Freedom to be King of the Supermarket

The struggle for existence is in a sort of hopeful fatalism, of which current literature is full. The injustice of society, not the stinginess of nature, is the cause of the want and misery which we attribute to overpopulation. The new mouths which an increasing population calls into existence require no more food than the old ones, while the hands they bring with them can in the natural order of things produce more. The process is the results of forces which work slowly, steadily and remorselessly, for the elevation of man. War, slavery, tyranny, superstition, famine, and pestilence, the want and misery which fester in modern civilization, are the impelling cases which drive men on by eliminating poorer types and extending the higher; and hereditary transmission is the power by which advances are fixed, and past advances made the footing for new advances. The individual is the result of changes thus impressed upon and perpetuated through a long series of individuals, and the social organization takes its form from the individuals of which it is composed. Radical to a degree beyond anything which current radicalism conceives, since it anticipates a change in human nature itself, civilization holds that no change can avail, save these slow changes in men’s natures. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

The prevailing view of civilization accounts neither for the failure of some peoples to progress, nor for the failure of others to maintain a level of civilization once achieved. History suggests that civilizations rise and fall in a wavelike rhythm. It is possible that each national or race of life has a stock of energy which it expends as the energy is dissipated the nation declines. America, many believe, is currently in a decline because of the immigration crisis, overpopulation, destruction of gender roles, the church, the nuclear family, inflation, low wages, high cost of housing and corruption. That obstacles which finally bring progress to a halt are raised by the course of progress are association and equality, and society is not threatened by the division and inequality it breeds. The seeds of the destruction of the existing order can be found in its own poverty; in its squalid cities which are breeding and welcoming in the barbarian hordes which might overwhelm it. As Artificial Intelligence puts a major strain on electric grids, civilization must either prepare itself for a new forward leap or plunge downward into a new barbarism. Each man must swim for himself in a crossing river, ignoring the fact that some have been artificially provided with corks and others artificially loaded with lead. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

Human nature itself must have changed very much. Not all, but the conditions of human life have changed, and with them the motives of human action. As wonders of the cooperative order have unfolded, it has become clear that this change of conditions is centered about the abolition of strife. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. The elimination of strife, by automating jobs and tasks, has only produced more strife. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production. The principle of the Brotherhood of Humanity is one of the eternal truths that govern the World’s progress on lines which distinguish huma nature from brute nature. The principle of competition is simply the application of the brutal law of the survival of the strongest and most cunning. Therefore, so long as competition continues to be the ruling factor in our technological system, the highest development of the individual cannot be reached, the loftiest aims of humanity cannot be realized. The final pleas for any form of brutality in these days is that it tends to the survival of the fittest; and very properly this plea has been advanced in favour of the system which is the sum of all brutalities. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

If the richest were in fact the best, there would have been no social question, and disparities of condition would have been willingly endured; but the competitive system apparently causes the unfittest to survive, not in the sense that the rich are worse than the poor, but that the system encourages the worst in character of all classes. The difference between the animal and human economy will bear study as furnishing the best of ammunition for replying to the “survival of the fittest” against the argument of nationalism. Evolutionary biology does not provide a justification for competitive individualism. There is a healthy emulation that will go on in a cooperative commonwealth and the unhealthy competition of capitalism. The organic character of social life demands increasing centralization and management. Through capitalism, some American corporations and the government, through costs and fees, are gauging citizens, underpaying workers, and each year, redistributing billions of dollars of American wealth and tax money to other countries, instead of reinvesting in the American people and America. Conscious evolution is a far different thing from the unmodified natural evolution of the past, and human intervention must play an increasingly important role in development. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

The rise of trusts is paving the way for socialism, and the continuing “trustification” of industry is a proof of the superiority of combination over competition. The combination is the inevitable next step in social evolution, leaving them a choice between monopolized capitalism and a collectivized social order. 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 specific expressions, 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. The aim of the activation of man in the technological society requires another step as important and as difficult as replacement of the alienated bureaucratic structure by methods of humanist management. Again, I wanted to ask the reader to take the following proposals only as illustrations of desirable possibilities, not as definite aims and methods. Up to the present, our industrial system has followed the principle that anything man wants or desires is to be accepted indiscriminately, and that is possible society should satisfy all of man’s desires. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

We make a few exceptions to this principle; for instance, certain laws which restrict or even forbid the use of liquor regardless of a person’s desire to drink as much as he likes; stronger ones against the taking of drugs, where even the possession of drugs like marijuana (the degree of whose harmfulness is still under debate) is penalized severely; we also restrict the sale and exhibition of so-called pornography. Furthermore, our laws forbid the sale of harmful food under the Food and Drug Act. In these areas, there is consensus, crystallized in state and federal laws, that there are desires which are harmful to man, and which should not be fulfilled although a person craves for the satisfaction of these desires. While one can argue that so-called pornography does not constitute a real threat and, furthermore, the hidden lasciviousness of our advertisements are at least as effective in arousing cupidity of pleasures of the flesh as straight pornography would be, the principle is recognized that there are limits to the freedom of the satisfaction of subjective desires. Yet these restrictions are essentially based on only two principles: the concern for bodily harm, and the vestigial remnants of the Puritan morality. It is time we began to examine the whole problem of subjective needs and whether their existence is a sufficiently valid reason for their fulfillment; to question and examine the generally accepted principle of satisfying all needs—while never asking about their origins or effects. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

In trying to find adequate solutions, we meet with two powerful obstacles. First, the interests of industry, whose imagination is fired by too many alienated men who cannot think of products which would help to make a human being more active rather than more passive. Besides this, industry knows that by advertising it can create needs and cravings which can be calculated in advance, so that there is little risk in losing profit if one continues the safe method of creating needs and selling the products which satisfy them. The other difficulty lies in a certain concept of freedom which gains ever-increasing importance. The most important freedom in the twenty-first century is the freedom to use and invest property in any form which promised profit. Since managers of enterprises were at the same time the owners, their own acquisitive motivations made them emphasize this freedom of the use and investment in capital. Because of inflation, many Americans do not own property—even though there are a relatively large number of people who own large fortunes. The average American is employed, and he is satisfied with relatively small savings, either in cash, stocks, bonds, or life insurance. For him, the freedom of investment of capital is a relatively minor issue; and even for most people who are able to buy stocks, this is a form of gambling in which they are counseled by investment funds. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

However, the real feeling of freedom today lies in another sphere, in that of consumption. In this sphere, everybody except those who live a substandard existence experiences the freedom of the consumer. Here is an individual who is powerless to have any influence—beyond a marginal one—on the affairs of the state or the enterprise in which he is employed. He has a boss, and his boss has a boss, and the boss of his boss has a boss, and there are very few individuals left who do not have a boss and do not obey the program of the managerial machine—of which they are a part. However, what power does he have as a consumer? There are dozens of brands of cigarettes, toothpastes, soaps, deodorants, radios, social media networks, cellular phones, Smart TVs, movie and television stream services, etcetera, etcetera. And they all woo his favor. They are all there “for his pleasure.” He is free to favour the one against the other and he forgets that essentially there are no differences. This freedom to give his favours to his favourite commodity creates a sense of potency. The man who is impotent humanely becomes potent as a buyer and consumer. Can one make any attempt to restrict this sense of potency by restricting the freedom of choice in consumption? It seems reasonable to assume one can do so only under one condition and that is that the whole climate of society changes and permits man to become more active and interest in his individual social affairs, and hence less in need of that fake freedom to be king of the supermarket. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

We are determined by forces outside of our conscious selves, and by passions and interests which direct us behind our backs. Inasmuch as this is the case, we are not free. However, we can emerge from this bondage and enlarge the realm of freedom by becoming fully aware of reality, and hence of necessity, by giving up illusions, and by transforming ourselves from somnambulistic, unfree, determined, dependent, passive persons into awakened, aware, active, independent ones. The aim of life is liberation from bondage, and the way to this aim is the overcoming of illusions and the full use of our active powers. Dr. Freud’s position is essentially the same; he spoke less of freedom versus bondage than of mental health versus mental sickness. He, too, saw that man is determined by objective factors (the libido and its fate) but he thought that man can overcome this determination by overcoming his illusions, by waking up to reality, and by becoming aware of what is real but unconscious. Dr. Freud’s principle as a therapist was that awareness of the unconscious is the way to the cure of mental illness. As a social philosopher he believed in the same principle: only if we become aware of reality and overcome our illusions can we attain the optimal strength to cope with life. Perhaps those who do not suffer from the neurosis will need no intoxicant to deaden it. They will, it is true, find themselves in a difficult situation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

They will have to admit to themselves the full extent of their helplessness and their insignificance in the machinery of the universe; they can no longer be the center of creation, no longer the object of tender care on the part of a beneficent providence. They will be in the same position as a child who has left the parental house where he was so warm and comfortable. However, surely infantilism is destined to be surmounted. Men cannot remain children forever; they must in the end go out into “hostile life.” We may call this “education to reality.” Our God, Logos, is perhaps not a very almighty one, and he may only be able to fulfill a small part of what his predecessors have promised. If we must acknowledge this, we shall accept it with resignation. We shall not on that account lose our interest in the World and in life…no, our science is no illusion. However, it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere. When I study my own, I discover that while many things can be quite well known in a general way, they cannot be accurately or permanently pinned down. I become less dogmatic, and at the same time more free, living with the uncertainty that is a reality of life. Through reading authors of many different periods, I notice how each has been conditioned by his times, and this leads me to seek out in which ways my own view is affected by times. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

I notice where this is freeing and where it binds me, and then I can begin to cut the bonds, which are, I discover, not contemporary but a hangover from the past, prevalent but dying. I move, then, with what is truly contemporary, with what is appearing now—the living change, not the dying. I find authors whose views have changed in successive books, which tends to keep my mind more open about both of us. I discover that when I re-read a book out of my own interest, what is says to me the second time may be quite different from what it said the first time. This brings me closer to reality about myself and books. All this in itself has an effect on my interpersonal relations, apart from the fact that when I am ranging freely I am happy—not happy about, just happy—and that affects my interpersonal relations too. These facts to me are significant learning. They are basic, universal, applicable to any people, place and time. When I am aware of them, I am in touch with the unchanging reality of change. With this awareness first, then what I do in the ephemeral World of my own lifetime is more intelligent, including my relations with other people. At the same time, I am a more autonomous person, able to find out for myself, and with trust in my ability to find my way. That my way includes the help of others in no way diminishes my independence because I do the choosing for myself. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

I accept what I can use at the time, what is meaningful to me. Even if I spent a lifetime doing it, then, all that I learn is linked together, inside me, with more connections than could be written down because new ones are constantly being made while I am writing. All of these connections are available to me through my inner computer, as I need them. One part of me is such a fantastic machine, contained in such a littler space and so easy to take with me, that it is idiotic to get excited about the feats of machines that are made by men. If we use them properly, they are convenient, and that is all. I must use my own machine properly too, by not interfering with it, because when it is interfered with it goes haywire. It does not seem to me that a problem is necessary for this kind of learning, although a problem certainly can stimulate me. However, perhaps I am using the word “problem” in a too limited way. Philosophy will create within him a disgust for evil, a disdain for what is ignoble, a taste for what is refined and beautiful, a yearning for what is true and real. It is not in the process of dying to self he is to become a man without feelings, but that he is to die to the lower phases of feeling. Indeed, such a victory can only be achieved by drawing the needed forces from the higher phases of feeling. In the World of values, the truth is the synthesis of opposites, as for instance the synthesis of optimism and pessimism. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

One more word as to the technique of free association: it is essential to abstain from reasoning while associating. Reason has its place in analysis, and there is ample opportunity to use it—afterward. However, as already stressed, the very essence of free association is spontaneity. Hence the person who is attempting it should not try to arrive at a solution by figuring out. Assume, for instance, that you feel so fatigued and so limp that you would like to crawl into bed and pronounce yourself ill. You look out of a second story window and detect yourself thinking miserably that if you fell you would at most break an arm. This startles you. You had not known that you were desperate, even so desperate to want to die. Then you hear a podcast turned on above you, and you think with moderate irritation that you would like to shoot the fellow operating it. You conclude that there must be rage as well as despair behind your feeling ill. So far you have done a good job. You already feel less paralyzed, because if you are furious at something you may be able to find the reasons for it. However, now you start a frantic conscious search for what might have infuriated you. You go over all the incidents that occurred before you felt so tired. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

It is possible that you will hit upon the provocation, but the probability is that all your conscious digging comes to nought—and that the real source will occur to you half an hour later, after you have become discouraged by the futility of your attempts and have given up the conscious search. As unproductive as such attempts to force a solution is the procedure of a person who, even while he lets his mind run freely, tries to get at the meaning of his associations by putting two and two together. Whatever prompts him to do so, whether it is impatience or a need to be brilliant or a fear of giving way to uncontrolled thoughts and feelings, this intrusion of reason is bound to disturb the relaxed condition necessary for free association. It is true that the meaning of an association may dawn upon him spontaneously. Clare’s series of associations ending with the text of religious song is a good example of this: here her associations showed an increasing degree of lucidity although no conscious effort had been made to understand them. The two processes—self-expression and understanding—may sometimes coincide. However, as far as conscious efforts are concerned, they should be kept strictly separate. The quest remains unfinished and unsuccessful so long as it lacks this element of rich feeling, so long as it has not become a warm devotion. The Quest is not all a matter of psychological readjustment, of severe self-improvement. Man is not just a character to be remolded. Deep reverential feelings have also to be cultivated. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

The quest for health and happiness has existed as long as people have been able to reflect upon the human condition. American philosophers concerned themselves many centuries ago with the problem of how human beings could liberate themselves from cramping habits to attain a happier, freer existence. Some of those who attained “liberation and enlightenment” became teachers, seeking to help others attain the same degree of emancipation from stifling life. There is a parallel between the state of enlightenment and the state of healthy personality. Neurotic suffering is a result of separating oneself too radially from nature, from other humans, and from one’s own organism. Most people equate their very identity with a concept of themselves instead of with their whole being. In the process of separating self, one loses contact with the flow or process of life, which is essentially spontaneous. People replace spontaneity in their experience, thinking, and behaviour with efforts to make them happen. Liberation (and, by implication, healthy personality) occurs when a person can adopt the attitude of “letting be,” or “letting happen.” That is, one “lets go” the conscious, controlling ego, or self, and experiences life in somewhat the following fashion: instead of a person’s “trying” to swim, “liberated” swimming is experiences as “swimming is permitted to happen” or “swimming is going on.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

When a person stops trying to make things happen, when one stops truing to make oneself behave in some desired way, it is argued that the desired events or behaviours will spontaneously happen. Learning theorists, surprisingly, offer a similar argument for some skill learning. Healthy personality entails liberation from effortful constraint on, and control over spontaneous thinking, feeling, and action; it entails attainment of an attitude of “letting oneself be” and letting other and nature “be.” His life will be extraordinarily enriched, and not bleakly impoverished, by discovering the higher relationship that is possible between men and women that which begins and ends with the flesh. Intense concentrated feeling may fill a man with self-destructive or murderous antagonism but lead another into self-realization—depending upon the thoughts and acts which flow from him at its bidding. First comes the capacity to recognize these higher feelings; then to understand them for what they are; next to appreciate their intrinsic worth; and finally, to give oneself up to them entirely. The real philosopher feels what he knows: it is not a dry intellectual experience alone but a living one. Why become resentful and bitter at the loss? Why not be grateful at having had the good fortune at all, and for possessing memory of it that cannot be lost? Why not regard it as enough to have experienced such happiness, even for a little time, when in the chances of life, it could have passed you by altogether? Why not receive the gifts of destiny humbly without trying to own them with a tight vampire-like grip? #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

The higher human feelings such as kindness and sympathy, patience and tolerance must nurtured. This species called Man has shown its finer possibilities in the kindness of Jesus as the Christ, the compassion of Dr. Freud, the love of Saint Aldric Bishop of Le Mans, the leadership of King Rudolf I of Germany, the skill of Michelangelo, and the design of William Randolph Hearst, and the craftmanship of Sarah L. Winchester. Man will not lose the capacity to feel; in this he will still be like other men: but it will be free from false sentimentality and debased animality. He who enters upon this quest will have to revise his scale of values. Experiences which he formerly thought bad, because they were unpleasant, may now be thought good, because they are educative or because they reveal hitherto obscured weaknesses. The Sacramento Fire Department has invested millions of dollars into research and development. They have years of hard work dedicated to their success. Also, they have proven themselves to save the lives of those individuals who place their lives in the hands of the skilled heroes who use the concept. Their purpose is to save your life, and the lives of their fellow firefighters, and the community they serve and who trusts them wholly. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

“We trained on the job over the course of one summer, in the mountains of Santa Clara County. We walked at least eight hundred miles, mostly at a forty-five-degree angle, fighting brush fires. We did an hour of calisthenics every day, including a twenty-foot rope climb without using your feet. It’s very hot there in the summer. We were always learning things, always sweating. The first forest fire we had was real hard and lasted a few days. We ran out of water and had to pace ourselves. The mountains have a lot of tall trees, mostly coast redwoods, various kinds of brush, and dry grass. A fire will burn sixteen and a half times faster uphill than down. It preheats, spreads, and has a convection column that will carry embers clear across a canyon and start a fire on the other side. It darkens the sky, and it’s just a big hellstorm that can cover hundreds of thousands of acres. When we get trapped by the fire, we have aluminum shields we use. They fold into a packet about eighteen inches long, three inches thick, and about eight inches wide that we wear around our waist. Unfolded, it looks like a big baked potato about six feet long and comes to a triangular top like a tent. You lie inside it, and in each corner there’s a strap. You hold the straps down with your feet and your hands, and you dig a hole where your face will go and fill it with water, if you have any, and put a wet cloth over your face. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

“You usually face the fire, as it’s making headway toward you, because the wind is going to be blowing from the fire toward you. That way, you can put your head down and hold the thing down with your hands more securely. Facing the other way, you have more of a chance of taking heated gases into the tent. In my first forest fire, there were about three hundred of us in a big field that formed a natural firebreak. We expected a wind change that would change the direction of the fire, and we couldn’t run away from it. So we gathered there and waited for the fire to pass over. We didn’t have to use the shields on that occasion, but when the fire passed over it involved some big electric towers and there were lots of explosions. It was a pretty awakening experience. I didn’t know what was going to happen, because it was the first time I had ever been in that situation. That time, we were protected by the clearing. But when you use the aluminum shield, the heat from outside isn’t usually the main problem. The shield will sustain a pretty good temperature, but you could have a burning tree fall on you. In the Sacramento Fire Department, I’ve taken a lot of classes and furthered my education as much as I can. I’m an emergency medical technician, and most of our calls are medical, having to do with accidents and heart attacks. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

“We deal with human emotions. It’s given me an opportunity to pursue my medical education. In our drills we learn a lot about hazardous materials, different aspects of fighting fire, ventilation. I have an AA from San Jouse City College, and they equate our first year in the fire department to about twelve units of college. We have to know all 1,500 miles of streets in town, learn our rules and regulations, how to use our equipment safely. We have ongoing classes and can sign up for classes ordered by the state. For instance, I recently came back from a heavy rope rescue class, bring people up cliffs and across rivers, dealing with earthquake type emergencies, how to shore up a building that’s falling down. It’s a real concentrated time for us.” Aesthetic appreciation, the feeling of delight in art, is not enough by itself to bring humanity into the perception of reality, that is, into truth. Artistic feeling, even poetic emotion, is not less exempt from the need of being equilibrated by reason than other functions of man’s nature. Please raise your children to love America, love God and Jesus Christ, to respect law and order, and practice the art of forgiveness. You can help save lives by dontating 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 20 of 20

The Winchester Mystery House

Mrs. Winchester’s daughter died six weeks after she was born. In 1888, Mrs. Winchester was awakened, and she saw the apparition of a little girl between her curtain and her pillow, who told her she was her daughter, and that she was happy. The next day, Mrs. Winchester desired that the chaplain might be called to read prayers, and when prayers were ended, she played a song on the piano so melodiously that her music-master, who was then there, admired at it.

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/