When we think of work, whether schooling, employment, hobbies, or any kind of goal-oriented behavior, we are faced with the concept of productivity—output, results, consequences. The industrial World has some fine measures of worker productivity, usually mathematically grounded, which can point at a glance to the number of units or hours or cases dealt with by the workers. Our economic system makes these kinds of figures important, for profit and loss sheets are based upon them. However, what of the individual and his or her own personal productivity? When utilizing self-actualization theory, rather than judge a person’s adequacy or worth in number-units of production, it is more fair, more humane, to consider the person as adequate or valuable first of all as a person. We do not and cannot see our World as a theater of conflict between supernatural powers, the demonic seeking to possess and destroy us, and God intervening to secure our salvation. Moreover, miracle stories lie at the very heart of New Testament belief: “If Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain” (I Corinthians 15.17). The value of the soul in the eyes of God, the accounts of the cross and the resurrection makes available a distinctly authentic and free mode of existence to all humanity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
When the person is acknowledged as valuable, then the outcome or productivity of one’s personhood follows easily. In other words, giving acknowledgment to a person of one’s selfhood encourages one o stretch oneself, not to prove it, but to demonstrate it. One will find work or tasks or situations that give one a chance to become more of what one potentially can be. This contains a reference to God that cannot be eliminated. “I can do everything through him who gives me strength,” reports Philippians 4.13. The student who wanted to be an auto science engineer will demonstrate more of oneself in automotive science, because it is an area of one’s own competence and intertest as well as one of pleasure to that individual. Many young workers today are insisting that their work be pleasurable in order to be productive. If this young man had followed his parents’ wishes and gone on to finish his degree, it is possible that he still could have done something of value for himself, but he might also have felt strongly that he was doing what his parent felt important, not what he himself valued. His resentment, no matter how rationalized, could have interfered with his personal effectiveness and satisfaction. It could have limited the pleasure he got from his work, and this could have stifled his productivity. “Whatever you do, work at it will all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,” report Colossians 3.23. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Most disabled people want to work because they want to be productive members of society, be well socialized, and want the ability to afford the things they need and desire, instead of feeling like life is slipping by them and as inflation rises, their dreams of owning a home become more fleeting than in the past. Disabled people have fewer opportunities to develop skills, face barriers and obstacles than many could not imagine and face negative attitudes from employers. For one who has special needs, employment is not always about what you want to do, but what can you do. Robert Finley, 64 years of age, from Bernice, Louisiana USA was born and raised in Winnsboro and is a sharecropper’s son. From when he was old enough to remember, he started playing music. And when he joined the military, Robert was the leader of the Army band when they were stationed in Germany. However, later in life he found that making a living play music was more difficult then he could have dreamed of. Therefore, in the 1970s, Robert Finely abandoned his dreams of becoming a rock star and became a carpenter like his father. However, in 2015, Robert Finely started to lose his eye sight and would make costly mistakes and had to retire. “May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us,” reports Psalm 90.17. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
After retirement, American blues and soul singer-songwriter and guitarist Robert Finely went back to playing music. He started enriching our culture through street performing in Helena, Arkansas. Like a blessing from God, that same year Robert retired, in 2015, he was discovered and recording with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. The Black keys is a major band, consisting of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, who won a Grammy Award in 2011 for their sounds Tighten Up, and four other Grammys in following years. After being discovered by Dan Auerbach, Robert Finely now opens for some of the biggest names in music such as Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats and currently is booked for several tours in the United States, Norway, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, and France. After his first successful album Age Don’t Mean a Thing, Robert is working on his second album Goin’ Platinum. And as you can see age does not limit one’s ability and that even people with disabilities can hone their talents and eventually turn them into money making opportunities. “I will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance,” reports 1 Nephi 1.20. One of the interesting things we find in surveying vocational attitudes is that people who feel their work limits them (either because they did not pick that job or because they had other competing interests) tend not to find as much satisfaction. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Resentment at the limitations of work too often creates physical problems. The following is a case in point: A young marketing major went to his physician because he could not seem to sleep nights. The physician found no organic problems, so he had the boy tell him about his work and schooling. The boy wanted to do well in marketing, so he studied hard and out in long hours on a part-time retail sales job. The boy’s father was a construction laborer who was semi-retired because of a work accident. The boy admitted that he did not want to get stuck in his father’s bag, because it was a dead-end street. He admitted that he was somewhat ashamed of his father’s lack of education and physical debility, and he compared himself unfavorably with friends whose fathers were all successful businessmen. The boy was motivated, in other words, to succeed in business more out of a need to prove something, or to exceed his father and a brother who was currently working in the same construction firm that had employed his father. The doctors asked the boy if marketing was really his interest. The boy said he really enjoyed history and wanted to teach it, but there was not enough money in teaching. He needed to succeed in a field more down to Earth than teaching because his father was skeptical of academics. So he had shelved his interest in history. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
His underlying feeling that he was cheating himself, that he was doing something out of a need to prove himself, to excel his father and brother, made him tremendously anxious. His anxiety was reduced by medication prescribed by the physician, who also referred him to a psychologist for counseling. The young man remained in marketing, but he came to see that his motivations were not as pure as they might be. He learned to accept this conflict and to do something about it. He took courses in areas he enjoyed more and at one point even considered changing his major, but his student deferment would not permit it, so he stayed in marketing. At present he is doing well in school, has more open and honest relationship with his father, enjoys his side course, and has reduced his anxiety level to the point where insomnia is nearly gone. Would not this young man be better off going into history? Not necessarily. He knows he has an aptitude for it, but he also knows and appreciates his aptitude for marketing. He does not think he wants to teach as much as to be in business, so for him history is going to offer only avocational benefits. He still has the economic motivation that will be better met by the business World than by teaching. “Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense,” reports Proverbs 12. 11. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
The young man’s output will be affected by the considerations about benefits and economic motivation of his career choice. He is less anxious and more accepting of himself, has a better relationship with the significant people in his life, and probably will do better in business than he would in teaching history. People with high productivity and creative levels are often self-actualizing people. They tend to be involved in work that demands much from them, like leadership, education, literature, and art. Because they feel so much better about themselves than the average deficiency-motivated person does, they get much more done, show much more for their efforts. However, with people who have physical limitations, and want to exceed in life, they have to find something that they can do and work at it everyday, until they are discovered or successful and given a chance to excel in life. So, while other people get to take breaks and are paid, everyday can be tough for someone who is highly motivated, but still have not reached the panicle of success because technically all they do is work, do not make much money, and some of the opportunities that they are given actually just end up exploiting them from profit and giving nothing back. However, if you keep your faith, keep your trust, keep a good and determined attitude, if you are grateful, you will see God open up new opportunities for you. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
I stretched out and scrunched down and put my head back and drifted, eyes shut at once. Our Heavenly Father is aware of all of us and have a specific plan for each individual. Often times, the opportunity to further our schooling is an answer to our prayers. But what of vocational choice? What if the child wants to become something other than what the parents might choose? Does the environment still support one’s choice? A young man discussed with his psychology teacher the following problem. He is the son of a school teacher father and school counselor mother. Because both parents have masters’ degrees and are intimately involved with education as a life’s work, they have unthinkingly assumed that their children would follow in the same path, at least to the extent of college. The student is a bright young man, getting B’s in most of his subjects, with occasional A’s. However, his best work does not come from the social science courses or the courses he might need to move on to the state college. His interest lies in cars. It began in junior high school when he bought himself a small motor scooter. He learned to take the scooter apart and do all the repair work. In high school he and his father teamed up to build a dune buggy out of the mother’s old Volkswagen Jetta sedan. He has is own BMW now, paid for it with money he earned from fixing cars for other people. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12
He feels strongly that we would like to drop of our junior college, go into the army, and take training in mechanics. He knows he could satisfy both his pleasures and his own interests and his parents’ desires for him to be a college student if he would remain in junior college and take a number of courses in the school’s fine auto mechanics program. The young man feels that this would be a compromise, since he really does not enjoy the other coursework nor is he particularly interested. The psychologist noticed the student’s embarrassment at saying he was not interested in psychology, and this promoted the teacher to push a bit further. He felt that the student was under a great burden of guilt because he did not share his parents’ enthusiasm for education. That turned out to be the real problem because parents influence children’s career choices both intentionally and inadvertently. By the time children move into adolescence, they begin seriously considering their futures, often looking to their parents either as role models or for career advice. A parent’s approach to this can either inspire teenagers to explore a diverse set of potential occupations or to stick to a path they think their parents would approve of. #RandolphHarris 2 of 12
In a few sessions, the student came to see that the psychology teacher was accepting him regardless of what he had said about the man’s field activity. The student gained some confidence and began to formulate plans to sit down with both parents. Generally, many people are the third or fourth generation of their families to work in the same profession. They have an insider’s glimpse into their parents’ occupations, making it easier for them to break in to the industry. If their parents’ jobs give them great satisfaction or provide a comfortable lifestyle, children see the perks early on, and may favor these careers over others. In contrast, if parents complain about their jobs or struggle to support the family on the income their jobs provide, children are more likely to seek more fulfilling or higher-paid roles. The student told his parents that he loved both of them as parents and as people, but that he had interests other than theirs. He appreciated all they had done for him, all the acknowledgement they had made of his interests and capabilities, but he wanted them to know that he was considering going into the army to learn mechanics. #RandolpHarris 3 of 12
The parents were shocked, not hurt. They had had no idea that their son could feel any other way but theirs about college. They both realized that they had not paid too much attention to what he wanted and had merely assumed that their interest would be his. The mother admitted she would have some trouble, because of personal pride, in accepting the fact that her son would not graduate from college, but having admitting it she realized that it was not as important as his doing what he honestly felt was a better expression of who he was. The father admitted that he had hoped the son would also go into teaching, but knew that the boy’s interest in mechanics was more than just a hobby. Studies have shown that happy people tend to earn higher salaries, and it stands to reason that these high-earners are happy, at least in part, because they have jobs they love. It is important to have passion for your career choice because it is more than just a source of income. If one does not enjoy what one does for a living, that individual will end up missing out on one’s life. A job is much more about personal fulfillment and growth. People want to change lives, including their own. One’s career should make one feel good emotional, both in and out of the office. A job that one loves gives the individual extra motivation to meet one’s goals, and a greater sense of accomplishment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 12
Cultural emphasis on higher education for everybody does not always take into account that some people cannot express their selfhood best in academic pursuits. Many people are mechanically or artistically or commercially or socially oriented. Although colleges are offering training in all these areas, some people will actually gain more from field experience, and will carry and radiate that success wherever they go, helping oneself in other aspects of one’s life. Another example of a supportive environment comes from the case of a young woman who had a different situation: The girl’s father was dead and she was helping to support her younger brothers and sisters. The mother worked very hard to operate a small gift and stationery store, with the girl helping her after classes, on Friday evenings and all day Saturdays. She enjoyed the work, had a warm and open relationship with her mother, and yet was troubled. She had a boyfriend whom she had dated for over two years. They were in love and wanted to get married. However, since he had received his draft notice, to marry him would mean to move and live near the base. #RandolphHarris 5 of 12
The mother needed the girl’s help in the ship and with the children in the home, but she also knew that her daughter was a person in her own right and needed to live her own life. The mother developed a deeper fear that her future son-in-law might get killed and that her daughter would be as hurt as she had been by her own husband’s death. She became away that her fears were keeping her from letting the girl go, and when she discovered this and worked it through with the help of her pastor, she was able to tell the girl to go ahead and do what she felt she must. Life for humans involves intellectual and emotional character, volitional choices moral and aesthetic values. God gives parents to children to help build the qualities into them that will prepare them for a most useful and satisfying life. We are to be imitators of God, our Heavenly Father, as beloved children. God has a goal in mind for his children, to conform them to the image of Christ. As parents, it is important to keep the objective in front of one, which is to see one’s children grow up to love God with all their hearts, and to love others as they live daily by submitting their thoughts, words, and deeds to the Lord Jesus Christ. God declares that a person’s ways later in life will be determined by one’s early experiences and training. #RandolphHarris 6 of 12
Most situations are idealistic. Not all parents are able to see that they often try to meet their own frustrated needs through their children. However, increasingly parents are learning how t be persons in their own right and to release the persons in their children. They may hope that their children will follow in their steps, will make them proud of them, will provide them with grandchildren and other long-term goals, but if the parents are whole persons who want their children to also be self-actualized, they will have no desire to live through their children nor want their children to live through them. Secondhand or vicarious experiences are never fully satisfying. Raising a child successfully sounds like a superhuman task. As a matter of fact, it is. It demands more than human resources have to offer. It required supernatural wisdom and strength. “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Jesus Christ,” reports Philippians 4.19. And God knows exactly what we need to be a good parent and person because he is himself the Model Parent. “And if your hardhearted, sinful people know how to give good gifts to you children, will not your Father in Heaven even more certainly give good gifts to those who ask him for them?” reports Matthew 7.11. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12
In school the student typically finds oneself pitted against another challenge. Since the school system, even into college, is heavily geared toward grade attainment, many students find themselves having to work for marks and transcripts. Often they would like to take subjects in which they have a real interest; but because they do not have the time to take courses outside their majors or they have to worry about their grade point average, they cheat themselves of the chance to explore and widen their range of skills. Educational institutions are only partly at fault. In stating the requirements for success and advancement, society cautions the student not to play around in one’s schooling to get one’s diploma, certificate, or degree and get out into the working World. This attitude produces narrow specialists. Contemporary people are faced by encapsulation. The dilemma of contemporary specialism, that is, specialism in living as well as a specialism in work. I mean the narrowing down of vocational tasks brought on by the industrial revolution and resulting in 20 different experts making a shoe rather than one master shoemaker. We have become so impressed with specialized skills, deep but narrow knowledge in one isolated area, that we have forgotten the pleasures that some with discovering things in fields other than our own. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12
Why do we look at the manifold achievements and involvements of Leonardo da Vinci with the same wonder and awe? Here was a man who could (some would say should) have stayed within one field and perfected himself in that area. Instead, Leonardo da Vinci perfected himself as a painter, writer, scientist, inventor, and many things totally out of keeping with narrow specialism. The problem then is one of letting education do its job. If we could permit teachers to do their best work, or works, in helping a student draw out all one’s hidden potentials, we would be going further in the direction of promoting and assisting self-actualization. To do so would require a wholesale change in society’s attitudes if only because it would require funding and program-development. However, it amazes me that people seem to no longer be wanting to help students, but desire to strip them of their talents in their young and leave them broken so they can prosper off their efforts. So many hearts had waxed cold when people see bright youth, in need of guidance, and are in positions to help them, but totally ignore this calling. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12
To help our youth reach self-actualization would require a wholesale change in society’s attitudes if only because it would require funding and program-development. The student should be able to feel one’s value first of all as a person, then as one interested in knowledge and learning for its own sake, and then hopefully as a person who has proficiency in one or two important areas and general knowledge in many others. For centuries, the hallmark of a university education has also been the nurturing of every student’s capacity to develop, assess, and communicate their understanding of the World in which they live. General education ensure that people achieve both breadth and depth in the skills and justifications of knowledge that are more relevant to the World in which they live. We work and live in a changing, and often unpredictable World. Having knowledge of general educations provides and individual the opportunity to enhance one’s ability to think critically, develop one’s communication and mathematical skills, stimulate their capacities for creative, innovative thinking, and enrich their knowledge of the wider social, cultural, and natural Worlds in which we live and will have to live and work. That is important because when one is out at dinner with executives from a network, one will be able to do more than just sit, look and listen, or repeat sound bites heard on television. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12
A well-educated individual should be able to have some input about all things from spots, science, politics, religion, current events, and so on. However, many people find grades to be restrictive because it prevents a person for going outside of their range of study, since time is so limited. Therefore, the grading problem will be a difficult one to solve. Again it would be necessary to institute a change in the attitudes of a society which thinks that competing for grades prepares the student for the competition one will face in getting a mate, getting a job, advancing in the job, and many other facets of living. Certainly we must prepare the student for the competitive ethos in the World off campus, but that knowledge could be balanced by the recognition that selfhood, personal value, is not totally dependent on good grades. Schooling is not only preparation for living; it is part of living. In school the student is exposed to the whole range of problems and pleasures of life. More than being a laboratory for life, it is a laboratory of living. In the microcosm of the campus people who exemplify the employer, the employee, the husband or wife, the competitor, the helper, the protagonist, the colleague seems to have an anchor in their soul. God is this needed island of stability, which helps us handle stress. #RandolphHarris 11 of 12
Education is only part of life, but a very important part. Performance during this period is dependent on an individual’s self-concept, one’s picture of personhood, and the values one holds concerning oneself and life in general. Education should also strive to be of benefit to the individual and to society apart from the requirements of employment. It should, in particular, contribute to a student’s capacity to be an informed, responsible, and responsive citizen. This will allow an individual to develop awareness of the intellectual, moral, aesthetic, and social context of one’s life. And when you have given your life you all and cannot see how you are going to reach your goals, keep trying and count on God. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the Heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows,” reports James 1.17. When everything is changing around us, it is important to remember that God is a consistent Father. He will never let us down. He can be counted on. He is reliable. God is worthy of trust. “Behold, this is a choice land and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage and from captivity, and from all other nations under Heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things we have written,” reports Ether 2.12. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12
I thought of God Incarnate, with whom I had spoken. I thought of all my doubts that any of it had been real, of all my suspicious that I was the mere pawn of spirits in some elaborate game. We do have myths. We have a goodness. However, now is not the time for all those things. You need not believe all I have seen. What I do have to give you is a vision. I think a vision is stronger than an illusion. And the vision is that we can exist as powerful beings without hurting anyone who is good and kind. We do possess the World, the World we wanted when we were crazed kids, daydreaming on our long restless walks over 
Most of the readers are involved in an important phase of work, gaining academic and proficiency skills for future employment and creativity. Schooling is work. Schooling is often our first significant work experience. There are few dissenters from this viewpoint. In addition to its often being just plain drudgery, like the carrying of buckets of water from a well and the digging of a ditch, it qualifies as work in the sense that love is made visible. This definition is possible only if you accept our concepts dealing with love as being a relationship of mutual regard, involving the giving and taking of aspects of selfhood, without any consequent loss of individual integrity or identity. In our opinion, school qualifies as love made visible under certain ideal conditions. Schooling is not only preparation for work; it is work. It is important to work hard in school because it is the one thing that can overcome poverty. The student who marked bravely off to kindergarten on that first big day of one’s school career may not recall it later, but it took a great deal of courage, determination, self-confidence (and often a push from parents) to take that first step. The child who stays with it, who is nurtured and nourished by it, who finds fulfillment of the developing aspects of one’s selfhood, and who in turn puts much back into the schooling is a small but far from insignificant, percentage of the total. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
Some people grew up knowing nothing but abandonment, starvation, and poverty. They do not receive much formal schooling, but they still know the value of education and its power to change lives, and one thing that is clear to many people is how education can help escape poverty. Many children are discovering their schooling to be more a place to stretch and grow than a place of drudgery as it was in years past. And improvements are still being made in the educational system in order to encourage this kind of attitude in all children. The opportunity to get an education is very important and whatever happens, one must never give up the school because it is the only thing that will improve the quality of life. For many people school represents an identity of community shared by members of an educational institution. It is a place were people are given facts, given a chance to exercise those facts through workbook or given examination, and promoted on to challenge a larger, more complex body of facts. The process may be called schooling or anything you wish; but it is not education. Education comes from a Latin word, educare, meaning to draw out. Your draw little out of a person by cramming something in. It is God’s plan for the youth to integrate his truth into their lives. “Seek not for riches, but for wisdom,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 6.7. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
Far too many students schooling consist of a program of assimilating or acquiring stated and strongly reinforced viewpoints. The proper term of this, of course, is indoctrination. Very little of the individual’s self-expression comes to the surface when one is bombarded with the single viewpoint of a particular instructor or text or orientation. Some people defend parochial instruction on the grounds that conflicting or confusing viewpoints are not presented and the child has a simpler time assimilating the facts. This is emphasizing hygiene or maintenance factors at the expense of motivator factors. Schooling, if it is going to be effective in exposing individuals to the various kinds of information available, has to take into account many more needs than simply the basic biological ones, through it must not forget them. As living beings we do need food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and other satisfactions of our physical needs, and consequently we need to acquire the necessary skills and insights to seek gainful employment. However, as human beings we also need to seek the motivator factors, to find ways of stimulating our growth and selfhood. “Glory of God is intelligence, or light and truth,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 93.36. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
Schooling needs to include information but also illumination, the means for gaining insight into selfhood and casting a brighter light on latent potentials. Schooling can and mist provide illumination for the pupil and within one. Schooling should emphasize respect for others, regardless of their beliefs, race, or social status. In our diverse society, children need an understanding of other principal religions and other World views. In teaching about the beliefs and traditions of other people, the subject promotes discernment and enables pupils to combat prejudice. Such tolerance is vital in a World that is increasingly fraught with extremism, division, in strong intolerance. Schooling is about intellectual enlightenment, concern with opening minds, not closing them. Far from being self-regarding, segregated institutions that deepen division, schooling encourages openness to others, and emphasizes that the thing we all have in common is our humanity, which is of infinite value. Faith schools also allow children to discuss challenging questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, and what it is to be human, about death, and why people believe in God, and the real difference between right and wrong. “Learn wisdom in the youth,” reports Alma 37.35. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
It is primarily when people have grappled with these enormous questions about life, they can begin to make sense of what they themselves believe and think. And, if young people are encouraged to recognize their own uniqueness and value, they will flourish both and individuals and as citizens in a pluralistic society and global community. To the three R’s of readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic, which are very important, we could add the R’s of Reality, Realization, Reaching-out, Re-creation, Response, and Readiness to enjoy. Education for living ought to be the name of the game of public instruction. Not only would it then include courses that really prepared people for the World outside of school, it would include methods, situations, and experiences of reality and realization that would enable the child to test oneself out on the World within the relatively protected atmosphere of the school. A good example is in the area of vocational choice Many children are asked in the junior high school to select a career or college major so that they can be programmed into a series of courses appropriate to their vocational choice. Nothing we know o in the development of psychology gives us confidence that children of 12 to 15 are emotionally, mentally, physically, or experientially ready to choose such important things as their life’s work. “Let every person learn their duty,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 107.99. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
It takes a few more years of experience with age-appropriate tasks (like fighting acne, choosing clothes, settling disputes with friends, learning to dance, discovering what type of music you like, and so on) before adolescents gain the kind of confidence in selfhood needed to select a vocation. Our experience in teaching and counseling has shown us that many students are not ready for final vocational selection until well into their college life. Nor is this particularly bad or tragic when it happens. The choice of a life’s work (if it need be for life) demands much more personal experience than the typical 13-year-old had had, particularly in the area of reassessing one’s capabilities. Possibly the person who arrives at graduation from college with a major one’s only been into for a year or two has a better idea who one is and where one is going than the one who has been in a pattern for so long one may have forgotten to assess whether or not one is still interested in one’s original work choice. A job choice needs to be made on the basis of knowing pretty well who you are. A vocation will bring more satisfaction and happiness if it represents an honest reflection of personal identity. “It is impossible for a person to be saved in ignorance,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 131.6. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
May we prepare to worthily receive saving ordinances drop by drop and keep the associated covenants wholeheartedly. In all situations where choices must be made, an individual can select those courses that are easier, reduce stress, are most comfortable, and bring in the best money fastest. These choices fit into the concept of hygiene seeking. However, they are part of the tendencies that produce deficiency-motivation, wherein the individual is prompted or stirred primarily to acquire what one does not have or two be what is not. In contrast are those who make choices that challenge their potential, that give them something to reach or stretch out for. Such choices are not always painless (nor are they always painful), nor do they guarantee salary increments or more comfortable working conditions. They are based more upon the person’s desire to express something about oneself, to check oneself out in a new situation, to seek growth and personal achievement of one’s own goals. This is called motivator seeking, being-motivation, or growth-motivation. Personal worthiness is an essential requirement to enjoy the blessings of the temple of God. Worthy character is best forged from a life of consistent, correct choices centered in the teachings of God. “Ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of God,” reports Mosiah 4.12. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
To be consistent is to be steady, constant, and dependable. What a great description of the principle of worthiness. A person can develop an idealistic and general set of attitudes about oneself that will spill over into many other areas of life, but especially into the two the even Dr. Freud recognized as most sensitive in terms of self-expression: love and work. He defined mental health roughly as being able to demonstrate a harmonious balance among ego, id, and superego through activities of loving and working. We believe this is an important insight. In no other areas are we called upon to be more, to be more authentic, to give more, and to show more output and benefit. The school years if the longest period of time some people will ever spend on the same job. In our culture we assume that maturing process take until about 21 years of age. We set up laws in mist states to keep children from 6 to 16 years old in school, where they are to grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and to develop the necessary skills for social interaction and some kind of career or work training. No child is ready by the time one enters school at 5, 6, or 7 to pick out one’s life career work. However, any child who has come from a home situation where one is loved and respected, appreciated, and involved in the life of the home is ready by this time to express some of the selfhood one has developed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
In a warm, accepting, integrated home, where each member is loved for oneself intrinsically, where each person gives and takes according to what one is capable of, the emphasis is on the full and free development of people who are the fullest, most real, happiest people they become. And as we prepare our homes to be places where the Spirit is welcome, we will be prepared to feel more at home when we enter the house of the Lord. As we prepare ourselves to worthily enter the temple and are faithful to temple covenants, the Lord will bestow a multiplicity of blessings upon us. “You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul. And you shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up,” reports Deuteronomy 11.18-19. By entrusting your children to educators who share your values, you will have more time for ball games and bike rides and meaningful conversations. Instead of debriefing your children, you will be getting to know them. “When they are learned they think they are wise,” reports 2 Nephi 9.28. I want you take you through an apprenticeship that is flawless. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
We may work that we may keep pace with the Earth and the soul of the Earth. Always we have been told that work is a curse and a labour a misfortune. However, I say to you that when we work we fulfill a part of the Earth’s furthest dream, assigned to us when that dream was born. Work is love made visible. And if we cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that we should leave our work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody,” reports 1 Thessalonians 4.11. Work, productivity, labor, creativity, and blood, sweat, and tears—it is basically our responsibility. There are conflicting views being bandied about these days concerning work and labor. As human beings in the process of finding out the most about ourselves and acting on that insight, we have a definite obligation to understand this important area of human experience. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12
The principle of work has been taught from the foundation of the World. It is the bottom line of any forward motion of success. More than 6,000 years ago, Father Adam received the commandment, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” reports Genesis 3.19. Many people believe that people work from the cradle to the grave and that a real person is one that does his or her work and does it well. This viewpoint is in keeping with the Protestant (or Puritan) Ethic. Work is far more than just a system devised by economists or managers to keep things going. It is a part of the very nature of things, just as the Earth turns. Too often we find work to be a chore, a burden, an unpleasant thing to be avoided and it is frightening how the disappearance of work as a part of our basic ethic is becoming acceptable. We constantly hear the statements, “It is too hard, give me something easier to do,” “I cannot wait that long,” coming from our young people. The ugly disease of nothing to do is growing in epidemic proportions among us. It undermines the basic fabric of our nations. “See that ye have faith, hope, and charity, then ye will abound in good work,” Alma 7.24. #RandolphHarris 2 of 12
We are what we are as a people because our ancestors were not afraid of honest, hard work. Our forefathers understood the necessity of it; sheer survival demanded it. A common ingredient among all successful people is an understanding of what constitutes paying the price of success. A common ingredient among all successful people is an understanding of what constitutes paying the price of success. Basic in that formula of paying the price is an inner gift of determination that “I will do whatever it takes. I will work hard, with integrity, to achieve my goal.” It I as natural for us to take part in the responsibilities of life as it is to breathe. Hard work is a blessing of God. It involves going after it with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. That alone is the difference between the average and the excellent. However, why is it that often we find ourselves unable to appreciate the beauty and glory of work? Why is it that even the most glamorous and stimulating work can at times seem like drudgery? It is because humans are basically lazy? It is because people consider work to be foreign to one’s nature, foreign to one’s desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain? #RandolphHarris 3 of 12
We believe that leftover vestiges of the Work-Sin Ethic and the loss of personal significance resulting from increased technology are responsible for human’s increasingly negative attitudes toward work. The system of thought and action called the Work-Sin Ethic is the underlying philosophy of the capitalistic economy of the United States and most nations in Western civilization because victory is brought to pass by one’s personal diligence and commitment to hard work, and it deserves some attention. The view of a champion, and the glory that surrounds one, must never be overshadowed by the long process of becoming one. Oddly enough, a cursory exploration of this system takes us into the realm of theology and Christian Church history. One of the ultimate strivings is the search for perfection. Based on the Old Testament account of the fall of man (“In Adam’s Fall we sinned all” says a colonial proverb), a strong notion grew up in medieval times that people should seek salvation and thus restore oneself to Adam and Eve’s original perfection. By the fifteenth century, secular affairs—economics, wars, feudal estates, monarchies, art—had become heavily entrenched in European life and the Church found itself no longer the monolithic leader in the lives of people. #RandolphHarris 4 of 12
The Renaissance opened people’s minds to the idea that they might be not just animals but fallen Angels. They also possessed abilities and could enjoy the products of achievement. The Protestant Reformation, usually credited to Martin Luther in 1517, added to the disunity of the Catholic World. Not only were secular affairs interfering with the spiritual strivings, but nationalistic power plays broke up the one World that had been led by the Church of Rome since the fifth century. Further, Martin Luther told people that no amount of good works would save their souls; it required only a simple faith in God. One of those directly influenced by Martin Luther was a Swiss reformer by the name of John Calvin. The Evangelical, Reformed, Dutch Reformed, and Presbyterian Churches are all direct-line heirs of John Calvin; American and European capitalism owes much of its widespread development to Calvinist theology. John Calvin had a unique theological system. It insisted that the paternal God of Martin Luther was unrealistic. The tern, autocratic God of the Old Testament was more true. This God had determined—predestined—before the beginning of time just who would be saved and who would be damned. Working out salvation by Catholic means and believing it by Lutheran faith were both futile. Only the Grace of God was involved; nothing done by humans. So, there were the elect and the damned. #RandolphHarris 5 of 12
Calvin met the desperate queries of his followers by saying that the elect knew intuitively of their foreordained salvation, just as the damned knew of their lostness. Furthermore, declared Calvin, the elect must participate in the affairs of this World. Thus, he gave the concept of Work as a vocation a theological base Vocation comes from a Latin word meaning calling, and the term is still used when Roman Catholic clergy speak of their work as their Vocation. In Calvin’s thought, conscience, as a subjective mode of revelation, was closely related to the sense of divinity. Conscience too, he said, is part of the native endowment of all people, written upon the hearts of all. Typically he spoke of it as a sort of knowledge whose object is God’s will; or, equivalently, the difference between good and evil, the law of God, or the law of nature. Thus it is by virtue of conscience the people are aware of their responsibility—aware of the moral demands to which one is subject with respect to God and humans. Inward law, written, even engraved, upon the hearts of all, in a sense asserts the very same things that are to be learned from the [Decalogue]; and what the Decalogue requires is perfect love of God and of our neighbor. #RandolphHarris 6 of 12
The belief system of vocation being one’s true calling assisted the economic system in Switzerland and, as it spread into Germany, did much to reinforce economic forces there. Calvin had told people that one sign of a person was one of the elects of God was one’s success in this life. Calvin also taught by reflecting on the structure of the external World and the pattern of history. “God has not only sowed in people’s minds that seed of religion of which we have spoken but revealed oneself and daily discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the Universe. As a consequence, people cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him,” declared John Calvin. God’s attributes—preeminently for the display of his goodness to us but also of his glory, wisdom, power, and justice. And supposedly, the damned were the failures on Earth. In fairness, the economists and historians do not blame Calvin himself for this interpretation so much as they do his secular followers. Economic success, then, came to be viewed as direct evidence of the hard work, sacrifice and self-denial found among good servants of God. O LORD, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress,” reports Isaiah 33.2. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12
The Calvinist theology found its way into the lives of the people we call Puritans. The takeovers of Puritanism in Europe is a bleak, cold period of history, where art, literature, decoration and beauty were sacrificed to the harsh dictates of the stern religious teachings. The Puritan emphasized sacrifice, hard work, ambition in work and social position, temperance, and worship. The puritans made their way to the New World, and the colonial period of American history is a continual study in the gray, harsh, rigid life pattern we still refer to as Puritanism. It was in this period that children were taught that the Devil finds work for idle hands. Play was not only a luxury, but a sin. Work was human’s highest virtue, and the person who got up before the Sun and worked until one dropped, having little or no time for relaxation, creative avocations, play, or leisure-time pursuits, was the hero of colonial times. Even children were included. From the time she could hold a needle, a young colonial girl had to sew. She learned her lessons and her morality by stitching the samplers many people today collect as cherished relics and antiques. “By their work ye shall know them,” reports Moroni 7.5. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12
Carving out a new Europe in the hostile, forbidding colonies was considered by many to be a new Crusade. Setting up churches and converting the pagan aborigines was God’s will, the colonial theology insisted. Only incidentally were the economic exploitations acknowledged. They were justified, when someone brought them up, on evangelical grounds. Colonialism was conceived (and has been interpreted by historians ever since) as part of a God-inspired program for proving the hardihood of his elect, for enlarging his churches’ membership, and as The Great Adventure. During this time the concept of work grew into an enlarged version of the theological notion of Vocation. Work became the privilege of the elect, since it provided opportunities to demonstrate salvation through economic success and achievement. Even for those who were not too sure they were elected, there were the examples and lessons of the successful for them to follow. Workers were told not to despair if success eluded them; it was sure to be right around the corner. The Lord has commanded us not to be idle. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12
Developing the capacity to work helps us contribute to the World in which we life. It brings an increased sense of self-worthy. It blesses us and our families, both now and in the future. However, even those who drifted away from the religious teachings of the Puritan leaders—and to do so too dramatically was to court the charge of witchcraft and heresy—the divinity of work persisted in their thinking. Work was considered noble and Godly. The morality of the times developed alongside this perception. Good people worked hard and steadily and bad people were idle or unemployed. Many of the so-called Blue Laws, still on the law books in many Eastern states, made it a crime to engage in any kind of recreation or frivolity on Sunday. Sunday for the religious was the day for worship, not just for an hour in the morning, but by Bible reading during the afternoon and church attendance in the evening. Sunday for the less religious was a day of rest, derserved by the hardworking, and given some biblical justification by the verse in Genesis telling how God had rested on the seventh day after six days of hard work creating the World. However, for Seventh Day Adventists, Saturday is the Sabbath and the day of rest and followers are not supposed to use any kind of electronic device. They are supposed to only read the Bible and go to church and pray. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12
We are heirs to this puritan tradition called the Protestant or Puritan Ethic by historians and economists. It gibes all virtue to hard work, ambition, thrift, temperance, and personal piety. Since many of those who follow this philosophy are in no way connected with puritan religions, we prefer the newer labeling, the Work-Sin Ethic. What role has work played in your life? How has it blessed you and your family, both temporally and spiritually? “Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury they talent,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 60.13. Work is honorable. Developing the capacity to work will help us contribute to the World in which we live. It will bring us an increased sense of self-worthy. It will bless us and our family, both now and in the future. Learning to work begins in the home. Help your family by willingly participating in the work necessary to maintain a house. Learn early to handle your money wisely and live within your means. Follow the teachings of the prophets by paying your tithing, avoiding dent, and saving for the future. Set high gals for yourself, and be willing to work hard to achieve them. Develop self-discipline, and be dependable because if human life is to be renewed and our natural gifts are to be healed and God’s supernatural gifts restored, sin must be overcome. #RandolphHarris 11 of 12
Implanted on the hearts of all and clarified in the Scriptures is the affairs of a civil society. Partly due to its religious background and partly due to its traditionally being practiced, it has taken firm hold in American life: humans must work to demonstrate their humanity and their productivity and justify their being on Earth. Not to work is to be a parasite. The analogy of a large rowboat is frequently used. Each citizen is part of the crew of this Ship of State, and each one must pull one’s own oar if the vessel, USS John F. Kennedy CV-67, is not to founder. The choice was between working and being baggage, between being a good person and being a sinful person. Today, we see this attitude not only in older people who were chronologically to puritan times, but in their children and grandchildren. We find attitudes toward work that approach a worshipful level. This ethic has, of course, resulted in a tremendous vitality and upsurge in economic productivity in this nation. It has also resulted in feelings of worthlessness and guilt in people who could not keep up with the pace, who could not produce, or who had to retired before they were finished feeling productive. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12
Guard your children. Weigh wisdom of intervention if such is possible. Ponder question of inevitability. Facts are the only reality and only knowledge possible is the knowledge of facts, which consists in placing one fact in relation to others either immediately or by means of those mental formations that constitute ideas, categories, and principles. When these relations are established, the fact is explained. Science, therefore, is the only kind of knowledge possible; and philosophy itself is a science that, like all other sciences uses induction and does not have at its disposal privileged principles or procedures. Metaphysics, which claims to start from principles independent of facts and to use deduction, is a fictitious science. Yet philosophy is not just a synthetic discipline. On the one hand, it is a complex of special disciplines that is left after the natural sciences have gone their way. As such, it encompasses the disciplines that are concerned with the phenomena of thought and finds articulation in two spheres: psychology, which includes logic, gnosis (epistemology), and aesthetics; and sociology, which includes ethics, dikeika (doctrine of justice or of law), and economics. Other the other hand, to philosophy belongs the field of the indistinct, which lies outside the realm of the distinct, which constitutes the object of the individual sciences (matter, for physics; life, for biology; society, for sociology mind, for psychology, etc.). #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
This realm of the indistinct constitutes the unique and common origin of all the realms of the distinct, and it is the object of philosophy as peratology. Peratology is the study of the indistinct which lies outside the subject matter of science, the distinct. The indistinct in the philosophy are distinguished from the unknowable in that the indistinct is not that which is not known but that which is not yet known distinctly. It is a relative concept, because the distinct that emerges from some knowledge is in its turn indistinct with respect to further knowledge insofar as it is that which produces, solicits, and explains that knowledge. This indistinct-distinct relationship is used to explain the natural formation of every known reality. We can also have widely different attitudes toward our (self-)constructed Worlds, investing them with different kinds of pathos: for example, we can regard them either with various degrees of satisfaction and pride, as the biblical God did at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, we may either reshuffle them or turn away from them altogether and construct other Worlds that are incommensurable with the first ones. We can continue to affirm life while acknowledging that unrestricted population growth can put women, children and men at risk. Mass starvation and other calamities are going to be the result of overpopulation. The prospect of billions more people threaten the future healthy and well-being of many. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
The World’s population is approaching eight billion, and that is twice as high as many experts believe it should be. The number of people making demands on you and your resources is increasing at alarming proportions. Formerly, a human being stood tall and alone, partly out of choice, partly out of necessity. Today, time to be alone is at a premium. Individualism is a word that puzzles many of us. We hear the cry from all sides: “Stand up for your individualism!” We also hear the word contrasted with the concept of conformity. Individualism is the idea that the individual’s life belongs to that person and that person has an inalienable right to live it as one sees fit, to act on one’s own judgment, to keep and use the product of one’s effort, and to pursue the values of choosing. It is the ideal that the American Founders set forth and sought to establish when they drafted the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution of America and created a country in which the individual’s rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness were to be recognized and protected. We are to put America and Americans first in the Country of America. The number one job of any government is to protect its own citizens and land first. If you see your own unique qualities, your own unique abilities and tastes no matter how much they are conditioned by culture, you are recognizing your individuality. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
As an individual, one has uniqueness and stand apart in distinctive ways from the nameless, faceless masses. Attaining this recognition is a vital task in the search for significant identity, and most of us accomplishing it to some degree. Individualism, however, is a different matter, though the difference may be difficult to appreciate. Individualism is the attitude that holds individuality to be more important than sociality, group memberships. Some people, out of fear that they will lose their identity by group membership, de-emphasize any allegiance or membership in social groupings and go to dramatic extremes to emphasize their solitariness. They may disavow any need for anyone else and may even go so far as to alienate themselves completely from any relationship and become hermits or isolates. These people have made solitariness or uniqueness a new religion. Who else loves to judge? Even though say we strongly dislike doing it, many times we have to remind ourselves not to judge people. When we judge people, the way we judge is very critical. In general, judgment tends to be a negative interpretation, which is why we need to understand how can we use judgment as a strength correctly. Basically, judgment is thinking things through and examining them from all sides; not jumping to conclusions; being able to change one’s mind in light of evidence; weighing all evidence fairly. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
We all have our favored beliefs and it requires the ability to thin through and find all the evidence without bias. One could ask oneself to think of various ways about particular situation, not be limited to only one perspective, then weight it fairly. Others perceive a threat in the headlong rush to join and to belong. They see it as a repudiation of individual identity. Without denying their need for others, they attempt to maintain that in addition to their group identities—the Winchester boy, Mrs. Winchester’s oldest kid, Annie Winchester’s brother, employee Winchester, citizen Winchester, and so forth—they also have their individual identity: William Wirt Winchester II, human being. This is not individualism in the sense we have described it above. It is more an attempt at individuation, at saying that a person is many things, that one has several identities, and that one does not want to lose one’s personal identity in the group push. And that makes sense because every human being has an eternal identity, existing from the premortal state and continuing forever. “Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the World was; and among these there were many noble and great ones; and God saw these souls that they were good,” reports Abraham 3.22-23. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
Moreover, all individuals are responsible for their own choices, and will stand before the Lord to present an accounting of their lives that the Judgment Day. “And I exhort you to remember these things; for the time speedily cometh that ye shall know that I lie not, for ye shall see me at the bar of God; and the Lord God will say unto you: Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man, like as one crying from the dead, yes, even as one speaking out of the dust?,” reports Moroni 10.27. This, however, does not mean that individuals are autonomous nor alone. All individuals are spirit children of God the Father, who organized them into relationships in order to maximize their growth and happiness through the loving and serving of one another. It shows a stronger characteristic of individuality to bring the self into harmony with God than to be separate from him. Any individual must voluntarily obey God’s will to achieve righteousness and God’s will requires service to others in one’s family and the community. Individualism, when it takes the form of denial of sociality, of standing alone and often against the masses, when it ignored the needs and rights of others, is a luxury. It is a selfish attitude that leaves the person out of the important social roles one can and must play. It cheats the society of the benefits of knowing one and interacting with that individual. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
Conformity, the process of submerging some desires and wishes for the sake of a larger benefit, is often a necessary act. Yet, some people actually lose their personal identity by overcomforming to group norms and behaviors. Some of these people want to lose it; others find it taken away. However, it is important to remember that even if we cannot see it, there may be come benefits coming to a person from one’s [participation in certain conforming behaviors. A person who gives up most of one’s personal preferences and consistently goes along with the crowd may very well be meeting a greater need, like being accepted or avoiding rejection. People still tend to do what meets their important needs because a person’s duties to oneself and to one’s fellow people are indissolubly connected. The Church of Latter-day Saints cannot force individuals to become one with God and others. That must be done only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness. Love of learning involves mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether on one’s own or formally; obviously related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
The ultimate objectives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are as inclusive and extensive as can be imagined, both individually and collectively-namely, to attain eternal life for all individuals and eternal continuity for families and to maintain a supportive, unified community of Saints on Earth who live the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The scale and profundity of these objectives are equal to the depth and commitment they require. Love of learning does not have to be limited to only in a church, school, or a classroom. The World is the biggest classroom ever. One can enhance this strength by going out and engaging in new skills and experiences. It is the key to improving ourselves and it helps us tackle challenges and setbacks. People with high strengths in love of learning can maintain a sense of efficacy and motivation while learning longer than those who do not. Christ promises righteous men and women and children that they shall be joint-heirs with him. “And one that receiveth me receiveth my Father; and one that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto you,” reports Docterine and Covenants 84.37-38. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Wisdom is viewed as a strength that is different from intelligence and is the higher form of knowledge. It is used for the sake of oneself and others well-being. People with this strength see things through a wider lens. In addition, perspective is all about the experiences. Perspective or wisdom could be developed through life tasks, adjustments, coming to terms with life choices, life changes, and stressful life experiences. Salvation is both an individual and a collective matter. Individuals are punished for their own sins, but the personal choices that foster growth and exaltation necessarily involved other people. People demonstrate their love for God by keeping his commandments. Christ affirms great diversity and individuality in gospel service. Each person has abilities to perform Christlike service that others may not be able to perform. Personal spiritual gifts and talents are to be cultivated and share. “For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every person is given a gift by the Spirit of God. To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby” reports Doctrine and Covenants 46.11-12. Having the vision of God is the source of all patience because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration. A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue—one is devoted to our Heavenly Father. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
Every natural formation, in the solar system as in the human spirit, is a passage from the indistinct to the distinct. This passage occurs necessarily and incessantly, regulated by a constant rhythm, that is, by immutable order. However, the distinct never exhausts the indistinct, which both underlies and transcends it; and since the distinct is the finite, then we must admit that, beyond the finite, lies the infinite. The infinite is a progressive development without beginning or end. All natural formations, including thought, which is a kind of meteor in the life of the Universe, emerge from and return to this infinite. Wisdom provides a great advantage to human beings. Development requires the process of thinking as the beacon to guide which way we should go. However, most importantly on wisdom, knowing oneself is the beginning of all wisdom. The I (self) and natural things are constituted by neutral elements, that is, sensation. The self and things differ, therefore, only by the nature of the synthesis, that is, by the connection that are established among the sensations. Those sensations that refer to an internal organ and have the character of continuity are associated in the autosynthesis, or the self. Those sensations that refer to an external organ and are discontinuous are associated in the heterosynthesis that gives rise to things. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Self-actualization is a process of discovering important needs and goals, both personal and social, and finding creative and enjoyable ways of meeting these needs, of reaching these goals, so that the individual is fulfilled and able to feel one is a significant person, without taking away the same satisfactions from any other person. We are life affirming itself in the midst of other lives affirming themselves. “Praise be to the LORD today,” reports 1 Kings 5.7. If we were driven by instincts alone, we would meet only out personal needs, heedless and unresponsive to those around us. However, because of being blessed with the higher centers of the brain, the massive network of thinking and learning we call the cerebral cortex, the sensitive and aware person will always experience a tension between personal needs and group needs. This is the agony and the ecstasy of being a human being. This is the struggle for significant selfhood. However, it is better to be a person in pain than a cabbage in ecstasy! It is a fact that humans are capable of disinterested or altruistic actions, but such actions can be explained by recourse to natural and social factors. The ideals and the prescriptive maxims that determine them derive from the reactions of society to acts that either preserve or damage it—reactions that impress the individual and become fixed in his or her conscience as norms or moral imperatives. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
That which is called conscience, therefore, is the progressive interiorization accomplished by the repeated and constant experience of the external sanctions that the antisocial act encounter in society. Chance consists in the intersecting of various causal series that, taken together, constitute the order of the Universe. These intersections are unpredictable, through the events that constitute every individual series are not unpredictable. So-called human freedom is an effect of the plurality of the physical series, that is, of the multiplicity of possible combinations of various causal orderings that constitute human’s psychical life. Humans have an intimate involvement with their environments: prenatal, physical, social and cultural environments. There is a need for the complete, holistic view of humans-interacting-with-environment. The human social experiences provide an individual with a whole host of positions in the social structure (called statuses) and definite expected behaviors (called roles) that go with them. In addition, people are given a set of rules or limitation that are placed on their personal and social behavior. It should not be assumed that when resistance and reaction occur, it is always the fault of the authority person. Often the authority person may be behaving in a very appropriate manner but the subordinate has been so conditioned to resent and rebel against authority that, no mater how the superior acts, the subordinate always responds negatively. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Human’s selfhood is complicated by one’s social interactions and interconnections. Among the social processes that assist and hinder one is cooperation, competition and conflict. Sometimes this means that in order to achieve a new and more effective level of interaction, both subordinate and authority need to reexamine their attitudes and behavior and work out a change. The type of relationship that is both possible and desirable between authority and subordinates is called interdependence—the cooperative or collaborative using of each other’s resources. Dependence and independence, two more important parts of the biosocial nature of humans, must be integral elements of what significant selfhood is all about. We considered the matter of individualism, seeing it at times as a dangerous enemy of self-actualization. However, keep in mind, love of the individual is unconditional, although we may not love certain of one’s actions. People need to sit down and talk about their feelings of love and their concerns. Feelings of the heart need to be shared, no matter how awkward or difficult it may be. And it must be done now. Delay only increases the development of the relationship in negative directions. And, authority persons need to begin to display greater confidence and trust in those under them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Most of us underestimate how challenging it is to raise a child. We may have certain beliefs and imaginings about how it must be like to have children. That is until you first baby is born. At birth, people are the most helpless and dependent of all beings. A child is born with needs, and with little in the way of built-in methods or techniques for meeting those needs. However, people are born into groups that care about them, so their needs for survival and nurturance are met and the individual flourishes. One also acquires attitudes and feeling about that first group—the family—that are crucial for the development of other attitudes and feelings that one will have in one’s social life. One of the first attitudes to develop is trust, so a child learns fairly quickly to depend on mother, on father, on siblings, on the family unit, and then, hopefully, on other people. In spiritual matters, trust includes relying on God and his spirit. To be trusted, we must first learn what it is to trust somebody else. We must feel the confidence in their words and promises. Who better to trust, and learn trust from, than our Heavenly Father? “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart,” Proverbs 3.5. Trusting that God will guide us requires a great deal of faith. And faith is developed over time through obedience and our best efforts. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
Growing up, our attitude-feeling of dependence on others is important for survival, for it consists of trust, affection, belief, hope, expectation, anticipation, and many other important social attitudes. Trust does start an important potential sequence of psychosocial attitudes moving. There are, however, some negative side effects that must also be considered in this situation. Dependence may become a clinging, parasitic kind of relationship-attitude. One of the most common problems found among alcoholics and addicts is a dependency conflict. This does not mean they do or do not depend on anything. It means that they seem to have an intrapsychic conflict over their dependency patterns. Intrapsychic conflict means that within their own personalities two or more parts or aspects of the personality differ in some response or perception. In long term psychotherapy with alcoholics and addicts manifest such a dependency conflict we have found many situations like the following (a composite of several actual statements): When I was really small, I remember how wonderful it was to be around my mom. She always took time out from whatever she was doing to talk to me, to play with me, to make or do something for me. I was the most important thing to her. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
Then my little sister was born. I found my mom giving her some of the time and attention that I had always gotten. I resented the little brat! However, I know that is wrong. You should not hate an innocent little kid who is not doing anything but being alive. However, I did! At times I still hate her. Sometimes I hate my mom for not being two people, or for not being able to give all her time and attention to me and my sister. I tried to find another mom in my teachers, but everytime I did what was necessary to make special friends with one of them, they withdrew, or another kid teased me and called me “Kiss-up!” I wish those kids would drop dead. Aw, but that is not a nice thing to feel either. Take my wife now. You would think she would be glad for all the attention I give her. I only want her to know how much I need and love her. However, sometimes she spends so much time with the baby that I never get to her until she is so beat and exhausted. Well, she things I demand too much of her sometimes. Not that she is not a great little woman, my wife. However, sometimes I hear her complaining about me or the kids making too many demands, and I swear I can hear my mother’s voice. Funny thing! #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
In the above excerpt are several examples of the dependency conflict. The most common example is in the excessive attachment to the nurturing figure, usually the mother. Also there is some kind of guilt or shame because of a realization of the attachment. We also find resentment at having to share the mother, hostility toward the ones with whom the sharing must be done, and then self-recrimination (the act or an instance of blaming or censuring oneself) for the hostility. These are usually extremely sensitive people who feel many emotions quite keenly and are often aware of how other people may feel. Frequently the dependency cycle is repeated with teachers, aunts, older siblings, law enforcement, clergy, Sunday School teachers, dates, and eventually spouses. Some parents’ style of behavior reinforces and supports the dependency of their children, with the long-range consequence that the child is incapable of functioning adequately on one’s own. In some cases, the persons in the authority position are using the subordinate person to meet many of their own needs. They would probably be indignant and hurt if it were suggested that they are selfish, for being self-centered in the sense that they are concerned about themselves at someone else’s expense, which may not be part of their conscious motivation. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
People who make the children dependent on them are in a real sense selfish, for they have unknowingly been meeting more of their own needs without considering the long-term well-being of their children. However, there are times when dependency is legitimate and useful. Occasions will arise in which a person needs help beyond one’s own resources. All of us must at times depend on others—doctors, teachers, counselors, repairmen, friends, parents—when conditions face us that are beyond our resources to handle effectively alone. Dependency becomes unreasonable when a person no longer seeks to develop one’s own resources to move to a more collaborative stance with persons in authority, but automatically assumes one cannot do anything without the guidance, support, and influence of others. A man with a dependency conflict of the type mentioned above will probably marry a woman who has a strong need to be a mother. She may complain and berate her husband for his clinging, yet unconsciously be very glad for it: it gives her the necessary assurance that she is needed and important. When the man attempts to solve his conflicts with alcohol, she frequently plays a complementary role, either accompanying him on his drinking route or buying him the necessary supplies. She justifies her actions by saying that he works so hard that he needs or deserves to unwind and relax. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
Even when she complains that he is drinking excessively, or that he is a rotten husband and father because he spends all their money on booze, he unconscious need may be for hum to continue in this pattern. It again reinforces her need to be needed: when he is at his most intoxicated, she is the most important person in the World to him. She is then his protector, guardian, mother, confessor, pal, and provider of comfort and support, even if it comes across as derogatory curses and deprecations. All human beings start out in life from a position of almost complete dependency on others. The development of the child away from complete dependency is the responsibility of those adults who occupy positions of authority over him. How to use authority to help others grow is the major challenge of every parent and every person in a position of authority. Too often authority persons become concerned with the wrong goals—parents want children who are only well behaved, teachers want only quiet classrooms or students who will do and say what they want; administrators want subordinates who will obey without question. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
One way to achieve these goals is to deliberately or unconsciously create dependency in others. Interestingly enough, many dependency-producing leaders never recognize their part in the problem, for they will often exclaim sadly, “What we need is more people who will take initiative and will not just sit around waiting to be told what to do.” In many cases, there seems to be a struggle going on between the adults, who want to channel or control, and the youngsters, who want to be independent and free to do as they please. It is this basic struggle that underlies counter-dependency. It is very difficult to treat this symbiotic—mutually beneficial and reciprocally stimulated—relationship in adult years, because the role played by the spouse is rarely brought to light. Too often in situations just like this, the therapist is frustrated to find the wife complaining about the changes in her husband as he goes through therapy. He is no longer the same man, so she can no longer be the same woman. This upsets her expectations and she often cannot tolerate the changes. Frequently, as the husband in such a situation begins improving, his wife gets worse. Often the wife will remove the husband from therapy, claiming that there is no improvement, that therapy is not working, or that he is improved enough and she can take care of things from then on. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
By removing a person from therapy, who is treating their dependency addiction, can be demeaning and robs the individual of personal dignity. Such behavior can create in many persons a strong rebellion reaction. Some people gain a kind of secret delight in dominating another human being. “When we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the Heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that person. We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all people, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Hence many are called, but few are chosen,” reports Doctrines and Covenants 121.37 and 39-40. One way of handling this awkward situation, one that is becoming a more frequent method of operation for many therapists, is to insist that in such a relationship both husband and wife be seen together. Possibly the treatment program would consist of husband and wife together with the therapist or in a group of couples, and individual sessions for husband and wide alone with the therapist. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
In this way, the entire symbiotic relationship can be explored and the wife’s role in her husband’s dependency problem can be explored and modified. The husband must resolve his conflicts over his own dependency, must learn to depend more upon oneself and accept the nature of the interdependency he and his wife can have with each other. The wife must learn to resolve her own conflicts, explore her need to be “Big Mama” to her own husband, and learn how to involve herself in a healthy, mature, appropriate relationships of mutual interdependency with her husband. This is fairly easy to describe; to being these changes about is exceedingly difficult. So while we come into the World ready to enter into a very deep and involved dependency relationship, one of the major tasks in the socialization process of each child has to be that of enabling the child to learn independence. This independence must be a matter of increasing self-reliance and autonomous decision-making. The healthy, self-actualizing adult is one who knows who he or she is, knows what he or se can and cannot do in a realistic, appreciating way. One sets realistic goals for oneself, pretty much by oneself, through acknowledging the contributions of others to one’s decision-making, and one is willing to take the consequences of one’s actions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
How to achieve this growing self-reliance is a difficult matter. Ideally the process of growth from dependency to mature independence increases as we age. Yet there are so many things that interfere with this ideal growth: limitations in the individual person, like physical, mental, emotions, or social deficiencies and special requirements; resistance on the part of parents to let go and permit and encourage the growing independence of their child; a culture that encourages dependence and well-being mentality; and many chance or freak occurrences. Too often parents, especially mothers, make the mistake of holding on too tightly to their children. They either overprotect them or retain control of them far past the point of the child’s maturity. Some parents fasten on to their children through building in them a sense of obligation or duty to take care of their parents. In some cases, a parent can retain control beyond the grave, by setting up conditions for inheritance. One of the best explanations for why parents will do this is not that they are selfish or cruel but are simply frightened or unthinking. To see a child grow up is to be reminded that you are growing old. To see a child become independent may mean to feel unneeded, unnecessary, worthless. In a society that encourages mothers to live for their children, many women and sometimes men literally die when their children outgrow their strong need for them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
A healthy relationship to dependency is to recognize that all of us are going to be totally dependent on other people for a few things all our lives. Goods and services, love, intimacy satisfaction, respect, appreciation, companionship and affection are things that we must get from others. Other activities and situations may or may not require other people, but this depends upon our own attitudes in the matter. If, for instance, a person wants to paper one’s living room wall with Lincrusta Walton Wallcovering, one could do it by oneself. However, many people enjoy the companionship of shared labor and would invite friends or relatives to help in papering task, more for their social value than for their actual necessity in the job. Dependency, independency, interdependency: three words with overlapping relationships. They are important to us and we must individually work out our own attitudes toward them if we are to attain some measure of significant selfhood. “The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 121.46. No power on Earth or in Hell can conquer the Spirit of God living within the human spirit; it creates an inner invincibility. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
Changing roles often bring new rules of etiquette, fashion, and other social behaviors. In looking at human’s social life, we are struck by several patters that seem to be always present. One of the first of these is cooperation. The early years of Sociology (the study of human’s social life) were heavily impressed with oversimplification of the writing of Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley, to the social experiences of humans. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species impact the Western World like an atomic bomb. It sent shockwaves rippling throughout society and forever changed the way many people thought about life and humanity. One of the first things Darwin’s theory of organic evolution did was to throw theologians into a frenzy, for he seemed to be challenging the account of Creation written in the biblical book of Genesis by saying that humans were not created in the image of God, but they evolved for apes. The other thing Darwin’s work seemed to do was to emphasize the important place played in nature by competition. Darwin declared tat those species survived best which could adapt to their environment, and he let loose a phrase which he later regretted: “The Survival of the Fittest.” Darwin had to write another book, The Descent of Man, to try to redact the misunderstandings, but it came too late. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
The Social Darwinists—a name later applied to social scientists who applied “The Survival of the Fittest” to the social interactions of humans—had already begun their work in believing that to make it in life, one must stomp out the competition to prove they are superior. Many started believing that much like everywhere else in nature, humans are forced to compete with their fellow human beings, and must even overcome then in their natural struggle to survive. This unleashed all the justifications some people needed to perpetrate their competitive activities. People became rich because they knew how to compete better and were therefore more select and superior. Other lost their fortunes or were less affluent, lived in squalor and died, because they could not demonstrate their superiority and others are on the bottom because they are inferior. Charles Darwin’s work dealt primarily with lower forms of life, unequipped with a cerebral cortex and selectively developed nervous systems, did have to compete for survival, primarily with their physical environment, and secondarily, with other species of life. However seldom, even in the lowest forms of animal life, was there a competition or conflict within the same species. The exceptions are certain species of ant, the hyena, and a few birds. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
The general rules, then, was intraspecies cooperation. The simplest form of life, the single-celled micro-organism, demonstrates the necessity of cooperative activity in the way in which cells, after splitting off, cluster together to form colonies. On up the evolutionary scale, the rule is divide (or reproduce) to live, but come together to survive and grow. The beginning of human life is a further example. After all, an infant is a result of the greatest cooperative act in nature: sexual reproduction. The coming together of two loving people, each bringing the necessary halves of a complementary whole to the relationship, is an action of supreme cooperativeness. No competitiveness allowed. One of the most frequent problems encountered in marriage counseling is an overly competitive attitude on the part of one or both partners in the marriage. This is disastrous at any level of a partnership. At the sexual level, it is a tragedy: one spouse trying to be the better lover of the two; one or other spouse trying to see who can hold out longest, or exhibit the best technique. This is not loving sexuality; it is a sideshow wrestling match. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
After the sexual union, the sperm and the ovum further the cooperative process, joining together to merge forces and produce a new life form, the zygote. After the zygote is formed, it makes its way along the oviducts until it finds it home, the place prepared for it by the process in the mother’s uterus. There, nestling into the soft, blood-enriched walls of the womb, the zygote literally becomes part of the environment of the womb. Another cooperative act. A stubborn or resisting zygote passes out of the birth canal and no new life is developed. The entire nine-month period of prenatal development is one tale of mutual assistance after another. Not only does the mother’s body provide for the developing embryo, but the embryo does wonderful things, in turn, for the host environment. With healthy, love-inspired zygotes, where the mother really wants to be pregnant and to deliver a healthy baby, the pregnancy can give her a radiant, happy, satisfying feeling of wholeness and creativity. Many women attest (and their obstetricians confirm it) that they have never been healthier than when they were pregnant and when they strongly desired the pregnancy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
At birth, the child is thrust out of the wonderfully satisfying warmth and protection of the womb, in the loving arms of his or her or their mother and father in the physical World. However, to ensure survival, the baby needs love, affection, and protection. Humans, alone of most other beings in nature, needs someone else to help them survive. In contrast, animals move about immediately, can forage for food almost immediately, or can in some other fashion survive virtually unassisted. However, in addition to being born into this physical World, which can some times be cold, as humans we have evolved a cleaver and beautiful pattern: the family. The typical mother, due to the hormones in her body and the training she has received since girlhood, wants to be a mother, wants her baby, and wants it to live and thrive and grow and develop. This is not an instinctive thing. There appears to be no motherhood instinct; it is a learned behavior, and because it is so well learned, most mothers do everything they can to provide the necessary social environment for their newborn. The milk flows, the child ears, the family gathers protectively around, and the new life is encouraged to enter into the cooperative activity of becoming part of the family. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
Charles Darwin knew this: the Social Darwinists did not choose to acknowledge that much cooperation goes into being human, forming a family, and keeping society together. Darwin knew that the natural selection process had enabled humans to develop the cortical matter of one’s brain over and above the primitive, reflexive parts. Because one could develop this cortex and profit from one’s experiences and become aware of oneself as a living being, humans differentiated from the lower animals and freed themselves from the rigid dictates of the survival of the fittest and are thus made in the image of God, to be loving and kind beings. Human’s brain, complex nervous system, their memory, ability to learn, and build are all evidences of their fitness. Humans have only to compete with those other forces in nature that might harm them or impede their development. It is in the evolution of a superior brain that humans became able to show their fitness eventually to master the physical environment. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God—that is where our faithfulness is revealed. “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us,” reports Mark 9.22. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
However, the Social Darwinists had other axes to grind (strong personal opinions about something that they wanted other people to accept and that is the reason they held so closely to their beliefs). Many of them were playing the game of Supermen and Wonder Women. Some men and Women had to be superior because there is only so much room in the upper echelons of society. Others, in accordance to the biblical doctrine of Original Sin, believed that Darwin had shown that humans after all, only a beast, and as such, still subject to the natural laws of tooth and claw (a reference to the sometimes violent natural World, in which predatory animals unsentimentally cover their teeth and claws with the blood of their prey and they skill and devour them). Of course, Salvations would transform the beast into a child of God, as our potential is unlimited and our inheritance is sacred, but of course that understanding came later. Others, in the World of industry and commerce, needed the doctrines of the Social Darwinists to justify their business expansions and the exploitations of human labor, particularly women and children. Slavery, too, since it was still practiced in America for a few years after Darwin, was justified in terms of Racial Superiority and Inferiority. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Competition, however, is a part of human life. Let us look as realistically as we can at this social process. In any context, nature or the neighborhood market, we find a fairly limited supply of goods and resources. Thomas Malthus, hundreds of years ago, started us thinking about the population problem when he presented a gloomy mathematical forecast: as resources increase arithmetically, population increases geometrically. People got worried, and well they might. Dr. Freud and Karl Marx and Charles Darwin were three people who read Thomas Malthus and did some serious thinking. Malthus’s answers to the problem of population demands outstripping the resource supplies were that: war, famine, old age, infirmary, and so on, would help; moderation in sexual activity would take care of the rest. Unfortunately, moderation has not helped much, and famine and old age, at least, have been virtually removed from the frontline of the battle. Malthus did not anticipate the technological revolution that would come. He could not know that our understanding of agronomy and other agricultural sciences would enable us to increase crop yields and virtually match the geometric increases of human population. We are dual beings. Each soul is comprised of body and spirit, both of which emanate from God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
A firm understanding of body and spirit will shape our thoughts and deeds for good. Malthus also could not predict that we would conquer many of these situations that caused infirmary he knew and expand the life-span of people, which was 35, to nearly 2.5 times what is was in 1776, when we had a World population of about 1.26 billion (7.44 billion today). So the problem became even more complicated: not only was life-span increases, but health and fertility were increased, so population continued to grow. Today, we face a problem of overcrowding that he could never have anticipated. Competition exists whenever supply is outstripped by demand. It has always been so, even when supply could match demand. There is no innate factor that makes us compete, but the physiological needs of humans are strong enough that when two or more persons want the same gratification for their needs, they will view for it, competing and even fighting to obtain it. This is seen mostly during holiday shopping, in the effort to enroll children in highly coveted preschools, and in other aspect of life that involve commerce and human beings competition for valuable resources. People call this The Law of the Jungle, though the real law of the jungle is cooperation and mutual assistance. Competition is the process of attempting to meet needs through activities that make individuals contenders for rewards or goals. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The competition, in many cases, is nonviolent, more often taking the form of verbal contest. Two beautiful women compete for the attention of the same man, not by fighting, but by trying to be more seductive, attractive, alluring, and so on. Is competition good or bad? This is a difficult question to answer. Those of us who attempt to analyze the society will find that American life is based on a strong system of competitive attitudes and behaviors. It seems to fit, or be demanded by, the economic structure. Of course, the Social Darwinism mentioned before is a very powerful factor even today and makes competition unnecessarily important. Since we have to acknowledge that the social and economic life in this country is very rich and well developed, competition has apparently been good for us. If economic affluence were all that we had to worry about, this would be a satisfying answer. However, we are interested in a deeper problem: human’s feeling of loss of significance. We share the feeling of numerous other social scientists that the economic competitiveness that has built America into the most power nation in the World, with the greatest productivity in the World, has contributed to the breakdown of many personal values, including the personal sense of worth. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
This is a hard saying. It seems like an attack on the style of life that we have all lived with. We are not doing that, directly. As any analyst does, we find things within the system that are unworkable, maladaptive. These things need fixing, changing. When any aspect of a system works against the best interests of the people who the system is supposed to serve, then that aspect is malfunctional and needs remedying. The competitiveness which in the past enabled one person to content with another for customers, land, positions, privilege, and a mate has too often become the dog-eat-dog viciousness which says, in effect, it is every person for oneself. Tis attitude is not only morally wrong (since it denies the sense of community which our social system needs), it is also bad science. It forgets that the very basis for survival, throughout human’s recorded history, has been the ability to work cooperatively and to take an interest in the well-being of others. This can work in complementary fashion with the necessary competitiveness that carving out a way of life may demand. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
What about the fall-out of this excessively competitive way of life, the losers in the contest? Too often in the competition, the winning of the struggle means a conquest. The winner does not just get his point, or his goal; the loser is vanquished, defeated emotionally, made to feel completely worthless. Thus, in many modern forms of competition (especially in the commercial and business World), the game moves over into the third type of social process, conflict. And conflict is a desperate, no-holds-barred matter. Conflict is probably as old as life itself and some would say that it is just right. Our understanding of human behavior should enable us to make some distinctions between those kinds of natural phenomena that are necessary and those that we have outgrown as human beings. Conflict, in the sense of fighting and warfare within the species of humanity, is an outmoded and certainly dysfunctional social process. Dysfunctional means not serving the survival needs of the organism or the structure. So we have three basic social processes: cooperation, competition, and conflict. Of the three, cooperation and some forms of competition seem to be functional, while vicious competition and conflict can be shown to be devastatingly dysfunctional. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
The proponents of instinctive aggression claim that competitiveness and conflict have just as much natural origin, are just as functional, and have just as much survival value as cooperation. However, many experts believe that a full evaluation of the biosocial nature of human beings will point up the dysfunctionality of continued hostility in a World growing daily more crowded. It is the aim of eugenics to eliminate, so far as possible, the unfit stocks, which by their constitutional defects lower the level of human achievement and increase the difficulties of social life. However, in the state of our knowledge today, and probably for some time to come, this is extremely difficult. So complicated is heredity, so various the order followed by the inherited genes in constituting the new individual, that the more cautious investigators sometimes think it may take thousands of years before we can make much progress, through methods of deliberate selection, in raising the level of race. However, there is a simple method of working towards the purification of the race which as perhaps prevailed from the beginning and been held in honor in the highest civilizations, including those of Greece and Rome, from which we ourselves so largely descend. We know in the back of our minds that only God can save us. “And now let us be wise and look forward to these things, and do that which will make for the peace of this people,” reports Mosiah 29.10. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
There are many aspects of being a social being that are not as clear-cut as the psychosocial crises. Some of the vague and abstract situations involves the learning and following of the rules of the society in which you live. At the bottom, because they are the least clearly delineated, are the customs and traditions. These are often fuzzy and difficult to understand. For instance, no one seems to know, or bother to explain, why Americans shake hands to greet each other, but it is probably an antiquated psychic process so we can get a feel for the other person. Handshaking is also a symbolic gesture of peace-making, placating the stranger or friend so one will not think we are going to attack him or her. Possibly this is the origin of the practice, but the evidence is still speculative. However, it is a good example of a custom that is taught but not explained other than with the statement, “Now, this is what you do when you meet somebody, Ralph Silvestri.” In this same class are things like opening the car door for a lady, walking on the curb side of a lady to protect her run a runaway car, and wearing particular types of clothing on certain occasions. In Japan turning the eyes away is a mark of respect, as if the person finds you so awesome that one must turn away to avoid being blinded by your radiance. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
Anthropologists call these customs folkways. They are expected and strongly urged behaviors, but the person who fails to perform them can expect only very slight negative reaction. They boy who does not open the car door for a certain class of girl may hear her say: “Chivalry sure is dead!” or he may notice a slight clouding of her brow, if anything at all happens. However, there is a set of culturally prescribed behaviors and rituals that have much stronger sanctions attached to them. These are called the mores (pronounced mor-ays) of a society. These are so important that two things come about because of them: first, they often become part of society’s ethical behavior and we speak then of moral behavior; and secondly, many of them become codified and written down as laws. Some of these moral rules involve the rights of other people and to violate them means to bring down all kinds of social wrath. Belching, spitting, flatulence (passing gas), nose-picking, speaking about bathroom habits, or making sexual overtures in the full view of other people are good examples of unwritten, but strongly sanctioned, immoral behavior. Negative mores are sometimes called taboos, from a Polynesian word meaning behavior set aside as sacred. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
No society can live wholesomely by any other sort of regulation, and State legislatures stultify themselves when they fail to realize that their part is merely to formalize, and record, and support, the growth and decay of the taboos. Growing up and learning some of the rules for living that a society gives can become downright bothersome. Babies do not have to obey any rules but those of nature. However, as they grow, natural behavior comes more and more under the control, direction and sanction of the people who share the World with them. Actually, the babies become socialized. Socialization is the process of becoming enculturated, or of absorbing the required behaviors of the culture of which the individual is a part. Various aspects of life and experience go into making an individual’s personality. There are some experience that only happen under Biological Roles to only males or only to females, or only to adults or only to children, depending of course on the role that they play in their society. Yet, none of us participates in culture alone nor by ourselves, nor do we, individually, create culture. “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid,”2 Nephi 22.2. No one is a slave or robot to anything in our culture. We can, within the limits we must acknowledge, make or break our selfhood. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
No man or woman is an island, entire of itself; every person is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a cold be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any person’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in humankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. “There was great mourning and howling and weeping among all the people continually; yea, great were the groanings of the people, because of the darkness and the great destruction which had come upon them,” 3 Nephi 8.23. Each of us is involved and interwoven delicately with our fellow human beings. The analogy of a spider web may be useful. All of us in the World, but especially those grouped closer together in nation, state, community, school, family, and marriage unit are tied together by delicate spider webs, webs of delicate resiliency. Each sensitive and responsive web tends to draw us closer or pull us father to whatever side another is drawn. Nobody dies without our feeling it, nobody rises without our also being pulled up. Each of us is responsive to and responsible for every other. “And one that will contend against the word of the Lord, let him or her be accursed; and one that shall deny these things, let him or her be accursed,” reports Ether 4.8. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
No person is an island, unless we look carefully at the geologic charts of our oceans. If we do this, we find that each island is the protruding peak of an undersea mountain range, but the range is connected and all of one piece, tied intimately and unmistakably to the Earth below it. Islands do not float on the surface of the ocean. Individual people do not float on the surface of society, unconnected from any of the rest of us. A full realization of this is what must take place for any ideal of universal humanity, or oneness to emerge. If there were no ties connecting the people of this land, and no longer ties connecting people of all lands, then there would be no need for an elaborate plan of governing and interrelating. However, there are. The designers of the Constitution of the United States of America (our Country), while great humans, full of the love of God and honor, wanted to put into effect a form of government based of the scriptures of the Bible so that the fullest participation of the largest number of the citizenry possible. Unfortunately, there are many ways of interpreting “citizens,” and the abuses of civil liberties down the years testify to the problems of interpretation with which we live. “If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die,” reports Revelations 11.5. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
Furthermore, the attempt is being made by people of conscience and good will to actualize the fullest meanings of the United States of America’s Constitution and Bill of Right, which is our laws and codes to protect legal citizens, so that all people who are legal can participate in both the benefits and responsibilities of full citizenship. One of the most crucial areas is still liberties, especially those of members of marginalized groups of citizens in this country. The nature of Americans is not cruel nor hostile, but there is a strong learning program through which everyone passes that insists one must grasp what one can and keep it, at whatever cost to another person. However, never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or for others, any practice that is not in keeping with a Holy God. Holiness means absolute purity of our behavior before God, the words coming from our mouths, and every thought in our mind—placing every detail of our life under the scrutiny of God. Holiness is not simply what God gives us, but what God has given us that is being exhibited in our lives. “Be holy, for I am holy,” 1 Peter 1.16. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
If people in this nation are going to insist that they are moral people, that their land was founded in the spirit of religion and all the beneficial aspects that that can mean, then they will attempt to act more optimistically on the fellowship and love their religions teaches. The idea of American Country, were if the laws were established by God, then no one can challenge them, for God is supreme. We must discover that we are not to watch and profile our people, but to protect and love and assist them. This means that we must catch some of the deeper meaning of our common life styles, must recognize that the success of the nation depends on the mutual assistance of each one of us, and that an uplift in the economic, social, moral, personal, and educational level of any one of us can also bring about similar upliftings for each and every one of those who share this land. “Behold, when ye shall rend that veil of unbelief which doth cause you to remain in your awful state of wickedness, and hardness of heart, and blindness of mind, then shall the great and marvelous things which have been hid up from the foundation of the World from you—yea, when ye shall call upon the Heavenly Father in my name, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, then shall ye know that the Father hath remembered the covenant which he made unto your fathers,” reports Ether 4.15. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
Many a critic of this viewpoint insists that giving to the less affluent, for instance, means to take something away from one that one has rightfully earned. Such critics fail to see that if the poverty can be minimized or even eliminated, it means more jobs, more wages, more tax receipts, and an uplift in the entire economy. This is why we must put the needs of Americans first. We must help ourselves so we do not become bankrupt and poor and occupied by a hostile nation. “A third Angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he or she, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the Holy Angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever,” reports Revelations 14.9-10. If one can find and restore the relatedness one has with others in this upward climb, humans can continue to prosper in all the ways one can prosper. “And they did land upon the shore of the promised land. And when they had set their feet upon the shores of the promised and they bowed themselves before the Land, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over them,” reports Ether 6.12. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
The population of the World continues to soar, we are nearly at 8 billion people, and many think 5 billion is the capacity, and the effects of this overpopulation will continue to be felt. As you can see, a dangerous mob of over 14,000 people is storming the American shores as we speak and demanding that we support them and their families. However, as the actual amount of square footage available for each human being is being computed, we need to deal with the many problems of sheer survival that are facing all of us—deal with them in a united fashion. Overcrowding brings about increased poverty, mental illness, infectious diseases, unemployment, housing shortages, crimes, and the biggest consequence of all: war. “People gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done. The sixth Angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the moth of the false prophet. They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole World, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty, reports Revelations 16.12-14. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
There is a continual round of controversy in the history of nations and people. We find ourselves enmeshed in this conflict right now. In the frontier period of any nation, raw, heroic, rugged individualism is the keynote. We sing the praises of the Daniel Boones, Davy Crocketts, Jim Bridgers, Malcom Xs, Ice Teas, Abe Lincolns, Teddy Roosevelts, Harriet Tubmans, Aaliyahs, Brandon Lees, and Jennifer Lopezs, and others who have done it for themselves, who have risen from less affluence or weak to successful or strong. This is part of the frontier history of any nation. However, most nations recognize that this period of emphasizing the solitary exploits of individual heroes must give way to the period of cooperative effort, group and family action. Even though our nation can show many examples of cooperative programs (beginning with the United States of America’s Constitution, Civil Rights Act of 1875, Civil Rights Cases (1883), the doctrine of Balance of Power, the League of Nations, the National Recovery Act and its New Deal, the United Nations), we have to a large degree continued to promulgate the success story to our children. We do not believe that either the loss of personal identity that often accompanies socialist or communist programs, or the loss of group cohesiveness and group relatedness is necessary. Rather, we liken any group endeavor to love. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
Love is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality. Love is an active power in humans, which breaks through the walls which separate humans from their fellow humans, which unites people with others; loves makes one overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits one to be oneself, to retain one’s integrity. In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two. “Righteous love truth and are not shaken,” reports 2 Nephi 9.40. It is not only possible, but highly desirable, to see any human cooperation as more important and productive than singlehanded or solitary effort when the goal has mostly social implications. This is true whether the effort is in the family, friendship group, work group, management group, legislative, judicial, executive, or any other kind of activity. Physicians and surgeons still rely on the consultative skills of fellow doctors before making important final judgements. Even in the surgical arena, there are many hands doing the work, even the work of the greatest surgical brain around. No person is of necessity an isolated entity; one achieves one’s humanity by virtue of one’s interaction with others; one shares one’s humanity and it comes back to one multiplied many times over. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
Very well. I am going to lay down the law to you. If I am to remain with you, I am the Master here. And I refuse to prove myself to you. I will not spend my tenure with you being constantly questioned as to the virtue of my authority! Case in point. Whatever I saw out there, I choose to forget. And you have to forget it too. Happiness is the object of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. Humans are born into a social group, their family. Many forms of animal life develop something to human families, but none with such complexity or holding power. Since no animal appears in all nature to come into the World so defenseless, so helpless, so dependent, the human family provides, first of all, a nest, a context, an atmosphere, a buffer against the rest of the World. In this family are virtually all the satisfactions our basic survival needs. In addition to meeting these needs, the truly happy family offers affection, warmth, and security, which are essentials of a later stage of development. However, if the parents give the child the satisfactions for one’s basic needs in accompaniment with the attitudes and behaviors of warmth, love, affection, and pleasure, the child nests into the family structure more easily and gains an attitude toward interdependency that serves one well at every stage of one’s development. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
The family also provides legal and social status for the child. One has a name, legally given, with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto, and in the legal eyes of the society, one belongs to somebody and in fact is somebody. One has a legal and group identity. One’s social status (or more correctly statuses) contain several positions that the child occupies. Some of these statuses or positions are ascribed to or conferred on the child at birth. If male, he is given at birth a set of privileges and expectations that the society gives to each male. If female, she also is given both privileges and expectations for her behavior, all social and culturally prescribed. Even though we may have some uphill struggles in our lives, our attitude will determine how we face them. By setting worthwhile goals and keeping our heart and mind focused on them, we will learn self-discipline and accomplish much. Yes, there will be times when climbing a metaphorical mountain grade will be about as much as we can bear, but do not give up, make sure your purpose in life is fixed. Serving an honorable mission, graduating from high school or college, and being worthy of a temple marriage, at your age, may seem like very lofty goals, but if you start climbing now you will be so much better prepared to accomplish them. People who have been wrought upon by the Spirit of God will be healed. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
If the child is the first-born, one has certain privileges automatically: undivided attention from the parents, the first choice of family names, and the distinction of giving the father and mother their new status as parents. As part of our Heavenly Father’s plan, we are into families. He established families to bring us happiness, to help us learn correct principles in a loving atmosphere, and to prepare of for eternal life. Parents have the vital responsibility to help their children prepare to return to Heavenly Father. Parent fulfill this responsibility by teaching their children to follow Jesus Christ and live the Savior’s gospel. Parents have the first responsibility for the spiritual and physical welfare of their children. A child may, in certain sub-cultures, be automatically Jewish or a Christian by virtue of being born into a particular family. Of course, the formal baptism, confirmation, or coronation may take place later, but because the child is born into a particular family with a particular religion, the youth is raised in terms of that religion. And, there are many ways that goodly parents can access the help and support they need to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to their children. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
As we reach certain milestones in our life, it is helpful and instructive to reflect on the events and experience of the past. Every day, we must teach our children and possess the ability to be grateful to Heavenly Father for blessing us with a very long life. So much has changed during our lifetime, but we are all ascribed the status of racial groups, socioeconomic groups (called social class), nationality groups, and so forth. There are other statuses that we will have to reckon with as well. There are the achieved or attained statuses that one will have as a result of growth or some effort on our part. A person will become a man or woman, an adult male of female. One will become at a certain age a driver of cars, a purchaser of adult commodities like spirits or some other substance, a fully investitured citizen, a voter, draft-eligible, a student, and in later life, a senior citizen. One will earn the status of employee or employer, the statuses that come with earned promotions and advancements in one’s career, the status of husband or wife, father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, and others. An individual will earn trophies, medals, ribbons, diplomas, degrees, certificates, as well as demotions, unemployment insurance, retirement, employee of the month, and other earned statuses. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
Each status or position in the social structure carries with it a set of behaviors that are expected of the person in that slot. The expected behaviors are called roles and can be pleasant or unpleasant. Additionally, they can come into conflict with each other, as when the role of student, with hours of homework to do each night, even on Saturday and Sunday, comes into conflict with the role of friend or date, with social activities to do! Sometimes school even demands that we miss out on precious family time and some high school and college students have required courses on Saturday, Sunday School on Sunday, and along with traditional school or college, they may also work and be required to go to Bible study during the week. The process of personal and social adjustment is concerned with the management of the various role conflicts that come with living the complex lives our society encourages. Through all the fast-paced changes occurring around us, we earnestly pray and work to ensure that the values of the gospel of Jesus Christ endure. Already some of them are in jeopardy of being lost. At the top of the list of these values and, therefore, prime targets of the adversary, are the sanctity of marriage and the central importance of families. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
So, the family provides an anchor and the safe harbor of a home where each child of a loving Heavenly Father can be influenced for good and acquire eternal values. It also provides a definite context for the important education that each child needs. Even before formal schooling, all children are educated with the family structure. In fact, the development of the core of personality, with fundamental learning skills, emotional experiences, attitudes, preferences, and social patterns, usually takes place in our society before the child even enters kindergarten. Furthermore, there is scientific evidence to show that the experiences of the first five or six years can so condition the direction and temper of a child’s life that one virtually becomes what one was raised to be. As the twig is inclined, so grows the tree. However, as powerful as early experiences are, the child is capable of becoming one’s own person, even if it means throwing off the influences of those early, formative years. This is not easy, but again, achieving significant selfhood is never easy. It is a struggle, and many do not follow throw on it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
Life for some is so enjoyable for some as a family that they want to follow the example that their elders set, in an effort to continue on through experiencing the same joy that had been theirs in their younger days. The education that takes place in these formative years is important. The attitudes, myths, beliefs, ideas, likes and dislikes that are learned, informally and subtly, may form the basic foundation upon which that child builds one’s entire life. We can see this best illustrated in racial attitudes. In a family where a child is told that members of certain ethnic groups are less affluent or less desirable, and where one also observes that no members of those groups ever visit the home nor participate in any of the fellowship activities of one’s parents, a negative (or at the very least, a neutral) racial attitude is formed. Further, if one is prevented from enjoying their friendship, possibly even being prevented from attending school, club, or religious meets with members of those groups, a very definite bit of learning has taken place. It is small wonder that as an adult one should have fixed attitudes toward those groups. Culture is defined as the way of life of all people. There is a unique gospel culture, a set of values and expectations and practices common to all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
This gospel culture, or way of life, comes from the plan of salvation, the commandments of God, and the teachings of living prophets. It is given expression in the way we raise our families and live our individual lives. However, in clever and carefully camouflaged ways, the adversary is attacking commitment to family life throughout the World and undermining the culture and covenants of faithful Latter-day Saints. Parents must resolve that teaching in the home is a most sacred and important responsibility. In keeping with our belief that each individual has the potential ability to become everything one can be, we believe that even a prejudiced person can change some of his or her attitudes, can be educated in the formal and the informal sense, and can develop an optimistic attitude toward members of other groups. However, to reiterate, the unlearning and relearning is difficult, just as the unlearning and relearning of emotional responsiveness is difficult. Yet it can be done and, to editorialize, it must be done if we are going to try to bring order out of chaos, if the ideals of equality, brotherhood, sisterhood, and justice are to be actualized. Other institutions, such as church and school can assist parents to train up a child in the way he or she should go, but realize this responsibility ultimately rests on the parents. According to the great plan of happiness, it is goodly parents who are entrusted with the care and development of Heavenly Father’s children. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
In terms of the educational process that the child experiences within the family, we must mention the learning of other social skills. Not simply manners and etiquette, but the kinds of skills necessary for each child to learn to live in a World full of other people. There are various stages of development experiences at various stages in a child’s life. Powerful and fixed as these patterns may seem, they are not absolute. Parents should pray in earnest, asking our Eternal Father to help them love, understand, and guide the children God has sent to them. Many believe that in the first stage of development, the child acquires the social skill called trust. If the stage is mishandled, or the culture or property or other conditions cannot enable the child to experience the feeding -nutritive-contact relations fully, then the child not only does not learn trust, one learns mistrust. In the culture of less affluence, trust becomes a virtual luxury, and mistrust becomes the attitude that guarantees survival. It is dog-eat-dog World (ruthlessly competitive: one has to look out for one’s own interest), and everybody must be mistrusted, even those who call themselves “friend.” Do not forget that we are choice spirits and have been endowed with the priceless gift of free agency. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
Social workers, Peace Corps, and VISTA volunteers (a national service program designed to alleviate poverty), civil rights workers, and may others who have gone into areas of less affluence declare there is the attitude of suspicion and explain they face mistrust, and which they have the burden of relieving even before the poverty and squalor can be abated and remediated. Each of us has been given the freedom to choose liberty and eternal life, or to choose captivity. We need not be victims of circumstance, for unto us is given to achieve and become perfect, even as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect. People who truly love us want us to gain the deep and abiding satisfaction that comes from rendering the maximum service of which we are capable. Our lives are supposed to be enriched to overflowing blessings and happiness and love and safety as we realize the fulfillment of our fondest hopes and noblest aspirations. If we follow the divine path established by the Savior, we cannot fail, for we will have fulfilled the measure of our creation. “And again, it showeth unto the children of humans the strictness of the path, and the narrowness of the gate, by which they should enter, as the Savior having set the example before us,” reports Nephi 31.9. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
In education and in psychotherapy, we have found that even the most mistrusting, suspicious, hostile-defensive people can unlearn that set of attitudes and relearn trust and cooperative interaction. It takes time, affection, determined effort, patience, empathy, understanding, and a lot of tender, loving care, but it can be done. Trust, autonomy, love of God, initiative, industry identity, intimacy, generativity, and ego integrity are among the most important social attitudes and skills that can be listed. However, we do not agree that trust starts an irrevocable chain reaction, automatically leading to autonomy and the rest, any more than we believe mistrust bumps shame into guilt, and so on. At each stage of development, the person becomes more proficient and confident, one exercises that choice-making capacity and can become a truly autonomous, self-actualizing person. If we deny or cover up anything that is at home in the soul, then we cannot be fully present to others. Hiding the dark places results in a loss of soul; speaking for them and from them offers a way toward genuine community and intimacy. One can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received oneself, and know that you can go to that individual in one’s moment of trouble and find that this trusted individual has plenty of time for you. God will make you nourishment for other people. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
