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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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The Most Noxious of All Wild Beasts is the Wild Man
God ordained rational creatures to act voluntarily and of themselves. When we believe in His son, and have assurance that Jesus as the Christ exists, a correct idea of His character, and a knowledge that we are striving to live according to His will, we are blessed with His infinite power, intelligence, and love. While, as we have seen, many men were uncertain how much of their religion would be left standing after natural selection had been fully accepted, others were quite as troubled by questions about what Darwinism would mean for the moral life. Spenser and the evolutionary anthropologists promised them that it would mean progress, perhaps perfection. The Malthusian element in Darwinism, however, pointed to an endless struggle for existence regulated by no sanction more exalted than mere survival. While some expected a new and higher morality, others feared a complete collapse of moral standards. Senator Gore, one of the characters in Henry Adams’ novel Democracy (1880), which was set against the dissolute and money-mad atmosphere of Washington in the Gilded Age, expressed the essential aimlessness and sterility of what many men feared would be the dominant values of the future: “But I have faith; not perhaps in the old dogmas, but in the new ones; faith in human nature; faith in science; faith in the survival of the fittest. Let us be true to our times, Mrs. Lee! If our age is to be beaten, let us die in the ranks. If it is to be victorious, let us be the first to lead the column. Anyway, let us not be skulkers or grumblers.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Men with a deeper sense for traditional ideals hoped for more than this. Did Darwinism really justify brutal self-assertion, the neglect of the weak and the poor, the abandonment of philanthropic enterprise? Did it mean that progress must be dependent upon the ruthless elimination of the unfit, in an expanding population forever pressing upon the bounds of subsistence? In a nation trained in Christian ethics and fortified by a democratic and humanitarian heritage, such a Nietzschean ransvaluation of values was out of the question. Spencer’s econciliation of evolution and idealism, with its forecast of a transition from militancy to peace and from egoism to altruism was the commonest answer. Yet Spencer often spoke in rude selectionist language which could satisfy few who were not uncompromising defenders of a strictly competitive order or who were not willing to make drastic concessions to a naturalistic ethic, bare of all the warm and familiar theological sanctions. In The Principles of Sociology, he declared: “Not simply do we see that in the competition among individuals of the same kind, survival of the fittest has from the beginning furthered production of a higher type; but we see that to the unceasing warfare between species is mainly due both growth and organization. Without universal conflict there would have been no development of the active powers.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
In the light of all this talk about “unceasing warfare” and “universal conflict,” what was the value to those interested in the here and now of Spencer’s promise of a remote social Nirvana? One philanthropist asked: “Would not mankind take chloroform if they had no future but Spencer’s? No individual continuance, no God, no superior powers, only evolution working towards a benevolent society here and perfection on Earth, with great doubt whether it could succeed, and, if it succeeded, whether the end would pay.” “Herbert Spencer’s ethics will certainly be the final ethics,” wrote another critic, “but with question does press itself upon us, what is to be the ethics for the time now present and passing?” “What are we to do,” queried James Cosh, “with our reading youth entering upon life who are told in scientific lectures and journals that the old sanctions of morality are all undermined?” In 1879 the Atlantic Monthly published an essay by Goldwin Smith with the significant title “The Prospect of a Moral Interregnum,” which faced the troublesome questions raised by naturalism. Religion, Smith believed, had always been the foundation for the western moral code; and it would be idle for positivists and agnostics to imagine that while Christianity was being destroyed by evolution the humane values of Christian ethics would persist. Ultimately, he conceded, an ethic based upon science might be worked out, but for the present there would be a moral interregnum, similar to those which had occurred in past times of crisis. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
“There had been such an interregnum in the Hellenic World after the collapse of its religion brought about by scientific speculation; there had been another in the Roman World before the coming of Christianity gave it a new moral basis; a third collapse in western Europe following the Renaissance had produced the age of the Borgias and Machiavelli, the Guises and the Tudors; finally, Puritanism in England and the Counter Reformation in the Catholic Church had reintroduced moral stability. At present another religious collapse is under way: What then, we ask, is likely to be the effect of this revolution on morality? Some effect it can hardly fail to have. Evolution is force, the struggle for existence is force, natural selection is force, the struggle for existence is force, natural selection is force…But what will become of the brotherhood of man and of the very idea of humanity?” What would keep the stronger races from preying on the weak? (Smith had heard of an imperialist who said, “The first business of a colonist is to clear the country of wild beasts, and the most noxious of all wild beasts is the wild man.”) Or, is a tyrant should seize the reins of power in any of the great states, what could be said against him, consistently, under the survival doctrine? (Had not Napoleon been selected for survival?) What would happen to nineteenth-century humanitarianism? How were the passions of social conflict to be abated? To these questions Smith had no answer, but he was sure that the impending crisis in morals would bring with it a crisis in politics and the social order. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The basic principle of the humanistic management method is that, despite the bigness of the enterprises, centralized planning, and cybernation, the individual participant assets himself toward the managers, circumstances, and machines, and ceases to be a powerless particle which has no active part in the process. Only by such affirmation of his will can the energies of the individual be liberated, and his mental balance be restored. The same principle of humanistic management can also be expressed in this way: While in alienated bureaucracy all power flows from above downward, in humanistic management there is a two-way street; the “subjects” of the decision made above respond according to their own will and concerns; their response not only reaches the top decision makers but forces them to respond in turn. The “subjects” of decision making have a right to challenge the decision makers. If enough “subjects demanded that corresponding bureaucracy (on whatever level) answer questions, explain its procedures, such a challenge would first require the decision makers to respond to the demand. At this point, so many objections to the foregoing suggestions will have accumulated in the mind of the reader. The first objection probably is that the type of active participation of the “subjects” would be incompatible with efficient centralized management and planning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
This objection is plausible (a) provided one does not have any compelling reason to think that the present method of alienated bureaucracy is pathogenic; (b) if one thinks only of the tired and proven methods and shies away from imaginative new solutions; (c) if one insists that even if one could find new methods, the principle of maximal efficiency must never be given up even for a time. If, on the other hand, one follows the considerations offered in this essay and recognizes the grave danger for the total system of our society inherent in our bureaucratic methods, these objections are not as compelling as they are to those who are satisfied with the operation of our present system. More specifically, if one recognizes the difficulties and does not start out with the conviction that they are unsurmountable, one will begin to examine the problems concretely and in detail. Here, too, one may arrive at the conclusion that the dichotomy between maximal centralization and complete decentralization presents an unnecessary polarization, that one can deal with the concept of optimal centralization and optimal grass-roots participation. Optimal centralization would be the degree of centralization which is necessary for effective large-scale organization and planning; optimal participation would be the participation which does not make centralized management impossible, yet permits the participants the optimum of responsible participation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
This formulation is obviously rather general and not sufficient as a basis for taking immediate action. If a problem of such a magnitude emerges in the application of scientific knowledge to technique, the engineer is not discouraged; he recognizes the necessity of research which will result in the solution of the problem. However, as soon as we deal with human problems, such difficulties tend to discourage most people of they flatly state that “it cannot be done.” Whenever a conscientious student first investigates abnormal psychology, he or she inevitably finds characteristics of the abnormal that also seem part of the student’s self. Can you also see in yourself some of the healthy characteristics described by the many thinkers and researchers in this area? Here are some of them: Openness to new ideas and to people. Care for self, for others and for the natural World. Ability to integrate negative experiences into the self. Creativity. Ability to do productive work. Ability to love. It does no harm to measure yourself in these terms. And if one does come up with some deficiencies, there are ways to earn to improve and develop oneself. Some of the traditional ways involve getting into counseling or psychotherapy, finding friends who are constructive and facilitative of one’s growth, even reading and practicing what is recommended in authentic self-help books and working with a behaviour-modification “manager” permits you to change aspects of yourself that you chose, rather than making changes dictated by social pressures from friends or authorities. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
New institutions of learning and healing have emerged in the past decade, which aim to promote a person’s education and training beyond a typical upbringing. There are now growth centers, where people can go to learn greater autonomy, creativity, and authenticity. One of the first of these—Esalen Institute—was founded in 1962 at Big Sur in California. Since then, more than two hundred have sprung up in the United States of America and the rest of the World. We are living in an age when the population is increasing to the point beyond which the Earth may not support live. Human beings have destroyed each other by the millions, sometimes praying to the same God, through the same clergy, for guidance for more effective ways to do this. In the nature of economic development, people have destroyed entire civilizations; animal species; and the soil, water, and air, making life an uncertainty for the generations that follow, and of dubious quality for those now living. We need now to identify those people who can reverse these processes. If not impossible, it is difficult to give a succinct definition of a healthy personality. Nevertheless, for purposes of orientation, we offer this as a preliminary effort: Healthy personality is a way for a person to act, guided by intelligence and respect for life, so that personal needs are satisfied and so that the person will grow in awareness, competence, and the capacity to love the self, the natural environment, and other people. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Our friend, Clare, who many have come to know and love other the weeks, has been an interesting case study that many can relate to. Whether Clare would have recognized the full severity of her entanglement without the external pressure exerted by Peter’s breaking away from her is a question some have been wondering about. It might be thought that Clare, having passed through the development that occurred before the separation, could not possibly have stopped permanently at an essentially untenable compromise solution, but would have gone on sooner or later. On the other hand, the forces opposing her final liberation had great strength, and she might still have gone to considerable lengths to make further compromises. If it did not touch upon an attitude toward analysis not infrequent among analysts as well as patients, this would be an idle speculation not worth mentioning. This attitude is an assumption that analysis alone can solve everything. However, when treatment is endowed with such omnipotence it is forgotten that life itself is the best therapist. What analysis can do is to make one able to accept the help that life offers, and to profit from it. And it had done exactly this job in Clare’s case. It is probable that without the analytical work that she accomplished she would have reached out for a new partner as soon as possible, and thus perpetuated the same pattern of experience. The important point is not whether she could have freed herself without outside help but whether, when that help came, she was able to turn it into a constructive experience. And this she did. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
As to the content of Clare’s findings in this period, the most important one was the discovery of an active defiance against living her own life, feeling her own feelings, thinking her own thoughts, having her own interests and plans, in short against being herself and finding the center of gravity within herself. In contrast to her other findings, this one was merely an emotional insight. She did not arrive at it by way of free association, and there were no facts to substantiate it. Nor did she have any inkling of the nature of the opposing forces; she merely felt their existence. Retrospectively we can understand why she could hardly have gone any further at that point. Her situation was comparable to that of a person who is driven from his homeland and confronted with the task of putting his whole life on a new basis. Clare had to make a fundamental change in her attitude toward herself and in her relations with others. Naturally she was bewildered by the complexity of this prospect. However, the main reason for the blockage was that, despite her determination to solve the problem of dependency, there were still powerful unconscious forces preventing a final solution. She was, as it were, in mid-air between two ways of dealing with life, not ready to leave the old and not ready to reach out for the new. In consequence the following weeks were characterized by ups and downs in quick succession. Clare wavered between times in which the experience with Peter and all that it entailed appeared as part of a far-distant past, and others in which she desperately longed to win him back. Solitude, then, was felt as an unfathomable cruelty perpetrated on her. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
In one of these latter days, going home alone from a concert, Clare found herself thinking that everyone was better off than she. However, she argued, other people are alone, too. Yes, but they like it. However, people who have accidents are worse off. Yes, but they are taken care of in hospitals. And what about the unemployed? Yes, they are badly off, but they are married. At this point she suddenly saw the grotesqueness of her way of arguing. After all, not all the unemployed were happily married; and, even if they were, marriage was not a solution for everything. She recognized that a tendency must be at work which made her talk herself into an exaggerated misery. The could of unhappiness was dispelled and she felt relieved. When Clare began to analyze this incident the melody of a song from Sunday school occurred to her, without her being able to recall the text. Then an emergency operation she had had to have for appendicitis. Then the “neediest cases” was published at Christmas. Then a picture of a huge crevice in a glacier. Then a movie in which she had seen that glacier; somebody had fallen into the crevice and was pulled out at the last moment. Then a memory from the time when she was about eight years old. She was crying in bed and felt it was unthinkable that her mother would not come and console her. She did not know whether a quarrel with her mother had gone before. All she recalled was the unshakeable conviction that her mother would be moved by her distress. The mother did not come, and she fell asleep. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Presently she recalled the text of the melody from Sunday school. It declared that no matter how great our sorrow, God will help us if we pray to Him. She suddenly saw the clue to her other associations and to the exaggerated misery that had preceded them: she had an expectation that great distress would bring about help. And for the sake of this unconscious belief she made herself more miserable than she was. It was shockingly silly, yet she had done it, and had done it. And she remembered any number of occasions when she had felt herself the most abused of all mortals, only to realize some time later that she had made matters much worse than they were. When she had been in the spell of such unhappiness, however, the reasons for it looked, and even felt, real. At such times she had often telephoned Peter, and he was usually sympathetic and helpful. In this regard she could almost count on him; here he had failed her less than anybody else. Perhaps this was a more important tie than she had realized? However, sometimes Peter had not taken her unhappiness at its face value and had teased her about it, as her mother and brother had teased her in childhood. Then she had felt deeply offended and was furious with him. Yes, there was clear pattern that repeated itself—exaggerated misery and at the same time an expectation of help, consolation, encouragement, from her mother, from God, from Bruce, from her husband, from Peter. Her playing the martyr role, apart from everything else, must have been also an unconscious plea for help. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
There seem to be two levels of guiltiness. The deeper one is when I am not true to myself. My deeper self, then, seems to be reproaching me. The other guilt comes when I do what is in accord with me, but without seeing clearly (sometimes not seeing at all) the distinction between what I want and what others say that I should want. When I do what is in accord with me without this clear seeing, I feel “wrong” or “bad” and that I must be somewhat unsane or disreputable to like what I do. The introjected values are like a monitor saying to my own responses, “You must not do that!” When I act in accord with me and know clearly what I am doing, then I am freed of both guilts at once: myself no longer reproaches me (it expresses content by a feeling of ease and innocence), and the reproaches of other people seem to have nothing to do with me. Which of course they do not. One of my clients told me, “The real truth of the matter is that I’m not the sweet forbearing guy that I try to make out that I am. I get irritated at times. I feel like snapping at people, and I feel like being selfish at times, and I don’t know why I should pretend that I’m not that way.” This statement could seem to mean that it’s good to snap at people. I know some people use me as their authority for popping off with the first thing that comes into their head. However, it is no good for one to pretend that they are not a certain way. When one notices that they are pretending, and removes oneself from that dishonesty, then one is free to notice that one feels like snapping. (If one thinks that one is not a snappy person and one’s mind is on that, how can one notice that one feels like snapping? This seems to be simple mechanics.) #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
However, if one notices that one feels like snapping and snaps, as the snapping people do, then one has not noticed oneself in a way that brings about a basic change. When one notices that one wants to snap that is simple acceptance of the fact, without opinion. If one thinks that it is good to snap, one is in the same fix as one is if one thinks that it is bad to snap. If one notices that one wants to snap at or about, this is still the wrong noticing. If one feels justified, one is in the wrong place, too. One must go more deeply inward, and notice simply the feeling of one’s irritation. When one notices one’s irritation in this inward way, something changes. One does not know anything about brain circuits, but one must be able to use a switch in some way because when one has done this noticing, even if one says the same words that one might have said otherwise, they do not sound the same, and the sound is part of the message. The “switch” seems to be the same one that one uses with someone one loves very much, when one wishes to hurt and at the same time one’s love comes through. This is not the same as repressing one’s hurt. In the pause, one does not review things and thinks what one is going to say. It is more like an officer putting his hand to stop the traffic in one way so that the traffic the other way can come through. One choose to let one’s love come through, and that is one’s own choosing, having nothing to do with commandments from the Christian Bible or anywhere else. One’s love comes from one and that is a love an individual can like. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
When we consider a father with sadistic impulses, who tends to punish and mistreat his children, he is convinced that he beats them because that is the only way to teach them virtue and to protect them from doing evil. He is not aware of any sadistic satisfaction—he is only aware of rationalization, his idea of duty and of the right method of bringing up children. Here is still another example: a political leader may conduct a policy which leads to war. He may be motivated by a wish for his or her own glory and fame, yet one is convinced that one’s actions are determined exclusively by one’s patriotism and one’s sense of responsibility to one’s country. In all these instances the underlying and unconscious desire is so well rationalized by moral consideration that the desire is not only covered up, but also aided and abetted by the very rationalization the person has invented. In the normal course of his life, such a person will never discover the contradiction between the reality of one’s desires and the fiction of one’s rationalizations, and hence one will go on acting according to one’s desire. If anyone would tell one the truth, that is to say, mention to one that behind one’s sanctimonious rationalizations are the very desires which one bitterly disapproves of, one would sincerely feel indignant or misunderstood and falsely accused. This passionate refusal to admit the existence of what is repressed, Dr. Freud called “resistance.” Its strength is roughly in proportion to the strength of the repressive tendencies. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
In 1955, the United States of America’s Congress passed the Mental Health Study Act which provided for the establishment of a Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health. This commission was changed to make a thoroughgoing appraisal of the extent of mental illness, the availability of resources for treatment and research, and the needs for the future. The following statement appears in the commission’s final report: “Persons who are emotionally disturbed—that is to say, under psychological stress that they cannot tolerate—should have skilled attention and helpful counseling available to them in their community if the development of more serious mental breakdowns is to be prevented. This is known as secondary prevention, and is concerned with the detection of beginning signs and symptoms of mental illness and their relief; in other words, the earliest possible treatment. In the absence of fully trained psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, psychiatric social workers, and psychiatric nurses, such counseling should be done by persons with some psychological orientation and mental health training and access to expert consultations as needed.” The Joint Commission recognizes the vital preventative and treatment potential of persons other than the acknowledged “experts.” The above statement seems to suggest that it is as an unfortunate artifact of the “absence” of the psychiatrist and his colleagues that the important task of secondary prevention “should” be done by others. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
It would be more positive and realistic to emphasize that preventive counseling can be and is done efficiently by the non-experts, that it must be done by persons with something other than a stereotyped “full training,” and that it is the effectiveness of these invisible therapists that keeps the experts from being completely swamped. It is time to recruit actively the assistance of these people, to encourage positively their important contribution rather than to acknowledge it reluctantly as better than nothing, and to provide reasonable avenues whereby their skills and sophistication may be enhanced. Exciting empirical support for the feasibility of the Joint Commission’s proposal has been generated by an experimental project at the National Institute for Mental Health. Under the direction of an experienced clinical psychologist, a group of mature housewives without previous professional training but with serious interest in mental health work was selected for a two-year program of part-time study and practice of psychotherapy under close supervision. Careful evaluation by three experts of the recorded therapy sessions of these women led to the conclusion that their skills were equal to those of psychiatric residents, analytic institute candidates, and graduate students in clinical psychology. On an objective, written examination in psychiatry prepared by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology these women scored above the national average. Upon completion of their training, all were employed in local mental health agencies. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Everything that belongs to the ego and its desires or fears must go. For some men it is hard to put aside pride, for others it is harder to put aside shame, but both feelings must go. His thoughts, his feelings, and his actions must work in combination to effect this great self-purification which must precede the dawn of illumination. And this means that they must work upon themselves and divert their attention from other persons whom they may have criticized or interfered with in the past. The aspirant must reserve his condemnation for himself and leave others alone to their karma. If you have analysed its meanings and profited by its lessons, you are right to shut the door on the past, but not otherwise. It is a useful practice, both for general moral self-improvement and for combatting our ego, every time we become aware that preoccupation upon ourselves and let it deal with our own faults, which we usually overlook. After we have judged ourselves, only then have we earned the right to judge others. However, although the aspirant will be greatly helped by a calm analysis of the transiency, suffering, and frustration inherent in life, he will be greatly hindered if he uses it as an excuse for a defeatist mentality and depressive temperament. The gallant inspiration to go forward and upward is indispensable. The self-righteousness which prompts him to criticize others, and especially his fellow-questers, is a bad quality which ought to be excised as quickly as possible. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department is about readiness, people helping people, rescuer safety, and doing good for the greatest number. “The first time I was in a dangerous situation was a few years back. We had a tough job at a three-story dwelling. When we pulled up, there was heavy smoke and fire on the first floor, which was a store front. Fire was blowing out and up, and each window had people in it. We put ladders up to the sides of the windows and started to get the people out. A couple of the people lunged at us while we were still coming up the ladder. One fell on the guy who was our driver at the time. He just stuck out his arm and caught the girl right across the belly. It was just his brute strength that held her. He got her down, and we pulled a couple more out. Some had gone back into the building. In those days we were using all-service air masks. I had the mask on, and the chief said, “Get in, get in.” The ladder is here, and the window is to the right about three feet. Okay, get in. Sure. But I’ve got to look this situation over because I’m going to have to jump from this ladder to the window, and there was no way of rolling over because we still had some fire. When I leaped over to the windowsill, I was dangling from it. Somehow, unbeknownst to me, the nipple with the filter on the top of my air canister was lifted up, so I had no filter whatsoever. I went in and crawled around, found a young boy, and brought him to the window to one of the guys. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“I was taking on smoke, and I didn’t realize why. I checked the face piece, and it seemed okay. It baffled me that I was taking on smoke, and the smoke was getting heavier. I went back a second time and found some older guy, who was in the back room, and I dragged him out. By then, I was so dizzy I didn’t know what I was doing. I got out to the ladder, and as soon as I took the mask off and the cold air hit me, I collapsed right there. The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital, lying right next to one of the guys we had rescued. I heard the doctor say, ‘Give me a scalpel, I have to do a tracheotomy.’ I immediately started breathing well. I mean, I was pumping up in panic. I thought there was no way in hell that he was going to cut my throat for a tracheotomy. So he did the tracheotomy on one of the victims we had pulled out. The fellow lived, by the way. But I didn’t know how bad I was. I knew they had brought me in because I was overcome by smoke. I sure in hell didn’t want no trache done on me, so I started breathing like a new machine. That was the first time that I thought this job might be a little difficult.” The imagination of the Sacramento Fire Department is in creating the blueprints that will outdistance their resources to build solutions. Creating and maintaining strategic alliances that work in an intelligent, orchestrated fashion will help them apply their limited resources where they will make the most difference. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. It is also important to raise your child(ren) to love America. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Ascent at Montelena
11977 Cobble Brook Drive, Rancho Cordova, California 95742
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What I Have is Good and Still I am Unhappy
Our Heavenly Father wants us to love ourselves, to see ourselves as He see us: we are His cherished children. When this truth sinks deep into our hearts, our love for God grows. Berating others does not help them progress; it only discourages them. Along with correction, they also need encouragement. The goal with self-love is never to justify omission, rationalize sin, or slip into complacency. I recognize that certain negative feelings can help me, such as godly sorrow—but I should not wallow in it, because that is not progression. Guilt has an important role as it awakens us to changes we need to make, but there are limits to how far guilt will help us. Guilt is like a battery in a gasoline-powered BMW. It can light up the Ultimate Driving Machines, start the engine, and power the headlights, but it will not provide the fuel for the long journey ahead. The battery, by itself, is not sufficient. Ans neither is guilt. I must be intentional not to slip into negative thinking patterns and should instead focus on loving Jesus as the Christ. I once had an image of myself as a fish. My fish image was that I was a fish, struggling to swim against the stream. I was not able to do that yet. I was held where I was, which gave a chance to learn how to swim against the stream (go the way that I wanted to go) by two shadowy figures on a bridge, each of them holding a line which I was hooked like a fish. This kept me from being swept away by the swiftly moving stream. I know that the two figures were the doctor and Aldous Huxley. Neither of them understood everything, but each of them understood enough to be helpful. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
When I got worse physically, the doctor got me back to some degree of steadiness. When, through experimenting with my mind, I got into something that neither the doctor nor I understood, so I was afraid to go on with it, I wrote to Huxley and he explained it. These two men kept me from being swept away while I thrashed around, learning how to swim against the stream. This was a persistent image that I lived with for about a year. These men were also people to whom I could tell anything and they would not “call the cops.” This meant to me that they would not call men to lock me up. I thought of being “locked up” as being in a madhouse, but it was not a mental hospital that I was afraid of, although I did not know what the “madhouse” was. It meant being pushed back into what I was struggling to get out of. Other people tended very much to do this to me, so I lived more and more alone and when, at last, I was just barely able to travel I went to a place where I knew no one, and kept myself alone, so that I could get together with myself. I wanted desperately to be with someone who understood more than I did about what I was trying to understand, but since I could not do that, I could at least remove myself from people who were confusing me. After all that, some of my present knowings seem small and perhaps ridiculous, but I know now that they are not “unimportant.” I am living near the beach in an apartment which has an outside deck with a railing. When my son was here, he started to throw his damp swimming trucks and towel over the railing, then said, “The management probably wouldn’t like that—I can see why.” I agreed, and his statement was accurate, but whose seeing was the seeing why? When I agreed, in my mind there was an image of the uncluttered railing as described, something that I like. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
However, a few days later when I walked past a building with a railing draped with swimsuits and towels, I knew that I liked this, that to me it looked gay and human, alive with an activity of people. Then I knew how much I missed seeing clothes on lines blowing in the wind, people working untidily in gardens, sweeping sidewalks, dashing out of houses half-dressed to do something that should be done right now, or a woman drying her hair in the sun. When I looked out on the tidy street with no sign that anyone lives behind the curtains in the windows of the houses, it seems so lifeless. The alwaysness of this tidiness tires me the way that hunger does; something is missing from my intake. If no one else feels as I do, this still is the way that I feel, and when I think that I do not, I am not together with myself. If I could deceive myself completely by accepting other people’s values, then there might be an argument for giving up and letting other people tell me what to do. However, my inner valuing does not cease: it just gets buried to my knowing and is forever in conflict with the values that I have accepted from outside. When I had not noticed my own valuing of the street on which I live, there was nothing that I could do about it but be irked without knowing why, and feel that I must be ungrateful because “what I have is good” and still I am unhappy. Now that I have noticed, I feel happy. The conflict in me has been removed. Having accepted myself, I can accept other things too, in a way that is very different from “making the best of it.” It is the way I lived from age 12 to 16, when I wanted to quit school but the law would not let me. So, I lived with what was around me, including school, until the time when I could leave. The circumstances are different now, but the feeling is the same. I do not feel trapped. I do not feel that something has been done to me (victimized). And I do not feel guilty. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Currently in the United States of America there has been a lot of resentment to people who have immigrated illegally. Because of that, anyone who looks like they could be of Hispanic background have been facing a lot of discrimination. However, even if someone has illegally immigrated, it is not right to treat them less than human. If you do not like people being allowed to immigrate illegally, then that that up with your government, stop voting democrat. It is not your place to judge them. All individuals are children of God and part of His divine family. As His children, we all have divine potential and are precious in His eyes/ The scriptures teach that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men,” and “all are alike” unto Him. He does not love one race or culture more than any other. The gospel of Jesus as the Christ is for all of God’s children. The Book of Mormon teaches that the Lord invites “all to come unto Him and partake of His goodness; and He denieth none that come unto Him, black and white, bond and free, male and female.” Our standing with God depends on our devotion to Him and His commandments, not on the colour of our skin, our ethnicity, our citizenship status, or other attributes. Because we are children of God, we are all brothers and sisters. God has commanded us to “love one another.” In the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus Christ taught that the commandment to love our neighbour transcends ethic, cultural, and religious differences. The Saviour exemplified this teaching. He “went about doing good,” teaching and healing people of all backgrounds. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Manifest Destiny; the belief that it is our duty, as Americans, to settle the continent, conquer the World and prosper. The idealized settlers who reached the promised land of the West were ordained by God to expand the boarders of America from sea to shining sea. The settlers overcame death to reach the American West, bathed in a welcoming golden light. There was a price to be paid, however. Frontiersmen had to be willing to face the risks inherent in migration—but had their parents not faced similar risks in coming to America? They had to be willing to do the backbreaking work required to turn a wilderness into prosperous farms and towns—but had their ancestors not done that as well? They had to be willing to break with the familiar and comfortable, and even face hardship—perhaps even death. They created the blueprint to expand America’s dominion over the entire planet, and perhaps one day there will no longer be any boarder and people can travel freely to whatever part of the World they wish. So many people want to come to America because it does have a lot of freedom and law and order. With Manifest Destiny, this freedom and law and order will spread to other parts of the World. I am grateful that the heart of the gospel revolves around love. The love of God, love of others, and love for myself. It would be a grave error to believe that philosophy is merely the practice of reflection over lofty or lovely thoughts. It is also the shedding of tears over low or unlovely ones, the remorseful weeping over past and present frailty, the poignant remembrance of errors and incapacities. We who practice it must examine ourselves periodically. This means that we should not, at any time, be satisfied with ourselves but should always recognize the need of improvement. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Hence, we should constantly strive to detect and remedy the moral, temperamental, and mental defects which disclose themselves. We will need to look into our hearts more deeply than ever before, and search their darker labyrinths for the motives and desires hiding away from our conscious aspiration. We are called upon to make the most searching criticism of ourselves, and to make it with emotional urgency and even profound remorse. If it meant only looking at our human frailty and mortal foolishness, this advice to look within would be idiotic. A morbid self-obsession, a continuously gloomy introspection and unending analysis of personal thoughts and experience is to be avoided as unhealthy. Such ugly egocentricity does not make us more “spiritual.” However, the advice really means looking further and deeper. It means an introspective examining operation much longer in time, much more exigent in patience, much more sustained in character, than a mere first glance. It means intensity of the first order, concentration of the strongest kind, spiritual longing of the most fervent sort. Although philosophy bids us avoid morbid thoughts of depression, doubt, fear, worry, and anxiety because they are weakening and because they represent only one side—the dark side—of a two-sided situation, this counsel must not be misunderstood. It does not bid us ignore the causes which give rise to such thoughts. On the contrary, it bids us take full note of them, face up to them, frankly, examine them carefully, and understand the defects in our own character which led to them. Finally, we are to adopt the practical measures needed to deal with them. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
However, this once done, and thoroughly done, we are to turn our back upon them and let them go altogether to keep our serenity and contain our spiritual detachment. In every painful problem which is ultimately traceable to our own wrong-doing, the best way to rid ourself of the worry and anxiety it brings is first, to do what is humanly possible to mend matters in a practical way; second, if others are concerned, to make such reparation to them as we can; third, to unmask our sin pitilessly and resolutely for what it is; fourth, to bring clearly into the foreground of consciousness what are the weaknesses and defects in our own character which have led us into this sin; fifth, to picture constantly in imagination during meditation or pre-sleep, our liberation from these faults through acquiring the opposite virtues; sixth, and last, when all this has been done and not until then, to stop brooding about the miserable past or depressing future and to hand the whole problem with its attendant worries into the keeping of the Overself and thus attain peace concerning it. If this is successfully done, every memory of sin will dissolve and every error of judgment will cease to torment us. Here, in its mysterious presence and grace, whatever mistakes we have made in practical life and whatever sins we have committed in moral life, we need not let these shadows of the past haunt us perpetually like wraiths. We may analyse them thoroughly and criticize ourselves mercilessly but only to lay the foundation in better self-knowledge for sound reform. We must not forget them too soon, but we ought not hug them too long. After the work of self-analysis is well done, we can turn for relief and solace to the Overself. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
We have been discussing Clare and her journey through self-analysis. During her period of inner turmoil, she obtained a new lease on life and a renewed incentive to work at the problems she was having in her interpersonal relationships. However, several questions arose. If the loss of her intimate partner, Peter, could still upset her as deeply as it did, what about the value of the foregoing analytical work? Two considerations have a bearing on this question. One is the insufficiency of the previous work. Clare had recognized the fact that she was compulsively dependent, and had seen certain implications of this condition. However, she was far from reaching a real grasp on the problem. If one doubts the value of the work accomplished one makes the same mistake that Clare herself made during the whole period before the climax, underrating the import of the neurotic trend and therefore expecting too quick and easy results. The other consideration is that overall, the final upheaval was itself of a constructive nature. It presented the culminating point of a line of development that runs from a compete ignorance of the problem involved, and the most vigorous unconscious attempts to deny its existence, to a final full realization of its severity. The climax brought it home to her that her dependency was like a cancerous growth which cannot be kept within safe boundaries (compromises) but must be eradicated lest one’s life be gravely jeopardized. Under the pressure of acute distress Clare succeeded, too, in bringing into sharp conscious focus a conflict which had hitherto been unconscious. She had been entirely unaware of being torn between wanting to relinquish her dependency on another person and wanting to continue it. This conflict had been camouflaged by her compromise solutions with Peter. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Now Clare had faced it, and was able to take a clear stand as to the direction in which she wanted to go. In this regard the phase she was now going through illustrates a fact mentioned in the past, that at certain periods in analysis it is necessary to take a stand, to decide. And if through the analytical work a conflict has sufficiently crystallized for the patient to be able to do this, it must be reckoned as an achievement. In Clare’s case the issue, of course, was whether she would immediately try to replace the lost pillar with a new one. Naturally it is upsetting to face a problem in that uncompromising way. And here a second question comes in. Did Clare’s experience produce a greater danger of suicide than it would have without analysis? For consideration of this question, it is relevant that she had indulged in suicidal notations at previous times. She had never, however, been able to terminate them so decisively as she did this time. Formerly they had simply faded out of the picture because something “nice” happened. Now she refunded them actively, consciously, and with a constructive spirit. Also, as mentioned above, her first reaction of gratefulness that Peter had not withdrawn earlier was in part a genuine feeling that she was now more capable of coping with his desertion. It seems safe to assume, therefore, that the suicidal tendencies would have been stronger and more persistent without the analytical work that was done. Human nature is universally frail; Clare’s is no exception. Nevertheless, if she is appalled at her mistakes, of this anguish is doubled because what she has done wrongly is irreparable, is there nothing else left to do than to give herself up to helpless despair? The true answer is more hopeful than that. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
I know that if one keeps patient while cultivating humility and silencing the ego’s pride, one shall grow away from old weaknesses and overcome former mistakes. This should be the first stage of her new attitude. For the next one, Clare can at least go over the events of the past and amend them in thought. She can put right mentally those wrong decisions and correct those rash impulsive actions. She can collect the profits of lessons expensively learnt. The first value of self-confession of sin is not so much getting rid of an uncomfortable sense of guilt over a particular episode or series of episodes as getting at the weakness in character responsible for them, and then seeking to correct it. Merely to remove the sense of discomfort and to leave its moral source untouched is not enough. Any priestly rite of forgiveness is ineffective until it is done. If it is to be real, if it is to be successful in purifying her character, it must produce repentance and that in its turn must produce penance. The second value of the confession is to induce the sinner to make amends or restitution to those one has hurt and thus balance one’s karmic account with them. Humans commit many sins and fall into many errors before the failure of their own conduct finally dawns upon them. By raising one’s point of view regarding any grievous situation, whether it involves oneself alone or other persons, one attracts the entry of a higher power into it which will work for one’s benefit and in one’s favour. One will learn to endure the blows of misfortune with a bravery heretofore unknown and a serenity heretofore unexperienced. It is better for one’s real progress that one’s eyes should fill with tears of repentance than with tears of ecstasy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
A healthy personality comes from the optimal self, which refers to a person who is functioning at the highest level. There are modes of human fulfillment, or characteristics of the optimal person. Efficiency: functional competence (being able to do things well), effective work autonomy (being able to work independently), and commitment to projects of concern outside of oneself. Creativity: experiences familiar things in fresh ways; openness to the novel, strange, and socially unacceptable; creates new style of life. Inner harmony: likes self; need for some amount of privacy or solitude. Relatedness: compassion, to be genuinely transparent, making self available to receive what others seek to communicate. Transcendence: mystical unity with a larger whole, relationship to some all-encompassing totality, to nature or God. Psychologists have been too timid and guarded in identifying the high-level functioning or healthy personality. We have disguised the true, human image of this person behind language that is so stiff that the person in the description is lost. The healthy personality is a “beautiful and noble person” (BNP). The beauty described here does not refer to physical beauty, although that may sometimes be found in the healthy personality. It more specifically describes someone whose behaviour and work is such that the effect upon self and other is one of producing an essentially aesthetic feeling. Nobility also, of course, does not refer to parentage but to the kinds of behaviour and acts performed by such a person. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
While some have argued that even psychotic people may sometimes be thought of as healthy, Ted Landsman insists that the BNP must first be normal—perceive reality essentially as it is and to be free of bizarre symptoms (such as hallucinations, grimaces, and so on). The first stage in the evolution of the BNP is described as the passionate self. The passionate self is seen as someone who truly likes, even loves himself or herself, someone who enjoys being alone, and who respects and accepts self. This is not the same as selfishness, but rather is an awareness of self as a worthwhile person. Bragging and possessiveness are avoided. The second stage involves a concept not dealt with in detail by most other writers: the environment-loving person. A passionate caring for the physical environment is seen in the person at this stage. The human relates to mountains, flowers, music, buildings—the entire physical environment—with appreciation and with joy, preserves it, nurtures it, and delights in it. The final stage in the evolution of the BNP is described as the compassionate self. This is a person who deeply loves others, who cares about people who hurt or are in need, and who acts, often at a great personal risk, to help others. The compassionate person does not only feel for others, but acts to alleviate or remedy their pains or injustices. There are major positive experiences that lead to the development of the beautiful and noble personality. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
There are experiences that lead to the development of the beautiful and noble personality: Positive experiences in childhood. Experiences of joy, delight, ecstasy at all levels, not just peak. High levels of intense positive feeling. Negative experiences that have been made positive in effect. These are important painful experiences, such as disgrace, failure, death of loved ones, automobile accidents, being fired from a job, which the person has been able to “turn around” and make into significant learning or growth experiences. The following, collected by Smith, is written by a female prisoner: “Coming to prison. Never thought it would happen to me. Anyone else but not me. It happened. I’m glad I’ve stopped and reviewed my life up to age 17. Complete destruction for me. I was destroying myself and going at it at top speed. I’ve met beautiful people here. I’ve learned a lot about me. This experience I would not change if I could. I need this. Now maybe I can be a better person. I can stop and think and reason with myself….Had I not served time I would still be going at top speed I’m sure. Only what would I be into now?” The solitude experience. Instances in which an individual can escape from the immediate pressures—social, job, interpersonal—and explore the self, one’s own feelings, one’s relationship to others, to the World. Opportunities to think freely and clearly are usually accomplished in solitude, in intentional isolation, such as a short walk in the woods, or a year’s living in the desert alone. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
The authentic dialogue. This, in a sense, is the obverse or “flip side” of the previous experience. You seek the opportunity to converse, deeply, freely, without guile or pretense, with someone you trust totally. Both persons in the dialogue must be committed to authenticity and openness, which differs somewhat from most counseling or psychotherapeutic approaches, where only the silent is the communicator about self. The transcendent experience is one in which you achieve far beyond what you would normally expect of yourself: writing an unusually beautiful open, being far more sensitive than one would expect, performing a physical feat such as lifting a beam from an injured person or winning an athletic contest. These experiences are difficult to predict or create, but when they do occur, they give you the sure confidence that you have possibilities and potential of which you never dreamed. The approach to beautiful and noble personhood stresses openness, relationship to self and to others. It builds up Maslow’s system of peak experiences to suggest the importance of a whole range of experiences, especially the positive, and inserts the importance of the relationship, a passionate one, with the physical environment, music, mountains, flowers, lakes, and so on. When a mane lets go of his ego, all the virtues come submissively to his feet. If he can let it go only for a little while, they too will stay only a little while; but if her can make the parting permanent, then the virtues are his forever. However, this is a high and uncommon state, for it is a kind of death few will accept. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
The social character which makes people act and think as they must act and think from the standpoint of the proper functioning of their society is only one link between the social structure and ideas. The other link lies in the fact that each society determines which thoughts and feelings shall be permitted to arrive at the level of awareness and which must remain unconscious. Just as there is a social character, there is also a “social unconscious.” By “social unconscious” I refer to those areas of repression which are common to most members of a society; if the society with its specific contradictions is to operate successful, these commonly repressed elements are those contents which a given society cannot permit its members to be aware of. The “individual unconscious” with which Dr. Freud deals refers to those contents which an individual represses for reasons of individual circumstances peculiar to his personal life situation. Dr. Freud deals to some extent with the “social unconscious” when he talks about the repression of incestuous strivings as being characteristic of all civilizations; but in his clinical work, he mainly deals with the individual unconscious, and little attention is paid by most analysts to the “social unconscious.” The conflict between the unconscious reality within ourselves and the denial of that reality in our consciousness often leads to neurosis, by making the unconscious conscious, the neurotic symptom or character trait can be cured. Dr. Freud believed that this uncovering of the unconscious was the most important tool for the therapy of neurosis, his vision went far beyond this therapeutic interest. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Dr. Freud saw how unreal most of what we think about ourselves is, how we deceive ourselves continuously about ourselves and about others; he was prompted by the passionate interest in touching the reality which is behind our conscious thought. Dr. Freud recognized that most of what is real within us is not conscious, and that most of what is conscious is not real. This devotion to the search for inner reality opened a new dimension of truth. If he says what he knows, the person who does not know the phenomenon of the unconscious is convinced he says the truth. Dr. Freud showed that we all deceive ourselves to a larger or smaller degree about the truth. Even if we are sincere regarding what we are aware of we are probably still lying because our consciousness is “false,” it does not represent the underlying real experience within ourselves. Dr. Freud started out with observation on an individual scale. Here are some random examples: a man may have a secret pleasure in looking at pornographic pictures. He does not admit any such interest to himself but is convinced, consciously, that he considers such pictures to be harmful and that it is his duty to see to it that they are not exhibited anywhere. In this way he is constantly concerned with pornography, looks at such pictures as part of his campaign against them, and this satisfies his desire. However, he has a very good conscience. His real desires are unconscious, and what is conscious is a rationalization which hides completely what he does not want to know. Thus, he is enabled to satisfy his desire without sensing the conflict with his moral judgment. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Success in the 21st century will require new ways of doing things. Innovation requires the Sacramento Fire Department to systematically identify changes that have already occurred—in business, in demographics, in values, in technology or science—and then to look at them as opportunities. It also requires them to abandon rather than defend yesterday—something that is most difficult for existing companies to do so. “I worked with the Sacramento Fire Department for seven years. We had an eight-week basic firefighter course. We also attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and earned fire science degrees. They have a rather good fire science program. I was fortunate to have started at a very young age in a quite active fire department and had experience in just about every aspect of the fire service. I remember one of those biggest fires that I had ever seen. I was on the first ladder, second alarm. Two spectators and a fire policeman died. The scene was utter chaos. Conditions were deteriorating rapidly. The building was just being taken. It was beyond anything we could ever control. There was a downwind, the fire created more wind, all the characteristics of a conflagration. The thing was made completely out of wood. Our truck company did a lot of repositioning. We set up our aerial ladder and the ladder pipe at the end of the building, then the fire got hotter and hotter and we had to back out. It was amazing, the progress the fire made. It was self-propagating, and we repositioned three times. Rescues were made from ladders, a lot of people were rescued. Our company was at the scene at least thirty-six hours, but others were there a good three or four days. It taught me that firefighting would never be an easy job. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
“Before becoming a firefighter, I was already an emergency medical technician. On a typical day, we start by running several miles and then do a series of, let’s say, eight exercises, moving from one to the other. Then it would be classroom session. Then, in the afternoon, drill tower training, more classroom sessions, or actual fire simulation. What was nice about it is that this was Monday through Friday. On weekends I could ride on one of the busier engines or trucks in town. I had to retake emergency medical service training here as part of the program. We have to maintain our EMT status by taking a new test every two years. We put in hours, do a full day of practical work, and then we take the test. It’s an ongoing process.” Not only does the fire department save lives and reduces property loss, but they also prevent harm. Preventing harm covers many areas, including specialized rescue, health and wellness of citizens, and injury prevention. Protecting property includes protecting community resources—people, property, natural resources, the environment, and the community infrastructure—from harm and loss. Also, protecting property includes mitigation of natural and technological disasters. Simply put, preventing fires, injuries, and disease is the most effective means of “preventing harm.” Public education and prevention is of equal importance to fire suppression in the role of the fire service in the community. You can help the Sacramento Fire Department’s mission by making a contribution. Americans love to see America prosper. 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. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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If Life is Not to be Trivial, it Must be Hard
Several people say they turn to the TV news to figure out what is going on in the World. However, only 20 percent of Americans regularly attend church, but 57 percent of Americans tune in to TV news. The Christian Bible is the account of God’s action in the World, and His purpose for creation. Therefore, it is more logical to attend church and learn more about the World, yourself and God. Psychology is a nice supplement to religion. Maslow continuously pondered what humans might become, in the hope of learning how more of us might grow toward those seemingly Utopian levels of being. Maslow’s work remains as one of the most helpful sets of principles governing the development of the healthy personality. He suggested the existence of two kinds of motivation: B, or being motivation, and D, or deficiency motivation. D-motivations are those that grab us when we are deeply deprived or have a loss of some basic need, such as the burglar who may be driven by hunger or the coward who may be driven by fear for personal safety. In contrast, the self-actualizing person is seen as motivated by the being needs, to be the fullest possible self, to be able to sing, create, work at highest capacity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
The peak experience concept has met with a great deal of interest. Maslow suggests the existence of these marvelous experiences that overwhelm the person and are great heights of delight and joy or meaningfulness, awesome experiences that may occur to a self-actualizing person but are not exclusively confined to that kind of person. Here are two contrasting examples of the more moderate peak or positive experiences collected from tenth-grade students: “Mine happened just last night. I love the summer and hate the winter. So last night when I stepped outside and found how warm it was I just couldn’t go back into the house. I walked around the house and then looked around. You can see all the houses around from our house and just looking around at them and hearing the sounds of the night relaxed me and I felt like I was watching over the whole World. It was a gentle feeling and gave me a little bit of a thrill.” “Yes, in the winter I love to walk out in the snow and let it fall lightly on my face. When this happens it seems to make a strange sort of happiness fall on me also.” Deep philosophic courage is a power not easily gained. A man must overcome much within himself, must hold his spine unbending and his effort undeviating. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
All those negative qualities which act as encumbrances to true understanding of situations, occasions, events, and persons must be guarded against in attitude and action. Amid his gross brutalization and maniacal exaggerations, Nietzsche’s evil mysticism expressed some truth. He affirmed rightly that if life is not to be trivial, it must be hard. His quest of the Overself must be an untiring one. It is to be his way of looking at the World, his attitude toward life. It is far more important to develop the strength within himself needful to break the spell than to be for preventative protection against it. In the first case, he progresses enormously and rapidly; in the second, he is static. Each difficulty surmounted, each weakness resisted will fortify his will and increase his perseverance. It will evoke the better part of his nature and discipline the baser, and thus fit him more adequately to cope with the next ones. He must be equally steadfast in adhering to this attitude whether other people utter complaints against him or make compliments to him. We must retain our determination and our loyalty to the quest in all circumstances. Physical pains, climatic extremes must not deter us. We must console ourselves with the thought that these things are certain to pass away. They are mental figments, ideas which will be negated, whereas the truth and reality we seek belong to the immutable, and can never be negated. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Few of us can withdraw from the World and most of us must engage in its activity. However, that is no reason for accepting the evils which are mixed in with this activity. Tenacity of purpose is a characteristic of all who accomplish great things. Drawbacks cannot disgust him, labour cannot weary him, hardships cannot discourage him in whom the quality of persistence is always present. However, to the man without persistence every defeat is a Waterloo. Indecision of purpose and infirmity of will must yield to the resolute mind and the determined act. The person who sways uncertainly between one side and the other misses opportunity. The student’s inner reactions to outer events provide him with the opportunity to use his free will in the right direction. His attitude towards his lower nature, that is, how far he encourages or discourages it, is another. And his recognition of what are good opportunities and what should be avoided, together with his acceptance or rejection of them, is still another. Mental indolence and moral lethargy are hardly likely to waft us into the high haven of spiritual peace. We must learn to think fearlessly and courageously about every problem that faces us; we must try to elevate our hearts above the level of the moral lepers and spiritually disabled of our time. He will learn to endure the blows of misfortune with a bravery heretofore unknown and a serenity heretofore unexperienced. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
If he is to achieve a full self-mastery, the strength of will which can lead a man to command of his desires for pleasure of the flesh cannot stop there. It must also go on to his diet and feelings, his speech and habits. However, many people, including the less affluent not only practice age discrimination, but they also advocate a lower-class bias. Class-stereotype is ambivalent, describing lower class people both negatively (less competent, less human, more objectified), and sometimes positively, perhaps warmer than upper class people. At a variety of levels and life stages, social-class stereotypes reinforce inequality. Sometimes, people who have benefited from Affirmative Actions like to uplift people of their culture, but discriminate against others as an act of revenge for bias that have faced. Social class matters, as a social construction, can be described in terms of what persons do; their jobs, habits, hobbies, lifestyles, but also in terms of what other people expect from them, their personality traits, life choices, aspirations, motivations. These oversimplified characterizations (id est, stereotypes) entail descriptions and prescriptions that impact individuals’ achievements, self-evaluations, and well-being. However, some of the elite feel a certain personal alienation from the dominant characters and opinions of American intellectual life, which doubtlessly quickens their championship of those who are thought to have little chance of succeeding in life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Some think that free silver is a poor social remedy, and it will only lead to monetary inflation like what many are experiencing since the COVID pandemic. There are also those who think the proper way to deal with poverty and inequality is by advocating careful elimination of the unfit and dependent, chiefly by eugenic methods. While others believe that education is a great way to end inequality. Proponents of equality want a field that shall be broad enough to embrace the whole human race. However, as it stands, we are assimilating a mass crude material from the bottom and they are just exacerbating conditions of racism, agism, discrimination, harassment, and facilitating the expansion of criminal activity. This is leading many to believe that society is doomed to hopeless degeneracy. Yet, it is possible to take another view. The only consolation, the only hope, lies in the truth that so far as the native capacity, the potential quality, the promise and potency of a higher life are concerned, those swarming, spawning millions, the bottom layer of society, the proletariat, the working class, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, nay even the denizens of the slums—that all these are by nature the peers of the boasted aristocracy of brains that now dominates society and looks down upon them, and the equals in all but privilege of the most enlightened teachers of eugenics. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
In the past, sociocracy, or the planned control of society by society was considered a solution. Under sociocracy, purposeful social activity, or collective telesis, could be harmonized with individual self-interest by means of attractive legislation designed to release the springs of human action for socially beneficial deeds by positive rather than negative and compulsory devices. Where individualism has created artificial inequalities, sociocracy would abolish them; and while socialism seeks to create artificial equalities, sociocracy would recognize inequalities that are natural. A sociocratic World would distribute its favours according to merit, as individualist demand, but by equalizing opportunity for all it would eliminate advantages now possessed by those with underserved power, accidental position or wealth, or antisocial cunning. We need to arrive at a better understanding of the importance of feeling in human motivation. The unique and artificial character of social organization and social processes are an odd inconsistency to deck out sociology with physics, chemistry, and biology, and to set it in the framework of a cosmological system. Some are not only ahead of the masses in point of time, but they are head, shoulders and hips above the general population in many respects scientifically. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
All the efforts which are made to develop and maintain the mental hygiene practices of our citizens help to restrain what would otherwise be an ever-growing demand for psychiatric services. The role of the family in contributing to emotional stability is a most crucial one and the programs in parent education which are offered under a variety of auspices play a vital role in contributing to sound psychological environments in the home. We would do well to give all possible support to programs in parent education and to resources for parent consultation; we should be particularly concerned to provide programs for parental guidance in those areas and communities in which they are presently lacking. The psychiatrist and psychologist can find especially effective avenues for their services as consultants in clinics or other programs for parent education. Next to home, the school provides a universal setting with potential for teaching and demonstrating sound mental hygiene principles. If the schools have been less than optimally effective in this responsibility in the past it is partly because they have been uncertain of the relative priorities of the provision of subject-matter instruction versus the stimulation of the pupil’s total personal growth. While the contribution of the individual teacher can occur in a variety of way, ranging from early detection of emotional distress and referral to provision of “emergency” tension relief and even relationship therapy, the optimal participation of teachers in mental hygiene activities is greatly enhanced in those schools that have provided for formal integration of mental health services, with the consultative assistance of professional workers. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Better preparation of teachers for their opportunities, responsibilities, and limitations as mental hygienists can help much to reduce the demand for specifically psychiatric or psychological treatment. Such resources for expert treatment of childhood problems are even more severely restricted than are those for adult patients, and there must be increasing attention to the development of consultative skills—on the part both of teachers and experts. The potential of the church and the clergy in helping to promote mental health and to render assistance in cases of milder personal maladjustments is presently only partially realized. Based on a questionnaire survey, it was found that the average clergyman devotes only about two hours per week to personal counseling. Fewer than one out ten spend as much as ten hours a week on this activity. There is, considering the readiness of the distressed person to turn to his clergyman, a clear need to augment the preparation of the minister for this activity and to support him in his endeavours to render assistance, especially by giving him access to consultation. Increasing the effectiveness of our public education toward positive mental health and working toward more effective utilization of the front-line troops in early recognition and treatment of emotional upset constitute two ways of holding down the always excessive demand for psychiatric help. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
A third avenue deserving careful consideration would consist of efforts to educate the public more specifically as to the precise nature of psychiatric treatment, specifically of psychotherapy, to try to lower the public’s presently naïve and immodest expectations of what occurs in and what can happen because of psychotherapy, and to encourage a proper appreciation for therapeutic conversation. As an important part of this effort, both psychotherapists and potential patients should be helped to recognize that there is neither magical cure nor specific expert treatment for the philosophical neuroses. If all of these methods of reducing the demand for the psychotherapeutic services of psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker are vigorously pursued, the problem of manpower shortage will be alleviated but not solved. There will still be a fully “legitimate” call for individual psychotherapy exceeding the supply available through the present and future supply of the acknowledged specialist. Is there a rational and socially conscionable answer to this problem? The man who seeks to release himself from moral responsibility for his actions or his fortunes can in no way make any real progress on the spiritual path. He may improve his capacity to mediate, he may become more sensitive physically, but his real battle—against the ego—remains unfought and therefore unwon. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
We have looked at social character as the structure through which human energy is molded in such specific ways, that it is usable for the purposes of any given society. It is also the basis from which certain ideas and ideals draw their strength and attractiveness. This relation between character and ideas is easy to recognize in the case of the individual character structure. A person with a hoarding (anal, according to Dr. Freud) character orientation, will be attracted to the ideal of saving, he will be repelled by ideas of what he would call “reckless spending.” On the other hand, the person with a productive character will find a philosophy centered around saving “dirty,” and will embrace idea which emphasize creative efforts and the use of material goods is concerned, the relationship between character and ideas is the same. Some examples ought to show this relation clearly. With the end of the feudal age, private property became the central factor in the economic and social system. There had been, of course, private property before. However, in feudalism private property consisted largely of land, and it was connected to the social situation of the landowner in the hierarchic system. Since it was part of the social sole of the owner, it was not salable on the market. Modern capitalism destroyed the feudal system. Private property is not only property in land, it is also property in the means of production. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
All property is alienable; it can be bought and sold on the market, and its value is expressed in an abstract form—that of money. Land, machines, gold, diamonds—they all have in common the abstract money form in which their value can be expressed. Anybody can acquire private property, regardless of his position in the social system. It may be through industriousness, creativeness, luck, ruthlessness, or inheritance—the ownership of private property is not affected by the means of its acquisition. The security, power, sense of strength of a person does not, as in the feudal system, depend any longer on a person’s status, which was relatively unalterable, but on the possession of private property. If the man of the modern era loses his private property he is nobody—socially speaking; the feudal lord could not lose it as long as the feudal system remained intact. As a result, the respective ideals are different. For the feudal lord, and even for the artisan belonging to a guild, the main concern was the stability of the traditional order, the harmonious relation to his superiors, the concept of a God who was the final guarantor of the stability of the feudal system. If any of those ideas were attacked, a member of feudal society would even risk his life to defend what he considered to be his deepest convictions. For modern man the ideals are different. His fate, security, and power rest on private property; hence for bourgeois society, private property is sacred, and the ideal of the invulnerability of private property is a cornerstone in its ideological edifice. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Although the majority of people in any of the capitalist societies do not own private property in the sense used here (property in the means of production), but only “personal” property such as a BMW, television set, etcetera—that is, consumer goods—the great bourgeois revolution against the feudal order has nevertheless formulated the principle of the invulnerability of private property so that even those who do not belong to the economic elite have the same feeling, in this respect, as those who belong. Just as the member of the feudal society considered an attack against the feudal system immoral, and even inhuman, so the average person in a capitalist society considers an attack against private property a sign of barbarism and inhumanity. He will often not say so directly but rationalize his hate against the violators of private property in terms of their godlessness, injustice, and so on; yet and often unconsciously, they appear to him as inhuman because they have violated the sanctity of private property. The point is not that they have hurt him economically, or that they even threaten his economic interests realistically; the point is that they threaten a vital ideal. It seems, for instance, that the repugnance and hate which so many people in capitalistic countries have against communist countries is largely based on the very repugnance they feel against the outright violators of private property. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
There are so many other examples of ideas which are rooted in the socio-economic structure of a society that it is hard to select the most representative ones. Thus, liberty became the paramount idea for a middle class fighting against the restrictions that the feudal class imposed upon them. “Individual initiative” become an ideal in the highly competitive capitalism of the nineteenth century. Teamwork and “human relations” became the ideals of the capitalism of the twentieth century. Since “fairness” is the basic law of the free market in which commodities and labour are exchanged without force or fraud, fairness became the most popular norm in capitalist society. At the same time, the idea of fairness became identified with an older norm, “love thy neighbour,” via the popularized version of this norm in the form of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The theory that ideas are determined by the forms of economic and social life does not imply that they have no validity of their own, or that they are mere “reflexes” of economic needs. The ideal of freedom, for instance, is deeply rooted in man, and it is precisely for this reason that it was ideal for the Hebrews in Egypt, the slaves in Rome, the German peasants in the sixteenth century, the German workers who fought the dictators of East Germany. On the other hand, the idea of authority and order is also deeply implanted in human existence. It is precisely because any given social order can appeal to ideas which transcend the necessities of this order that they can become so potent and so appealing to the human heart. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
Yet why a certain idea gains ascendance and popularity is to be understood in historical terms, that is, in terms of the social character produced in each culture. One more qualification must be made. It is not only the “economic basis” which creates a certain social character which, in turn, creates certain ideas. The ideas, once created, also influence the social character and, indirectly, the social economic structure. Social character is the intermediary between the socioeconomic structure and the ideas and ideals prevalent in a society. It is the intermediary in both directions, from the economic basis to the ideas and from the ideas to the economic basis. Many people are confronted by a confusing false dichotomy. They believe that the choice is between an anarchic system without any organization and control and, on the other hand, the kind of bureaucracy which is typical both for contemporary industrialism. However, this alternative is by no means the only one, and we have other options. One option is between the “humanistic bureaucratic” or “humanistic management” method and the “alienated bureaucratic” method by which we conduct our affairs. This alienated bureaucratic procedure can be characterized in several ways. First, it is a one-way system; orders, suggestions, planning emanate from the top and are directed to the bottom of the pyramid. There is no room for the individual’s initiative. Persons are “cases,” whether welfare cases of medical cases, or, whatever the frame of reference is, cases which can all be put down on a computer card without those individual features which designate the difference between a “person” and a “case.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Our bureaucratic method is irresponsible, in the sense that it does not “respond” to the needs, views, requirements of an individual. This irresponsibility is closely related to the case-character of the person who becomes an “object” of the bureaucracy. One cannot respond to a case, but one can respond to a person. This irresponsibility of the bureaucrat, feeling himself part of the bureaucratic machine, most of all wishes not to take responsibility to make decisions for which he could be criticized. He tries to avoid making any decisions which are not clearly formulated by his case rules and, if in doubt, he sends the person to another bureaucrat who, in turn, does the same. Anyone who has dealt with a bureaucratic organization knows this process of being sent around from one bureaucrat to the other and, sometimes after much effort, coming out at the same door which he had entered without ever having been listened to except in the peculiar way in which bureaucrats listen, sometimes pleasantly, sometimes impatiently, but also always with an attitude which is a mixture of their own helplessness, irresponsibility, sense of superiority toward the “petitioning” subject. Our bureaucratic method gives the individual the feeling that there is nothing which he can initiate and organize without the help of the bureaucratic machine. As a result, it paralyzes initiative and creates a deep sense of impotence. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Firefighters are important because they save lives. The Sacramento Fire Department is a highly skilled organization which makes huge contributions to the community. “I was lucky enough to make a rescue after eight or nine months in the volunteers. Luck is a factor because, you have to be at a fire where somebody needs to be rescued. Then you have to be at the right place at that fire. You have to have enough knowledge to know how to do it and then be lucky enough to successfully pull it off. You can’t plan it. I don’t believe in fate per se, but I think there are certain things in the cards. I was fairly young. I was on a pumper, and we were the third or fourth pumper there. The truck company was pretty heavily engaged, and there were a number of people on the fire escapes. Sacramento is basically a bedroom community. You know, little private dwellings. All of a sudden, we had an -apartment house fire, which was taxing. It was a nine-story building, and the fire was in the cellar, so the whole building was at risk. My pumper pulled up, and another fellow and I reported to the chief. “What do you want us to do?” He said, “I’ve got a report that there’s a baby in that apartment.” A baby, right. It happens so often it seems to be a cliché. So we went up the hallway, it was pretty smoky, and we came to two doors. I had a feeling that the baby was to the right. The other guy said, “I’ll go straight.” I went into the room at the right, it wasn’t extremely hot, but it was smoky. On my first search I didn’t find anybody, but I figured I better do it again. The second time around, I found the baby lying on the floor between a night table and a bed, I guess he rolled off the bed or something, I’m not sure. He had on a little green-and-white-striped shirt and Pampers. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“Right then, when I took him out, I knew that the rewarding feeling was similar to putting a fire out, only more so. Shortly after probie school, I was assigned to Engine Company 2 in Midtown Sacramento. There I was fortunate enough to be involved in my first City of Sacramento rescue. You make your own luck in many instances. It was very unusual for a probie in an engine company to be put into a search with an officer. We were at a false alarm when the dispatcher asked us if we were available. The battalion chief gave us the go-ahead, and we were first at the fire by a good fire minutes. It was a high-rise apartment building. Being a gung-ho probie, I had gotten completely geared up for the false alarm. I had a mask on and everything. The other guys, because it was a hot summer night and although this was a known false alarm box, hurried to the scene. People at the apartment were screaming that there was a baby trapped. Another baby, right. People leave them behind like old bathrobes. The lieutenant, seeing I was a new guy said, “Let’s go.” We went up the elevator part of the way, then ran up the stairs to the hallways leading to the fire apartment. The door was open, and the smoke was nearly to the floor. It was hot. We went in the direct of the heat. Again it was another one of those, he went to the left, and I went to the right, and I found this little boy on the floor. He was conscious, and I removed him to the street and took him to the hospital. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
“The sad part was that there was another child in the apartment, the lady’s nephew. A guy, I think he was from another truck, went in off the aerial ladder, got in the window, cut himself on the glass, and made a real spectacular rescue of the child. The kid was badly burned, and he didn’t make it. It was just one of those things again. You just go along doing your job, and there you are. It was unusual for me to be there, because the truck company is in charge of forcible entry, going in and searching for victims, and they work more or less independently. Whereas in an engine company the people work together in one group to fight the fire. It was not so much aggressiveness on my part, it was my ‘gung-ho-ness.’ I was serious about every aspect of the job, even cleaning the brass, and every time we went out the door, I wanted to be fully prepared. And it paid off. Sure, putting out a fire is satisfying, there’s nothing like it except making a grab, rescuing somebody. But even in a busy area, some companies don’t make one grab a year. While a nozzle man in a busy area is going to put out three, four fire a night. There’s a lot to be said for that. That’s an enjoyable part of it, too.” Life safety is the primary job of the Sacramento Fire Department. You can help save lives by making a contribution. 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. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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Frightened Restitution
The thought has crossed the minds of many that humankind faces a fate of evolutionary destruction of self. However, it is plain to see that others continually strive for the higher aspects of their own possibilities, to be more compassionate; loving; creative; to create great, beautiful parks and vast, wild, free lands; more exquisite poetry and buildings—to perfect themselves and the World about them. There is a struggle, the movement of humankind is heading toward the development of the self to levels of superb functioning for perhaps a few persons who become models of human effectiveness and for higher levels of living, joy of living, for much greater numbers. Humans have sought to perfect themselves throughout history. Early Christians sought purification of self in the face of temptation, salvation, and underwent training to be reborn in Jesus as the Christ. It is recognized that humans are capable of states of being that far surpass present levels of beauty and goodness. The term healthy personality is used here to describe those ways of being that surpass the average in actualization of self and in compassionate relationships with others. The human can be studied as a natural phenomenon, with methods appropriate to the study of zoology or ethology. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
However, humans have the capacities for speech and for self-consciousness. People give meaning to their World and can communicate meanings to other persons. If we wish to understand human behaviour, we must not view it as we would the behaviour of animals struggling to survive in each environment; we must regard behaviour as action, as a kind of speech. Humans “say” something to the World and to their companions by their actions. If we wish to understand humans in their existence as human beings, we must find out what they mean to say, and how they say it in words, action, and even in physiological responses. Of course, we also find out what they mean by asking them to tell us. Perhaps the most overrated virtue in our list of shoddy virtues is that of giving. Giving builds up the ego of the giver, makes him superior and higher and larger than the receiver. Nearly always, giving is a selfish pleasure, and in many cases, it is a downright destructive and evil thing. One has only to remember some of our wolfish financiers who spend two-thirds of their lives clawing fortunes out of the guts of society and the latter third pushing it back. It is not enough to suppose that their philanthropy is a kind of frightened restitution, or that their natures change when they have enough. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Such a nature has enough, and nature does not change that readily. I think that the impulse is the same in both cases. For giving can bring the same sense of superiority as getting does, and philanthropy may be another kind of spiritual avarice. Pure altruism is a rare and difficult quality, remote from the actuality of human condition. The cautious person is also entitled to ask whether it is justifiable, whether a man is not entitled to do justice to himself as well as to others. The obvious reply is that there is no reason why his own good should not be included in that of the whole community. Although we must admit that He acted most generously, it is an arguable question whether God did the right thing by sacrificing His son. He may love mankind without being in love with mankind. He may act with unwearying altruism and compassion towards them and yet with clear sight of their moral uglinesses and mental deformities. An intellectual enlightenment not accompanied by moral purification, can lead only to a meagre result when turned to the service of humanity. The altruist must educate his own character before he can influence effectually the character of others. Only then are false steps and dangerous missteps less likely to be taken. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
If the motive is pure, a generous act not only helps the beneficiary but ennobles the doer. The wisdom of the act is, however, a different matter and requires separate analysis. When some scientists dare to study the human being, they think of the subject as being like a laboratory rat. At least it would seem that way from the large amount of research in psychology based upon that animal. And there is no doubt that many things about the white rat are similar to aspects of the human being, including some motivations—pleasures of the flesh, hunger, safety, and so on. However, another image of the human being has been expressed in the Psalms (Psalm 8.5), that of being “just a little lower than the angels.” This implies many powers and capacities and almost suggests “sainthood” capabilities. However, we are exploring the “normal” person. There is a group of persons who are entirely mortal, who have their imperfections, and yet have discovered a way of life that is beyond what most people attempt to create for themselves. One of the characteristics of such people seems to be that they do have compassion, or caring, for others; but it is a very human kind of love. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
People who care about themselves, respect themselves, and like to present their best self to others also take care of their bodies. They jog or exercise in some other way, watch the intake of their food, and avoid either smoking or being where heavy smokers are taking up the good air. They recognize that having a healthy body is in great part controllable by the individual. Similarly, having a healthy personality is in greatest part under the control of the person who owns it. While there are genetic factors that seem to influence the personality and there are environmental forces that influence one’s style of interacting with people, the humanist also recognizes the tremendous power of the person to affect his or her own personality-destiny. This is perhaps the most important reason for studying a healthy personality. All of us want to be as fully functioning, self-actualizing, and healthy as we can be. Knowledge of what constitutes a healthy personality should help you to develop this type of personality. Secondly, the impact of the environment, especially of the people in your environment, has a great effect upon your personality. This still does not leave you helpless in the face of the influence of your friends, because you can choose your friends and even choose many other aspects of your environment. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
There are those people, friends, relatives, teachers, companions, who, when you are with them, make you feel that you are growing, becoming. These kinds of persons are known as “personality growth facilitators.” And there are also those who can destroy you psychologically. We call these “lethal personalities.” Thus, the second reason for the study of the personality is so that you may truly distinguish those people who are personality growth facilitators and find ways to be close to them. What about your effect upon others? How do you influence others so that they will feel they are growing? Almost all of us will have some role in raising children in our lifetimes, either through being parents, teachers, or neighbours. A third reason for studying the healthy personality is to be better able to have a good effect on the people who are close to us, particularly friends and children. If only for the reasons of pure curiosity, science claims the privilege of exploring the unknown. Science searches for basic laws and principles that may have no immediate benefit or that might be explored without any specific benefit in mind. Often those discoveries of basic principles and laws do have important applied use. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
More often, however, the advantages and benefits are not immediately apparent, and legislators impatient for solutions are prone to cut off funds for all but the most applied research. Even if there is no longer a trunkful of diamonds deep in the darkness of The Winchester Mansion, science for its own sake, for the sake of pushing back ignorance and obscurity, is a viable reason for studying the healthy personality. The origin of organized society was caused by the conquest of one race by another. Caste system had developed out of such conquest, and society had then passed successively through five stages: the mitigation of caste coupled with the survival of inequalities; the consolidation of relationships through the growth of law; the origin of the state; the gradual cementing of the groups into a homogeneous people; and, finally, the development of patriotism and the national form of social organization. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Progress has frequently resulted from the forcible fusion of unlike elements. As much as one may deplore the horrors of war, it has been a necessary condition of race progress in the past, and the conquest of backward races is inevitable in the future. In advanced societies, rational and peaceful forms of social assimilation may supersede the genetic and violent method of the past. It is possible that a friendly pacific age is about to dawn—just as Spencer’s militant type of society gives way to the industrial—but it is doubtful that the World has yet reached the point at which war ceases. Whether the cessation of conflict would even be desirable was an open question to Ward. His adherence in these respects to the conflict school did not in the least alter the fundamental structure of Ward’s melioristic sociology. The fact is that man and society are not. Except in a very limited sense, under the influence of the great dynamic laws that control the rest of the animal World. If we call biologic processes natural, we must call social processes artificial. The fundamental principle of biology is natural selection, that of sociology is artificial selection. The survival of the fittest is simply the survival of the strong, which implies and would better be called the destruction of the weak. If nature progresses through the destruction of the weak, man progresses through the protection of the weak. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
A study of the system of Man can lead to the acceptance of objectively valid values, on the grounds that they lead to the optimal functioning of the system or, at least, that if we realize the possible alternatives, the humanist norms would be accepted as preferable to their opposites by most sane people. Whatever the merits of the source of the validity of humanist norms, the general aim of a humanized industrial society can be thus defined: the change of the socioeconomic, and cultural life of our society in such a way that it stimulates and furthers the growth and aliveness of man rather than cripples it’ that it activates the individual rather than making him passive and receptive; that our technological capacities serve man’s growth. If this is to be, we must regain control over the economic and social system; man’s will, guided by his reason, and by his wish for optimal aliveness, must make the decisions. Given these general aims, what is the procedure of humanistic planning? Computers should become a functional part in a life-oriented social system and not a cancer which begins to play havoc and eventually kills the system. Machines or computers must become means for ends which are determined by man’s reason and will. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
The values which determine the selection of facts and which influence the programing of the computer must be gained on the basis of the knowledge of human nature, its various possible manifestations, its optimal forms of development, and the real needs conducive to this development. That is to say, man, not technique, must become the ultimate source of values; optimal human development and not maximal production of the criterion for all planning. What we have failed to do in all this is to ascribe operational meaning to the so-called desirables that motivate us, to question their intrinsic worth, to assess the long-range consequences of our aspirations and actions, to wonder whether the outcome we seem to be expecting does in fact correspond to that quality of life we say we are striving for—and whether our current actions will lead us there. In other words, we are in the deeper sense failing to plan. Aside from this, planning in the field of economics must be extended to the whole system; furthermore, the system Man must be integrated into the whole social system. Man, as the planner, must be aware of the role of man as part of the whole system. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Just as man is the only case of life being aware of itself, man as a system builder and analyzer must make himself the object of the system he analyzes. This means that the knowledge of man, his nature, and the real possibilities of its manifestations must become one of the basic data for any social planning. In speaking of the socioeconomic structure of society as moulding one’s chaactrer, we speak only of one pole in the interconnection between social organization and man. The other pole to be considered in man’s nature, moulding in turn the social conditions in which he lives. If we start out with the knowledge of the reality of man, his psychic properties, as well as his physiological ones, and if we examine the interaction between the nature of man and the nature of the external conditions under which he lives, and which he must master if he is to survive, only then can the social process be understood. While it is true that man can adapt himself to almost any condition, he is not a blank sheet of paper on which the culture writes its text. Needs like the striving for happiness, belonging, love, and freedom are inherent in his nature. They are also dynamic factors in the historical process. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
While it is true that man can adapt himself to almost any conditions, he is not a blank sheet of paper on which the culture writes its text. Needs like the striving for happiness, belonging, love, and freedom are inherent in his nature. They are also dynamic factors in this historical process. If a social order neglects or frustrates the basic human needs beyond a certain threshold, the members of such a society will try to change the social order to make it more suitable for their human needs. If this change is not possible, the outcome will probably be that such a society will collapse, because of its lack of vitality, and its destructiveness. Social changes which lead to a greater satisfaction of human needs are easier to make when certain material conditions are given which facilitate such changes. It follows from these considerations that the relation between social change and economic change is not only the one which Marx emphasized, namely, the interests of new classes in changed social and political conditions, but that social changes are at the same time determined by the fundamental human needs which make use, as it were, of favourable circumstances for their realization. The middle class which won the French revolution wanted freedom for their economic pursuits from the fetters of the older order. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
However, they also were driven by a genuine wish for human freedom inherent in them as humans beings. While most were satisfied with a narrow concept of freedom after the revolution had won, the very best spirits of the bourgeoisie become aware of the limitations of bourgeois freedom and, in their search for a more satisfactory answer to man’s needs, arrived at a concept which considered freedom to be the condition for the unfolding of the total man. When students are permitted to be in contact with real problems; when resources—both human and technical—are made psychologically available by the teacher; when the teacher is a real person in his relationships with students and feels an acceptance of and an empathy toward his students, then an exciting kind of learning occurs. Students go through a frustrating but rewarding process in which gradually responsible initiative, creativity, and inner freedom are released. The kind of personal and intellectual change which comes about has many parallels with the changes which occur in psychotherapy. The nature of these changes has to some extent been investigated empirically. For the most part, modern culture does not, operationally, want persons to be free, despite many ideological statements to the contrary. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Both two main streams of modern life—Western and Communist—are extremely fearful of and ambivalent about any process which leads to inner freedom. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the surest roads to World catastrophe are individual rigidity and constricted learning. If we prefer to develop flexible, adaptive, creative individuals, we have a beginning knowledge as to how this may be done. We know how to establish, in an educational situation, the conditions and the psychological climate which initiate a process of learning to be freed. Learning to be free is something that our beloved Clare so desperately needs to learn. The whole area in her personality that consisted of arrogance, contempt for people, need to excel, need to triumph, was still so deeply repressed in her, even after therapy, that it had only been illuminated by flashes of insight. Even before she had started her analysis, she had occasional realizations of her need to despise people, of her great elation at any success, of the role ambition played in her daydreams, and it was a fleeting insight of this kind that she had now. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
However, this whole problem was still so deeply buried that its manifestations could scarcely be understood. It was as if a shaft learning into the depth was suddenly lit up, and soon after obliterated by darkness. Thus, another implication of this series of associations remained inaccessible. The picture of extreme solitude as presented in the tower in the desert referred not only to her feeling alone without Peter, but to her isolation in general. Subversive arrogance was one of the factors responsible for it, as well as resulting from it. And fastening herself to one person—“two on an island”—was a way of escaping from such isolation without having to straighten out her relations with people in general. Clare believed that she could now cope with Peter in a better way, but soon afterward a double blow came which brought her problems to a climax. First, she learned indirectly that he was having or had had an affair with another woman. She had barely received that shock when Peter wrote to her that it would be better for both if they separated. Clare’s first reaction was to thank Heaven that this had not occurred earlier. Now, she thought, she could stand it. The first reaction was a mixture of truth and self-deception. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The truth in it was that a few months before she probably could not have endured the stress without grave injury to herself; in the months to come she not only proved that she could stand it, but came closer to a solution of the whole problem. However, this first matter-of-fact reaction apparently resulted also from the fact that she did not let the blow penetrate beneath a defensive armour. When it did penetrate, within the next few days, she was thrown into a turmoil of wild despair. She was too deeply upset to analyze her reaction, which is understandable. When a house is on fire one does not reflect on causes and effects but tries to get out. Clare recorded two weeks later that for a few days the idea of suicide kept recurring to her, though it never assumed the character of a serious intention. She quickly became aware of the fact that she was merely playing around with the idea, and she then faced herself squarely with the question whether she wanted to die or to live. She wanted to live. However, if she did not want to live as a wilting flower, she not only had to ride herself of her longing for Peter, and the feeling that her life was smashed to pieces by losing him, but also to overcome radically her whole problem of compulsive dependency. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
If someone were to tell you ugly things about yourself, would you take heed to their words and try to make changes to yourself or would you blow them off and boot them out of your life? Why or why not? It is not always easy to see when someone is playing mind games with you. If they are adept at it, it is nearly impossible to see it, until it is too late. The principles and practice of group psychotherapy (several patients having a simultaneous session with a single group leader-therapist) have been in existence for some time. This approach to psychological treatment of emotional illness has been continually assigned a secondary role. It has been considered by many authorities to be a desirable adjunct to individual psychotherapy, but it has not generally achieved the status and prestige in the eyes either of the professionals or of patients which has been accorded to individual psychotherapy. The general preference for and greater effectiveness presumed for individual therapy is not founded on any rigorous research that has properly compared the relative efficacy of the two approaches. It is quite plausible that such a study might demonstrate group methods to be of at least equal potency to individual therapy. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
If it is incumbent upon psychiatrists and psychologists to do therapy, until this is adequately disproved, they would do better to extend their skills to the larger numbers treatable in a group setting. Experts who have had extended experience in individual psychotherapy will have acquired some sensitivities, skills, and insights that can be usefully applied in group therapy. Those persons administratively responsible for the treatment programs of clinics and hospitals should provide increasingly for group approaches to psychotherapy, with a corresponding deemphasis of the one-to-one therapeutic conversations. Where both forms of treatment are to be offered there should always be provision for careful evaluation of their relative effectiveness in producing significant changes in the patient. Firefighting is an interesting career. “There are a lot of strict requirements in the company, professional liability being what it is these days. We’re trying to weed out those who don’t come to work, those who don’t come to training, who don’t know what’s going on or how to use the new equipment. When you get someone with a new air pack who trained on an old, outdated model the last time he went to fire school ten years ago and hasn’t attended an update since, he goes into a fire situation and doesn’t know how to use the equipment. They have to take time out and go to the state fire school for thirteen consecutive weeks.” You can help prevent fires by contributing to the Sacramento Fire Department. 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. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
Today marks the 50th anniversary of Winchester Mystery House being designated a historical landmark in California. Let’s celebrate this important milestone and pay tribute to the legacy of Sarah Winchester, the visionary behind this remarkable architectural masterpiece 🏰
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Moment of Truth
Manipulative people do not understand the concept of boundaries. They are relentless in their pursuit to get what they want, and they have no regard for who gets hurt along the way. A manipulator may be defined as a person who exploits, uses and/or controls himself and others as things in certain self-defeating ways. The opposite of the manipulator is the actualizer…who may be defined as a person who appreciates himself and his fellowman as persons or subjects with unique potential—an expresser of his actual self. The paradox is that each of us is partly a manipulator and partly an actualizer, but we can continually become more actualizing. When manipulation becomes the usual mode of interacting with others, it is a serious sign of impaired personality health. It implies, among other things, a profound distrust of the other person, even contempt for him. Furthermore, the habitual manipulator of others must repress his spontaneous feelings, thereby promoting further self-alienation. The contriving, manipulative insincere individual, often without conscious awareness, places popularity and “success” at the peak of his value hierarchy. He sells his soul (his real self) to achieve it. He strives to determine what kind of behaviour the other person likes and then pretends to be the kind of person who habitually behaves that way. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
The major factor responsible for habitability contrived interpersonal behaviour is the belief, conscious or implicit, that to be one’s real self is dangerous; that exposure of real feelings and motives will result in rejection or ridicule. Such a belief stems from experiences of punishment and rejection at the hands of parents and other significant persons. To avoid punishment in the future, the child represses the real self in interpersonal situations and learns to become a contriver, an “other-directed” character. Of course, more serious outcomes are possible too: neurosis, psychopathic personality, and psychosis. Scientific students of the learning process, following the lead of Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner, have been able to demonstrate that people’s behaviour can be manipulated without their awareness. A psychologist was able to get subjects in an experiment to increase the frequency with which they uttered plural nouns simply by murmuring “Mm-hmm” whenever the subject spontaneously uttered the desired class of words. Many other experimenters have demonstrated that the content of another’s conversation can subtly be controlled by properly timed “reinforcing” stimuli, such as saying, “That’s good.” There seems little doubt that, with a little training, anyone could improve the efficiency with which he or she could thus influence the behaviour of others without their awareness that they had been so manipulated. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
All it calls for is the study of the other person, to discern what things will function as reinforcers to his or her behaviour, and then supplying these things whenever the desired behaviour occurs. However, most people resent being manipulated, and they become properly angry when they discover that they have been treated like puppets or animals. A nineteen-year-old male student once consulted with me, seeking help in improving his relations with people. He stated that he had studied Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People and found the advice given there extremely helpful to him in “conning” others, especially girls. He was successful as a campus lover and had six of the most attractive coeds in love with him at the time of seeking help. The help he sought was any suggestions that psychology might offer to him in his campaign to win over the affections of the campus queen, who rejected him, telling him he was a “phony.” This rejection upset him. He wondered if there were some new gimmicks he might learn to seem authentic. Parenthetically, he mentioned that, once he won a girl’s affections, he rapidly became bored by her, stating, “Once you’ve won a girl, it’s like a book you’ve just read; you don’t want to have anything more to do with her.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
I refused to help him learn new manipulative methods. In several interviews, I helped him gain insight into his motives and background, and he became more authentic and less of an unscrupulous user of other people. Individuals within a given society differ, of course, in their personal characters; in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that if we are concerned with minute differences, there are no two people whose character structure is identical. Yet if we disregard minute differences, we can form certain types of character structures which are roughly representative for various groups of individuals. Such types are the receptive, the exploitative, the hoarding, the marketing, the productive, character orientations. If it can be shown that nations or societies or classes within a given society have a character structure which is characteristic for them, even though individuals differ in many specific ways, and even though there will be always a number of individuals whose character structure does not fit at all into the broader pattern of the structure common to the group as a whole, the problem of character structure gains in importance far beyond the individual. The name for this character which is typical for a society is the “social character.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
Like the individual character, the “social character” represents the specific way in which energy is channelized; it follows that if the energy of most people in each society is channelized in the same direction, their motivations are the same, and furthermore, that they are receptive to the same ideas and ideals. What is the social character? The nucleus of the character structure which is shared by most members of the same culture, in contradistinction to the individual character in which people belonging to the same culture differ from each other. The concept of social character is not a statistical concept in the sense that it is simply the sum total of character traits to be found in the majority of people in a given culture. It can be understood only in reference to the function of the social character. Each society is structuralized and operates in certain ways which are necessitated by a number of objective conditions. These conditions include methods of production which in turn depend on raw materials, industrial techniques, climate, size of population, and political and geographical factors, cultural traditions and influences to which the society is exposed. There is no “society” in general, but only specific social structures which operate in different and ascertainable ways. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
Although these social structures do change in the course of historical development, they are relatively fixed at any given historical period; any society can exist only by operating within the framework of its particular structure. The members of the society and/or the various classes or status groups within it must behave in such a way as to be able to function in the sense required by the social system. It is the function of the social character to shape the energies of the members of society in such a way that their behaviour is not a matter of conscious decision as to whether or not to follow the social pattern, but one of wanting to act as they have to act and at the same time finding gratification in acting according to the requirements of the culture. It is the social character’s function to mold and channel human energy within a given society for the purpose of the continued functioning of this society. Modern, industrial society, for instance, could not have attained its ends had it not harnessed the energy of free men for work in an unprecedented degree. Man had to be molded into a person who was eager to spend most of his energy for the purpose of work, who had the qualities of discipline, orderliness and punctuality, to a degree unknown in most cultures. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
If everyone had to make up his mind consciously every day that he wanted to work, to be on time, etcetera, it would not have sufficed since any such conscious deliberation would lead to many more exceptions than the smooth functioning of society can afford. Nor would threat and force have sufficed as a motive since the highly differentiated tasks in modern industrial society can, in the long run, only be the work of free men and not of forced labour. The social necessity for work, for punctuality, and orderliness had to be transformed into an inner drive. This means that society had to produce a social character in which these strivings were inherent. While the need for punctuality and orderliness are traits necessary for the functioning of any industrial system, there are other needs which differ, say, in nineteenth-century capitalism, as against contemporary capitalism. Nineteenth-century capitalism was still mainly occupied with the accumulation of capital, and hence with the necessity of saving; it had to fortify discipline and stability by an authoritarian principle in the family, religion, industry, state and church. The social character of the nineteenth-century middle class was precisely one which in many ways can be called the “hoarding orientation.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Abstention from consumption, saving, and respect for authority were not only virtues, but they were also satisfactions for the average member of the middle classes; his character structure made him like to do what, for the purposes of his economic system, he had to do. The contemporary social character is quite different; today’s economy is based not on restriction of consumption, but on its fullest development. If people—the working and the middle classes—were not to spend most of their income on consumption, rather than to save it, our economy would face a severe crisis. Consuming has become not only the passionate aim of life for most people, but it has also become a virtue. The modern consumer—the men who buys on installments—would have appeared an irresponsible and immoral waster to his grandfather, just as the latter would appear an ugly miser to his grandson. The nineteenth-century social character is to be found today only in the more backward social strata of Europe and North America; this social character can be defined as one for whom the principal aim was having; the twentieth first-century social character is one for whom the aim is using. A similar difference exists with regard to the forms of authority. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
In this century, at least in the developed capitalistic countries of the West, there is enough material satisfaction for all, and hence less need for authoritarian control. At the same time control has shifted into the hands of bureaucratic elites which govern less by enforcing obedience than by eliciting consent, a consent, however, which is to a large degree manipulated by the modern devices of psychology and a “science” called “human relations.” As long as the objective conditions of the society and the culture remain stable, the social character has a predominantly stabilizing function. If the external conditions change in such a way that they no longer fit the traditional social character, a lag arises which often changes the function of character into an element of disintegration instead of stabilization, into dynamite instead of a social mortar, as it were. Man has been brought to his present stage of development by natural selection, of which his intellect is the supreme product; but man cannot consider himself finally superior to other animals until he supplants genetic with telic progress by applying his intellect to his own improvement. Social progress consists in an increase in the aggregate enjoyment throughout a society and a decrease in the aggregate suffering. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Thus far, social progress has in a certain awkward manner taken care of itself, but in the near future it will have to be cared for. To do this and maintain the dynamic condition against all hostile forces which thicken with every new advance, is the real problem of Sociology considered as an applied science. Feelings are the basic component of the mind; the intellect has been evolved as a guide to the feelings. The social mind, a generalization or composite of individual minds, is made up of the social intellect and social feelings. The unrestrained working out of feelings results in conflict and destruction; but intellect can guide feelings into constructive channels by setting down laws and ideals. Intellect, in its growth, finally becomes capable of formulating ideals for social as well as individual guidance. Those actions which bring progress are called “dynamic actions,” and can only be performed by creating a state of “dynamic opinion” in which the social intellect is equipped for its guiding function. If a whole society is to embark upon a dynamic action, its people must be prepared and equipped through the broadest possible diffusion of knowledge. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Intelligence, hitherto a growth, is destined to become a manufacture. The knowledge of experience is, so to speak, a genetic product; that of education is a teleological product. The origination and distribution of knowledge can no longer be left to chance and to nature. They are to be systematized and erected into true arts. Knowledge artificially acquired is still real knowledge, and the shock of all men must always consist chiefly of such knowledge. The artificial supply of knowledge is as much more copious than the natural as is artificial supply of food more abundant than the natural supply. Education is more than a device for social engineering; it is also a leveling instrument, a means of bringing opportunity to humble people and enabling them to use their talents. Greatly impressed from our childhoods is the vast difference between the educated and uneducated, but this chasm cannot be attributed to difference in native capacities. People also have such a compassionate view of education because it springs from their own personal triumph. Education is a long-term instrument for the improvement of mankind. Acquired knowledge itself cannot be transmitted by heredity, but the capacity to acquire knowledge is another matter. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
Certain arts and talents which apparently run in family lines cannot be accounted for by the theory of natural selection because these talents have no value in the struggle for survival; natural selection has no explanation for the persistence of such talents from generation to generation. The persistence of talents can best be explained by assuming that part of what man gains by the exercise of mental faculties in a specific pursuit may be handed down to become part of the heritage of the race. This does not mean that human nature is not malleable; it means that it allows only a limited number of potential structures, and confronts us with certain ascertainable alternatives. The most important alternative as far as the technological society is concerned is the following: if man is passive, bored, unfeeling, and one-sidedly cerebral, he develops pathological symptoms like anxiety, depression, depersonalization, indifference to life, and violence. The long-range implications of a cybernated Word for mental health are disturbing. Most planners deal with the human factor as one which could adapt itself to any condition without causing any disturbances. The possibilities which confront us are few and ascertainable. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
One possibility is that we continue in the direction we have taken. This would lead to such disturbances of the total system that either thermonuclear war or sever human pathology would be the outcome. The second possibility is the attempt to change that direction by force or violent revolution. This would lead to the breakdown of the whole system and violence and brutal dictatorship as a result. The third possibility is the humanization of the system, in such a way that it serves the purpose of man’s well-being and growth, or in other words, his life process. In this case, the central elements of the second Industrial Revolution will be kept intact. The question is, Can this be done and what steps need to be taken to achieve it? As the learning continues, personal changes take place in the direction of greater freedom and spontaneity. In the course of this process, I have seen hard, inflexible, dogmatic persons, in the brief period of several weeks, change in front of my eyes and become sympathetic, understanding, and to a marked degree non-judgmental. I have seen neurotic, compulsive persons ease up and become more accepting of themselves and others. In one instance, a student who particularly impressed me by his change, told me when I mentioned this: “It is true. I feel less rigid, more open to the World. And I like myself better for it. I don’t believe I ever learned so much anywhere.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
I saw shy persons become less shy and aggressive persons more sensitive and moderate. A more personal statement of this kind of change is given by a student at the end of the course. “Your ways of being with us is a revelation to me. In your class I feel important, mature and capable of doing things on my own. I want to think for myself, and this need cannot be accomplished through textbooks and lectures alone, but through living. I think you see me as a person with real feelings and needs, an individual. What I say and do are significant expressions from me, and you recognize this. You follow no plan, yet I’m learning. Since the term began I seem to feel more alive, more real to myself. I enjoy being alone as well as with other people. My relationships with children and other adults are becoming more emotional and involved. Eating an orange last week, I peeled the skin off each separate orange section and liked it better with the transparent shell off. It was juicer and fresher tasting that way. I began to think, that’s how I feel sometimes, without a transparent wall around me, really communicating my feelings. I feel that I’m growing, how much, I don’t know. I’m thinking, considering, pondering, and learning.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
Throughout this description of the learning process in such a climate, I am sure you will have observed the many similarities to the process involved in psychotherapy. Outstanding is the way in which the student begins to rely on his own values as he experiences them, rather than upon the values imposed on him by others. It is also clear that the student is closer to his own feelings, trusts them more, trusts himself more. He is not so afraid of his own spontaneity, not so afraid of change. He is, in short, learning what it means to be free. In our ongoing case study of Clare, she also needs to learn to be free. Her painful relationships left her in a daze. When she had recovered some degree of poise she worked through certain implication. She grasped more deeply the meaning of her fear of desertion: it was because her ties were essential to her that she had such a deep fear of their dissolution, and this fear was bound to persist as long as the dependency persisted. Some weeks later she heard that someone had spread slanderous remarks about her. It did not upset her consciously but led to a dream in which she saw a tower standing in an immense desert; the tower ended in a simple platform, without any railing around it, and a figure stood at the edge. She awoke with mild anxiety. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
The desert left her with an impression of something desolate and dangerous. And it reminded her of an anxiety dream in which she had walked on a bridge that was broken off in the middle. The figure on the tower meant to her merely a symbol of loneliness, which she felt, since Peter, her significant other, was away for some weeks. Then the phrase “two on an island” occurred to her. It brought back fantasies she occasionally had of being alone with a beloved man in a rustic cabin in the mountains or at the seashore. Thus at first the dream meant to her merely an expression of her longing for Peter and of her feeling alone without him. She also saw that this feeling had been increased by the report she heard on the pervious day, that she recognized that the slanderous remarks must have made her apprehensive and enhanced her need for protection. In going over her associations she wondered why she had not paid any attention to the tower in the dream. An image occurred to her, which came to her mind occasionally, of herself standing on a column amid swampland; arms and tentacles arising from the swamp reached out for her as if they wanted to drag her down. Nothing more happened in this fantasy; there was only this picture. Clare had never paid much attention to it, and had seen only its most obvious connotation: a fear of being dragged down into something dirty and nasty. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
The slanderous remarks must have revived this fear. However, she saw suddenly another aspect of the picture, that of putting herself above others. The dream of the tower had this aspect, too. The World was arid and desolate, but she towered above it. The dangers of the World could not reach her. Thus she interpreted the dream as meaning that she had felt humiliated by the slanderous remarks and had taken refuge in a rather arrogant attitude; that the isolated height upon which she thus placed herself was frightening because she was much too insecure to stand it; that she had to have somebody to support her on this height and became panicky because there was nobody on whom she could learn. She recognized almost instantaneously the broader implications of this finding. What she had seen hitherto was that she needed somebody to support and protect her because she herself was defenseless and unassertive. Now she realized that she would occasionally swing to the other extreme, haughtiness, and that in such situations she had to have a projector just as much as she did when she effaced herself. She was greatly relieved because she felt that she had glimpsed a new vista of ties fastening her to Peter, and thereby new possibilities of dissolving them. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
Everyone needs help now and then. When you really need it, it is okay to accept help. However, when someone constantly jumps in to help you, they are not really trying to help you. They are trying to make you dependent on them. Think about two-year-old’s and how they will kick up a fuss when you are trying to help them do something. It is in our biological makeup to want to do things for ourselves. We need some independence. You must remember that when someone is doing everything for you, what are you doing? You are sitting there, wondering why you did it wrong, and someone else must do it for you. You sit there and wonder what is wrong with you—and that is precisely what the brainwasher wants. They want you to think you are inadequate and that you need them. A significant (and possibly major) part of the care afforded by the usual psychotherapist is neither specific to nor dependent upon his technical professional training. Ways must be found to maximize the contribution of the psychiatrist when he is using precisely those skills and knowledges which are unique to his medical training. We must come to recognize the social inefficiency and anachronism represented whenever the psychiatrist spends any sizable portion of his time in therapeutic conversation with individual patients—unless such individual psychotherapy is imbedded in a true research endeavor. The same waste is present when the clinical psychologist functions as individual therapist. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
The shortage of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers in our institutions for several disturbed personalities (and these include no only mental hospitals but reformatories and prisons as well) is the most easily documented of the mental health manpower problems, but it is possibly exceeded by the critical shortage of these experts in the community where their coordinated efforts have a potential for prevention or effective early treatment that may far exceed the impact of their institutional work. In the setting of the community and an outpatient clientele, the most obvious pressure on the psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker is to function as individual psychotherapists. However, if they could be freed to function as researchers and consultants, and if there were a reduction of the pressure on them to do psychotherapy, their greatest potential impact would come. What are the possible avenues of action whereby we might hope to achieve a more effective utilization of the special skills of the psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker and broaden their contribution to solution of the mental health problem? Any procedures or developments which would enable them to make greater use of their special aptitudes and lesser use of their nonspecific, shared or common abilities would be helpful. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
Programs which would reduce the demand upon them to furnish individual psychotherapy and which would diminish their attraction toward this activity would be beneficial. In ethics we are to seek a subline common sense which means that we are not to help ourselves to the ignoring of others, not to help others to the ignoring of ourselves. When life itself may treat them more harshly because of their mistakes, sins, or weaknesses, to treat others too softly may not be the wise way. He needs to protect himself by the truth which, applied here, means he must strengthen himself against their negative, slushy emotion. A misconceived and middled pity brought in where toughness and reason are needed, would only harm them and him, both. The continued study of this philosophy will inevitably lead the student to accept its practical consequences and thus make the universal welfare of mankind his dominant ethical motive. I have more respect for the man who builds a career of usefulness and service to his community than for the man who turns his back on cares of responsibilities so as to sink into the smug peace of retreat. At the best the latter will address unless appeals to mankind to be better, whereas the former will do something more beneficial and more effective. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“In firefighting, I think you get into it by degrees. Everybody has his own motives. For most of us, it’s the excitement, the challenge, all the things that go with the fire department, the apparatus and everything. But you still don’t know what it is until you get your first working fire where you have to lay yourself on the line. I don’t want to overdramatize it, but from the time I was fifteen I had been going to fires and pulling hose, but it wasn’t’ until I had been on the Sacramento Fire Department for a few moths that I have my ‘moment of truth.’” Then we got a fire that not only was a working fire, but there supposedly were people trapped. It was about three in the morning, and it was one of those times when you instinctively knew, by the way the alarm came in, that you were going to have a working fire. When we turned into the street we were still four blocks away, and you could smell the smoke. We pulled up, and there was a lady standing out in front in her nightgown, screaming that he daughter was up in the bedroom, and the house was heavily involved in smoke, and some flame was showing. This other guy and I stepped off the back of the engine, and we pulled off the booster line. He was a wonderful guy and a great friend; he became a career firefighter, rose to captain, and was later killed in a fire. Anyhow, he and I started up the stairs with the booster line, and we hit that wall of heart. We didn’t use masks much in those days. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“We carried a couple of MSA demand masks and a couple of Scott air packs, but we normally didn’t wear them. We only wore them when we thought there as a gas condition. Anyhow, we started up the stairs and hit that wall of heat and smoke, and we thought this girl was trapped in the bedroom. I remember the feeling of ‘I can’t make it.’ I had this great desire to back away and get out of there. The only thing that prevented me from fleeing was the fact that I would be shamed in front of the other firefighter. He later confessed to me that the only thing that stopped him from fleeing was the fact that he would be shamed in front of me. So we continued up the stairs, got on the landing on the second floor, and crawled into the bedroom trying to find this girl. Now the fire was starting to drip down the walls. We couldn’t find her, and then it got real hot. All we had was the booster line. I remember yelling at our captain to bring a big line up. It got so hot that we finally had to start backing out. We just got to the stairs when a flashover occurred, and everything around us took off in fire. We dove head first down the stairs, just as the rest of the company was coming up with a two-and-a-half-inch line. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“We crawled out onto the street. I don’t remember much at that point. I sort of wore up, and the other firefighter and I were sitting on the back step of the pumper, and they had inhalators on us. They wanted to take us to the hospital, and I wouldn’t go because I was convinced that if I ever to lay down on that stretcher I would never get up again. I also was convinced that I wasn’t cut out to be a fireman, because I knew how close I had come to running away. So we sat there for a while, and the fire was knocked down. It turned out the girl never was there, she was staying at a friend’s house that weekend. Her mother had forgotten. That didn’t matter, really. I’ve been to many fires since when that sort of thing has occurred. The company was up on the roof overhauling, and I remember standing there and thinking to myself, ‘In the morning. I’m going to resign. I’m not going to be a fireman because I know how close I came.’ I got home around five in the morning, got to sleep, and I guess it was around eight o’clock when the alarm went off again. I jumped out of bed, got into my bunkers, headed for the fire. It was a working fire in the basement, a couch, and we went, pulled the couch out. All of a sudden I realized that I was okay, that I wasn’t that much afraid. I guess it was kind of like when you’re thrown from a horse, you get back on. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“So I had overcome that first obstacle. Then, as the years go on, you get deeper and deeper involved, and you go through various stages until finally you reach the point when, without knowing it, you have made a total commitment to be a fireman. One of the things about the fire service that is perhaps the most satisfying of all is knowing that, as long as you have the equipment and the manpower you need, you can face any challenge that is thrown at you, because of the constant repetition of the procedures—the training you go through, the experience that builds up, the teamwork that’s there. Because when you get into a fire situation, especially one where a life is involved, the adrenaline flows, and it’s very easy to do the wrong thing. The only thing that prevents you from doing the wrong thing, and forces you to do the right thing, is that disciplined training experience, plus the motivation. I think that those are the ingredients for success in anything you do in life. It’s especially true in the fire service. The motivation and the desire and willingness to be a firefighter, the training you go through, the discipline imposed on your, the discipline from your officers, the discipline you impose on yourself to be a part of this team, and finally—and most important of all—the experience. And by following the prescribed procedures, those seemingly routine things that have been drilled into you, when you do it enough, in that crucial situation you will do the right thing. It becomes almost instinct. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“I’ve also come to believe that fear is a pretty good thing for a firefighter to have. The more you know, the more you’re afraid, because there are things you should be afraid of. What you do is to discipline yourself to cope with your fear. And when you reach the stage of experience when you make that fear work for you, you will then know the dangers you should be looking for—the signs of a possible backdraft situation, the buildup you know is going to lead to a flashover, the signs of a weakness in a structure that could lead to a collapse. Now, that’s smart firefighting, and you do those things only after you have had some close calls and learned that there is good reason to be afraid of certain things. For me, personally, I have always been terrified of electricity. I always look out for live wires.” You can help the Sacramento Fire Department by making a contribution. A generous act not only helps the beneficiary, but if the motive is pure, ennobles the doer. If we want to keep sane, it is safer to keep humble. The path from arrogance to madness is a short one. 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. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Stolen Fruits are the Sweetest
Human sin derives from human ignorance of the Presence which is always within man. Who that is aware of It could possibly transgress, could oppose Its benignity or forget Its teaching of reciprocal Universal Laws. It is true that a face may proclaim the possessor’s character, but it is also true that often only a part of this character is revealed and that the hidden part is, schizophrenically, of an opposite kind. The fact must be admitted, as every saint has admitted it, that there are two poles in human nature, a lower and a higher, an animal and an angelic, an outward-turned and an inward-turned one. It is more just to say that each man’s nature is composed of both good and bad qualities. This must be so because the animal, the human, and the angel are all there in him. The need today is not for compromise or patchwork. It is for one, outright, generous gesture. When the teacher establishes an attitudinal climate, when he makes available resources which are relevant to problems which confront the student, then a typical process ensures. Not caring if he harms others, the selfish person thinks only of satisfying his own wants first. The next higher type thinks also of his immediate circle of family and friends. However, the highest type of all gives equal regard to himself, to his family, to whoever crosses his path, and to all others. He feels for everyone, never satisfying his desires by wrongfully taking away from, or harming, another. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
For students who have been taught by more conventional means, there is a period of tension, frustration, disappointment, disbelief. Students turn in such statements as “I felt completely frustrated by the class procedure.” “I felt totally inadequate to take part in this kind of thing.” “The class seems to be lacking in planning and direction.” “I keep wishing the course would start.” After an initial session in which opportunities and resources were described, one mature participant observer described the way one group struggled with the prospect of freedom. “Thereafter followed four hard, frustrating sessions. During this period, the class didn’t seem to get anywhere. Students spoke at random, saying whatever came into their heads. It all seemed chaotic, aimless, a waste of time. A student would bring up some aspect of the subject; and the next student, completely disregarding the first, would take the group away in another direction; and a third, completely disregarding the first two, would start fresh on something else altogether. At times there were faint efforts at a cohesive discussion, but for the most part the classroom proceedings seemed to lack continuity and direction. The instructor received every contribution with attention and regard. He did not find any student’s contribution in order or out of order. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
“The class was not prepared for such a totally unstructured approach. They did not know how to proceed. In their perplexity and frustration, they demanded that the teacher play the role assigned to him by custom and tradition; that he set forth for us in authoritative language what was right and wrong, what was good and bad.” This is a good description of the bafflement and chaos which is an almost inevitable initial phase of learning to be free. One fruit of the change will be that just as the old idea was to watch out selfishly for his own interests, so the new idea will be not to separate them from the interests of others. If he asked, “How can anyone who is attuned to such impersonality be also benevolent?” Well, because he is so attuned to the real Giver of all things, he need not struggle against anyone nor possess anything. Hence, he can afford to be generous as the selfish cannot. And because the Overself’s very nature is harmony and love, he seeks the welfare of others alongside of his own. He is entitled to seek his own profit and advantage, but only in equity with and considerateness for those of the other person concerned. Gradually students come to various realizations. It dawns on them that this is not a gimmick, but that they are really unfettered; that there is little point in impressing the professor, since the student will evaluate his own work; that they can learn what they please; that they can express, in class, the way they really feel; that issues discussed in class which are real to them, not simply the issues set forth in a text. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15
When these elements are recognized, there is a vital an almost awe-inspiring release of energy. One student reads as she has never read before—two books a week in the subject and hopes this “will never end.” Others undertake projects of writing, experimentation, work in a clinic or laboratory with a new zest. The report of one student is typical of many and is worth quoting at some length. “I feel that I want to share my joy with you in relation to the paper that I gave you earlier today—it is what I call ‘my first real learning experience’…I took a few minutes after I finished typing my paper to think what had made this learning experience so different from the many others which I have had. These are my reactions, sketched briefly: Based on real need—not superficial topic…reading was done to satisfy my need, not merely to collect material to fit topic and sound good…I found that I had to scrap my original approach toward writing a paper when I realized that it did not have to sound good or conform to a prescribed pattern. I jotted down my usual idea of a good outline for a paper only to find that it was not geared to my need at all, and I turned to writing about things of significance to me and then made an outline of what I had written. One of the most ‘shocking’ parts of this experience, as I have related to you one day, was the fact that I did not have to do this and yet I wanted to be working on it all the time and rushed through assigned requirements in other courses to devote time to this. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
“I wrote an annotated bibliography for the first time in my life because I wanted to have information regarding this material I had read, for future reference….there was no feeling of drudgery about this paper—I found myself saying, ‘I’m going over to the library to work on my paper for a while’ instead of, ‘Oh, I suppose I’ve got to plow through some more books tonight or I’ll never het that paper done on time.’ The lack of external pressure made this experience one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done. Basically, through experience, it has changed my whole approach to teaching…” This student is discovering what it means to be autonomous, what it means to be creative, what it means to put forth disciplined effort to reach one’s own goals, what it means to be a responsible free person, and most important, is appreciating the satisfactions which come from these experiences. Another element which is a common part of the process is that the group develops a respect and liking for each other as individuals, as they emerge in the group discussion. A teacher trying this approach writes, “In this second group, also, I found that the students had developed a personal closeness, so that at the end of the semester they talked of having annual reunions. They said that somehow or other they wanted to keep this experience alive and not lose one another.” Those who regard altruism as the sacrifice of all egoistic interests are wrong. It means doing well by all, including ourselves. For we too are part of the all. We do not honour altruistic duty by dishonouring personal responsibility. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
Up to a certain point in development, man does right in seeking self-gain. However, beyond that point, he must stop the process and seek self-loss. The attitude of non-interference in other people’s lives is a benign and justifiable one at certain times but an egotistic one at other times. The best charity in the end is to show a man the higher life that is possible for him. By selfishness it is meant seeking advantage to self in all transactions with complete indifference to others’ welfare. When the essential motive imposed on us by Nature is self-interest, it is useless to prate and prattle of altruistic motives. Every man has a right to be selfish. Trouble arises only when he hurts others to fulfil this aim. Then the same Nature which prompted him to concentrate on his own existence will punish him. For the law of compensation cannot be evaded: that which we have given to others, of woe or good, will someday be reflected to us. By human standards, nature itself is uneconomical. Its process proves the least economic of all conceivable process is concealed only by the vastness of the scale on which nature operates and the absolute magnitude of its results. Some of the lower organisms give off as many as a billion ova: only a few develop into maturity, while the rest succumb in the resulting struggle for survival. The waste of reproductive powers is fantastic. Haphazard human strife, particularly in the form of industrial competition, is similarly wasteful. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
Telic phenomena—those governed by human will and purpose—and genetic phenomena, the results of blind natural forces are fascinating concepts. In the face of the immense superiority of the telic over the genetic, the artificial over the natural, the persistent natural-law enthusiasm of laissez-faire theorists is like the nature-worship of Rousseauian romanticism, or, worse still, of primitive religion. The evolutionary view of nature as being in some way inherently beneficent is sheer mysticism. Man’s task is not to imitate the laws of nature, but to observe them, appropriate them, direct them. Just as there are two kinds of dynamic processes, so are there two distinct kinds of economics—the animal economics of life and the human economics of mind. Animal economics, the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, results from the multiplication or organisms beyond the means of subsistence. Nature produces organisms in superabundance and relies upon the wind, water, birds, and animals to sow her seed. A rational being, on the other hand, prepares the ground, eliminates weeds, drills holes, and plants at proper intervals; this is the way of human economics. While environment transforms the animal, man transforms the environment. Competition actually prevents the most fit from surviving. Rational economics not only saves resources but produces superior organisms. The best evidence for this is that whenever competition is wholly removed, as it is when man artificially cultivates a particular form of life, that form immediately makes great strides and soon outstrips those depending upon competition for their progress. Hence, the superior quality of fruit trees, cereals, domestic cattle. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
Even in its most rational form, competition is prodigiously wasteful. Witness the social waste involved in advertising, a good example of the modified form of animal cunning which is the hallmark of business shrewdness. Furthermore, Laissez faire destroys whatever value competition might have in human affairs; for since complete laissez faire allows combination and finally monopoly, free competition can be secure only through some measure of regulation. Validity of norms is based on the conditions of human existence. Human personality constitutes a system with one minimal requirement: avoidance of madness. However, once this requirement is fulfilled, man has choices: He can devote his life to hoarding or to producing, to loving or to hating, to being or having, etcetera. Whatever he chooses, he builds a structure (his character) in which certain orientations are dominant and others necessarily follow. The laws of human existence by no means lead to the postulation of one set of values as the only possible one. They lead to alternatives, and we must decide which of the alternatives are superior to others. However, are we not begging the issue by speaking of “superior” norms? Who decides what is superior? If man is deprived of his freedom, he will become either resigned and lose vitality, or furious and aggressive. If he is bored, he will become passive or indifferent to life. If he cuts down to an IBM-card equivalent, he will lose his originality, creativeness, and interests. If I maximize certain factors, I minimize others. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
The question then arises, which of these possibilities seems preferable: the alive, joyful, interested, active, peaceful structure or the unalive, dull, uninterested, passive, aggressive structure. What matters is to recognize that we deal with structures and cannot pick out preferred parts from one structure and combine them with preferred parts of the other structure. The fact of structurization in social as well as in individual life narrows down our choice to that between structures, rather than that between single traits, alone or combined. Indeed, what most people would like is to be aggressive, competitive, maximally successfully in the market, liked by everybody and at the same time tender, loving, and a person of integrity. Or, on the social level, people would like society which maximizes material production and consumption, military and political power and at the same time furthers peace, culture, and spiritual values. Such ideas are unrealistic, and usually the “nice” human features in the mixture serve to dress up or hide the ugly features. Once one recognizes that the choice is between various structures and sees clearly which structures are “real possibilities,” the difficulty in choosing becomes greatly reduced and little doubt remains which value structure one prefers. Persons with different character structures will be in favour of the respective value system which appeals to their character. Thus, the biophilous, life-loving person will decide for biophilous values, and the necrophilous persons for necrophilous ones. Those who are in between will try to avoid a clear choice, or eventually make a choice according to the dominant forces in their character structure. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
If one could prove on objective grounds that one value structure is superior to all others, nothing much would be gained; for those who do not agree with the “superior” value structure because it contradicts the demands rooted in their character structure, objective proof would not be compelling. Nevertheless, a desirable living system should grow and produce the maximum of vitality and intrinsic harmony, that is, subjectively, of well-being. An examination of the system of Man can show that the biophilous norms are more conducive to the growth and strength of the system while the necrophilous norms are conducive to dysfunction and pathology. The validity of the norms would follow from their function in promoting the optimum of growth and well-being and the minimum of ill-being. Empirically, most people waver between various systems of values, and hence never fully develop in one or the other direction. They have neither great virtues nor great vices. They are like a coin whose stamp has been worn away; the person has no self and no identity, but is afraid to make this discovery. When our protagonist Clare had recovered some degree of poise, she worked through certain implications of her findings of pain in intimate relationships. She grasped more deeply the meaning of her fear of desertion: it was because her ties were essential to her that she had such a deep fear of their dissolution, and this fear was bound to persist as long as the dependency persisted. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
Clare saw that she not only hero-worshiped her mother, Bruce, and her husband, but had been dependent upon them, just as she was upon Peter. She realized that she could never hope to achieve any decent self-esteem if injuries to her dignity meant nothing compared with the fear of losing Peter. Finally, Clare understood that this dependency of her must be a threat and a burden to Peter, too; this latter insight made for a sharp drop in her hostility toward him. Her recognition of the extent to which this dependency had spoiled her relations with people made her take a definite stand against it. This time she dd not even resolve to cut the knot of separation. She knew that she could not do it, but also she felt that having seen the problem she could work it out within the relationship with Peter. She convinced herself that after all there were values in the relationship which should be preserved and cultivated. She felt quite capable of putting it on a sounder basis. Thus in the following months she made real efforts to respect Peter’s need for distance and to cope with her own affairs in a more independent fashion. Clare had discovered a neurotic trend—the first being her compulsive modesty—and a trend that she did not in the least suspect of existing. She recognized its compulsive character and the harm it did to her love life. She did not yet see, however, how it cramped her life in general, and she was far from recognizing its formidable strength. Thus she overrated the freedom she had gained. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
In fact, Clare succumbed to the common self-deception that to recognize a problem was to solve it. The solution of carrying on with Peter was only a compromise. She was willing to modify the trend to some extent but not yet willing to relinquish it. This was also the reason why, despite her clearer picture of Peter, she still underrated his limitations, which were much greater and much more rigid than she believed. She also underrated his striving away from her. She saw it, but hoped that by a change in her attitude toward him she could win him back. You are not always who you think you are. Not so much when you are young and growing, but once one has matured, we have a pretty good idea of who we are and what we stand for. Again, not everyone will stay around someone who says bad things to them—but some will. The brainwasher will say all sorts of things to make their victim believe they are not as smart as they thought they were. They will make one think twice about everything that comes out of their mouth. They will have a good reason to do those things as the brainwasher constantly corrects them, even when they thought the other individual was correct. Some people like to break others down entirely so they can trap them. The goal is to be able to control another individual and they do not like to move on. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
7The exploitative orientation, like the receptive, has as its basic premise the feeling that the source of all good is outside, that whatever one wants to get must be sought there, and that one cannot produce anything oneself. The difference between the two, however, is that the exploitative type does not expect to receive things from others as a gift, but to take them by force or cunning. This orientation extends to all spheres of activity. In the realm of love and affection, these people tend to grab and steal; they tend to fall in love with a person attached to someone else. We find the same attitude regarding thinking and intellectual pursuits. Such people will tend not to produce ideas but to steal them. It is a striking fact that frequently people with great intelligence proceed in this way, although if they relied on their own gifts, they might well be able to have ideas of their own. The lack of original ideas or independent production in otherwise gifted people often has its explanation in this character orientation, rather than in any innate lack of originality. The same statement holds true regarding their orientation in material things. Things which they can take from others always seem better to them than anything they can produce themselves. They use and exploit anybody and anything from whom or from which they can squeeze something. Their motto is “Stolen fruits are sweetest.” Because they want to use and exploit people, the “love” those who, explicitly or implicitly, are promising objects of exploitation, and get “fed up” with persons whom they have squeezed dry. An extreme example is the kleptomanic who enjoys things if he can steal them, although he has the money to buy them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
The most visible and acute part of the mental health problem resides in those patients with major psychiatric disorders who require hospitalization. These are the patients who must have the intensive and coordinated services of the most highly trained members of the mental health team—especially of the psychiatrist. If there were no limitations of money or personnel for the treatment of the major forms of psychiatric illness, the effectiveness of the treatment of the psychotic patient would still be sorely restricted by our lack of knowledge about etiology, pathology, and specific avenues of therapeutic action. There is an urgent need for a greatly expanded research endeavour. The design and execution of research into the causes and treatment of major mental illness requires the full-time effort of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers and other mental health personnel. However, these highly trained experts are in critically short supply and their potential contribution to research is seriously reduced and, in many instances, totally blocked by the demand that they provide those clinical services presently thought to be therapeutic. To the extent that circumstances force them into purely service roles they are prevented from generating investigations that could lead to significant changes in the quality or effectiveness of their services. At the present level of our specific technical knowledge it is will to make explicit distinctions between programs of custodial management and programs of active treatment. It is totally unjustifiable and a serious social waste of critically restricted resources for the most highly trained of our mental health experts to be encouraged to assign higher priority to their clinical services and a lower priority to their responsibilities as investigators. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
Be careful not to limit elements of the quest—action—to altruism or service. It is rather the reeducation of character through deeds. Thus this includes moral discipline, altruistic service, overcoming animal tendencies, temporary physical asceticism, self-training and improvement, and so forth. It is the path of remaking the personality in the external life both through thought-control and acts so as to become sensitive towards and obedient to the Overself. Altruism will then become a mere part of, a subordinate section in, this character training. Whoever labours worthily at a worthy task which does not afflict his conscience is rendering service to humanity. It does not matter whether he is affluent or less affluent. The isolationist individual who stands unmoved by a crime being committed on his doorstep, is tempted by selfishness not to burden himself with another person’s troubles. Ambition can be transformed into service. It takes a lot of altruism and ambition to be a firefighter. “I’ll never forget, it was the third day of fire school, and you know how little things stick in your mind. About four of us were raising up a fifty-foot ladder. It was a windy day, and we were getting the ladder up when it started to fall. There were some guys standing around, and everybody instinctively ran to the ladder and grabbed it to keep it from falling. There was a lieutenant there who said, ‘You know what, there was one guy who ran away. And he should have kept going right out that gate, because firemen don’t run away.’ Firemen don’t run away. All my life I’ve been that way. A good fireman instinctively knows what to do, and one of the things is this: a fireman doesn’t run away. That is some kind of pride I have, and I get it from being a fireman.” We must learn not only to develop right qualities of character, but also not to direct them wrongly. Misplaced charity, for instance, is not a virtue. Please be sure to donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure they have all the resources required. 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. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15
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The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over
Your identity is like your shadow, not always visible, but always present. Plato once said, “I (and all persons) will survive death and destruction of my body insofar as what I essentially am is simple, immaterial soul something whose own essence is being alive.” The person who experiences himself as an ego and whose sense of identity is that of ego-identity naturally wants to protect this thing—him, his body, memory, property, and so on, but also his opinions and emotional investments which have become part of his ego. He is constantly on the defensive against anyone or any experience which could disturb the permanence and solidity of his mummified existence. In contrast, the person who experiences himself not as having but as being permits himself to be vulnerable. Nothing belongs to him except that he is by being alive. However, at every moment in which he loses his sense of activity, in which he is unconcentrated, he is in danger of neither having anything nor being anybody. This danger he can meet only by constant alertness, awakeness, and aliveness, and he is vulnerable compared with the ego-man, who is safe because he has without being. Transcendence is part of the phenomena of “human experiences.” Transcendence is customarily used in a religious context, and it refers to transcending the human dimensions to arrive at the experience of the divine. Transcending makes good sense in a theistic system; from a nontheistic standpoint it can be said that the concept of God was a poetic symbol for the act of leaving the prison of one’s ego and achieving the freedom of openness and relatedness to the World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
If we speak of transcendence in a non-theological sense, there is no need for the concept of God. However, the psychological reality is the same. The basis for love, tenderness, compassion, interest, responsibility, and identity is precisely that of being versus having, and that means transcending the ego. It means letting go of one’s ego, letting go of one’s greed, making oneself empty to fill oneself, making oneself poor to be rich. Since the birth of living substances and transmitted by millions of years of evolution, in our wish to survive physically, we obey the biological impulse imprinted on us. The wish to be alive “beyond survival” is the creation of man in history, his alternative to despair and failure. The discussion of “human experiences” culminates in the statement that freedom is a quality of being fully humane. Inasmuch as we transcend the realm of physical survival and because we are not driven by fear, impotence, narcissism, dependency, etcetera, we transcend compulsion. Love, tenderness, reason, interest, integrity, and identity—they all are the children of freedom. Political freedom is a condition of human freedom only because it furthers the development of what is specifically human. Political freedom in an alienated society, which contributes to the dehumanization of man, becomes un-freedom. One of the fundamental elements of the human situation is man’s need for values which guide his actions and feelings. Of course, there is usually a discrepancy between what people consider their values to be and the effective values which direct them and of which they are not aware. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
In the industrial society, the official, conscious values are those of the religious and humanistic traditions: individuality, love, compassion, hope, etcetera. However, these values have become ideologies for most people and are not effective in motivating human behaviour. The unconscious values which directly motivate human behaviour are those which are generated in the social system of the bureaucratic, industrial society, those of property, consumption, social position, fun, excitement, etcetera. This discrepancy between conscious and ineffective and unconscious and effective values creates havoc within the personality. Having to act differently from what he has been taught and professes to abide by makes man feel guilty, distrustful of himself and others. It is that very discrepancy which our young generation has spotted and against which it has taken such an uncompromising stand. Values—the official or the factual ones—are not unstructuralized items but form a hierarchy in which certain supreme values determine the others as necessary correlates to the realization of the former. The development of those specifically human experiences forms the system of values within the psychospiritual tradition of the West and of India and China during the last 4,000 years. Since these values rest upon revelation, they were binding for those who believed in the source of revelation, which means, as far as the West is concerned, in God. In the West, the question arises whether the hierarchy of values presented by Western religion can have any foundation other than that of revelation by God. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
We find among those who do not accept God’s authority as the foundation of values the following patterns: Complete relativism which claims that all values are matters of personal taste and have no foundation beyond such taste. Since man’s freely chosen project can be anything and hence a supreme value, because it is authentic, Sartre’s philosophy basically does not differ from this relativism. Another concept of values is that of socially immanent values. The defenders of this position start with the premise that the survival of each society with its own social structure and contradictions must be the supreme goal for all its members and hence that those norms which are conducive to the survival of that society are the highest values and are binding for everyone. Ethical norms are identical with social norms and social norms serve the perpetuation of any given society—including its injustices and contradictions. It is obvious that the elite which governs a society uses all the means at its disposal to make the social norms on which its power rests appear to be sacred, universal norms, either revealed by God or inherent in human nature. Another value concept is that of biologically immanent values. The reasoning of some of the representatives of this thought is that experiences like love, loyalty, group solidarity are rooted in corresponding feelings in the animal: human love and tenderness are seen as having their roots in the animal mother’s attitude toward its young, solidarity as rooted in the group cohesion among many animal species. This view does answer the critical question of the difference between human tenderness, solidarity, and other “human experiences” and those observed in the animal kingdom. Biological immanent value systems often arrive at results which are the very opposite of the human-oriented one discussed here. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
In a well-known type of social Darwinism, egotism, competition, and aggressiveness are conceived as the highest values because they are allegedly the main principles on which survival and evolution of the species rest. If this self-initiated learning is to occur, it seems essential that the individual be in contact with, be faced with, a real problem. Success in facilitating such learning often seems directly related to this factor. Professional people who come together in a workshop, because of a concern with problems they are facing, are a good example. Almost invariably, when they are given the facilitating climate, they at first resist the notion of being responsible for their own learning, and then seize upon this as an opportunity, and use it far beyond their expectations. On the other hand, students in a required course expect to remain passive, and may find themselves extremely perplexed and frustrated at being given freedom. “Freedom to do what?” is their quite understandable question. So it seems reasonably clear that man be confronted by issues which have meaning and relevance for him. In our culture we tend to try to insulate the student from all the real problems of life, and this constitutes a difficulty. It appears that if we desire to have students learn to be free and responsible individuals, then we must be willing for them to confront life, to face problems. Whether we are speaking of the inability of the small child to make change, or the problem of his older brother in installing the Wi-Fi, or the problem of a college student and adult in formulating his views on international policy, or dealing effectively with his interpersonal relationships, some real confrontation by a problem seems necessary condition for this type of learning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
The forgotten hero is often the middle-class citizen, who goes quietly about his business, providing for himself and his family without making demands upon the state. The crushing effect of taxation upon such people is what is eroding the middle-class. Since the Revolution, the dogmas of the Enlightenment have been traditional ingredients of the America faith. American social thought has been optimistic, confident of the special destiny of the country, humanitarian, democratic. Its reformers relied upon the sanctions of natural rights. Optimism is sometimes a hollow defiance of the realities of social struggle, and our natural rights are nowhere to be found in nature. Humanitarianism, democracy, and equality are not eternal verities, but the passing mores of a stage of social evolution. In an age of helter-skelter reforms, confidence in one’s ability to will and plan their destinies is unwarranted by history or biology or any of the facts of experience—and the best one can do is to bow to natural forces. The best type of teacher is one who will facilitate a profound trust in the human organism. If we distrust the human being, then we must cram him with information of our own choosing, lest he go his own mistaken way. However, if we trust the capacity of the human individual for developing his own personality, then we can permit him the opportunity to choose his own way in his learning. Hence it is evident we need teachers who hold a confident view of man. Another element of the teacher’s function which stands out is his sincerity, his realness, his absence of a façade. He can be a real person in his relationship with his students. He can be angry. He can also be sensitive and sympathetic. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Because a competent teacher accepts his feelings as his own, he has no need to impose them on his students. He can dislike a student product without implying that it is objectively bad of that or that the student is bad. It is simply true that he, as a person, dislikes it. This he is a person to his students, not a sterile tube through which knowledge is passed from one generation to the next. As one’s sensitivity develops and his conscience refines, he comes to regard certain actions as sinful which he formerly regarded as innocent. There is a guiding conscience in a man which develops or weakens as he responds to the forces and influences playing on and in him from both bygone lives and the current incarnation. It is this preoccupation with choosing good and avoiding evil, with religious feelings and moral virtues, that lift man above the animal. We must interpret the word duty in a larger sense, not merely as some social task imposed on us from without, but as a spiritual decision imposed on us from within. When they really mean keeping up appearances before others, it is a faculty use of the term self-respect. If we understand its twofold character, we shall understand the mysterious nature of conscience. What we commonly experience as the inward voice of conscience is simply the distilled result of accumulated experience, and this includes the experience of many Earth lives also. This voice is usually a negative one, because it more often warns, admonishes, and hinders us from wrong conduct. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
There is a rarer experience of conscience, however, which is the voice of our own Overself, that divine consciousness which transcends our personal self. This voice is usually an optimistic one since it directs, guides, and explains with a wisdom which comes from beyond the fears and hopes, the suggestions and customs, that organized society and patriarchal convention have implanted in our subconscious mind. Its external development of a so-called evil course of conduct may or may not coincide with the disapproval arising from ancient experience or divine wisdom, for it is merely a matter of social convenience, cultural development, or geographical custom. It may indeed be defective, false, or even quite immoral guidance, for mob passion often masquerades as social conscience. This is the kind of conscience which has a history. It changes with changing circumstances and evolves with evolving grades of culture. The trial and death of Sokrates is a classic case illustrating the conflict between genuine and pseudo-conscience. When I was in India, I learnt that to commit suicide under any circumstance was the worst of human since whereas when I was in Japan, I learnt that the failure to commit suicide, under certain circumstances, was itself one of the worst sins. In both countries the individual pseudo-conscience tenders its counsel to commit or not to commit suicide according to the suggestions implanted from outside in the individual mind by collective society. The voice of outer convention is conscience in its commonest form, the voice of personal experience is the wisdom of the human personality and the distillate of many incarnations, and the serene monition of the Overself is conscience in its purest form, the true innermost voice of divine wisdom. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
The ego takes his conscience over and fits it to suit himself. That voice within you which whispers that one act is right and another wrong, is in the end none other than the voice of the Overself. Only it may come to us as from afar, remote and muffled, halting and intermittent, because it must come amid other voices which are more clamant and closer to your inner ear. When formalism is stretched out into hypocrisy and when compromise is accepted to the point of surrender, social conventions have drowned a man’s conscience. Everyone has some degree of conscience. So, in relationships with others, an awareness of the promptings of this inner voice—in the light of and supplemented by the teachings of Masters like Jesus as the Christ—will clarify one’s course of thought and action. Under the pressure of his personal ego but haunted by the commandments of respected prophets, he finds himself occasionally in moral dilemmas. How shall a man meet different moral situations? What line of conduct should he follow on different occasions? How shall he resolve each conflict of duty? These are questions which he alone can best solve. It is his own conscience which is at stake. However, this does not mean that he should disdain whatever sources of guidance may be available to him. It means that what he must do circumstances at his stage of evolution is not necessarily what other men would have to do. We can depend on making a correct ethical choice always only when we have consciously worked out a true philosophical basis for all our ethics; otherwise, we shall be at the mercy of those many possible changes of which feeling itself is at the mercy. It is not a question of what course of action will be most effective, but of what will be most ethical. Neither of these two factors can be ignored with impunity; both must be brought into a balanced relation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
It is more prudent to “sense” the emanations imprinted in the auric field surrounding a personal than to trust alone to the words he utters or the claims he makes. Those who depend on other persons to make decisions for them or to solve problems, lose the chance of self-development which the situation offers them. In trying to reach a decision about his work and how he can best serve others, the individual must turn to the Overself and not to other sources, for direction. When confronted by difficult decisions, one must be especially careful to take into consideration the future effects of one’s choice. A decision based on sentiment, or on other emotional reactions, unchecked by reason, cannot solve any problem—as the student has, undoubtedly, already learned. It is necessary to examine experience—one’s own, and that of others—in so leads to painful repetition of avoidable suffering. This is true of personal relationships. There will come a time in the life of each student when certain critical decisions will have to be made. These, together with the quality of the ideals he pursues and his whole general attitude, will determine the circumstances of the remainder of that incarnation. There are so many sides to even the simplest situation that the aspirant will at times be bewildered as to what to do or how to act. He will waver from one decision to another and be unable to take up any firm ground at all. At such a time it is best to wait as long as possible and thus let time also make its contribution. If by waiting a little man can see his way more clearly and reach a more conducive decision, he should wait. However, if it only befuddles his mind still further, then he should not. We are not always given the chance to choose between simple good and evil. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
The situations which organized human society develops for us do not infrequently offer the choice only between lesser and larger evils. We see among neurotics this same long-drawn inability to form decisions, or dread of their being wrong is made. If he can successfully analyse the personal and emotional factors involved in in, in every situation requiring an important decision, he will get a truer one. Judgements made in haste, actions done rashly, without proper consideration, and decisions given out of impatience and excitement are likely to be of less value than the opposite kind. In our case study of Clare, she had a lot of problems involving judgements in her relationships. Her boyfriend Peter often disregarded her feelings. Recently, Peter rejected Clare when she asked him to take a trip with her out of town. When he broke to her the news of having to stay in town, there had been no tenderness, no regret, no sympathy. It was only toward the end of the evening, when she cried bitterly, that he turned affectionate. In the meantime, he had made her bear the brunt of the distress/ He had impressed on her that everything was her fault. He had acted in the same way as her mother and brother had acted in her childhood, first stepping on her feelings, and then making her feel guilty. Incidentally, it is interesting to see here how the meaning of a fragment became clearer because she had picked up her courage to rebel, and how this elucidation of the past in turn helped her to become straighter in the present. Clare then recalled any number of incidents in which Peter had made implicit or explicit promises and had not kept them. Moreover, she realized that this behaviour showed itself also in more important and more intangible ways. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Clare saw that Peter had created in her the illusion of a deep and everlasting love, and yet was anxious to keep himself apart. It was as if he had intoxicated himself and her with the idea of love. And she had fallen for it, as she had fallen for the story of the robbers. Finally Clare recalled the associations she had before that early dream: thoughts of her friend Eileen, whose love faded out during the illness, and the novel in which the heroine felt estranged from her husband. These thoughts too, she realised now, had a much more serious connotation than she had assumed. Something within her seriously wanted to break away from Peter. Though she was not happy about this insight she nevertheless felt relieved. She felt as if a spell had been broken. In following her insight Clare began to wonder why it had taken her such a long time to obtain a clear picture of Peter. Once these traits in him were recognized they appeared so conscious to her that it was hard to overlook them. She saw then that she had a strong interest in not seeing them: nothing should prevent her from seeing in Peter the realisation of the great man of her daydream. Also, she saw for the first time the whole parade of figures whom she had hero-worshiped in a similar way. The parade started with her mother, whom she had idolized. Then Bruce had followed, a type in many ways that were like Peter. And the daydream man and many others. The dream of the glorious bird now definitely crystalized as a symbol for her glorification of Peter. Always, because of her expectations, she had hitched her wagon to a star. And all the stars had proved to be candles. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Many think that Clare should have realized long ago that Peter promised more than he could keep. She had seen it some months before, but she had neither taken it seriously, nor appreciated the whole extent of Peter’s unreliability. At that time her thought had been predominantly an expression of her own anger at him; now it had crystallized to an opinion, a judgement. Moreover, she did not then see the admixture of sadism behind his façade of righteousness and generosity. If she blindly expected him to fulfill all her needs, she could not possibly have arrived at this clear vision. Her realization that she had fantastic expectations, and her willingness to put the relationship on a give-and-take basis, had made her so much stronger than she could not dare to face his weakness and thus sake the pillars on which the relationship rested. In the Victorian Age, we are taught, man was the victim of repression. He was raised and lived in an atmosphere heavy with censorship. Proper behaviour was very formally prescribed; the domain of the improper was large and its contents were determined by the silent agreement of parents, of teachers, of preachers, of friends. That which was improper was not talked about and that which was not talked about was improper. Since speaking of certain things was verboten, it was difficult to understand (and prohibited to try to understand) why these things were proscribed. Those matters not admitted to discussion were naturally not proper to think upon. However, it is a far easier chore to restrain the tongue than to inhibit the thought. And though the impulses can be denied labels, or even falsely labeled, as impulses they permit of only one natural translation. Lust may become poetry and prurience may become scholarship, but only so much of libido is translatable. Always there is an irreducible minimum which demands expression (and recognition?)—else a man will be very nervous. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
So discoveries Dr. Freud and so taught Dr. Freud. And in his searching examination of the nervous man (and woman) he learned of the tricks and failures of repression. He demonstrated that certain neurotic symptoms represented the partial failures of repression. He helped society to see that pleasures of the flesh were what was being repressed in Victorian culture. It was Dr. Freud’s intention to give man a greater freedom (if only be reducing the number of forces and constraints determining his behaviour) by enhancing his knowledge of himself as a biological organism. And the impact of Freudian psychology has been to bring a very perceptible degree of new freedom into at least one aspect of man’s functioning. Now it is not only acceptable to have impulses for pleasures of the flesh, recognised and labeled as such, but it is allowed to talk about those impulses. We are an unrepressed and liberated culture—at least as regards pleasures of the flesh. We have publicly guiltless freedom of expression concerning matters involving pleasures of the flesh and even when there are frustrations of malfunctions of pleasures of the flesh, these are not stringently reserved for the physician’s consulting room. Paradoxically, the individual who may by nature be reserved and believed that pleasures of the flesh should be a private matter (without necessarily having any unhealthy attitudes toward it) may suffer from the repression of her “prudery”! Is there something repressive about our Freudian liberation? Repression is in essence a biological phenomenon—it is psychological only with respect to the content of what is repressed, and this is determined largely by the values peculiar to a culture at a particular time. Dr. Freud’s discovery of the sexual basis of some neuroses and of the techniques for alleviating repression, together with the science of contraception, have served largely to solve the problems of the sex-life of modern man, only to leave him with the problems of his love-life—problems possibly more difficult of solution because they are inaccessible to our technology. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
The freedom of pleasures of the flesh which resulted from Dr. Freud’s lifting of the forces of repression may now be recruited in the repression of our acquired drives to love and to be loved. It is further paradox that Dr. Freud’s efforts to liberate man and to free him from repression should have resulted in the cult of the expert psychotherapist. We have learned to appreciate the pathological effects of repression and to be sensitive to the benefits of emotional ventilation; we have learned that when we are troubled it is good to talk to someone. However, the forces of repression have been served by the cultural fallacy that it is good to talk only to a very select group of persons. Now we are confronted by a cultural neurosis so that people who would speak freely of their life involving pleasures of the flesh to even casual acquaintances feel that less “intimate” personal problems, their anxieties, frustrations, conflicts, and confusions must be revealed only in the magic privacy of the psychotherapist’s office. The person with a painful and perplexing personal problem is loath to ask a friend to share the knowledge of it, and his friend is loath to encourage him to talk it out. Reluctance to share one’s problems with even a very close friend can be traced not simply to the rise of modern psychiatry and the enhanced public awareness of psychotherapy. The mental health movement has a definite impact on dissuading individuals from looking to “non-experts” for even passively supportive roles. By emphasizing the activities of mental health specialist any by attributing to the psychiatrist, psychologist or other “expert” a specificity of therapeutic effect (which has thus far not been demonstrated) it has encouraged the notion that the non-expert cannot be truly helpful, and hence, that it is useless to talk with him. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Furthermore, the sensitive and help-oriented individual has been led to believe that either by failure to do something specific or, more likely, by virtue of making an inappropriate response he can do serious psychological injury to the friend who “consults” him. There appears to be a difference between the genders in degree of reluctance to share worries and anxieties, with women generally more ready than men to ventilate their concerns. With the greater proneness of women to introspection, self-doubt, and conflict, the injunction against “causal therapy” may have more impact on their tendency to seek professional help. This may partly account for the fact that two thirds of psychiatric clinical patients are females. Rousseau taught that human nature was essentially good, whereas Calvin taught that it was essentially bad. Philosophy teaches that the innermost core of human nature is essentially good, but the outer and visible husk is a mixture of good and bad, varying with individuals as to the proportions of this mixture. The mark of true goodness is, first, that it never by thought, word, or deed injuries any other living creature; second, that it has brought the lower nature under the bidding of the higher; and third, that it considers its own welfare not in isolation but always against the background of the common welfare. If he is to adhere to the principles of philosophical living, and if he is to place a correct emphasis on where it should belong, there are three different forms of wrong action which he must carefully separate from each other in his mind. First, the most important, is the sin in moral behaviour; second is the error in practical judgment; third is the transgression of the social code. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Marx postulated the interdependence between the economic basis of society and the political and legal institutions, its philosophy, art, religion, etcetera. The former, according to Marxist theory, determined the latter, the “ideological superstructure.” However, Marx and Engels did not show, as Engels admitted quite explicitly, how the economic basis is translated into the ideological superstructure. By using the tools of psychoanalysis, this gap in Marxian theory can be filled, and it is possible to show the mechanisms through which the economic basic structure and the superstructure are connected. One of these connections lies in the social character, the other in the nature of the social unconscious. According to Dr. Freud, character is defined as “the pattern of behaviour characteristic for a given individual.” While other authors like William McDougall, R.G Gordon and Kretschmer have emphasized the conative and dynamic element of character traits. Dr. Freud developed not only the first but also a most consistent and penetrating theory of character as a system of striving which underlies, but are not identical with, behaviour. Behaviour traits are described in terms of actions which are observable by a third person. Thus, for instance, the behaviour trait of “being courageous” would be defined as behaviour which is directed toward reaching a certain goal without being deterred by risks to one’s comfort, freedom, or life. Or parsimony as a behaviour trait would be defined as behaviour which aims at saving money or other material things. However, if we inquire into the motivation and particularly into the unconscious motivation of such behaviour traits, we find that the behaviour trait covers numerous and entirely different character traits. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Courageous behaviour may be motivated by ambition so that a person will risk his life in certain situations in order to satisfy his craving for being admired; it may be motivated by suicidal impulses which drive a person to seek danger because, consciously or unconsciously, he does not value his life and wants to destroy himself; it may be motivated by sheer lack of imagination so that a person acts courageously because he is not aware of the danger awaiting him; finally, it may be determined by a genuine devotion to the idea or aim for which a person acts, a motivation which is conventionally assumed to be the basis of courage. Superficially the behaviour in all these instances is the same despite the different motivations. I say “superficially” because if one can observe such behaviour minutely, one finds that the difference in motivation results also in subtle yet significant differences in behaviour. If his courage is motivated by devotion to an idea rather than by ambition, an officer in battle, for instance, will behave quite differently in different situations. In the first case, if the risks are in no proportion to the tactical ends to be gained. he would not attack in certain situations. If, on the other hand, he is driven by vanity, this passion may make him blind to the dangers threatening him and his soldiers. His behaviour trait of “courage” in the latter case is obviously a very ambiguous asset. Another illustration is parsimony. A person may be economical because his economic circumstances make it necessary; or he may be parsimonious because he has a stingy character which makes saving an aim for its own sake, regardless of the realistic necessity. Here, too, motivation would make some difference regarding the behaviour itself. In the first case, the person would be very well able to discern a situation where it is wise to save from one in which it is wiser to spend money. In the latter case he will save regardless of the objective needed for it. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Another factor which is determined by the difference in motivation refers to the prediction of behaviour. In the case of a “courageous” soldier motivated by ambition we may predict that he will behave courageously only if his courage can be rewarded. In the case of the soldier who is courageous because of devotion to his cause, we can predict that the question of whether his courage will find recognition will have little influence on his behaviour. The Sacramento Fire Department’s courage is certainly motivated by ambition. Here is the story of one of the firefighters. “To be honest with you, a collapsed building was never a thought that entered my mind. I always thought that fighters were firefighters, and that’s all they did. I never really gave a lot of thought to even interior firefighting until I actually got into the job and realized, as I was training and going through fire school, that there is a lot more to this job than people know. I certainly never realized that it is as involved as it is. There’s something different every day. And when we got the collapsed building, that was far above anything I might have imagined.” The forces by which man is motivated, the way a person acts, feels, and thinks is largely determined by the specificity of his character and is not merely the result of rational responses to realistic situations. The dynamic quality of character traits, and the character structure of a person represents a particular form in which energy is channeled in the process of living. Please be sure to make a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure that they are receiving all required resources. 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. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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It is Useless to Preach Ethics to a Gangster
Social meddlers have been labouring under the delusion that, since there are no natural laws of the social order, they might make the World over with artificial ones. Society, however, the product of centuries of gradual evolution, cannot be quickly refashioned by legislation. It is a superorganism, changing at a geological tempo. The great stream of time and Earthy things will sweep on just the same despite us. Every one of us is a child of his age and cannot get out of it. He is in the stream and is swept along with it. All his science and philosophy come to him out of it. Therefore, the tide will not be changed by us. It will swallow up both us and our experiments. That is why it is the greatest folly of which a man can be capable to sit down with a slate and pencil to plan out a new social World. Socialists are puny meddlers, social quacks, who would try to break into the age-old process of societal growth at an arbitrary point and remake it in accordance with their petty desires. They started from the premise that “everybody ought to be happy” and assumed that therefore it should be possible to make everyone happy. They never asked, “In what direction is society moving?” or “What are the mechanisms which motivate its progress?” Evolution would teach them that it is impossible to tear down overnight a social system whose roots are centuries deep in the social of history. History would teach them that revolutions never succeeded—witness the experience of France, where the Napoleonic period left essential interests much as they have been before 1789. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
There are two chief things with which government must deal. They are the property of men and the honour of women. These it must defend against crime. Polly Hannah Klass was a twelve-year-old American girl who was kidnapped at knifepoint during a slumber party at her mother’s home in Petaluma, California in 1993. She was strangled to death. Richard Allen Davis was convicted of her murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. As part of an Anti-Violence Strategy, politicians in California and other U.S.A. states supported the three strikes law, which requires a person who is convicted of an offense and who has one or two other previous serious convictions to serve a mandatory life sentence in prison without parole. California’s Three Strikes act was signed into law on March 8, 1994. However, since 2014, under California law, purchasing or soliciting a child for sex is a misdemeanor carrying a maximum penalty of up to a year in jail, or a minimum of two days in jail, and a $10,000 fine. This is a direction contradiction of the Three Strikes Act. Many people wonder how such legislation could even exist when worldwide, at any given time, there are approximately 30 million victims (about the population of Texas) being sold into the sex trade. Every system has its inevitable evils, but this is blatantly wrong. When they care nothing about the health and safety of your children, why keep electing sinful democrats? Human progress is moral progress, and moral progress is largely the accumulation of economic virtues. Let every man be sober, industrious, prudent, and wise, and bring up his children to be so likewise, so we can abolish crime and corruption in a few generations. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
If the good and evil values of this Earthly existence are in the end relative, partial, and transient, there yet remains a supreme value which is absolute, total, and eternal in its goodness. It belongs to the root of our being, the Overself in us that represents the World-Mind. The atheist who declares that the moral scene is entirely suggested to man by his environment has taken a partial truth, a partial untruth, and joined them together. However, if he had declared that the environment was a contributory factor to the result, he would have been quite correct. The moaning of a cat has doubtless a certain musical note in it. The Messiah by Handel has musical notes of another kind. Metaphysical scepticism would say that both values are relative and not absolute, hence both are as worthwhile or as worthless as we believe them to be. However, most of us would prefer Handel! Why? Because although as relative as the cat’s sounds, it is progressively superior. We may apply this to ethics. Excessive moral tolerance easily becomes moral lethargy. How can you rightly give the same rules on self-control to young men, in whom the lusts are hot, and to old men, who whom they are cold? To tie a code of moral values to a religious belief is safer in a simple community and riskier in a sophisticated one. When it is no longer an integrity, a virtue may be practised wrongly. New circumstances bring out new and different qualities, including latent and even unsupported ones. Or a crisis in events may explode and let them appear suddenly. Thus, the good may become the bad; the bad may become good. Arrogance in virtue is risky. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
By giving his allegiance to the political system, the religious system, and the commercial system in which he lives, man has unwittingly done two things; he has made a judgement on them, and he has taken a moral decision about them. However, whether this has penetrated his consciousness, he cannot absolve himself from these responsibilities. Sinfulness is relative. What is right for a man at a low stage may be wrong for him at a higher stage; and in the highest stage, he may act rightly yet in sin in thought. Although two different doctrines may each be relatively true, this is not the same as being on the same level of evaluation. To set up relativity as an absolute truth without qualifying it, is unfair. To say that all values are alike, all codes are the same, is to say something half-false. Paradox is an indispensable element of the Highest Formulations. If the old moralities fall away from man, it is only to be displaced by higher ones, certainly not to be bereft of any ethical code. The doctrine who uses right ideas to support or defend wrong actions can do so only because those ideas are general and abstract ones. They ignore circumstances, time, and place. Convert them into specific concrete, practical, and cases, and their misuse becomes difficult. Although he has now inwardly transcended conventional codes of good and evil, man will outwardly continue to respect them. This is not hypocrisy for he is not opposed to them. He perceives that the very relativity which deprives them of value for him, provides them with value for society. Obedience to the Overself will then become the only code of ethics that he can follow. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Dr. Freud’s independent man has emancipated himself from the dependence on mother. Marx’s independent man has emancipated himself from the dependence on nature. However, there is one important difference between the two concepts of independence. Dr. Freud’s independent man is basically a self-sufficient man. He needs others only to satisfy his instinctual desires. Since men and women need each other, this satisfaction is a mutual one. The relationship is not primarily but only secondarily a social one, like that of individual buyers and sellers on the market who are united by their mutual interest in exchange. For Marx, man is primarily a social being. If he is related to his fellow men and to nature, he needs his fellow man, not to satisfy his desires, but because only then is he complete as a man. The independent, free man in Marx’s sense is the active, related, productive man. Spinoza, who had considerable influence on Marx, as he had on Hegel and Goethe, held activity vs. Passivity to be central concepts for the understanding of man, He differentiated between active and passive emotions. The former (fortitude and generosity) iriginate in the individual, and they are accompanied by adequate ideas. The latter rule over man; he is the slave of passions, and they relate to inadequate, irrational ideas. This connection between knowledge and affect has been enriched by Goethe and Hegel in their emphasis on the nature of true knowledge. Knowledge is not obtained in the position of the split between subject and object, but in the position of relatedness. As Goethe put it: “Man knows himself only since he knows the World. He knows the World only within himself, and he is aware of himself only within the World. Each new object, truly recognized, opens a new organ within ourselves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
In his Faust, Goethe gave the most outstanding expression to this concept of the “ever striving” man. Neither knowledge nor power nor sex can give an ultimately satisfactory answer to the question which man is asked by the fact of his very existence. Only the free and productive man, untied to his fellow man, can give the right answer to man’s existence, Marx’s concept of man was a dynamic one. Human passion is, he said, “the essential power of man striving energetically for its object.” Man’s own powers develop only in the process of relatedness to the World. “The eye has become a human eye when its object has become a human, social object, created by man and destined for him. The senses have therefore become directly theoreticians in practice. They relate themselves to the thing for the sake of the thing, but the thing itself is an objective human relation to itself and to man and vice versa. Need and enjoyment have thus lost their egoistic character, and nature has lost its mere utility by the fact that its utilization has become human utilization. (In practice I can only relate myself in a human way to a thing when the thing is related in a human way to man.)” Just as our senses develop and become human senses in the process of their productive relatedness to nature, our relatedness to man, says Marx, becomes human relatedness in the act of loving. “Let us assume man to be man, and his relation to the world to be a human one. Then love can only be exchanged for love, trust for trust, etcetera. If you wish to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person; if you wish to influence other people you must be a person who really has a stimulating and encouraging effect upon others. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be a specific expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return, id est, if you are not able, by the manifestation of yourself as a loving person, to make yourself a beloved person, then your love is impotent and a misfortune.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
The fully developed, and this the healthy, man, is the productive man, the man who is genuinely interested in the World, responding to it; he is the rich man. In contrast to this fully developed man, Marx paints the picture of a man under the system of capitalism. “The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.” In the present system man has much, but he is little. The fully developed man is the wealthy man who is much. “Communism,” for Marx, “is the positive abolition of private property, of human nature through and for man. It is, therefore, the return of man himself as a social, id est, really human being, a complete and conscious return which assimilates all the wealth of previous development. Communism as a fully developed naturalism is humanism and, as a fully developed humanism, is naturalism. It is the definitive resolution of the antagonism between man and natura, and between man and man. It is the true solution of the conflict between existence and essence, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and species. It is the solution of the riddle of history and knows itself to be this solution.” By “private property” as used here and in other statements, Marx never refers to the personal property of things for use (such as a house table, et cetera). He refers to the property of the “propertied classes,” that is, of the capitalist who, because he owns the means of production, can hire the property-less individual to work for him, under conditions the latter is forced to accept. “Private property,” in Marx’s usage, then, always refers to private property within capitalist class society and thus is a social and historical category; the term does not refer to things for use, to “personal property.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
The past has not been devoid of experimentation to permit freedom in education, and there has accumulated a considerable body of knowledge regarding education which has inward freedom as one of its primary goals. August Aichorn, many years ago, carried out a radical experiment in the reeducation of delinquents. He permitted them freedom, within the institutional setting, to conduct themselves as they desired in the group in which he was the leader. After a period of chaos which I am sure few of us could bear, these youths gradually chose a social and disciplined and cooperative life as something they preferred. They learned, though experience in an accepting relationship that they desired responsible freedom and self-imposed limits rather than the chaos of license and aggression. Another radical experiment was that conducted by A.S. Neill in his school, Summerhill. Starting one hundred years ago, school has become a current focus of great interest because A.S. Neill’s book Summerhill tells of the experience of his pupils and himself in this school. This is a book which is well worth thoughtful reading by every educator. Neill’s sincerity and genuineness, his faith in the potential of everyone, his firm respect for each child and for himself shines through its pages. As in the case of Aichorn, few of us would have the courage to trust the individual, and his natural desire to learn, as completely as does Neill. Yet has given u a challenging laboratory example of what it means to provide a setting in which children can learn to be free. Even the cautious report of the Ministery of Education makes is clear that the students develop a zest for living spontaneous courtesy, as well as initiative, responsibility, and integrity. They conclude, “a piece of fascinating and valuable educational research is going on here which it would do educationists good to see.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The core of the progressive education movement, now frequently derided, was another attempt to help individuals to learn to be free. That its fundamental philosophy frequently became debased into turning education into a sugar-coated pill should not obscure its true aims, nor its effective research when it was true to its own philosophical base. Still another type of experiment along this line is evident in the work being done in student-centered teaching. Here much of the work has been done in university classes and in intensive workshops for professional persons. The aim of the approach: to assist students to become individuals who can take self-initiated action and to be responsible for those actions; who are capable of intelligent choice and self-direction; who are critical learners, able to evaluate the contributions made by others; who have acquired knowledge relevant to the solutions of problems; who, even more importantly, are able to adapt flexibly and intelligently to new problem situations; who have internalized an adaptive mode of approach to problems, utilizing all pertinent experience freely and creatively; who are able to cooperate effectively with others in these various activities; who work, not for approval of others, but in terms of their own socialized purposes. If it is not possible for the generality of mankind to practise ethical indolence permanently and to avoid the moral struggles which the situations of life lead to intermittently, it is much less possible for the minority of mankind who have begun this quest to do so. Life becomes graver for them. If they do not obey the call of conscience the first time, it may become more painful to obey it the second time. If they persist in following an ignoble and contemptible course after they have already seen that it is dishonourable and deplorable the universal law becomes proportionately heavier with consequences. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
We have been having an ongoing look at Clare, and her dependence on people. Her case study has been enlightening. She had started taking notes on her own behaviour to see what triggered an upset. While reviewing these notes concerning an evening in which her mood had swung from elation to depression, she saw the possibility that fatigue may have been a factor. She wondered whether the latter might have resulted not only from the anxiety that had been aroused but also from a repressed anger for the frustration of her wishes. If that were so, her wishes could not be quite so harmless as she had assumed, for they must then contain some admixture of an insistence that they be complied with. She left this an open question. This piece of analysis had an immediately favourable influence upon the relationship with her man Peter, who was aloof and distant. Clare became more active in sharing his interests and in considering his wishes, and ceased being merely receptive. Also, the sudden eruptions of irritation stopped entirely. It is hard to say whether her demands upon him relented, though it would be reasonable to assume that they did to a moderate degree. This time Clare faced her finding so squarely that there is almost nothing to add. It is noteworthy, though, that the same material had presented itself six weeks before, when the daydream of the great man first emerged. At that time the need to hold on to the fiction of “love” was still so stringent that she could do no more than admit that her love was tinged with a need for protection. Even in that admission she could conceive of the need for protection only as a factor reinforcing her “love.” Nevertheless, that early insight constituted the first attack on her dependency. The discovery of the degree of fear in her love was the second step. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
A further step was the question she raised as to whether she overrated Peter, even though the question remained unanswered. And only after she had worked that far through the fog could she finally see that her love was by no means unadulterated. Only now could she stand the disillusionment of recognizing that she had mistaken for love her abundant expectations and demands. She had not yet taken the last step of realizing the dependency that resulted from her expectations. Otherwise, however, this fragment of analysis is a good example of what it means to follow up an insight. Clare saw that her expectations of others were largely engendered by her own inhibitions toward wishing or doing anything for herself. She saw that her sponging attitude impaired her capacity to give anything in return. And if her expectations were rejected or frustrated, she recognized her tendency to feel offended. Clare’s expectations were mainly in reference to intangible things. Despite apparent evidence to the contrary, she was not essentially a greedy person. The receiving of presents was only a symbol for less concrete but more important expectations. She demanded to be cared for in such a way that she should not have to make up her mind as to what is right or wrong, should not have to take the initiative, should not have to be responsible for herself, should not have to solve external difficulties. Some weeks passed in which her relationship with Peter was smoother. They had finally planned a trip together. Through his long indecision he had spoiled for her most of the joy of anticipation, though when everything was settled, she did look forward to the holiday. However, a few days before they were to leave, he told her that business was too precarious just then to allow him to go away for any length of time. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Clare was first enraged and then desperate, and Peter scolded her for being unreasonable. She tended to accept the reproach and tried to convince herself that he was right. When she calmed down, Clare suggested that she go alone to a resort that was only a three-hour drive from the city; Pere could then join her whenever his time allowed. Peter did not openly refuse this arrangement, but after some hemming and hawing he said that if she were able to take things more reasonably, he would have been very glad to agree since she reacted so violently to every disappointment, and since he was not master of his time, he foresaw only frictions forthcoming and felt it better for her to make plans without him. This again threw her into despair. The evening ended with Peter consoling her and promising to go away with her for ten days at the end of vacation. Clare felt reassured. Inwardly agreeing with Peter, she decided to take things more easily and to become content with what he could give her. The next day, while trying to analyze her first reaction of rage, she had three associations. The first was a memory of being teased, when she was a child, for playing the martyr role. However, this memory, which had often recurred to her, appeared now in a new light. She had never examined whether the others were wrong in teasing her in this way. She had taken it merely as a fact. Now for the first time it dawned on her that they were not right, that she had been discriminated against, that by teasing her they had added insult to injury. Then another memory occurred to her from the time when she was five or six. She used to play with her brother and his playmates, and one day they told her that in a certain meadow, near where they played, robbers lived in a hidden cave. She believed it completely and always trembled when she went near that meadow. Then one day they had ridiculed her for having fallen for their story. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Finally, Clare thought of her dream of the foreign city, the part in which she had seen the freak show and the gambling stands. And now she realised that these symbols expressed more than a transient anger. She saw for the first time that there was something phony, something fraudulent in Peter. Not in the sense of any deliberate swindle. However, he could not help playing the role of one who was always right, always superior, always generous—and he had feet of clay. He was wrapped up in himself, and when he yielded to her wishes it was not because of love and generosity but because of his own weakness. Finally, in his dealing with her there was much subtle cruelty. Psychotherapy is a good idea for someone like Clare. In view of the general disdain for, if not outright counter prescription of, advice-giving as a part of formal psychotherapy, it is interesting to note that fewer than 15 percent of those who were helped definitely by psychiatrists attributed their relief to the receipt of advice; the comparable figures of helpful advice are 24 percent and 34 percent for the physicians and clergymen respectively. By contrast, 23 percent of persons helped by the clergymen credited the receipt of “comfort” and an “ability to endure”; of those who were helped by physicians and psychiatrists only 9 percent and 7 percent respectively claimed that this was the way in which therapy had helped them. The data from this survey does not permit a comparison of the relative efficiency of the clergyman as a psychotherapist with the psychiatrist or other experts. It may be that the clergymen “treat” a very different group of “patients,” and that the medical and psychological experts receive the more difficult cases. It is important to note, however, that they tend to seek to help all those who come to them with personal problems, making fewer referrals than to the physicians. Nevertheless, their effectiveness as evaluated in subjective appraisals of helpfulness by those who consult them is equal to that of the physicians, and both “nonexperts” are credited with giving more “help” than are the psychiatrists, psychologists, and marriage counselors. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
It seems obvious that the clergy constitute a great potential resource in helping to meet the psychotherapy needed of our society. It is not known to what extent this potential is being fully realized. In the past there have been pseudo-antagonisms (based upon presumed conflicts of values and philosophy) between religion and psychiatry. Some psychotherapists have feared that the clergy were doing harm through slowness to make referrals to experts. Concern for the possible usurpation of a role for which they were inadequately prepared has been based partly on a recognition that the older spiritual adviser had rarely received intensive instruction in scientific psychology or orientation to the nature of neurotic illness. In the face of some of these antipathies and with growing recognition for the extent to which the clergyman is turned to for help with emotional and mental problems, both the church and psychiatry are moving toward a reproachment. Seminaries are showing increasing attention to provision of some background in pastoral counseling as a necessary part of the training of future churchmen; in providing sophistication in the techniques of counseling there is also attention to the problem of recognition of psychiatric illness. Priests, rabbis, and ministers in increasing numbers are being encouraged to pursue graduate study in psychology. Through the cooperation of the Wheat Ridge Foundation of Lutheran Church and graduate department of psychology of the University of Minnesota a small and highly select group of ordained pastors are studying for the Ph.D. in clinical psychology. These men will later be key resource persons in providing mental health consultation to other pastors and to church programs of mental health education. Psychiatrists and psychologists are showing a growing willingness to participate in special seminars and short courses designed to provide clergymen with a basic understanding of psychiatric illness and treatment. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The increased education of clergy in the field of mental illness should have a beneficial effect. It should bring this important source of therapeutic conversation to increasingly direct and effective expression. It should mean that more and more clergy will come to do more and better personal counseling. It should have this effect but it may not! The effect of the increased “psychiatric sophisticated” of the clergy may be simply that they will reveal a new tendency toward making increasingly frequent referrals to the already overburdened “experts.” It is of the utmost importance that clergymen be sensitized not only to the presence of serious psychological disturbance, which may be occasionally masked by a plea for spiritual guidance, but that they be made equally aware of that they have within themselves the potential to render significant help and relief to many of the persons who seek their counsel with strictly secular problems. If the tuition of clergymen in the field of mental hygiene were to be so diagnosis-and pathology oriented that they were simply rendered over-ready to make referrals rather than to accept a basic, appropriate responsibility to render aid. It is obvious that religious leaders should be among the first to recognise a “philosophical neurosis” and should know that they may have a special expertise in the treatment of this form of pseudo-neurotic disturbance. They should prepare themselves to receive the referrals which, hopefully, psychiatrists and psychologists may be making in increasing numbers. Beyond this, the mental health movement must seek to give the clergy an increasing feeling for the strategic advantage of their special status as suppliers of therapeutic conversation, an increasing sense of the legitimacy of their functioning in this role, and an increasing awareness of their need to take responsibility for their distinctly psychotherapeutic skills over and above their qualities as spiritual leaders. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
There are a couple of “humane experiences” which are difficult to classify in terms of feelings, affects, and attitudes. However, it matters little how we classify them, since all these classifications themselves are based on traditional distinctions, the validity of which is questions. I am referring to the sense of identity and integrity. The problem of identity has been much in the foreground of psycholgoical discussion, especially stimulated by the excellent work of Erik Erikson. He has spoken of the “identity crisis,” and, undoubtedly, he has touched upon one of the major psychological problems of industrial society. However, he has not gone far or penetrated as deeply as is necessary for the full understand of the phenomena of identity and identity crisis. In the age of information, men are transformed into things, life is lived on social media, and things have no identity. Or do they? Is not every BMW car of a certain year and a certain model identical with every other BMW car of the same model and different from other models and vintages? Has not any dollar bill its identity like any other dollar bill because it has the same design, value, exchangeability, but different from any other dollar bill in terms of differences in the quality of the paper brought about by the length of use? Things can be the same or different. However, if we speak of identity, we speak of a quality which does not pertain to things, but only to man. What then is identity in a human sense? Among the many approaches to this question, I want to stress only the concept that identity is the experience which permits a person to say legitimately “I” — “I” as an organizing active center of the structure of all my actual or potential activities. This experience of “I” exists only in the state of spontaneous activity, but it does not exist in the state of passiveness and half-awakeness, a state in which people are sufficiently awake to go about their business but not awake enough to sense an “I” as the active center within themselves. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
This concept of “I” is different from the concept of ego. (I do not use this term in the Freudian sense but in the popular sense of a person who, for example, has a “big ego.”) The experience of my “ego” is the experience of myself as a thing, of the body I have, the memory I have—the money, the house, the social position, the power, the children, the problems I have. I look at myself as a thing and my social role is another attribute of thingsness. Many people easily confuse the identity of ego with the identity of “I” or self. The difference is fundamental and unmistakable. The experience of ego, and of ego-identity, is based on the concept of having. I have “me” as I have all other things which this “me” owns. Identity of “I” or self refers to the category of being and not of having. I am “I” only to the extent to which I am alive, interested, related, active, and to which I have achieved an integration between my appearance—to others and/or to myself—and the core of my personality. The identity crisis of our time is based essentially on the increasing alienation and reification of man, and it can be solved only to the extent to which man comes to life again, becomes active again. There are no psychological shortcuts to the solution to the identity crisis except the fundamental transformation of alienated man into the living man. The increasing emphasis on ego versus self, on having versus being, finds a glaring expression in the development of our language. It has become customary for people to say, “I have insomnia,” instead of saying, “I cannot sleep”; or, “I have a problem,” instead of, “I feel sad, confused” or whatever it may be; or “I have a happy marriage” (sometimes successful marriage), instead of saying “My wife and I love each other.” All categories of the process of being are transformed into categories of having. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The ego, static and unmoved, relates to the World in terms of having objects, while the self is related to the World in the process of participation. Modern man has everything: a BMW, a house, a job, “kids,” a marriage, problems, troubles, satisfactions—and of all that is not enough, he had his psychoanalyst. He is nothing. A concept which presupposes that of identity is that of integrity. It can be dealt with briefly because integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one’s identity, in the many ways in which such violation is possible. The main temptations for violation of one’s identity are the opportunities for advancement in industrial society. Since the life within the society tends to make man experience himself as a thing anyway, a sense of identity is a rare phenomenon. However, the problem is complicated by the fact that aside from identity as a conscious phenomenon as described above, there is a kind of unconscious identity. Some people, while consciously they have turned into things, carry unconsciously a sense of their identity precisely because the social process has not succeeded in transforming them completely into things. These people, when yielding to the temptatiomn of violating their integrity, may have a sense of guilt which is unconscious and which gives them a feeling of uneasiness, although they are not aware of its cause. It is all too easy for orthodox psychoanalytic procedure to explain a sense of guilt as the result of one’s incestuous wishes or one’s “unconscious homosexuality.” The truth is that since a person is not entirely dead—in a psychological sense—he feels guilty for living without integrity. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
It takes a lot of integrity to be a firefighter. “I was a training officer for almost two years when the Sacramento Fire Department advertised for a drillmaster, and they hired me. They were looking for somebody from the outside because of the training fire which killed two firefighters and injured two others. That changed the department. It was a very powerful, emotional experience, because it is a small closely knit outfit. It was a smoke training exercise, there was no intention of having a fire there. They used a small shed that was going to be demolished for a smoke-in. A hopeless structure. For example, they had put up cardboard walls, and it had a low-density combustible fireboard ceiling. Anf there was probably a finer layer of carbon from pervious burns. This was the third exercise of the morning. There was a flashover. Since this was only a “smoke exercise,” they weren’t prepared for firefighting. This was a case of their intentions outrunning their idea of what the potential was in that situation. So they weren’t hooked up to a hydrant, and there was nobody by the pump panel. They were generating the smoke by burning tires, a series of fires in this long shed. They were advancing a booster line to simulate hose line advancement, but they weren’t in there to extinguish fires. I don’t know if it was an oxygen flashover, or, more likely, the presence of all that combustible material getting heated up and liberating its gases to the point where everything ignited simultaneously, the walls, the ceilings, everything. There were four people inside. Two died. Two made it out, the company officer and the officer who was putting on the drill. The company officer suffered extensive burns and spent considerable time in a burn ward. The officer putting on the drill wasn’t a regular training officer, he was just somebody who’s volunteered to conduct the drill. This was a real tragedy.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Please keep the Sacramento Fire Department in your prayers and make a donation to ensure that they have all the resources required. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The wise man harbours neither revenge nor envy; he speaks good of all men, and belittles none. He is moderate in his merriment, and rejoices not at the misfortune of others; he cleaves to the men of truth and faithfulness. See that you guard your soul’s holiness, and when you pray, consider before whom you stand. Visit the sick and suffering, and let your countenance be cheerful. Purge your soul from angry passion; that is the inheritance of fools. Love the society of learned men, and strive to know more and more of the ways and the works of your Creators. A city is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked, but it is exalted by the blessing of the upright. Sin is a reproach to any people, but righteousness exalts a nation. When the wicked rule, the people sigh, but when the righteous come to power, the people rejoice. Where there is no vision, the people perish, but happy is he that keeps the law. When the righteous exult, there is a great glory, but when the wicked rule, righteous men must be sought for. Let us now praise such righteous men, famous men, the fathers of our country. The Lord manifested in them great glory, even His mighty power from the beginning. These men did rule and were renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding; leaders of the people, men of learning, wise and eloquent men, rich in ability; men of vision and mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten; their heritage shall continually remain, and their names live on unto all generations. Men will declare their wisdom, and continually speak their praise. For the Lord never leaves His people without leaders and men of learning. That they may be instructed and ennobled, and their destiny exalted. America was founded on Biblical precepts. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The Winchester Mystery House
There is a charming story concerning one of the first ghosts Mrs. Winchester saw. “He appeared first in the garden one afternoon. I saw him as I looked out of the morning-room window, a very ordinary-looking young man wearing a tweed jacket and flannels. I saw him as clearly as I am seeing you now…and yet I knew immediately that he was a ghost. I knew he was not alive in the sense that you and I are alive. No, I was not worried by him. There was nothing ominous or threatening about his appearance. I saw him several times in the garden, and then one day entering from the door-to-nowhere. This time he seemed to be ill.”
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
There are No Natural Rights in the Jungle
The way we behave toward our fellow men depends on one’s evolutionary status. The young inexperienced naive idealist will contradict the aged Worldly-wise cynic for whom like, authority, celebrity, tradition, innovation, have been totally denuded of their glamour. The distance from one answer to the other will also be marked by varying views. It is quite true that moral codes have historically been merely relative to time, place, and so on. However, if we try to make such relativity a basis of non-moral actions, if we act on the principle that wrong is not worse than right and evil not different from good, then social life would soon show a disastrous deterioration, the ethics of the jungle would become its governing law, and catastrophe would overtake it in the end. The relativity of good and evil is no justification for the tolerance of wrong and evil. It would be a mistake to believe that because philisophy affirms that morality, art, conscience, and religion are relative to human beings, it therefore has no moral code to offer. It most assuredly has such a code. This is so because side by side with relativity it also affirms development. It holds up a purpose, traces out a path to its realization, and hence formulates a code. The virtue which he is to practise is not bound by the standards set by law and customs, nor even by conventional morality. His standards are far higher and far nobler. For they are not measured by human weakness but by human possibility. If for so much of his lifetime they must exist side by side with his shortcomings, the latter are not accepted but are resisted. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
When embraced by intellectual materialists or unphilosophical mystics, moral relativity has led to foolish and even dangerous practical results. The fallacy is that although all points of view in morality are tenable, all are not equally sustainable. The danger of this teaching of evil’s unreality and moral relativity is that in the hands of the unwise it annuls all distinction between evil and good, while in the hands of the conceited it opens dangerous doors. The undisciplined or the evil-minded will always seize on such a tenant to provide support and excuse for their faults or sins. There is no reason to withhold it, however, for they will commit the same faults or sins anyway whether they have the teaching or not. Because there are levels of moral growth, character, and self-control, it became necessary to lay down laws, codes, and rules for mankind in the masses. These may be of sacred origin, as with a Moses, or of secular authority, as with a ruler. Where the name of God is invoked to give them weight, this is usually a human device. However, the come-back of Universal Law is very real, and not a fancy. The discovery of moral relativity gives no encouragement however to moral laxity. If we are freed from human convention, it is because we are to submit ourselves sacrificially to the Overself’s dictate. The unfoldment of progressive states of conscious being is not possible without giving up the lower for the higher. The doctrine that ethical and artistic values are relative need not be inconsistent with the doctrine that they are also progressive. They evolve from lower to higher levels. Being ideas in some individual mind, they improve with the refinement of that mind’s own quality. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
The codes of good and bad are usually part of religion and certainly belong to the religious level. However, the idea of goodness implies the idea of badness, so both are held in the mind although in different ways: one explicitly, the other implicitly. The philosopher does not depend on them but on their source, the Higher Power. The ego being an illusory entity, its virtues are in the ultimate sense either imaginary or also illusory. Nevertheless, moral perfection of the ego is a necessary stage on the journey to perfection of consciousness, to Overself. To cast it aside as being merely relative, to reject ethics and virtue as being unnecessary, is a trick of the intellect to enable the ego to stay longer in its own self-sufficiency. The first fact in life is the struggle for existence; the greatest forward step in this struggle is the production of capital, which increases the fruitfulness of labour and provides the necessary means of an advance in civilization. Primitive man, who long ago withdrew from the competitive struggle and ceased to accumulate capital goods, must pay with a backward and unenlightened way of life. Social advance depends primarily upon hereditary wealth; for wealth offers a premium to effort, and hereditary wealthy assures the enterprising and industrious man that he may preserve in his children the virtues which have enabled him to enrich the community. Any assault upon hereditary wealth must begin with an attack upon the family and end by reducing men to “swine.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 15
The operation of social selection depends upon keeping the family intact. Physical inheritance is a vital part of the Darwinian theory; the social equivalent of physical inheritance is the instruction of the children in the necessary economic virtues. If the fittest are to be allowed to survive, if the benefits of efficient management are to be available to society, the captains of industry must be paid for their unique organizing talents. Their huge fortunes are the legitimate wages of superintendence; in the struggle for existence, money is the token of success. It measures the amount of efficient management that has come into the World and the waste that has been eliminated. Millionaires are the bloom of a competitive civilization: The millionaires are the product of natural selection, acting on the whole body of men to pick out those who can meet the requirement of certain work to be done…It is because they are thus selected that wealth—both their own and that entrusted to them—aggregates under their hands….They may fairly be regarded as the naturally selected agents of society for certain work. They get high wages and live in luxury, but the bargain is a good one for society. There is intense competition for their place and occupation. This assures us that all who are competent for this function will be employed in it, so that the cost of it will be reduced to the lowest terms. In the Darwinian pattern of evolution, animals are unequal; this makes possible the appearance of forms with finer adjustment to the environment, and the transmission of such superiority to succeeding generations brings about progress. Without inequality the law of survival of the fittest could have no meaning. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
Accordingly, in Sumner’s evolutionary sociology, inequality of powers was at a premium. The competitive process develops all powers that exist according to their measure and degree. If liberty prevails, so that all may exert themselves freely in the struggle, the results will certainly not be everywhere alike; those of courage, enterprise, good training, intelligence, perseverance will come out at the top. These principles of social evolution negate the traditional American ideology of equality and natural rights. In the evolutionary perspective, equality was ridiculous; and no one knew so well as those who went to school to nature that there are no natural rights in the jungle. There can be no rights against Nature except to get out of her whatever we can, which is only the fact of the struggle for existence stated over again. In the cold light of evolutionary realism, the eighteenth-century idea that men were equal in a state of nature was the opposite truth; masses of men starting under conditions of equality could never be anything but hopeless savages. To Sumner rights were simply evolving folkways crystallized in laws. Far from being absolute or antecedent to a specific culture—an illusion of philosophers, reformers, agitators, and anarchists—they are properly understood as rules of the game of social competition which are current now and here. In other times and places other mores have prevailed, and still others will in the future. Each set of views colours the mores of a period. The eighteenth-century notions about equality, natural rights, classes and the like produced nineteenth-century states and legislation, all strongly humanitarian in faith and temper; at the present time the eighteenth-century notions are disappearing, and the mores of the twenty-first century will not be tinged by humanitarianism as those of the last hundred years have been. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
Sumner’s resistance to the catchwords of the American tradition is also evident in his skepticism about democracy. The democratic ideal, so alive in the minds of men as diverse as Eugene Debs and Andrew Carnegie, as a thing of great hopes, warm sentiments, and vast friendly illusions, was to him simply a transient stage in social evolution, determined by a favorable quotient in the man-land ratio and the political necessities of the capitalist class. Democracy itself, the pet superstition of the age, is only a phase of the all-compelling movement. If you have abundance of land and few men to share it, the men will all be equal. Conceived as a principle of advancement based on merit, democracy met his approval as socially progressive and profitable. Conceived as equality in acquisition and enjoyment, he thought it unintelligible in theory, and thoroughly impracticable. Industry may be republican; it can never be democratic so long as men differ in productive power and in industrial virtue. Many people fear democracy and attempt to set limits upon it in the federal structure; but since the whole genius of the country has inevitably been democratic, because of its inherited dogmas and its environment, the history of the United States of America has been one of continual warfare between the democratic temper of the people and their constitutional framework. Marx’s picture of the healthy man is rooted in the humanistic concept of the independent, active, productive man, as it was developed by Spinoza, Goethe, and Hegel. The aspect in which Marx’s and Dr. Freud’s independence is a limited one; the son makes himself independent of the father by incorporating his system of commandments and prohibitions; he carries fatherly authority within himself and remains obedient to and dependent on the father and the social authorities in this indirect way. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
For Marx independence and freedom are rooted in the act of self-creation. “A being,” Marx wrote, “does not regard himself as independent unless he is his own master, and he is only his own master when he owes his existence to himself. A man who lives by the favor of another considers himself a dependent being. But I live completely by another person’s favor when I owe to him not only the continuance of my life but also its creation, when he is its source. My life has necessarily such a cause outside itself if it is not my own creation.” Or, as Marx put it, man is independent only “…if he affirms his individuality as a total man in each of his relations to the World, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, willing, loving—in short, if he affirms and expresses all organs of his individuality”–if he is not only free from but also free to. Marx, freedom and independence were not merely political and economic freedom in the sense of liberalism, but the positive realization of individuality. His concept of socialism was precisely that of a social order which serves the realization of the individual personality. Marx wrote: “[This crude communism] appears in a double form; the domination of material property looms so large that it aims to destroy everything which is incapable of being possessed by everyone as private property. It wishes to eliminate talent, etcetera, by force. Immediate physical possession seems to it the unique goal of life and existence. The role of worker is not abolished but is extended to all men. The relation of private property remains the relation of the community to the World of things. Finally, this tendency to oppose general private property to private property is expressed in an animal form; marriage (which is incontestably a form of exclusive private property) is contrasted with the community of women, in which women become communal property. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
One may say that this idea of the community of women is the open secret of this entirely crude and unreflective communism. Just as women are to pass from marriage to universal prostitution, so the whole World of wealth (id est, the objective being of man) is to pass to the relation of universal prostitution with the community. This communism which negates the personality of man in every sphere, is only logical expression of private property, which is this negation. Universal envy setting itself up as power is only a camouflaged form of cupidity which reestablishes itself and satisfies itself in a different way. The thoughts of every individual private property are at least directed against any wealthier private property, in the form of envy and the desire to reduce everything to a common level; so that this envy and levelling in fact constitute the essence of competition. Crude communism is only the culmination of such envy and levelling-down based on a preconceived minimum. How little the abolition of private property represents a genuine appropriation is shown by the abstract negation of the whole World of culture and civilization, and the regression to the unnatural simplicity of the poor and wantless individual who has not only surpassed private property but has not yet even attained to it. The community is only a community of work and of equality of wages paid out by the communal capital, by the community as universal capitalist. The two sides of the relation are raised to a supposed universality; labour as a connection in which everyone is placed, and capital as the acknowledged universality and power of the community. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
Tenderness, love, and compassion are exquisite feeling experiences and generally recognized as such. However, there are some human experiences which are not as clearly identified as feelings but are more frequently called attitudes. They do not express the same direct relatedness to another person, but are, rather, experiences which are within oneself and which only secondarily refer to other persons. The first one among this group is “interest.” The word “interest” today has lost most of its meaning. To say “I am interested” in this or that is almost equivalent to saying “I have no strong feeling about it, but I am not entirely indifferent.” It is one of those cover words which mask the absence of intensity, and which are vague enough to cover almost anything from having an interest in a certain industrial shock to an interest in a young lady. However, this deterioration of meaning which is so general cannot deter us from using words in their original and deeper meaning, and that means to restore them to their own dignity. “Interest” comes from the Latin inter-esse, that is, “to be in-between.” If I am interested, I must transcend my ego, be open to the World, and jump into it. Interest is based on activeness. It is the relatively constant attitude which permits one at any moment to grasp intellectually as well as emotionally and sensuously the World outside. The interested person becomes interesting to others because interest has an infectious quality which awakens interest in those who cannot initiate it without help. When we think of its opposite, curiosity, the meaning of interest becomes still clearer. The curious person is passive. He wants to be fed with knowledge and sensations and can never have enough, since quantity of information is a substitute for the depth quality of knowledge. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
The most important realm in which curiosity is satisfied is gossip, be it the small-town gossip of the woman who sits at the window and watches with her spyglasses what is going on around her or the somewhat more elaborate gossip which fills the newspaper columns, occurs in the faculty meetings of professors as well as in the management meetings of professors as well as in the management meetings of the bureaucracy, and at the cocktail parties of the writers and artists. Curiosity, by its very nature, is insatiable, since aside from its maliciousness, it never really answers the question, Who is the other person. Interest has many objects: persons, plants, animals, ideas, social structures, and it depends to some extent on the temperament and the specific character of a person as to what his interests are. Nevertheless, the objects are secondary. Interest is an all-pervading attitude and form of relatedness to the World, and one might define it in a very broad sense as the interest of the living person in all that is alive and grows. If the interest is genuine, even when this sphere of interest in one person seems to be small, there will be no difficulty in arousing his interest in other fields, simply because he is an interested person. Another of the “human experiences” is responsibility. Again, the word responsibility corresponds to the distinction between the authoritarian and humanistic conscience. The authoritarian conscious is essentially the readiness to follow the orders of the authorities to which one submits; it is glorified obedience. The humanistic conscience is the readiness to listen to the voice of one’s own humanity and is independent of orders given by someone else. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
The survey of attitudes of the American public toward their personal adjustment and toward mental illness is a perplexing problem. Of those persons with acknowledged problems who sought consultation and advice beyond the family circle, the largest proportion (42 percent) turned to clergymen. Approximately 30 percent sought counsel from a general physician. Only 18 percent reported seeking assistance initially from a psychologist or psychiatrist. Of those persons who went for help to psychiatrists, psychologists, or marriage counselors nearly one third had been referred either by their physicians or by their clergymen, although a very small proportion of these referrals came from clergymen or physicians, over three fourths reported that they had received some help, and nearly two thirds reported having been “helped a lot.” Significantly smaller proportions of those who saw marriage counselors, psychologists, or psychiatrists (25 to 46 percent) reported having been helped. Of those persons who claimed to have been helped much by their consultation, the largest single proportion (73 percent) was contributed by those with a “personal problem with a defect in self.” We are left with an apparent inconsistency that should, somehow, be accounted for: individuals who recognize personal adjustment problems caused by some personal defect claim to be helped by therapeutic treatment more often than individuals with other kinds of problems; psychiatrists are consulted more often about just these kinds of problems; yet psychiatrists are not perceived to be the most effective source of help. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
Continuing with our case study of Clare, she was not usually given to crying in movies but one evening, tears came to her eyes when a girl who was in a wretched condition met with unexpected help and friendliness. She ridiculed herself for being sentimental, but this did not stop the tears, and afterward she felt a need to account for her beheaviour. She first thought of the possibility that an unconscious unhappiness of her own might have expressed itself in crying about the movie. And, of course, she did find reasons for unhappiness. Yet her associations along this line of thought led nowhere. It was only the next morning that she suddenly saw the issue: the crying had occurred not when the girl in the movie was badly off but when her situation took an unexpected turn for the better. She realized than what she had overlooked the previous day—that she always cried at such occasions. Her associations then fell in line. She remembered that in her childhood she always cried when she reached the point where the fairy godmother heaps unexpected presents on Cinderella. Then her joy at receiving the scarf came back to her. The next memory concerned an incident that had occurred during her marriage. Her husband usually gave her only the presents due at Christmas or on her birthdays, but once an important business friend of his was in town and the two men went with her to a dressmaker to help her select a dress. She could not make up her mind which of two dresses to choose. The husband then made a generous gesture and suggested that she take both garments. Though she knew that this gesture was made not altogether for her sake but also to impress the business friend, she nevertheless was inordinately happy about it and cherished these dresses more than others. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
Finally, two aspects of the daydream of the great man occurred to her. One was the sence in which, to her complete surprise, she singled her out for his favour. The other concerned all the presents he gave her, incidents that she had told herself in detail: the trips he suggested, the hotels he chose, the gowns he brought home, the invitations to luxurious restaurants. She never had to ask for anything. She felt quite taken aback, almost like a criminal who is confronted with overwhelming evidence. This was her “love”! She remembered a friend, a sworn bachelor, saying that woman’s love is merely a screen for exploiting men. She also recalled her friend Susan who had greatly astonished her by saying that she thought the usual flood of talk about love was disgusting. Love, said Susan, was only an honest deal in which each partner did his share to create a good companionship. Clare had been shocked at what she regarded as cynicism: Susan was too hard boiled in denying the existence and the value of feelings. However, she herself, she now realized, had naively mistaken for love something that largely consisted of expectations that tangible and intangible gifts would be presented to her on a silver platter. Her love was at bottom no more than a sponging on somebody else! This was certainly an entirely unexpected insight, but despite the painful surprise at herself she soon felt greatly relieved. She felt, and rightly, that she had really uncovered her share in what made her love relationships difficult. Clare was so overwhelmed by the discovery she had made that she quite forgot the incident from which she had started, the crying in the movie. However, she returned to tears the next day. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
The tears expressed an overwhelming bewilderment at the thought of a sudden fulfillment of most secret and most ardent wishes, a fulfillment of most secret and most ardent wishes, a fulfillment of something one has waited for all one’s life, something that one has never dared to believe would come true. Within the next couple of weeks Clare followed her insight in several directions. In glancing over her latest series of associations it struck her that in almost all the incidents the emphasis was on help or gifts that came unexpectedly. She felt that at least one clue for this lay in the last remark she had written about the daydream, which was that she never had to ask for anything. Here she came into territory that was familiar to her through the previous analytic work. Since she had formerly tended to repress her own wishes, and was still inhibited to some extent from expressing them, she needed somebody who wished for her, or who guessed her secret wishes and fulfilled them without her having to do anything about them herself. Another tack she pursued concerned the reverse side of the receptive, sponging attitude. She realized that she herself gave very little. Thus, she expected Peter to be always interested in her troubles or interested but did not actively participates in his. She expected him to be tender and affectionate but was not very demonstrative herself. She responded but left the initiative to him. It is hard to be a caring person without getting duped a time or two. Getting emotionally involved with the wrong people can hurt you in more ways than one. Some people like getting others wrapped around their finger. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
There are tremendous pressures today—cultural and political—for conformity, docility, and rigidity. The demand is for technically trained students outperform students in China, and none of this nonsense about education which might improve our interpersonal relationships! The demand is for hard-headedness, for training of the intellect only, for scientific proficiency. We want inventiveness in developing better “hardware,” but creativity in a larger sense tends to be suspect. Personal feelings, free choice, uniqueness—these have little or no place in the classroom. One may observe an elementary school classroom for hours without recording one instance of individual creativity of free choice, expect when the teacher’s back is turned. And at the college level we know that the major effect of a college education on the values of the student is to “shape up” the individual for more comfortable membership in the ranks of college alumni. For the public and for most educators the goal of learning to be free is not an aim they would select, nor toward which they are actually moving. Yet if a civilized culture is to survive, and if the individuals in that culture are to be worth saving, it appears to me to be an essential goal of education. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15
The Winchester Mystery House
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 