom of thought. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
And a second reason is the central place of the primary good of self-respect and the desire of human beings to express their nature in a free social union with others. Thus the desire for liberty is the chief regulative interest that the parties must suppose they all will have in common in due course. The veil of ignorance forces them to abstract from the particulars of their plans of life, thereby leading to this conclusion. The serial ordering of the two principles then follows. Now it might seem that even though the desire for an absolute increase in economic advantages declines, human’s concern for their relative place in the distribution of wealth will persist. In fact, if we suppose that everyone wishes a greater proportionate share, the result could be a growing desire for material abundance all the same. Since each strives for an end that cannot be collectively attained, society might conceivably become more and more preoccupied with raising productivity and improving economic efficiency. And these objectives might become so dominant as to undermine the precedence of liberty. Some have objected to the tendency to equality on precisely this ground, that it is thought to arouse in individuals an obsession with their relative share of social wealth. However, while it is true that in a well-ordered society there is most likely a trend to greater equality, its members take little interest in their relative position as such. As we have seen, they are not much affected by envy and jealousy, and for the most part they do what seems best to them as judged by their own plan of life without being dismayed by the greater amenities and enjoyments of others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Thus there are no strong psychological propensities prompting them to curtail their liberty for the sake of greater absolute or relative economic welfare. The desire for a higher relative place in the distribution of material means should be sufficiently weak that the priority of liberty is not affected. Of course, it does not follow that in a just society everyone is unconcerned with matters of status. The account of self-respect as perhaps the main primary good has stressed the great significance of how we think others value us. However, in a well-ordered society the need for status is met by the public recognition of just institutions, together with the full and diverse internal life of the many free communities of interest that equal liberty allows. The basis for self-esteem in a just society is not then one’s income share but the publicly affirmed distribution of fundamental rights and liberties. And this distribution being equal, everyone has a similar and secure status when they meet to conduct the common affairs of the wider society. No one is inclined to look beyond the constitutional affirmation of equality for further political ways of securing one’s status. No one is inclined to look beyond the constitutional affirmation of equality for further political position from a strategic point of view. It would also have the effect of publicly establishing their inferiority as defined by the basic structure of society. This subordinate ranking in the public forum experienced in the attempt to take part in political and economic life, and felt in dealing with those who have a greater liberty, would indeed be humiliating and destructive of self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
And so by acquiescing in a less than equal liberty one might lose on both counts. This is particularly likely to be true as society becomes more just, since equal rights and public attitudes of mutual respect have an essential place in maintaining a political balance and in assuring citizens of their own worth. Thus while the social and economic differences between the various sectors of society, the noncomparing groups as we may think of them, are not likely to generate animosity, the hardships arising from political and civic inequality, and from culture and ethnic discrimination, cannot be easily accepted. When it is the position of equal citizenship that answers to the need for status, the precedence of equal liberties becomes all the more necessary. Having chosen a conception of justice that seeks to eliminate the significance of relative economic and social advantages as supports for human’s self-confidence, it is essential that the priority of liberty be firmly maintained. So for this reason too the parties are led to adopt a serial ordering of the two principles. In a well-ordered society then self-respect is secured by the public affirmation of the status of equal citizenship for all; the distribution of material means is left to take care of itself in accordance with the idea of pure procedural justice. Of course doing this assumes the requisite background institutions which narrow the range of inequalities so that excusable envy does not arise. Now this way of dealing with the problem of status has several noteworthy features which may be brought out as follows. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Suppose to the contrary that how one is valued by others depends upon one’s relative place in the distribution of income and wealth. In this case, having a higher status implies having more material means than a larger fraction of society. Thus not everyone can have the highest status, and to improve one person’s position is to lower that of someone else. Social cooperation to increase the conditions of self-respect is impossible. The means of status, so to speak, are fixed, and each human’s gain is another’s loss. Clearly this situation is a great misfortune. Persons are set at odds with one another in the pursuit of their self-esteem. Given the preeminence of this primary good, the parties in the original position surely do no want to find themselves so opposed. If not impossible, it would tend, for one thing, to make the good of social union difficult to achieve. Moreover, if the means of providing a good are indeed fixed and cannot be enlarged by cooperation, as mentioned in the discussion of envy, then justice seems to require equal shares, ceteris paribus. However, an equal division of all primary gods in irrational in view of the possibility of bettering everyone’s circumstances by accepting certain inequalities. Thus the best solution is to support the primary good of self-respect as far as possible by the assignment of the basic liberties that can indeed be made equal, defining the same status for all. At the same time, distributive justice as frequently understood, justice in the relative shares of material means, is relegated to a subordinate place. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Thus we arrive at another reason for factoring the social order into two parts as indicated by the principles of justice. While these principles permit inequalities in return for contributions that are for the benefit of all, the precedence of liberty entails equality in the social bases of esteem. Now it is quite possible that this idea cannot be carried through completely. To some extent human’s sense of their own worth may hinge upon their institutional position and their income share. If, however, the account of social envy and jealousy is sound, then, with the appropriate background arrangements, these inclinations should not be excessive, at least not when the priority of liberty is effectively upheld. However, if necessary, theoretically we can include self-respect in the primary goods, the index of which defines expectations. Then in applications of the difference principle this index can allows for the effects of excusable envy; the expectations of the less advantaged are lower the more severe these effects. Whether some adjustment for self-respect has to be made is best decided from the standpoint of the legislative stage where the parties have more information about social circumstances and the principle of political determination applies. Admittedly this problem is an unwelcome complication. Since simplicity it itself desirable in a public conception of justice, the conditions that elicit excusable envy should if possible be avoided. Expectations of the less advantaged can be understood so as to include the primary good of self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Now some may want to object to this account of the priority of liberty that societies have other ways of affirming self-respect and of coping with envy and other disruptive inclinations. Thus in a feudal or in a caste system each person is believed to have one’s allotted station in the natural order of things. One’s comparisons are presumably confined to within one’s own estate or caste, these ranks becoming in effect so many noncomparing groups established independently of human control and sanctioned by religion and theology. Humans resign themselves to their position should it ever occur to them to question it; and since all may view themselves as assigned their vocation, everyone is held to be equally fated and equally noble in the eyes of providence. This conception of society solves the problem of social justice by eliminating in thought the circumstances that give rise to it. The basic structure is aid to be already determined, and not something for human beings to affect. On this view, it misconceives human’s place in the World to suppose that the social order should match principles which they would as equals consent to. Now to this idea, parties re to be guided in their choice of a conception of justice by a knowledge of the general facts about society. They take for granted than that institutions are not fixed but change overtime, altered by natural circumstances and the activities and conflicts of social groups. The constraints of nature are recognized, but humans are not powerless to shape their social arrangements. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
This assumption is likewise part of the background of the theory of justice. It follows that certain ways of dealing with envy and other aberrant propensities are closed to a well-ordered society. For example, it cannot keep them in check by promulgating false or unfounded beliefs. For our problem is how society should be arranged if it is to conform to principles that rational persons with true general beliefs would acknowledge in the original position. The publicity condition of requires the parties to assume that as members of society they will also know the general facts. The reasoning leading up to the initial agreement is to be accessible to public understanding. Of course, in working out what the requisite principles are, we must rely upon current knowledge as recognized by common sense and the existing scientific consensus. However, there is no reasonable alternative to doing this. We have to concede that as established beliefs change, it is possible that the principles of justice which it seems rational to choose may likewise change. Thus when the belief in a fixed natural order sanctioning a hierarchical society is abandoned, assuming here that this belief is not true, a tendency is set up that points in the direction of two principles of justice inertial order. The effective protection of the equal liberties becomes increasingly of first importance. When God wants to punish people, he gives the unjust leaders. So the answer is for the people to repent, turn from their ways, be converted, and seek God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Some people only care about power and what they can do with power. May the Lord come down to protect our people. Democracy is not prescribed in the Bible, and Christians can and do live under other political systems. However, Christians can hardly fail to love democracy, because of all systems it best assures human dignity, the essence of our creation in God’s image. If a candidate wins by cheating, he or she can only be forgiven by God if one renounced the office one has obtained by fraud. There will be no divine forgiveness for this act of injustice without a previous decision to repay the damage done. However, apparently God’s forgiveness is unimportant to some ruling. When politicians rig the vote, it means all the passion for democracy and all the prayers of the people are meaningless. A government that assumes or maintains power through fraudulent means has no moral basis. If it does not of itself freely correct the evil it has inflicted on the people, then it is our serious moral obligation as a people to make it do so. Nonetheless, there is enormous sin attached to fratricidal strife. As moral outrage grows, it is important to study the Bible. God has ordained government to preserve order, but even a bad government is better than no government—which results in chaos. Government’s authority comes from God; it is a delegation. Therefore, governments—all governments—whether they acknowledge it or not, rule under God. However, does God give an unrestricted delegation? Certainly not. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
As Jesus Christ made clear with the coin, there are two realms—and Caesar is not to usurp what belongs to God. Any government that violates the law that is higher than its own is exceeding the legitimate authority God has granted. Government must always be respected, otherwise anarchy results; but the nation may attempt to venerate a culture or race. “When the state is made to serve the aspirations of race or nation instead of the cause of justice for all, it becomes a demonic state warranting resistance and rejection by the Christian faith,” reports Donald Bloesch, Crumbling Foundations (Grand Paris, Mich.: Zondervan, 1984), 183. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “If government persistently and arbitrarily violates its assigned task, then the divine mandate lapses.” In that case the state becomes evil incarnate, as in Nazi Germany. Instead of acting as God’s instrument for preserving life and order, it does the reverse, destroying life and order. Then the church must resist. Though as argued earlier, the church’s primary function is evangelization and ministering to spiritual needs; as the principle visible manifestation of the Kingdom of God, it must be the conscience of society, the instrument of moral accountability. Richard Neuhaus eloquently wrote that “the church can and should subject to moral questioning every political agenda or cause, thus keeping the entirety of human politics under the transcendent judgement of God.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
The church’s first duty then would be to publicly expose the state’s immorality. The government should not be involved in corruption, oppression, the deprivation of civil liberties, nor the taking of innocent lives. As a second step the church should refuse to have any part in the state’s immorality. The church must take the next more severe measures of resistance lest its words be rendered hollow. The great evangelist Charles Finney refused communion to slave-holders. Others organized the underground railroad and rescued fugitive slaves from prison. Many ministers broke the law, were arrested, and some imprisoned. However, that state’s evil, even as egregious as slavery, does not give an unrestricted license to disobey any law; only the unjust law can properly be contested. While active resistance may succeed, as it did with slavery and the Civil-Rights Movement, it may not, however, be enough in the face of the raw power modern totalitarian states have achieved. So, when all peaceable means fail, what does the Christian do? Is revolution ever justified? Scottish reformation theologians like John Knox and Samuel Rutherford believed they could be, advocating the right of Christians to rise up against ungodly rulers. Many ministers in the colonies agreed as well; when they preached that the people had the authority to resist the king when the king violated God’s commands, they were setting the stage for the American Revolution. After dumping tea in Boston Harbour the next step of resistance was the musket. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
A Boston preacher said that for a people to “arise unanimously and resist their prince, even to dethrone him, is not criminal but a reasonable way of vindicating their liberties and just rights.” John Adams observed, “The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.” Some Christian activists today loosely call for a new American Revolution just as the young radical youth movements did in the sixties. However, history reveals, revolution most often results, after the bodies are buried, in one form of tyranny replacing another. G.K. Chesterton summed it up well: “The real case against revolution is this: That there always seems to be much more to be said against the old regime than in favour of the new regime.” So for the Christian, revolution is never to be lightly regarded. It is the most extreme form of disobedience. It could only be contemplated on the same justification as a just war; that is, that there must be a better alterative as a result of the revolution. Its advantages must outweigh the suffering, and the evil employed in the revolution must prevent a far greater evil than the status quo. This was the reasoning that caused Albert Einstein to abandon his pacifism in the face of a dictator’s rise to power. “To prevent the greater evil, it is necessary that the lesser—the hated military—be accepted for the time being,” Einstein contended. It was this reasoning the caused Bonhoeffer to patriciate in the plot to assassinate this dictator. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
For Christians to justify participation in revolution, therefore, they would have to be convinced that the state had become totally opposed to the purposes of God for the state and there was no other recourse to prevent massive evil. The Exodus from Egypt is often cited as a model for political action by liberation theologians, but they ignore the fact that in the Exodus, God did not overthrow the political system in Egypt. He extracted His own people from that system, taking them to Mount Sinai that they might worship Him. In the light of this, then, what about America? What lessons are to be drawn from it? We must be aware to prevent a regime’s refusal to allow free elections, the suspensions of civil liberties, the massive corruption of the governmental process, the trampling of human rights, and a leader’s own blasphemous, at times messianic pretensions, which give the church a mandate to act. The church should be mobilized to say no to evil. The first stage of an individua approach should be entirely biblical. By preaching repentance and conversion, one can encourage outbreaks of spiritual revival all across America. One should call for people to pray for their country. A courageous cardinal and ordinary citizens can open a crack of light in the dark canopy that envelops so much of planet Earth. Through peaceful actions and resistance to evil, the Kingdom of God will be made visible again. The Late Francis Schaeffer once wrote, “If here is no place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
The belief that government is autonomous, the ultimate repository of power, the solution to all of society’s ills, is the greatest imposter of the twenty-first century. Christians and the church have no higher calling than to expose it by every legitimate means. To some people the great trouble about any argument for the Supernatural is simply the fact that argument should be needed at all. If so stupendous a thing exists, ought it not be obvious as the sun in the sky? It is not intolerable, and indeed incredible, that knowledge of the most basic of all Facts should be accessible only by wire-drawn reasonings for which the vast majority of humans have neither leisure nor capacity? I have great sympathy with this point of view. However, we must notice two things. When you are looking at a garden from a room upstairs it is obvious (once you think about it) that you are looking through a window. However, if it is the garden that interests you, you may look at it for a long time without thinking of the window. When you are reading a book, it is obvious (once you attend to it) that you are using your eyes: but unless your eyes begin to hurt you, or the book is a text book on optics, you may read all evening without once thinking of eyes. When we talk we are obviously using langue and grammar: and when we try to talk a foreign language we may be painfully aware of the fact. However, we are talking English, we do not notice it. When you shout from the top of the stirs, “I am in half a moment,” you are usually conscious that you have made the singular am agree with the singular I. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
There is indeed a story told about a Native American who, having learned several other languages, was asked to write a grammar of the language used by his own tribe. He replied, after some thought, that it had no grammar. The grammar he had sued all his life had escaped his notice all his life. He knew it (in once sense) so well that (in another sense) he did not know it existed. All these instances show that the fact, and through which alone you have access to all the other facts, may be precisely the one that is most easily forgotten—forgotten not because it is so remote or abstruse but because it is so near and so obvious. And that is exactly how the Supernatural has been forgotten. The Naturalists have been engaged in thinking about Nature. They have not attended to the fact that they were thinking. The moment one attends to this it is obvious that one’s own thinking cannot be merely a natural event, and that therefore something other than Nature exists. The Supernatural is not remote and abstruse: it is a matter f daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing. Denial of it depends on a certain absent-mindedness. However, this absent-mindedness is in on way surprising. You do not need—indeed you do not wish—to be always thinking about windows when you are looking at gardens or always thinking about eyes when you are reading. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
In the same way the proper procedure for all limited and particular inquiries is to ignore the fact of your own thinking, and concentrate on the object. It is only when you stand back from particular inquiries and try to form a complete philosophy that you must take it into account. For a complete philosophy must get in all the facts. In it you turn away from specialized or truncated thought to total thought: and one of the facts total thought must think about is Thinking itself. There is thus a tendency in the study of Nature to make us forget the most obvious first of all. And since the Sixteenth Century, when Science was born, the minds of humans have been increasingly turned outward, to know Nature and to master her. They have been increasingly engaged on those specialized inquiries for which truncated thought is the correct method. It is therefore not in the least astonishing that they should have forgotten the evidence for the Supernatural. The deeply ingrained habit of truncated thought—what we call the “scientific” habit of mind—was indeed certain to lead to Naturalism, unless this tendency were continually corrected from some other source. However, no other source was at hand, for during the same period humans of science were coming to be metaphysically and theologically uneducated. That brings me to the second consideration. The state of affairs in which ordinary people can discover the Supernatural only by abstruse reasoning is recent and, by historical standards, abnormal. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
All over the World, until quite modern times, the direct insight of the mystics and the reasonings of the philosopher percolated to the mass of the people by authority and tradition; they could be received by those who were no great reasoners themselves in the concrete form of myth and ritual and the whole pattern of life. In the conditions produced by a century or so of Naturalism, plain humans are being forced to bear burdens which plain humans were never expected to bear before. We must get the truth for ourselves or go without it. There may be two explanations for this. It might be that humanity, in rebelling against tradition and authority, has made a ghastly mistake; a mistake which will not be less fatal because the corruptions of those in authority rendered it very excusable. On the other hand, it may be that the Power which rules our species is at this moment carrying out a daring experiment. Could it be intended that the whole mass of the people should now move forward and occupy for themselves those heights which were once reserved only for the sages? Is the distinction between wise and simple to disappear because all are now expected to become wise? If so, our present blunderings would be but growing pains. However, let us make no mistake about our necessities. If we are content to go back and become humble plain humans obeying a tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. However, the human who will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her oneself is fatal. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live: a society where all were seers could live even more fully. However, a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death. One other point that may have raised doubt or difficulty is the advanced reasons for believing that a supernatural element in present in every rational human. The presence of human rationality in the World is therefore a Miracle. Human Reason an Morality have been mentioned not as instances of Miracle (at least, not of the kind of Miracle you wanted to hear about) but as prods of the Supernatural: not in order to show that Nature ever is invaded but that there is a possible invader. Whether you choose to call the regular and familiar invasion by human Reason a Miracle or not is largely a matter of words. Its regularity—the fact that it regularly enters by the same door, human pleasures of the flesh—may incline you not to do so. It looks as if it were (so to speak) the very nature of Nature to suffer this invasion. However, then we might later find that it was the very nature of Nature to suffer Miracles in general. Fortunately the course of our argument will allow us to leave this question of terminology on one side. We are going to be concerned with other invasions of Nature—with what everyone would call Miracles. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Our question could, if you liked, be put in the form, “Does Supernature every produce particular results in space and time except through the instrumentality of human brains acting on human nerves and muscles?” I have said “particular results” because, on our view, Nature as a whole is herself one huge result of the Supernatural: God created her. God pierces her wherever there is a human mind. God presumably maintains her in existence. The question is whether He ever does anything else to her. Does God, beside all this, ever introduce into her events of which it would not be true to say, “This is simply the working out of the general character which God gave to Nature as a whole in creating her”? Such events are what are popularly called Miracles: and it will be in this sense only that the word Miracle will be used from now on. Do not stand at my grace and weep, I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a though rays of light that glow. I am the diamond glint on snow. I am the moonlight on the shinning sea. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you wake in the morning hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush or quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft starlight at night. Do not stand at my grace and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. Our God and God of our fathers, we thank Thee for Thy Torah, our priceless heritage. May the portion we have ready today inspire us to do Thy will and to seek further knowledge of Thy word. Thus our minds will be enriched and our lives endowed with purpose. May we take to heart Thy laws by which humans truly live. Happy are all who love Thee and delight in Thy commandments. Amen. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Wise Humans, Good Humans, Patriotic Humans are to be Found in All Communities!
If Americans could be made to believe that their sufferings were for some remote, high sacrificial end, perhaps it would be possible for them to become reconciled to their plight; but sharing the culture that condemns them, and seeing that lust for trash is what blinds the nation to their claims, is what sets storms rolling in the soul of America. The United State of America is so unique from other nations because it is a nation of laws, not a nation of humans. A nation of laws means that legal decrees, not people rule. Whether it be the most common American members or members of Congress, high-ranking bureaucrats or the president of the United States of America, everyone is governed by the same laws, regardless of their station. All must be held to the just laws of America. America’s founds extolled a nation of laws, for they knew that only a fairly enforced legal system could protect liberty and property against corruption and tyranny. God is in fact the author of liberty and to retain it, the inhabitant of the land must be protected by His might hand. There is no other power that can protect that liberty. In order for us to enjoy this protection of His might, we must accept God as our God and keep His commandments. “Behold, this America is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under Heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ,” reports Ether 2.12. The God of this land is also the King of the land. And this is true. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
Manifest Destiny is a phenomenon. Jesus spoke here in America, and He proclaimed, “This lad shall be a land of liberty, and there shall be no kings upon it. For I, the Lord, the king of Heaven, will be their king, and I will be light unto them forever, that hear my words. For it is a choice land, saith God, wherefore I will have all humans that dwell thereon that they shall worship me,” reports 2 Nephi 10.11-19. The alternative to enjoying this liberty and happiness through acceptance of and obedience to Jesus Christ is made clear by Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny is a tangible blessing from God that has created American history. It is a systematic body of concepts and beliefs that powers American life and culture. The right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development and great creation of liberty and federative development of self government entrusted to us is a promise that we shall flourish. “Whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when hey are ripened in iniquity,” reports Ether 2.8-9. It is as a right that we serve God and obey the laws as that of the tree to the space of air and the Earth be suitable for the full expression of its principle and destiny of growth. When people follow the guidance of God of the land, they reach great heights. The Lord in the very beginning revealed to Adam a perfect form of government for the benefit of humans. We believe that governments are instituted of God. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Individual freedom is necessary. No law shall be passed that takes away from a human the right of free choice. Free agency is fundamental as law of human conduct. Humans have a right to obey or disobey that laws as they please, and take the consequences. That government is best which has as its aim the administration of justice, social well-being and the promotion of prosperity among its members. We must recognize that property rights are essential to human liberty. The individual has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to one’s life, the right to one’s liberty, and the right to one’s property. The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a human one’s life, but to deny one one’s liberty, is to take from one all that makes life worth living. To give one liberty, but take from one the property which is the fruit and badge of one’s liberty, is to still leave one a slave. Laws are enacted for the protection of society, and have no value except when they are administered in righteousness and justice. If dishonest humans occupy administrative offices, laws cannot be so administered in righteousness and justice. The Lord says, “When the wicked rule, the people mourn.” Wise humans, good humans, patriotic humans are to be found in all communities, in all political parties, among all creeds. None but such humans should be chosen. Without beneficent laws, righteously administered, the foundations of civilization crumble, anarchy reigns, decay and dissolution follow. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
We call upon all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout the World to honour the laws of God, and obey and uphold the law of the land; and we appeal to good humans everywhere, regardless of creed, party affiliation, race, culture, or condition to join with us in an effort to put into operation the words of President Lincoln, the great emancipator, that our country may continue to be a light to the World, a loyal, law-abiding, God-fearing nation. We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience; and allow all humans the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. However, we claim absolutely no right, no prerogative whatever, to interfere with any other people. A good government must secure for every citizen the free exercise of conscience. Matters of belief or religious practice should not be interfered with, unless they oppose laws formulated for the common good. There should be no mingling of religious influence with the civil governments. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honouring, and sustaining the laws. The main psychological root of the liability to envy is a lack of self-confidence in our own worth combined with a sense of impotence. Our way of life is without zest and we feel powerless to alter it or to acquire the means of doing what we still want to do. This creation the notion of resentment. By contrast, someone sure of the worth of one’s plan of life and one’s ability to carry it out is not given to rancor nor is one jealous of one’s good fortune. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
Even if one could, one has no desire to level down the advantages of others at some expense to oneself. This hypothesis implies that the least favoured tend to be more envious of the better situation of the more favoured the less secure their self-respect and the greater their feeling that they cannot improve their prospects. Similarly the particular envy aroused by competition and rivalry is like to be stronger the worse one’s defeat, for the blow to one’s self-confidence is more severe and the loss may seem irretrievable. It is general envy, however, that mainly concerns us here. There are three conditions that encourage hostile outbreaks of envy. The first of these is the psychological condition we have just noted: persons lack a sure confidence in their own value and in their ability to do anything worthwhile. Second (and one of two social conditions), many occasions arise when this psychological condition is experienced as painful and humiliating. The discrepancy between oneself and others is made visible by the social structure and style of one’s society. The less fortunate are therefore often forcibly reminded of their situation, sometimes leading them to an even lower estimation of themselves and their mode of living. And third, they see their social position as allowing no constructive alternative to opposing the favoured circumstances of the more advantaged. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
To alleviate their feelings of anguish and inferiority, they have no choice but to impose a loss on those better placed even at some cost to themselves, unless of course they are to relapse into resignation and apathy. Now, if not to present these conditions, many aspects of a well-ordered society of to mitigate. It is clear that, although it is a psychological state, social institutions are a basic instigating cause. However, the contract conception of justice supports the self-esteem of the citizens generally more firmly than other political principles. In the public forum each person is treated with the respect due to a sovereign equal; and everyone has the same basic rights that would be acknowledged in an initial situation regarded as fair. The members of the community have a common sense of justice and they are bound by ties of civic friendship. Obedience implies a higher attitude than mere submission, for obedience has its root in good intent; submission may spring from selfishness or meanness of spirit. Though obedience and submission both imply restraint on one’s own will, we are obedient only from a sense of right; submissive from a sense of necessity. Honour expressed an act or attitude of an inferior towards a superior. When applied to things it is taken in the sense of holding honour. Thus, in honouring the law, we look upon it as something which is above selfish desires or indulgences. To sustain signifies to hold up; to keep from falling. To sustain the law, therefore, is to refrain from saying or doing anything which will weaken it or make it ineffective. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
We obey the law from a sense of right. We honour the law because of its necessity and strength to society. We sustain law by keeping it in good repute. This is in our connection with stability. The greater advantages of some are in return for compensating benefits for the less favoured; and no one supposes that those who have a larger share are ore deserving from a moral point of view. Happiness according to virtue is rejected as a principle of perfection: regardless of the excellences that persons or associations display, their claims to social resources are always adjudicated by principles of mutual justice. For all these reasons the less fortune have no cause to consider themselves inferior and the public principles generally accepted underwrite their self-assurance. The disparities between themselves and others, whether absolute or relative, should be easier for them to accept than in other forms of polity. Turning to the second condition, both the absolute and the relative differences allowed in a well-ordered society are probably less than those that have often prevailed. Although in theory the difference principle permits indefinitely large inequalities in return for small gains to the less favoured, the spread of income and wealth should not be excessive in practice, given the requisite background institutions. Moreover the plurality of associations in a well-ordered society, each with its secure internal life, tends to reduce the visibility, or at least the painful visibility, of variations in human’s purposes. For we tend to compare our circumstances with others in the same or in a similar group as ourselves, or in positions that we regard as relevant to our aspirations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
The various associations in society tend to divide it into so many noncomparing groups, the discrepancies between these divisions not attracting the kind of attention which unsettles the lives of those less well placed. And this ignoring of differences in wealth and circumstances is made easier by the fact that when citizens do meet one another, as they must in public affairs at least, the principles of equal justice are acknowledged. Moreover in everyday life the natural duties are honoured so that the more advantaged do not make an ostentatious display of their higher estate calculated to demean the condition of those who have less. After all, if the disposing conditions for envy are removed, so probably are those for jealousy, grudgingness, and spite, the converses of envy. When the less fortunate segments of society lack the one the more fortunate will lack the other. Taken together these features of a well-ordered regime diminish the number of occasions when the less favoured are likely to experience their situation as impoverished and humiliating. Even if they have some liability to envy, it may never be strongly envoked. Finally, considering the last condition, it would seem that a well-ordered society as much as any other offers constructive alternatives to hostile outbreaks of envy. The problem of general envy anyway does not force us to reconsider the choice of the principles of justice. As for particular envy, to a certain extent it is endemic to human life; being associated with rivalry, it may exist in any society. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
The more specific problem for political justice is how pervasive are the rancor and jealousy aroused by the quest for office and position, and whether it is likely to distort the justice of institutions. It is difficult to settle this latter in the absence of the more detailed knowledge of social forms available at the legislative stage. However, there sees to be no reason why the hazards of particular envy should be worse in a society regulated by justice as fairness than by any other conception. The principles of justice again seems relatively stable. A question has been asked man times. In the case of a conflict between requirements made by the law revealed by the word of God, and those imposed by the secular law, which of these authorities would members of the Church be bound to obey? The word of God is to come first. So essentially, God should be in and influence the government because the number one rule of God is to be honest and if one cannot honestly enforce the law, they have no right in government. In all civilized nations the people are accorded the right to pray, and this right is assured by what maybe properly called a common law of humankind. No earnest soul is cut off from communion with one’s God; and with such an open channel of communication, relief from burdensome laws and redress from grievances may be sought from the power that holds control of nations. “Bad laws, if they exist, should be repleaded as soon as possible; still, while they continue in force, they should be religiously observed,” reports President Abraham Lincoln. This is the view of the Church. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
While there are many forms of equality, and egalitarianism admits of degrees, there are conceptions of justice that are recognizably equalitarian, even though certain significant disparities are permitted. The two principles of justice fall under this heading. The different conception of equality which they define is acknowledged on the supposition that envy does not exist. For behold, you should not fear humans more than God, you should be faithful and God will extend His arm, and He will be with you in every time of trouble. Children of God are chosen to do the work of the Lord. Repent of that which thou hast done, and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the world. Except thou doest this, thou shalt become as other humans, and have no more gift. When thou delivers up that which God has given thee sight and power to translate thou delivers up that which is sacred into the hands of a wicked human who depends upon one’s own judgment, and boasts in one’s own wisdom; and this is the reason that thou will lose thy privileges for a season. Nevertheless, God’s work shall go forth, for, inasmuch as the knowledge of the Saviour has come unto the World, through the testimony of the Jewish people, even so shall the knowledge of a Saviour come unto our people, and to the Americans through the testimony of their fathers. And this testimony shall come to the knowledge of all. For this very purpose are these plates preserved that the promises of the Lord might be fulfilled, which He made to His people. And the Americans might come to the knowledge of their fathers, and they might know the promise of the Lord. And they may believe the gospel and rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ, and be glorified through faith in his name and through their repentance they might be saved. I cancel every demonic assignment against you and your purpose. The plans of the enemy will not prevail. In Jesus’ name, Amen. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Joseph Smith was very sorry he had been unfaithful, and he humbled himself before God, determining to try harder to keep all of the Lord’s commandments. Later, within a month, the gift and the plates were returned to Joseph, but he was not allowed to translate the same record again. By revelation Joseph was told that wicked people had the lost manuscript. The Lord, Jesus Christ said; Behold, Satan, has put it into their hearts to alter the words, because they have altered the words, they read contrary from that which you translated and caused to be written. On this wise the Devil has sought to lay a cunning plan, the he may destroy this work. Verily I say unto you, that I will not suffer that Satan shall accomplish his evil design in this thing. Behold, they say and think in their hearts, We will see if God has given him power to translate, if so, he will also give him power again; and if he bringeth forth the same words, behold, we have the same with us, and we have altered them. Therefore, they will not agree, and we will say that he has lied in his words, and that he has no gift, and that he has no power; therefore, we will destroy him, and also the work. Behold, I say unto you, that you shall not translate again those words which have gone forth out of your hands. For, behold, if you should bring forth the same words, they will say that you have contradicted yourself. And, behold, they will publish his, and Satan will harden the hearts of the people to stir them up to anger against you, that they will not believe my words. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
The Lord told Joseph that the part of the record he had translated which had been lost (about one hundred and sixteen pages) was a shorted story of the Nephite record; and that the golden plates also contained the complete story. Joseph was told he should translate the full record rather than the shortened one he had previously translated: the Lord said: I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will show unto them that y wisdom is greater than the cunning of the Devil. Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I came unto my own, and my own received me not. I am He who said, Other sheep have I which are not of this fold, unto my disciples, and many there were that understood me not. And I will show unto this people, that I had other sheep, and I will also bring to light my gospel, which was ministered unto them. And this I do, that I may establish my gospel, that there may not be so much contention. Yea, Satan doth stir up the hearts of the people to contention, concerning the points of my doctrine; and in these things they do err, for they do wrest the Scriptures, and do not understand them. Therefore, I will unfold unto them this great mystery; for behold, I will gather them as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, if they will not harden their hearts. Behold, this is my doctrine: Whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church Whosoever is of my church, and endureth of my church to the end, one will I establish upon my Rock. And now, remember the words of your Redeemer, your Lord, and your God. Amen. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
The important of separating envy from the moral feelings can be seen from several examples. Suppose first that envy is held to be pervasive in poor less affluent societies. The reason for this, it may be suggested, is the general belief that the aggregate of social wealth is more or less fixed, so that one person’s gain is another’s loss. The social system is interpreted, it might be said, as a naturally established and unchangeable zero-sum game. Now actually, if this belief were widespread and the stock of goods were generally thought to be given, then a strict opposition of interests would be assumed to obtain. In this case, it would be correct to think that justice requires equal shares. Social wealthy is not viewed as the outcome of mutually advantageous cooperation and so there is no fair basis for an unequal division of advantages. What is said to be envy may in fact be resentment which might or might not prove to be justified. Dr. Freud’s speculations about the origin of the sense of justice suffer from the same defect. He remarks that this sentiment is the outgrowth of envy and jealousy. As some members of the social group jealously strive to protect their advantages, the less favoured are moved by envy to take them away Eventually everyone recognizes that they cannot maintain their hostile attitudes toward one another without injury to themselves. Thus as a compromise they settle upon the demand of equal treatment. The sense of justice is a reaction-formation: what was originally jealousy and envy is transformed into a social feeling, the same sense of justice that insists upon equality for all. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
Dr. Freud believes that this process is exemplified in the nursey and in many other social circumstances. Yet the plausibility of one’s account assumes that the initial attitudes are correctly described. With a few changes, the underlying features of the example he depicts correspond to those of the original position. That persons have opposing interests and seek to advance their own conception of the god is not at all the same thing as their being moved by envy and jealousy. As we have seen, this sort of opposition gives rise to the circumstances of justice. Thus if children compete for the attention and affection of their parents, to which one might say they justly have an equal claim, one cannot assert that their sense of justice springs form jealousy and envy. Certainly children are often envious and jealous; and no doubt their moral notions are so primitive that the necessary distinctions are not grasped by them. However, waiving these difficulties, we could equally well say that their social feelings arise from resentment, from a sense that they are unfairly treated. And similarly one could say to conservative writers that it is mere grudgingness when those better circumstances reject the claims of the less advantaged to greater equality. However, this contention also calls for careful argument. None of these charges and countercharges can be given credence without first examining the conceptions of justice sincerely held by individuals and their understanding of the social situation in order to see how far these claims are indeed founded on these motives. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
None of these remarks is intended to deny that the appeal to justice is often a mask for envy. What is said to be resentment may really be rancor. However, rationalizations of this sort present a further problem. In addition to showing that a person’s conception of justice is not itself founded on envy, we must determine whether the principles of justice cited in one’s explanation are sincerely held as this is shown in their being applied by one to other cases in which one is not involved, or even better, in which one would suffer a loss from their being followed. Dr. Freud means to asset more than the truism that envy and jealousy, and that without this energy, there would be no (or much less) desire to give justice. Conceptions of justice have few attractions for us other than those deriving from these and similar feelings. It is claim that is supported by erroneously conflating envy and resentment. Unhappily the problem of the other special psychologies must go untouched. They should in any case be treated in much the same way as envy. One tries to assess the configuration of attitudes toward risk and uncertainty, domination and submission, and the like, that just institutions are likely to generate, and then to estimate whether they are likely to render theses institutions unworkable or ineffective. We also need to ask whether, from the point of view of the persons in the original position, the conception chosen is acceptable or at least tolerable whatever our special proclivities may turn out to be. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
The most favourable alternative is that which allows a place for all these different tendencies insofar as they are likely to be encouraged by a just basic structure. There is a division of labour so to speak between persons with contrary inclinations. Of course some of these attitudes may earn a premium in the way that certain trained abilities do, as for example the willingness to be adventuresome and to take unusual risks. However, if so, the problem is o all fours with the return to natural assets and it is covered by the discussion of distributive shares. What a social system must not do clearly is to encourage propensities and aspirations that it is bound to repress and disappoint. So long as the pattern of special psychologies elicited by society either supports its arrangements or can be reasonably accommodated by them, there is no need to reconsider the choice of a conception of justice. I believe, though I have not shown, that the principles of justice as fairness pass this test. When people can measure the extent of their freedom in two or three paces, and realize for the first time in their lives they have nothing else to do, but sit on a bunk, as they say passes into night and they continue to sit there because they are in prison—that is when it dawns on them how important freedom is. Even the children of a wealthy family, children of charismatic, gregarious politicians may suddenly find themselves stripped of everything that has propped up their egos. All their plans, friends, their busy work schedule, all their carefully cultivated followers will be gone, and replaced by the sheer loneliness and boredom of the prison cell and the venomous hostility of their guards. And they will keep waiting for justice, for a deal. Surely the United States Constitution could not simply leave them to rot in prison! #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
Imagine half a year going by before you are confronted with any charges. Then a fraudulently concocted murder case is brought, and a rigged military court condemns you to death. This is a bad dream, for the real reason for your imprisonment is the President is a communist and has lust for money and greed for power. Then imagine within his or her two-term limit as president due to expire in a few short weeks, the president declares martial law, granting him or herself almost unlimited powers. Then he or she can have you and other political opponents thrown into prison. The president may never intend to leave office—and may be determined never to let a popular rival out to silence him or her. Prison has the bewildering effect on many, which causes them to lose all sense of direction and perspective. One may become better not only at the president, but at the World, even at God. Injustice causes some to hate everyone and their prison guard may goad on an individual. Imagine if sometimes they put your dinner plate on the ground and let a mongrel dog wolf part of it down; then, kicking the dog aside, they give you what and left, and if you do not eat it, you get placed on suicide watch. In a matter of weeks, this could cause an individual to lose forty pounds, suffer two heart attacks. And when you are not longing for revenge, you want to die. However, much like Joseph Smith, if you keep your faith in God, He will show you that such losses are not in vain as you find your true life in Christ. What is this suffering is what draws you closer to the Lord and saves you from a life of eternal flames in the pits of hell? Therefore, continue to search for meaning in life. Find great inspiration in the Holy Bible to motivate your life and struggle for your country. Then, even if your prison is physical, or only in your mind, kneel in your jail cell and give your life to Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
Even if you are overcome with grief for your anger towards God, please beg for forgiveness. There is a close connection between frequent and solid spiritual experiences between us and the development of faith in the elaborate and creative purposes of God. This is derived from the close connection between Father and child because we are here with God now, needing Him and He says, “I am thinking of you,” and even though we may not be able to see God, we are having Him as part of our current experience, even when we are unaware. The fortune individual will have had many times when one was with God but not are of Him except for the security of knowing that He was there when needed. We are fortune because our environment is fulfilling one of the essentials needed if one is to have highly developed creativity. Because we have somehow had God there when He was not an obvious part of our experience, one can discover the Lord after we think He is absent (from experience) for a while. The individual will have had the experience of tolerating God’s absence without having to feel the terror that He might be lost forever. As we build our faith our experience will flicker between “God here when He is not here,” and “God not here when He is here.” One has thereby discovered that one can hold on to a concept—the symbol—which stands for the available God—has become pleasantly and interestingly established. We can play peekaboo with it. We can make the symbol happen while waiting for God to come along. The symbol can fill the interval of waiting, a small space of time. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
The symbol stands for God—it stands for “You who normally come soon after I realize that I need You. Something arouses in my mind, an anticipation, a phantasy of something good. Then there is a small gap an absence, an interval of time. Then You came.” All one’s viewpoints, one’s life, most of all one’s bitterness—all will change. One will have a sense that life has suddenly moved into a different channel with another purpose. It is for our doubting hearts to believe that spiritual power—which is peaceful, prayerful, humane, forgiving, willing to suffering on the side of the poor and oppressed—can change society. We know that the gospel affects the lives of individuals, but can it make an impact on institutions and governments, where the heartless realities of power pierce like a knife? It is hard to fathom this. Nevertheless, it can happen. It does happen. One can never quite calculate how one conversation in a mental or physical prison cell may set in motion a train of events to shake a nation. Many people in prisons want to die. However, when they find Christ, they acquire a new maturity, and, though one may also retain their natural ebullience, a relative serenity that have never had before manifests. Some people will sense an individual has undergone something like a religious conversion as a result of years of injustice inflicted in a cell or in their own community. And indeed they have, but it will take away none of their heartfelt concern for their nation. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
In countries that suffer from communism, the president uses martial law as a cover while they rape the country. Leaders and their business cronies have been known to bleed nations dry, making huge profits through monopoly powers and putting the money into New York real estate and Swiss banks. Meanwhile, half the working population cannot find jobs. The ugly scabs of the slums, many without running water or flushing toilets, spread across Sacramento and other cities. Marxist guerrillas are quickly gaining around, and the some in positions of authority, riven by corruption, seem unable to stop them. They may find it easier to savage poor peasants than to fight the Communists. Things may even reach a pint where anyone who helps the poor will be under suspicion. Army units have arrested, killed, and tortured even Catholic priests and nuns who have chosen to work with the desperately poor in other countries. While in America, some people, even the rich and famous, are given bonuses and jobs to help extort those suffering injustices. A few Catholics have, it is true, take the side of the Marxists, but the vast majority simply minister in the name of Jesus to those in need. Between the Marxist insurgency and a president who becomes a dictator, there is little room in the middle. Some people, even many in America, have seen the ruthless side of communism—after all they suffer and lose their lives just because of who they are. It is true, one can fight hatred with a greater hatred, but it is more effective to fight hatred with greater Christian love. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
Do much soul searching and pursue your freedom struggle through the path of nonviolence, fully cognizant that this ay be the longer and more arduous road. And you may suffer solitary confinement once again, and possibly death. However, by taking the road of revolution, how many lives, other then one’s, will have to be sacrificed? Humans are ordained to eternal life through the providence of God, it likewise is part of that providence to permit some to fall away from that end; this is called reprobation. Thus, as predestination is a part of providence, in regard to those ordained to eternal salvation, so reprobation is a part of providence in regard to those who turn aside from that end. Hence reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin. Symbols can stand for what will come. However, equally, they can stand for what may come, what may not come, or what will not come again. All kinds of conceptual processes can fill the interval between the moment when we have phantasy of something and the moment of finding something. Transitional objects and other symbols appear where there had been either nothing, or an experience of something not there. God loves all humans and all creatures, inasmuch as He wishes them all some good; but He does not wish every good to them all. So far, therefore, as He does not wish this particular good—namely, eternal life—He is said to hate or reprobate them. Reprobation different in its causality from predestination. This atter is the cause of what is expected in the future life by predestined—namely, glory—and of what is received in this life—namely grace. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
Reprobation, however, is not the cause of what is in the present, namely sin; but it is the cause of abandonment by God. It is the cause, however, of what is assigned in the future—namely, eternal punishment. However, guilt proceeds from the free-will of the person who is reprobated and deserted by grace. In this way, the word of the prophet is true—namely, “Destruction is thy own, O Israel.” Reprobation by God does not take away from the power of the person reprobated. Hence, when it is said that the reprobated cannot obtain grace, this must not be understood as implying absolute impossibility: butt only conditional impossibility: as was said above does not do away with the liberty of choice. Whence, although anyone reprobated by God cannot acquire grace, nevertheless, that one falls into this or that particular sin comes from the use of one’s free will. Hence is rightly imputed to one as guilt. It is as if it were illuminated through a succession of continuously changing filters. You discover that the first phase of your involvement was no more than a prelude or an overture before the curtain vanished. You come to see that sin began by enticing you with an illusion—the illusion of a light-filled hedonistic joy, evil disguised by sun-drenched window—and to accept that what you are in fact confronted with is nothing more or less than the successive layers of the thinnest of honey-comb marks laid down gently in whispers of lies upon the canvas surface. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
However, when the curtain has risen and the any the painting of lies continues to such your eyes into itself, it will engulf your soul with its entertainment. The uniform skin of God’s grace evaporates in part because in tenuous existence came about only through the adhering to God’s commandments and your organization of forms of faith, which was a shimmering ray of love inviting the Holy Ghost in your temple. However, as this shimmer disintegrates, it gives way to billowing and boundless hazes of black smoke, to seemingly limitless vistas of your soul space. It is the duty of citizens of any country to remember that they have individua responsibilities, and that they must operate within the law of the country in which they have chosen to live. No member of the Church can be accepted as in good standing whose way of life is one of rebellion against the established order of decency and obedience to law. We cannot be in rebellion against the law and be in harmony with the Lord, for He has commanded us to “be subject to the powers that be, until He reigns whose right it is to reign,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 58.22. And one of these days He is going to come. The exception to this principle would be when the Lord directs His people through His prophets to take an opposing stand to government. Otherwise they recognize the established authority of government. Remember that the Lord holds all of us responsible for our conduct here. He held our father Adam responsible for his conduct, but no more than He does us, in proportion to the station we hold. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
The kings of the Earth will have to give an account to God, for their conduct in a kingly capacity. Kings are heads of nations, governors are heads of provinces; so are fathers or husbands governors of their own houses, and should act accordingly. Because some regard the theory and practice of one’s subject from the inside, they mystic can discuss it with a correctness and authority which most critics do not possess because they are outside it. They are largely in the dark about it—one is actually in the light. Those who has never felt it in themselves nor seen in demonstrated in others cannot understand the blessedness of such a state. Because they are unready for it, they cannot endure such an experience. The peace it imparts is too impersonal and would suffocate them. The detachment which it creates makes the Worldly life seem less important and is too frightening. The recognition that this experience does happen is increasingly rapidly in Western counties but in the East, it has never been doubted. The criticism that mystical experience is subjective and illusory is being dropped, as it ought to be Those who have never experienced this state yet venture to criticize it as illusory are dealing with mere words, not facts. If the ordinary human seldom gets these subtler experiences it is because one’s nature is too coarse, one’s mind too physically based, one’s focus too personal to permit one to receive them. Deep within one’s own heart, hidden within one’s own consciousness, every person carries all the evidence for the truth of these teachings that one is ever likely to need. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
That arrogance which denies Heaven to the unorthodox does not trouble the mystic. One finds Heaven here in this life, now before the transition of death. At such times, unexpected and unsought though they are, one feels the nearness of God, the love of God, the reality of God. Whoever ventures to call them delusions s oneself deluded. Those who are dead are never gone: they are there in the shimmering light. The dead are not under the Earth: they are there in the blue sky, they are in the clouds that drift above, they are in the rain that falls, they are in the sun that shines, they are in the moon the beams, they are in the trees that provide shade, they are in the crowd, the dead are not dead. Those who are dead are never gone, they are in your heart, they are in the eyes of an innocent child, they are in the flames in your fireplace. They are in the forest, they are in the house, they are not dead. When the Ark rested, Moses said: Mayest Thou, O Lord, dwell among the myriads of the families of America. Arise, O Lord, unto Thy sanctuary, Thou, and the Ark of Thy strength. Let Thy priest be clothed with salvation; and Thy faithful ones exult. For the sake of David, Thy servant, reject not Thine anointed. I have given your good teaching; forsake not My Torah. It is a Tree of Life to them that hold fast to it, and everyone who upholds it is happy. Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace. Turn us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall return; renew our days as of Heaven. This nation and all nations, together with president, queens, kings, emperors, judges, and all humans, righteous and wicked, have go to go into the spirit World and stand before the bar of God. They have got to give an account of the deeds done in the body. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Ethics are Responsibility without Limit Towards All that Lives!
The concept of a united family that lives and progresses forever is at the core of Latter-day Saint doctrine. Within families led by a father and a mother, children develop virtues such as love, trust, loyalty, cooperation and service. We must rally to protect marriage, family, so we can strengthen our loved ones and protect their faith and freedom. There is a young and impressionable mind out there that is very hungry for information. Instead of fighting for freedom of the press, maybe we should be fighting for freedom from the press. I am worried about present-day journalism. The emphasis on negative happenings is much too strong. Not infrequently, news about events marking great progress is overlooked or minimized. It tends to make for a negative and discouraging atmosphere. If humans feel that very little happens to support that faith in the salvation of humanity, there is a danger that people may lose faith in the forward direction of Kingdom of God. And real progress is related to the belief that salvation and the Kingdom God will be established in our lifetime. Another hinderance to civilization today is the over-organization of our public life. While it is certain that a properly ordered environment is the condition and, at the same time, the result of civilization, it is developed at the expense of the spiritual life. Personality and ideas are often subordinated to institutions, when it is really thee which ought to influence the latter and keep them inwardly alive. Humans have lost the capacity to foresee and forestall. They will end by destroying the Earth. Simply investigating and apportioning responsibility after the fact is hardly sufficient. We must create an environmental screen to protect ourselves against dangerous intrusions as well as a system of public incentives to encourage technology that is both safe and socially desirable. This means governmental and private machinery for reviewing major technological advances before they are launched upon the public. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
So great was His love for the World, that God covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believe in Him should not peris, but have everlasting life. Lucifer has said, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. This was a voluntary sacrifice. Jesus might have retained the glory of Heaven, and the homage of the angels. However, He chose to give back the scepter into the Father’s hands, and to step down from the throne of the Universe, that He might bring light to the benighted, and life to the perishing. Over two thousand years, a voice of mysterious import was heard in Heaven, from the throne of God, “Lo, I come.” “Sacrifice and offering Thou would not, but a body has Thou prepared Me. Lo, I come (in the volume of the Book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God.” In these words is announced the fulfillment of the purpose that had been hidden from eternal ages. Christ was about to visit our World, and become incarnate. He says, “A body has Thou prepared Me.” Had He appeared with the glory that was His with the Father before the World was, we could not have endured the light of His presence. That we might behold it and not be destroyed, the manifestation of His glory was shrouded. His divinity was veiled with humanity—the invisible glory in the visible form. This great purpose had been shadowed forth in types and symbols. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
The burning bush, in which Christ appeared to Moses, revealed God. The symbol chosen for the representation of the Deity was a humble shrub, that seemingly has no attractions. This enshrined the Infinite. The all-merciful God shrouded His glory in a most humble type, that Moses could look upon it and live. So in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, God communicated with America, revealing to humans His will, and imparting to them His grace. God’s glory was subdued, and His majesty veiled, that the weak vision of finite humans might behold it. So Christ was to come in the body of our humiliation in the likeness of humans. In the eyes of the World He possessed no beauty that they should desire Him; yet He was the incarnate God, the light of Heaven and Earth. His glory was veiled, His greatness and majesty were hidden, that He might draw near to sorrowful, tempted men. God commanded Moses for America, “Let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them,” and he abode in the sanctuary, in the midst of His people. Through all their weary wandering in the desert, the symbol of His presence was with them. So Christ set up His tabernacle in the midst of our human encampment. He pitched His tent by the side of the tents of men, that He might dwell among us, and make us familiar with His divine character. “The Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.” Since Jesus came to dwell with us, we know that God is acquainted with out trials, and sympathizes with our griefs. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Every son and daughter of Adam may understand that our Creator is the friend of sinners. For in every doctrine of grace, every promise of joy, every deed of love, every divine attraction presented in the Saviour’s life on Earth, we see “God with us.” Satan represents God’s law of love as a law of selfishness. He declares that it is impossible for us to obey its precepts. The fall of our first parents, with all the woe that has resulted, he charges upon the Creator, leading humans to look upon God as the author of sin, and suffering, and death. Jesus was to unveil this deception. As one of us Jesus was to give an example of obedience. His life testifies that it is possible for us also to obey the law of God. By His humanity, Christ touched humanity; by His divinity, He lays hold upon the throne of God. As the Son of man, He gave us an example of obedience; as the Son of God, He gives us power to obey. “God with us” is the surety of our deliverance from sin, the assurance of our power to obey the law of Heaven. Christ revealed a character the opposite of the character of Satan. By His life and His death, Christ has achieved even more than recovery from the ruin wrought through sin. It was Satan’s purpose to bring about an eternal separation between God and man; but in Christ we become more closely united to God, like we had never fallen. In taking our nature, the Saviour has bound Himself to humanity by a tie that is never broken. Through the eternal ages He is linked with us. “God so loved the World, that he gave His only-begotten Son. He gave Him not only to bear our sins, and to die as our sacrifice; He gave Him to the fallen race. To assure us of His immutable counsel of peace, God gave His only-begotten Son to become one of the human family, forever to retain His human nature. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
This is the pledge that God will fulfill His Word. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder.” God has adopted human nature in the person of His Son, and has carried the same into the highest Heaven. It is the “Son of man” who shares the throne of the Universe. It is the “Son of man” who shares the throne of the Universe. It is the “Son of man” whose name shall be called, “Wonderful,” Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Heaven is enshrined in humanity, and humanity is enfolded in the bosom of Infinite Love. The exaltation of the redeemed will be an eternal testimony to God’s mercy. In the ages to come, God will show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. To the intent that unto the principalities and the powers in the Heavenly places might be made known the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purposes which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Through Christ’s redeeming work, the government of God stand justified. The Omnipotent One is made known as the God of love. Satan’s charges are refuted, and his character unveiled. Rebellion can never again arise. Sin can never again enter the Universe. Through eternal ages all are secure from apostasy. By love’s self-sacrifice, the inhabitants of Earth and Heaven are bound to their Creator in bonds of indissoluble union. The work of redemption will be complete. In the place where sin abounded, God’s grace much more abounds. The Earth itself, the very field that Satan claims as his, is to be not only ransomed but exalted. Our little World, under the curse of sin the one dark blot in His glorious creation, will be honoured above all other Worlds in the Universe of God. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Here, where the Son of God tabernacle in humanity; where the King of glory lived and suffered and died—here, when He shall make all things new, the tabernacle of God shall be with humans, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And through endless ages as the redeemed walk in the light of the Lord, they will praise Him for His unspeakable Gift—God with us. God has a word for us to release increase, multiplication, and miracles right now in our lives. Our obedience to His Word leads to restoration and authority like a rushing river. “If you love me, you will obey what I command,” reports John 14.15. If you have been asking God for a supernatural turnaround in your life, Miracles are coming! Increase is coming! Multiplication is coming! God works in seasons, cycles, patterns. Understanding His timing is key to activating His greatest blessing in your life! A season means a “set time.” When you do not discern the shift of a season, you will lack in some area of your life! It is possible to be in a season that you are not cooperating with and therefore you are experiencing scarcity! This will change with your obedience! No more missed moments in Jesus’ name! “And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God,” reports Luke 24.52-53. One hundred and twenty of them remined in prayer until the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) arrived, and then it did, they were he gathered together. “On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave this command: ‘Do not leave America, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have hear me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit,’” reports Acts 1.4-5. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
What we seem to forget is that, yes, the sun will continue to rise and set and the moon will continue to move across the skies, but humankind can create a situation in which the sun and moon can look down upon the Earth that has been stripped of all life. “They joined all together in constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) and said, ‘Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the moth of David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus—he was one of our number and shared in this ministry,’” reports Acts 1.14-17. “When the day of the Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from Heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them,” reports Acts 2.1-4. Those who conduct an atomic war for freedom will die, or end their lives miserably. Instead of freedom, they will find destruction. Radioactive clouds resulting from a war between The Old World and the New World would imperil humanity. There would be no need to use up the remaining stock of atom and H-bombs. An atomic war is therefore the most senseless and lunatic act that could ever take place. At all costs, it must be prevented. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Corporations might be expected to set up their own “consequence analysis staffs” to study the potential effects of the innovations they sponsor. They might, in some cases, be required not merely to test new technology in pilot areas but to make a public report about its impact before being permitted to spread the innovation through the society at large. Much responsibility should be delegated to industry itself. The less centralized the controls the better. If self-policing works, it is preferable to external, political controls. Where self-regulation fails, however, as it often does, public intervention may well be necessary, and we should not evade the responsibility. At one point, in the United States of America, Congressman Emilio Q. Daddario, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Science, Research and Development, had proposed the establishment of a technology Assessment Board with the federal government. And this might be a great idea with social media becoming so power that the owners of these platforms were censoring and banned the President from using their forums. Studies by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress, and by the science and technology program of the George Washington University are all aimed at defining the appropriate nature of such an agency. We may wish to debate its form; its need is beyond dispute. The society might also set certain general principles for technological advance. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Where the introduction of an innovation entails undue risk, for example, it might require that funds be set aside by the responsible agency for correction of adverse effects should they materialize. We might also create a “technological insurance pool” to which innovation-diffusing agencies might pay premiums. Certain large-scale ecological interventions might be delayed or prohibited altogether—perhaps in line with the principle that is an incursion on nature is too big and sudden for its effects to be monitored and possibly corrected, it should not take place. For example, it has been suggested that Aswan Dam, far from helping Egyptian agriculture, might someday lead to salinization of land on both banks of the Nile. This could prove disastrous. However, such a process would not occur overnight. Presumably, therefore, it can be monitored and prevented. By contrast, the plan to flood the entire interior of Brazil is fraught with such instant and imponderable ecological effects that it should not be permitted at all until adequate monitoring can be done and emergency corrective measures are available. At the level of social consequences, a new technology might be submitted for clearance to panels of behavioural scientists—psychologists, sociologist, economists, political scientists—who would determine, to the best of their ability, the probable strength of its social impact at different points in time. Where an innovation appears likely to entail seriously disruptive consequences, or to generate unrestrained accelerative pressures, these facts need to be weighed in a social cost-benefit accounting procedure. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
In the case of some high-impact innovations, the technology appraisal agency might be empowered to seek restraining legislation, or to obtain an injunction forcing delay until full public discussion and study is completed. In other cases, such innovations might still be released for diffusion—provided ample steps were taken in advance to offset their negative consequences. In this way, the society would not need to wait for disaster before dealing with its technology-induced problems. By considering not merely specific technologies, but their relationship to one another, the time lapse between them, the proposed speed of diffusion, and similar factors, we might eventually gain some control over the pace of change as well as its direction. Needless to say, these proposals are themselves fraught with explosive social consequences, and need careful assessment. There may be far better ways to achieve the desired ends. However, the time is late. We simply can no longer afford to hurtle blindfolded toward super-industrialism. The politics of technology control with trigger bitter conflict in the days to come. However, if the accelerative thrust is to be brought under control, conflict or no, technology must be tamed. And, if future shock is to be prevented, the accelerative thrust must be brought under control. In some cultures, people endure tattooing, stretching, cutting, and burning wit little apparent pain. How is such insensitivity achieved? Very likely the answer lies in four factors that anyone can use to reduce pain. These are anxiety, control, attention, and interpretation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
The basic sensory message of pain can be separated from emotional reactions to it. Fear or high levels of anxiety almost always increase pain. (Anxiety is a feeling of apprehension or uneasiness similar to fear, but based on an unclear threat.) A dramatic reversal of this effect is the surprising lack of pain displayed by soldiers wounded in battle. Being excused from further combat apparently produces a flood of relief. This emotional state leaves many soldiers insensitive to wounds tat would agonize a civilian. In general, unpleasant emotions increase pain and pleasant emotions decrease it. If you can regulate painful stimulus, you have control over it. A moment’s reflection should convince you that the most upsetting pain is that over which you have no control. Loss of control seems to increase pain by increasing anxiety and emotional distress. People who are allowed to regulate, avoid, or control a painful stimulus suffer less. In general, the more control one feels over a painful stimulus, the less pain experienced. Distraction can also radically reduce pain. As you recall, attention refers to voluntarily focusing on a specific sensory input. Pain, even though it is highly persistent, can be selectively “turned out” (at least partially), just like any other sensation. Subjects in one experiment were in intense pain experienced the greatest relief when they were distracted by the task of watching for signal lights to come on. Another example is provided by burn patients, who must undergo excruciating pain while their bandages are changed. Recently, video games and virtual reality have been used to distract them from their pain, which helps immensely. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
The Fountain of Youth and the Elixir of Life were dreams of the ancient mystics, and they are still dreams of today. However, to the soul that has found the, in most cases, they are divine realities. If humans were to learn that one can prolong one’s life on this Earth in youth and health for an indefinite period in which days and years are not counted, one could pass from one joy to another. Nobody has historically succeeded in robbing Nature of her power to inflict death. However, there is another aspect of this topic which throws some light on it. When the body of Father Charles de Foucald was exhumed, one year after burial, for transfer to another site, his friend General Laperrine was astonished to find that the body was without any break and the face quite recognizable, whereas of the two Arabian guards murdered at the same time and buried near him only a little dust remained. One of the native soldiers then said, “Why are you astonished that he is thus preserved, General? It is not astonishing, since he was a great marabout (holy man).” Father Foucald was a nineteenth-century Christian hermit of the Saharan desert, who sacrificed social position and fortune for an ascetic existence devoted to prayer, meditation, and service for the poor. Hs ascetic self-mortification was extremely severe. To this case there may be added the somewhat similar cases of Swami Yogananda of Los Angeles, and Sir Aurobindo of Pondicherry. The ancient hatha yoga texts promise the successful yogi “the conquest of death.” This does not mean he will not die, but that his flesh will not decay after death. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
We have so intimate a relation to the body in practical life that none of us need be blamed for calling it “me.” However, metaphysically that indicates an adolescent attitude. We advance towards maturity when we regard it as only a part of “me.” This domain of natural living, food reform, and hygiene is infested with cranks, fanatics, extremists, and one-idea devotees, just as the domain of mysticism is. The seeker must be warned against letting oneself be deceived by their wild intemperate enthusiasms. Have you ever temporarily forgotten about a toothache or similar pain while absorbed in a movie or book? As this suggests, concentrating on pleasant, soothing images can be especially helpful. Instead of listening to the whirr of a dentist’s drill, for example, you might imagine that you are lying in the sun at a beach, listening to the roar of the surf. At home, music can be a good distractor from chronic pain. So much may depend on so little! The condition of a single organ or of a half-centimeter of gland may curse a human’s whole life more than and sorcerer can. A physical feature may be so dislike by others that one’s ambitions are thwarted or one’s desire for love defeated. Some physical attributes may be unpleasant, undignified, and unfortunate for a human. However, they are well-countered by invisible compensations. The meaning of interpretation, you give a stimulus also affects pain. For example, if you make a funny face at a child while playing, you will probably get a burst of laughter. Yet that same face given as a punishment may bring tears. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
The effects of interpretation are illustrated by an experiment in which thinking of pain as pleasurable (denying the pain) greatly increased pain tolerance. Another study found that people who believe a painful procedure will improve their health feel less pain during the procedure. A physiognomist once told me that he considered the mouth more revealing of a human’s character than, as commonly believed, the eyes. Is this a fact? How important is it to remember that the fall of temperature in the evenings is an invitation to catch cold. Goethe complained while living in Rome of the care one had to take even in the middle of summer to prevent the realization of this possibility. The joy owning a physical body comes out most in physical activity, yet the person will feel disgusted with it under different circumstances and at a different time. The pain of owning a body comes out mostly in ill health, yet the same person may glory in it during a game or a sport. For as bats’ eyes are to daylight so is our intellectual eye to those truths which are, in their own nature, the most obvious of all. It must be clearly understood that the argument so far leads to no conception of “souls” or “spirits” (words I have avoided) floating about in the realm of Nature with no relation to their environment. Hence we do not deny—indeed we must welcome—certain considerations which are often regarded as proofs of Naturalism. We can admit, and even insist, that Rational Thinking can be shown to be conditioned in its exercise by a natural object (the brain). #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Rational Thinking is temporarily impaired by alcohol or a blow to the head. It wanes as the brain decays and vanishes when the brain ceases to function. In the same way the moral outlook of a community can be shown to be closely connected with its history, geographical environment, economic structure, and so forth. The moral ideas of the individual are equally related to one’s general situation: it is no accident that parents and schoolmasters so often tell us that they can stand any vice rather than lying, the lie being the only defensive weapon of most children. All this, far from presenting us with a difficulty, is exactly what we should expect. The rational and more element in each human mind is a point of force from the Supernatural working its way into Nature, exploiting at each point those conditions which Nature offers, repulsed where the conditions are hopeless and impeded when they are unfavourable. A human’s Rational thinking is just so much of one’s share in eternal Reason as the state of one’s brain allows to become operative: it represents, so to speak, the bargain struck or the frontier fixed between Reason and Nature at that particular point. A nation’s moral outlook is just so much of its share in eternal Moral Wisdom as its history, economics, et cetera, lets through. In the same way the voice of the Announcer is just so much of a human voice as the receiving set lets through. Of course it varies with the state of the receiving set, and deteriorates as the set wears out and vanished altogether if I throw a brick at it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
The voice of the announcer is conditioned by the apparatus but not originated by it. If it were—if we know that there was no human being at the microphone—we should not attend to the news. The various and complex conditions under which Reason and Morality appear are the twists and turns of the frontier between Nature and Supernature. That is why, if you wish, you can always ignore Supernature and treat the phenomena purely from the Natural side; just as a human studying on a map the boundaries of Cornwall and Devonshire can always say, “What you call a bulge in Devonshire is really a dent in Cornwall.” And in a sense, you cannot refute one. What call a bulge in Devonshire always is a dent in Cornwall. What we call a rational thought in a human always involves a state of the brain, in the long run a relation of atoms. However, Devonshire is none the less something more than “where Cornwall ends,” and Reason is something more than cerebral bio-chemistry. The practical method which is here presented differs radically from the method of the Christian Scientists, although a superficial reading my give the impression of similarity. The Christian Scientist asserts one’s inner nature to be divine and a part of God, but the assertion remains a mere intellectual statement unless one has previously opened up a channel to that inner nature with the tool of intersession, prayer, or aspiration. If one has done this, then the assertion rises into the realm of reality and may produce remarkable results; if one has not succeeded in doing this, then one’s assertion remains mere words, one thought out of the multitude which pass and repass through the brain of humans. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Moreover, so long as one possess false notions of what constitutes “demonstration,” so long as one thinks that one is entitled to prosperity, good health, and other desirable Worldly things because of his spirituality, so long will one find—as so many Christian Scientists do find—that one’s successes alternate with startling failures. It would be an unpleasant task to illustrate this statement with instances of such failures, not in the rank and file, but in the foremost ranks of the Christian Scientists, and I shall not attempt it. These failures indicate that we must follow no narrow track of sect-ordained thought, but do some research on our own account. It is a dramatic fact that remedial changes may take place in the organs themselves under the influence of this healing force. The more one comes into harmony with the cosmic order, the more will one’s health and strength benefit, one’s thoughts and feelings become beneficial. However, this is not to say that one will be cured of existing maladies or be kept in perfect health. Harmony means that due regard and attention will be given to the body’s importance, hygiene, care, and correct feeding. It means that the thoughts and feelings will be constructive. If not obstructed by human’s foolish methods, nature’s healing power will do its own work upon that sick body. It is possible to direct the healing power of the white light, in imagination and with deep breathing, to any part of the body where pain is felt or to any organ which is not functioning properly. This does not instantly remove the trouble, but it does make a contribution towards the healing process. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
For moderate pain, it can make quite a difference to reduce anxiety, redirect attention, and increase control. When you can anticipate pain (during a trip to the doctor, dentist, and so on), you can lower anxiety by making sure that you are fully informed. Be sure that someone explains everything that will happen or could happen to you. Also, be sure to fully discuss any fears you have. If you are physically tense, you can use relaxation exercises to lower your level of arousal. Relaxation methods involve tensing and then releasing muscles in various parts of the body. Some dentists are now equipped to help you shift attention away from pain. Patients are actively distracted with video games and headphones playing music. In other situations, focusing on some external object may help you shift attention away from pain. Pick a tree outside a window, a design on the wall, or some other stimulus and examine it in great detail. Prior practice in meditation can be a tremendous assistant to such attention shifts. Research suggests that distraction of this type works best for mild or brief pain. For chronic or strong pain, reinterpretation is more effective. Is there any way to increase control over a painful stimulus? Practically speaking, the choices may be limited. You may be able to arrange a signal with a doctor or dentist tat will give you control over whether a painful procedure will continue. A second possibility is more unusual. Ronald Melzack’s gate control the sensory of pain suggest that sending mild pain messages to the spinal cord and brain may effectively close the neurological gates to more severe or unpredictable pain. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
Medical texts have been recognized this effect. Physicians have found that intense surface stimulation of the skin can control pain from other parts of the body. Likewise, a brief, mildly painful stimulates can relieve more severe pain. Such procedures, known as counterirritation, are evident in some of the oldest techniques used to control pain: applying ice packs, hot-water bottles, mustard packs, vibration, or massage to other parts of the body. These facts suggest a way to minimize pain that is based on increased control, counterirritation, and the release of endorphins. If you pinch yourself, you can easily create and endure pain equal to that produced by many medical procedures (receiving an injection, having a toot drilled, and so on). The pain does not seem too bad because you have control over it, and it is predictable. This fact can be used to mask one pain with a second painful stimulus that is under your control. For instance, if you are having tooth filled, try pinching yourself or digging a fingernail into a knuckle while the dentist is working. Focus your attention on the pain you are creating, and increase its intensity anytime the dentist’s work becomes more painful. This suggestion may not work for you, but casual observation suggests that it can be a useful technique for controlling pain in some circumstances. Generations of children have used it to take the edge off spanking. Although some people have found spiritual benefit from sickness because of the enforced retirement to bed or hospital which it demands, or because of the reflections which it brings about the limitations of bodily satisfactions and pleasures, it would be a gross misunderstanding to make this only way of gaining these insights. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
Other persons have become so embittered and resentful through sickness that they have suffered spiritual loss. Still other persons who have maintained good health have thereby been able to provide the proper circumstances for spiritual search, study, and meditation. The eye is the reflector of mind, the revealer of a human’s heart and the diagnose of one’s bodily health. With health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable. It follows that the greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness, whatever it may be—for gain, advancement, learning, or fame, let alone, then, for fleeting sensual pleasures. The Lord has commanded members to take care of their bodies and minds. They should obey the Word of Wisdom, eat nutritious food, exercise regularly, control their weight, and get adequate sleep. They should shun substances or practices that abuse their bodies or minds and that could lead to addiction. They should practice good sanitation and hygiene and obtain adequate medical and dental care. They should also strive to cultivate good relationships with family members and others. Maintaining the best possible physical health has been a gospel ideal throughout the ages—from the strict dietary laws of ancient America, with the example of Joseph Smith and his associates, to the Word of Wisdom in this dispensation and the counsel of today’s prophets and apostles. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
By maintaining good physical health, we become more self-reliant and are better prepared to progress personally, strengthen the family, and serve in the Church and community. Not long after the angel had disappeared the third time Joseph arose from his bed. He went about doing his daily work with his father in the field, but he soon found his strength was exhausted. His father noticed there was something wrong and sent his son home. Joseph went toward the house, but as he crossed a fence in the field his strength entirely failed him and he fell helpless to the ground. Joseph heard a voice call his nae and, looking up, he saw the same messenger, Moroni, standing over his head in a bright light. Again the angel repeated all the things he had told Joseph during the night and commanded him to tell his father of his vision. Joseph obeyed, going into the field to tell his father what had occurred. His father said he should obey the messenger from God. The young man went to find the place he had seen in his vision. Near Manchester, New York, a few miles from his farm home, Joseph found the hill had seen so clearly in his vision. On the west side of the hill, not far from the top, was a large stone which was thick and rounding in the middle of the upper side and thinner toward the edge. The middle part showed above the Earth, but the edges were covered. Joseph removed the Earth from the stone. With the assistance of a lever he raised the stone cover, and beneath it lay a stone box. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
In the box, which was made of stone set in a kind of cement, lay the golden plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate, exactly as the angel had said. The golden plates formed a book with pages of gold held together by three large rings, much like a modern loose-leaf notebook. As Joseph reached to take the things from the box, the angel forbade him. Joseph was told he should return each year on the same date, 22 September, and he would be given further instructions until it was time for him to take the plates. Joseph returned to the hill, which has been called “Hill Cumorah,” each of the following four years and was met by the same messenger. The angel taught him many things about the plans of the Lord, and how his kingdom was to be built in the last days. Four years after Moroni’s first visit to Joseph, on 22 September 1827—on Joseph’s fifth visit to the hill—Moroni gave him the golden book, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate. The angel cautioned him to guard them carefully, to allow no one to see them, and to do everything in his power to protect and keep them safely until the messenger should come for them. Joseph soon understood why he had been commanded so strictly to guard them carefully. Almost as soon as he had received the precious things, it became known throughout the countryside, and everyone wanted to see them. Many tried to take them away from him; but by hiding them Joseph was able to keep them safely. The excitement continued, and the people were determined to take the golden plates from him. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
Joseph soon realized that it would be impossible for him to do the work of translation at his home in New York. Joseph and his wife, Emma whom he had married in January, 1827, went to her parents’ home at Harmony, Pennsylvania. There in the home of Isaac Hale, during the early part of the year 1828, Joseph, by means of the Urim and Thummim, began the work of translation of the golden plates. In the mystery of these vestures of the Holy Ones, I gird up my power in the girdles of righteousness and truth in the power of the Most High: Ancor: Amacor: Amides: Theodonias: Anitor: let be might my power: let it endure for ever: in the power of Adonai, to whom the praise and the glory shall be; whose end cannot be. Earth mother, star mother, you who are called by a thousand names, may all remember we are cells in your body and dance together. You are the grain and the loaf that sustains us each day, and as you are patient with our struggles to learn so shall we be patient with ourselves and each other. We are radiant light and sacred dark—the balance—you are the embrace that heartens and the freedom beyond fear. Within you we are born, we grow, live, and die—you bring us around the circle to rebirth, within us you dance forever. May it be Thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, to renew unto us this coming month for our good and for blessing, of sustenance, of bodily vigour; a life marked by reverence for Thee and the dread of sin, a life free from shame and reproach, a life of abundance and honour, a life in which the love of the Torah and the fear of Heaven shall ever be with us, a life in which all desires of our hearts shall be fulfilled for our good. Amen. If the technology that is supposed to increase our leisure and make our lives easier, starts to control our lives, we are in danger of losing our souls. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!
Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.
Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District.
Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together! https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/
Cresleigh Ranch is one of the Northern California’s area’s best kept secrets. Offering a peaceful setting with a variety of activities. The two story yellow house at the very top is residence 3, I call it “The Baby Winchester.” It is approximately 2,800 square feet with 4 bedroom and 3.5 bathrooms, and a three car garage. Cresleigh has luxury home designs, with a wide range of options, allowing each buyer to tailor their home to their unique lifestyle.
Once you make a Cresleigh Home your home, you can have peace of mind and a community that will never leave you wanting. Homes range from approximately 2,000 to 4,000 square feet. Contact Cresleigh today and let us help you claim your own piece of paradise! #CresleighHomes
The Popular Idea that “You Cannot Legislate Morality” is a Myth!
When the human mind is made obsolete by advancing technology, the soul may not be far behind. The pace of events is moving so fast that unless we can find some way to keep our sights on tomorrow, we cannot expect to be in touch with today. Every society faces not merely a succession of probable futures, but an array of possible futures, and a conflict over preferable futures. Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. In the quickening race to put humans and machines on the planets, tremendous recourses are devoted to making possible a “soft landing.” Every sub-system of the landing craft is exquisitely designed to withstand the shock of arrival. Armies of engineers, geologists, physicists, metallurgists and other specialists concentrate years of work on the problem of landing impact. Failure of any sub-system to function after touch-down could destroy human lives, not to mention billions of dollars worth of apparatus and tens of thousands of human-years of labour. Today over seven billion human beings, the total population of technology-rich nations, are speeding toward a rendezvous with the super-age of information. Must we experience mass future shock? Or can we, too, achieve a “soft landing?” We are rapidly accelerating our approach. The craggy outlines of the new society are emerging from the mists of tomorrow. Yet even as we speed closer, evidence mounts that one of our most critical sub-systems—education—is dangerously malfunctioning. What passes for education today, even in our “best” school and colleges, is hopeless anachronism. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Parents look to education to fit their children for life in the future. Teachers warn that lack of an education will cripple a child’s chances in the World of tomorrow. Government ministries, churches, the mass media—all exhort young people to stay in school, insisting that now, as never before, one’s future is almost wholly dependent upon educations. Yet for all this rhetoric about the future, our schools face backward toward a dying system, rather than forward to the emerging new society. Their vast energies are applied to cranking out people who focus on information technology tooled for survival in a system that will long out live most people. The Information Age is the ideal that access to and the control of information is the defining characteristic of this current era in human civilization. The Information Age, also called the Computer Age, The Digital Age, and the New Media Age, is coupled tightly with the advent of personal computers. Companies whose businesses are built on digitized information have become valuable and powerful in a relatively short period of time. Just as land owners held the wealthy and wielded power in the Agrarian Age and manufacturers such as Henry For and Cyrus McCormick accumulated fortunes in the Industrial Age, the current Information Age has spawned its own breed of wealthy influential brokers, from Microsoft’s Bill Gates, John Tu and David Sun who are the founders of Kingston Technology, Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder and CEO of NantWorks, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell, and of course Jeff Bezos, co-founder and CEO of Amazon. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
To help avert future shock, we must create a super-age of information educational system. And to do this, we must search for our objectives and methods in the future, rather than in the past. Every society has its own characteristic attitude toward past, present and future. This time-bias, formed in response to the rate of change, is one of the least noticed, yet most powerful determinants of social behaviour, and it is clearly reflected in the way the society prepares its young for adulthood. In stagnant societies, the past crept forward into the present and repeated itself in the future. In such a society, the most sensible way to prepare a child was to arm one with the skills of the past—for these were precisely the same skills one would need in the future. “With the ancient is wisdom,” the Bible admonished. Thus farther handed down to son all sorts of practical techniques along with a clearly defined, highly tradition set of values. Knowledge was transmitted not by specialist concentrated in schools, but through the family, religious institutions, and apprenticeships. Learner and teacher were dispersed throughout the entire community. The key to the system, however, was its absolute devotion to yesterday. The curriculum of the past was the past. The mechanical age smashed all this, for industrialism required a new kind of human. It demanded skills that neither family nor church could, by themselves, provide. It forced an upheaval in the value system. Above all, it required that humans develop a new sense of time. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Mass education was the ingenious machines constructed by industrialism to produce the kind of adult it needed. The problem was inordinately complex. How to pre-adapt children for a new World—a World of cognitive kills such as conducting independent research, assessing information for credibility, applying concepts to new situations, and self-critiquing one’s own abilities are central to our success in today’s working World—and, more important, to our lives as human beings. People have to get used to machines, computers, crowded living conditions, collective discipline, a World in which time is to be regulated not by the cycle of sun and moon, but by the computer and the clock. The solution is an educational system that, in its very structure, simulates this new World. This system did not emerge instantly. Even today it retains throwback elements from pre-industrial society. Yet the whole idea of assembling masses of stents (raw material) to be processed by teachers (workers) in a centrally located school (factory) is a stoke of industrial genius. Although this is the age of information, many of the same concepts in industrialism apply. The whole administrative hierarchy of education, as it has grown up, follows the model of industrial bureaucracy. The very organization of knowledge into permanent disciplines is grounded on the drive to learn, for its own sake. Bells ring to announce the change of time, but schools are not bound by bells and walls. The inner life of the school thus becomes an anticipatory mirror, a perfect introduction to the age of information. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
The most criticized features of education today—the regimentation, lack of individualization, the rigid systems of seating, grouping, grading, and marking, the authoritarian role of the teacher—are precisely those that made the mass public education so effective an instrument of adaptation for its place and time. Young people passing through this educational machine emerge into an adult society whose structure of jobs, roles, and institutions resemble that of the school itself. The schoolchild does not simply learn facts that one could use later on; one lives, as well as learns, a new way of life modeled after one one would lead in the future. The primary goal is now to help one incorporate the computer into K-12 curriculum. To this extent the book cannot be taken in isolation. The ideas and skills have changed to engage the latest digital technologies. The method of distribution is now a blend between face-to-face and some other combination of virtual interfaces, and a text-plus-multimedia based learning. Thus the focus of education itself has begun to shift, ever so slowly, away from the past and toward the present. An educated workforce can help lift people out of poverty, recue premature mortality, strengthen gender equality, and promote civic participation. Works need breadth of skills such as literacy and numeracy as well as the ability to think critically and to solve problem collaboratively. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
In the digital age, citizens must be prepared to respond to the challenges presented by globalization, climate change, health epidemics, and economic uncertainty. Employers will be seeking out a workforce of possessing analytical skills and interpersonal skills. For example, children will no longer be asked why does it rain, but expected to memorize and recite a series of steps for ow precipitation occurs. As our planet speeds toward 10 billion people (likely 9.5 billion or so by 2050), it is not hard to believe that all life will look differently. We will likely see a lot more new food based programs and recycling degrees, and we will also see 1 in 6 adults on our planet over the age of 65. So, medicine and health degrees will be even more valuable than today, especially when you include the administration of new systems that do truly personalize medicine and connect patients to care anywhere. Most campuses will be commuter campuses as 90 percent of people will use the Internet to obtain their classes. You will likely see schools in places unseen today, like the Harvard office suite atop a London office building or a Michigan State food science degree on a farm in Iowa. There will still be some campuses, but the idea is already being practiced. When we went to study abroad in China, we took our own professors and had our classes in hotel conference rooms, as well as in classes Beijing Language and Culture University, as well as at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics because we were travelling while in China. #Randolphharris 6 of 23
Students will also go to corporation colleges to get their education. Like the University of BMW or Samsung college for the promise of a job upon graduation. The landscape will look different than it does today, and hopefully everyone will be ready for the changes. Education is perhaps one of the most ingredients to a happy, successful, and constructive life. In fact, having access to a good education during childhood and your early adulthood can make a real difference in your later life. Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the World. The technology of tomorrow requires millions of lightly lettered humans, ready to work in unison at endlessly repetitious jobs, it requires not humans who take orders in unblinking fashion, aware that the price of bread is mechanical submission to authority, but humans who can make critical judgments, who can weave their way through novel environments, who are quick to spot new relationships in the rapidly changing reality. It requires people who have the future in their bones. Education’s lesson is clear: its prime objective must be to increase the individual’s “cope-ability”—the speed and economy with which one can adapt to continual change. And the faster the rate of change, the more attention must be devoted to discerning the pattern of future events. It is no longer sufficient for Johnny to understand the past. It is not even enough for him to understand the present, for the here-and-now environment will soon vanish. Johnny must learn t anticipate the direction and rate of change. He must, to put it technically learn to make repeated, probabilistic, increasingly long-range assumptions about the future. And so must Johnny’s teachers. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
It is only by projecting what will be in demand 50 years in the future, the kind of vocations that may be needed, assumptions about the kind of family forms and human relationships that will prevail; the kinds of ethical and moral problems that will arise; the kind of technology that will surround us and the organizational structures with which we must mesh that successful people will survive the accelerative thrusts. We must create a “Council of the Future” in every school and community: Teams of men and women devoted to probing the future in the interests of the present. By projecting “assumed futures,” be defining coherent educational responses to them, by opening these alternatives to activate public debate, such councils—similar in some ways to the “prognostic cells” advocated by Robert Jungk of the Technische Hochschule in Berlin—could have a powerful impact on education. The creation of future-oriented, future-shaping task forces in education could revolutionize the revolution of the young. For those educators who recognize the bankruptcy of the present system, but remain uncertain about next steps, the council movement could provide purpose as well as power, through alliance with, rather than hostility toward, youth. And by attracting community and parental participation—business people, trade unionists, scientists, and others—the movement could build broad political support for digital age revolution in education. It would be a mistake to assume that the present-day educational system is unchanging. On the contrary, it is undergoing rapid change. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
However, much of this change is no more than an attempt to refine the existent machinery, making it every more efficient in pursuit of obsolete goals. The rest is a kind of Brownian motion, self-canceling, incoherent, directionless. What has been lacking is a consistent direction and a logical starting point. The council movement could supply both. The direction is the super age of information. The starting point: the future. As we become acquainted with truth in good sources of all kinds, we are better prepared to work in the World and serve in the kingdom of God. The Lord revealed, “The Glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 93.36. All truth comes from Heavenly Father and is designed for the good of His children. God wants us to educate our minds, improve our skills, and perfect our abilities so we can be a better influence for good in the World, provide for ourselves, our family, and those in need, and build God’s Kingdom. All truth, whether religious or secular, is included in God’s plan for our salvation and happiness. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, “Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life, one will have s much the advantage in the World to come.” The Lord has given each of us gifts and encourages us to improve upon them and seek other gifts. He has also instructed us to seek learning, even by study and also by faith. Work for an education. Get all the training you can. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Who is to day religion and politics should not mix? Whose Bible are they reading? There is an implication that Christians are immune to corruption. Of course not. While Christians know that their faith requires high standards of righteousness, they are human and often capitulate to the same temptations as anyone else. In fact, Christians may well face more problems than others when they become involved in the political process. How does a Christian deal with the inherent divided loyalties: duty to God and duty to the national interest? Can a Christian successfully avoid the subtle snares of power? Can a Christian make the compromises necessary for the everyday business of politics? What about the question of candor, for example? At times national security may well require not only concealing the true, but lying. When in the White House, politicians often go through elaborate lengths to conceal essential secret negotiations. Henry Kissinger had a bad cold when he visited Pakistan in 1971—or so the press was told. Actually he had been flown to Beijing to conduct clandestine meetings in preparation for Mr. Nixon’s historic visit to China. Or take the day Nixon announced a major troop withdrawal in Vietnam. He immediately ordered Kissinger to bring Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin to a secret meeting room in the White House basement. “Henry,” he roared, “You shake him up. Tell him not to believe these news stories. We are only pulling out a few troop—and if the Russians do not back off in sending supplies to Hanoi, we will bomb the daylights out of that city. Tell him the president is uncontrollable, a madman—that he will do anything. Let us keep them off balance.” That such meetings took place was flatly denied in order to protect the lives of the withdrawing troops. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
President Regan did that same thing in 1983. When reporters asked about a rumored invasion of Grenada, official White House spokesmen dismissed such questions as “preposterous.” Actually, troops were at that moment disembarking on the island’s beaches. A “no comment” to the press, however, would have been tantamount to a “yes”—an admission that would have endangered lives. In these days of delicate international tensions and the instant communications ability of an almost omnipresent press, such deceit is a common instrument of foreign policy. The press even accepts it. In a 1987 Newsweek interview, crack ABC interviewer Ted Koppel acknowledge that government official must be “prepared to mislead and sometimes even to lie.” Deliberate lies, the corruption of power, compromise with ideological opponents, temptations on all dies—these appear to be the mechanism of modern government. Should the Christian circumvent the messy business of politics altogether? The answer must be an emphatic no. As Robert L. Dabney wrote, “Every Christian…whether law-maker or law executor or voter, should carry one’s Christian conscience, enlightened by God’s Word, into one’s political duty. We must ask less what party caucuses and leaders dictate, and more what duty dictates.” There are at least three compelling reasons Christians must be involved in politics and government. First, as citizens of the nation-state, Christians have the same civic duties all citizens have: to serve on juries, to pay taxes, to vote, to support candidates they think are best qualified. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Christians are commanded to pray and respect governing authorities. (For years many Christian fundamentalists shunned the “sinful” political process, even to the extent of not voting. Whatever else may be said about it, the Moral Majority performed a valuable public service in bringing these citizens back into the mainstream.) Second, as citizens of the Kingdom of God they are to bring God’s standards of righteousness and justice to bear on the kingdom of this World. This is the cultural commission. As former Michigan state senator and college professor Stephan Monsma says, Christian political involvement has the “potential to move the political system away from the brokering of the self-interest of powerful persons and groups into a renewed concern for the public interest.” Third, Christians have an obligation to being transcendent moral values into public debate. All law implicitly involves morality; the popular idea that “you cannot legislate morality” is a myth. Morality is legislated every day from the vantage point of one value system or another. The question is not whether we will legislate morality, but whose morality we will legislate. Law is but a body of rules regulating human behaviour; it establishes, from the view of the state, the rightness or wrongness of human behaviour. Most laws, therefore, have moral implications. The more you know who you are in God, the easier it is to manifest the truth about yourself! #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Statutes prohibiting murder, mandates for seat belts, or regulations for industrial safety are all designed to protect human life—a reflection of the particular moral view that values the dignity and worth of human life. And efficacy does not affect morality If in American we have more homicides per capita than any other country, it is not reason t repeal the laws making murder a crime. The common argument against the legislation of morality is Prohibition, which conjures up such caricatures as Billy Sunday waving a chair over his head and Carrie Nation chopping up whiskey barrels. The church has taken an undeserved bad rap for this. No one entity imposed Prohibition; it was voted in by a clear majority after a lengthy national debate. Admittedly, over the years of its existence Prohibition became increasingly difficult to enforce; it encouraged organized crime and ultimately led to widespread disrespect for the law. Eventually the costs outweighed the benefits. However, was it morally justified? Certainly one’s personal decision to drink alcohol is a private matter. When millions do it to such excess that public safety is endangered, however, it becomes a public concern. That was the case in the pre-Prohibition era. Thousands reported to their factory jobs under the influence and were maimed or killed by heavy industrial machines then being introduced in the American economy. The tavern trade spawned harlotry rings at a time, like today, when there was no cure for the raging epidemic of certain contagious and socially transmitted viral deception was being transmitted. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Though many write off Prohibition as a complete failure, the facts are that industrial safety improved dramatically as per capita drinking, particular among working people, dropped precipitously, and the VD epidemic slowed. Not until 1970 did per capita consumption of alcohol again reach pre-Prohibition levels. Everyday, 29 people in the United States of America die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This is one death every 50 minutes. The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $44 billion. And with the majority of crimes being committed by people under the influence of drugs or alcohol, can anyone really argue realistically today that moral issues are not matter of public interest? The real issue for Christians is not whether they should be involved in politics or contend for laws that affect moral behaviour. The question is how. The greatest relationship you will ever have is with God! There is nothing like it! There is a further aspect of moral attitudes that I have noted in the sketch of the development of the sense of justice, namely, their connection with certain natural attitudes. Thus in examining a moral feeling we should ask: what if any are the natural attitudes to which it is related? Now there are two questions here, one the converse of the other. The first asks about the natural attitudes that are sown to be absent when a person fail to have certain moral feelings. Where as the second asks which natural attitudes are evidences to be present when someone experiences a moral emotion. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
The first asks about the natural attitudes that are shown to be absent when a person fails to have certain moral feelings. Whereas the second askes which natural attitudes are evidenced to be present when someone experiences a moral emotion. In context of the authority situation, the child’s natural attitudes of love and trust for those in authority lead to feelings of (authority) guilt when one violates the injunctions addressed to one. The absence of these moral feelings would evidence a lack of these natural ties. Similarly, within the framework of the morality of association, the natural attitudes of friendship and mutual trust give rise to feelings of guilt for not fulfilling the duties and obligations recognized by the group. The absence of these feelings would imply the absence of these attachments. These propositions must not be mistaken for their converses, for while feelings of indignation and guilt, say, can often be taken as evidence for such affections, there may be other explanations. In general, moral principles are affirmed for various reasons and their acceptance is normally sufficient for the moral feelings. To be sure, on the contract theory principles of right and justice have a certain content, and as we have just seen, there is a sense in which acting in accordance with them can be interpreted as acting from a concern for humankind, of for the good of other persons. Whether this fact shows that one acts in part from certain natural attitudes, especially as these involve attachments to particular individuals, and not simply from the general forms of sympathy and benevolence, is a question I shall leave aside here. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Certainly the preceding account of the development of morality supposes that affection for particular persons plays an essential part in the acquisition of morality. However, how far these attitudes are required for later moral motivation can be left open, although it would, I think, be surprising if these attachments were not to some degree necessary. Now the connection between the natural attitudes and the moral sentiments may be expressed as it follows: these sentiments and attitudes are both ordered families of characteristic dispositions, and these families overlap in such a manner that the absence of certain moral feelings evidences the absence of certain natural ties. Or alternatively, the presence of certain natural attachments gives rise to a liability to certain moral emotions once the requisite moral development has taken place. We can see how this is so by an example. If A cares for B, then failing a special explanation A is afraid for B when B is in danger and tries to come t B’s assistance. Again, if C plans to treat B unjustly, A is indignant with C and attempts to prevent one’s plans from succeeding. In bot cases, A is disposed to protect B’s interests. Further, unless there are special circumstances, A is joyful when together with B, and when B suffers injury or dies. A is stricken with grief. If the injury to B is A’s responsibility, A will feel remorse. Love is a sentiment, a hierarchy of dispositions to experience and to manifest these primary emptions as the occasion elicits and to act in the appropriate way. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
To confirm the connection between the natural attitudes and the moral sentiments one simply notes that the disposition on A’s part to feel remorse when one injures B, or guilt when one violates B’s legitimate claims, or A’s disposition to feel indignation when C seeks to deny B’s right, are as closely related psychologically with the natural attitudes of love as the disposition to be joyful in other’s presence, or two feel sorrow when one suffers. The moral sentiments are in some ways more complex. In their complete form they presupposed an understanding and an ability to judge in accordance with them. However, assuming these things, the liability to moral feelings seems to be as much a part of the natural sentiments as the tendency to be joyful, or the liability to grief. Love sometimes expresses itself in sorrow, at other times indignation. Either one without the other would be equally unusual. The content of rational moral principles is such as to render these connections intelligible. Now one main consequence of this doctrine is that the moral feelings are a normal feature of human life. We could not do away with them without at the same time eliminating certain natural attitudes. Among persons who ever acted in accordance with their duty of justice except as reasons of self-interest and expediency dictated there would be no bonds of friendship and mutual trust. For when these attachments exist, other reasons are acknowledged for acting fairly. This much seems reasonably obvious. However, it also follows from what has been said that, barring self-deception, egoists are incapable off feeling resentment and indignation. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
If either of two egoists deceives the other and this is found out, neither of them has a ground for complaint. They do not accept the principles of justice, or any other conception that is reasonable from the standpoint of the original position; nor do they experience any inhibition from guilt feelings for breaches of their duties. As we have seen, resentment and indignation are moral feelings and therefore they presuppose an explanation by reference to an acceptance of the principles of right and justice. However, by hypothesis the appropriate explanations cannot be given. To deny that self-interested persons are incapable of resentment and indignation is not of course to say that they cannot be angry and annoyed with one another. A person without a sense of justice may be enraged at someone who fails to act fairly. However, anger and annoyance are distinct from indignation and resentment; they are not, as the latter are, moral emotions. Nor should it be denied that egoists may want others to recognize the bonds of friendship and to treat them in a friendly way. However, these desires are not to be mistaken for ties of affection that lead one to make sacrifices for one’s friends. No doubt there are difficulties in distinguishing between resentment and anger, and between apparent and real friendship. Certainly the overt manifestations and actions may seem the same when viewing a limited span of conduct. Yet in the longer run the difference can usually be made out. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
One may say, then, that a person who lacks a sense of justice, and who would never act as justice requires except as self-interest and expediency prompt, not only is without ties of friendship, and affection, and mutual trust, but is incapable of experiencing resentment and indignation. One lacks certain natural attitudes and moral feelings of a particularly elementary kind. Put another way, one who lacks a sense of justice lacks certain fundamental attitudes and capacities included under the notion of humanity. Now the moral feelings are admittedly unpleasant, in some extended sense of unpleasant; but there is no way for us to avoid a liability to them without disfiguring ourselves. This liability is the price of love and trust of friendship and affection, and of a devotion to institutions and traditions from which we have benefited and which serve the general interests of humankind. Further, assuming that persons are possessed of interests and aspirations of their own, and that they are prepared in the pursuit of their own ends and ideals to press their claims on one another—that is, so long as the conditions giving rise to questions of justice obtain among them—it is inevitable that, given temptation and passion, this liability will be realized. And since being moved by ends and ideals of excellence implies a liability to humiliation and shame, and an absence of liability of a liability to humiliation and shame a lack of ends and such ideals, one can say of shame and humiliation also that they are a part of the notion of humanity. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
Now that fact that one who lacks a sense of justice, and thereby a liability to guilt, lacks certain fundamental attitudes and capacities is not to be taken as a reason for acting as justice dictates. However, it has this significance: by understanding what it would be to lack part of our humanity too—we are led to accept our having this sentiment. It follows that the moral sentiments are a normal part of human life. One cannot do away with them without at e same time dismantling the natural attitude as well. And we have also seen that the moral sentiments are continuous with these attitudes in the sense that the love of humankind and the desire to uphold the common good include the principle of right and justice as necessary to define their objective. None of this is to deny that our existing moral feelings may be in many respects irrational and injurious to our good. Dr. Freud is right in his view that these attitudes are harsher aspects of the authority situation in which they were first acquired. Resentment and indignation, feelings of guilt and remorse, a sense of duty and the censure of others, often take perverse and destructive forms, but blunt without reason human spontaneity and enjoyment. When I say that moral attitudes are part of our humanity, I mean those attitudes that appeal to sound principles of right and justice in their explanation. The reasonableness of the underlying ethical conception is a necessary condition; and so the appropriateness of moral sentiments to our nature is determined by the principles that would be consented to in the original positions. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
These principles regulate moral education and the expression of moral approval and disapproval, just as they govern the design of institutions. Yet even if the sense of justice is the normal outgrowth of natural human attitudes within a well-ordered society, it is still true that our present moral feelings are liable to be unreasonable and capricious. However, one of the virtues of a well-ordered society is that, since arbitrary authority has disappeared, its members suffer much less from the burdens of oppressive conscience. It is reason which helps to get beyond the trivialities of our daily life. We become concerned about all that is happening, with all the questions that beset our times. It makes us participate in the World and feel personally what is happening on Earth. Our happiness or unhappiness is not determined by what happens to us in everyday life. However favourable our circumstances, however successful our enterprises, however much envied we are by our fellow humans, we still may not be happy. For peace alone is the source of happiness. The more our reasoning throws us unto the turmoil of life’s problems, the more we yearn for peace. We are led up to the mountains until the glaciers begin to glitter before us. Then reasoning bids us climb still higher, still further into the light, still further into peace and quietude. The older we grow the more we realize that true power and happiness come to us only from those who spiritually mean something to us. Whether they are near or far, still alive or dead, we need them if we are to find our way through life. Only when they are near to us in spirit can the good we bear within us can be turned into life and action. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
What tremendous inner power exists in spiritual communion with another human! How pitiable and destitute humans are when they are spiritually alone, when they have no one to understand and encourage them. If they do not even feel the need for it, doubly pitiable. Blessed the Lord who is to be praised. Praised be the Lord who is blessed for all eternity. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who didst choose us from among all the peoples by giving us Thy Torah. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Giver of the Torah. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who in giving us a Torah of truth, hast planted everlasting life within us. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Giver of the Torah. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who in bestowing good upon humans beyond their deserving, hast dealt graciously with me. May He, who hath dealt graciously with you, continue to bestow His favour upon you. We recognize that our identity is inextricably entwined with lives beyond our own. This sense of expanded identity goes beyond human relationships. We depend upon trees, trees depend upon grasses, grasses depend upon animals, mountains depend upon oceans, the dolphin depends upon the farther star. Physically and spiritually, we all are woven into the living process of the Earth. We take part in—as science now tells us—a planet-sized living system. Our breathing, our acting, our thinking arise in interaction with our shared World. Our own hearts constantly beat out the cosmic rhythm within us. We cannot escape our involvement any more than we can escape breathing the air that has traveled from plants thousands of miles away. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
There is only one Overself for the whole race, but the point of contact with it is special and unique, and constitutes human’s higher individuality. The mountains, I become part of it. The herbs, the fir tree, I become part of it. The morning mists, the clouds, the gathering water, I become part of it. When we ground our spiritual awareness in this ecological context, then the strength and wisdom of the living Earth, in all its manifestations, flows through us. Our Earth Prayer becomes a means of acting upon ourselves. It helps us to empty the self and to open our hearts to be filled with empathy and creativity. The ecological self, like any notion of selfhood, is simply a metaphor, but it is a dynamic one. It involves our choice. We can choose at different moments to identify with different aspects of our interrelated existence—be they hunted whales, or humans without a home, or the planet itself. The prayers we recite remind us of this deep kinship—our boundedness with all of creation. Look deeply: I arrive in every second to be a bund on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion. Magnified and sanctified be the name of God throughout the World which He hath created according to His will. May He establish His Kingdom during the days of your life and during the life of all the house of America, speedily, yea, soon; and say ye, Amen. May His great name be blessed for ever and ever. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
Cresleigh Homes
Imagine living your best life at Cresleigh Homes at Plumas Ranch in a brand-new modern single-family home. Enjoy tree-lined neighborhood streets and so much more. Walk to on-site shopping and restaurants. Top-rated schools are an added bonus and t makes living here convenient.
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Randolph Harris II International 