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Beneath the Surface Lies Beauty in Radiant Abundance in the Vast Oceans of Our Lives!
Losers have tons of variety. Champions take pride in just learning to produce the same old boring plays that win the game. If you do not have someone you can talk to about stressful events, you might try expressing your thoughts and feelings in writing. Several studies have found that students who write about their upsetting experiences, thoughts, and feelings are better able to cope with stress. They also experience fewer illnesses, and they get better grades. Writing about your feelings tends to leave your mind clearer. This makes it easier to pay attention to life’s challenges and come up with effective coping strategies. Thus, after you write about your feelings, it helps to make specific plans for coping with upsetting experiences. Stress is greatly affected by the views we take of events. Physical symptoms and a tendency to make poor decisions are increased by negative thoughts or “self-talk.” In many cases, what you say to yourself can be the different between coping and collapsing. The cause of disease with which conventional medicos deal are too often themselves the effects of still deeper causes. It is because unconventional healers recognize this that they are able to achieve so much higher a proportion of dramatically successful cures than the medicos can achieve. And their principal recognition is of the spiritual nature of humans, along with the mental emotional influence on the body. When plague broke like a wave over the heads of humankind in the fifteenth century and spread with startling rapidity through the nations of Europe, the obvious physical cases were in themselves but agents of the less obvious soul-causes, defects in the very character of humanity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Insomnia and cancer, to take but two of the representative illnesses of our own epoch, are no less plaguelike in their menace to people of today, no less the products of causes inherent in imperfect human character, habit, or environment. Although we can often find the physical causes of physical ailments, behind these physical causes there are quite often maladies of the soul. Heal the soul and the bodily healing may follow. Obviously there are many cases where no success would result. The first step in healing, for both the healer and the patient, is to pray, to ask for enlightenment about the true and first cause of the sickness. What act or what thought of the patient was primarily responsible? Once learnt, it must be corrected. A disease may well be the outer expression of an inner conflict, or an inner weakness, or an inner misery. One may push the problem away for a time, but it will be only for a time. One day it will return and one will have to deal with it again. Those who violate the laws of their own being will suffer in health. When Jesus Christ told the woman he healed to sin no more, he added that it was her sinning which brought her ill-health upon her. Here then is one of the potent causes of sickness. So long as we remain alienated from the Overself, so long shall we suffer misery and spoil life. All the good we may recognize or desire is nothing in itself and leads nowhere unless it is strengthened in the thought of faithfulness. It is just like the hardening of metal. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
No one can explain how metal hardens. First it is weak and pliable, but then it becomes a hundred times as strong as it was before. Nor can we explain how every human virtue only achieves strength and fulfilment after it has been hardened on the anvil of faithfulness. While certain aspect of morality of authority are preserved at later stages for special occasions, we can regard the mortality of authority in its primitive for as that of the child. I assume that the sense of justice is acquired gradually by the younger members of society as they grow up. The succession of generations and the necessity to teach moral attitudes (however simple) to children is one of the conditions of human life. Now I shall assume that the basic structure of a well-ordered society includes the family in some form, and therefore that children are at first subject to the legitimate authority of their parents. Of course, in a broader inquiry the institution of the family might be questioned, and other arrangements might indeed prove to be preferable. However, presumably the account of the morality of authority, if necessary, be adjusted to fit these different schemes. In any event, it is characteristic of the child’s situation that one is not in a position to assess the validity of the precepts and injunctions addressed to one by those in authority, in this case one’s parents. One lacks both the knowledge and the understanding on the basis of which their guidance can be challenged. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Indeed, the child lacks the concept of justification altogether, this being acquired much later. Therefore one cannot with reason doubt the propriety of parental injunctions. However, since we are assuming that the society is well-ordered we my suppose, so as to avoid needless complications, that these precepts are on the whole justified. They accord with a reasonable interpretation of familial duties as defined by the principles of justice. The parents, we may suppose, love the child and in time the child comes to love and to trust one’s parents. How does this change in the child come about? The following psychological principles come into play: only if hey manifestly love the child first, the child comes to love its parents. This attachment is quite unconscious and instinctive. Thus the child’s actions are motivated initially by certain instincts and desires, and one’s aims are regulated (if at all) by rational self-interest (in a suitably restricted sense). Although the child has the potentiality for love, one’s love of the parents is a new desire brought about by one’s recognizing their evident love of one and one’s benefitting from the actions in which their love is expressed. The parents’ love of the child is expressed in their evident intention to care for one, to do for one as one’s rational self-love would incline, and in the fulfillment of these intentions. Their love is displayed by their taking pleasure in one’s presence and supporting one’s sense of competence and self-esteem. They encourage one’s efforts to master the tasks of growing up and they welcome one’s assuming one’s own place. One learns what one can do in that World. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Playing leads to the child developing a self-identity, it teaches them their separateness from others. Playing helps distinguish “me” from “you,” preparatory to building a strong “us.” Playing leads to the discover of the others as the other “really” is. I mean here the discovery of the other we cannot control, the other who exists regardless of our needs, hopes, fears, and wishes. Playing corrects our phantasies of what we imagine the other to be, using the evidence which we allow the other to present to our senses. Of course, we do not play with those we fear too much, and so we cannot discover who or what they “really” are in this sense. However, we do watch the late-night horror film; we play with what we fear a little, hoping to reduce our fear through finding less danger than we feared, or more sill in coping. The discovery of others who are the source of good things leads to gratitude and confidence. However, there must surely be many times when the child responds with ager to the discovery that it is not omnipotent but must put up with a delay before it will get what it wants. This anger has a special role: it can test and at times establish the reality of the other person’s separateness. Testing is a process which allows us to distinguish between the people and things we can imagine or phantasies about, and the people and things whose actions are not under our control. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
By testing I can discover what is under my control and so “mine,” and what is in the World known as “shared reality” and which is not under my control. I think that quite a lot of such discoveries happen in a painless way in the process of playing and exploring. When things (or persons) are no longer subject to omnipotence—no longer imagined to be under the child’s control but discovered to be part of shared reality—they cease to be part of the child and become separated out. The loss of omnipotence may frustrate and anger the baby, but it has a focus for its anger—the (m)other. The distress of deprivation becomes the anger of frustration, anger which may be so great that the child fears it will destroy the (m)other in its rage. However, it is not in shared reality and so it is bound to learn that destroying people in phantasy does not destroy them in shared reality, thank goodness. And so, when the rage subsides, the child discovers that the (m)other is still there and so is the baby itself. Thus, the child discovers a class of objects not destroyed by rage, to which it can then begin to attend in a new way. When you can stop thinking of yourself as omnipotent, powerful, and destructive in a World which has other powerful and destructive people in it, the World is a safer place. The (m)other has been tested and survived. The subject says to the object “I destroyed you,” and the object is there to receive the communication. From now on the subject says “Hullo object! I destroyed you. I love you. You have value for me because of your survival of my destruction of you.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
So, gradually, either through playing or more perilously through testing, other people become more real as other people. They have been discovered as able to survive both love and hate. This makes realistic ambivalence possible. In phantasy, the good and the bad can be kept separate. We can have a phantasy goo mother, who comes when wanted, separate from a phantasy bas mother, who never comes when wanted. In shared reality, we have to put up with the fact that mothers (and others) are both good and bad together. To some extent they will be just as we imagined them; and to some extent they remain obstinately their own selves. This is why transitional objects—bears, dolls, imaginary playmates—are normally not tested to destruction, however savagely the child treats them. The child could destroy them—they are sufficiently under the child’s control to be capable of destruction—but this is not what the child normally wants to do to is transitional objects. It is partly because the child does not normally test its transitional objects to destruction that it eventually turns more to other people and things: transitional objects cannot be “discovered,” the way other people and things can be discovered, to be either the sort of person or thing we hoped for, or not. There is a particular gratification or disappointment which comes from relating to real people and things in shared reality. Transitional objects, by contrast, are useful because they help the child comes to terms with the discovery of its own limitations: they put the child in touch with the possibility (disillusioning? comforting?) that is not omnipotent. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
So we have been considering a developmental period when the child feels strong enough to discover the real people to relate to in an honest way taking the rough with the smooth, as regards itself, and as regards others. In general, to love another means not only to be concerned for one’s wants and needs, but to affirm one’s sense of worth of one’s own person. Eventually, then, the love of the parents for the child gives rise to one’s love in return. The child’s love does not have a rational instrumental explanation: one does not love them s a means to achieve one’s initial self-interested ends. With this aim in view one could conceivably act as if one loved them, but one’s doing so would not constitute a transformation of one’s original desires. By the stated psychological principle, a new affection is in time called into being by the evident love of the parents. By the stated psychological principle, new affection is in time called into being by the evident love of the parents. There are several ways in which this psychological law may be analyzed into further elements. Thus it is unlikely that the child’s recognition of parental affection causes directly a returning sentiment. We may conjecture several other steps as follows: when the parents’ love of the child is recognized by one on the basis of their evident intentions, the child is assured of one’s worth as a person. One is made away that one is appreciated for one’s own sake by what are to one the imposing and power persons in one’s World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
One experiences parental affection as unconditional; they care for one’s presence and spontaneous acts, and the pleasure they take in one is not dependent upon disciplined performances that contribute to the well-being of others. In due course, the child comes to trust one’s parents and to have confidence in one’s surroundings; and this lead one to launch out and to test one’s maturing abilities, all the while supported by their affection and encouragement. Gradually one acquires various skills and develops a sense of competence that affirms one’s self-esteem. It is in the course of this whole process that the child’s affections for one’s parents develops. One connects them with the success and enjoyment that one has had in sustaining one’s World, and with one’s sense of one’s own worth. And this brings about one’s love for them. We must now consider how the child’s love and trust will show itself. At this point it is necessary to keep in mind the peculiar features of the authority situation. The child does not have one’s own standards of criticism, since one is not in a position to reject precepts on rational grounds. If one loves and trusts one’s parents, one will tend to accept their injunctions. One will also strive to be like them, assuming that they are indeed worthy of esteem and adhere to the precepts which they enjoin. They exemplify, let us suppose, superior knowledge and power, and set forth appealing examples of what is demanded. The child, therefore, accepts their judgment of one and one will be inclined to judge oneself as they do when one violated their injunctions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
At the same time, of course, one’s desires exceeds the bounds of what is permitted, for otherwise there would be no need for these precepts. Thus parental norms are experienced as constraints and the child may rebel against them. After all, one may see no reason why one should comply with them; they are in themselves arbitrary prohibitions and one has no original tendency to do the things one is told to do. Yet if one does love and trust one’s parents, then, once one has given in to temptation, one is disposed to share their attitude toward one’s misdemeanors. One will be inclined to confess one’s transgression and to seek reconciliation. In these various inclinations are manifested the feelings of (authority) guilt. Without these and related inclinations, feelings of guilt would not exist. However, it is also true that the absence of these feelings would indicate a lack of love and trust. For given the nature of the authority situation and the principles of moral psychology connecting he ethical and the natural attitudes, love and trust will give rise to feelings of guilt once the parental injunctions are disobeyed. Admittedly in the case of the child it is sometimes difficult to distinguish feelings of guilt from the fear of punishment, and especially from the dread of the loss of parental love and affection. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The child lacks the concepts for understanding moral distinctions and this will reflect itself in one’s behaviour. I have supposed, however, that even in the child’s case we can separate (authority) guilt feelings from fear and anxiety. Because the child is still tiny and when the mother is good enough, and has arranged things just as the child imagined them, as a consequence the child begins to believe in external reality, which appears and behaves as by magic, and which acts in a way that does not clash with the infant’s omnipotence. On this basis the infant can gradually abrogate its sense of omnipotence. The True Self has a spontaneity and this has been joined up with the World’s events. The child can now begin to enjoy the illusion of omnipotent creating and controlling, and can then gradually come to recognize the illusory element, the fact of playing and imagining. Disillusionment is the process of discovering that you are not omnipotent after all, that phantasy does not by itself create what you want, that there had been someone all along who was not under your control, who had been letting you believe that you were in control, and who is now no longer letting you believe that. The child can enjoy the illusion of omnipotent creating and controlling, and can then gradually come to recognize the illusory element. The illusory element is, in my view, the merged selfobject state which is he precursor of the experience of “us.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The emergence of the distinct concepts of “you” and “I” creates a gap which does not exist in the selfobject state. The experience of “us” is the bride across that gap. How I need that bridge, that sense of union, after losing the phantasy of well-being and omnipotence which characterized a good selfobject state! Illusory it may have been, but it felt safe. His safety is now being rebuilt in the relationship called “us,” or to put it in a different way, this safety is being re-established as part of the concept of “us.” After ego-relatedness—“us”-relatedness. In that safety, the fortune baby can discover the World of other people and things not under its control, but in shared reality. The third part of the life of a human being, part that we cannot ignore, an intermediate area of experiencing, to which both inner reality and external life contribute. It is a resting place for the individual engaged in the perpetual task of keeping inner and outer reality separate yet interrelated. The intermediate area to which I am referring is the area that is allowed to the child between primary creativity and objective perception based on reality-testing. This intermediate area is in between the mother and the infant and is some thing, or some activity, or sensation. This is the “third part”—the part thought of as a transitional or a potential space. How else may we think of it, this “between” thing or activity to sensation? To my mind it is best thought of in two ways, one to do with people and one to do with creativity. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
The “intermediate area between people” seems to me an experience of “us,” and is not a space but a process. This process, the experience of “us,” developing as it does in favourable circumstances from selfobject states, requires the differentiation of “you” from “me”: we are then separate yet interrelated. To maintain that way of relating is indeed “a perpetual task”; to be in such a relationship is indeed to be in a resting place. In the light of this sketch of the development of the morality of authority, it seems that the conditions favouring its being learned by the child are these. First the parents must love the child and be worthy objects of one’s admiration. In this way they arouse in one a sense of one’s own value and the desire to become the sort of person that they are. Secondly, they must enunciate clear and intelligible (and of course justifiable) rules adapted to the child’s level of comprehension. In addition they should set out the reasons for these injunctions so far as these can be understood, and they most also follow these precepts insofar as they apply to them as well. The parents should exemplify the morality which they enjoin, and make explicit its underlying principles as time goes on. Doing this is required not only to arouse the child’s inclination to accept these principles at a later time, but also to covey how they are to be interpreted in particular cases. If parental injunctions are not only harsh and unjustified, but enforced by punitive and even physical sanctions, presumably moral development fails to take place to the extent that these conditions are absent. The child’s having a morality of authority consists in one’s being disposed without the prospect of reward or punishment to follow certain precepts that not only may appear to one largely arbitrary but which in no way appeal to one’s original inclinations. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
If one acquires the desire to abide these prohibitions, it is because one sees them as addressed to one by powerful persons who have one’s love and trust, and who also act in conformity with them. One then concludes that they express forms of action that characterize the sort of person one should want to be. In the absence of affection, example, and guidance, none of these processes can take place, and certainly not in loveless relationships maintained by coercive threats and reprisals. The child’s morality of authority is primitive because for the most part it consists of a collection of precepts, and one cannot comprehend the larger scheme of right and justice within which the rules addressed to one are justified. However, even a developed morality of authority in which the basis of the rules can be understood shows many of the same features, and contains similar virtues and vices. There is typically an authoritative person who is loved and trusted, or at least who is accepted as worthy of one’s position, and whose precepts it is one’s duty to follow implicitly. It is not for us to consider the consequences, this being lefts for those in authority. The prized virtues are obedience, humility, and fidelity to authoritative persons; the leading vices are disobedience self-will, and temerity. We are to do what is expected without questioning, for not so to act expressed doubt and distrust, and a certain arrogance and tendency to suspicion. Clearly the morality of authority must be subordinate to the principles of right and justice which alone can determine when these extreme requirements, or analogous constraints, as justified. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The child’s morality of authority is temporary, a necessity arising from one’s peculiar situation and limited understanding. Moreover, the theological parallel is a special case which, in view of the principle of equal liberty, does not apply to the basic structure of society. Thus the morality of authority has but a restricted role in fundamental social arrangements and can be justified only when the unusual demands of the practice in question make it essential to give certain individuals the prerogatives of leadership and command. In all cases, the scope of this morality is governed by the principles of justice. The trouble is that such personal tactics become less effective with every passing day. As the rate of change climbs, it becomes harder for individual to create the personal stability zones they need. The cost of non-change escalate. We may stay in the old-hose—only to see the neighbourhood transformed. We may keep the old car—only to see repair bills mount beyond reach. We may refuse to transfer to a new location—only to lose our job as a result. For while there are steps we can take to reduce the impact of change in our personal lives, the real problem lies outside ourselves. To create an environment in which change enlivens and enriches the individual, but does not overwhelm one, we must employ not merely personal tactics but social strategies. If we are to carry people through the accelerative period, we must begin now to build “future shock absorbers” into the very fabric of super-age of information society. And this requires a fresh way of thinking about change and non-change in our lives. It even requires a different way of classifying people. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Today we tend to categorize individuals not according to the changes they happen to be undergoing at the moment, but accord to their status or position between changes. We consider a union man as someone who has joined a union and not yet quit. Our designation refers not to joining or quitting, but to the “non-change” that happens in between. Welfare recipients, college students, Methodist, executive—all refer to the person’s condition between changes, as it were. There is, however, a radically different way to view people. For example, “one who is moving to a new residence” is a classification into which more than 100,000 Americans fit on any given day, yet they are seldom thought of as a group. The classification “one who is changing one’s job” or “one who is joining a church,” or “one who is getting a divorce” are all based on temporary, transitional conditions between transitions. This sudden shift of focus, from thinking about what people “are” to thinking about what they are “becoming,” suggests a whole array of new approaches to adaptation. One of the most imaginative and simplest of these comes from Dr. Herbert Gerjuoy, a psychologist on the staff of the Human Resources Research Organization. One terms it “situational grouping,” and like most good ideas, it sounds obvious once it is described. Yet it has never been systematically exploited. Situational grouping may well become one of the key social services of the future. Dr. Gerjuoy argues that we should provide temporary organizations—“situational groups”—for people who happen to be passing through similar life transitions at the same time. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Such situational groups should be established, Dr. Gerjuoy contends “for families caught up in the upheaval of relocation, for men and women about to be divorced, for people about to lose a parent or a spouse, for those about to gain a child, for men preparing to switch to a new occupation, for families that have just moved into a community, for those about to marry off their last child, for those facing retirement—for anyone, in other words, who faces an important change. Membership in the group would, of course, be temporary—just long enough to help the person with the transitional difficulties. Some groups might meet for a few months, others might not do more than hold a single meeting.” Some people cannot see beauty because they do not care about anything. By bringing together people who are sharing, or are about to share, a common adaptive experience, we help equip them to cope wit it. A human required to adaptive to a new life situation loses some of one’s bases for self-esteem. One begins to doubt one’s own abilities. If we bring one together with others who are moving through the same experience, people one can identify with and respect, we strength one. The members of the group come to share, even if briefly, some sense of identity. They see their problems more objectively. They trade useful ideas and insights. Most important, they suggest future alternatives for one another. That which I call the Overself is intermediate between the ordinary human and the World-Mind. It includes human’s higher nature but stretches into what is above one, the divine. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
That which connects the individual human to the Universal Spirit, I call the Overself. This connection can never be broken. Its existence is the chief guarantee that there is hope of salvation for all, not merely for those who think their group alone will be granted it. It is one’s own greater self, one’s Overself, that one thus experiences, although one ay be so overwhelmed by its mysterious Power, so awed by its ethereality, that one usually believes—and names—it God. And in one mode of meaning, one’s belief is not without justification. For at the core of the experience, one, the atom within the World-Mind, receives the revelation that it is ever there and, more, ever supporting one. It is this, the deepest part of one’s being, one’s final essential self, which is human’s Overself, and which links one with the World-Mind. It is this Presence within which evokes all one’s spiritual quality. This is the essential being of humans, where one’s link with God lies. Do you know that you carry God within you? You are a distinct portion of the essence of God and contain a part of Him within yourself. We like to focus on the future in group meetings. They should not be devoted to hashing over the past, or to griping about it, or to soul searching self-revelation, but to discussing personal objectives, and to planning practical strategies for future use in the new life situation. Members might watch movies of other similar groups wresting with the same kinds of problems. They might hear from others who are more advanced in the transition than they are. People are given the opportunity to pool their personal experiences and ideas before the moment of change is upon them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
In essence, here is nothing novel about this approach. Even now certain organizations are based on situational principles. A group of Peace Corps volunteers preparing for an overseas mission is, in effect, just such a situational grouping, as are pre- and postnatal classes. Many American tows have a “Newcomers Club” that invites new residents to casserole dinners or other socials, permitting them to mix with other recent arrivals and compare problems and plans. Perhaps there ought to be an “Outmovers Club” as well. What is new is the suggestion that we systematically honeycomb the society with such “coping classrooms.” It is interesting how the lack of understanding by a few can innocently or purposely misguide many. Judging another’s heart and conscience is probably best lest to the righteous judge of us all. Surely the final determination as to who is a true disciple of Christ will be left to the Savior, who said, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep,” reports John 10.14. So, if we, even in our weak and stumbling way, are earnestly striving to live a Christlike life, how others choose to characterize us should be of little consequence. The responsibility for our Christianity is ours. Others may characterize us as they will, but the true and righteous Judge will judge us as we are. Our discipleships is for us to determine, not someone else. I would hope that our fruits would merit the term Christian, and that our deeds, our actions, our hearts, and our countenances exemplify the teachings of the Saviour and display our gratitude for His great sacrifice for all of us. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Christ is the Redeemer of the World. He is our Lord, our Light, and out Saviour. He was ordained from on high to descend below all, to suffer above all! He is the focus of all that we teach and all we do. As a Church we are individual Christians, trying to prove our discipleship to the Saviour. It is not an institutional matter, it is a personal matter. Almighty Father, on this day, as we approach Thine altar to gain inspiration from Thy Torah, we pray that Thou wilt open our hearts unto Thy Law to the end that we may fulfill Thy holy precepts. Thou who didst bring order out of chaos, who didst establish harmony among the Heavenly bodies, do Thou bring order and harmony into our lives and the lives of all humankind. May the portion of the Torah we read today inspire us to dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to all that makes for just and righteous living. Hasten the day when Thy Law shall guide the lives of all the peoples of the Earth, when all humans shall live together as brothers recognizing Thee, the Father of all. Amen. Our God and God of our fathers, we stand before the open Ark of Thy Covenant to acknowledge Thy sovereignty. Before Thee and before the glory of Thy Law do we bow at all times. For Thou art Truth and Thy Torah is Truth, and Thy prophets are prophets of Truth, and Thou doest abound in mercy and in truth. Do Thou enlighten our eyes that we may behold the sonders of Thy Torah. Endow us with wisdom that we may understand its precepts, and inspire us with courage that we may hold aloft the banner of Thy Law in the eyes of all humans. We need freedom in our thought to elude what we have been taught to find what we have sought. May we just let go so we may know the flow of true being. It is worth seeing a Heavenly view. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Time is the Greatest Innovator—It is the Best and Worst of All Elixirs!
Those who take the long view of human experience will find that from time to time there were other societies no less honest and courageous than ours in facing all the ugliness, cruelty, and indifference the mirror reveals, but with the greater honesty still to hold the brighter, nobler view of humans and with the greater courage to pursue the vision. A well-ordered society is one designed to advance the good of its members and effectively regulated by a public conception of justice. Thus it is a society in which everyone accepts and knows that the others accept the same principle of justice, and the basic social institutions satisfy and are known to satisfy these principles. Now justice as fairness is framed to accord with this idea of society. The persons in the original position are to assume that the principles chose are public, and so they must assess conceptions of justice in view of their probable effects as the generally recognized standards. If understood and followed by few or even by all, conceptions that might work well enough s long as this fact were not widely known, are excluded by the public condition. We should also note that since principles are consented to in the light of true general beliefs about humans and their place in society, the conception of justice adopted is acceptable on the basis of these facts. There is no necessity to invoke theological or metaphysical doctrines to support its principles, nor to imagine another World that compensates for and corrects the inequalities which the two principles permit in this one. Conceptions of justice must be justified by the conditions of our life as we know it or not at all. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Now a well-ordered society is also regulated by its public conception of justice. This fact implies that its members have a strong and normally effective desire to act as the principles of justice require. Since a well-ordered society endures over time, it conceptions of justice is presumably stable: that is, when institutions are just (as defined by this conception), those taking part in these arrangements acquire the corresponding sense of justice and desire to do their part in maintaining them. If the sense of justice that it tends to generate is stronger and more likely to override disruptive inclinations, and if the intuitions it allows foster weaker impulses and temptations to act unjustly, one conception of justice is more stable than another. The stability of a conception depends upon a balance of motives: the sense of justice that it cultivates and the aims that it encourages must normally win out against propensities toward injustice. To estimate the stability of a conception of justice (and the well-ordered society that it defines), one must examine the relative strength of these opposing tendencies. It is evident that stability is a desirable feature of moral conceptions. Other things equal, the persons in the original position will adopt the more stable scheme of principles. If the principles of moral psychology are such that it fails to engender in human beings the requisite desire to act upon it, however attractive a conception of justice might be on other grounds, it is seriously defective. Thus in arguing further for the principles of justice as fairness, I should like to show that this conception is more stable than other alternatives. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
This argument from stability is for the most part in addition to the reasons so far adduced. To be sure, the criterion of stability is not decisive. In fact, some ethical theories have flouted it entirely, at least on some interpretations. Thus Bentham is occasionally said to have held both the classical principle of utility and the doctrine of psychological egoism. However, if it is a psychological law that individuals pursue only in interest in themselves, it is impossible for them to have an effective sense of justice (as defined by the principle of utility). The best that the ideal legislator can do is to design social arrangements so that from self—or group-interested motives citizens are persuaded to act in ways that maximize the sum of well-being. In this conception the identification of interests that results is truly artificial: it rests upon the artifice of reason, and individuals comply with the institutional scheme solely as a means to their separate concerns. This sort of divergence between principles of right justice and human motives is unusual, although instructive as a limiting case. Most traditional doctrines hold that to some degree at least human nature is such that we acquire a desire to act justly when we have lived under and benefited from just institutions. To the extent that this is true, a conception of justice is psychologically suite to human inclinations. Moreover, should it turn out that the desires to act justly is also regulative of a rational plan of life, the acting justly is part of our good. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
In this event the conceptions of justice and goodness are compatible and the theory as a whole is congruent. Justice as fairness generates its own support and it is likely to have greater stability than the traditional alternatives, since it is more in line with the principles of moral psychology. Human beings in a well-ordered society might acquire a sense of justice and other moral sentiments. Inevitably we shall have to take up some rather speculative psychological questions; but all along I have assumed that general facts about the World, including basic psychological principles, are known to the persons in the original position and relied upon by them in making their decisions. By reflecting on these problems here we survey these facts as they affect the initial agreement. If I make a few remarks about the conceptions of equilibrium and stability, it may prevent misunderstanding. Both of these ideas admit of considerable theoretical and mathematical refinement, but I shall use them in an intuitive way. The concept of stability I use is actually that of quasi-stability: if an equilibrium is stable, then all the variable return to their equilibrium values after a disturbance has moved the system away from equilibrium; a quasi-stable equilibrium is one in which only some of the variables return to their equilibrium configuration. A well-ordered society is quasi-stable with respect to the justice of its institutions and the sense of justice needed to maintain this condition. While a shift in social circumstances may render its institutions no longer just, in due course they are reformed as the situation requires, and justice is restored. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Thus it is a system that is in equilibrium over time so long as no external forces impinge upon it. In order to define an equilibrium state precisely, the boundaries of the system have to be carefully drawn and its determining characteristics clearly set out. Three things are essential: first, to identify the system and to distinguish between internal and external forces; second, to define the states of the system, a state of being a certain configuration of its determining characteristics; and third, to specify the laws connecting the states. Some systems have no equilibrium states, while others have many. These matters depend upon the nature of the system. Now an equilibrium is stable whenever departures from it, caused say by external disturbances, call into play forces within the system that tend to bring it back to this equilibrium state, unless of course the outside shocks are too great. By contrast, an equilibrium is unstable when a movement away from it arouses forces within the system that lead to even greater changes. Systems are more or less stable depending upon the strength of the internal forces that are available to return them to equilibrium. Since in practice all social systems are subject to disturbances of some kind, they are practically stable, let us say, if the departures from their preferred equilibrium positions caused by normal disturbances elicit forces sufficiently strong to restore these equilibria after a decent length of time, or else to stay sufficiently close to them. These definitions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
When it satisfies, and is publicly known by those engaged in it to satisfy the appropriate principles of justice, we are concerned with this complex of political, economic, and social institutions. We must try to assess the relative stability of these systems. Now I assume that the boundaries of these schemes are given by the notion of a self-contained national community. This supposition is not relaxed until the derivation of the principles of justice for the law of nations, but the wider problems of international law. It is also essential to note that in the present case equilibrium and stability are to be defined with respect to the justice of the basic structure and the moral conduct of individuals. The stability of a conception of justice does not imply that the institutions and practices of the well-ordered society do not alter it. In fact, such a society will presumably contain great diversity and adopt different arrangements from time to time. In this context stability means that however institutions are changed, they still remain just or approximately so, as adjustments are made in view of new social circumstances. The inevitable deviations from justice are effectively corrected or held within tolerable bounds by forces within the system. Among these forces I assume that the sense of justice shared by the members of the community has a fundamental role. To some degree, then, moral sentiments are necessary to insure that the basic structure is stable with respect to justice. According to the social learning theory, the aim of moral training is to supply missing motives: the desire to do what is right for its own sake, and the desire not to do what is wrong. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Right conduct is manner generally beneficial to others and to society (as defined by the principle of utility) for the doing of which we commonly lack an effective motive, whereas wrong conduct is behaviour generally injurious to others and to society for the doing of which we often have a sufficient motive. Society must somehow make good these defects. This is achieved by the approbation and disapprobation of parents and of others in authority, who when necessary use rewards and punishments ranging from bestowal and withdrawal of affection to the administration of pleasures and pains. Eventually by various psychological processes we acquire a desire to do what is right and an aversion to doing what is wrong. A second thesis is that the desire to conform to moral standards is normally aroused early in life before we achieve an adequate understanding of the reasons for these norms. Classic analysts assume that character development is finished around the age of five or six years, and that no essential changes occur afterward other than by the intervention of therapy. My experience has led me to the conviction that this concept is untenable; it is mechanistic and does not take into account the whole process of living and of character as a developing system. When an individual is born one is by no means faceless. Not only is one born with genetically determined temperamental and other inherited dispositions that have greater affinity to certain character traits rather than to others, but prenatal events and birth itself form additional dispositions. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
All this makes up, as it were, the face of the individual at birth. Then one comes in contact with a particular kind of environment—parents and other significant people around one—to which one responds and which tends to influence the further development of one’s character. At the age of eighteen months the infant’s character is much more definitely formed and determined than it was at birth. Yet it is not finished, and its development could go in several directions, depending on the influences that operate on it. By the age of six, let us say, the character is still more determined and fixed, but not without the capacity for change, provided new, significant circumstances occur that may provoke such change. Speaking more generally, the formation and fixity of the character has to be understood in terms of a sliding scale; the individual begins life with certain qualities that dispose one to go in certain directions, but one’s personality is still malleable enough to allow the character to develop in many different directions within the given framework. Every step in life narrows down the number of possible future outcomes. If they are to produce fundamental changes in the direction of the further evolution of the system, the more the character is fixed, the greater must be the impact of new factors. Eventually, the freedom to change becomes so minimal that only a miracle would seem capable of effecting a change. This does not imply that influences of early childhood are not as a rule more effective than later events. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
However, events in early childhood are incline more, they do not determine a person completely. In order to make up for the greater degree of impressionability of early age, later events have to be more intense and more dramatic. The impression that the character never changes is largely based on the fact that the life of most people is so prefabricated and unspontaneous that nothing new ever really happens, and later events only confirm the earlier ones. The number of real possibilities for the character to develop in different directions is in inverse proportion to the fixity the character system has assumed. However, in principle the character system is never so completely fixed that new developments could not occur as the result of extraordinary experiences, although such occurrences are, statically speaking, not probable. The practical aspect of these theoretical considerations is that one cannot expect to find the character as it is, say, at the age of twenty to be a repetition of the character as it was at the age of five; more specially, taking Mr. Adolph Hitler as an example, one could not expect to find a fully developed necrophilous character system in one’s childhood, but one could expect to find certain necrophilous roots that are conducive to development of a full-fledged necrophilous character as one of several real possibilities. However, only after a great number of internal and external events have accrued will the character system have developed in such a way that necrophilia becomes the (almost) unchangeable outcome, and then we can discover it in various overt and covert forms. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
With Mr. Hitler, there were traces of necrophilia in his early roots and these conditions increased at various stages of his development, until finally, there was hardly any other possibility left. The most important influence on a child is the character of its parents, rather than this or that single event. For those who believe in the simplistic formula that the bad development of a child is roughly proportionate to the “badness” of the parents the study of the character of Mr. Hitler’s parents, as far as the known data show, offers a surprise: both father and mother seem to have been stable, well-intentioned people, and not destructive. Mr. Hitler’s mother, Klara, seems to have been a well-adjusted and sympathetic woman. She was undereducated, simple country girl who had worked as a maid in the house of Alois Hitler, who was her uncle and future husband. Klara become Alois’s mistress and was pregnant by him at the time his wife died. She married the widow Alois on 7 January 1885; she was twenty-four years old and her was forty-seven. She was hardworking and responsible; in spite of a marriage that was not too happy, she never complained. She fulfilled her obligation humanely and conscientiously. Her life was centered on the task of maintaining her home and caring for her husband and the children of the family. She was a model housekeeper, who maintained a spotless home and performed her duties with precision. Nothing could distract her from her round of household toil, not even the prospect of a little gossip. Her home and the furthering of the family interest were all-important; by careful management she was able to increase the family possession, much to her joy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Even more important to her than the house were the children. Everyone who knew her agreed that it was in her love and devotion for the children that Klara’s life centered. The only serious charge ever raised against her is that because of this love and devotion she was over-indulgent and thus encouraged a sense of uniqueness in her son—a somewhat strange charge to be brought against a mother. The children did not share this view. Her stepchildren and her own offspring who survived infancy loved and respected their mother. The accusation that she was overindulgent to her son and encouraged a sense of uniqueness (read narcissism) in him is not so strange—and furthermore probably true. However, this period of overindulgence lasted only up to the time when Mr. Hitler ended the period of his infancy and entered school. This change in her attitude was probably brought about, or at least facilitated, by her giving birth to another son at the time Mr. Hitler was five years old. However, her whole attitude during the rest of her life proves that the birth of the new child was not as traumatic an event as some psychoanalysts like to think; she probably stopped spoiling Adolph, but she did not suddenly ignore him. She was increasingly aware of the necessity for him to grow up, adjust himself to reality, and as we shall see, she did everything she could to further this process. The available evidence shows on instances that would suggest doubts about the fact that she was a kind and concerned mother to Adolph, even though she failed in her attempt to save her son from an ever-increasing estrangement from reality. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
It is of course possible that her loving behaviour contributed to her son’s development; but such aa speculation is of little value since it finds no support in the evidence. In spite of a productive character, she did not have a happy life. As was usual in the German-Austrian middle class, she was expected to bear children, take care of the household, and subordinate herself to her authoritarian husband. Her age, her lack of education, his elevated social position, and his selfish—though not vicious—disposition, tended to intensify this traditional position. Thus she became a sad, disappointed woman as a result of circumstances more than of her character. In spite of her friendly disposition, however, we must doubt whether she created an atmosphere of happiness in the family. Alois Hitler was a much less sympatric figure. Born as an illegitimate child, using his mother’s name, Schicklgruber (changed much later to that of Hitler), starting with poor financial resources, he was a real self-made man. Through hard work and discipline he succeeded in rising from being a low official in the Austro-Hungarian customs service to a relatively high position—“higher collector of customs”—that clearly gave him the status of a respected member of the middle class. He was economical and succeeded in saving enough money to own a house, a farm, and to leave his family an estate which, together with his pension, provided for a financially comfortable existence. He was undoubtedly a selfish man who showed little concern for his wife’s feelings, but apparently he was not too different in the from the average member of his class. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Alois Hitler was a man who loved life, particularly in the form of women and wine. Not that he was a woman chaser, but he was not bound by the moral restrictions of the Austrian middle class. In addition he enjoyed his glass of wine and may sometimes have had a glass too many, but he was my no means a drunkard as has been indicated in various articles. The most outstanding manifestation of his life-loving nature, however was his deep and lasting interest in bees and beekeeping. He would with great pleasure spend most of his free time with his beehives, the only serious, active interest he had outside of his work. His life’s dream was to own a farm where he could keep bees on a larger scale. He did eventually realize this dream; although it turned out that the farm he first bought was too big, toward the end of his life he owned just the right acreage and enjoyed it immensely. Alois Hitler has sometimes been described as a brutal tyrant—I assume because that would fit better into a simplistic explanation of his son’s character. He was not a tyrant, but an authoritarian who believed in duty and responsibility and thought he had to determine his son’s life as long as the later was not yet of age. According to the evidence we have, he never beat his son; he scolded him, argued with him tried to make him see what was good for him, but he was not a frightening figure who struck terror in his son. His son’s growing irresponsibility and avoidance of reality made it all the more imperative for the father to try to lecture and correct him. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
There are many data to show that Alois was not inconsiderate or arrogant to people, by no means a fanatic, and, on the whole, rather tolerant. His political attitude corresponds to this description: he was anticlerical and liberal, with much interest in politics. His last words just before he died of a heart attack while he was reading the newspaper were an angry expression against “those blacks” as the reactionary clericals were called. How can we explain that these two well-meaning, stable, very normal, and certainly not destructive people have birth to the future “monster,” Adolph Hitler? Hate against life is nothing but this: hate against the act by which the parents have given him life. Mr. Hitler’s sadism is secondary in comparisons with his necrophilia. The little boy, it seems, was the apple of his mother’s eye. She pampered him, never scolded him, admired him; he could do no wrong. All her interests and affection were concentrated on him. This very probably built up his narcissism and his passivity. He was wonderful without having to make any effort because mother took care of all his wishes. This constellation was accentuated by the fact that his father, due to the particularities of his working conditions, did not spend much time at home. Whatever good the balancing influence of a male authority would have been increased by a certain sickliness that, in turn, tended to increase the attention paid him by his mother. When Mr. Hitler was six, this phase came to a close. Several facts marked its end. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
The most obvious, especially from the classical psychoanalytic standpoint, was the birth of a brother when Adolph was five, which removed Adolph from his position of mother’s chief object of devotion. Actually such an event has a wholesome, rather than traumatic influence; it tends to decrease the reasons for dependency on mother and consequent passivity. Contrary to the cliché, the evidence shows that instead of suffering pangs of jealousy, young Mr. Hitler fully enjoyed the years after his brother’s birth. It can be argued, of course, that the evidence does not show us his unconscious disappointment and resentment. However, since one cannot discover any signs of it, such an argument is without value. Its only basis is the dogmatic assumption that the birth of a sibling must have such an effect. This results in a circuitous reasoning in which one takes as a fact what the theory requires, and then claims that they theory is confirmed by facts. For one whole year, Adolph lived in a five-year-old’s paradise, playing games and roughhousing with the children of the neighbourhood. Miniature wars and fights between cowboys and Indians appear to have been his favourties, and they were to continue as his major diversion for many years. Since Passau was in Germany—on the German side of the Austro-German border, where the Austrian customs inspection took place—war games would have pitted French against German in the spirit of 1870, yet there was no particular importance in the nationality of the victims. Europe was full of heroic little boys who massacred all national ethnic groups impartially. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
This year of childhood combat was important in Mr. Hitler’s life not because it was spent on German soil and added a Bavarian touch to his speech, but because it was a year of escape into almost complete freedom. At home he began to assert himself more and probably displayed the first signs of consuming anger when he did not get his way. Outside play, without limit to action or imagination, reigned supreme. Largely responsible for Mr. Hitler’s boy surrounding the birth of his little brother was the fact that his father took up a new post in Linz, while the family, apparently fearing to move with the baby, stayed behind in Passau for a full year. This paradisal life was abruptly ended when the father resigned from the customs service and the family moved to Hafeld, near Lambach, and his six-year-old son had to enter school. Adolph found his life suddenly confined in a narrow circle of activities demanding responsibility and discipline. For the first time he was steadily and systematically forced to conform. What can we say about the child’s character development by the end of this first period of his life? This is the period in which both aspects of the Oedipus complex are fully developed: sexual attraction to mother and hostility to father. The data seem to confirm the Freudian assumption: young Hitler was deeply attached to mother and antagonistic to his father; but he failed to solve the Oedipus complex by identifying himself with father through the formation of the superego and overcoming his attachment to mother; feeling betrayed by her by the birth or a rival he withdrew from her. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Serious questions arise, however, concerning the Freudian interpretation. If the birth of his brother when Adolph was five had been so traumatic, leading to the breaking of the tie to mother and replacing “love” for her by resentment and hate, why should the year after this event have been such a happy one—in fact probably the happiest period of his childhood? Why did the image of his mother continue to be so positive that he carried her picture in a little bad on his breast during the war and had it in his house in Obersalzberg and in Berlin? If we consider the fact that his mother’s relationship to her husband seems to have been one of little intensity and warmth, can we really explain his hate of his father as a result of his Oedipal rivalry? These questions would seem to find an answer of the hypothesis on malignant incestuousness. This hypothesis would lead to the assumption that Hitler’s fixation to his mother was not a warm and affectionate one up to age five; that he remained cold and did not break through his narcissistic shell; that she did not assume the role of a real person for him, but that of a symbol for the impersonal power of Earth, fate—and death. Most importantly, one could understand that the beginning of Hitler’s manifest necrophilous development is to be found in the malignant incestuousness that characterizes his early relationship to his mother. This hypothesis would also explain why Hitler later never fell in live with motherly figures, why the tie to his real mother as a person was replaced by the blood, soil, the race, and eventually to chaos and death. The consequence of not achieving an adequate understanding aroused early in life is that one’s subsequent moral sentiments are likely to bear the scares of this early training which shapes more or less roughly original nature. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
The process by which the child comes to have moral attitudes centers around the oedipal situation and the deep conflicts to which it gives rise. The moral precepts insisted upon by those in authority (in this case the parents) are accepted by the child as the best way to resolve one’s anxieties, and the resulting attitudes represented by the superego are likely to be harsh and punitive reflecting the stresses of the oedipal phase. Thus part of the moral learning occurs early in life before a reasoned basis for morality can be understood, and it involves the acquisition of new motives by psychological processes marked by conflict and stress. Since parents and others in authority are bound to be in various ways misguided and self-seeking in their use of praise and blame, and rewards and punishments generally, our earlier and unexamined moral attitudes are likely to be in important respects irrational and without justification. Moral advance in later life consists partly in correcting these attitudes in the light of whatever principles we finally acknowledge to be sound. The other traditional of moral learning states that not so much a matter of supplying missing motives as one of the free developments of our innate intellectual and emotional capacities according to the natural bent. Once the power of understanding mature and persons some to recognize their place in society and are able to take up the standpoint of others, they appreciate the mutual benefits of establishing fair terms of social cooperation. We have a natural sympathy with other persons and an innate susceptibility to the pleasures of fellow feeling and self-mastery, and these provide the affective basis for the moral sentiments once we have a clear grasp of our relations to our associates from an appropriately general perspective. Thus this tradition regards the moral feelings as a natural outgrowth of a full appreciation of our social nature. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
The arrangements of a just society are so suited to use that anything which is obviously necessary for it is accepted much like a physical necessity. An indispensable condition of such a society is that all shall have consideration for the others on the basis of mutually acceptable principles of reciprocity. It is painful for us when our feelings are not in union with those of our fellows; and this tendency to sociality provides in due course a firm basis for the moral sentiments. Moreover, to be held accountable to the principles of justice in one’s dealings with others does not stunt our nature. Instead it realizes our social sensibilities and by exposing us to a larger good enables us to control our narrower impulses. It is only when we are restrained not because we injure the good of others but by their mere displeasure, or what seems to us their arbitrary authority, that our nature is blunted. If the reasons for moral injunctions are made plain in terms of the just claims of others, these constraints do us no injury but are seen to be compatible with our good. Moral learning is not so much a matter of acquiring new motives, for these will come about of themselves once the requisite developments in our intellectual and emotional capacities has taken place. It follows that a full grasp of moral conceptions must await maturity; the child’s understanding is always primitive and the characteristic features of one’s morality fall away in later stages. The rationalist tradition presents a happier picture, since it hold that the principles of right and justice spring for our nature and are not at odds with our good, whereas the other account would seem to include no such guarantee. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
A moral view is an extremely complex structure of principles, ideals, and precepts, and involves all the elements of thought, conduct, and feeling. Certainly many kinds of learning ranging from reinforcement and classical conditioning to highly abstract reasoning and the refined perception of exemplars enter into its development. Presumably at some time or other each has a necessary role. A person will acquire an understanding of and an attachment to the principles of justice as one grows up in a particular form of well-ordered society. We are led to distinguish between the moralities of authority, of association, and of principles. The account of moral development is tied throughout to the conception of justice which is to be learned, and therefore presupposed the plausibility if not the correctness of theory. Morality of association is parallel certain life stages. Development within these early stages is being able to assume more complex, demanding, and comprehensive roles. A caveat is apropos here similar to that I made before in regard to the remarks on economic theory. We want the psychological account of moral learning to be true and in accordance with existing knowledge. However, of course it is impossible to take the details into account. One must keep in mind that the purpose of the following discussion is to examine the questions of stability and to contrast the psychological roots of the various conceptions of justice. The crucial point is how the general facts of moral psychology affect the choice of principles in the original position. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
Unless the psychological account is defective in a way that would call into question the acknowledgment of the principles of justice rather than the standard of utility, say, no irreparable difficulty should ensure. I also hope that none of the further uses of psychological theory will prove too wide of the mark. Particularly important among these is the account of the basis of equality. A farmer who has moved down a thousand flowers in one’s meadow to feed one’s cows should take care that on the way home one does not, in wanton pastie, switch off the head of a single flower growing at the edge of the road, for in so doing one injures life without being forced to do so by necessity. Let a human begin to think about the mystery of one’s life and the links which connect one with life that fills the World, and one cannot but bring to bear upon one’s own life and all other life that comes within one’s reach the principle of reverence for life. Diseased conditions in the human body are often traceable, by a subtle and penetrating analysis, to diseased conditions of the human soul. Medical science deals chiefly with the physical organism, and so long as it persists in regarding only that part of the being of humans, so long will it continue to find its theories falsified, its carefully prepared experiments turned into blind guesses, and its high percentage of failures maintained. The body is after all only a sensitive machine, and if thinking and feeling of a human who uses the machine in self-expression is distorted, unbalanced, or discordant in any way, then these undesirable qualities will reproduce themselves in the physical organism as appropriate disease or functional derangements. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
O THOU wicked and disobedient Spirit Forneus, because thou hast rebelled, and hast not obeyed nor regarded my words which I have rehearse; they being all glorious and incomprehensible names of the true GOD, the maker and creator of thee and of me, and of all the World; I DO by the power of these names the which no creature is able to resist, curse thee into the depth of the Bottomless Abyss, there to remain unto the Day of Doom in chains, and in fire and brimstone unquenchable, unless thou forthwith appear here before this Circle, in the triangle to do my will. And, therefore, come thou quickly and peaceably, in and by these names of God, ADONAI, ZABAOTH, ADONAI, AMIORAN; come thou! come thou! for it is the King of Kings, even ADONIA, who commandeth thee. WHEN thou shalt have rehearsed thus far, but still he cometh not, then write thou his seal on parchment and put thou it into a strong black box (this box should evidently be in metal or in something which does not take fire easily). I CONJURE thee, O fire, by him who made thee and all other creatures for good in the World, that thou torment, burn, and consume this Spirit Forneus, for everlasting. I condemn thee, thou Spirit Forneus, because thou art disobedient and obeyest not my commandment, nor keepest the precepts of the LORD THY GOD, neither wilt thou obey me nor mine invocations, having thereby called thee forth, I, who am the servant of the MOST HIGH AND IMPERIAL LORD GOD OF HOSTS, IEHOVAH, I who am dignified and fortified by His celestial power and permission, and yet thou comest not to answer these my propositions here made unto thee. #Randolphharris 22 of 23
For the which thine averseness and contempt thou art guilty of great disobedience and rebellion, and therefore shall I excommunicate thee, and destroy thy name and seal, the which I have enclosed in this box; and shall burn thee in the immortal fire and bury thee in immortal oblivion; unless thou immediately come and appear visibly and affably, friendly and courteously here unto me before this Circle, in this triangle, in a form comely and fair, and in no wise terrible, hurtful, or frightful to me or any other creature whatsoever upon the face of the Earth. And thou shalt make rational answers unto my requests, and perform all my desires in all things, that I shall make unto thee. Almighty God, reverently we stand before Thy Law, the Torah, Thy most precious gift to man,–the Holy Writ our fathers learned and taught, preserved for us, a heritage unto all generations. May we, their children’s children, ponder every word and find as they, new evidence of Thee in every precept, each eternal truth. O Light of Ages, Thou art still our light, our guide, our fortress. May Thy Torah ever be our Tree of Life, our shield and stay, that we may take its teachings to our heart and thus draw near to Thee. Amen. Thou Sovereign of the World and Ruler of humankind, as we stand before the open ark of Thy Torah we gratefully acknowledge Thee to be our Father and our Law-giver. Thou hast bequeathed unto us Thy Law, a sacred heritage for all time. Give us discernment to know and wisdom to understand that Thy Torah is our life and the length of our days. Teach us so to live that we shall be guided by Thy commandments. May Thy Word ever be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, showing us the way to true and righteous living. Amen. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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Writing Free Verse is Like Playing Tennis with the Net Down!
I believe that humans will not merely endure; they will prevail. A writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of humans has no dedication nor any membership in literature. There is only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that are real and immediate is the process of a rational mind. Catch-22 is a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions. For example, I cannot start my own business until I have the money, and I cannot get the money until I start my own business. Oh my goodness, this is a real Catch-22. When you view it from the outside, nature looks beautiful and marvelous. However, when you read its pages like a book, it is horrible. And its cruelty is so senseless! The most precious form of life is sacrificed to the lowliest. A child breathes the germs of tuberculosis. He grows and flourishes but is destined to suffering and premature death because these lowly creatures multiply in his vital organs. How often in Africa have I been overcome with horror when I examined the blood of a patient who was suffering from sleeping sickness. Why did this man, his face contorted in pain, have to sit in front of me, groaning, “Oh, my head, my head”? Why should he have to suffer night after night and die a wretched death? Because there, under the microscope, were minute, pale corpuscles, one ten-thousandth of a millimeter long—not very many, sometimes such a very few that one had to look for hours to find them at all. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
The fact that in nature one creature may cause pain to another and even deal with in instinctually in the most cruel way, is a harsh mystery that weighs on us as long as we live. The World given over to ignorance and egotism is like a valley shrouded in darkness. Only one creature can escape and catch a glimpse of the light: the highest creature, man. His is the privilege of achieving the knowledge of shared experience and compassion, of transcending the ignorance in which the rest of creation pines. It comes to this—that much of human disease and sickness is traceable to the faculty functioning of the human self. Learn how to use that self correctly in its physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual aspects and you learn how to prevent or cure part, or most, or even all of your ill health. When a person’s healthy has broken down, nothing seems so important to one as its restoration. It is only then that one realizes the value of good health. This has been stated from the merely conventional and Worldly standpoint. However, what of the spiritual standpoint? The aspirant whose health has broken down becomes continually preoccupied with the condition of one’s body, so that the thoughts and time which one gives to it are taken from the thoughts and time which one could have given to one’s spiritual aspiration. And when one comes to one’s meditation periods, one may find it difficult to rise above one’s bodily states, so that even one’s concentration and power of meditation may be disturbed by it. For after all, the body is the instrument with which one has to work, and through which one has to achieve one’s high purpose during incarnation on this Earth. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
This is why systems have been created to lay a foundation of health and strength for the spiritual endeavours of the aspirant. Moreover, if one seeks to be of service to one’s fellow humans, one’s capacity to serve will be limited by the condition of one’s health, and may even be inhibited on the physical plane altogether. With good health one becomes more valuable to others but with bad health less so. What is wrong with offering physical benefits to the students of philosophy? Why should it not make them healthier and help overcome their difficulties? Why should philosophy be indifferent to their personal welfare? It is something fit only to be read about in library chairs or meditated upon in mountain caves? That is to say, fit only for dreamers and not for those who have to struggle and suffer in the World? No—it is something to be proud of, not something to be ashamed of, that philosophy shows us how to live so as to prevent avoidable sickness and how to find a path out of perplexing difficulties. There is nothing meritorious in meekly accepting illness and disease because they are God’s will. The human being is entitled to defend its body against them. One should be ready to die at any times but not willing to do so. For the need of staying on in the body until a deeper spiritual awareness has been gained should make one care more for one’s health, fitness, and efficiency. If the body does not become non-existent because, ultimately, it is a thought-form, neither does it become unimportant. For it is only in this body that we can attain and realize the ultimate consciousness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
If, as has been explained in the past, the physical wakeful state is the only one in which the task of true self-realization can be fully accomplished by the individual, then it is also the only state in which all humankind will ever accomplish it. As the social arrangements and living conditions in the World may accelerate or slow down the process of enlightenment, it becomes clear that the nature of those physical arrangements and conditions is important in the eyes of those who care for humankind’s spiritual welfare. Consequently, true wisdom cannot be indifferent to them but, on the contrary, will always seek to improve the one and ameliorate the other. Why should we refuse, in the name of an other-World sanctity, the healing gifts of Nature because they help heal the body which belongs to this World? Are we such ethereal creatures already, have we attained the disembodied state, that we can afford to neglect the aches and pains, the ills and malfunctions of this, our Earthly body? Most of the individual’s health troubles are the result of Universal law. The body is a source of pleasure and misery to nearly all; but both being temporary, the one balances the other. One should do one’s utmost to keep one’s body in good health by following the best program of physical living, diet, and so on, that one’s own experience and expert advice can suggest. One should try the most reasonable treatment for illness which both the Old World and New World medical systems can offer. After one has done these things then there is nothing more one can do except to take one’s suffering as a constant reminder of the necessity of seeking happiness in a spiritual self above the body. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
If you did not carry something valuable, the enemy would not fight you. They try to tackle the one with the ball, not the one on the bench. The question you ask about the inevitability of ill health on this needs a page to itself. Generally speaking, there is no such inevitability. Indeed the cleansing of the subconscious mind, the discipline of the bodily senses, and the quieting of the emotional nature promote good health. Where, however, the student through ignorance or through outside factors fails to make certain period for one’s further evolution—then one’s higher self forces those changes upon one through upheavals or upsets in one’s environment or in one’s body. This is done by sending down some Universal Laws. In the later case it means, of course, illness or disease—sometimes “accident.” This cover certain individual cases, but there are many others where ill health is only the ordinary Universal Legal result of earlier transgressions of the laws of physical, emotional, moral, or mental health, and not the result of special Overself intervention. Finally, there is the third group where it is the result of the natural imperfection of life on this Earth where everything is, at this point in time, more than likely doomed to decay and perish, unless supernatural forces are employed to keep things under constant maintenance. Nobody escapes this general law. Queen Akasha could not escape it nor could Nino Brown. Such higher life, a diviner better existence; so it is not useless. This Earth is not our true how. We are here on mortal probation. We belong elsewhere, nearer to God’s perfection, beauty, and harmony. The Word tells us to bless God in all things not for all things! No matter what you are facing—PRAISE HIM! #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
The days of our mortal probation are numbered, but none of us knows the number of those days. Each day of preparation is precious. This life is the time for humans to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for humans to preform their labours. We have a special understanding of the eternal nature of our souls. We know that we had a premortal existence. We accepted our Heavenly Father’s great plan of happiness and chose to follow our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Principles we adopted and for which we contended were: agency, the ability to choose good or evil; progress, the ability to learn and become like our Heavenly Father; and faith, faith in our Father’s plan and in the Atonement of Jesus Christ that enables us to return to the presence of God. Consequently, we were permitted to enter mortal life. Concerning mortal life, the Master said, “We will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all thing whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.” We understand that we will live a postmortal life of infinite duration and that we determine the kind of life it will be by our thoughts and actions in mortality. Mortality is very brief but immeasurably important. We learn from the scriptures that the “course of the Lord is one eternal round” and that God knows “all thing, being from everlasting to everlasting.” We are also eternal beings. Our presence here on Earth is an essential step in our loving Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness for His children. “We are, that we might have joy.” The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “happiness is the object and design of our existence. If we purse the path of virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
We do not need gun control; humans need to learn to control the violence in their hearts. We, too, are under the painful law of necessity when, to prolong our own existence, we must bring other creatures to a painful end. However, we should never cease to consider this as something tragic and incomprehensible. Right now, this very moment, is part of our eternal progression toward retuning with our families to the presence of our Father in Heaven. President Gordon B. Hinckley taught: “We are here in this life with a marvelous inheritance, a divine endowment. If every person realized that all of one’s actions have eternal consequences, how different this World would be. If we recognized that we form each day the stuffy of which eternity is made, how much more satisfying our years may be.” That understanding helps us to make wise decisions in the many choices of our daily lives. Seeing life from an eternal perspective helps us focus our limited mortal energies on the things that matter most. We can avoid wasting our lives and laying “up for ourselves treasures upon the Earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt.” We can lay up treasures in Heaven and not trade our eternal spiritual birthright. The time will come when public opinion will no longer tolerate amusements based on the mistreatment and killing of living and inanimate beings. The time will come, but when? When will we reach the point that hunting, the pleasure of killing living beings for sport, will be regarded as a mental aberration? When will all the killing that necessity imposes upon us be undertaken with sorrow? #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
The rate of turnover in our lives in our lives, for example, can be influenced by conscious decisions. We can, to further highlight this illustration, cut down on change and stimulation by consciously maintaining longer-term relationships with the various elements of our physical environment. Thus, we can refuse t purchase throw-away products. We can hang onto the old jacket for another season; we can stoutly refuse to follow the latest fashion trend; we can resist when the salesperson tells us it is time to trade in our Ultimate Driving Machine. In this way, we reduce the need to make and break ties with the physical objects around us. We can use the same tactic with respect to people and the other dimensions of experience. There are times when even the most gregarious person feels anti-social and refuses invitations to parties or other events that call for social interaction. We consciously disconnect. In the same way, we can minimize travel. We can resist pointless reorganizations in our company, church, fraternal or community groups. In making important decisions, we can consciously weight the hidden costs of change against the benefits. None of this is to suggest that change can or should be stopped. Nothing is less sensible than the advice of the Duke of Cambridge who is said to have harumphed: “Any change, at any time for any reason is to be deplored.” The theory of the adaptive range suggests that, despite its physical costs, some level of change is as vital to health as too much change in damaging. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Some people, for reasons still not clear, are pitched at a much higher level of stimulus hunger than others. They seem to crave change even when others are feeling from it. A new Cresleigh house, a new Ultimate Driving Machine, another trip to Paris, another crisis on the job, more house guests, visits, financial adventures and misadventures—they seem to accept all these and more without apparent ill effect. Yet close analysis of such people often reveals the existence of what might be called “stability zones” in their lives—certain enduring relationships that are carefully maintained despite all kinds of other changes. One man I know has run through a series of love affairs a divorce, and remarriage—all within a very short span of time. One thrives on change, enjoys travel, new foods, new ideas, new movies, plays, and books. He has a high intellect and a low “boring point,” is impatient with tradition and restlessly eager for novelty. Ostensibly, he is walking exemplar of change. When we look more closely, however, we find that he has stayed on the same job for ten years. He drives a car he bought brand new, which is still in perfect condition. His clothes are not new. His closet friends are long-time professional associates and even a few old college buddies. Another case involves a man who has changed jobs at a mind-staggering rate, has moved his family thirteen times in eighteen years, travels extensively, rents cars, uses throw-away products, prides himself on leading the neighbourhood in trying out new gadgets, and generally lives in a restless whirl of transience, newness and diversity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Once more, however, a second look reveals significant stability zones in his life: a good, tightly woven relationship with his wife of nineteen years; continuing ties with his parents; old college friends interspersed with the new acquaintances. A different form of stability zone is the habit pattern that goes with the person wherever one travels, no mater what other changes alter one’s life. A professor who has moved seven times in ten years, who travels constantly in the United States of America, South America, Europe and Africa, who has changed job repeatedly, pursues the same daily regimen wherever he is. He reads between eight and nine in the morning, takes forty-five minutes for exercise at lunch time, and then catches a half-hour cat-nap before plunging into work that keeps him busy until 10.00 P.M. The problem is not, therefore, to suppress change, which cannot be done, but to manage it. If we opt for rapid change in certain sectors of life, we can consciously attempt to build stability zones elsewhere. A divorce, perhaps, should not be too closely followed by a job transfer. Since the birth of a child alters all the human ties within a family, it ought not, perhaps, be followed too closely by a relocation which causes tremendous turnover in human ties outside the family. The recent widow should not, perhaps, rush to sell her Cresleigh McMansion. To design workable stability zones, however, to alter the larger patterns of life, we need far more potent tools. We need, first of all, a radically new orientation toward the future. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Ultimately, to manage change we must anticipate it. However, the notion that one’s personal future can be, to some extent, anticipated, files in the face of persistent folk prejudice. Most people, deep down, believe that the future is a blank. Yet the truth is that we can assign probabilities to some of the changes that lie in store for us, especially certain large structural changes, and there are ways to use knowledge in designing personal stability zones. We can, for example, predict with certainty that unless or science intervenes, we shall grow older; that our children, our relatives and friends will also grow older; and that after a certain point our health will begin to deteriorate. Obvious as this may seem, we can, as a result of this simple statement, infer a great deal about our lives one, five or ten years hence, and about the amount of change we will have to absorb in the interim. Few individuals or families plan head systematically. When they do, it is usually in terms of a budget. Yet we can forecast and influence our expenditure of time and emotion as well as money. Thus it is possible to gain revealing glimpses of one’s own future, and to estimate the gross level of change lying ahead, by periodically preparing what might be called a Time and Emotion Forecast. This is an attempt to assess the percentage time and emotional energy invested in various important aspects of life—and to see how this might change over the years. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
One can, for example, list in a column those sectors of life that seem most important to us: Health, Occupation, Leisure, Material Relations, Parental Relations, Filial Relations, et cetera. It is then possible to jot down next to each item a “guesstimate” of the amount of time we presently allocate to that sector. By way of illustration: given a nine-to-five job, a half-hour commute, and the usual vacations and holidays, a man employing this method would find that he devotes approximately 25 percent of his time to work. Although it is, of course, much more difficult, one can also make a subjective assessment of the percentage of one’s emotional energy invested in the job. If one is bored and secure, one may invest very little—there being no necessary correlation between time devoted and emotion invested. If one performs this exercise for each of the important sectors of one’s life, forcing oneself to write in a percentage even when it is no more than an extremely crude estimate, and toting up the figures to make sure they never exceed 100 percent, one will be rewarded with some surprising insights. For the way one distributes one’s time and emotional energies is a direct clue to one’s value system and one’s personality. The payoff for engaging in this process really begins, however, when one projects forward, asking oneself honestly and in detail how one’s job, or one’s marriage, or one’s relationship with one’s children or one’s parents is likely to develop within the years ahead. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
If, for example, one is a thirty-year-old middle manager with two teenage sons, two surviving parents or in-laws, and an incipient duodenal ulcer, one can assume that within half a decade one’s boys will be off to college or living away on their own. Time devoted to parental concerns will probably decline. Similarly, one can anticipate some decline in the emotional energies demanded by one’s parental role. On the other hand, as one’s own parents and in-laws grow older, one’s filial responsibility will probably look larger. If they are sick, one may have to devote large amounts of time and emotion to their care. If they are statistically likely to die within the period under study, one needs to face this fact. It tells one that one can expect a major change in one’s commitments. One’s own health, in the meantime, will not be getting any better. In the same way, one can hazard some guesses about one’s job—one’s chances for promotion, the possibility of reorganization, relocation, retraining, et cetera. All this is difficult, and it does not yield, “knowledge of the future.” Rather, it helps one make explicit some of one’s assumptions about the future. As one moves forward, filling in the forecast for the present year, the next year, the fifth or tenth year, patterns of change will begin to emerge. One will see that in certain years there are bigger shifts and redistributions to be expected than in others. Some years are choppier, more change-filled than others. And one can then, on the strength of these systematic assumptions, decide how to handle major decisions in the present. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Should the family move next year—or will there be enough turmoil and change without that? Should he quit his job? Buy a new Ultimate Driving Machine with the Competition Package? Take a costly vacation to Tahiti? Put his elderly father-in-law in a nursing home? Have an affair? Can he afford to rock his marriage or change his profession? Should he attempt to maintain certain levels of commitment unchanged? These techniques are extremely crude tools for personal planning. Perhaps the psychologists and social psychologist can design sharper instruments, more sensitive to differences in probability, more refined and insight-yielding. Yet, if we search for clues rather than certainties, even these primitive devices can helps us moderate or channel the flow of change in our lives. For, by helping us identify the zones of rapid change, they also help us identify—or invent-stability zones, pattern of relative constancy in the overwhelming flux. They improve the odds in the personal struggle to manage change. Nor is this a purely negative process—a struggle to suppress or limit change. The issues for any individual attempting to cope with rapid change is how to maintain oneself within the adaptive range, and, beyond that, how to find the exquisite optimum point at which one lives at peak effectiveness. Dr. John L. Fuller, a senior scientist at the Jackson Laboratory, a bio-medical research center in Bar Harbour, Maine, has conducted experiments in the impact of experiential deprivation and overload. “Some people,” he says, “achieve a certain sense of serenity, even in the midst of turmoil, not because they are immune to emotion, but because they have found ways to get just the “right” amount of change in their lives. The search for that optimum may be what much of the “pursuit of happiness” is about. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Trapped, temporarily, with the limited nervous and endocrine systems given us by evolution, we must work out new tactics to help us regulate the stimulation to which we subject ourselves. It was quite incomprehensible to me—this was before I began going to school—why in my evening prayers I should pray for human beings only. So when my mother had prayed with me and has kissed me goodnight, I used to add silently a prayer that I had composed myself for all living creatures. It ran thus: “O Heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; please guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace.” It is our duty to share and maintain life. Reverence concerning all life is the greatest commandment in its most elementary form. Or expressed in negative terms: Thou shalt not kill. In everything you recognize yourself. The tiny birds that fly in your path—it is a little creature, struggling for existence like yourself, rejoicing in the sun like you, knowing fear and pain like you. And now it is no more than decaying matter—which is what you will be sooner or later, too. When I hear a baby’s cry of pain change into a normal cry of hunger, to my ears that is the most beautiful music—and there are those who say I have good ears for music. Whoever is spared personal pain must feel oneself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. The point where humans meet the Infinite is the Overself, where one, the finite, responds to what is absolute, ineffable and inexhaustible Being, where one reacts to That which transcends one’s own existence—this is the Personal God one experiences and comes into relation with. In this sense one’s belief in such a God is justifiable. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Overself is the inner or true self of humans, reflecting the divine being and attributes. The Overself is an emanation from the ultimate reality but is neither a division nor a detached fragment of it. It is a ray shinning forth but not the sun itself. It is true that the nature of God is inscrutable and that the laws of God are inexorable. However, it is also true that the God-linked soul of humans is accessible and its intuitions available. This divine self is the unkillable and unlosable soul, forever testifying to the source, whence it came. Those who consider the hidden mind to be a mere storehouse of forgotten childhood memories or adolescent experiences and repressed adult wishes consider only a part of it, only a fraction. There is another and even still more hidden part which links humans with the very sources of the Universe—God. That point of contact in consciousness where humans first feels God and later vanishes into God, is the Overself. The Overself is a part of the One Infinite Life-Power as the dewdrop is a part of the ocean. In the normally covered center of a human’s being, covered by one’s thoughts and feelings and passions as a person, a self, IT IS. It is here that one is connected with the larger Being behind the Universe, the World-Mind. In this sense one is not really an isolated unit, not alone. God is with one. It was a simple shepherd on Mount Horeb who, during a glimpse, asked “Who are Thou?” Came the answer: “I am He Who IS!” With this grand consciousness, humans reach the APHELION of one’s orbit. One can go no higher and remain human. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Speaking metaphorically, we may say that the Overself is that fragment of God which dwells in humans, a fragment which has all the quality and grandeur of God without all is amplitude and power. The World-Mind’s reflection in us is the Overself. The thoughts and feelings which flow like a river through our consciousness make up the surface self. However, underneath them there is a deeper self which, being an emanation from the divine reality, constitutes our true self. The greatest thing is to be found at one’s post as a child of God, living each day as though it were our last, but planning as the our World might last a hundred years. Ever since giving to the needy became chic in Hollywood, we have been treated to a billion-dollar bonanza of celebrity benefits. Band-Aid, the Britney concert to help starving children, started the assistance wagons rolling. Then came Hands Across America which linked up from Los Angeles to New York to raise $100 million for domestic homelessness and hunger, while the Freedom Festival raised money for Vietnam veterans. And then there is my favorite: Sport Aid, which began with a runner leaving Ethiopia with a torch lighted from a refugee’s campfire. One jogged through several Ethiopia with a torch lighted from a refugee’s campfire. He jogged through several European cities. Then this tireless athlete flew to New York, torch in hand, (I wonder what he did when the “no smoking” sign came on?), where he lighted a flame in Manhattan’s United Nations Plaza, signaling the start of simultaneous 10-kilometer runs around the World. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
The plan, said organizer Bob Geldof was to raise money to fight disease and hunger in Africa. While few of us would deny that helping starving, homeless, and needy people is a good thing, this sudden aid frenzy did raise some practical questions. In an industry where publicity is the ticket to success, one may be excused for wondering if celebrity participation in such compassion extravaganzas is altogether altruistic. The “We Are the World” video, which has sold millions of copies, reminds us less of starving children than of the great humanitarianism of its showcase of rock idols. The goals may be worthy, but such slickly publicized charity certainly recalls biblical warnings against hiring trumpeters—or camera crews—to record one’s good deeds. We might put aside our suspicions as petty if only we knew that those in need were being helped. However, are they? The New Republic reports that while USA for Africa, the organization behind Live Aid, appeals for contributions to help the starving, 55 percent of its money is instead waiting to be spent on “recovery and long-term development projects,” something celebrity efforts may be ill-equipped to pull off. As of early 1986, of the $92 million raised by Live Aid and Band Aid, according to Newsweek, only $7 million has gone to emergency relief. Another $.6.5 million has been spent on trucks and ships to haul supplies; $20 million has been earmarked for projects like bridges in Chad. The rest sits in banks accounts somewhere. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
Even noncontroversial goals such as feeding the hungry can get bogged down in squabbles over how money and food should be distributed, or stymied at the Marxist-controlled ports of Ethiopia. Let us not kid ourselves. Just because the fans in London or Philadelphia go home satisfied does not mean that the hungry in Africa go home fed. Rock promoter Bill Graham said of celebrity assistance, “It is an incredible power, knowing on any given day you can raise a million dollars.” Newsweek observed: “Perhaps that is why Live Aid and Farm Aid were such oddly upbeat exercises in self-congratulation. An industry was celebrating its power. Far from challenging the complacency of an audience, such mega-events reinforce it. Now by watching a pop music telethon and making a donation, fans can enjoy vicariously a sense of moral commitment.” Despite all the ballyhoo, feeding the hungry did not originate with Live-Aid. Christians have been doing it since the church began, not for T-shirts and pop albums, but in obedience to Christ’s command to care for those in need. Organizations such as World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, the Salvation Army, and millions of local churches have for generations been feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and clothing the needy without the glamorous carrot-and-stick razzle-dazzle so recently discovered by the rich and famous. This kind of Christian patriotism also benefits society as a whole. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
Jacques Ellul wrote that the answer to the big government illusion is small voluntary associations. As mentioned earlier, eighteenth-century statesman Edmund Burke described such voluntary groups as the “little platoons.” These are citizens—individuals or groups—who perform works of mercy and oppose injustice. They are the salt and light of which Jesus Christ spoke. Culture is most profoundly changed bot by the efforts of huge institutions but by individual people being changed. In the process, these citizens provide the main bulwark against government’s insatiable appetite for power and control, and a safeguard against the sense of impotence fostered by today’s overwhelming social problems. One person can make a difference. A few months after Bob Geldof announced the success of Life Aid, and while critics were still questioning whether food was actually arriving in the places of need, I want to Nairobi, Kenya, for a Prison Fellowship International conference. There I met a man who, though worthy of adulation, will never make the cover of Rolling Stone. Pascal was a university professor when he was thrown into a Madagascar prison after a Marxist coup. While in prison he became a Christian. After his release, Pascal began a small import-export company, but he kept returning to prison to preach the gospel to the men he had met there and others who had arrived since. During one such visit in early 1986, he walked past the infirmary and was shocked to see more than fifty naked corpses piled on the screened veranda, identification tags stuck between their toes. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
Pascal went to the nurse. Had there been an epidemic, he asked. Of sorts, he was told. Prisoners were dying by the dozens of malnutrition. Pascal left the prison in tears. He tried to get help to fee the starving inmates, but his own church was too poor, and there were no relief agencies to assist. So he began cooking food in his own kitchen and taking it to the prison. Today, Pascal and his wife feed prisoners every week, paying for the food out of the earnings from their small business. Without benefit of a government agency or even a theme song, this little platoon makes all the difference for seven hundred prisoners in Madagascar. The fellowship of those who bear the Mark of Pain. Who are the members of this Fellowship? Those who have learnt by experience what physical pain and bodily anguish mean, belong together all the World over; they re united by a secret bond. Only at quite rare moments have I felt really glad to be alive. I could not but feel with a sympathy full of regret all the pain that I saw around me, not only that of humans but that of the whole creation. From this community of suffering, I have never tried to withdraw myself. It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of burden of pain which lies upon the World. We have invented many things, but we have not mastered the creation of life. We cannot even create an insect. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
O Thou great, powerful and mighty King Amaimon, who bearest rule by the power of the Supreme God El over all spirits both superior and inferior of the infernal Orders in the Dominion of the East; I do invocate and command thee by the especial and true name of God; and by that God Thou Worshipped; and by the Seal of thy creation; and by the most mighty and powerful name of God, Iehovah Tetragrammation who cast thee out of Heaven with all other infernal spirits; and by all the most powerful and great names of God who created Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, and all things in them contained; and by their power and virtue; and by the name Primeumaton who commandeth the whole host of Heaven; that thou mayest cause, enforce, and compel the Spirit Amy to come unto me here before this Circle in a fair and comely shape, without hard unto me or unto any other creature, to answer truly and faithfully unto all my requests; so that I may accomplish my will and desire in knowing or obtaining any matter or thing which by office thou knowest is proper for one to perform or accomplish, through he power of God, El, Who created and doth dispose of all things both celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal. After thou shalt have invocated the King in this manner twice or thrice over, then conjure the spirit thou wouldst call forth by the aforesaid conjurations, rehearsing them several times together, and he will come without doubt, if not at he first or second time of rehearsing. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
However, if he does not come, add the “Spirit’s Chain” unto the end of the aforesaid conjurations, and he will be forced to come, even if he be bound in chains, for the chains must break off from him, and he will be at liberty. Lord of Universe, fulfill the wishes of my heart for good. Grant my request and my petition; make me worthy to do Thy will with a perfect heart; and keep me strong to resist temptation. O grant our portion in Thy Torah. Make us worthy of Thy divine presence. Bestow upon us the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. May it be Thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, that I may be worthy to perform good deeds in Thy sight, and to walk before Thee in the way of the upright. Sanctify us by Thy commandments, that we may merit on Earth a life of goodness and health and be worthy of life eternal. Guard us from evil deeds and from evil times that may threaten the World. May lovingkindness surround one who trusts in the Lord. Amen. Feel your soul spreading out. Feel it becoming infinite. It must be to kiss creation. Then in one embrace you can caress the Moon and Stars, Mountains, Lakes, people, streams. Everyone, everything in one kiss. Such kissing leaves the kisser behind…and the Earth seems idly wrought coined for words meter bare physic to space. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable before Thee, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Accept my prayer, O Lord, and answer me with Thy great mercy and with Thy saving truth. Amen. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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Full Many a Gem of Purest Ray Serene, the Dark Unfathomed Caves of Ocean Bear
Discoveries in the natural sciences that enable humankind to dispose of increasingly powerful and varied forms of energy…these are the most striking discoveries of our times. In a region that lay at right angels to, but separate from the usual spacetime, all was quiet as it has been for a near eternity. Everything about this region was in a state of potentiality. There was no land, no air, no water, no atoms or quarks, no electrons, no photons, not even any neutrinos, those infinitesimal wanderers of the spaces. Here there was no light and no darkness, because both photons and antiphotons existed only in a state of potentiality so close to nonbeing as to be a purely negligible quantity. The becoming of this potentiality could not be said to exist yet, but it might have existed yesterday and it could exist tomorrow. Into this place, a signal came winging. Upon penetrating the space, potentiality gave up its long sleep, not without a certain reluctance, and flip-flopped into actuality. An atmosphere formed up for the signal to resound in. “God created the Heavens and the Earth. Now the Earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night.’ And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.’ #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
“So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse ‘sky.’ And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground ‘land,’ and the gathered water he called ‘seas.” And God saw that it was good,” reports Genesis 1.1-9. Then there was a meadow sparkling with dew. Each dewdrop glistened with an individual luster. One of the dewdrops began to expand, colour flashed on its transparent spherical aides. It continued to grow until it burst. From this stepped a human-shaped being. This being waited and watched while other drops of dew expanded, swelled, and popped, revealing other gods. At last twelve places were filled. The High Gods, ancient as the Universe, new as the morning, stood upon the grass and contemplated one another. They knew what they had been born to do. They awaited the birth of the one who would put that plan into action. The one called Jesus Christ. Less spectacular the discoveries in the realm of thought. Nevertheless, they are important. For there is progress to be made here, also, of which humanity has need. Through the ideas humans have discovered and to which they have given their allegiance humankind has lifted itself from a primitive mentality to a state of civilization; because of the ideas conceived and circulated generation after generation civilization endures, progress, and deepens. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
The ideas which determine our character and life are implanted in mysterious fashion. When we are leaving childhood behind us, they begin to shoot out. When we are seized by youth’s enthusiasm for the good and the true, they burst into flower, and the fruit begins to set. In the development which follows the one really important thing is—how much there still remains of the fruit, the buds of which were put out in its springtime by the tree of our life. The great secret of success is to go through life as a human who never gets used up. The mass of people remain skeptical. They lose all feeling for truth, and all sense of need for it as well, finding themselves quite comfortable in a life without thought, driven now here, now there, from one opinion to another. Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now, always, and indeed then most truly when it seems most unsuitable to actual circumstances. Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age which can show the courage of sincerity can posses truth which works as a spiritual force within it. With these objectives in mind, as well as that of securing the primary good of self-respect, individuals evaluate the conceptions of justice available to them in the original position. That liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and above all self-respect are primary goods must indeed be explained by the thin theory. The constraints of the principles of justice cannot be used to draw up the list of primary goods that serves as part of the description of the initial situation. The reason is, of course, that this list is one of the premises from which the choice of the principles of right is derived. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
We must assume, then, that the list of primary goods can be accounted for by the conception of goodness as rationality in conjunction with the general facts about human wants and abilities, their characteristic phases and requirements of nurture, the Aristotelian Principle, and the necessities of social interdependence. At no point can we appeal to the constraints of justice. However, once we are satisfied that the list of primary goods can be arrived at in this way, then in all further applications of the definition of good the constraints of the right may be freely invoked. Now many philosophers have been will to accept some variant of goodness as rationality for artifacts and roles, an for such nonmoral values as friendship and affection, the pursuit of knowledge and the enjoyment of beauty, and the like. One cannot expect philosophers to be romanticists, but it is important to remember that the philosopher must deal not only with the techniques of reason or with matter and space and stars, but with people. After all, it is the relationship of humans to the Universe, and not solely the relationship of one galaxy to another, or one fact to another, that should occupy such an important part of the philosopher’s quest. There is such a thing as being too detached. Indeed, the main elements of goodness as rationality are extremely common, being shared by philosophers of markedly different persuasions. Nevertheless, it is often thought that this conception of the good expresses an instrumental or economic theory of value that does not hold for the case of moral worth. When we speak of the just or the benevolent person as morally good, a different concept of goodness is said to be involved. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
However, once the principles of right and justice are on hand, the fully theory of goodness as rationality can in fact cover these judgements. The reason why the so-called instrumental or economic theory fails is that what is in effect the thin theory is applied directly to the problem of moral worth. What we must do instead is to use this theory only as a part of the description of the original position from which the principles of right and justice are derived. We can then apply the full theory of the good without restrictions and are free to use it for the two basic cases of a good person and a good society. Developing the thin into the full theory via the original position is the essential step. Several ways suggest themselves for extending the definition to the problem of moral worth, and I believe that at least one of these will serve well enough. First of all, we might identify some basic role or position, say that of citizen, and then say that a good person is one who has to a higher degree than the average the properties which it is rational for citizens to want in one another. Here the relevant point of view is that of a citizen judging other citizens in the same role. Second, the notion of a good person could be interpreted as requiring some general or average assessment so that a good person is one who performs well in one’s various roles, especially those that are considered more important. #RandolphHarris 5 of
Finally, there may exist properties which it is rational to want in persons when they are viewed with respect to almost any of their social roles. Let us say, that is they exited, such properties are broadly based. To illustrate this idea in the case of tools, the broadly based properties are efficiency, durability, ease of maintenance, and so on. These features are desirable in tools of almost any kind. Much less broadly based properties are properties such as keeps its cutting edge, does not rust, and so on. The question whether some tools have these would not even arise. By analogy, a good person, in contrast to a good doctor or a good farmer, and the like, is one who has to a higher degree than the average person the broadly based properties (yet to be specified) that it is rational for persons to want in one another. Offhand it seems that the last suggestion is the most plausible one. It can be made to include the first as a special case and to capture the intuitive idea of the second. There are, however, certain complications in working it out. The first thing is to identify the point of view from which the broadly based properties are rationally preferred and the assumptions upon which this preference is founded. I note straightway that the fundamental moral virtues, that is, the strong and normally effective desires to act on the basic principles of right, are undoubtedly among the broadly based properties. At any rate, this seems bound to be true so long as we suppose that we are considering a well-ordered society, or one in a state of near justice, as I shall indeed take to be the case. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Now since the basic structure of such a society is just, and these arrangements are stable with respect to the society’s public conception of justice, its members will in general have the appropriate sense of justice and a desire to see their institution affirmed. However, it is also true that it is rational for each person to act on the principles of justice only on the assumption that for the most part these principles are recognized and similarly acted upon by others. Therefore the representative member of a well-ordered society will find that one wants other to have the basic virtues, and in particular a sense of justice. One’s rational plan of life is consistent with the constraints of right, and one will surely want others to acknowledge the same restrictions. In order to make this conclusion absolutely firm, we should also like to be sure that it is rational for those belonging to a well-ordered society who have already acquired a sense of justice to maintain and even to strengthen this moral sentiment. It seems clear that the fundamental virtues are among the broadly based properties that it is rational for members of a well-ordered society to want in one another. When I look back upon my early days, I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or for what they were to me. At the same time I am haunted by an oppressive conscious of the little gratitude I really showed them while I was young. How many of them have said farewell to life without my having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of same, said quietly to myself over a grave of words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, while one was in the flesh. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Developing a true sense of gratitude involves taking absolutely nothing for granted, wherever it be, whatever its source. Rather, we always look for the friendly intention behind the deed and learn to appreciate it. Make a point of measuring at its true value every act of kindness you receive from other humans. Nothing that may happen to you is purely accidental. Everything can be traced back to a will for good directed in your favour. Other demands of gratitude, asked by the thoughtless person, must be refused by the ethical person. I mean the silly and superficial expectations we attach as strings to the good we do. When we have done people a good turn, we expect them to speak well of us. If they do not do it loudly enough, we think they re being ungrateful. When you feel the words “ingratitude is the thanks you get from the World” forming on the tip of your tongue—stop and listen. Perhaps it is the voice of vanity in your heart. If you can still be honest with yourself, you will often find this to be so. Then tell your heart to be quiet, and revise your notions of what gratitude is entitled to expect. Take warning from the realization that thoughtless people generally complain most about ingratitude. Those who think seriously about the ingratitude they encounter do not find it as easy to be indignant. Like all human beings, I am a person who is full of contradictions. A further complication must be considered. There are other properties that are presumably as broadly based as the virtues, for example, intelligence and imagination, strength and endurance. Indeed, a certain minimum of these attributes is necessary for right conduct, since without judgment and imagination, say, benevolent intentions may easily lead to harm. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
On the other hand, unless intellect and vigour are regulated by a sense of justice and obligation, they may only enhance one’s capacity to override the legitimate claims of others. Certainly it would not be rational to want some to be so superior in these respects that just institutions would be jeopardized. Yet the possession of these natural assets in the appropriate degree is clearly desirable from a social point of view; and therefore within limits these attributes are also broadly based. Thus while the moral virtues are included in the broadly based properties, they are not the only ones in this class. It is necessary, then, to distinguish the moral virtues from the natural assets. The latter we may think of as natural powers developed by education and training, and often exercised in accordance with certain characteristic intellectual or other standards by reference to which they can be roughly measured. The virtues on the other hand are sentiments and habitual attitudes leading us to act on certain principles of right. We can distinguish the virtues from each other by means of their corresponding principles. I assumes, then, that the virtues can be singled out by using the conception of justice already established; once this conception is understood, we can rely on it to define the moral sentiments and to mark them off from the natural assets. A good person, then, or a person of moral worth, is someone who has to a higher degree than the average the broadly based features of moral character that it is rational for the persons in the original position to want in one another. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
Since the principles of justice have been chosen, and we are assuming strict compliance, each knows that in society one will want the other to have the moral sentiments that support adherence to these standards. Thus we could say alternatively that a good person has the features of moral character that it is rational for members of a well-ordered society to want in their associates. Neither of these interpretations introduces any new ethical notions, and so the definition of goodness as rationality has been extended to persons. In conjunction with the theory of justice which has the thin account of the good as a subpart, the full theory seems to give a satisfactory rendering of moral worth, the third main concept of ethics. Some philosophers have thought that since a person qua person has no definite role or function, and it not to be treated as an instrument or object, a definition along the lines of goodness as rationality must fail. However, as we have seen, it is possible to develop a definition of this sort without supposing that persons hold some particular role, much less that they are things to be used for some ulterior purpose. It is true, of course, that the extension of the definition to the case of moral worth makes many assumptions. In particular, I assume that being a member of some community and engaging in many forms of cooperation is a condition of human life. However, this presumption is sufficiently general so as not to compromise a theory of justice and moral worth. Indeed, it is entirely proper, as I have noted previously, that an account of our considered moral judgments should draw upon the natural circumstances of society. In this sense there is nothing a priori about moral philosophy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
It suffices to recall by way of summation that what permits this definition of the good to cover the notion of moral worth is the use of the principles of justice already derived. Moreover, the specific content and mode of derivation of these principles is also relevant. The main idea of justice as fairness, that the principle of justice are those that would be agreed to by rational persons in an original position of equality, prepares the way for extending the definition of good to the larger questions of more goodness. I listened, in my youth, to conversations between grown-up people through which there breathes a tone of sorrowful regret which oppressed the heart. The speakers looked back at the idealism and capacity for enthusiasm of their youth as something precious to which they ought to have held fast, and yet at the same time they regarded it as almost a law of nature that no one should be able to do so. This woke in me a dread of having ever, even once, to look back on my past with such a feeling; I resolved never to let myself become subject to this tragic domination of mere reason, and what I thus vowed in almost boyish defiance I have tried to carry out. As soon as humans do not take their existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins. Thus let us suppose that for each person there is a rational plan of life that determines one’s good. We can now define a good act (in the sense of a beneficent act) as one which we are at liberty to do or not to do, that is, no requirements of natural duty or obligation constrains us either do to it or no to do it, and which advances and is intended to advance another’s good (one’s rational plan). #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Taking a further step, we can define a good action (in the sense of a benevolent action) as a good act promotes another’s good; and a benevolent action is done from the desire that the others should have this good. When the benevolent action is one that brings much good for the other person and when it is undertaken at considerable loss or risk to the agent as estimated by one’s interest more narrowly constructed, then the action is supererogatory. An act which would be very good for another, especially one which protects one from great harm or injury, is a natural duty required by the principle of mutual assistance, provided that the sacrifice and hazards to the agent are not very great. Thus a supererogatory act may be thought of as one which a person does for the sake of another’s good even though the proviso that nullifies the natural duty is satisfied. In General, supererogatory actions are the ones that would be duties were not certain exempting conditions fulfilled which make allowance for reasonable self-interest. Eventually, of course, for a complete contractarian account of right, we would have to work out from the standpoint of the original position what is to count as reasonable self-interest. However, I shall not pursue this question here. Finally, the full theory of the good enables us to distinguish different sorts of moral worth, or the lack of it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
To illustrate, consider the fact that some humans strive for excessive power, that is, authority over others which goes beyond what is allowed by the principles of justice and which can be exercised arbitrarily. In each of these cases there is a willingness to do what is wrong and unjust in order to achieve one’s ends. However, the unjust human seeks dominion for the sake of aims such as wealth and security which when appropriately limited are legitimate. The bad human desires arbitrary power because one enjoys the sense of master which its exercise gives one and one seeks social acclaim. One too has an inordinate desire for things which when duly circumscribed are good, namely, the esteem of others and the sense of self-command. It is one’s way of satisfying these ambitions that makes one dangerous. By contrast, the evil human aspires to unjust rule precisely because it violates what independent persons would consent to in an original position of equality, and therefore its possession and display manifest one’s superiority and affront the self-respect of others. It is this display and affront which is sought after. What moves the evil human is the love of injustice: one delight in the impotence and humiliation of those subject to one and one relishes being recognized by them as the willful author of their degradation. Once the theory of justice is joined to the theory of the good in what I have called the full theory, we can make these and other distinctions. There seems to be no reason to fear that numerous variations of moral worth cannot be accounted for. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The most valuable knowledge we can have is how to deal with disappointments. However, granted that we have so trained ourselves that the ugly, vain, and superficial have no part in our expectations of gratitude; granted, too, that we have been so successful in purifying our motives that we really try to do good for its own sake and not in hope of being appreciated—we shall still be hurt by the prevalence of ingratitude. Disappointments that wounds our soul is a demoralizing thing…All of us find it difficult to hold fast to an optimistic philosophy of life that gives us strength to do good. That is why ingratitude, which is constantly killing our enthusiasm, is one of evil’s worst forces. It is far more difficult for a primitive people to accept a few fragmentary crumbs of Western technological culture than it is for them to adopt a while new way of life at once. Each human culture, like each language, is a whole, and if individuals or groups of people have to change, it is most important that they should change from one whole pattern to another. There is sense in this, for it is clear that tensions arise from incongruities between culture elements. To introduce cities without sewage, anti-malarial medicines without birth control, is to tear a culture apart, and to subject its members to excruciating, often insoluble problems. Yet this is only part of the story, for there are definite limits to the amount of newness that any individual or group can absorb in a short span of time, regardless of how well integrated the whole may be. Nobody, Manus or Muscovite, can be pushed above one’s adaptive range without suffering disturbance and disorientation. Moreover, it is dangerous to generalize from the experience of this small South Sea population. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
The success story of the Manus, told and retold like a modern folk tale, is often cited as evidence that we, in high-technology countries, will also be able to leap to a new stage of development without undue hardship. Yet our situation, as we speed into the super-age of information era, is radically different from that of the islanders. We are not in a position, as they were, to import wholesale an integrated, well-formed culture, matured and tested in another part of the World. We must invent super-informationalism, not import it. During the next thirty or forty years we must anticipate not a single wave of change, but a series of terrible heaves and shudders. The parts of the new society, rather than being carefully fitted, one to the other, will be stinkingly incongruous filled with missing linkages and glaring contradictions. There is no “whole pattern” for us to adopt. More important, the transience level has risen so high, the pace is now so forced, that a historically unprecedented situation has been thrust upon us. We are not asked, as the Manus were, to adapt to a new culture, but to a blinding succession of new temporary cultures. This is why we may be approaching the upper limits of the adaptive range. No previous generation has ever faced this test. It is only now, therefore, in our lifetime, and only in the techno-societies as yet, that the potential for mass future shock has crystallized. To say this, however, is to court grave misunderstanding. First, any author who calls attention to a social problem runs the risk of deepening the already profound pessimism that envelopes the techno-societies. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
Self-indulgent despair is a highly salable literary commodity today. Yet despair is not merely a refuge for irresponsibility; it is unjustified. Most of the problems besieging us, including future shock, stem not from implacable natural forces but from humanmade processes that are at least potentially subject to our control. Second, there is danger that those who treasure the status quo may seize upon the concept of future shock as an excuse to argue for a moratorium on change fail, triggering even bigger, bloodier and more unmanageable changes than any we have seen, it would be moral lunacy as well. By any set of human standards, certain radical social changes are already desperately overdue. The answer to future shock is not non-change, but a different kind of change. In actions lies wisdom and confidence. A human who does not act gets no further than the maxim: Life means conflict and tribulation. However, for a human who acts can attained the higher wisdom and know that life is conflict and glory. That is why God forces humans to labour. That is why He gives them children to bring up. That is why He gives them duties. Through action, they may reach a deeper realization. The only way to maintain any semblance of equilibrium during the super-age of information revolution will be to meet invention with invention—to design new personal and social change-regulators. Thus we need neither blind acceptance nor blind resistance, but an array of creative strategies for shaping, deflecting, accelerating or decelerating change selectively. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
The individual needs new principles for pacing and planning one’s life along with a dramatically new kind of education. One may also need specific new technological assistants to increase one’s adaptivity. The society, meanwhile, needs new institutions and organizational forms, new buffers and balance wheels. All this implies still further change, to be sure—but the type designed from the beginning to harness the accelerative thrust, to steer it and pace it. This would not be easy to do. Moving swiftly into uncharted social territory, we have no time-tried techniques, no blueprints. We must, therefore, experiment with a wide range of change-regulating measures, inventing and discarding them as we go along. It is the tentative spirit that the following tactics and strategies are suggested—not as a sure-fire panaceas, but as examples of new approaches that need to be tested and evaluated. Some are personal, other are technological and social. For the struggle to channel change must take place at all these levels simultaneously. Given a clearer grasp of the problems and more intelligent control of certain key processes, we can turn crisis into opportunity, helping people not merely to survive, but to crest the waves of change, to grow, and to gain a new sense of mastery over their own destinies. Whatever makes people good Christians, makes them good citizens. In the kingdoms of human, young people learn the basics of good citizenship in high-school civics courses. Immigrants attend special classes to learn their new country’s laws and their civic responsibilities; they must pass a test to prove they understand their new citizenship and then must swear their allegiance. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Good citizenship requires such basic duties as paying taxes, voting, serving in the military and on juries, and obeying the laws of the land. In the Kingdom of God one learns the obligations of citizenship from the Scriptures, the ultimate source of basic Christian truth. Unfortunately, most people, churched or unchurched, are woefully ignorant in this area. Though 500 million Bibles are published in American each year—that is two for every man, woman, and child—over 100 million Americans confess they never open one. In a recent survey only 42 percent could name who gave the Sermon on the Mount. (Some thought it was delivered by a person on horseback.) If the average churchgoer is uninformed, however, one does not have to look far to understand why. Church leaders have treated us to a smorgasbord of trendy theologies, pop philosophies, and religious variants of egocentric cultural values. Recently, for example, a group of church scholars met to discuss which of Christ’s words in the gospels could be accepted as authentic. Their modern critical analysis was carried out by ballot. Slips of coloured paper were distributed to the group: a red slip meant the statement was authentic; pink meant probably authentic; gray meant probably not; and black meant not authentic. After intense discussion of each of Jesus’ statements, participants cast their votes with the appropriate card. The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount took a beating in the balloting. “Blessed are the peacemakers” was voted down; “blessed are the meek” garnered a paltry six red and pinks out of thirty votes. In the end only three of the twelve assorted woes and blessings from Matthew and Luke survived. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
Such theological tomfoolery might be dismissed as too ludicrous to worry about except that this pink-slip mentality pervades the church. Orthodoxy—adherence to the historic tents of Christianity—is under intense assault. This has been true since the Enlightenment, of course, but not until this century have so many in the church seriously argued that truth can be determined by majority vote or that the gospel should accommodate the whims of culture. I have heard it said that reinterpreting the gospel in the context of modern culture is enlightened and progressive. Maybe some find that so, but Joseph Sobran better expresses my feelings: “It can be exalting to belong to a church that is five hundred years being the times and sublimely indifferent to fashion; it is mortifying to belong to a church that is five minutes behind the times, huffing and puffing to catch up.” Christianity rests on the belief that God is the source of truth and that He does not alter it according to the spirit of the times. When Christians sever their ties to absolute truth, relativism reigns, and the church becomes merely a religious adaption of the culture. Donald Bloesch maintains that modern “secularism is preparing the way for a new collectivism.” He points to a historical precedent we have already looked at in some detail the church in Germany. It was the confessing orthodox church in Germany that rose up in resistance to Hitler while “the church most infiltrated by the liberal ideology, the Enlightenment, was quickest to succumb to the beguilement of national societies.” Enticed by secular ideology, they saw the state as a vehicle for advancing the church. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
Mr. Bloesch also points to a current illustration. In South Africa, “it can be shown that the three Reformed churches the most liberal theologically is the most illiberal in racial attitudes, whereas the most consciously Calvinist is the most courageous in speaking out against racial injustice. The effect of preaching a false theology can be disastrous. Most attribute the fall of Jim and Tammy Bakker to greed, indiscretion involving pleasures of the flesh, or the corruption of power. These were, of course, serious contributing factors. However, the root cause of their downfall was that for years Bakkers had preached a false gospel of material advancement: If people would only trust God, He would shower blessings upon them and indulge them with all the material desires of their hearts—a religious adaptation of prevailing “what is in it for me” mentality. Tragically, the Bakkers deluded themselves into believing their own false message. Taking a two-million-dollar-a-years salary, living in splendor, and indulging their every whim did not seem wrong; it was “God’s blessing.” And millions of followers continued to support them, even after their fall, because they too wanted such blessings. The first responsibility for the citizen of the Kingdom, then, is to understand historic Christian truth: to know Scripture and the classic fundamentals of the faith. This is not to say that Christians are to be mindlessly accepted whatever they are told is an orthodox creed. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
Honest inquiry and thoughtful examination of the evidence, I believe, are healthy and should be encouraged, for these invariably lead to firmer belief in the truth of God’s revelation interpreted by the great theologians through the ages. As Chesterton said, “Dogma does not mean the absence of thought but the end [result] of thought.” When Christian either lack knowledge or are insecure about what they believe, as if the case with many today, they forfeit their place in contending for theological truth, and secularism advances. This is why James Schall implores Christians “to regain their confidence in their own dogmas…These are not idle speculations,” he writes, “but the order of reality out of which a right order in human things alone can flow.” If Christians are to contend for values in culture and restore a sense of the transcendent to secular thought, such confidences is essential. The problem is, as literary critic Harry Blamires states flatly, “there is no Christian mind.” By this he means that Christians have their own set of beliefs but, lacking confidence, keep them to themselves. As long as they are in a secular context, they act by secular values. When they return to the privacy of their religious enclaves where they can safely think and act in Christian terms, they do so. As a result their most fundamental beliefs never penetrate the culture. Jacques Ellul reminds us that the only way theological truth reaches the World is through the actions of laypeople in the marketplace. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
It is this first step of Christian citizenship in the Kingdom of God—knowledge and confidence in classical Christian truth—that enables the Christian to be a good citizens in the kingdoms of man. And it is in Scripture and classical doctrine that one finds the clearest expression of an individual’s responsibility to both kingdoms. On the one hand Scripture commands civil obedience—that individuals respect and live in subjection to governing authorities and pray for those in authority. On the other it commands that Christians maintain their ultimate allegiance to the Kingdom of God. If there is a conflict, they are to obey God, not man. That may mean holding the state to moral account through civil disobedience. This dual citizenship requires a delicate balance. Those who want to prolong their ego’s little existence into the Overself’s life naturally draw back with shock or horror when it is explained that there all is anonymous or impersonal. It is nothing frigid, austere, or inhuman but a warm serenity, a deep glowing peace. The Overself is not only the best part of oneself but also the unalterable part. We cannot see, hear, or touch without the mind. However, the mind, in its turn, cannot function without the Overself. It is from the Overself that every true prophet receives one’s power. “I of myself am nothing,” confessed Jesus. The point in conscious where the mind project its thought has been called by the ancients “the cave” or “the cave of the heart.” #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
This is because to the outside observer there is nothing but darkness in it and therefore the cave hides whatever it may contain. When, by an inward reorientation of attention, we trace thoughts, whether of external things or internal fancies, to their hidden origin and penetrate the dark shroud around it, we penetrate into Mind, the divine Overself. We cannot help remembering Gray’s apposite lines: “Full many a gem of purest ray serene, the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear. The Overself does not evolve and does not progress. These activities which belong to time and space. It is nowhere in time and nowhere in space. It is Here, in this deep beautiful and all-pervading calm, that a human finds one’s real identity. Everything that exists in time must also exist in change. The Overself does not exist in time and is not subject to change. Do not insult the Higher Power by calling it unconscious; it is not only fully conscious but also fully intelligent. Your real Self, which is this power, need neither commands nor instructions from the physical brain. The Overself is not anyone’s private property. Why did Jesus Christ give the opening of the Lord’s Prayer as “Our Father and not as “My Father”? Was He not trying to get His disciples away from the self-centered attitude to the cosmic one? Was He not widening their outlook to make them think of humankind’s welfare? The Overself surrounds the borderline of the ego, its perfection stretching into infinity. There is no way of showing the Overself for anyone’s examination. Since the ego comes out of the Overself, the only way it can see it again is to go back into it. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
The Soul is a pure Spirit and des not feel oneself. Its acts are not perceptible. This beneficent, freedom-bestowing, character-transforming, soul awakening, gentle Presence is Overself. The interpretation of “Overself” is that part of the Absolute which is Man. It is higher self. Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, O Lord! and I shall be clean: Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. By the figurative mystery of these holy vestures (or of this holy vestment) I will clothe me with the armour of salvation in the strength of the Most High, Anchor; that my desired end may be effected through Thy strength, O Lord! unto Whom the praise and glory will forever and ever belong! Amen! 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, son; and say ye Amen. May His great name be blessed for ever 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. May the prayers and supplication of the house of America be acceptable unto their Father in Heaven; and say ye, Amen. May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and life for us for all America; and say ye, Amen. May He who establisheth peace in the Heavens, grant peace unto us and unto all America; and say ye, Amen. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Is this the New Phenomenon? Running Away from America and Running Away from Emotion?
Every time you win, you are reborn; when you lose, you die a little. Becoming number one is easier than remaining number one. The definition of the good is purely formal. It simply states that a person’s good is determined by the rational plan of life that one would choose with deliberative rationality from the maximal class of plans. Although the notion of deliberative rationality and the principles of rational choice rely upon concepts of considerable complexity, we still cannot derive from the definition of rational plans alone what sorts of ends these plans are likely to encourage. In order to draw conclusions about these ends, it is necessary to take note of certain general facts. First of all, there are the broad features of human desires and needs, their relative urgency and cycles of recurrence, and their phases of development as affected by physiological and other circumstances. Second, plans must fit the requirements of human capacities and abilities, their trends of maturation and growth, and how they are best trained and educated for this or that purpose. Moreover, I shall postulate a basic principle of motivation which I shall refer to as the Aristotelian Principle. Finally, the general facts of social interdependency must be reckoned with. The basic structure of society is bound to encourage and support certain kinds of plans more than others by rewarding its members for contributing to the common good in ways consistent with justice. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Taking account of these contingencies narrows down the alternative plans so that the problem of decision becomes, in some cases anyway, reasonably definite. To be sure, as we shall see, a certain arbitrariness still remains, but the priority of right limits it in such a way that it is no longer a problem from the standpoint of justice. Taking account of these contingencies narrows down the alterative plans so that the problem of decision becomes, in some cases anyway, reasonably definite. To be sure, as we shall see, a certain arbitrariness still remains, but the priority of right limits it in such a way that it is no longer a problem from the standpoint of justice. The general facts about human needs and abilities are perhaps clear enough and I shall assume that common sense knowledge suffices for our purpose here. Before taking up the Aristotelian Principle, however, I should comment briefly on the human goods (as I shall call them) and the constraints of justice. Given the definition of a rational plan, if not a central place in our life, we may think of these goods as those activities and ends that have the features whatever they are that suit them for an important. Since in the full theory rational plans must be consistent with the principles of justice, the human goods are similarly constrained. Thus the familiar values of personal affection and friendship, meaningful work and social cooperation, the pursuit of knowledge and the fashioning and contemplation of beautiful objects, are not only prominent in our rational plans but they can for the most part be advanced in a manner which justice permits. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Admittedly to attain and to preserve these values, we are often tempted to act unjustly; but achieving these ends involves no inherent injustice. In contrast with the desire to cheat and to degrade others, doing something unjust is not included in the description of the human goods. The social interdependency of these values is shown in the fact that not only are they good for those who enjoy them but they are likely to enhance the good of others. In achieving these ends we generally contribute to the rational plans of our associates. In this sense, they are complementary goods, and this accounts for their being singled out for special commendation. For to commend something is to praise it, to recount the properties that make it good (rational to want) with emphasis and expressions of approval. These facts of interdependency are further reasons for including the recognized values in long-term plans. For assuming that we desire the respect and good will of other persons, or at least to avoid their hostility and contempt, those plans of life will tend to be preferable which further their aims as well as our own. Turning now to our present topic, it will be recalled that the Aristotelian Principle runs as follows: others things equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capacities (their innate or trained abilities), and this enjoyment increases the more the capacity is realized, or the greater its complexity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Aristotelian Principle denotes that enjoyment and pleasure are not always by any means the result of returning to a healthy or normal state, or of making up deficiencies; rather many kinds of pleasure and enjoyment arise when we exercise our faculties; and that the exercise of our natural power is a leading human good. Further, the idea that the more enjoyable activities and the more desirable and enduring pleasures spring from the exercise of greater abilities involving more complex discriminations is not only compatible with Aristotle’s conception of the natural order, but something like it usually fits the judgments of value he makes, even when it does not express his reasons. The intuitive idea here is that human beings take more pleasures in doing something as they become more proficient at it, and of two activities they do equally well, they prefer the one calling on a larger repertoire of more intricate and subtle discriminations. For example, chess is a more complicated and subtle game than checkers, and trigonometry is more intricate than algebra. Thus the principle say that someone who can do both generally prefers playing chess to playing checkers, and that one would rather study trigonometry than algebra. We need not explain here why the Aristotelian Principle is true. Presumably complex activities are more enjoyable because they satisfy the desire for variety and novelty of experience, and leave room for feats of ingenuity and invention. They also evoke the pleasures of anticipation and surprise, and often the overall form of the activity, its structural development, is fascinating and beautiful. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Moreover, simpler activities exclude the possibility of individual style and personal expression which complex activities permit or even require, for how could everyone do them in the same way? If we are to find our way at all, that we should follow our natural bent and the lessons of our past experience seems inevitable. Each of these features is well illustrated by chess, even to the point where grand masters have their characteristic style of play. Whether these considerations are explanations of the Aristotelian Principle or elaboration of its means, I shall leave aside. I believe that nothing essential for the theory of the good depends upon this question. It is evident that the Aristotelian Principle contains a variant of the principle of inclusiveness. Or at least the clearest cases of greater complexity are those in which one of the activities to be compared includes all the skills and discrimination of the other activity and some further ones in addition. Once again, we can establish but a partial order, since each of several activities may require abilities not used in the others. Such an ordering is the best that we can have until we possess some relatively precise theory and measure of complexity that enables us to analyze and compare seemingly disparate activities. I shall not, however, discuss this problem here, but assume instead that our intuitive notion of complexity will suffice for our purposes. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
The Aristotelian Principle is a principle of motivation. It accounts for many of our major desires, and explains why we prefer to do some things and not others by constantly exerting an influence over the flow of our activity. Moreover, it expresses a psychological law governing changes in the pattern of our desires. Thus the principle implies that as a person’s capacities increase over time (brought about by physiological and biological maturation, for example, the development of the nervous system in a young child), and as one trains these capacities and learns how to exercise them, one will in due course come to prefer the more complex activities that one can now engage in which call upon one’s newly realized abilities. The simpler things one enjoyed before are no longer sufficiently interesting or attractive. If we ask why we are willing to undergo the stresses of practice and learning, the reason may be (if we leave out of account external rewards and penalties) that having had some success at learning things in the past, and experiencing the present enjoyments of the activity, we are led to expect even greater satisfaction once we acquire a greater repertoire of skills. As we witness the exercise of well-trained abilities by others, these displays are enjoyed by us and arouse a desire that we should be able to do the same things ourselves. We want to be like those persons who can exercise the abilities that we find latent in our nature. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Thus it would appear that how much we learn and how far we educate our innate capacities depends upon how great these capacities are and how difficult is the effort of realizing them. There is a race so to speak, between the increasing satisfaction of exercising greater realized ability and the increasing strains of learning as the activity becomes more strenuous and difficult. Assuming that natural talents have an upper bound, whereas the hardships of training can be made more severe without limit, there must be some level of achieved ability beyond which the gains from a further increase in this level are just offset by the burdens of the further practice and study necessary to bring it abut and to maintain it. Equilibrium is reached when these two forces balance one another, and at this point the effort to achieve greater realized capacity ceases. It follows that if the pleasures of the activity increase too slowly with rising ability (an index let us suppose of a lower level of innate ability), then the correspondingly greater efforts of learning will lead us to give up sooner. In this case we will never engage in certain more complex activities not acquire desires by taking part in them. When we combine the effects of decisional stress with sensory and cognitive overload, we produce several common forms of individual maladaptation. For example, one widespread response to high-speed change is outright denial. The Denier’s strategy is to “block out” unwelcome reality. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
When the demand for decisions reaches crescendo, one flatly refuses to take in new information. Like the disaster victim whose face registers total disbelief, Th Denier, too, cannot accept the evidence of one’s senses. Thus one concludes that things really are the same, and that all evidences of change are merely superficial. One finds comfort in such cliches as “young people were always rebellious” or “there is nothing new on the face of the Earth,” or “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” An unknowing victim of future shock, The Denier sets oneself up for personal catastrophe. One’s strategy for coping increases the likelihood that wen one finally is forced to adapt, one’s encounter with change will come in the form of a single massive life crisis, rather than a sequence of manageable problems. A second strategy of the future shock victim is specialism. The Specialist does not block out all novel ideas or information. Instead, one energetically attempts to keep pace with change—but only in a specific narrow sector of life. Thus we witness the spectacle of the physician or financier who makes use of all the latest innovations in one’s profession, but remains rigidly closed to any suggestion for social, political, or economic innovation. The more universities undergo paroxysms of protest, the more ghettos go up in flames, the less one wants to know about them, and the more closely one narrows the slits through which one sees the World. Superficially, one copes well. However, one, too, is running the odds against oneself. One may awake one morning to find one’s specialty obsolete or else transformed beyond recognition by events exploding outside one’s field of vision. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
A third common response to future shock is obsessive reversion to previously successful adaptive routines that are now irrelevant and inappropriate. The Reversionist sticks to one’s previously programmed decisions and habits with strict doctrines and covenants desperately. The more change threatens from without, the more meticulously one repeats past modes of action. One’s social outlook is regressive. Shocked by the arrival of the future, one offers hysterical support for the not-so-status quo, or one demands, in one masked form or another, a return to the glories of yesteryear. The Barry Goldwaters and George Wallaces of the World appeal to one’s quivering gut through the politics of nostalgia. Police maintained order in the past; hence, to maintain order, we need only supply more police. Authoritarian treatment of children worked in the past; hence, the troubles of the present spring from permissiveness. The middle-aged, right-wing reversionst yearns for simple, ordered society of the small town—the slow-paced social environment in which one’s old routines were appropriate. Instead of adapting to the new, one continues automatically to apply the old solutions, growing more and more divorced from reality as one does so. If the older reversionist dreams of reinstating a small-town past, the youthful, left-wing reversionst dreams of reviving an even older social system. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
This accounts for some of the fascination with rural communes, the bucolic romanticism that fills the posters and the poetry of the hippie and post-hippie subcultures, the deification of Che Guevara (identified with mountains and jungles, not with urban or post-urban environments), the exaggerated veneration of pre-technological societies and the exaggerated contempt for science and technology. For all their fiery demands for change, at least some sectors of the left share with the Wallacites and Goldwaterites a secret passion for the past. Just as their Indian headbands, their Edwardian capes, their Deerslayer boots and gold-rimmed glasses mimic various eras of the past, so, too, their ideas. Turn-of-the-century terrorism and quaint Black Flag anarchy are suddenly back in vogue. The Rousseauian cult of the noble savage flourishes anew. Antique Marxist ideas, applicable at best to yesterday’s industrialism, are hauled out as knee-jerk answers for the problems of tomorrow’s super-industrialism. Reversionism masquerades as revolution. Finally, we have the Super-Simplifier. With old heroes and institutions toppling, with strikes, riots, and demonstrations stabbing at one’s consciousness, one seeks a single neat equation that will explain all the complex novelties threatening to engulf one. Grasping erratically at this idea or that, one becomes a temporary true believer. This helps account for the rampant intellectual faddism that already threatens to outpace the rate of turnover in fashion. McLuhan? Prophet of the electric age? Levi-Strauss? Wow! Marcuse? Now I see it all! The Maharishi of Whatchmacallit? Fantastic! Astrology? Insight of the ages! #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
The Super-Simplifer, groping desperately, invests every idea one comes across with universal relevance—often to the embarrassment of its author. Alas, no idea, not even mine or thine, is omni-insightful. However, for the Super-Simplifer nothing less than total relevance suffices. Maximization of profits explains America. The Communist conspiracy explains race riots. Participatory democracy is the answers. Permissiveness (or Dr. Spock) are the root of all evil. This search for a unitary solution at the intellectual level has its parallels in action. Thus the bewildered, anxious student, pressured by parents, uncertain of one’s draft status, nagged at by an educational system whose obsolescence is more strikingly revealed every day, forced to decide on a career, a set of values, and a worthwhile life style, searches wildly for a way to simplify one’s existence. By turning on to LSD, Methedrine or heroin, one performs an illegal act that has, at least, the virtue of consolidating one’s miseries, but that will only make them worse and lead to jail, addiction, and possibly death. One trades a host of painful and seemingly insoluble troubles for one big problem, thus radically, if temporarily, simplifying existence. The teenage girl who cannot cope with the daily mounting tangle of stresses may choose another dramatic act of super-simplification: running for homecoming queen. Like drug abuse, being homecoming queen may vastly complicate her life later, but it immediately plunges all her other problems into relative insignificance. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Violence, too, offers a “simple” way out of burgeoning complexity of choice and general overstimulation. For the older generation and the political establishment, police truncheons and military bayonets loom as attractive remedies, a way to end dissent once and for all. Many political extremists and racial vigilantes both employ violence to narrow their choices and clarify their lives. For those who lack an intelligent, comprehensive program, who cannot cope with the novelties and complexities of blinding change, terrorism substitutes for thought. Terrorism may not topple regimes, but it removes doubts. Most of us can quickly spot these patterns of behaviour in others—even in ourselves—without, at the same time, understanding their causes. Yet information scientists will instantly recognize denial, specialization, reversion and super-simplification as classical techniques for coping with overload. All of the dangerously evade the rich complexity of reality. They generate distorted images of reality. The more the individual denies, the more one specializes at the expense of wider interests, the more mechanically one reverts to past habits and policies, the more desperately one’s super-simplifies, the more inept one’s responses to the novelty and choice flooding into one’s life. The more one relies on these strategies, the more one’s behaviour exhibits wild erratic swings and general instability. Every information scientist recognizes that some of these strategies may, indeed, be necessary in overload situations. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Yet, unless the individual begins with a clear grasp of relevant reality, and unless one begins with cleanly defined values and priorities, one’s reliance on such techniques will only deepen one’s adaptive difficulties. These preconditions, however, are increasingly difficult to meet. Thus the future shock victim who does employ these strategies experiences a deepening sense of confusion and uncertainty. Caught in the turbulent flow of change, called upon to make significant, rapid-fire life decisions, one feels not simply intellectual bewilderment, but disorientation at the level of personal values. As the pace of change quickens, this confusion is tinged with self-doubt, anxiety and fear. One grows tense, tires easily. One may fall ill. As the pressures relentlessly mount, tension shades into irritability, anger, and sometimes, senseless violence. Little events trigger enormous responses; large events bring inadequate responses. Pavlov many years ago referred to this phenomenon as the “paradoxical phase” in the breakdown of the dogs on whom he conducted his conditioning experiments. Subsequent research has shown that humans, too, pass through this stage under the impact of overstimulation, and it may explain why riots sometimes occur even in the absence of serious provocation, why, as though for no reason, thousands of teenagers at a resort will suddenly go on the rampage, smashing windows, heaving rocks and bottles, wrecking cars. It may explain why pointless vandalism is a problem in all of the techno-societies, to the degree that an editorialist in the Japan Times passionately reported: “We have never before seen anything like the extensive scope that these psychopathic acts are indulged in today.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
And finally, the confusion and uncertainty wrought by transience, novelty and diversity may explain the profound apathy that de-socializes millions, old, and young alike. This is not the studied, temporary withdrawal of the sensible person who needs to unwind or slow down before coping anew with one’s problems. It is total surrender before the strain of decision-making in conditions of uncertainty and overchoice. Affluence makes it possible, for the first time in history, for large numbers of people to make their withdrawal a full-time proposition. The family man who retreats into his evening with the help of a few martinis and allows televised fantasy to narcotize him, at least works during the day, performing a social function upon which others are dependent. One’s is a part-time withdrawal. However, for some (not all) hippie dropouts, for many of the surfers and lotus-eaters, withdrawal is full-time and total. A check from an indulgent parent may be the only remaining link with the larger society. On the beach at Matala, a tiny sun-drenched village in Crete, are forty or fifty caves occupied by runaway American troglodytes, young men and women who, for the most part, have given up any further effort to cope with the exploding high-speed complexities of life. Here decisions are few and time plentiful. Here the choices are narrowed. No problem of overstimulation. No need to comprehend or even to feel. A reporter visiting them in 1968 brought them news of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Their response: silence. “No shock, no rage, no tears. Is this the new phenomenon? Running away from America and running away from emotion? I understand uninvolvement, disenchantment, even noncommitment. But where has all the feeling gone?” #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
If he understood the impact of overstimulation, the apathy of COVID-19 and guerrilla wars going on in American cities, the blank face of the disaster victim the intellectual and emotional withdrawal of the culture shock victim, the reporter might understand where all the feeling has gone. For these young people, and millions of others—the confused, the violent, and the apathetic—already evince the symptoms of future shock. They are its earliest victims. In order to free the fiction of the sovereign State—in other words, the whims of the chieftains who manipulate it—from every wholesome restriction, all sociopolitical movements tending in this direction invariably try to cut the ground from under religion. For, in order to turn the individual into a function of the State, one’s dependence on anything else must be taken from one. Religion means dependence on and submission to the irrational facts of experience. These do not refer directly to social and physical conditions; they concern far more individual’s psychic attitude. However, it is possible to have an attitude to the external conditions of life only when there is a point of reference outside them. Religion gives, or claims to give, such a standpoint, thereby enabling the individual to exercise one’s judgment and one’s power of decision. It builds up a reserve, as it were, against the obvious and inevitable force of circumstances to which everyone is exposed who lives only in the outer World and has no other ground under one’s feet except the pavement. If statistical reality is the only one, then that is the sole authority. There is then only one condition, and since no contrary condition exists, judgment and decision are not only superfluous but impossible. Then the individual is bound to be a function of statistics and hence a function of the State or whatever the abstract principle of order may be called. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
Religion, however, teaches another authority opposed to that of the “World.” The doctrine of the individual’s dependence on God makes just as high a claim upon one as the World does. It may even happen that the absoluteness of this claim estranges one from the World in the same way as one is estranged from oneself when one succumbs to the collective mentality. One can forfeit one’s judgment and power of decision in the former case (for the sake of religious doctrine) quite as much as in the latter. This is the goal which religion openly aspires to unless it compromises with the State. When it does do, I prefer to call it not “religion” but a “creed.” A creed gives expression to a definite collective belief, whereas the word religion expresses a subjective relationship to a certain metaphysical, extramundane factors. A creed is a confession of faith intended chiefly for the World at large and is thus an intermundane affair, while the meaning and purpose of religion lie in the relationship of the individual to God (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) or to the path of salvation and liberation (Buddhism). From this basic fact all ethics is derived, which without the individual’s responsibility before God can be called nothing more than conventional morality. Since they are compromises with mundane reality, the creed have accordingly seen themselves obliged to undertake a progressive codification of their views, doctrines, and customs, and in so doing have externalized themselves to such an extend that the authentic religious element in them—the living relationship to and direct confrontation with their extramundane point of reference—has been thrust into the background. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
The denominational standpoint measures the worth and importance of the subjective religious relationship by the yardstick of traditional doctrine, and where this is not so frequent, as in Protestantism, one immediately hears talk of pietism, sectarianism, eccentricity, and so forth, as soon as anyone claims to be guided by God’s will. A creed coincides with the established Church or, at any rate, forms a public institution whose members include not only true believers but vast numbers of people who can only be described as “indifferent” in matters of religion and who belong to it simply by force of habit. Here the difference between a creed and a religion becomes palpable. Let no one imagine that contact with the Overself is a kind of dreamy reverie or peasant, fanciful state. It is a vital relationship with a current of peace, power, and goodwill flowing endlessly from the invisible center to the visible self. Although it is true that the Overself is the real guardian angel of every human being, we should not be so foolish as to suppose its immediate intervention in every trivial affair. On the contrary, its care is general rather than particular, in the determination of long-term phases rather than day-by-day events. Its intervention, if that does occur, will be occasion by or will precipitate a crisis. There is a knowing element in man, the real knower which makes intellectual knowing possible and which is Consciousness-by-itself. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
It is that part of man which is fundamental, real, undying, and truly knowing. This is the element in the human being that is covered with mystery, which is why, to some extent, the ancient pagan religious secret or semi-secret organized institutional attempts to penetrate it were titled “The Mysteries.” What could be closer to a human than one’s own be-ing? What could be more inward than the core of one’s self-awareness? Knowledge of law, language, or history can be collected and becomes a possession but knowledge of the Overself is not at all the same. It is something one must be: it owns us, we do not have it. Stillness is both a sign that sense and thought, body and intellect, have been transcended and a symbol of the consciousness of the presence of the Overself. “As I have loved you, so you must love one another,” reports Jesus Christ. This commandment is a central law of the Kingdom. This law of the Kingdom is what motivates Christians to serve the good of society. Certainly it motivated Christians of the nineteenth center when they spearheaded most of our nation’s significant works of mercy and moral betterment. They founded hospitals, colleges, and schools; they organized social choice programs and fed the hungry; they campaigned to end abuses ranging from dueling to slavery. Though much of this work has now been taken over by government agencies, Christians provided the original impetus. Today, Christians still contribute the bulk of resources for private charities of compassion. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
This is not to say that all good deed are done by Christians or that all Christians do good deeds. Sacrificial deeds are often done for other than religious motives, of course. However, in those instances the actions depend on the individual’s personal reasons. Motive is crucial. In one instance it is an individual choice—a choice that often wavers or falters. For the Christian it is a matter of obedience to God’s commandments; it is not choice, but necessity. It is, in fact, their dual citizenship that should, as Augustine believes, make Christians the best of citizens. Not because they are more patriotic or civic-minded, but because they do out of obedience to God that which others do if they choose or if they are forced. And their very presence in society means the presence of a community of people who live by the Law behind the law. Even as unreligious a figure as modern educator John Dewey recognized that “the church-going classes, those who have come under the influence of evangelical Christianity form the backbone of philanthropic and social interest, of social reform through political action, of passivism, of popular education. They embody and express the spirit of kindly good will towards [those] in economic disadvantage.” A study shows that forty-six percent of those in the United States of America who describe themselves as “highly spiritually committed” work among the poor, the infirm, or the elderly—twice as many as those describing themselves as “highly uncommitted” spiritually. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
The Holy Ghost was called by Origen “the active force of God.” This is its mystery, that seeing all, it is itself seen by none. Whatever humans may say about it will not be enough to describe it properly, justly, accurately. All such efforts will be clumsy but they will not be useless. They will be suggestive, offer clues perhaps, each in its own way. What is its consciousness like? If we use our ordinary faculties only, we may ponder this problem for a lifetime without discerning its solution for it is evident that we enter a realm where the very questioner oneself must disappear as soon as one crosses the frontier. The personal “I” must be like a mere wave in such an ocean, a finite center in incomprehensible infinitude. It would be impossible to realize what mind-in-itself is so long as we narrow down the focus of attention to the personal “I”-thought. For it would be like a wave vainly trying to collect and cram the whole ocean within itself, while refusing to expand its attention beyond its own finite form. All that one knows and experiences are things in this World of five senses. The Overself is not within their sphere of operation and therefore not to be known and experienced in the same way. This is why the first real entry into it must necessarily be an entry into no-thing-ness. The mystical phenomena and mystical raptures happen merely on the journey to this Void. It is a consciousness where the “here” is universal and the “now” is everlasting. There is a sense of the total absence of time, a feeling of the unending character of one’s inner being. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
The being which one finds at the end of this inner search is an anonymous one. One may ask for a name but one will not get one. One must be satisfied with the obscure response: “I Am That I Am!” The Overself is there, but it is hidden within our conscious being. Only there, in this deep atmosphere, do we come upon the mirage-free Truth, the illusion-free Reality. There are deep places in human’s hearts and minds into which they rarely venture. And yet treasures are hidden there—flashes of intuition, important revelations, extra strengths, and above all a peace out of this World. It is Conscious Silence. The Knowing or Self-awareness of the Overself is never absent; it is always seeing. Yes, your guardian angel is always present and always the secret witness and recorder of your thoughts and deeds. Whether you go down into the black depths of hell or ascend to the radiant heights of Heaven, you do not walk alone. “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven,” reports Matthew 5.16. To accomplish works of mercy and justice, however, Christians do not rely on government, but on their own penetration of society as “salt and light.” This too is in obedience to a command of God that orders them to be the “salt of the Earth” and “light of the World”—the great cultural commission of the Kingdom. In Hebrew times salt was rubbed into meat to prevent it from spoiling. In the same way the citizen of the Kingdom is “rubbed in” to society as its preservative. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
Citizens of the Kingdom, therefore, form what Edmund Burke called “the little platoons,” mediating structures between the individual and government that carry out works of justice, mercy, and charity. The presence of Christians in society also helps break the endless cycle of evil and violence in the World. For example, the generations-old conflicts of Northern Ireland and the Middle East and American thrive on fake news, hatred and bigotry, the basest of human instincts, which in turn beget violence, which begets more violence. Only forgiveness and love can break this cycle, and only the Kingdom of God orders its citizens to take such radical steps. God commands His people to forgive those who hurt or wrong hem and to love their enemies. Though “turning the other cheek” may sound like weakness, or impractical idealism, in reality, it takes raw courage and is the most powerful weapon for restoring civil tranquility—far surpassing any bayonet or legislation. No conquering army can destroy evil; at best it can suppress it. However, when men and women are reconciled by the Law of the Kingdom, evil is defeated. Wherever they happen to be, in wide-scattered countries, widely different climates, and far-apart centuries, humans have experienced this divine presence. What does this show? That it is not dependent on place and hour, not subject to the laws of space-time. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
Deep down in the mind and feeling of humans is the mysterious Godlike Essence seemingly too deep—alas!—for the ordinary human, who therefore lets oneself be content with hearing from others about it and thus only at second hand. If we believe in or know of the reality of the Overself, we must also believe or know that our everyday, transient life is actively rooted in its timeless being. It is the life-giving, body-healing, or occult-power-bestowing force in humans. It is not a theoretical conception but a quickening, transforming power. Thee I invoke, the Bornless one. Thee, that didst create the Earth and the Heavens: Thee, that didst create the Night and the Day. Thee, that didst create the Darkness and the Light. Thou art Osorronophris: Whom no human has seen at any time. Thou art Jabas. Thou art Japos: Thou hast distinguished between the Just and the Unjust. Thou didst make the Female and the Male. Thou didst produce the Seed and the Fruit. Thou didst form Men to love one another, and to hate one another. I am Mosheh Thy Prophet, unto Whom Thou didst commit Thy Mysteries, the Ceremonies of Ishrael: Thou didst produce the moist and the dry, and that which nourisheth all created Life. Hear Thou Me, for I am the Angel Paphro Osorronophris: this is Thy True Name, handed down to the Prophets of Ishrael. Hear Me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether; upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
I invoke Thee, the Almighty and Invisible God: Who dwellest in the Void Place of the Spirit:–the Lord is my strength and my song, there is not a part of Thou not rich in offering: each eye a fest, your grace a banquet, you blessings soft rubies in the night. For those who wish to stare back in time and gaze upon the earliest moments of the Universe, I say, look no father than God to witness all the marvels unfolding in creation. For in the Heaven are embodied bits of the floating soul like galactic wonder in brief eclipse, and God has become my salvation. Hark! Rejoicing and triumph in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right had of the Lord doeth valiantly.” I shall not die, but live, and recount the works of the Lord. The Lord hath indeed chastened me, but He hath not given me over unto death. Open to me the gates of victory; I will enter them; I will give thanks unto the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter it. I will give thanks unto Thee, for Thou hast answered me and art become my salvation. The stone which the builders rejected is become the chief cornerstone. By the grace of the Lord has this been done; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made; on it we will rejoice and be glad. We beseech Thee, Lord, do Thou save us! We beseech Thee, O Lord, do Thou save us! We beseech Thee, O Lord, do Thou prosper us! We beseech Thee, O Lord, do Thou prosper us! Blessed be one that comes in the name of the Lord; we bless you from the house of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
CRESLEIGH HOMES AT PLUMAS RANCH
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You Buy Some Flowers for Your Table and Tend them Tenderly as You are Able!
A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall. There are certain time-related principles that also can be used to select plans. The principle of postponement holds that, other things equal, rational plans try to keep our hands free until we have a clear view of the relevant facts. And the grounds for rejecting pure time preferences we have also considered. We are to see our life as one whole, the activities of one rational subject spread out in time. Mere temporal position, or distance from the present, is not a reason for favouring one moment over another. Future aims may not be discounted solely in virtue of being future, although we may, of course, ascribe less weight to them if there are reasons for thinking that, given their relation to other things, their fulfillment is less probable. The intrinsic importance that we assign to different parts of our life should be the same at every moment of time. These values should depend upon the whole plan itself as far as we can determine it and should not be affected by the contingencies of our present perspective. Two other principles apply to the overall shape of plans through time. One of these is that of continuity. It reminds us that since a plan is a scheduled sequence of activities, earlier and later activities are bound to one another. The whole plan has a certain unity, a dominant theme. “O the greatness and the justice of our God! for He executeth all His words, and they have gone forth out of His moth, and His law must be fulfilled,” reports 2 Nephi 9.17 #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
There is no, so to speak, a separate utility function for each period. Not only must effects between periods be taken into account, but substantial swings up and down are presumably to be avoided. A second closely related principle holds that we are to consider the advantages of rising, or at least of not significantly declining, expectations. There are various stages of life, each ideally with its own characteristic tasks and enjoyments. Other things equal, we should arrange things at the earlier stages so as to permit a happy life at the later ones. It would seem that for the most part rising expectations over time are to be preferred. If the value of an activity is assessed relative to its own period, assuming that this is possible, we might try to explain this preference by the relatively greater intensity of the pleasures of anticipation over those of memory. Even though the total sum of enjoyment is the same when enjoyments are estimated locally, increasing expectations provide a measure of contentment that makes the difference. However, even leaving this element aside, the rising or at least the nondeclining plan appears preferable since later activities can often incorporate and bind together the results and enjoyments of an entire life into one coherent structure as those of a declining plan cannot. This should present the notion of a person’s good. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
If the future were accurately foreseen and adequately realized in the imagination, our good is determined by the plan of life that we would adopt with full deliberative rationality. The matters we have just discussed are connected with being rational in this sense. If certain conditions were fulfilled, it is worth stressing that a rational plan is one that would be selected. The criterion of the good is hypothetical in a way similar to the criterion of justice. When the question arises as to whether doing something accords with our good, the answer depends upon how well it fits the plan that would be chosen with deliberative rationality. Now one feature of a rational plan is that in carrying it out the individual does not change one’s mind and wish that one had done something else instead. A rational person does not come to feel an aversion for the foreseen consequences so great that one regrets following the plan one has adopted. The absence of this sort of regret is not however sufficient to insure that a plan is rational. There may be another plan open to us that were we to consider it we would find much better. Nevertheless, if our information is accurate and our understanding of the consequences complete in relevant respects, we do not regret following a rational plan, even if it is not a good one judged absolutely. In this instance the plan is objectively rational. We may, of course, regret something else, for example, that we have to live under such unfortunate circumstances that a happy life is impossible. Conceivably we may wish that we had never been born. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
However, when judged by some ideal standard, we do not regret that, having been born, we followed the best plan as bad as it may be. A rational person may regret one’s pursuing a subjectively rational plan, but not because one thinks one’s choice is in any way open to criticism. For one does what seems best at the time, and if one’s beliefs later prove to be mistake with untoward results, it is through no fault of one’s own. There is no cause for self-reproach. There was no way of knowing which was the best or even a better plan. Putting these reflections together, we have the guiding principle that a rational individual is always to act so that one need never blame oneself no matter how one’s plans finally work out. Viewing oneself as one continuing being over time, one can say that at each moment of one’s life one has done what the balance of reason required, or at least permitted. Therefore any risks one assumes must be worthwhile, so that should the worst happen that one had any reason to foresee, one can still affirm that what one did was above criticism. One does not regret one’s choice, at least not in the sense that one later believes that at the time it would have been more rational to have done otherwise. This principle will not certainly prevent us from taking steps that lead to misadventure. Nothing can protect us from the ambiguities and limitations of our knowledge, or guarantee that we find the best alternative open to us. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
Acting with deliberative rationality can only insure that our conduct is above reproach, and that we are responsible to ourselves as one person over time. If someone said that one did not care about how one will view one’s present actions later any more than one cares about the affairs of other people (which is not much, let us suppose), we should indeed be surprised. One who rejects equally the claims of one’s future self and the interests of others is not only irresponsible with respect to them but in regard to one’s own person as well. One does not see oneself as one enduring individual. Now looked at in this way, the principle of responsibility to self resembles a principle of right: the claims of the self at different times are to be so adjusted that the self at each time can affirm the plan that has been and is being followed. The person at one time, so to speak, must not be able to complain about actions of the person at another time. This principle does not, of course, exclude the willing endurance of hardship and suffering; but it must be presently acceptable in view of the expected or achieved good. From the standpoint of the original position the relevance of responsibility to self seems clear enough. Since the notion of deliberative rationality applies there, it means that the parties cannot agree to a conception of justice if the consequences of applying it may lead to self-reproach should the least happy possibilities be realized. They should strive to be free from such regrets. And the principles of justice as fairness seem to meet this requirement better than other conceptions, as we can see from the earlier discussion of the strains of commitment. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
A final observation about goodness as rationality. It may be objected that this conception implies that one should be continually planning and calculating. However, this interpretation rests upon a misunderstanding. The first aim of the theory is to provide a criterion for the good of the person. This criterion is defined chiefly by reference to the rational plan that would be chosen with full deliberative rationality. The hypothetical nature of the definition must be kept in mind. A happy life is not one taken up with deciding whether to do this or that. From the definition alone very little can be said about the content of a rational plan, or the particular activities that comprise it. It is not inconceivable that an individual, or even a whole society, should achieve happiness moved entirely by spontaneous inclination. With great luck and good fortune some humans might by nature just happen to hit upon the way of living that they would adopt with deliberative rationality. For the most part, though, we are not so blessed, and without taking thought and seeing ourselves as one person with a life over time, we shall almost certainly regret our course of actions. Even when a person does succeed in relying on one’s natural impulses without misadventure, we still require a conception of one’s good in order to assess whether one has really been fortunate or not. One may think so, but one may be deluded; and to settle this matter, we have to examine the hypothetical choices that it would have been rational for one to make, granting due allowance foe whatever benefits one may have obtained from not worrying about these things. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
The value of the activity of deciding is itself subject to rational appraisal. The efforts we should expend making decisions will depend like so much else on circumstances. Goodness as rationality leaves this question to the person and the contingencies of one’s situation. We need to learn that we cannot just have faith. We cannot have the miracle until after the exercise of faith. I am a product of a household of faith. I learned faith in my home. I was taught it. It was drilled into me. I need that faith now as much as I ever did. I think we all do. We are not going to survive in this World, temporally or spiritually, without increased faith in the Lord—and I do not mean an optimistic mental attitude—I mean downright solid faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Overself is not merely a mental concept for all humans but also a driving force for some humans, no merely a pious pleasant feeling for those who believe in it but also a continuing vital experience for those who have lifted the ego’s heavy door-bar. That is the one thing that gives vitality and power to otherwise weak individuals. I bear you my humble witness that I know that God lives. I know that He lives, that He is our Father, that He loves us. I bear witness that Jesus is the Christ, our Saviour and our Redeemer. I understand better what that means now. I am grateful for His atonement in our behalf and for knowing something about our relationship to Him and to our Heavenly Father and about the meaning and purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for Joseph Smith. I know that he was a prophet, and I know that President Ezra Taft Benson is a living prophet today. I bear that witness in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Whether are submitting masses of humans to information overload or not, we are affecting their behaviour negatively by imposing on them still a third form of overstimulation—decision stress. Many individuals trapped in dull or slowly changing environments yearn to break out into new jobs or roles that require them to make faster and more complex decisions. However, among the people of the future, the problem is reversed. “Decisions, decisions…” they mutter as they race anxiously from task to task. The reason they feel harried and upset is that transience, novelty and diversity pose contradictory demands and thus place them in an excruciating double bind. The accelerative thrust and its psychological counterpart, transience, force us to quicken the tempo of private and public decision-making. New needs, novel emergencies and crises demand rapid response. Yet the very newness of the circumstances brings about a revolutionary change in the nature of the decisions they are called upon to make. The rapid injection of novelty into the environment upsets the delicate balance of “programmed” and “non-programed” decisions in our organizations and our private lives. A programmed decision is one that is routine, repetitive and east to make. The commuter stands at the edge of the platform as the 8.05 rattles to a stop. One climbs aboard, as one has done every day for months are years. Having long ago decided that the 8.05 I the most convenient run on the schedule, the actual decision to board the train is programed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
It seems more like a reflex than a decision at all. The immediate criteria on which the decision is based are relatively simple and clear-cut, and because all the circumstances are familiar, one scarcely has to think about it. One is not required to process very much information. In this sense, programmed decisions are low in psychic cost. Contrast this with the kind of decisions that same commuter thinks about on one’s way to the city. Should one take the new job corporation Golden 1 Credit Union has offered as a Bank Secrecy Act Investigator making $97,983.00 annually or at Guild Mortgage Company as regional administrator making $118,887.00 annually? Should one buy a new Cresleigh Home? Should one have an affair with one’s secretary? How can one get the Management Committee to accept one’s proposals about the new ad campaign? Such questions demand non-routine answers. They force one to make one-time or first-time decisions that will establish new habits and behavioural procedures. Many factors must be studied and weighed. A vast among of information must be processed. These decisions are non-programmed. They are high in psychic cost. For each of us, life is a blend of the two. If this blend is too high in programmed decisions, we are not challenged; we find life boring and stultifying. We search for ways, even unconsciously, to introduce novelty into our lives, thereby altering the decision “mix.” However, if this mix is too high in non-programmed decisions, if we are hit by so many novel situations that programming becomes impossible, life becomes painfully disorganizes, exhausting and anxiety-filled. Pushed to its extreme, the end-point is psychosis. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Rudeness, talkativeness, destructiveness, meanness, belligerence, and stubbornness all add to the chronic problem of poor discipline. Such behaviour, in whatever form, greatly reduces the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process in the home and classroom or a work. Because many people no longer respond to an authoritarian adult, parent, teacher, or boss with obedience, more effective approaches are needed. One who tends to be effective with other rational individuals is one who encourages learning and good discipline by being warm, relaxed, friendly, flexible, a good communicator, well organized, confident in oneself, and reasonable in one’s request. One also strives to be consistent in one’s behaviour, curious about the World around one, able to smile readily, competent, approachable, and sincere. There is an advantage in people treating subordinates and peers with respect and maintaining routine being calm, casual, and orderly. In addition to being well prepared, an effective leader presents ideas in novel and stimulating ways. One is able to make them relevant to other’s concerns and interests. An effective adult has the courage to be imperfect oneself, admitting that one does not have all the answers. One’s children will then also have courage to admit their unenlightened ways and they will be more open to learning. “Rational behaviour,” write organization theorist Bertram M. Gross, “always includes an intricate combination of routinization and creativity. Routine is essential [because it] frees creative energies for dealing with the more baffling array of new problems which routinization is an irrational approach.” When we are unable to program much of our lives, we suffer. There is no more miserable person than one for whom the cooking of a meal, the drinking of every cup of coffee, the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of deliberation. For unless we can extensively program our behaviour, we waste tremendous amounts of information-processing capacity on trivia. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
This is why we form habits. Watch a committee break for lunch and then return to the same room: almost invariably its members seek out the same seats they occupied earlier. Some anthropologists drag in the theory of “territoriality” to explain this behaviour—the notion that humans are forever trying to carve out for oneself a sacrosanct “turf.” A simpler explanation lies in the fact that programming conserves information-processing capacity. Choosing the same seat spares us the need to survey and evaluate other possibilities. In a familiar context, we are able to handle many of our life problems with low-cost programmed decisions. Change and novelty boost the psychic price of decision-making. When we move to a new neighbourhood, for example, we are forced to alter old relationships and establish new routines or habits. This cannot be done without first discarding thousands of formerly programmed decisions and making a whole series of costly new first-time, non-programmed decisions. In effect, we are asked to re-program ourselves. Precisely the same is true of the unprepared visitor to an alien culture, and it is equally true of the human who, still in one’s own society, is rocketed into the future without advance warning. The arrival of the future in the form of novelty and change makes all one’s painfully pieced-together behaviour routines obsolete. One suddenly discovers to one’s horror that these old routines, rather than solving one’s problems, merely intensify them. New and as yet unprogrammable decisions are demanded. Novelty disturbs decision mix, tipping the balance toward the most difficult, most costly form of decision-making. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
It is true that some people can tolerate more novelty than others. The optimum mix is different for each of us. Yet the number and type of decision demanded of us are not under our autonomous control. It is the society that basically determines the mix of decisions we must make and the pace at which we must make them. Today there is a hidden conflict in our lives between the pressures of acceleration and those of novelty. One forces us to make faster decisions while the other compels us to make the hardest, most time-consuming type of decisions. The anxiety generated by this head-on collision is sharply intensified by expanding diversity. If one needs to deal with them, incontrovertible evidence shows that increasing the number of choices open to an individual also increases the amount of information one needs to process. Laboratory tests on humans and animals alike prove that the more the choices, the slower the reaction time. It is the frontal collision of these three incompatible demands that is now producing a decision-making crisis in the techno-societies. Taken together these pressures justify the term “decisional overstimulation,” and they help explain why masses of humans in these societies already feel themselves harried, futile, incapable of working out their private futures. The conviction that the way of life in which people are caught up in a fiercely competitive struggle, exhausting, and usually routine to obtain wealth, power, and success is too touch, that things are out of control, is the inevitable consequence of these clashing forces. For the uncontrolled acceleration of scientific, technological and social change subverts the power of the individual to make sensible, competent decisions about one’s own destiny. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
Many have certain patterns of disturbing behaviour that have been successfully used elsewhere to achieve the goals, and they may attempt to use them again. An individual’s behaviour is purposeful. One behaves or misbehaves in order to achieve the goals one sets for oneself. Only if one perceives oneself achieving one’s goals through such behaviour, one will set a pattern of behaving or misbehaving. This is called opportunity costs. The opportunity cost of an item is what you give up to get that item. When making any decision, such as whether to attend college, decision makers should be aware of the opportunity costs that accompany each possible action. In fact, they usually are. Singers who can earn millions if they drop out of school and perform preform professionally are well aware that their opportunity costs of college are very high. It is not surprising that they often decide that the benefit is not worth the cost. However, it should be remembered that many are only dimly aware of their goals. Each individual has an overriding goal to belong, to have a place, to be noticed, to be a concern of those who one respects and considers important in one’s life. An individual who sets a pattern of disturbing in the home, classroom, community, or workplace is misbehaving in order to belong. It is one’s way, logical or not, of having a place in the group. Opportunity costs for one is when parents, authority figures, community members, teachers or peers focus their positive or negative attention on one when one is misbehaving. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
An individual has a certain amount of free agency and, therefore, is actively engaged in influencing the behaviour of others interacting with one. However, one is ultimately responsible for one’s own behaviour. One’s parents, teachers, and associates also share responsibility with one, however, for one behaves in a social context where all persons influence one another, and their actions influence one’s perfections of how one can best belong. If they pay off one’s misbehaviour, one will tend to be stimulated to belong through misbehaviour; but if they pay off one’s good behaviour, one will be encouraged to belong through good behaviour. The payoff matrix is a tool used to simplify all of the possible outcomes of a strategic decision. It is a visual representation of all the possible strategies and all of the possible outcomes. It is the obligation of authority figures, guardians, leaders, teachers, and peers to show one that one can belong by behaving and that one will not find a place through misbehaving. It is the obligation of the individual to strive to belong in cooperative ways. The specific goal of the disturbing individual may be to get our attention, to be boss, to counter hurt, or to appear disabled. In general, it is recommended that authority figures, parents, leaders, teachers and peers disengage themselves from an individual who is misbehaving. If one removes the focus of one’s involvement from a misbehaving individual and places it elsewhere, the misbehaving individual will see in the payoff matrix, their behaviour has bad consequences, and one will find no value in expending energy to misbehave. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
When one is no longer able to achieve one’s goals through disturbing behaviour, the misbehaving individual may be worse because one can no longer achieve one’s goals through the usual form of conflict habitual, but those who refuse to pay off for misbehaviour can be certain that the induvial is on one’s way to becoming more effective. The individual may be saying, “It has worked in the past. Maybe I am not trying hard enough.” It is important that leaders, teachers, and peers be firm with their own behaviour at this time. If one gives in and reverts to one’s old behaviour, one will have paid off the misbehaving individual for one’s increased misbehaviour, thus stimulating one’s personal economy to supply more misbehaviour because them seems to be a marginal increase in demand and this may lead to more misbehaviour than ever. Bad behaviour is contagious. Conduct disorder is a psychiatric syndrome occurring in childhood and adolescence, and is characterized by a longstanding patter of violations of rules and antisocial behaviour. Symptoms typically include aggression, frequently lying, running away from home overnight and destruction of property. Adults who have conduct disorder may have difficulty holding down a job or maintaining relationships and may become prone to illegal or dangerous behaviour. Symptoms of conduct disorder in an adult may be diagnosed as adult antisocial personality disorder. They often bully, threaten, or intimate others. Often initiates physical fights. Has used a weapon that can cause serious physical harm to others, et cetera. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
With the rise of rebellion and rebel culture, more of our leaders, authority figures, community members, media personalities and others display signs of conduct disorder. Professionalism has gone out the window. It is now all about raging and making innocent people feel your vengeance. Sometimes therapy is not enough and some children and adults need medication to help reduce dangerous behaviours. If you are someone you know may be suffering from conduct disorder, you should talk to your doctor about atypical antipsychotics such as risperidone or methylphenidate. Although church and state stand separate, the political order cannot be renewed without theological virtues working upon it. It is from the church that we receive our fundamental postulates of order, justice, and freedom, applying them to our civil society. When state policy decides what shall be taught and studied, the seemingly omnipotent State doctrine is for its part manipulated in the name of State policy by those occupying the highest positions in the government, where all the power is concentrated. Whoever, by election or caprice, gets into one of these positions is subject to no higher authority; one is the State policy itself and within the limits of the situation can proceed at one’s own discretion. With Louis XIV one can say, “L’etat c’ est moi.” One is thus the only individual or, at any rate, one of the few individuals who could make use of their individuality if only they knew how to differentiate themselves from the State doctrine. They are more likely, however, to be the slaves of their own fictions. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
Such one-sidedness is always compensated psychologically by unconscious subversive tendencies. Slavery and rebellion are inseparable correlates. Hence, rivalry for power and exaggerated distrust pervade the entire organism from top to bottom. Furthermore, in order to compensate for its chaotic formlessness, a mass always produces a “Leader,” who infallibly becomes the victim of one’s own inflated ego-consciousness, as numerous examples in history show. This development become logically unavoidable the moment the individual combines with the mass and thus renders oneself obsolete. Apart from the agglomeration of huge masses in which the individual disappears anyway, one of the chief factors responsible for psychological mass-mindedness is scientific rationalism, which robs the individual of one’s foundations and one’s dignity. As a social unit one has lost one’s individuality and become a mere abstract number in the bureau of statistics. One can only play the role of an interchangeable unit of infinitesimal importance. Looked at rationally and from outside, that is exactly what one is, and from this point of view it sees absolutely absurd to go on talking about the value or meaning of the individual. Indeed, one can hardly imagine how one ever came to endow individual human life with so much dignity when the truth to the contrary is as plain as the palm of your hand. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
Seen from this standpoint, the individual really is of diminishing importance and anyone who wished to dispute this would soon find oneself at a loss for arguments. The fact that the individual feels oneself or the members of one’s family or the esteemed friends in one’s circle to be important merely underlines the slightly comic subjectivity of one’s feeling. For what are the few compared with ten thousand or a hundred thousand, let alone a million? This recalls the argument of a thoughtful friend with whom I once got caught up in a huge crowd of people. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Here you have the most convincing reason for not believing in immortality: all that lot wants to be immortal!” The bigger the crowd the more negligible the individual becomes. However, if the individual, overwhelmed by the sense of one’s own puniness and impotence, should feel that one’s life has lost its meaning—which, after all, is not identical with public welfare and higher standards of living—then one is already on the road to State slavery and, without knowing or wanting it, has become its proselyte. The person who looks only outside and quails before the big battalions has nothing with which to combat the evidence of one’s senses and one’s reason. However, that is just what is happening today: we are all fascinated and overawed by statistical truths and large numbers and are daily apprised of the nullity and futility of the individual personality, since it is not represented and personified by any mass organization. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
Conversely, those personages who strut about on the World stage and whose voices are heard far and wide seem, to the uncritical public, to be borne along on some mass movement or on the tide of public opinion and for this reason are either applauded or execrated. Since mass suggestion plays the predominate role here, it remains a moot point whether their message is their own, for which they are personally responsible, or whether they merely function as a megaphone for collective opinion. Under these circumstances it is small wonder that individual judgment grows increasingly uncertain of itself and that responsibility is collectivized as much as possible, id est, is shuffled off by the individual and delegated to a corporate body. In this way the individual becomes more and more a function of society, which in its turn usurps the function of the real-life carrier, whereas, in actual fact, society is nothing more than an abstract idea like the State. Both are hypostatized, that is, have become autonomous. The State in particular is turned into a quasi-animate personality from whom everything is expected. In reality it is only a camouflage for those individuals who know how to manipulate it. Thus the constitutional State drifts into the situation of a primitive form of society—the communism of a primitive tribe where everybody is subject to the autocratic rule of a chief or an oligarchy. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
If Solzhenitsyn, MacArthur, and many of the great political philosophers since Cicero are right that society cannot survive without a vital religious influence, then where does this leave us? Will any religion or belief do? No. I believer as a matter of faith and intellect that the Judeo-Christian religion must be that transcendent base. However—and I cannot emphasize this too strongly—even if I did not, I would still argue that Christianity is the only religious system that provides for both individual concerns and the ordering of a society with liberty and justice for all. A creed alone is not enough, nor is some external law code. If Christianity were merely another creed, it would have no superior claim over Hinduism and Buddhism, for example. Or if it were merely another prescriptive order for society, it would have no advantage over Islam. Instead, Christianity alone, as taught in Scripture and announced in the Kingdom context by Jesus Christ, provides both a transcendent moral influence and a transcendent ordering of society without the repressive theocratic system of Islam. Humanists fail to understand human nature just as Christians fail to understand Christianity, just as professional fail to understand professionalism. Ignoring and ignorance and corruption is not the key to life. This is particularly true when it comes to the presence of the Kingdom of God in this World. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
Christians tend to see their faith as either a belief system or a religious palliative for all life’s ills. Secularists see it, most often, through the pejorative pen or the selective lens of the media, which portray the Christian activist as a religious Archie Bunker—a Bible-thumping, red blooded, American patriot, who believed in hard work, home ownerships, owning a business, speaking his mind and a deep love for White America, while he seemed to condemn everyone, expounding simplistically on everything from evolution, war, gun control, diversity, and morals with a steadfast devotion to the Republican part. He was often seen as a bigot, but the only White with Black friends, and Hispanic people living in his house, a Jewish doctor and a Jewish niece living with him, and also at one time an Asian pastor. He also supported his daughter’s Polish boyfriend by providing him with a place to stay and pay for his medical care, while he went to college and his daughter worked. He even has a friend who was reassigned a new gender, when it was unheard of, and Mr. Bunker also kissed Sammy Davis on the cheek, and went on to hire a Black nanny, who took the place of his wife Mrs. Bunker after she passed away. Nonetheless, many people in the church have perpetuate this negative stereotype of Archie Bunker, and preach thoughtless rhetoric and posturing. However, no one sees that Archie Bunker was actually a good person. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
When you look beyond Mr. Bunker’s words and pay attention to his actions, he did not assault people, was very understanding and even at one point thought God was Black. Mr. Bunker also explained that he only said hurtful things because that is the way his father raised him, and the man that loves you, puts a roof over your head, buys you your first ice cream, loves you, and teaches you to throw a baseball can never be wrong. This paradoxically bears some resemblance to Christianity because the Bible tells us to love our parents and respect them and our days on this Earth will be long. The show was set in the 1940s, I believe, and immigration and America was still pretty new. Some people have never even seen a person of colour before. So, it was going to take some time to adapt. The Kingdom of God provides unique moral imperatives that can cause men and women to rise above their natural egoism to serve the greater good. God intends His people to do this; furthermore, He commands them to influence the World through their obedience to Him, not by taking over the World through the corridors of power. No one can be coerced into truth faith, and the last people who even ought to try to do so are Christians, either individually or as members of the institutional Church. As the Westminster Confession states, “God alone is the Lord of conscience.” #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
God alone being the Lord of conscience is the conviction that lies at the heart of the agreement reached by American’s Founding Fathers and their wives. For them, secularists and believers alike, freedom of conscience was the first liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. This means religious liberty for all—Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Wiccan, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, atheists, or California Victorian Worshiper. However, fundamentally, America is a Christian nation. This is One Nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all and it has a code of conduct called the United States Constitution that every American Citizen is required to memorize and practice. The Christian, knowing that the will of the majority cannot determine truth, seeks no preferential favour for one’s religion from government. We do not force the government to block programs that are not Christian, or censor music that is not Christian, or decorations that are not Christian. Our confidence, instead, is that truth is found in Christ alone—and this is so no matter how many people believe it, no matter whether those in power believe it. You can strip every Christian object from public display, but you can never strip Christianity out of America. Christianity is as important to Americans as the American flag. While this may sound exclusivist, it is this very assurance that makes (or should make, when properly understood) the Christian the most vigorous defender of human liberty. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
And those who resent the exclusive claims of Christianity are practicing the same intolerance they profess to resent. The essence of pluralism is, after all, that each person respects the other’s right to believe in an exclusive claim to truth. If society’s well-being depends on the presence of a healthy religious influence, then, it is crucial that Christians understand their responsibilities in the kingdom of man as mandated by the Kingdom of God. It is equally imperative that the rest of society realize the benefits those responsibilities, when properly carried out, offer them. We are a benefit-driven society. How will this move benefit us? we ask. What benefits come with this plan? What benefits does this company offer if I take the job? Does it come with medical, dental, vision, company-paid Life and Long-Term Disability Insurance, and various Supplemental Cover Programs, Flexible Spending Accounts, Wellness Incentive Programs, In-House Fitness Center, Paid Sick Leave, Short Term Disability, Employee Assistance Program, 401(k) with an automatic 3 percent contribution by Corporation with dollar per dollar matching up to a certain percent, Paid Vacation, 10 Paid Holidays Annually, Home Loan discounts for first mortgages, and Fond Perks? It should come as welcome news to the pragmatists of the World that the Kingdom of God offers benefits no society can afford to be without. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
No one can explain what the Overself is, for it is the origin, the mysterious source, of the explaining mind, and beyond all its capacities. However, what can be explained are the effects of standing consciously in its presence, the conditions under which it manifests, the ways in which it appears in human life and experience, the paths which lead to its realization. It is a state of pure intelligence but without the working of the intellectual and ideational process. Its product may be named intuition. There are no automatically conceived ideas present in it, no habitually followed ways of thinking. It is pure, clear stillness. The very essence of that Stillness is the Divine Being. Yet from it come forth the energies which makes and break Universes, which are perpetually active, creative, inventive, and mobile. The Lord is with me, I will not fear; what can man do unto me? The Lord is with me as my helper, I shall see my adversaries discomfited. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. Many nations beset me; verily, in the name of the Lord, I will overcome them. They are beset me, yea, they compassed me about; verily, in the name of the Lord, I will overcome them. They compassed me about like bees, but they were extinguished like a fire of thorns; verily, in the name of the Lord I did subdue them. Thou, O foe, didst thrust at me that I might fall; but the Lord helped me. He shut my eyes—then placed a compass in my hands. Only one with a heart at each of the cardinal points instead of the four directions. This became my new compass for life, my heart guiding me every step—in any direction. Praise the Lord. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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One Lesson Already Seems Vividly Clear: Change Carries a Physiological Price Tag!
Our ability to speak is just one aspect of the evolutionary drive to create a more accurate World in our Heads. Eons ago the shrinking seas cast millions of unwilling aquatic creatures onto the newly created beaches. Deprived of their familiar environment, they died, gasping and clawing for each additional instant of eternity. Only a fortunate few, better suited to amphibian existence, survived the shock of change. Today, says sociologist Lawrence Suhm of the University of Wisconsin, “We are going through a period as traumatic as the evolution of man’s predecessors from sea creatures to land creatures. Those who can adapt will; those who cannot will either go on surviving somehow at a lower level of development or will perish—washed up on the shores.” To assert that humans must adapt seems superfluous. They have already shown themselves to be among the most adaptable of life forms. They have survived Equatorial summers and Antarctic winters. Humans have survived Dachau and Vorkuta. They have walked the lunar surface and travel to Mars. They have invented vaccines overnight. Such accomplishments give rise to the glib notion that their adaptive capabilities are “infinite.” Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Afterall, as hard as humans work, they have not even evented a silent leaf blower to stop disturbing the peace with the sound of its engine that seems to be having an extremely loud, painful and agonizing death, which is probably the most annoying sound in the World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
For despite all their heroism and stamina, humans remain a biological organism, a “biosystem,” and all such systems operate within inexorable limits. Temperature, pressure, caloric intake, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, all set absolute boundaries beyond which humans, as presently constituted, cannot venture. Thus when we hurl a human into outer space, we surround one with an exquisitely designed microenvironment that maintains all these factors within livable limits. How strange, therefore, that when we hurl a human into the future, we take few pains to protect them from the shock of change. It is as though NASA had short Armstrong and Aldrin naked int the cosmos. There are discoverable limits to the amount of change that the human organism can absorb, and by endlessly accelerating change without first determining these limits, we may submit masses of humans to demands they simply cannot tolerate. We may define future shock in different ways. Its symptoms also vary according to the stage and intensity of the disease. These symptoms range all the way from anxiety, hostility to helpful authority, and seemingly senseless violence, to physical illness, depression and apathy. Its victims often manifest erratic swings in interest and life style, followed by an effort to “crawl into their shells” through social, intellectual and emotional withdrawal. They feel continually “bugged” or harassed, and want desperately to reduce the number of decisions that must make. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
As to the conditions that contribute to the develop of future shock and necrophilia, our knowledge is still developing in this field of research and as we expand our understanding, we will throw more light on the problem. We may safely assume that a very unalive, necrophilous family environment will often be a contributing factor in the formation of necrophilia and future shock (as well as in the formation of schizophrenia). Lack of enlivening stimulation, the absence of hope, and a destructive spirit of the society as a whole are certainly of real significance for fostering these conditions. That genetic factors play a role in the formation of necrophilia is, in my opinion, very likely. These people tend to be very jealous—they must keep their unique position—and they are simultaneously insecure and anxious whenever they have to perform a real task; while they might not fail, their performance can never really equal their narcissistic conviction of superiority over any human (while having at the same time a nagging, unconscious feeling of inferiority to all), so one can see how dealing with necrophiles can produce future shock in other individuals. It is hardly necessary to stress that severely necrophilous persons are very dangerous. They are the haters, the racists, those in favour of war, bloodshed, and destruction. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Necrophilous persons are dangerous not only if they are political leaders, but also as the potential cohorts for a dictatorial leader. They become the executioners, terrorists, torturers; without them no terror system could be set up. However, the less intense necrophiles are also politically important; while they may not be among its first adherents, they are necessary for the existence of a terror regime because they form a solid basis, although not necessarily a majority, for it to gain and hold power. It is the efforts of Eros to combine organic substance and disintegrate living structure. The relationship of the death instinct with necrophilia hardly needs any further explanation. In order to elucidate the relation between life instinct and biophilia, however, a short explanation of the latter is necessary. Biophilia is the passionate love of life and of all that is alive; it is the wish to further growth, whether in a person, a plant, and idea, or a social group. The biophilous person prefers to construct rather than to retain. One is capable of wondering, and one prefers to see something new rather than to find confirmation of the old. One loves adventure of living more than one does certainty. One sees the whole rather than only the parts, structures rather than summations. One wants to mold and to influence by love, reason, and example; not by force, by cutting things apart, by the bureaucratic manner of administering people as if they were things. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Because one enjoys life and all its manifestations, the biophilous person is not a passionate consumer of newly packaged “excitement.” Biophilic ethics have their own principle of good and evil. Good is all that serves life; evil is all that serves death. Good is reverence for life, all that enhances life, growth, unfolding. Evil is all that stifles life, narrows it down, cuts it into pieces. Biophilia is understood to refer to a biologically normal impulse, while necrophilia is understood as a psychopathological phenomenon. The latter necessarily emerges as the result of stunted growth, of physical “crippledness.” It is the outcome of unlived life, of the failure to arrive at a certain stage beyond narcissism and indifference. Destructiveness is not parallel to, but the alternative to biophilia. Love of life or love of the dead is the fundamental alternative that confronts every human being. Necrophilia grows as the development of biophilia is stunted. Humans are biologically endowed with the capacity for biophilia, but psychologically they have the potential for necrophilia as an alternative solution. Considering these facts, would it now be of great social and political significance to know what percentage of the population can be considered to be predominantly necrophilous or predominantly biophilous? The las of history will eventually bring justice to the oppressed and wipe away every tear. It is a system that an atheist can put one’s faith in. Lenin, Stalin, and Rakosi recognized that a renewed and purified Christianity was the only force that could move the masses as powerfully as the Marxist ideal could. They attacked it as the enemy that it was and is to them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Trosky, Tito, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro—and the Sandinistas of the eighties—all the tyrants who have followed Marx have believed substantially the same thing about Christianity. Nothing has changed. Despite his shrewd public effort to picture himself as a benign and progressive reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev adhered to the same ideology. As recently as November 1986, he descried the struggle with traditional religion as “decisive and uncompromising” and called for more aggressive atheistic education. Like Lenin, Gorbachev knew who his enemies were. The greatest obstacle to the Marxist ideal of total control is the Christian faith, which is not simply a set of intellectual beliefs or weekly worship services, but involves personal submission to a King whose culture is incompatible with Lenin’s. The Christian church and the Marxist state may work out an accommodation for a time, but they will always be adversaries. The very nature of each makes any lasting accommodation impossible. They are the two great contenders for the soul of humankind. The people of Jaworzyna had had enough. For years they had petitioned the party authorities in the Silesia region of Poland for permission to build a church. Their repeated applications were denied. The people on the church-building committee tried pulling strings with higher party officials in Crakow and Warsaw. No luck. When they angrily protested the refusal, the petty bureaucrats turned a deaf ear. Now, other measures were required. #RandolphHarri 6 of 20
Months before, the authorities had issued a permit to build an auto-repair garage on a site near a highway. Now workers moved into the site, erected a tall fence, and began to build a garage. The building progressed slowly over a period of two years, but no one paid much attention. The party authorities in Jaworzyna were busy people. Then, on Sunday, February 5, 1978, the fence came down and the garage turned out to be a new church—its wide portals adorned with a picture of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the protector of Poland. Masses celebrated until late in the evening; thousands of people came to worship and rejoice. That spring, Cardinal Karol Wojtlya of Crakow came to Jawrzyna to dedicate the church. Soon afterward the authorities tried to close it, but hundreds of angry Poles organized a twenty-four-hour guard. The church building committee was taken to court and fined. Their clever lawyers tied up the case up in procedural disputes. The World saw that the church possessed the soul of the Polish people and embodied the essence of Polish nationhood. By contrast, the Polish Communists who operated the machinery of the state were alien usurpers who did the bidding of Russian masters. Though he went out of his way to avoid a direct confrontation with the Communist regime, John Paul’s message was widely understand by the restive Polish masses, and he lit a fuse during his triumphant nine-day visit to his homeland. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
“Christ would never approve that man be considered merely as a means of production,” he told workers in his old archdioceses in Mogila. At Czestochowa, John Paul urged the government to honour “the cause of fundamental human rights, including the right to religious liberty.” At Novy Targ, he told the Poles to set a Christian example, “even if it means risking danger.” The election of a Polish pope is surely why the church is so much stronger in Poland than almost anywhere else in the World, certainly strong than in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. So is the fact that Christianity has become firmly established in Poland for a thousand years. However, a primary reason is the church’s long tradition of resistance to secular power. When the Communist imprisoned him in 1953, Cardinal Wyszynski reflected that of his seventeen seminary classmates, only he had thus far escaped being sent to German or Russian concentration camps. Cardinal Wyszynski confided a somewhat wry reflection to his diary: “Most of the priests and bishops with whom I worked had experienced prisons. Something would have been wrong if I had not experienced imprisonment. What was happening to me was very appropriate.” Collaboration with power, whether Communist or not, is always ruinous for the church. If the church exists, if it is to have legitimacy in the eyes of the people, it must always stand erect as a counter-power to political power. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Cardinal Wyszynski understood this. In prison in 1953, alone but supremely confident, he wrote a prophetic comment in his diary: “Any form of government, no matter how ruthless, will slowly cool and wane as it runs up against difficulties that the bureaucrat cannot resolve without cooperation from the people. Somehow the people must be taken into account. When the time came to reach the people, the Polish state found the church already there. It had been there for centuries. The only way to love God, whom we do not see, is by contributing to the advancement of this revolutionary process of biblical faith in the most sensible and radical way possible. Only then shall we be loving others, whom we do see. Therefore, we say that to be a Christian is to be a revolutionary. Do not legitimize tyranny. Remain aloof from the enticements and threats of the secular authority. Be faithful to God alone. At no other time in human history, than currently, has so much of the World come under the dark cloud of an oppressive regime consciously determined to eliminate religious influence from culture. However, we can be grateful that the Kingdom of God does not depend on the structures of humans. Though a third of the World, and growing, lives under tyranny and the official “religion” of atheism, the Kingdom of God remains visible. We must pull together from such scattered fields of psychology, neurology, communications theory and endocrinology, what science can tell us about human adaptation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
There is, as yet, no science of adaptation per se. Nor is there any systematic listing of the diseases of adaption. Yet evidence now sluicing in from a variety of disciplines makes it possible to sketch the rough outlines of a theory of adaptation. For a while researchers in these disciplines often work in ignorance of each other’s efforts, their work is elegantly compatible. Forming a distinct and exciting pattern, it provides solid underpinning for the concept of future shock. What actually happens to people when they are asked to change again and again? To understand the answer, we must begin with the body, the physical organism, itself. Fortunately, a series of startling, but as yet unpublicized, experiments have cast revealing light on the relationship of change to physical health. These experiments grow out of the work of the late Dr. Harold G. Wolff at the Cornell Medical Center in New York. Dr. Wolff repeatedly emphasized that the health of the individual is intimately bound up with the adaptive demands placed on one by the environment. One of Dr. Wolff’s followers, Dr. Lawrence E. Hinkle, Jr. has termed this the “human ecology” approach to medicine, and has argued passionately that disease need not be the result of any single, specific agent, such as a germ or virus, but a consequence of many factors, including the general nature of the environment surrounding the body. Dr. Hinkle has worked for years to sensitize the medical profession to the importance of environmental factors in medicine. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Today, with spreading alarm over air pollution, water pollution, urban crowding and other such factors, more and ore health authorities are coming around to the ecological notion that the individual needs to be seen as part of a total system, and that one’s health is dependent upon many subtle external factors. It was another of Dr. Wolff’s colleagues, however, Dr. Thomas H. Holmes, who came up with the idea that change, itself—not this or that specific change but the general rate of change in a person’s life—could be one of the most important environmental factors of all. Originally from Cornell, Dr. Holmes also taught at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and it was there, with the help of a young psychiatrist named Richard Rahe, that he created an ingenious research tool named the Life-Change Units Scale. This was a device for measuring how much change an individual has experienced in a given time span of time. Its development was an important methodological breakthrough, making it possible, for the first time, to qualify, at least crudely, the rate of change in individual life. Reason that different kinds of life-changes strike us with different force, Dr. Holmes and Dr. Rahe began by listing as many such changes as they could. A divorce, a marriage, a move to a new home—such events affect each of differently. Moreover, some carry greater impact than others. A vacation trip, for example, may represent a pleasant break in the routine. Yet it can hardly compared in impact with, say, the death of a parent. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Dr. Holmes and Dr. Rahe next took their list of life-changes to thousands of men and women in many walks of life in the United States of America and Japan. Each person was asked to rank order the specific items on the list according to how much impact each had. Which changes required a great deal of coping or adjustment? Which ones were relatively minor? To Dr. Holmes’ and Dr. Rae’s surprise, it turned out that there was widespread agreement among people as to which changes in their lives require major adaptations and which ones are comparatively unimportant. This agreement about the “impact-fullness” of various life events extends even across national and language barriers. (The work in the United States of America and Japan was also supplemented by studies in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.) People tend to know and to agree on which changes hit the hardest. Given this information, Dr. Holmes and Dr. Rahe were able to assign a numerical weight to each type of life change. Thus each item on their list was ranked by its magnitude and given a score accordingly. For example, if the death of one’s spouse is rated as one hundred points, then moving to a new home is rated by most people as worthy only twenty points, a vacation thirteen. (The death of a spouse, incidentally, is almost universally regarded as the single most impactful change that can befall a person in the normal course of one’s life.) #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Now Dr. Holmes and Dr. Rahe were ready for the next step. Armed with their Life-Change Units Scale, they began to question people about the actual pattern of change in their lives. The scale made is possible to compare the “changefulness” of one person’s life with that of another. By studying the amount of change in a person’s life, could we learn anything about the influence of change itself on health? To find out, Dr. Holmes, Dr. Rahe, and other researchers compiled the “life change scores” of literally thousands of individuals and began the labourious task of comparing these with the medical histories of these same individuals. Never before had there been a way to correlate change and health. Never before had there been such detailed data on patterns of change in individual lives. And seldom were the results of an experiment less ambiguous. In the United States and Japan, among servicemen and civilians, among pregnant women and the families of leukemia victims, among college athletes and retirees, the same striking pattern was present: those with high life change scores were more likely than their fellows to be ill in the following year. For the first time, it was possible to show in dramatic form that the rate of change in a person’s life—one’s pace of life—is closely tied to the state of one’s health. The results were spectacular, but Dr. Holmes, at first, hesitated to publish them. So when you doctor says you are allergic to something in your environment and it is causing an illness, it could be more than just the known allergen. There could be other precipitating factors contributing to the illness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
In every case in which it has been applied, the Life-Change Units Scale and the Life Changes Questionnaire have been applied to a wide variety of groups of people. In every case, the correlation between change and illness has held. It has been established that “alteration in life style” that require a great deal of adjustment and coping, correlate with illness—whether or not these changes are under the individual’s own direct control, whether or not one sees them as undesirable. Furthermore, the higher the degree of life change, the higher the risk that subsequent illness will be severe. So strong is this evidence, that it is becoming possible, by studying life change scores, actually to predict levels of illness in various populations. Thus Commander Ransom J. Arthur, head of the United States Navy Medical Neuropsychiatric Research Unit at San Diego, and Dr. Richard Rahe, a the time a Captain in Commander Arthur’s group, sat out to forecast sickness patterns in a group of 3,000 Navy Men Drs. Arthur and Rahe began by distributing a Life Change Questionnaire to the sailors on three cruisers in San Diego harbour. The ships were about to depart and would be at sea for approximately six months each. During this time it would be possible to maintain exact medical records on each crew member. Could information about a human’s life change pattern tell us in advance the likelihood of one’s falling ill during the voyage? #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Each crew member was asked to tell what changes had occurred in one’s life during the year preceding the voyage. The questionnaire covered an extremely broad spectrum of topics. Thus it asked whether the man had experienced either more or less trouble with superiors during the twelve-month period. It asked about alterations in one’s eating and sleeping habits. It inquired about change in one’ circle of friends, one’s dress, one’s forms of recreation. It asked whether one had experienced any change in one’s social activities, in family get-togethers, in one’s financial condition. Has one been having more or less trouble with one’s in-laws? More or fewer arguments with one’s wife? Had one gained a child through birth or adoption? Had one suffered the death of one’s wife, a friend or relative? The questionnaire went on to probe such issues as the number of times one had moved to a new home. Had one been in trouble with the law over traffic violations or other minor infractions? Had one spent a lot of time away from one’s wife as a result of a job-related travel or marital difficulties? Had one changed jobs? Won awards or promotions? Had one’s living conditions changes as a consequence of home remodeling or the deterioration of one’s neighbourhood? Had one’s wife started or stopped working? Had one taken out a loan or mortgage? How many times had one taken a vacation? Was there any major change in one’s relations with one’s parents as a result of death, divorce, remarriage, et cetera? #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
The questionnaire tried to get at the kind of life changes that are part of normal existence. It did not ask whether a change was regarded as “good” or “bad,” simply whether or not it had occurred. For six months, the three cruisers remained at sea. Just before they were scheduled to return, Drs. Arthur and Rahe flew new research teams out to join the ships. These teams proceeded to make a fine-tooth survey of the ships’ medical records. Which men had been ill? What diseases had they reported? How many days had they been confined to sick bay? When the last computer runs were completed, the linkage between changefulness and illness was nailed down more firmly that ever. Men in the upper ten percent of life change units—those who had had to adapt to the most change in the preceding year—turned out to suffer from one-and-a-half to two times as much illness as those in the bottom ten percent. Moreover, once again, the higher the life change scored, the more severe the illness was likely to be. The study of life change patterns—of change as an environmental factor—contributed significantly to success in predicting the amount and severity of illness in widely varied populations. “For the first time,” says Dr. Arthur, appraising life change research, “we have an index of change. If you have had many changes in your life within a short time, this places a great challenge on your body…An enormous number of changes with a short period might overwhelm its coping mechanisms. #RandolphHrris 16 of 20
“It is clear,” he continues, “that there is a connection between the body’s defenses and the demands for change that society imposes. We are in a continuous dynamic equilibrium…Various “noxious” elements, both internal and external, are always present, always seeking to explode into disease. For example, certain viruses live in the body and cause disease only when the defenses of the body wear down. There may well be generalized body defense system that prove inadequate to cope with the flood of demands for change that come pulsing through the nervous and endocrine systems. Or the body may overreact to something in the environment and start attacking its self because it detects something foreign. The stakes in life-change research are high, indeed, for not only illness, but death itself, may be linked to the severity of adaptational demands placed on the body. Thus a report by Drs. Arthur, Rahe, and a colleague, Dr. Joseph D. Mckean, Jr., begins with a quotation from Somerset Maugham’s literary autobiography, The Summing Up: My father…went to Paris and became solicitor to the British Embassy…After my mother’s death, her maid became my nurse…I think my father had a romantic mind. He took it into his head to build a house to live in during the summer. He bought a piece of land on the top of a hill at Suresnes…It was to be like a villa on the Bosphorous and on the top floor it was surrounded by loggias. It was a white house and the shutters were painted red. The garden was laid out. The rooms were furnished and then my father died. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“The death of Somerset Maugham’s father,” they write, “seems at first glance to have been an abrupt unheralded event. However, a critical evaluation of the events of a year or two prior to the father’s demise reveals changes in his occupation, residence, personal habits, finances and family constellation.” These changes, they suggest, may have been precipitating events. This line of reasoning is consistent with reports that death rates among widows and widowers, during the first year after loss of a spouse, are higher than normal. A series of British studies have strongly suggested that the shock of widowhood weakens resistance to illness and tends to accelerate aging. The same is true for men. Scientists at the Institute of Community Studies in London, after reviewing the evidence and studying 4,486 widowers, declare that “the excess mortality in the first six months is almost certainly real…[Widowerhood] appears to being in its wake a sudden increment in mortality-rates of something like 40 percent in the first six months.” Why should this be true? It is speculated that grief, itself, leads to pathology. Yet the answer may lie not in the state of grief at all, but in the very high impact that loss of a spouse carries, forcing the survivor to make a multitude of major life changes within a short period after the death takes place. The work of Drs. Hinkle, Holmes, Rahe, Arthur, McKean and others now probing the relationship of change to illness is still in its early stages. Yet one lesson already seems vividly clear: change carries a physiological price tag with it. And the more radical the change, the steeper the price. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
If we say that the Overself resides in each human we say something that is not quite true nor quite false. It would be better to say that each human first feels the Overself—when one does have the good fortune to feel it—as residing within one’s heart, but the result of further development is to show one that the contrary, although a paradox, is also correct, which is that one resides in the Overself! The godlike abides in each of us but only the master knows and feels it. The mind keeps on moving about until sleep overcomes it…and because it never stopped to collect itself, it still does not know the higher and better part of itself—the Overself. The divine presence is constant, it does not go away: but humans themselves are too often absent, heedless, interested elsewhere. However, each return gives one a glimpse which one calls a grace. The soul is present and active in every human. This is why it is quite possible for every human to have a direct glimpse of the truth about one’s own inward non-materiality. Nothing can ever exist outside God. Therefore, no human is bereft of the divine presence within oneself. All humans have the possibility of discovering this fact. And with it they will discover their real selfhood, their true individuality. This is the truth that must be proclaimed to our generation, that the Soul is with us here and now—not in some remote World or distant time, not when the body expires—and that it is our joy and strength to find it. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
There is no pint of seawater in which salt is not present in solution. There is no human entity in whom a divine soul is not present in secret. Not even a solitary Crusoe passes through life alone. Everyone passes through it in fellowship with one’s higher self. That such fellowship is, in most cases, an unconscious one, is not enough to nullify it. That humans may deny in faith or conduct even they very existence of their soul is likewise not enough to nullify it. This, the real I, is always accessible to one in prayer and always is the half-known background of one’s conscious self at other times. So long as the Overself is sought elsewhere than were It is, as apart from the seeker oneself, so long will the quest for its end in failure. The divine being is present in all people, from the crudest to the most cultured. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast sanctified us by Thy precepts and hast enjoined upon us the taking of the Lulav. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast kept us in life, and hast sustained us, and enabled us to reach this festive season. As we wave the Lulav in all directions, we acknowledge as did our forefathers that Thou, O Lord, art everywhere. From the north and from the south, from the east and from the west, praise the Lord. The shining Heavens praise Thee. All the Earth praises Thy name. The eyes, represented by the leaves of the myrtle, the lips, represented by the leaves of the willow, the spine, by the palm branch, and the heart, by the citron,–all render praise unto Thee, O Lord on high. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Plumas Lake, CA |
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To be Sure, One Step is Less than Five, but it is Only a Quantitative Difference!
The majority of believers have belief without understanding. Faith is that quality or power by which the things desired become the things possessed. For centuries theologians have argued about the meaning of Jesus’ declaration that the kingdom of Heaven was at hand. Most of them have given it a historical interpretation. Only those who could approach the mind of Jesus have given it a mystical interpretation. For only they can see that He meant that the kingdom of the Overself is really close to us as is our own hand. When it starts from different planes of knowledge, all such argument is unless, and the arguers never really meet each other. Everywhere we see people in bondage to their egos. Everywhere, too, the self-actualized sees the Overself waiting, always present, for them to turn from themselves to It. The overlooked part is one’s consciousness; the forgotten self is one’s knowing power. These exist uninterruptedly, even in apparently subconscious forms like deep sleep and swoon. Yet one denies this share of one’s in the Real Being, identifies with the body instead of making it merely an object of awareness. The Overself is in the heart of every human but few care to seek it out until pressure of its grace from within, or fatigue with the World-life without, drives them to do so. The difference between the pessimist and the cynic is that the pessimist carries on the losing battle against life in one’s own soul, while the cynic tries to wage the battle in someone else’s soul. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
The Overself exists in all of us—the bad as well as the good, the unenlightened as well as the clever. When the divinity in one’s own self is found at last, one will afterwards find its light reflected upon every other man and woman one encounters. Every human is sacred did one but know it. The fusion of technique and destructiveness was not yet visible in the first World War. There was little destruction by plans, and the tank was only a further evolution of traditional weapons. The second World War brought about a decisive change: the use of the airplane for mass killing. The Battle of Britain at the beginning of the war was still fought in the old-fashioned style; the British fighter pilots engaged their German adversaries; their plane was their individual vehicle; they were motivated by the passion to save their country from German invasion. It was their personal skill, courage, and determination that decided the outcome; in principle, their fighting was not different from that of the heroes of the Trojan war. The men dropping the bombs were hardly aware that they were killing and were hardly aware of an enemy. They were concerned with the proper handling of their complicated machine along the lines laid down in meticulously organized plans. That as a result of their acts many thousands, and sometimes over a hundred thousand people, would be killed, burnt, and maimed was of course known to them cerebrally, but hardly comprehended affectively; it was, paradoxical as this may sound, none of their concern. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Because it was their job and they believed the act to be righteous, it was probably for this reason that they—or at least most of them—did not feel guilty for acts that belong to the most horrible a human being can perform. However, I hope that the Lord’s people may be at peace one with another during times of trouble, regardless of what loyalties they may have to different governments or parties. The nations of the Earth have been divided. Feelings run strong. There are demonstrations for and against war. Our people have feelings. They have concerns. War, of course, is not new. The weapon change. The ability to kill and destroy is constantly refined. However, there has been conflict throughout the ages over essentially the same issues. The book of Revelation speaks briefly of what must have been a terrible conflict for the minds and loyalties of God’s children. “And there was war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole World: he was cast out into Earth, and his angels were cast out with him,” reports Revelation 12.7-9. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
Satan’s plan is to destroy the agency of humans. We sometimes are prone to glorify the great empires of the past, such as the Ottoman Empire, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and in more recent times, the vast British Empire. However, there is a darker side to every one of them. There is a grim and tragic overly brutal conquest, of subjugation, or repression, and an astronomical cost in life and treasure. I think our Father in the shining Heaven must weep as He looks down upon His children throughout the centuries as they have squandered their divine bright right in ruthlessly destroying one another. In the course of history tyrants have arisen from time to time who have oppressed their own people and threatened the World. Such is adjudged to be the case presently, and consequently great and terrifying forces with sophisticated and fearsome armaments have been engaged in battle. In modern aerial warfare destruction has been transformed into an act of modern technical production, mechanically organized work and mechanically organized destruction, in which both the worker and the engineer are completely alienated from the product of their work. They perform technical tasks in accordance with the general plan of management, but often do not see the finished product; even if they do, it is none of their concern or responsibility. They are not supposed to ask themselves whether it is a useful or harmful product—this is a matter for management to decide; as far as the latter is concerned, however, “useful” simply means “profitable” and has no reference to the real use of the product. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
In war “profitable” means all that serves the defeat of the enemy, and often the decision as to what is profitable in this sense is based on data as vague as those that led to the construction of Ford’s Edsel. For the engineer as well as for the pilot it is enough to know the decisions of management, and one is not supposed to question them, nor is one interested in doing so. Whether it is a matter of killing one hundred thousand people in Dresden or Hiroshima or devastating the land and people of Vietnam with Agent Orange which was produce by Dole, it is not up to one to worry about the military or moral justification of the orders; one’s only task is to serve one’s machine properly. One might object to this interpretation by stressing the fact that soldiers have always owed unquestioning obedience to orders. This is true enough, but the objection ignores the important difference between the ground soldiers and the bomber pilot. The former is close to the destruction caused by one’s weapon, and one does not, by a single act, cause the destruction of large masses of human beings whom one has never seen. The most one could say is that traditional army discipline and feelings of patriotic duty will also, in the case of pilots increase the readiness for unquestioning execution of orders; but this does not seem to be the main point, as it undoubtedly is for the average soldier who fights on the ground. These pilots are highly trained, technically minded people who hardly need this additional motivation to do their job properly and without hesitation. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
Even the mass extermination of the Jews by the Nazis was organized like a production process, although the mass extermination in the gas chambers did not require a high degree of technical sophistication. At one end of the process the victims were selected in accordance with the criterion of the capability for doing useful work. Those who did not fall into this category were led into the chambers and told that it was for a hygienic purpose; the gas was let in; clothes and other useful objects such as hair, gold teeth, were removed from the bodies, sorted out and “recycled,” and the corpses were burned. The victims were “processed” methodically, efficiently; the executioners did not have to see the agony; they participated in the economic-political political program of the Fuhrer, but were one step removed from direct and immediate killing with their own hands. Today, people like Senator Bernie Sanders and the fallen Senator, now Mayor of Sacramento, California USA, Darrell Steinberg are still bitter and holding on to deeply rooted hostility about the holocaust. However, I should like to remind those who may say that this “one step” was too little to matter, that millions of otherwise decent people show no reaction when cruelties are committed many steps removed from them by their state or party. How many steps removed were the men and women who profited from the atrocities committed against the Blacks and Whites in Africa by the Belgian administration at the beginning of the twentieth century? To be sure, one step is less than five, but it is only a quantitative difference. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
N doubt, to harden one’s heart against being touched by the fate of human beings whom one has seen and selected, and who are to be murdered only a few hundred yards away within hours requires a much more thorough hardening than is the case with the aircrews who drop bombs and Agent Orange. However, in spite of this difference the fact remains that the two situations have a very important element in common: the technicalization of destruction, and with it the removal of the full affective recognition of what one is doing. Once this process has been fully established there is no limit to destructiveness because nobody destroys; one only serves the machine for programmed—hence, apparently rational—purposes. Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty, the primate of Hungry, stood naked in his chilly cell in the secret-police headquarters at 60 Andrassy Street in Budapest, trembling with fear and cold as a furious agent of the state advanced on him with a rubber truncheon in one hand and a long knife in the other. “I’ll kill you,” the man snarled, lashing the truncheon across the cardinal’s back. “By morning I’ll tear you to pieces and throw the remains of your corpse into the canal. We are the masters now.” He prodded Cardinal Mindszenty with the knife. The cardinal moved away. And another prod. And another. The cardinal moved and moved again. Soon he was running in circles. For several hours the agent drove the naked, middle-aged prelate unrelentingly around the cell like a horse in training. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
It was late January 1949. Cardinal Mindszenty had been enduring such tortures since his arrest the day after Christmas. Every night his Communist interrogators demanded that he confess to crimes against the state, including the preposterous charge that he had conspired with the American government to restore a Hapsburg king to the throne of Hungary. Every night Cardinal Mindszenty refused to sign the confession. During the day the cardinal sat on a filthy couch trying to recover from the night’s tortures. If he drifted into sleep, one of the jailers who sat in the room prodded him awake. At night the cycle began again. “I was being made to feel in my soul, my body, my nerves, and my bones the power of bolshevism which was taking over the country,” he later wrote. Although his jailers may not have known it, Cardinal Mindszenty embodied, in a sense, the sufferings of an entire nation. The events that led to his imprisonment paralleled the ideological imprisonment of the Hungarian churches. The Communists had consolidated their power the Summer before, in 1948, and their first target had been the churches. Two days after the new regime took control, they secularized the nation’s religious schools. Party boss Matyas ‘Rakosi pressed church leaders to submit to government control over church affairs, including requirements that priest and ministers publicly support government policies. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
Bishop Lajos Ordass, the ablest leader of the Lutheran Church, refused to cooperate and was arrested and imprisoned. Bishop Laszlo Ravasz, the independent-minded head of the Hungarian Reformed Church, was forced out and replaced by a complaint theologian who thought support for Marxist Leninism was obligatory for Christians. The chief obstacle to the Communists’ plans, however, was Cardinal Mindszenty. As Catholic primate, he was the leader of the largest denomination in Hungary, a stubborn man with a record of fierce opposition to tyrants. The Nazis had jailed him during World War II. Later, as Communist powers grew in Hungary, he constantly protested their abuses of human rights. Cardinal Mindszenty was especially offended by the government’s demand that the church sign a formal treaty with the state. He had watched Lenin and Stalin subdue the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union through a campaign of terrorism, judicial persecution, and subversion. He vowed that he would not allow the same thing to happen in Hungary. The church-state agreement in the Soviet Union gave the state control over religious instruction, seminary education, and appointment of bishops. Bishops were called upon to give public support to government policies when their Communist masters wanted it, and all priests had to swear allegiance to the Communist government. Significantly, the party ruthlessly forbade the church to evangelize or to provide services to the less affluent, elderly, sick, and disadvantaged. Thus, the church was barred from conducting any activities that would publicly testify to its members’ allegiance to another King, even of the King was God! #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Party Chief Rakosi wanted to make the church in Hungary a puppet church like the one in the Soviet Union. Cardinal Mindszenty would have none of it. After months of bickering with the recalcitrant cardinal, Chief Rakosi and his henchmen moved against the church leader. The day after Christmas 1948, police occupied the cardinal’s offices in Esztergom. Officers carrying submachine guns led Cardinal Mindszenty to a car and drove him to secret-police headquarters in Budapest. There he was subjected to torture. Thirty-nine days after his arrest—beaten, confused, plagued with despair, and racked with fear and anxiety—the cardinal signed the confession the authorities wanted. Later he told the harrowing account of those wees of torture in his memoirs. The mental and psychological pain were far worse than the deprivations and beatings, he wrote, and he was certain that the police had used drugs on him. He candidly admitted that the Communist torturers had shattered his personality, reducing him to a state where even the regime’s most absurd charges began to seem plausible. Certainly the man whom the Communists put on public trial for treason in February 1949 looked like a drugged, programmed shell, reciting the lines of a memorized script. He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to life in prison. Soon after Cardinal Mindszenty’s trial, the government suppressed the Catholic Church in Hungary. Religion schools were abolished, religious instruction was outlawed, and religious orders were dissolved. Monks and nuns scattered into the population and were left to what work they could. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
In their place the government organized “peace priests” composed of ambitious collaborators and cover Communist agents. Soon the priests, many of whom led dissolute lives, controlled all the higher posts in the church. Catholics who wanted authentic pastoral care had to seek out priests who carried on their ministry in secret. Eventually the regime got the agreement it wanted. The bishops agreed to support the government and its “peace priest” movement, and to tolerate state supervision of seminary training, clerical appointments, and other internal matters. In return, the government allowed the church to open eight schools and out the clergy on the state payroll. The Reformed Church submitted to a similar agreement. Thus the Communist rulers in Hungary have achieved what they consider “normal” relations with the church. Church authorities clear key appointments in advance with the government. Troublesome clerics are reassigned to the provinces. Bishops make regular expressions of support to the regime. When needed, priests and ministers read from their pulpits pastoral letters composed by the government Bureau of Religious Affairs. However, Christianity and Communism are irreconcilable in their basic premises. The Church believes that the dynamic of all history is spiritual, that its unfolding reveals God’s dealings with humans, that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, and that at the end of history, He will reign over all nations. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
For Marxists, the material realm is all there is. God and spiritual order are illusions. Humankind swims in the current of history, which progresses by economic forces from the decline of capitalism, through the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the Earthly paradise of the classless society. Communists are materialists and determinists; individuals count for nothing, the collective of the state for everything. Lenin thought that those who believed in God were worse than fools. “For he occupies himself not with activity, but with self-contemplation and self-reflection, and tries thereby to deify his most unclean, most stupid, and most servile features and pettinesses.” Consequently, anyone who believes in God is not simply in error; one is mentally deranged. This is why believers in God in the Soviet Union are frequently judged insane and committed to mental institutions. If these considerations regarding the technical-bureaucratic nature of modern large-scale destructiveness are correct, do they not lead to the repudiation of my central hypothesis concerning the necrophilous nature of the spirit of total technique? Do we not have to admit that contemporary technical humans are not motivated by a passion for destruction, but would be more properly described as a totally alienated human whose dominant orientation is cerebral, who feels little love but also little desire to destroy, who has become, in a characterological sense, an automaton, but not a destroyer? #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
This is not an easy question to answer. To be sure, in Marinetti, in Hitler, in thousands of members of the Nazi and Stalinist secret police, guards in concentration camps, members of execution commandos the passion to destroy is the dominant motivation. However, were they not perhaps “old-fashion” types? Are we justified in interpreting the spirit of the “technotronic” society as necrophilous? Sadism is often a by-product of the anal character. However, even the sadists are will with others; they want to control, but not to destroy them. Those in whom even this perverse kind of relatedness is lacking, who are still more narcissistic and more hostile, are the necrophiles. Their aim is to transform all that is alive int dead matter; they want to destroy everything and everybody, often even themselves; their enemy is life itself. While statistically speaking the phenomenon of total alienation probably does not exist in the majority of the American population, it is characteristic of the sector that is most indicative of the direction in which the whole society is moving. In fact, the character of the new type of human does not seem to fit into any of the older categories, such as the oral, anal, or genital character. I have tried to understand this new type as a “marketing character. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
For the marketing character everything is transformed into a commodity—not only things, but the person oneself, one’s physical energy, one’s skills, one’s knowledge, one’s opinions, one’s feelings, even one’s smiles. This character type is a historically new phenomenon because it is the product of a fully developed capitalism that is centered around the market—the commodity market, the labour market, and the personality market—and whose principle it is to make a profit by favourable exchange. This market is by no means entirely free in contemporary capitalism. The labour market is determined to a large extent by social and political factors, and the commodity market is highly manipulated. Cybernetic humans are so alienated that they experience their bodies as an instrument for success. One’s body must look youthful and healthy; it is experienced narcissistically as a most precious asset on the personal market. This new type of person, after all, is not interested in feces or corpses; in fact, one is so phobic toward corpses that one makes them look more alive than the person was when living. (This does not seem to be a reaction formation, but rather a part of the whole orientation that denies natural, not human-made reality.) However, one does something much more drastic. One turns one’s interest away from life, persons, nature, ideas—in short from everything that is alive; one transforms all life into things, including oneself and the manifestations of one’s human faculties of reason, seeing, hearing, tasting, loving. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
These people become a sum of lifeless artifacts; from synthetic food to synthetic organs, the whole human becomes part of the total machinery that one controls and is simultaneously controlled by. One has no plan, no goal for life, expect doing what the logic of technique determines one to do. One aspires to make robots as one of the greatest achievements of one’s technical mind, and some specialists assure us that the robot will hardly be distinguished from living humans. This achievement will not seem so astonishing when humans themselves are hardly distinguishable from a robot. The World of life has become a World of “no-life”; persons have become “nonpersons,” a World of death. Death is no longer symbolically expressed by unpleasant-smelling feces or corpses. Its symbols are now clean, shining machines; humans are not attracted to smelly toilets, but to structures of aluminum and glass However, the reality behind this antiseptic façade becomes increasingly visible. Humans, in the name of progress, are transforming the World into a stinking and poisonous place (and this is not symbolic). They pollute the air, the water, the soil, the animals—and themselves. They are doing this to a degree that has made it degree that has made it doubtful whether the Earth will be livable within a hundred years from now. One knows that facts, but in spite of many protesters, those in charge go on in the pursuit of technical “progress” and are willing to sacrifice all life in the worship of their idol. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
In earlier times humans also sacrificed their children or war prisoners, but never before in history have humans been willing to sacrifice all life to the Moloch—one’s own and that of all their descendents. It makes little difference whether one does it intentionally or not. If one had no knowledge of the possible danger, one might be acquitted from responsibility. However, it is the necrophilous element in one’s character that prevents one from making use of the knowledge one has. The same is true for the preparation of nuclear war. The two superpowers are constantly increasing their capacities to destroy each other, as well as developing nations who are benefiting from the catch-up effect, and at least large parts of the human race with them. Yet they have not done anything serious to eliminate the danger—and the only serious things would be the destruction of all nuclear weapons. In fact, those in charge were already close to using nuclear weapons several times (some suspect that is how Obama got elected)—and gambled with the danger. Strategic reasoning—for instance, Herman Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War (1960)—calmly raises the question whether fifty million dead would still be “acceptable.” That this is the spirit of necrophilia can hardly be question. The phenomena about which there is so much indignation—drug addition, crime, the cultural and spiritual decay, contempt for genuine ethical values—are all related to the growing attraction to death and dirt. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
When it is promoted by those who direct the course of modern society, such as the fake news media who profits off of death, destruction, pain, suffering, and chaos, how can one expect that the young, the less affluent, and those without hope would not be attracted to decay? Thus far we have considered the connection: mechanical—lifeless—anal. However, another connection can hardly fail to come to mind as we consider the character of the totally alienated, cybernetic human: one’s schizoid or schizophrenic qualities. Perhaps the most striking trait in one is the split between thought-affect-will. (It was this split that had prompted E. Bleuler to choose the name “schizophrenia”—from Greek schizo, to split; phren, psyche—for this type of illness.) In the description of the cybernetic human we have already seen some illustrations of this split, for instance in the bomber pilot’s absence of affect, combined with the clear knowledge that one is killing a hundred thousand people by pushing a button. The cybernetic human is almost exclusively cerebrally oriented: one is a monocerebral human. One’s approach to the whole World around one—and to oneself—is intellectual; one wants to know what things are, how they function and how they can be constructed or manipulated. This approach was fostered by science, and it has become dominant since the end of the Middle Ages. It is the very essence of modern progress, the basis of the technical domination of the World and of mass consumption. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
Is there anything ominous about this orientation? Indeed it might seem that this aspect of “progress” is not ominous, were it not for some worrisome facts. In the first place this “monocerebral” orientation is by no means only to be found in those who are engaged in scientific work; it is common to a vast part of the population: clerical workers, reporters, sales people, engineers, lawyers, judges, physicians, managers, and especially many intellectuals and artists—in fact, one may surmise, to most of the urban population. (It is a remarkable fact that the most creative contemporary scientists, humans such as Einstein, Born, Schrodinger, have been among the least alienated and monocerebral individuals. Their scientific concern has had none of the schizoid quality of the majority. It is characteristic of them that their philosophical, moral, and spiritual concerns have pervaded their whole personality. They have demonstrated that the scientific approach as such does not have to lead to alienation; it is rather the social climate that deforms the scientific approach into a schizoid approach.) However, for most others who do display the schizoid character, they all approach the World as a conglomerate of things to be understood in order to be used effectively. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
Second, and not less important, this cerebral-intellectual approach goes together with the absence of an affective response. One might say feelings have withered, rather than that they are repressed; inasmuch as they are alive they are not cultivated, and are relatively crude; they take the form of passions, such as the passion to win, to prove superior to others, to destroy, or the excitement in pleasures of the flesh, speed, and noise. The monocerebral human is s much part of the machinery that one has built, that one’s machines are just as much the object of narcissism as one is oneself; in fact, between the two exists a kind of symbiotic relationship: the union of one individual self with another self (or any other power outside of the own self) in such a way as to make each lose the integrity of its own self and to make them dependent on each other. In a symbolic sense it is not nature any more than is human’s mother but the “second nature” one has built, the machines that nourish and protect one. Another feature of the cybernetic human—one’s tendency to behave in a routinized, stereotyped, and unspontaneous manner—is to be found in a more drastic form in many schizophrenic obsessional stereotypes. There is a loss of that primordial differentiation between living and lifeless matter. An attachment to a lifeless object, such as a chair or a toy is combined with the inability to relate to a living person. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
For the cybernetic human, the use of language (if they speak) is for manipulative purposes, but not as a means of interpersonal communication. If monocerebral cybernetic humans did not offer a picture of low-grade chronic schizophrenic process, it would be surprising. They live in an atmosphere that is only quantitatively less empty than a human being living alone in a cave because they do not relate to others and their presentation is schizogenetic (schizophrenia-producing) families. I believe that it is legitimate to speak of an “insane society” and of the problem of what happens to the sane human in such a society. If a society produced a majority of members who suffer from severe schizophrenia, it would undermine its own existence. The full-fledged schizophrenic person is characterized by the fact that one has cut off all relations with the World outside; one has withdrawn into one’s own private World, and the main reason one is considered severely sick is a social one: one does not function socially; one cannot take care of oneself properly; one needs in some way or other the help of others. (This is not entirely true, either, as experience has shown in all those places where chronic schizophrenics worked or took care of themselves, although with the help of certain people who arranged favourable conditions and at least some material contributions from the state.) A society, not to speak of a large and complex one, could not be run by schizophrenic persons. Yet it can be very well managed by persons suffering from low-grade schizophrenia, who are perfectly capable of managing the things to be managed if a society is to function. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
People with low grade schizophrenia have not lost the capacity to look at the World “realistically,” provided we mean by this to conceive of things intellectually as they need to be considered of in order to deal with them effectively. They may have lost entirely the capacity to experience things personally, id east, subjectively, and with their hearts. The fully developed person can, for instance, see a rose and experience it as warming or even fiery (if one puts this experience into words we call one a poet), but one also knows that the rose—in the realm of physical reality—does not warm as fire does. Modern humans have lost the capacity for subjective experience, and experiences the World only in terms of practical ends. However, one’s defect is not small than that of the so-called sick person who cannot experience the World “objectively,” but who has retained the other human faculty of personal, subjective, symbolic experiences. Many people are seized by one and the same affect with great consistency. Even if it is not, all one’s senses are so strongly affected by one object to be present. If this happens while the person is awake, the person is believed to be insane. However, if the greedy person think thinks only of money and possessions, the ambitious one only of fame, one does not thin of them as being insane, but only as annoying; generally one has contempt for them. However, factually greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, although usually one does not think of them as “illness.” #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
The pathology of normalcy rarely deteriorates to graver forms of mental illness because society produces the antidote against such deterioration. When pathological processes become socially patterned, they lose their individual character. On the contrary, the sick individual finds oneself at home with all other similarly sick individuals. The whole culture is geared to this kind of pathology and arranges the means to give satisfactions which fit the pathology. The result is that the average individual does not experience the separateness and isolation the fully schizophrenic person feels. One feels at ease among those who suffer from the same deformation; in fact, it is the fully same person who feels isolated in the insane society—one may suffer so much from the incapacity to communicate that it is one who may become psychotic. The most difficult problem with the schizophrenias offers in relation to necrophilia is that of destructiveness rooted in the schizophrenic aspect of the cybernetic human. One hundred fifty years ago, the answer would have seemed to be clear. It was generally assumed that schizophrenic patients are violent, and that for this reason they needed to be put in institutions from which they could not escape. The experiences with chronic schizophrenics working on farms or under their own management have demonstrated beyond any doubt that the schizophrenic person is rarely violent, when one is left in peace. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
Trying to force people with mental illness into the game of normal life intrudes on their private World. And, if additional, if the individual is forced to keep one’s ties with one’s family and cannot ye afford, one may withdraw completely. This situation may produce intense hate and destructiveness and account for the relatively greater frequency of violent tendencies some adults with mental illness. These speculations are of course very hypothetical and will need to be confirmed or rejected by specialists in this field. To formulate these aims of a successful life, reason is required, and reason is more than mere intelligence; it develops only when the brain and the heart are united, when feeling and thinking are integrated, and when both are rational. There is, I believe, no other country where the chances for the reassertion of life are greater than in the technically most developed country, the United States of American, where the hope that more “progress” will bring happiness has been proved to be an illusion for the most of those who have already had a chance to het a taste of the new “paradise.” Whether such a fundamental change will happen, nobody knows. The forces working against it are formidable and there is no reason for optimism. However, I believe there is reason for hope. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
A blessing expresses a wish that a deity look kindly on a person other than the one praying. It differs from the usual prayer in that pray-er offers themselves up as a link between the deity and the person blessed. They stand in, as it were, for the deity, serving as a mediator. God, please enter our home, and find your own, for the old ways are kept here and hospitality is a law all are proud to honour. Please be at my right hand, guiding my way. Please be at my left hand, guiding my way. God, please open my mind, and keep me safe, as I begin the great adventure of school. I stand here as your father, in the pace of the Father of All, as you prepare to move away and start your own household. Though you may live in another house, still God will protect you. Through you may join your life to another’s family, still will the Ancestors guide you. Though you may travel in strange lands, still will the spirits there welcome you. For my father’s blessings is not for your ears alone: the numinous beings hear, and they will honour it. Go on your way in safety, brining with you the blessings of my household God. As you have been with us, so will you stay a part of us. May they watch over you until we meet again. We stand in your place, Ancestors. We perform your deeds, Ancestors. Do not forget, let it be these words, Holy Ones, that my heart sings in my chest. Do not forget, do not forget, to walk in the sacred way. Do not forget, do not forget, that all I see is sacred. #RandolphHarri 24 of 25
Do not, forget, do not forget, my sacred duty to the World which surrounds me. Do not forget, do not forget. Please grant me this gift, you whom I worship, not to forget. Bring to naught designs of those who seek to do me ill; speedily defeat their aims and thwart their purposes for thine won 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 prayer of my heart be acceptable unto Thee, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Thou wo establishes peace in the shining Heavens, please grant peace unto us and unto all America. Amen. May it be Thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, to grant our portion in Thy Torah, and may the Temple be rebuilt in our day. There we will serve Thee with awe as in the days of old. I rise in reverence ready to fulfill the command of my Creator who hath enjoined upon us in His Torah: “And ye shall take for yourself on the first day the fruit of the goodly Hardar tree, branches of palm trees, a bough of the thick tree, and willows of the brook.” As I wave them, may the blessings of God be vouchsafed unto me and may I be imbued with holy thoughts reminding me that God is the supreme Lord, whose divine rule pervades the Earth below and the Heavens above, and whose kingdom has dominion over all. May my observance of this commandment be accounted as through I had fulfilled it with whole-hearted devotion. And let the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us; establish Thou the work of our hands; yea, they work of our hands establish Thou it. Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Humans are Good and there is No Evil that the Mind Cannot Overcome!
There are only three sins—causing pain, causing fear, causing anguish. The rest is window dressing. A somewhat less drastic expression of necrophilia is a marked interest in sickness in all its forms, as well as in death. An example is the parent who is always interested in one’s child’s sicknesses, one’s failures, and makes dark prognoses for the future; and the same time one is unimpressed by a favourable change, one does not respond to the child’s joy or enthusiasm, and one will not notice anything new that is growing within the child. One does not harm the child in any obvious way, yet one may slowly strangle one’s joy of life, one’s faith in growth, and eventually one will infect the child with one’s own necrophilous orientation. Anyone who has occasion to listen to conversations of people of all social classes from middle age onward will be impressed by the extent of their talk about sickness and death of other people. To be sure, there are a number of factors responsible for this. For many people, especially those with no outside interest, sickness and death are the only the only dramatic elements in their lives; it is one of the few subjects about which they can talk, aside from events in the family. However, granting all this, there are many persons for whom these explanations do not suffice. They can usually be recognized by the animation and excitement that comes over them when they talk about sickness or other sad events like death, financial troubles, and so forth. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
The necrophilous person’s particular interest in the dead is often shown not only in one’s conversation but in the way one reads the newspapers. One is most interested—and hence reads first—the death notices and obituaries; one also like to talk about death from various aspects: what people died of, under what conditions, who died recently, who is likely to die, and so on. One likes to go to funeral parlors and cemeteries and usually does not miss an occasion to do so when it is socially opportune. It is easy to see that this affinity for burials and cemeteries is only a somewhat attenuated form of the more gross manifest interest in morgues and graves. A somewhat less easily identifiable trait of the necrophilous person is the particular kind of lifelessness in one’s conversation. This is not a matter of what the conversation is about. A very intelligent, erudite necrophilous person may talk about things that would be very interesting were it not for the way in which one presents one’s ideas. One remains stiff, cold, aloof; one’s presentation of the subject is pedantic and lifeless. One the other hand the opposite character type, the life loving-person, may talk of an experience that in itself is not particularly interesting, but there is life in the way one present it; one is stimulating; that is why one listens with interest and pleasure. The necrophilous person is a wet blanket and joy killer in a group; one is boring rather than animating; one deadens everything and makes people feel tired, in contrast to the biophilous person who makes people feel more alive. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
Interior Word—it speaks not through uttered words clairaudiently heard as in spiritistic phenomena but through the higher form of spontaneous intuitively formulated thoughts. A voice comes to one’s hearing but not with the ordinary kind of audibility. It is within one for it is only a mental voice yet it speaks with a strange authority. It says to one, “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life.” However, still another dimension of necrophilous character only the past is experienced as quite real, not the present or the future. What has been, id est, what is dead, rules one’s life: institutions, laws, property, traditions, and possessions. Briefly, things rule the human; having rules being; the dead rule the living. In the necrophile’s thinking—personal, philosophical, and political—the past is sacred, nothing new is valuable, drastic change is a crime agist the “natural” order. Another aspect of necrophilia is the relation to colour. The necrophilous person generally has a predilection for dark, light-absorbing colours, such as black or brown, and a dislike for bright, radiant colours. (This colour preference is similar to the one often found in depressed persons.) One can observe this preference in their dress or in the colours they choose if they pain. Of course, in cases when dark clothes are worn out of tradition, the colour has no significance in relation to character. As we have already seen in the clinical material above, the necrophilous person is characterized by a special affinity to bad odors—originally the odor of decaying or putrid flesh. They have a frank enjoyment of bad odors. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
That form of enjoyment leads to the repression of the desire to enjoy bad odor that in reality does not exist. (This is similar to the overcleanliness of the anal character.) Whether of the one form or the other the necrophilic person’s fascination with bad odors frequently gives such persons the appearance of being “sniffers.” Not infrequently this sniffing tendency even shows in their facial expression. Many necrophilous individuals give the impression of constantly smelling a bad odor. Anyone who studies the many pictures of Hitler, for instance, can easily discover this sniffing expression in his face. This expression is not always present in necrophiles, but when it is, it is one of the most reliable criteria of such a passion. Another characteristic element in the facial expression is the necrophile’s incapacity to laugh. One’s laughter is actually a kind of smirk; it is unalive and lacks the liberating and joyous quality of normal laughter. In fact it is not only the absence of the capacity for “free” laughter that is characteristic of the necrophile, but the general immobility and lack of expression in one’s face. One can observe that such people in reality never “laugh” but only “grin.” While watching television one can sometimes observe a speaker whose face remains completely unmoved while one is speaking; one grins only at the beginning or the end of one’s speech when, according to American custom, one knows that one is expected to smile. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
Such persons cannot talk and smile at the same time, because they can direct their attention only to the one or the other activity; their smile is not spontaneous but planned, like the unspontaneous gestures of the poor actor. The skin is often indicative of necrophiles: it gives the impression of being lifeless, “dry,” sallow; when we sense sometimes that a person has a “dirty” face, we are not claiming that the face is unwashed, but are responding to the particular quality of a necrophilous expression. The necrophilous person is characterized by the predominant use of words referring to destruction and to feces and toilets. They frequently use foul language, one word in particular. They live in a deadened, joyless atmosphere. Mussolini and Hitler were, perhaps, rebels (Hitler more than Mussolini), but they were not revolutionaries. They had no genuinely creative ideas, nor did they accomplish any significant changes that benefited humans. They lacked the essential criterion of the revolutionary spirit: love of life, the desire to serve its unfolding and growth, and a passion for independence. However, some people disagree with that. They believe that Hitler’s belief that blonde, blue eyed, Germans were God’s chosen people and a master race is what lead to genetic editing and the idea of the American dream. The American Dream is more than just owning a beautiful house in the suburbs, a college education, successful career, a married couple with two kids and a car. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
The American dream also includes being beautiful or handsome and having blonde hair and blue eyes, fairly tall, and thin. Also loving things like red meat, barbeque, apple pie, milk, baseball, church, and American cars. There is also a love for the colour blue because it signifies intelligence. America is supposed to be the baby of Germany. “For any government deliberately to deny to their people what must be their plainest and simplest right, to live in peace and happiness without the nightmare of war, would be to betray their trust, and to call down upon their heads the condemnation of all humankind. I do not believe that such a government anywhere exists among civilized peoples. I am convinced that the aim of every state’s person worthy of the name, to whatever country one belongs, must be the happiness of the people for whom and to whom one is responsible, and in that faith I am sure that a way can and will be found to free the World from the curse of armaments and the fears that give rise to them, and to open up a happier, and wiser future for humankind,” reports Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, November 1937. Interior Word: Something within begins to speak to one, some mind beings to find its own expression. It is one’s, and yet not one’s. Government is a natural vocation for those raised in Unitarian tradition, with its belief in the universal goodness of all humans, growing out of a sense of duty to humankind and a deep-seated belief that reasonable, fair-minded humans can work together to solve any difficulty. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
The Overself issues its commands and exacts its demands in the utter silence and privacy of a human’s heart. Yet they are more powerful and more imperious in the end than any which issue from the noisy bustling World. If one comes under the tutelage of the Interior Word, one may count oneself fortunate. However, one’s good fortune will last only as long as one faithfully obeys it. The failure to do so will bring painful but educative retribution. It is as if no one existed but these two—the listening mind and the soundless voice. This is real solitude; this is the true cloister to which a human may retire in order to find God; this is the desert, cave, or mountain where, mentally, one renounces the World’s business and abandons friends, family, and all humanity. The Germans believed themselves, on the whole, to be the most powerful humans of the most powerful empire in the history of the World. His Majesty’s Government could not take responsibility of advising the chancellor to take any course of action that might expose his country to dangers against which His Majesty’s Government was unable to guarantee protection. Nancy Astor, a devout Christian Scientist, always had Christian Science lectures at her weekend gatherings. Lord Astor and Lord Lothian were Christian Scientists too. Their sympathetic view of Germany was strengthened by the Christian Science doctrine that humans are good, that there is no evil that the mind cannot overcome. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
If human beings can sit down and reason together, it would be possible to ease tensions overnight. Yet some people are intent on singing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness. They glorify war as they believe in is the World’s only hygiene, and want to destroy museums, libraries, academies of every kind, and want to fight moralism, feminism, and every opportunistic individual. Nancy Astor said in one of her wild, stabbing protests, “It’s madness. War will destroy Western civilization. Europe will be destroyed. Then certainly Communism will spread, for it always feeds on death like a vulture.” Unquestionably! We would not be fighting to preserve something. Unless war is averted now there will be no one left who knows the meaning of the words right and wrong. This is no longer an affair of national pride and laws of right and wrong. It is a case of our whole civilization going under. A darkness hangs over America. Trenches are being dug in secret locations. Children are expected to be herded into trains, evacuating cities that everyone expects to be annihilated by COVID-19. Our first duty is not to avoid confrontations with evil but to restrain it. Place your faith in the innate goodness and reasonableness of humans. Christian Scientists believe that all evil is an illusion that can be eliminated by the exercise of the mind. We need an independent moral voice for the country. God Himself speaks exclusively through international gatherings. However, many people are putting more faith in progressive politics and economics and the fictional news media than in God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
Many churches, representing the Kingdom of God, are caught up in the trendy issue of the time, surrendering its influence as an independent moral voice. This failure of both the state and the church contributed to the disaster that has befell the World. However, peace may be restored. It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all humankind that from this solemn occasion a better World shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past—a World founded upon faith and understanding—a World dedicated to the dignity of humans and the fulfillment of their most cherished wish—for freedom, tolerance, and justice. Nietzsche was not saying that God does not exist, but the God had become irrelevant to people because they are closing the church, partaking in evil, worshipping fictional news and political, not God. Men and women may assert that God’s exists or that He does not, but it makes littler difference either way. God is dead not because He does not exist, but because we live, play, procreate, govern, and die as though He does not. The effect of this widespread notion can be seen in the despair that followed the COVID-19 pandemic. Churches were forced to close, but you see people out in the streets eating expensive restaurant food, but no accommodations like that being made for people who want to worship God. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
This militant atheism that has claimed countless lives Worldwide and caused the death of God has had profound implications for individuals as well as for society and politics because it is the philosophic context in which modern governments operate. In the New World civilization, God has traditionally played the role of legitimizing government. In classical and Christian political philosophy He was the author of natural law—that body of just and reasonable standards that guided human rulers and by which the ruled were bound to respect and obey those given charge over them. Even atheistic political philosophy acknowledged that the idea of God was useful: a little dose of religion would keep the masses quiet. As Napoleon said, “Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” Atheism has become militant…insisting it must be believed. Atheism has felt the need to impose its views, to forbid competing visions. Without Gd there will be wars of a kind that have never happened on the Earth, this is more serious the climate change. The devaluation of all values is what the death of God has meant to politics. Distinctions between right and wrong, justice and injustice have become meaningless. No objective guide is left o choose between “all men are created equal” and “the weak to the wall.” In Year Zero no one could have predicted the consequences that the void at the heart of nations would produce. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
However, this spiritual vacuum means that humans can only pursue two options: first to imagine that they are gods themselves, or second, to seek satisfaction in their senses. “If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God), you should pay your respects to Hitler and Stalin,” reports T.S. Eliot. God remains dead. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it? Today, 33 percent of the World’s population and growing lives in the viselike grip of states that are the product of such gangster-state’s people who established governments that attempt to fill the vacuum of values with secular ideology or the cult of personality. The goal of these massive bureaucracies is to preside over the death of God; their system for achieving it is most often called Marxist Leninism. It carries out its policies with surgical efficiency, as millions of Christians and Jews who have passed through Communist gulgas would testify. If they could. However, sometimes the system performs with comic clumsiness. We live in a Cairo bazaar of competing models. In this psychological phantasmagoria we search for a style, a way of ordering our existence, that will fit our particular temperament and circumstances. We look for heroes or mini-heroes to emulate. The style-seeker is like the lady who flips through the pages of a fashion magazine to find a suitable dress pattern by Paris Hilton. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
She studies ne after another, settles on one that appeals to her, and decide to purchase that dress. Next she begin to collect the necessary materials, thinks about how many hours she will have to work to earn the dress, imagines the cloth, thread, piping, buttons, et cetera. In precisely the same way, the life style creator acquires the necessary props One lets one’s hair grow. One buys art nouveau paintings and hardcovers of Anne Rice’s novels. One learns to discuss Marcuse, Guevara, Edith Warton, and Frantz Fanon. One picks up a particular jargon, using words like “relevance” and “establishment.” None of this means that one’s political actions are insignificant, or that one’s opinions are unjust or foolish. One may (or may not) be accurate in one’s views of society. Yet the particular way in which one chooses to express them is inescapable part of one’s search for personal style. The lady, in constructing the work hours to pay for her dress, alters her habits here and there, deviating from the usual pattern in minor ways to make sure she has enough money saved up to buy that high quality dress. If she buys one a month, in a year she will have 12 fancy dresses that may last a lifetime. The end product is she has a truly custom-made wardrobe; enough dresses to wear a new one everyday for nearly two weeks. In quite the same way we individualize our style of living, yet usually winds up bearing a distinct resemblance to some life style model previously packaged and marketed by a subcult. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
People know how to make themselves look rich. They do not waste money, but they save up and buy the things they desire. Often we are unaware of the moment when we commit ourselves to one life style model over all others. The decision to “be” and Executive or Militant Atheists or a West Side Intellectual is seldom the result of purely logical analysis. Nor is the decision always made cleanly, all at once. The research scientist who switches from Ocean Spray Cranberry 100 percent juice to R. W. Knudsen 100 percent cranberry juice may do so for health reasons without recognizing that the trat taste of cranberry juice is part of a whole life style toward which one finds oneself drawn to. The couple who choose the Tiffany Magnolia Nouveau Floral 73” floor lamp think they are furnishing their Cresleigh Home; they do no necessarily see their actions as an attempt to flesh out an overall style. Most of us, in fact, do not think of our own lives in terms of life style, and we often have difficulty in talking about it objectively. We have even more trouble when we try to articular the structure of values implicit in our style. The task is doubly hard because many of us do not adopt a single integrated style, but a composite of elements drawn from several different models. We may emulate both Hippie and Surfer. We may choose a cross between West Side Intellectual and Executive—a fusion that is, in fact, chose by many publishing officials in Manhattan, New York USA. When one’s personal style is a hybrid, it is frequently difficult to disentangle the multiple models on which it is based. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
Once we commit ourselves to a particular model, however, we fight energetically to build it, and perhaps even more so to preserve it against challenge. For the style becomes extremely important to us. This is doubly true of the people of the future, among whom concern for style is downright passionate. This intense concern for style is not, however, what literary critics means by formalism. It is not simply an interest in outward appearances. For style of life involves not merely the external forms of behaviour, but the values implicit in that behaviour, and one cannot change one’s life style without working some change in one’s self-image. The people of the future are not “style conscious” but “life style conscious.” This is why little things often assume great significance for them. If it challenges a hard-worn life style, if it threatens to break up the integrity of the style, a single small detail of one’s life may be charged with emotional power. Aunt Wendy gives us a wedding present. We are embarrassed by it, for it in in a style alien to our own. It irritates and upsets us, even the we know that “Aunt Wendy does not know any better.” We banish the Sophia 35-Light Candle Style Tiered Chandelier with Crystal Accents by Schonbek to the attic of the house. Aunt Wendy’s Amana MXP22TLT Menumaster Higher Speed Combination Oven – WiFi ready or the set of eight Prestige Gala Charger Dinner Plates is not important in and of itself. However, it is a message from a different subcultural World, and unless we are weak in commitment to our own style, unless we happen to be in transition between styles, it represents a potential threat. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
The psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term “cognitive dissonance” to mean the tendency of a person to reject or deny information that challenges one’s preconceptions. We do not want to hear things that may upset our carefully worked out structure of beliefs. Similarly, Aunt Wendy’s gift represents an element of “stylistic dissonance.” It threatens to undermine our carefully worked out style of life. Why does the life style have this power to preserve itself? What is the source of our commitment to it? A life style is a vehicle through which we express ourselves. It is a way of telling the World which particular subcult or subcults we belong to. Yet this hardly accounts for its enormous importance to us. The real reason why life styles are so significant—and increasingly so as the society diversifies—is that, above all else, the choice of a life style model to emulate is a crucial strategy in our private war against crowing pressures of overchoice. Deciding, whether consciously or not to be “like” William Buckley or Joan Baez, Lionel Trilling, Paris Hilton, Jet Li, Aaliyah Haughton, E40, or his surfer equivalent, J. J. Moon, rescues us from need to make millions of minute life-decisions. Once a commitment to a style is made, we are able to rule out many forms of dress and behaviour, many ideas and attitudes, as inappropriate to our adopted style. The college boy who chooses to give it the Ole American try wastes little energy agonizing over whether who to vote for in the presidential election, carry an attache case, or invest in mutual funds. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
By zeroing in on a particular life style we exclude a vast number of alternatives from further consideration. The fellow who opts for a BMW M8 need no longer concern oneself with the hundreds of types of automobiles available to one on the open market, but which violate the spirit of one’s style. One need only choose among the far smaller repertoire of M8 Competition Ultimate Driving Machines from Niello BMW in Sacramento, California that fit within the limits set by one’s model. And what is said of BMW M8 Competition Ultimate Driving Machines is equally applicable to one’s ideas and social relationships as well. The commitment to one style of life over another is thus a super-decision. It is a decision of a higher order than the general run of everyday life-decisions. It is a decision to narrow the range of alternatives that will concern us in the future. So long as we operate within the confines of the style we have chosen, our choices are relatively simple. It is painful because, freed of our commitment to any given style, cut adrift from the subcult that gave rise to it, we no longer “belong.” Worse yet, our basic principles are called into question and we must face each new life-decision afresh, alone, without security of a definite, fixed policy. We are, in short, confront with the full, crushing burden of overchoice again. The Interior Word: When another personality speaks from the entranced or semi-entranced body, be the latter a spiritualist medium, a hypnotized person, or a psychologically auto-suggested one, we have a phenomenon in which no true mystic would take part. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
When this same personality announces itself to be Jesus, Krishna, Saint Francis, Mrs. Eddy, or Mme. Blavatsky, it may immediately be labelled as spurious. Whether the phenomenon be produced by actual spirit-possession (when usually a lying spirit is the operating agent) or by psychological self-obsession, with the wakeful personality unconscious of what the other has said, in both cases it is one which ought to be avoided. The Catholic Church, with its very wide experience in such matters, has cautioned its adherents against being seduced either into allowing the thing to happen or into believing the teaching given by the mysterious visitor. Pope Benedict XIV went so far as to ascribe a diabolic origin in the voice. From the standpoint of philosophy it may be said that the Inner Word speaks only to a human, never through one to others. Nor is it heard clairaudiently and therefore psycho-physically; it is heard only mentally and inwardly. The phenomenon of the Interior Word does not ordinarily appear before one is able to carry the mind to a certain depth or intensity of concentration, and to hold it there continuously for not less than about a half hour. In that state of inspired communion when the Interior Word is heard, thoughts keep coming into consciousness from a source deeper than the personal mind. The ego is not directly thinking them but instead experiences them as being impressed upon it or released into it. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
The utterance of the Interior Word can be heard only in Heaven, only in a state detached from the animality and triviality of the common state. It is as if another being spoke inside me—not with audible voice but with mental voice—and imposed itself strongly on my own mind. Interior Word: Out of this blankness something will begin to speak to one. It will not be a sound heard with the body’s ears. If it happened, that would be a low psychic manifestation which must be stopped at once. Until the internal Word speaks in one one is really incapable of helping others spiritually. One may be able to do so intellectually or to comfort them emotionally but that is a different and inferior thing. If the Interior Word bids one move in any direction which seems encompassed by difficulties or blocked by obstacles so that one can see no way before one, let one not doubt or fear. A way will be made by the power of the Overself. One need only obey, relax, and trust the guidance. When the Inner Word begins to speak to one, one may begin to speak to others—not before. For only then will what one says bear any creative power, spiritual inspiration, enlightenment, or healing in it. The Interior Word carries an authoritative and commanding tone. Adults have some control over their environment, but children depend on adults to provide a home for them. In addition to love, security, understanding, and encouragement, reverence plays an important part in a safe and happy home. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
Reverence is respect, honour, and love for our Heavenly Father, for His Son, Jesus Christ, and for all of His creations. It is more than just holding bodies still and being quiet during meetings; it is an attitude. It can become a way of life for each of us as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Reverent habits often precede reverent feelings. Prayer is a source of great peace for all of us. Habits of reverence can begin early in our home when we help children learn to pray. The way we pray with our children can be a teaching and building experience. In general, the divine beings like us. That is one of the reasons they want our prayers and offerings; if they did not care about us, they would not care about our prayers. That is why they respond well to petitionary prayers; they want to help us. They really do. Some of them are ambivalent, however. Why should the Land Spirits feel warmly toward us when we cut down their forests and pave over their meadows? Do not feel too smug because you have protested against logging in old growth forest or rain forest. Where do you think the land your house is built on came from? What kind of land was there before it was plowed under to grow your food? There used to be rain forests in the Bay Area. Dealing with Land Spirits can be difficult. We have to show them we are grateful for their sacrifice. We do this by giving something back. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
Dear Lord in the shining Heaven, I offer you my thanks and condolences for your sacrifices. I know you are here, and I wish for your friendship, for me and my people. Please accept what I give you, and please do not forget me. The Interior Word is not heard with the reasoning mind, even though its statements may be very reasonable. It is not connected with the intellect at all, as are all our ordinary words. It is received in the heart, felt intensively and deeply. Now that one has developed the capacity to hear, there are sounds forth out of the obscure recesses of one’s being a silent voice, a messenger without name or form. It is the Word. The Interior Word is never enigmatic and puzzling but always direct and simple. Only the revelations of occultism are obscure, never the revelations of truth itself. What the German mystics called “the Interior Word” is precisely the same as what two thousand years earlier the Mandarin Chinese mystics called the “Voice of Heaven.” The Interior Word cannot speak frequently until there is complete silence within the human’s being. The ideas which come to one’s mind through the Interior Word come stamped with the certitude of truth. Internal Word: In the New Testament, John introduces the idea of the logo, the Word which speaks in every human who comes into the Word. Every human is not able to hear it although it is always there, always immanent. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
The Interior Word is referred to in the Bible: “I will hear what the Lord God will speak to me,” reports Psalms 84.9. To corrupt nature is not the work of providence. However, it is the nature of some things to be contingent. Divine providence does not therefore impose any necessity upon things so as to destroy their contingency. Divine providence imposes necessity upon some things; not upon all, as some formerly believed. For to providence it belongs to order things towards an end. Now after the divine goodness, which is an extrinsic end to all things, the principal good in things themselves is the perfection of the Universe; which would not be, were not all grades of being found in things. Whence it pertains to divine providence to produce every grade of being. And thus it has prepared for something necessary causes, so that they happened of necessity; for others contingent causes, that they may happen by contingency, according to the nature of their proximate cause. The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow; but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the plan of divine providence conceives to happen from contingency. The order of divine providence is unchangeable and certain, so far as all things foreseen happen as they have been foreseen, whether from necessity or from contingency. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
That indissolubility and unchaneableness of which Boethius speaks, pertain to the certainty of providence, which fails not to produce its effect, and that in the way foreseen; but they do not pertain to the necessity of the effects. We must remember that properly speaking “necessary” and “contingent” are consequent upon being, as such. Hence the mode both of necessity and of contingency falls under the foresight of God, who provides universally for all being; not under the foresight of causes that provide only for some particular order of things. Our God and God of our fathers, please bless us with the threefold blessing written in the Torah of Moses, Thy servant, and spoken by Aaron and his sons, Thy consecrated priests: May the Lord bless thee and keep thee; so may it be His will. May the Lord make His countenance to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee; so may it be His will. May the Lord turn His countenance unto thee and give thee peace. So may it be His will. Please grant peace, well-being and blessing unto the World, with grace, lovingkindness and mercy for us and for all America, Thy people. Bless us, O Father, all of us together, with the light of Thy presence; for by that light Thou hast given us, O Lord our God, the Torah of life, lovingkindness and righteousness, blessing and mercy, life and peace. O may it be good in Thy sight at all times to bless Thy people America with Thy peace. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, wo blesses Thy people American with peace. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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Two of the cruelest, most primitive punishments our town deals out to those who fall from favour are the empty mailbox and the silent telephone. Grace is the divine help or strength extended to us through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Through the grace of God, everyone who has lived will be resurrected—our spirits will be reunited with our bodies, never again to be separated. Through His grace, the Lord also enables those who live His gospel to repent and be forgiven. “We believer that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved,” reports Acts 15.11. A miracle is an extraordinary event caused by the power of God. Miracles are an important element in the work of Jesus Christ. They include healings, restoring the dead to life, and resurrection. Faith is necessary in order for miracles to be manifested. Love is the measure of our faith, the inspiration for our obedience, and the true altitude of our discipleship. As we grow in faith, the World is continually becoming a better place. The Saviour Himself provided the answer to all of life’s problems with this profound declaration: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” This is the essence of what it means to be true disciple: those who receive Christ Jesus walk with him. Because love is the great commandment, it ought to be at the center of all and everything we do in our family, in our Church callings, and in our livelihood. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Love is the healing balm that repairs rifts in personal and family relationships. It is the bond that unites families, communities, and nations. Love is the power that initiates friendships, tolerance, civility, and respect. It is the source that overcomes divisiveness and hate. Love is the sun that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. Love should be our walk and our talk. When we truly understand what it means to love as Jesus Christ loves us, the confusion clears and our priorities align. Our walk as disciples of Christ becomes more joyful. Our lives take on new meaning. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father becomes more profound. Obedience becomes joy rather than a burden. God, the Eternal Father, did not give the first great commandment because He needs us to love Him. His power and glory are not diminished should we disregard, deny, or even defile His name. God’s influence and dominion extend through time and space independent of our acceptance, approval, or admiration. By careful practice, through the application of correct principles, and by being sensitive to the feelings that come, one will gain spiritual guidance. Throughout the ages, any have obtained guidance helpful to resolve challenges in their lives by following the example of respected individuals who resolved similar problems. Today, World conditions change so rapidly that such a course of action is often not available to us. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Personally, I rejoice in that reality because it creates a condition where we, of necessity, are more dependent upon the Spirit to guide us through the vicissitudes of life. Therefore, we are led to seek personal inspiration in life’s important decisions. What can you do to enhance your capacity to be led to correct decisions in your life? What are the principles upon which spiritual communication depends? What are the potential barriers to such communication that you need to avoid? Once you have received the Holy Ghost, follow the influence of that Spirit, and it will lea you into all truth, until by and by, it will become in you a principle of revelation. Father in Heaven knew that you would face challenges and be required to make some decisions that would be beyond your own ability to decide correctly. In His plan of happiness, God included a provision for you to receive help with such challenges and decisions. That assistance will come to you through the Holy Ghost as spiritual guidance. It is a power, beyond your own capability, that a loving Heavenly Father wants you to use consistently for your peace and happiness. Through whatever medium one uses—artistic or not, physical form or silent thought—one’s inspiration will be transmitted, one’s perception of truth disseminated. The intensity of one’s awareness will measure the degree of one’s influence. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Inspiration comes and goes as it will, staying a few minutes or abiding for quite a while. Work done under the Overself’s inspiration can never be tedious but will always be satisfying. To do something really worthwhile, to become creative and constructive in an inspired way, aware of the Overself, is to become Godlike. We then fulfill the purpose of human existence on Earth. Whoever keeps this divine flame burning brightly within one’s heart, radiates the spirit of one’s purpose to all whom one contacts. I am convinced that there is no simple formula or technique that would immediately allow one to master the ability to be guided by the voice of the Spirit. Our Father expects one to learn how to obtain that divine help by exercising faith in Him and His Holy Son, Jesus Christ. Were you to receive inspired guidance just for the asking, you would become weak and ever more dependent on Them. They know that essential personal growth will come as you struggle to learn how to be led by the Spirit. What may appear initially to be a daunting task will be must easier to manage over time as you consistently strive to recognize and follow feelings prompted by the Spirit. Your confidence in the direction you receive from the Holy Ghost will also become stronger. I witness that as you gain experience and success in being guided by the Spirit, your confidence in the impressions you feel can become more certain than your dependence on what you see and hear. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Where do such feelings come from? Certainly not from one’s ordinary self. They come from one’s higher self. Inspired work will always bear the glow of inner life. The Overself is not merely a pleasant feeling—although it arouses such a feeling—but a veritable force. When it possesses a human, one is literally and actually gripped by a dynamic energy. A creative power henceforth pervades one’s atmosphere, enters one’s deeds, permeates one’s mind and charges one’s words, and runs through one’s history. At this stage one feels its presence as being very active and very real: one is not alone. Finding inspiration begins with a pondering on lofty universal spiritual truths which lead one into a deeper dreamlike semi-trance condition. After this prelude one feels inspired with the ideas for one’s work. Spirituality yields two fruits. The first is the inspiration to know what to do. The second is power, or the capacity to do it. These two capacities come together. That is why Nephi could say, “I will go and do the thing which the Lord hath commanded.” Nephi knew the spiritual laws upon which inspiration and power are based. Yes, when we live obediently and exercise the required faith in Him, God answers prayer and gives us spiritual direction. Constantin Stanislavski, who founded the Moscow Art Theatre at the turn of the 20th century, and whose brilliant directing work was honoured by members of his profession throughout Europe, believed that the inspired states could be brought about deliberately. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Constantin Stanislavski further believed that when the inspired state was reached, the actor’s own nature fused with one’s role and that one was then unable to distinguish between the two. He said that this was the mark of the genius but admitted that it was unlikely to last more than a short time. “One cannot stay here long. Nature pulls one back from one’s ethereal atmosphere; body and World insist that one come back, duty and responsibility buzz in one’s ears. Reluctantly one returns.” Harsh words! They come from an artist, from Richard Wagner. They are one-sided, yes, exaggerated no doubt, but it was to one of these turnings-away that the World owes his finest, noblest opera, Parsifal. Geoff Hodson on Krishnamurti: “When he spoke to an audience, there was a moment when you saw the expression on his face change: at that moment I saw clairvoyantly a great being began to overshadow him. He became inspired.” Why did the crowds press into the lecture halls wherever Emerson came? Why did they listen in awe and silence to this man in whose mind glowed a divine lamp? Emerson gave them inspiration. I remember one day when A.E. (George Russell), the Irish poet and statesman, chanted t me in his attractive Hibernian brogue some paragraphs from his beloved Plotinus that tell of the gods, although the number of words which stick to memory are but few and disjointed, so drugged were my senses by his magical voice. “All the gods are venerable and beautiful, and their beauty is immense. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
“For they are not one time wise, and at another destitute of wisdom; but they are always wise, in an impassive, stable, and pure mind. They likewise know all things which are divine….For the life which is there is unattended with labour, and truth is their generator and nutriment…And the splendour there is infinite.” Impressions of the Spirit can come in response to urgent prayer or unsolicited when needed. Sometimes the Lord reveals truth to you when you are not actively seeking it, such as when you are in danger and do not know it. However, the Lord will not force you to learn. You must exercise your agency to authorize the Spirit to teach you. As you make this a practice in your life, you will be more perceptive to the feelings that come with spiritual guidance. Then, when that guidance comes, sometimes when you least expect it, you will recognize it more easily. “In Germany they came for the Communisis, and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up,” reports Martin Niemoller. The inspiring influence of the Holy Spirit can be overcome or masked by strong emotions, such as anger, hate, passion, fear, or pride. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
When such influences are present, it is like trying to savour the delicate flavour of a grape while eating a ghost pepper. Both flavours are present, but one completely overpowers the other. In like manner, strong emotions overcome the delicate promptings of the Holy Spirit. Sin is addictive; self-degenerating; conducive to other strains of corruption; deadening to spirituality, conscience, and reason; blinding to reality; contagious; destructive to mind, body, and spirit. Sin is spiritually corrosive. Unrestrained it becomes all-consuming. It is overcome by repentance and righteousness. Satan is extremely good at blocking spiritual communication by inducing individuals, through temptation, to violate the laws upon which spiritual communication is founded. With some, he is able to convince them that they are not able to receive such guidance from the Lord. The leader who makes an idol of oneself and one’s office, thus mocking God. Many Germans believed they were God’s chosen people, and Hitler the new messiah. The national revival was more vital than anything they had ever found in their faith. Their morning meetings had something of the mysticism and religious fervour of an Easter or Christmas Mass in the great Gothic cathedral. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Many people will betray anything for the sake of their miserable little jobs and incomes. The Germans were stirred by their love for their nation and their faith in its God-given destiny. No human qualities or human works can bring salvation—only the goodness of God. Some of the German pastors thought a more reasonable tone would be more honouring to those with different views. I mean, calling it “a new religion making idol of blood, race, nation, honour, eternal Germany.” Whether these sensations are noticed at all, or noticed as pleasant or as disturbing, depends on other factors (for instance, on whether the individual just had a pleasant phantasy of Go and what that stands for, or of spiritual purity or relaxing prayer0. When an individual has a God of the kind we have described, who provides spiritual nourishment where the individual’s phantasy, too, has put it, the individual has an experience which is called “object-finding-and-creating” or “discovering the object.” The phantasy experience created by the individual is then very closely connected with the sensory experience made possible by God presenting whatever the individual had put a phantasy of just then. Combining the two sets of neural input, we can then represent the neural pattern. In this representation, there is no gap between the expectation/phantasy/hope/need/wish and the experience wished for. The two coincide. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
The gap, between what the human needs and what one is given, is bridged when the object is found at the right moment—when phantasy (central processes) and the sensory input coincide. So the phantasy is confirmed by the World. In adult life we know this experience, of phantasy confirmed by sensory input, mainly in disconcerting context, as in the tiny confusion which results when you blow your nose at the precise moment that a train whistles or when a roll of thunder breaks just as you turn your head: “Did I do that?” This omnipotent element is characteristic of the age at which we originally experienced such coincidences as part of normal well-being; we were feeling “grand.” Someone who is increasingly repulsed by grievous sin and who exercises self-restraint outside human influence has character. Repentance will be more efficacious for such an individual. A feeling of remorse after a mistake is fertile soil wherein repentance can flower. Have patience as you are perfecting your ability to be led by the Spirit. By careful practice, through the application of correct principles, and by being sensitive to the feelings that come, you will gain spiritual guidance. I bear witness that the Lord, through the Holy Ghost, can speak to your mind and heart. Sometimes the impressions are just general feelings. Sometimes the direction comes so clearly and so unmistakably that it can be written down like spiritual dictation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
There is a moral psychology and acquisition of the sentiment of justice. Once these matters have been dealt with, we are in a position to discuss the relative stability of justice as fairness and to argue that, in a sense to be defined, justice and goodness are congruent, at least in the circumstances of a well-ordered society. A person’s good is determined by what is for one the most rational plan of life given reasonably favourable circumstances. In a well-ordered society citizens’ conception of their good conform to the principles of right publicly recognized and include an appropriate place for the various primary goods. However, the concept of goodness has been used only in a rather thin sense. And in fact I shall distinguish between two theories of the good. The reason for doing this is that in justice as fairness the concept of right is prior to that of the good. In contrast with teleological theories, something is good only if it fits into ways of life consistent with the principles of right already on hand. However, to establish these principles it is necessary to rely on some notion of goodness, for we need assumptions about the parties’ motives in the original position. Since these assumptions must not jeopardize the prior place of the concept of right, the theory of the good used in arguing for the principles of justice is restricted to the bare essentials. This account of the good I call the thin theory: its purpose is to secure the premises about primary goods required to arrive at the principles of justice. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Once this theory is worked out and the primary goods accounted for, we are free to use the principles of justice in the further development of what I shall call the full theory of the good. In order to clarify these matters, let us recall where a theory of the good has already played a role. First of all, it is used to define the least favoured members of society. The difference principle assume that this came be done. It is true that the theory need not define a cardinal measure of welfare. We do not have to know how disadvantaged the least fortunate are, since once this group is singled out, we can take their ordinal preference (from the appropriate point of view) as determining the proper arrangement of the basic structure. Nevertheless, we must be able to identify this group. Further, the index of well-being and the expectations of representative humans are specified in terms of primary goods. Rational individuals, whatever else they want, desire certain things as prerequisites for carrying out their plans of life. Other things equal, they prefer a wider to a narrower liberty and opportunity, and a greater rather than a smaller share of the wealth and income. That these things are good seems clear enough. However, I have also said that self-respect and a sure confidence in the sense of one’s own worth is perhaps the most important primary good. And this suggestion has been used in the argument for the two principles of justice. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Thus the initial definition of expectations solely by reference to such things as liberty and wealth is provisional; it is necessary to include other kinds of primary goods and these raise deeper questions. Obviously an account of the good is required for this; and it must be the thin theory. Again, some view of goodness is used in defending justice as fairness against various objections. For example, it may be said that the persons in the original position know so little about their situation that a rational agreement upon principles of justice is impossible. Since they do not know what their aims are, they many find their plans utterly ruined by the principles to which they consent. Therefore how can they reach a sensible decision? One might reply that the rationality of a person’s choice does not depend upon how much one knows, but only upon how much one knows, but only upon how well one reasons from whatever information one has, however incomplete. Our decision is perfectly rational provided that we face up to our circumstances and do the best we can. Thus the parties can in fact make a rational decision, and surely some of the alternative conceptions of justice are better than others. Nevertheless, the thin theory of the good which the parties are assumed to accept shows that they should try to secure their liberty and self-respect, and that, in order to advance their aims, whatever these are, they normally require more rather than less of other primary goods. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
In entering into the original agreement, then, the parties suppose that their conceptions of the good have a certain structure, and this is sufficient to enable them to choose principles on a rational basis. We need what I have called the thin theory of good to explain the rational preference for primary goods and to explicate the notion of rationality underlying the choice of principles in the original position. This theory is necessary to support the requisite premises from which the principles of justice are derived. However, looking ahead to other questions yet to be discussed, a more comprehensive account of the good is essential. Thus the definition of beneficent and supererogatory acts depends upon such a theory. So likewise does the definition of the moral worth of persons. This is the third main concept of ethics and we must find a place for it within the contract view. Eventually we shall have to consider whether being a good person is a good thing for that person, if not in general, then under what conditions. In some circumstances at least, for example those of a society well-ordered or in a state of near justice, it turns out, I believe, that being a good person is indeed a good. This fact is intimately connected with the good of justice and the problem of the congruences of a moral theory. We need an account of the good to spell al this out. The characteristic feature of this full theory, as I have said, is that it takes the principles of justice as already secured, and then uses these principles in defining the other moral concepts in which the notion of goodness is involved. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Once the principles of right are on hand, we may appeal to them in explaining the concept of moral worth and the good of the moral virtues. Indeed, even rational plans of life which determine what things are good for human beings, the values of human life so to speak, are themselves constrained by the principle of justice. However, clearly, to avoid moving in a circle, we must distinguish between the thin and the full theory, and always keep in mind which one we are relying upon. Finally, when we come to the explanation of the social values and the stability of a conception of justice, a wider interpretation of the good is required. For example, one basic psychological principle is that we have a tendency to love those who manifestly love us, those who with evident intention advance our good. In this instance our good comprises final ends and not only primary goods. Moreover, in order to account for the social values, we need a theory that explains the good of activities, and in particular the good of everyone’s willingly acting from the public conception of justice in affirming their social institutions. When we consider these questions we can work within the full theory. Sometimes we are examining the processes by which the sense of justice and moral sentiments are acquired; or else we are nothing that the collective activities of a just society are also good. There is no reason for not using the full theory, since the conception of justice is always available. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
However, when we ask whether the sense of justice is a good, the important question clearly is that defined by the thin theory. We want to know whether having and maintaining a sense of justice is a good (in the thin sense) for persons who are members of a well-ordered society. Surely if the sentiment of justice is ever a good, it is a good in this special case. And if within the thin theory it turns out that having a sense of justice is indeed a good, then a well-ordered society is as table as one can hope for. Not only does it generate its own supportive moral attitudes, but these attitudes are desirable from the standpoint of rational persons who have them when they assess their situation independently from the constraints of justice. This match between justice and goodness I refer to as congruence; and I shall examine this relation when we take up the good of justice. While charismatic figures may become style-setters, styles are fleshed out and marketed to public by the sub-societies or tribe-lets we have termed sub-cults. Taking in raw symbolic matter from the mass media, they somehow piece together odd bits of dress, opinion, and expression and form them into a coherent package: a life style model. Once they have assembled a particular model, they proceed, like any good corporation, to merchandise it. They find customers for it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Anyone doubting this is advised to read the letters of Allen Ginsberg to Timothy Leary, the two men most responsible for creating the hippie life styles, with its heavy accent on drug use. “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour,” reports 1 Peter 5.8. “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ,” 1 Peter 1.13. The successful “sale” of the hippie life style model to young people all over the techno-societies, is one of the classic merchandising stories of our time. Not all subcults are so aggressive and talented at flackery, yet their cumulative power in the society is enormous. This power stems from our almost universal desperation to “belong.” The primitive tribesman feels a strong attachment to one’s tribe. One knows that one “belongs” to it, and may even have difficulty imagining oneself apart from it. The techno-societies are so large, however, and their complexities so far beyond the comprehension of any individual, that it is only by plugging in to one or more of their subcults, that we maintain some sense of identity and contact with the whole. Failure to identify with some such group or groups condemns us o feelings of loneliness, alienation and ineffectuality. We begin to wonder “who we are.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
In contrast, the sense of belonging, of being part of a social cell larger than ourselves (yet small enough to be comprehensible) is often so rewarding that we feel deeply drawn, sometimes even against our own better judgment, to the values, attitudes and most-favoured life style of the group. However, we pay for the benefits we receive. For once we psychologically affiliate with a subcult, it begins to exert pressures on us. We find that it pays to “go along” with the group. It rewards us with warmth, friendship, and approval when we conform to its life style model. However, it punishes us ruthlessly with ridicule, ostracism or other tactics when we deviate from it. Hawking their preferred life style models, subcults clamour for our attention. In so doing, they act directly on our most vulnerable psychological property, our self-image. “Join us,” they whisper, “and you become a bigger, better, more effective, more respected and less lonely person.” In choosing among he fast-proliferating subcults we may only vaguely sense that our identity will be shaped by our decision, but we feel the hot urgency of their appeals and counter-appeals. We are buffeted back and forth by their psychological promises. At the moment of choice among them, we resemble the tourist walking down Bourbon Street in New Orleans. As one strolls past the honky-tonks and clip joints, doormen grab one by the arm, spin one around, and open the door so one can catch a titillating glimpse of the naked flesh of the adult dancers on the platform behind the bar. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Subcults reach out to capture us and appeal to our most private fantasies in ways far more powerful and subtle than any yet devised by Madison Avenue. What they offer is not simply a skin show or a new soap or detergent. They offer not a product, but a super-product. It is true they hold out the promise of human warmth, companionship, respect, a sense of community. However, so do the advertisers of deodorants and cranberry juice. The “miracle ingredient,” the exclusive component, the one thing that subcults offer than other hawkers cannot, is a respite from the strain of overchoice. For they offer not a single product or idea, but a way of organizing all products and ideas, not single commodity but a whole style, a set of guidelines that help the individual reduce the increasing complexity of choice to manageable proportions. Most of us are desperately eager to find precisely such guidelines. In the welter of conflicting moralities, in the confusion occasioned by overchoice, the most powerful, most useful “super-product” of all is an organizing principle for one’s life. That is what a life style offers. The fruit of prayer may include messages conveying general teaching or specific guidance but the student will recognize that they emanate from one’s own mind at its best or from one’s own intuition. However, one will know the Interior Word seems to come to one from a source outside oneself, from some higher being or master. It uses one’s own thought to speak to one but the inspiration for each thought is not one’s own. This is the Interior Word. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
The feeling of some presence inside one’s heart will become so powerful at intervals, so real and so intense, that one will quite naturally enter into conversation with it. One will implore it, pray to it, express love for it, and worship it. And one will find that it will answer one in words, the sentences forming themselves spontaneously within one’s mind as speech without sound. It will give one pertinent didactic instruction—often at unexpected moments—and formulate higher points of view. Interior Word. When one succeeds in penetrating the still depths of one’s being, another mind will appear to superimpose itself on one’s own, directing, teaching, and inspiring one. It will speak to one out of the silence within oneself yet it will not be one’s own voice. Its tone will be friendly, and when one becomes familiar with it one will know it to be none other than the voice of the Holy Spirit, the word of the Higher Self. As the interior word delivers its message to one day by day, as one advances in understanding through receiving it and in character by obeying it, one will have the best evidence that this quest which one first tried as an experiment is become a priceless experience. It is the soul speaking truth to the intellect out of its larger range of life. Its voice is best and easiest heard when the consciousness is turned inward away from the sense-existence and brought as near to stillness as we can make it. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Dear Lord in Shining Heaven, Wo know the woof and warp, who sees the pattern before the cloth exists, please form from my actions here that which will be if the thread remains as they are now arranged. The hard Earth lies vulnerable beneath the onslaught of the Sun’s rays, too weak from thirst even to raise her hands in prayer for relief. I do it for her, then; I raise my face to the Sun: shining disk, wheel of light, your power is indeed great, your place of honour is assured. I come to you as a herald, asking for peace. Please withhold your darts that are keeping back the rain clouds. Please allow them to come and quench the thirst of their sister below. Establish peace between yourself and the Earth: a true king knows when to relent. They sky is weeping great tears in sorrow at the Earth’s drought. Weep on, over-reaching clouds: Your sorrow will return life to the Earth. O gather our exiles into the courts of Thy holy sanctuary to observe Thy statues, to do Thy will, and to serve Thee with a perfect heart. We give thanks unto Thee. Blessed be God to whom we are ever grateful. For all this, Thy name, O our King, shall be blessed and exalted for ever and ever. May all the living do homage unto Thee forever and praise Thy name in truth, O God, who art our salvation and our help. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, Beneficent One, unto whom our thanks are due. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 