Randolph Harris II International

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The Strongest are the Best

Whatever may be said against the principle of “natural selection” in other departments, there is no doubt of its predominance in early human history. The strongest killed out the weakest as they could. Since any form of political organization was superior to chaos, an aggregation of families having political leadership and some legal custom would rapidly conquer those that did not. The caliber of early political organization was less important than the fact that it was there at all; its function was to create a “cake of custom” which would bind men together, holding them, to be sure, in whatever place in the social order birth had given them—form organization originate in a regime of status and only long afterward evolves into a regime of contract. The second step, after organization, is the moulding of national character. This came about through the unconscious imitation of a chance “variation” displayed by one or two outstanding individuals. The national character is simply the naturally selected parish character, just as the national speech is the successful parish dialect. Progress, habitually thought of as a normal fact in human society, is a rare occurrence among peoples: the ancients had no such conception, nor do the Asians; and it is hard for some to become enlightened to the ways of the established World. The phenomenon occurs only in a few nations of European origin. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

 Some nations progress while others stagnate, because under all circumstances the strongest prevail over others; and the strongest are, in certain marked peculiarities, the best. Within each nation the most appealing character, usually the best, prevails; and in the now dominant western part of the World these competitions between nations and character types have been intensified by “intrinsic forces.” Of the existence of progress in military art there can be no doubt, nor of its corollary, that the most advanced will destroy the weaker, that the more company will eliminate the scattered, and that the more civilized are the more company. An advance in civilization is thus a military advantage. Backward civilizations, being more rigid in the structure of their law and custom, kill out varieties at birth, but progress depends upon the emergence of varieties. Progress is only possible in those happy cases where the force of legality has gone far enough to bind the nation together, but not far enough to kill out all varieties and destroy nature’s perpetual tendency to change. Early societies were in a grave dilemma: they needed custom to survive, but unless it was sufficiently flexible to admit variations they were frozen in their ancient mould. Modern societies, living in an age of discussion rather than rigid custom, have found a means of reconciling order with progress. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

Darwin’s task of finding natural roots for man’s moral feelings and for the sympathy that underlies persistent social cooperation was taken up by John Fiske in his Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (1874) and The Meaning of Infancy (1883). After reading Alfred Wallace’s account of his observations in the Malay Archipelago, Fiske had been struck by the thought that one thing that distinguishes humans from other mammals is the very long duration of their infancy. In general, there is a correlation between the complexity of a species’ potential behaviour and the proportion of its behaviour that is acquired by learning after birth. The human infant acquires the smallest proportion of its ultimate capacities during gestation; it is born less developed than the young of other species, and must undergo a long plastic period in which it learns the ways of its race. What makes the human species progressive, Fiske reason, is the fact that the infant does not come into the World with his capacities “all cut and dried,” but on the contrary must early slowly and is therefore able to learn an infinitely wider range of behaviour. The necessity of seeing infants through this long period prolongs the years of maternal affection and care and tends to keep father, mother, and child together—in short, to found the stable family and ultimately the clan organization, the first step toward civil society. From being merely gregarious, man become social. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Once the clan is organized, natural selection intervenes to maintain it; for those clans in which the primeval selfish instincts were most effectively subordinated to the needs of the group would prevail in the struggle for life. In this way the first germs of altruism and morality, manifest in the mother’s care of the infant, become generalized into wider and wider social bonds until they form sympathies broad enough to support the communal life of civilized man as he is not known. The moral sense has its foundation in the primitive biological unit, the family, and the social cooperation and solidarity of men is nothing if not natural. Fiske’s philosophy attempted to give the higher ethical impulses a direct root in the evolutionary process. A somewhat different—and, to most of his contemporaries, a less satisfactory—note of moral reassurance was struck by T.H. Huxley in his famous Romanes Lecture on “Evolution and Ethics” (1893). Unlike Fiske, Huxley accepted at its value the Hobbesian interpretation of Darwinism and acknowledged that “men in society are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process,” which includes, of course, the struggle for existence and the elimination of the unfit. However, he flatly rejected the common practice of identifying the “fittest” with the “best,” pointing out that under certain cosmic conditions the only “fit” organisms would prove to be low ones. Man and nature make altogether different judgments of value. The ethical process, or the production of what man recognizes as truly the “best,” is in opposition to the cosmic processes. “Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Active participation in the affairs of the country as a whole and of states and communities, as well as of large enterprises, requires the formation of interpersonal groups, within which the process of information exchange, debate, and decision-making, respectively, let us look at the characteristics such interpersonal groups will have. The first is that the number of participating people must be restricted in such a way that the discussion remains direct and does not allow the rhetoric or the manipulating influences of demagogues to become effective. If people meet regularly and know each other, they begin to feel who they can trust and whom they cannot, who is constructive and who is not, and in the process of their own participation, their own sense of responsibility and self-confidence grows. Second, objective and relevant information which is the basis for everyone’s having an approximately clear and accurate picture of the basis issues must be given to each group. The problem of adequate information presents many difficulties which forces us into some digression. Are the issues with which we deal in foreign and domestic policy or in the management of a corporation not so intricate and specialized that only the highly trained specialist can understand them? If that were so, we would have to admit that the democratic process in the traditional sense of the citizen’s participation in decision making is not any more feasible anymore; we would have to admit, furthermore, that the constitutional function of Congress is also outmoded. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

The individual senator or representative certainly does not have the specialized knowledge which is assumed to be necessary. The president himself does seem to be dependent on the advice of a group of highly trained specialists, since he is not supposed to understand problems of such intricacy that they are outside the grasp of an informed and educated citizen. Briefly, if the assumption of the insurmountable complexity and difficulty of the data were correct, the democratic process would be an empty form, covering up government by technicians. The same would hold true in the process of management also. If top managers could not understand the highly complex technical problems they are called upon to decide, they would simple have to accept the decisions of their technical experts. The idea that data have become so difficult and complex that only highly specialized experts can tackle them is largely influenced by the fact that in the natural sciences such a degree of specialization has been reached that often only a few scientists are capable of fully understanding the work of a colleague in their own field. Fortunately, most data which are necessary for the decision-making in politics and management are not of the same order of difficulty or specialization. In fact, computerization reduces the difficulties because it can construct different models and show different outcomes according to the premises which are used in the programing. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

In psychoanalytic terminology, one speaks of “the unconscious” as if it were a place inside the person, like the cellar of a house. This idea has been reinforced by Dr. Freud’s famous division of the personality into three parts: the Id, the Ego, and the super-ego. The Id represents the total of instinctual desires, and at the same time, since most of them are not permitted to arrive at the level of awareness, it can be identified with the “unconscious.” The Ego, representing man’s organized personality inasmuch as it observes reality and has the function of realistic appreciation, at least as far as survival is concerned, may be said to represent “consciousness.” The super-ego, the internalization of father’s (and society’s) commands and prohibitions, can be both conscious and unconscious, and hence does not lend itself to being identified with the unconscious or the conscious respectively. The topographical use of the unconscious has certainly been stimulated further by the general tendency in our time to think in terms of having. People say that they have insomnia, instead of being sleepless, or of having a problem of depression, rather than of being depressed; thus they have an Ultimate Driving Machine, a Victorian House, a child, as they have a problem, a feeling, a psychoanalyst—and an unconscious. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

This is the reason why so many people today prefer to speak of the “subconscious”; it is till more clearly a region, rather than a function; while I can say I am unconscious of this or that, one could not say, “I am subconscious of it.” Jung’s use of the term “unconscious” has not helped to discourage the topographical usage of this concept. While for Dr. Freud the unconscious is the cellar full of vices, Jung’s unconscious is rather a cave filled with man’s original but forgotten treasures of wisdom (although not exclusively so), laid over by intellectualization. Another difficulty in the Freudian concept of the unconscious lies in the fact that it tends to identify a certain content, that instinctual strivings of the Id, with a certain state of awareness/unawareness, the unconscious, although Dr. Freud was careful to keep the concept of the unconscious separate from that of the Id. One must not lose sight of the fact that one is dealing here with two entirely distinct concepts; one deals here with certain instinctual impulses—another with a certain state of perception—unawareness or awareness. It so happens that the average person in our society is unaware of his desire to incorporate another human being, the psychotic is quite aware of that or other archaic desires, and so are most of us in our dreams. If we insist on the separation between the concept of archaic content and that of that of the state of awareness, or unconsciousness, it will clarify the understanding of “the” unconscious. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

The term “the unconscious” is actually a mystification (even though one might use it for reasons of convenience, as I am guilty of doing in these pages). There is no such thing as the unconscious; there are only experiences of which we are aware, and others of which we are not aware, that is, of which we are unconscious. If I hate a man because I am afraid of him, and if I am aware of my hate but not of my fear, we may say that my hate is conscious and that my fear is unconscious; still, my fear does not lie in that mysterious place: “the” unconscious. In the beginning of my struggles, it was discouraging because I could not see the whole scene in the way that I express it now. I knew only that in this situation something was wrong and I had to correct that. This went on…and on…and on…seemingly with nothing ahead and with no end to the going. However, when I had gone through it enough times in different circumstances, then something that all the instances had in common began to show itself to me. I began to grasp in a total way the distinction between what others had put into me and what came out of myself. What had been a knotty tussle with one blindness after another, each one gone through in isolation from the others, began to be more flowing, with a more steady awareness of myself. Each time, something of myself came through, and something that was not myself got pushed away. There seems to be “no end to it” now, but the meaning of the words has changed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

What began as one battle after another, so wearying, so full of pain, has now become frequently enjoyable, like the joy that a child has in his growing and in his growing knowing. Sometimes it is not like that, but even then there is the knowing that I will come through, which certainly was not with me earlier, when I did not even know what was pushing its way through. It is often true now that “I do not know what I am going to do, but I am going to do it”—not only in work and things like that, but in my relations with other people, too. Now, we have been following Clare for some months now and many of us can relate to her. Most recently, she was concerned because she realized that she revolted against being alone. Her attitude about this problem had changed since her analysis of the “private religion.” She still felt the sting of being alone as keenly as before, but instead of succumbing to a helpless misery she had taken active steps to avoid solitude. She sought the company of others and enjoyed it. However, for about a week she was entirely obsessed by the idea that she must have a close friend. She felt like asking all the people she met, hairdresser, dressmaker, secretary, married friends, whether they did not know a man who would be suitable for her. Everybody who was married or who had a close friend, she regarded with the most intense envy. These thoughts assumed such proportions that it finally struck her that all of this was not only pathetic but definitely compulsive. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Only now was she able to see that her incapacity to be alone had greatly increased during the relationship with Peter, and had reached a climax after the separation. She realized, too, that she could endure solitude if it was of her own choosing. If it was not voluntary, it turned out painfully; then she felt disgraced, unwanted, excluded, ostracized. Thus, Clare realized that the problem was not a general incapacity to be alone, but a hypersensitivity to being alone. Linking this finding with her recognition that her self-evaluation was entirely determined by the evaluation of others, she understood that for her the mere absence of attention meant that she was thrown to the dogs. Each is so accustomed to obeying the lower ego that he finds his greatest comfort in continuing to do so, his greatest discomfort in disobeying it. Insofar as the quest seeks to bring about such a reversal of acts and attitudes, it becomes the most difficult enterprise of his whole life. Much new thinking and much new willing are required here. To accept our moral weakness, to overlook our failure to practice control of thoughts, and smugly to condone this unsatisfactory condition by calling it “natural,” is to show how powerful is the ego’s hold upon us. When a man comes to understand that he has no greater problem than the problem within, he comes to wisdom. The fact that he is becoming aware of this weakness more acutely and that he now sees egoism in himself where he formerly saw virtue, is a revelation made by his progress towards truth. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

Many people suffer in adult life because they will not grow to adulthood, but insist upon struggling, sometimes with ingenious cunning and subterfuge, to get other people to cater to their needs and wishes the way they wanted their parents to serve them during infancy. The sneaky ways in which persons stive to exploit others have been documented. Thus, an adult might play the game of “wooden leg”—asking for deference from others, and seeking to justify failures, by calling attention to real or imagined disabilities: “If my stomach had not been hurting me all those years, I could have been more successful in my career.” The healthy personality consists of affirming one’s personal worth (“I am OK”), making reasonable demands upon others as befits an adult, and developing simple honesty in one’s dealings with others—living a relatively “game-free” existence. When a man comes to understand that he has no greater problem than the problem within, he comes to wisdom. The fact that he is becoming aware of his weakness more acutely and that he now sees egoism in himself where he formerly saw virtue, is a revelation made by his progress towards the truth. If he considered it aright and understands it as it really is, even temptation can nourish a man, make his will stronger, and his goal clearer. To make amends and fast, acts as purification after sin. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

While a mental health counselor could undoubtedly make a valuable contribution in meeting our society’s mental health needs, he would not represent an optimal answer to the pressing demand for psychotherapy. The only thoroughly logical answer to that demand, in view of the utter impossibility of its being supplied by the present profession, is to create a new profession—to train properly selected persons to function specifically and exclusively as psychotherapists. What would constitute the ideal program of training for the psychotherapist? How should candidates for this training be selected? What personal characteristics should they manifest?? No one can say with certainty. And it would be a mistake to propose a highly restrictive set of specifications for this new profession, for this would constitute a premature attempt at authoritative rigidification of standards of a kind that is already proving embarrassing to the existing mental health professions. In thinking about selections and training of members for this new profession, it would be well to hold clearly in mind what their ultimate function and setting would be: they would work in hospitals, in mental health center, in child guidance clines, and in various social agencies where they would be under the general direction of and have continuous consultation with the senior professional staff in psychiatry, psychology, and social work; their primary and exclusive responsibility (except for special work entailed in research collaboration) would be to provide therapeutic conversation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

It is perhaps easier to specify those properties which would not be pertinent to their recruitment and training than to list those which would with certainty be applicable. A high level of academic performance would be less critical than substantial evidence of sound general intelligence. Modest intellectual endowment would perhaps prove a more positive qualification than extremely high intelligence. A balanced record of good scholastic achievement couple with extracurricular interests and reasonable number of effective social pursuits, including group participations, would probably make for a better candidate than would an outstanding academic record in the absence of non-scholarly interests and pursuits. Evidence of measure social interests and welfare motivations rather than of strong scientific interests and material motives would be pertinent. The young person who had revealed both interests and aptitudes for working effectively with others in personal settings would probably be a good bet. Thus, the person with a record of leadership in school activities, in camping, scouting, boys’ clubs or girls’ clubs, settlement house or other volunteer service activities would reveal some promise for effective response to training. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

The Sacramento Fire Department is also trained to deal with mental health crisis. They get many calls where people are simply in distress and want a ride to the hospital. Unfortunately, those rides are extremely expensive, but the Sacramento Fire Department goes out of their way to keep the community safe and to preserve lives. If you have a firm grasp on your value system, mission, mandates, and vision of your department’s desired future, most departments realize that they have an ever-increasing workload, often without the correlating increase in resources (money in the budget and more personnel). “I really feel that is firefighting is what somebody really wants to do and they take the time to get the proper training, anybody can do it. You’ve gotta want to do it. I’ve had 240 hours of training, plus I went to the National Fire Academy. I’ve been there about ten times for different classes. I paid for everything myself, because the classes at the academy are taught by the best trained people in the field. I feel that the more knowledge I get, the safer my life is going to be. I know that bookwork can’t always help you in an actual fire situation. You have to have the experience. But hopefully my book learning, my training, plus now the experience I’ve had will get me out of a lot of bad situations—or prevent me from getting into one. It took anywhere from nine to twelve hours to get to the academy, depending on weather. I’d leave about five Friday morning and return about four in the morning on Sunday. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

“I’ve taken public fire education, firefighter safety and survival, fire service management, initial company tactical operation, fire service suppression—that’s increasing personal effectiveness—and fire service supervision—that’s increasing team effectiveness. I’ve also taken a class over at Santa Clara University on investigating the juvenile arsonist. I’m a juvenile counselor. I love that. The kids really open their arms to me. It’s a wonderful feeling. These are children who have actually set fires, and the parents bring them to me. A lot of the parents say things like, ‘Scare them, and tell them never to do this again.’ But when I sit down with these kids and talk to them, they understand where I’m coming from. They know I’m a firefighter and that what they did was wrong, but they can trust me and talk to me about it. We’ve had a real good record with these kids not repeating fires. There was a mentally [disabled] boy who was playing with a lighter on his bed, and he set his mattress on fire. He was an eighteen-year-old who, when he was five, had fallen off a curb and gotten hit by a car. Some people wanted the police to talk to the boy and shake him up by telling him, ‘You’ll get arrested if you do this again.’ It was one of the police officers who asked me to handle this child, who had a six-year-old mentality. So I talked to him and had a real good session with him. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

Nine months later I was involved with a club, taking disabled kids to the arena for one of the games. And this boy was one of the kids in the group. I went up to him and said, ‘Hi, (name was used but is being withheld for safety and privacy reasons), do you remember me?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ Then he said, ‘I don’t play with lighters anymore.’ And I was just so tickled, to think that he would remember all those months later. And his mom was grateful for how I handled the situation. In your original training class, when you go into an actual burn for the first time, you get scared. You think, ‘What in the heck am I doing? Why am I doing this?’ But I had great confidence in my instructors. I trusted them completely, because they weren’t going to take a class of twenty people into a burning building and endanger their lives. The neatest part for me was having the breathing apparatus on. I’d never had anything over my face like that. That was exciting. I would challenge myself to see how little air I could use in the training session. I got to the point where I would just relax, and it doesn’t bother me to have the mask on. I’ve come a long way since then, but I think anybody would be foolish to say they weren’t scared. I still am, at times. At some fires I feel that that darn thing is a lot smarter than I am. It’s a constant game. It’s like I say, ‘Okay, who’s going to be smarter this time, you or me? Who’s going to win this fight?’ You have to treat a fire with respect. Because if you don’t, that’s when you get hurt.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Today’s firefighters use a variety of technology, and they provide many services that go beyond putting fires out. They are actively working in our communities and counseling people in an effort to prevent fires. These programs are vitally important. You can help save lives by contributing to the Sacramento Fire Department. Also, I like how the firefighter that was interviewed actually talked to the youths and let them know that someone cares and why fires are dangerous. When people take their oaths serious, it can really prevent bad behaviour from becoming contagious. Parents, be sure to teach your children to love America and respect authority, obey the law and love God so we can also preserve the harmony in our community. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Justice, justice shalt thou pursue, that thou mayest live in the land which God giveth thee. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Proclaim liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof. Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports….where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religion obligation deserts the oaths, which are the caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

The Winchester Mystery House

Mrs. Winchester, about one hundred and thirty years ago, or more, became a little disquieted. However, not anything much remarkable yet, unless about a young servant girl who was pluckt by the thigh by a cold hand in her bed, borne through the air, and died within a few days after. Some weeks after this, Satan, in the form of a tall dark man conveyed thither and most often let the house by way of the chimney. One morning, the mother of the young servant girl was standing by the door, Mrs. Winchester asked her how she was doing. To whom she answered, with a sorrowful countenance, that though she was in tolerable health, yet things went very ill. Mrs. Winchester’s house being extremely haunted, especially above stairs, so that she was forced to keep in the lower rooms. She also said that one evening she walkt out about a mile from the mansion and there came riding towards her three persons upon three broom-staves, born up about a yard and half from the ground. Two of them she formerly knew which was a Witch and a Wizard. “Well,” Mrs. Winchester said, “if you will but stay a while, you may chance to see something more.” And, indeed, the servant had not stayed any considerable with her.

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