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Humans Have an Innate Drive for Progress
The pseudo character which thinking can assume is better known than the same phenomenon in the sphere of willing and feeling. There is a difference between genuine thinking and pseudo thinking. Let u suppose we are on an island where there are fishermen and summer guest from the city. We want to know what kind of weather we are to expect and ask a fisherman and two of the city people, who we know have all listened to the weather forecast on the radio. The fisherman, with his long experience and concern with this problem of weather, will start thinking, assuming that he had not as yet made up his mind before we asked him. Knowing what the direction of the wind, temperature, humidity, and so on mean as a basis for weather forecast, he will weigh the different factors according to their respective significance and come to a more or less definite judgment. He will probably remember the radio forecast and quote it as supporting or contradicting his own opinion; if it is contradictory, he may be particularly careful in weighting the reasons for his opinion; but, and this is the essential point, it is his opinion, the result of his thinking, which he tells us. The first of the two city summer guests is a man who, when we ask him his opinion, knows that he does not understand much about the weather nor does he feel any compulsion to understand anything about it. He merely replies, “I cannot judge. All I know is that the radio forecast is thus and thus.” The other man who we ask is of a different type. He believes that he knows a great deal about the weather, although actually he knows little about it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
This man is the kind of person who feels that he must be able to answer every. He thinks for a minute and then tells us “his” opinion, which in fact is identical with the radio forecast. We ask him for his reasons and he tells us that on account of wind direction, temperature, and so on, he had some to his conclusion. This man’s behaviour as seen from the outside is the same as the fisherman’s. Yet, if we analyze it more closely, it becomes evident that he had heard the radio forecast and has accepted it. Feeling compelled, however, to have his own opinion about it, he forgets that he is simply repeating somebody else’s authoritative opinion, and he believes that this opinion is one that he arrived at through his own thinking. He imagines that the reasons he gives us preceded his opinion, but if we examine these reasons we see that they could not possibly have led him to any conclusion about the weather if her had not formed an opinion beforehand. They are actually only pseudo reasons which have the function of making his opinion appear to be the result of his own thinking. He has the illusion of having arrived at an opinion of his own, but in reality he has merely adopted an authority’s opinion without being aware of this process. It could very well be that he is right about the weather and the fisherman wrong, but in the event it would not be “his” opinion which would be right, although the fisherman would be really mistaken in “his own” opinion. If we study people’s opinions about certain subjects, for instance, politics, the same phenomenon can be observed. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
To test this theory, as an average newspaper reader what he or she thinks about a certain political question. One will give you as “his” or “her” opinion a more or less exact account of what one has read, and yet—and this is the essential point—one believes that what he or she is saying is the result of one’s own thinking. If one lives in a small community where political opinions are handed down from father to son, “his own” opinion may be governed far more than he would for a moment believe by the lingering authority of a strict parent. Another reader’s opinion may be the outcome of a moment’s embarrassment, the fear of being thought uniformed, and hence the “thought” is essentially a front and not the result of a natural combination of experience, desire, and knowledge. The same phenomenon is to be found in aesthetic judgment. The average person who goes to a museum and looks at a picture by a famous painter, say Rembrandt, judges it to be a beautiful and impressive picture. If we analyze his or her judgement, we find that one does not have any particular inner response to the picture but thinks it is beautiful because one knows that one is supposed to think it is beautiful. The same phenomenon is evident with regard to the act of perception itself. Many persons looking at a famous bit of scenery actually reproduce the pictures they have seen of it numerous times, say on postal cards, and while believing “they” see the scenery, they have these pictures before their eyes. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Or, in experiencing an accident which occurs in their presence, witnesses see or hear the situation in terms of the newspaper report they anticipate. As a matter of fact, for many people an experience which they have had, an artistic performance or a political meeting they have attended, becomes real to them only after they have read about it in the newspaper. The suppression of critical thinking usually starts early. A five-year-old girl, for instance, may recognize the insincerity of her mother, either by subtly realizing that, while the mother is always talking of love and friendliness, she is actually cold and egotistical, or in a cruder way by noticing that her mother is having an affair with another man while constantly emphasizing her high moral standards. The child feels the discrepancy. Her sense of justice and truth is hurt, and yet, being dependent on the mother who would not allow any kind of criticism and, let us say, having a weak father on whom she cannot rely, the child is forced to suppress her critical insight. Very soon she will no longer notice the mother’s insincerity or unfaithfulness. She will lose the ability to think critically since it seems to be both hopeless and dangerous to keep it alive. On the other hand, the child is impressed by the pattern of having to believe that her mother is sincere and decent and that the marriage of the parents is a happy one, and she will be ready to accept this idea as if it were he own. In all of these illustrations of pseudo thinking, the problem is whether the thought is the result of one’s own thinking, that is, of one’s own activity; the problem is not whether of not the contents of the thought are right. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
As has been already suggested in the case of the fisherman making a weather forecast, “his” thought may even be wrong, and that of the man who only repeats the thought put into him may be right. The pseudo thinking may also be perfectly logical and rational. Its pseudo character does not necessarily appear in illogical elements. This can be studied in rationalizations which tend to explain an action or a feeling on rational and realistic grounds, although it I actually determined by irrational and subjective factors. The rationalization may be in contradiction to facts or to the rules of logical thinking. However, frequently it will be logical and rational in itself; then its irrationality lies only in the fact that it is not the real motive of the action which it pretends to have caused. An example of irrational rationalization is brought forward in a well-known joke. A person who had borrowed a glass jar from a neighbour had broken it, and on being asked to return it, answered, “In the first place, I have already returned it to you; in the second place, I never borrowed it from you; and in the third place, it was already broken when you have it to me.” We have an example of “rational” rationalization when person, A, who finds himself in a situation of economic distress, asks a relative of his, B, to lend him a sum of money. B declines and says that he does so because by lending money he could only support A’s inclinations to be irresponsible and to lean on others for support. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Now this reasoning may be perfectly sound, but it would nevertheless be a rationalization because B had not wanted to let A have the money in any event, and although he believes himself to be motivated by concern for A’s welfare he is actually motivated by his own stinginess. We cannot learn, therefore, whether we are dealing with a rationalization merely by determining the logicality of a person’s statement as such, but we must also take into account the psychological motivations operating in a person. The decisive point is not what is thought but how it is thought. The thought that is the result of active thinking is always new and original; original, not necessarily in the sense that others have not thought it before, but always in the sense that the person who thinks has used thinking as a tool to discover something new in the World outside or inside of himself or herself. Rationalizations are essentially lacking this quality of discovering and uncovering; they only confirm the emotional prejudice existing in oneself. Rationalizing is not a tool for penetration of reality but a post-factum attempts to harmonize one’s own wishes with existing reality. With feeling as with thinking, one must distinguish between a genuine feeling, which originates in ourselves, and a pseudo feeling, which is really not our own although we believe it to be. Let us choose an example from everyday life which is typical of the pseudo character of our feelings in contact with other. We observe a man who is attending a party. He is gay, he laughs, makes friendly conversation, and all in all seems to be quite happy and contented. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
On taking his leave, he has a friendly smile while saying how much he enjoyed the evening. The door closes behind him—and this is the moment when we watch him carefully. A sudden change is noticed in his face. The smile has disappeared; of course, that is to be expected since he is now alone and has nothing or nobody with him to evoke a smile. However, the change is more than just a disappearance of the smile. There appears on his face an expression of deep sadness, almost of desperation. This expression probably stays only for a few seconds, and then the face assumes the usual masklike expression; the man gets into his car, thinks about the evening, wonders whether or not he made a good impression, and feels that he did. However, was “he” happy and gay during the party? Was the brief expression of sadness and desperation we observed on his face only a momentary of no great significance? It is almost impossible to decide the question without knowing more of this man. There is no incident, however, which may provide the clue for understanding what his gaiety meant. Human beings have many ascertainable ways to find unity. Humans can find unity by trying to regress to the animal stage, by doing away with what is specifically human (reason and love), by being a slave or a slave driver, by transforming oneself into a thing, or else by developing one’s specific human powers to such an extent that one finds a new unity with one’s fellow humans and with nature by becoming a free human—free not only from chains but free to make the development of all one’s existence to one’s own productive effort. #RandolphHarris 7of 20
Humans have an innate “drive for progress,” but one is driven by the need to solve one’s existential contradiction, which arises again at every new level of development. This contradiction—or, in other words, humans’ different and contradictory possibilities—constitutes one’s essence. It can be said without exaggeration that never was the knowledge of the great ideas produced by the human race as widespread in the World as it is today, and never were these ideas less effective than they are today. The ideas of Mr. Plato and Mr. Aristotle, of the prophets of Mr. Christ, of Mr. Spinoza, and Mr. Kant, are known to millions among the educated classes in Europe and America. They are taught at thousands of institutions of higher learning, and some of them are preached in the churches of all denominations everywhere. And all this in a World which follows the principles of unrestricted egotism, which breeds hysterical nationalism, and which is preparing for an insane mass slaughter. How can one explain this discrepancy? Ideas do not influence humans deeply when they are only taught as ideas and thoughts. Usually, when presented in such a way, they change other ideas; new thoughts take the place of old thoughts; new words take the place of old words. However, all that has happened is a change in concepts and words. Why should it be different? It is exceedingly difficult for a human to be moved by ideas, and to gras a truth. In order to do that, one needs to overcome deep-seated resistances of inertia, fear of being wrong, or of straying away from the heard. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Just to become acquainted with other ideas is not enough, even though these ideas is not enough, even though these ideas in themselves are right and potent. However, ideas do have an effect on humans if it is personified by the teacher, if the idea appears in the flesh. If a human expresses the idea of humanity and is humble, then those who listen to one will understand what humility is. They will not only understand, but they will believe that one is talking about a reality, and not just voicing words. The same holds true for all ideas which a human, a philosopher, or a religious teacher may try to convey. Those who announce ideas—and not necessarily new ones—and at the same time live them we may call prophets. The Old Testament prophets did precisely that: they announced the idea that humans had to find an answer to one’s existence, and that this answer was the development of one’s reason, of one’s love; and they taught that humility and justice were inseparably connected with love and reason. They lived what they preached. They did not seek power, but avoided it. Not even the power of being a prophet. They were not impressed by might, and they spoke the truth even if this led them to imprisonment, ostracism or death. They were not humans who set themselves apart and waited to see what would happen. They responded to their fellow human because they felt responsible. What happened to others happened to them. Humanity was not outside, but within them. Precisely because they saw the truth they felt the responsibility to tell it; they did not threaten, but they showed the alternatives with which humans were confronted. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
It is not that a prophet wishes to be a prophet; in fact, only the false ones have the ambition to become prophets. One’s becoming a prophet is simple enough, because the alternatives which one sees are simple enough. The prophet Amos expressed this idea very succinctly: “The lion has roared, who will not be afraid. God has spoken, who will not be a prophet.” The phrase “God has spoken” here means simply that the choice has become unmistakably clear. There can be no more doubt. There can be no more evasion. Hence the human who feels responsible has no choice but to become a prophet, whether one has been herding sheep, tending one’s vineyards, or developing and teaching ideas. It is the function of the prophet to show reality, to show alternatives and to protest; it is one’s function to call loudly, to awake humans from their customary half-slumber. It is the historical situation which makes prophets, not the wish of some humans to be prophets. Any nations have had their prophets. The Buddha lived his teachings; Mr. Christ appeared in the flesh; Mr. Socrates dies according to his ideas; Mr. Spinoza lived them. And they made a deep imprint on the human race precisely because their idea was manifested in the flesh in each one of them. According to the leaders of the Soviet Union, the “Union of Socialist Soviet Republics” is socialist not only in name but in fact. Already in 1936 Mr. Stalin proclaimed “the complete victor of the socialist system in all sphere of the national economy,” and at the present time Russian ideology claims that Russia is realizing communism. (Characterized by Mr. Marx’s famous statement: “From each according to his capacities, to each according to his needs.”) #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The question of the socialist character of Russia can be decided only by making a comparison between Mr. Marx’s vision of socialism and the reality of the Soviet system. What rationale did the Soviet leaders from Mr. Stalin to Mr. Khruschev have for calling their system socialism? They make this claim essentially on the basis of their definition of Marxist socialism, in which two factors are considered decisive for a socialist society: the “socialization of the means of production” and a planned economy. However, Socialism is in the sense of Mr. Marx or, for that matter, in the sense of Mr. Owen, Mr. Hess, Mr. Fourier, Mr. Proudhon, et cetera, can not be defined in this way. What was the essence of Mr. Marx’s thought and of Marxist socialism? It is bewildering how Mr. Marx’s theory is falsified and vilified not only by the ignorant, but also by many who should and could know better. A Robert L. Heilbroner has put it so well: our public newspapers and books “obscure the fact that the literature of socialist protest is one of the most moving and morally searching of all chronicles of human hope and despair. To dismiss the literature unread, to vilify it without the faintest conception of what it represents, is not only shocking but dangerously stupid.” The very beginning of an understanding of Mr. Marx is blocked by one of the most widespread and completely erroneous cliches, that of Mr. Marx’s “materialism.” This materialism is supposed to mean that the main motivation in man is his wish for material gain, as against spiritual, moral or religious values. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
While it is rather paradoxical that those who attack Mr. Marx for this alleged materialism defend capitalism against socialism with the claim that only a monetary incentive can be a sufficiently strong motivation for humans to give their bet, the fact is that Mr. Marx’s theory is precisely the opposite of this alleged materialism. One’s main criticism of capitalism was that it is a system that put a premium on selfish and materialistic motivations, and his concept of socialism was that of a society that favours humans who are much instead of having much. Mr. Marx’s historical materialism never speaks of the economic factor as a psychological motivation, but as a socio-economic condition that leads to a certain practice of life and this shapes the character of humans. His difference with Mr. Hegel’s idealism (idealism and materialism are philosophical terms and have nothing to do with ideal versus materialistic motivation, as any high school student should know), lies in the fact that “…we do not set out from what men imagine, conceive, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men and on the basis of their real life process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of the life process.” Or, as he put it elsewhere: “As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production. Both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Mr. Marx’s discovery was that the practice of life, as it is determined by the economic systems, determines the feeling and thinking of the people involved. According to this view, a certain system may be conducive to the development of materialistic strivings; another system may lead to the preponderance of ascetic tendencies. The word “anarchy” is often used in the sense of complete chaos or disorganization, but M. Hirshleifer argues for a more subtle distinction. He used the word “amorphy” for the chaotic scramble for resources that are not owned or protected by anyone, or in other words, for cases of failure to solve common resource-pool problems. By contrast, anarchy is interference competition; people attempt to sequester resources (assets property rights) and to defend these resources (provide private protection) from others’ attempts at predation or theft. The equilibrium of an anarchic game of aggression and defense can exhibit spontaneous order. For the administrators of an agency, the appraisal of the planning process offers the opportunity for self-conscious accumulation of skill and know-how, of tried and tested techniques of action. If appropriately publicized, annual reports offer one of the most reliable means of communicating information to a clientele and quickening its involvement and support of the agency. Through unflinching reports, an agency can get the confidence of the public. The perspective derived from its annual appraisals gives balance and wisdom to day-by-day decisions on policy and personnel. Periodicity itself is a security-giving organization of work, and reports contribute to periodicity. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Like interim reporting, and supplementing it, annual reporting helps a worker in an organization to visualize one’s place in the whole, to assist in co-ordinating one’s work with that of others with less requirement of supervision. It strengthens discipline of members of a group by each other, instead of by supervision, and thereby can accentuate the morale of personnel. By facilitating adoption by working groups of quotas and schedules as personal commitments, annual reporting like interim reporting adds appreciably to the motivation and sense of responsibility among personnel. By causing reflection upon the method employed by an agency in achieving its results, the systematic backward look at how far they have come encourages personnel to ingenuity in devising new methods to economize effort and resources. Since the annual report, unlike interim types of reporting, goes out to the public of the agency, the mere existence of annual reports tends to increase the consciousness by personnel of their responsibilities toward clientele, and invites a sense of identification with clientele. Least these claims for the virtues of annual reporting seem too unrealistic, let note be made of the nuisance and imposition that report-writing becomes to administrators when conceived as mere record-keeping. Interim reporting especially can easily register as a pro forma duty, whose principal function is to interrupt and distract ongoing activity. Interim reporting, however should principally apply intramurally to agency personnel, and be for them not only a report to other but a means of exhibiting to themselves, in a graphic and economical way, jut how they are doing in the execution of their interlocking quotas and schedules. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Annual reporting, on the other hand, suffers more from under- than from overdoing—not so much in the sense of quantity as in the sense of profundity of retrospection. Unless it achieves the degree of detachment, of withdrawal from action, which permits basic and imaginative reconsideration of what the activity is all about, its result is undoubtedly stultification instead of simulation. However, reporting itself, like agency programs, benefits from inclusion within the scope of regular review; if it is working poorly, it deserves improvement, not rejection. With regard to clientele, annual reports, when properly exploited, also function to bring about identification. Thorough reporting provides the factions among the clientele at once with non-hearsay material for criticism and appreciation of an agency’s operation, and for defending it against its opponents. The public is going on to evaluate an agency anyway, but when the clientele feels itself a party to the formulation and revision of agency programs, their judgments are more likely to be responsible, sound, and fair; their own overt participation in execution, more vigorous and effective. The reporting of success enhances the appetite for more success, especially when the reaching of goals is not only matter-of-factly reported but given ceremonial recognition in meetings of personnel and clientele, exempli gratis, awards made to leaders and outstanding performers by the voluntary associations among the clientele. Finally, there is another group for whom annual reports perform an extremely valuable function. That is the planners in similar agencies elsewhere, the professionals and technical specialist who, in fashioning proposals, must draw upon as much relevant prior experiences as possible. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Each instance of planning is in a sense a pilot projector for similar ventures by others confronted with matching problems. And if the experience of planning is to be made available to others, the ideal form for its communication is adequate annual reports. Like the journals of scientific societies, the annual reports of planning agencies, as they come to be prepared by professional standards, develop as the media for the more repaid evolution of planning technology through its sharing. Very much like the duty of the scientist to publish one’s findings, it has become the obligation of planners to make known the assessments of their own experience in return for sharing the findings of others. Planning of the piecemeal, democratic character which we have outlined above is not a dream of the future. It is a fait accompli on the American scene, and our model is already descriptive of the operation of hundreds if not thousands of family agencies. Yet though many agencies perform these phases without explicit formulation of what they are doing, they may find it helpful to unify and clarify their activities as they examine themselves from this point of view. That is, the model of the planning process which we have sketched offers itself as a standard for the evaluation of the practice of any action agency, whether it already conceives of itself as practicing planning or not. And to evaluate is already to commence to plan, for one cannot assign a value to anything, including past experience itself, save by reference to its potential role in future action. It is, however, the task and prerogative of each family agency itself to judge its own proper degree and quality of planning. To attempt to usurp such functions would be futile as well as inconsistent with what has already been said about outside experts. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The notion of planning is comparable to embarking upon an endless journey. Any existing ways can be improved. Development is cumulative, one cycle of change leads to another. Planning therefore implies a sociology, a psychology, a philosophy. It is at once a theory of social organization and of social change, of motivation and personality formation, or valuation and metaphysics. Some of these implications, though not explorable further here, become visible in part as we note how another phase of one cycle of planning merges into the first phase of the next. By considering in a matter-of-fact way each previous cycle, as well as its current situation, a group can voluntarily and advisedly alter its existing procedures. Culture and social organization then become cumulatively the self-conscious product of rational intent. The group is freed from those bounds of necessity which were only necessary because they were thought to be so. This does not mean that the lessons of the past are discarded or ignored. It means that according to circumstances, what is worthy is conserved, and what is not is changed. No church can be founded on a protest, yet Protestantism became a church…The inner dilemma of Protestantism lies in this, that it must protest against every religious or cultural realization which seeks to be intrinsically valid, but that it needs such realization if it is to be able to make its protest in any meaningful way. By the power of what reality does the Protestant principle exercise its criticism? There must be such a reality, since the Protestant principle is not mere negation. The ultimate answer is the New Being manifest in Jesus as the Christ. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The basis of the solution is rooted in the axiom that the negative can live only from the positive, that negation must build upon affirmation. Thus, protest can exist only within a Gestalt to which it belongs, Gestalt being understood as the total structure of living reality, a structure which includes both form and negation of form, a Yes and a No. This union of protest and creation we call “the Gestalt of grace.” Grace as a reality grace as embodied in a structure, goes against the Protestant grain, for it sounds perilously similar to the Roman Catholic teaching which supposedly objectifies grace. And the objectification of grace opens the door to a whole legion of Catholic doctrines such as a sacred hierarchy, an infallible ecclesiastical authority, and the system of automatic sacraments. Many Protestants would consider a Gestalt of grace a betrayal of the essence of Protestantism. However, the jargon of Reformation controversy should not be allowed to obscure the theological facts, that the choice is not simply between the Roman Catholic objectification of grace and a completely structureless Protestant grace. There is a third possibility which is clearly seen in the Protestant notion of faith. Faith is in man, but not from man. Consequently, Protestantism can assert that grace appears through a living Gestalt which remains in itself what it is, while the Protestant protest prohibits the appearance of grace through finite forms from becoming an identification of grace with finite forms. Granted that the Gestalt of grace embraces both the positive and the negative, where is the protest voiced. In the secular World, of course. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
For according to the Protestant principle, grace cannot be tied down to any particular form, not even to a religious form. History shows that nonreligious, even anti-religious, movements can express a religious protest more effectively than religion itself. Consequently, Protestantism stands in a special relationship to secularism, a relationship which by its very nature, demands a secular reality. It demands a concrete protest against the sacred sphere and against ecclesiastical pride, a protest that is incorporated in secularism. Protestant secularism is a necessary element of Protestant realization. The formative power of Protestantism is always tested by its relation to the secular World. If Protestantism surrenders to secularism, it ceases to be a Gestalt of grace. If it retires from secularism, it ceases to be Protestant, namely, a Gestalt that includes within it the protest against itself. As guidance, the believer should understand that when there is no action in one’s spirit, there is no use for the brain at all, but the spirit does not always speak. There are times when it should be left in abeyance. In all guidance the mind decides the course of action—not only from the feeling in the spirit but by the light in the mind. In coming to a decision, the deciding is an act of mind and will, based upon either the mental process of reasoning or the sense of the spirit, or both, id est: Decision by mental process, reasoning, or decision by sense of the spirit, id est, moment impelling; drawing or restraint; spirit as if “dead”—no response; contraction of spirit; openness of spirit; fullness of spirit; compression of spirit; burden on spirit; wrestling in spirit; resisting in spirit. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
God have three ways of communicating His will to humans. By vision to the mind, which is very rare; understanding by the mind; and consciousness to the spirit, that is, by light to the mind and consciousness in spirit. In true guidance, spirit and mind are of one accord, and the intelligence is not in rebellion against the leading in the spirit—as it is so often in counterfeit guidance by evil spirits, when the human is compelled to act in obedience to what one thinks is of God, supernaturally given, and fears to disobey. This all refers to guidance from the subjective standpoint, but it must be emphasized in addition that all true guidance from God is in harmony with the Scriptures. The “understanding” of the will of God by the mind depends upon the mind being saturated with the knowledge of the written Word: and true “consciousness in the spirit” depends upon its union with Mr. Christ through the indwelling Spirit of God. The mind should never be dropped into abeyance. The human spirit can be influences by the mind, therefore the believer should keep one’s mind in purity, and unbiased, as well as having an unbiased will. I pledge allegiance to 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. Woe until them that call evil “good,” and good “evil,” that turn darkness into light, and light into darkness. Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, protect the fatherless, defend the case of the widow. The Sacramento Fire Department has been proudly serving the community since 1851. Currently, they are not receiving all of their resources, and it would be greatly appreciated if you could donate to the Sacramento Fire Department, so they can help keep the community safe. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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What Miracles is He Not Capable!
Man is an indolent creature, but light the fire of fear under him, and of what miracles is he not capable! However, not only the forces that determine one’s own life directly but also those that seem to determine life in general are felt as unchangeable fate. It is fate that there are wars and that one part of humankind has to be ruled by another. It is fate that the amount of suffering can never be less than it always has been. Fate may be rationalized philosophically as “natural law” or as “destiny of man,” religiously as the “will of the Lord,” ethically as a higher power outside of the individual, toward which the individual can do nothing but submit. The authoritarian character worships the past. What has been, will eternally be. To wish or to work for something that has not yet been before is crime or madness. The miracle of creation—and creation is always a miracle—is outside of one’s range of emotional experience. Religious experience as experience of absolute dependence is the definition of the masochistic experience in general; a special role in this feeling of dependence is played by sin. The concept of original sin, which weighs upon all future generations, is characteristic of the authoritarian experience. Moral like any other kind of human failure becomes a fate which humans can never escape. Whoever has once sinned is chained eternally to one’s own sin with iron shackles. Human’s own doing becomes the power that rules over one and never lets one free. The consequences of guilt can never be softened by atonement, but atonement can never do away with the guilt. Isaiah’s words, “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow,” express the very opposite of the authoritarian philosophy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The feature common to all authoritarian thinking is the conviction that life is determined by forced outside of humans’ own self, one’s interest one’s wishes. They only possible happiness lies in the submission to these forces. The powerlessness of humans is the leitmotif of masochistic philosophy. One of the ideological fathers of Nazism, Moeller van der Bruck, expressed this feeling very clearly. He writes: “The conservative believers rather in catastrophe, in the powerlessness of man to avoid it, in its necessity, and in the terrible disappointment of the seduced optimist.” In Mr. Hitler’s writings we shall see more illustrations of the same spirit. The authoritarian character does not lack activity, courage, or belief. However, these qualities for one mean something entirely different from what they mean for the person who does not long for submission. For the authoritarian character activity is rooted in a basic feeling of powerlessness which it tends to overcome. Activity in this sense means to act in the name of something higher than one’s own self. It is possible in the name of God, the past, nature, or duty, but never in the name of the future, of the unborn, of what has no power, or of life as such. The authoritarian character wins one’s strength to act through one’s leaning on superior power. This power is never assailable or changeable. For one lack of power is always an unmistakable sign of guilt and inferiority, and if the authority in which one believes shows signs of weakness, one’s love and respect change into contempt and hatred. One lacks an “offensive potency” which can attack established power without first feeling subservient to another and stronger power. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The courage of the authoritarian character is essentially a courage to suffer what fate or its personal representative or “leader” may have destined one for. To suffer without complaining is one’s highest virtue—not the courage of trying to end suffering or at least to diminish it. Not to change fate, but to submit to it, is the heroism of the authoritarian character. One has belief in authority as long as it is strong and commanding. One’s belief is rooted ultimately in one’s doubts and constitutes an attempt to compensate them. However, if we mean by faith the secure confidence in the realization of what now exists only as a potentiality, one has no faith. Authoritarian philosophy is essentially relativistic and nihilistic, in spite of the fact that it often claims so violently to have conquered relativism and in spite of its show of activity. It is rooted in extreme desperation, in the complete lack of faith, and it leads to nihilism, to the denial of life. Authoritarian leaders come out to speak to crowds. These wild-eyed charismatic people mount stages in the darkness and feed crowds words like manna. As they stand out on the balcony—gazing out over the masses in their own kind of uniform—they may telegraph, at least for some, a specific and undeniable memory: that of Mr. Hitler addressing the Volk. Those memories, those aesthetic elements: they charge the air with emotional fervor, at least, for those inclined to be so enchanted. This is not to discount the religious significance so many attach to the leader’s presence and ability to cure the sick. There is no reason in fact to separate those two things at all. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
For some of the people standing in these fields on an Alpine summer’s night, seeing an authoritarian leader is a little like seeing a friendly ghost. That encounter has enormous, even curative, power. In authoritarian philosophy the concept of equality does not exist. The authoritarian character may sometimes use the word equality either conventionally or become it suits one’s purpose. However, it has no real meaning or weight for one, since it concerns something outside the reach of one’s emotional experiences. For one the World is composed of people with power and those without it, of superior ones and inferior ones. On the basis of one’s sado-masochistic strivings, one experiences only domination or submission, but never solidarity. Differences, whether of gender or race, to one are necessarily signs of superiority or inferiority. A difference which does not have this connotation is unthinkable to one. In Germany, reporters described many people getting suddenly healed at the Trotter Farm, especially of paralysis, and trouble with their ears or eyes. Maria Wurstel told the journalist Heueck how she had suffered since 1938 from near-paralysis of the spine. The slightest movement caused her terrible pain. Her doctor had recommended she see Herr Groning. Heueck saw her run like a child, “partly laughing, partly crying from happiness.” Another woman—she had had polio and had used a wheelchair since the age of three—got up and walked too. A man who said he had suffered brain damage in the war rejoiced, “The buzzing in my ears is gone, my head is free again!” Sometimes people brought photos of their sick relatives—perhaps those too ill to travel—and held them up before the resort’s windows in the hopes of receiving Mr. Groning’s energies. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
As new of these gatherings and cures multiplied, the crowds grew larger. The description of the sado-masochistic strivings and the authoritarian character refers to the more extreme forms of helplessness and the correspondingly more extreme forms of escaping it by the symbiotic relationship to the object of worship or domination. Although these sado-masochistic strivings are common, we can consider only certain individuals and social groups as typically sado-masochistic. There is, however, a milder form of dependency which is so general in our culture that only in exceptional cases does it seem to be lacking. This dependency does not have the dangerous and passionate qualities of sado-masochism, but it is important enough not to be omitted from out discussion here. I am referring to the kind of persons whose whole life is in a subtle way related to some power outside themselves. There is nothing they do, feel, or think which is not somehow related to this power. They expect protection from “him,” wished to be take care of by “him,” make “him” also responsible for whatever may be the outcome of their own actions. Often the fact of his dependence is something the person is not aware of at all. It worried police. “There people cannot understand why anyone would hinder” Mr. Groning’s “practicing,” one reported, and said he feared a riot if anyone tried. In truth, banning Mr. Groning’s healing work, as Herford officials had done, was not much discussed in local papers. Rather, something like the opposite was generally true. A number of local politicians and officials spoke up for him publicly. Munich’s police commissioner, Social Democrat Franz Xaver Pitzer, thanked Mr. Groning personally in the front of the Trotter Farm crowds for helping him over an illness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
A state parliamentary representative, Hans Hagn of Bavaria’s conservative party, the Christian Social Union, exhorted the crowds to “believe in the healing power of Groning and to trust him.” Even the highest officeholder in the Bavarian government, Minister President Hans Ehard, openly expressed support for Mr. Groning. The healer should not be subject to a lot of “red tape” (Paragraphenschwierigkeiten), Mr. Ehard said. Members of the press were as smitten as politicians. One local paper described the public’s trust in Mr. Groning—“a simple, uneducated man…the son of a Danzig bricklayer”—as “limitless.” The very air in Rosenheim, correspondent Hans Bentzinger rhapsodized, was “filled with a special excitement” that “grows from hour to hour, as it becomes known that Her Groning will speak to the waiting crowds.” Mr. Bentzinger described an “unbearable” tension, the atmosphere “so laden with the energy of expectation that one can hear his own heart beating and that of his neighbor at the same time.” Everyone and everything in Germany was waiting for some kind of miracle. Even if there is a dim awareness of some dependency, the person or power on whom one is dependent often remains nebulous. There is no definite image linked up with that power. Its essential quality is to represent a certain function, namely to protect, help, and develop the individual, to be with one and never leave one alone. The “X” which has these qualities may be called the magic helper. Frequently, of course, the “magic helper” is personified: one is conceived of as God, as a principle, or as real persons such as one’s parent, husband, wife, or superior. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
It is important to recognize that when real persons assume the role of the magic helper they are endowed with magic qualities, and the significance they have results from their being the personification of the magic helper. This process of personification of the magic helper is to be observed frequently in what is called “falling in love.” A person with that kind of relatedness to the magic helper seeks to find one in flesh and blood. For some reason or other—often supported by sexual desires—a certain other person assumes for one those magic qualities, and one makes that person into the being to whom and whom one’s whole life becomes related and dependent. The fact that the other person frequently does the same with the first one does not alter the picture. It only helps to strengthen the impression that this relationship is one of “real love.” This need for the magic helper can be studied under experiment-like conditions in the psychoanalytic procedure. Often the person who is analyzed forms a deep attachment to the psychoanalyst and his or her whole life, all actions, thoughts, and feelings are related to the analyst. Consciously or unconsciously the analysand asks oneself: would he (the analyst) be pleased with this, displeased with that, agree to this, scold me for that? In love relationships the fact that one chooses this or that person as a partner serves as a proof that this particular person is loved just because he is “he”; but in the psychoanalytic situation this illusion cannot be upheld. The most different kinds of persons develop the same feelings toward the most different kind of psychoanalysts. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
The relationship looks like love; it is often accompanied by sexual desires; yet magic helper, a role which obviously a psychoanalyst, like certain other persons who have some authority (physicians, ministers, teachers), is able to play satisfactorily for the person who is seeking the personified magic helper. The reasons why a person is bound to a magic helper are, in principle, the same that we have found at the root of the symbiotic drives: an inability to stand alone and to fully express one’s own individual potentialities. In the sado-masochistic strivings this inability leads to a tendency to get rid of one’s individual self through dependency on the magic helper—in the milder form of dependency I am discussing now it only leads to a wish for guidance and protection. The intensity of the relatedness to the magic helper is in reverse proportion to the ability to express spontaneously one’s own intellectual, emotional, and sensuous potentialities. In other words, one hopes to get everything one expects from life, from the magic helper, instead of by one’s own actions. The more this is the case, the more is the center of life shifted from one’s own person to the magic helper and one’s personifications. The question is then no longer how to life oneself, but how to manipulate “him” in order not to lose him and how to make him do what one wants, even to make him responsible for what one is responsible oneself. In the more extreme cases, a person’s whole life consists almost entirely in the attempt to manipulate “him”; people differ in the means which they use; for some obedience, for some “goodness,” for others suffering is the main means of manipulation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
We see, then, that there is no feeling, thought, or emotion that is not at least coloured by the need to manipulate “him”; in other words, that no psychic act is really spontaneous or free. This dependency, springing from and at the same time leading to a blockage of spontaneity, not only gives a certain amount of security but also results in a feeling of weakness and bondage. As far as this is the case, the very person who is dependent on the magic helper also feels, although often unconsciously, enslaved by “him” or “her” and to a greater or lesser degree, rebels against “him” or “her.” The television show Buffy The Vampire Slayer is another example of a magic helper. This rebelliousness against the very person on whom one has put one’s hopes for security and happiness, creates new conflicts. It has to be suppressed is one is not to lose “him” or “her,” but the underlying antagonism constantly threatens the security sought for in the relationship. If the magic helper is personified in an actual person, the disappointment that follows when one falls short of what one is expecting for this person—and since the expectation is an illusory one, any actual person is inevitably disappointing—in addition to the resentment resulting from one’s own enslavement to that person, leads to continuous conflicts. This can be seen in the conflicts between Buffy and her friends, which frequently arise. These sometimes end only with separation, which is usually followed by a choice of another object who is expected to fill all the hopes connected with the magic helper. This is seen many times with Buffy, like when her friends abandon her when she runs for homecoming queen, or when her mother kicks her out of the house, or when Buffy’s friends kick her out of her own house and turn to the leadership of Faith, another slayer. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
If this relationship proves to be a failure too, it may be broken up again or the person involved may decide that this is just “life,” and resign. What one does not recognize is the fact that one’s failure is not essentially the result of one’s not having chosen the right magic person; it is the direct result of having tried to obtain by the manipulation of a magic force that which only the individual can achieve oneself by one’s own spontaneous activity. The phenomenon of life-long dependency on an object outside of oneself has been seen by Dr. Freud. He has interpreted it as the continuation of the early, essentially nurturing bonds with the parents throughout life. As long as the infant is small it is quite naturally dependent on the parents, but this dependence does not necessarily imply a restriction of the child’s own spontaneity. However, when the parents, acting as the agents of society, start to suppress the child’s spontaneity and independence, the growing child feels more and more unable to stand on its own feet; it therefore seeks for the magic helper and often makes the parents the personification of “him” or “her.” Later on, the individual transfers these feelings to somebody else, for instance, to a teacher, a husband, or a psychoanalyst. Again, the need for being related to such a symbol of authority is caused by anxiety. What we can observe at the kernel of every neurosis, as well as of normal development, is the struggle for freedom and independence. For many normal persons this struggle has ended in a complete giving up of their individual selves, so that they are thus well adapted and considered to be normal. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The neurotic person is the one who has not given up fighting against complete submission, but who, at the same time, has remained bound to the figure of the magic helper, whatever form or shape “one” may have assumed. One’s neurosis is always to be understood as an attempt, and essentially an unsuccessful one, to solve the conflict between that basic dependency and the quest for freedom. The concept of social character is not only a theoretical one lending itself to general speculation; it is useful and important for empirical studies which aim at finding out what the incidence of various kinds of social character is in a given society or social class. Assuming that one defines the “peasant character” as individualistic, hoarding, stubborn, with little satisfaction in cooperation, little sense of time and punctuality, this syndrome of traits is by no means a summation of various traits, but a structure, charged with energy. This structure will show intensive resistance by either violence or silent obstructionism if attempts are made to change it; even economic advantages will not easily produce any effects. The syndrome owes its existence to the common mode of production which has been characteristic of peasant life for thousands of years. The same holds true for a declining lower-middle class, whether it is that which brought Mr. Hitler to power, or the poor Whites in the South of the United States of America. The lack of any kind of beneficial cultural stimulation, the resentment against their situation, which is one of being left behind by the forward-moving currents of their society, the hate toward those who destroy the images which once gave them pride, have created a character syndrome which is made up of love and death (necrophilia), intense malignant fixation to blood and soil, and intense group narcissism (the latter expressed in intense nationalism and racism). #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The striking feature of a socialist economy is the fact that there is no private ownership in the fact that there is no private ownership in the means of production, and that all enterprises are administered by a state-appointed managerial bureaucracy. (There is, of course, private ownership of consumer goods, like houses, furniture, automobiles, and personal accumulation of saving such as bank accounts and government bonds, just as in the United States of America. The differences in this respect is only that one cannot own a factory or stock in a corporation, a difference, incidentally, which would be relevant only for a small part of the population of the United States of America.) The Soviet leaders and their peoples, assuming that Marxist socialism is characterized by the ownership and management of enterprises by the state, take this to mean that their system is socialism. Whether this claim is justified or nor will be discussed later, along with the fact that current developments in the Soviet system are in many respects more akin to the trends existing in the twenty-first century capitalism than they are to socialism. Over-all planning, introduced for the first time by Mr. Stalin’s Five-Year Plan in 1928, offers Soviet ideology an additional reason to speak of their system as socialism. The over-all plan (Gosplan) is centrally made in Moscow for the USSR after intensive deliberation over a great amount of data. The planning determines what is to be produced and at what rate, in contrast to the relatively free market in the Western countries. Until 1957 the Moscow ministries for various ranches of industry were the central authorities for the respective industries under their administration. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Mr. Khrushchev abolished this centralized system, which had existed for over twenty years, and inaugurated a process of decentralization by replacing the ministries by regional economic councils (sownarkhoz). In the United States of American 1 percent of all families own 4/5 of all Industrial stocks which can be owned by individuals. There are somewhat over one hundred such councils within the Soviet Union. They appoint the top personnel (or confirm their appointments) in the enterprises under them, determine the production program of “their” industries (although within the framework of the general plan), are active in determining prices and production methods, and the securing of scarce materials and conduct research on the quality of products et cetera. The control of the sownarkhoz over the many industries under its control is exercised through subdivisions, the “chief administrations,” which in turn control the individual enterprises, headed by their managers. Who are the administrators working in the regional councils, the chief administrations, and the individual enterprises? The majority have a college education (in fact, a greater percentage than in the United States of America), with the greater proportion of graduates in engineering and a small proportion in business administration. The vast majority of them are members of the Communist Party. (It is important for the America reader to remember that the Communist Party in Russia is, by intention, not a mass party, but represents the elite of those who want to get to the highest position and who are willing to exert the greatest efforts; actually, only about 4 percent of the total population are party members.) The director of a plant earns from five to ten times (including bonuses) what the worker earns, depending on the size and kind of factory. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
If we compare the American situation, an American plant director would have to earn $232,115.88 a year to attain the same position in relation to the worker. A small scale study of American firms showed that in actual fact the top policy-making executive in firms of under 1,000 employees earned an annual average of $305,933.38 in salary and bonus. These figures are difficult to compare since on the one hand prices for consumer goods are relatively much higher in the Soviet Union than in the United States of America, while on the other hand rents are much lower in the Soviet Union and fringe benefits are higher than in the United States of America. Thus, the income differential between managers and workers is not too different in the Soviet Union from what it is in the United States of America. What is particularly important is the role of bonuses which reach 50 to 100 percent of the manager’s salary and which constitutes the most important incentive for optimal production. (Often this system emphasizes quantity rather than quality—hence leading to the production of inferior consumer goods.) Thus, the managers represent a social group that in income, consumption, and authority, is as different from the workers as in any capitalist country of the West. In fact, judging from many reports, rigidities in class stratification, status-differential, et cetera, are greater than in the United States of America. Something we value in the United States of America is legal property rights. Legal property rights are not absolute. They are to some extent subject to private modification by mutual consent for mutual benefit. More generally, security of property rights depends on: government protection, private protection, and other people’s attempts to capture some of the rights. All these are costly in different ways; therefore rights are generally not complete. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
When transacting is costly, all contract forms are costly, so choice of governance form is at best a constrained optimum. Most assets and commodities have multiple dimensions. It may be optimal to divide the property rights to different attributes of a commodity between different owners. Different dimensions of assets and contracts interact: they may be mutually substitutes or complements. This can be utilized to achieve better outcomes for seemingly incomplete contracts. For example, in a short-term rental contract, the landlord is usually responsible for maintenance and improvement, whereas in the long-term contract, the tenant is. This goes with their natural incentives; therefore it can even be left unspecified. When the rights and responsibilities governing real aspects of behaviour have been efficiently specified, the financial aspects of the contract can adjust to satisfy the participation constraints and division of surplus. Even a given attribute may have shared ownership, of if ownership is not specified or enforced because of incompleteness, it may be placed in the public domain. Actions of individuals in shared ownership can be constrained for their mutual benefit. Income from an asset or attribute may be affected by the actions of others; transaction costs may preclude attainment of the optimum indicated by the Coase Theorem. As transaction technology (information, enforcement, et cetera) changes, the nature and governance mode of property rights also evolves. Disputes arise when some previously unexercised rights become worth exercising, so an owner who had preciously left them in the public domain now wants to reclaim them. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Leicap (1989) studies how property rights come to be delineated and enforced in the first place. His general idea is that property rights are needed t reduce or eliminate efficiency losses due to common pool problems. However, the process is political, with distributional conflicts. Bargaining may not lead to an efficient outcome, or may do so only with long delay. The analytical framework argues that efficient adaptation of rights to new circumstances is more difficult if: aggregate gains are small; the number of participants is large; interests are heterogeneous; the sizes of participants’ gains or losses are private information; the efficient regime will involve greater concentration of wealth, so there will be more losers. The outcome of the political conflict between the winners and losers may be determined by who is better able to organize for political action; this is usually the smaller group with more concentrated benefits or costs. When participation in the conduct of programs lags, these programs cease to represent planning, and become something else, for which epithets abound, if analytic concepts do not. Planning, by definition, stands for the guidance of present action by prospective and retrospective reference. It does not stand for mere maintenance of present routine, however well devised, or it does so only to the extent that this may be useful within the context of a more enveloping goal. The vital element, or condition, in maintaining participation by clientele and personal in the programs of agencies is the constant emergence of new goals. Only thus can the sense of creation, of values in process of realization, be maintained. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
In part, this is a task of leadership, by leaders who do not sink into mere office-holding, but continually find new and inspiring areas for effort. Viewed thus, leadership may spring from any member of a group; if anything, the reverse may be true. It is the realization of such a relationship which provides the political solution to the problem of maintaining both citizen participation in government and clientele participation in social agencies. One way of maintaining public interests is through competition for office, success in which occurs through appeals to the diverse interests and shifting ideas among the public. The dynamic effect of aspiring leaders setting forth rival promises regarding the future, as a mans of securing office, is to generate new wants, new hopes and aspirations, new goals for concerted effort. It happens, however, that even competition for office may be an insufficient source of renewal of group purpose. The insecurities of office-holding may be so intense that, by various schemes of co-optation, monopoly, quietism, or even more drastic devices, office-holders succeed in cementing themselves into place. Or it may be that imagination lag, and rivals come to be so little different that they make no difference. Or, on the other hand, the strife of competition for office may become so intense that its contribution to unified community action is nullified and reversed. Without depreciating the stimulus of competitive politics, of the part they play as a guarantee against worse events, as incentive to progress they must be assessed as sporadic, inconsistent, and unpredictable. Happily, it is quite possible for new goals to form rationally, continually, and effectively without continual changes of personnel. This can come about through the vigorous and careful implementation of the fifth phase of the planning process, the making of the periodic appraisals of progress. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Walking “after the spirit” and “minding the spirit”—these expressions do not merely mean mind and body are subservient to the spirit, but they denote the humans’ own spirit co-working with the Holy Spirit in one’s daily life, and in all the occasions of life. To do this, the believer needs to know the laws of the spirit—not only the conditions necessary for the Holy Spirit’s working but the laws also governing one’s own spirit, so that it may be kept open to the Spirit of God. When the Holy Spirit takes the spirit of human beings as His sanctuary, psychopathological offenders attack the spirit to get it our of their object being to close the outlet of the Spirit of God dwelling at the center. And yet, when the human is “spiritual” and the mind and body is subservient to the spirit, the spiritual forces of the ultimate negative can come into DIRECT CONTACT with the spirit—and then follows the “wrestling” referred to by Paul (Eph. 6.12). If the human is ignorant of the laws of the spirit, especially the tactics of the ultimate negative, one is liable to yield to an onslaught of deceiving spirits by which they forced one’s spirit into strained ecstasy, or elation, or elation, or else press it down, as it were into a vice. In the former case one has given “visions” and revelations which appear to be divine, but afterwards are proved to have been of the enemy, by their passing away with no results; in the latter, the mortal sinks into darkness and deadness as if one had lost all knowledge of God. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The relationship between the churches and society are within the context of the functions of the churches. Certain functions flow from their very nature. However, a function of the church is not the same as that of an institution. To further highlight this illustration, mediation is a constitutive function of the church, and it frequently is served by the institution of the priesthood. However, mediation may take place without the priesthood, for an institution is only an organizational mechanism for the function. Institutions may come and go, but the function always remains. The function of a church is constitution. By its constitutive function a church receives and mediates the New Being. Expansion is the church function that is behind missionary activity, education, and evangelization of fallen-away members. The constructive function of the churches includes both Theoria (the aesthetic and cognitive functions) and praxis (the personal and communal functions). The aesthetic function struggles to express the meaning of the church through medium of religious art—pictorial, musical, and visual. Theology is the cognitive function which interprets religious symbols and relates them to the categories or rational knowledge. The personal function of the church is the development of saintliness in its members, while the communal function promotes the Holy Community in which justice and holiness flourish together. The problem in all these functions of the church is how to preserve their autonomy of form within the body of the church. Must aesthetic expressiveness, cognitive truth, personal humanity, and communal justice be twisted out of shape in order to fit within the cadre of the church? #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
I feel it is possible to maintain autonomy of form in these functions by the Spiritual Presence; in other words, though theonomy. We come now to the relating function, the function that governs the mutual interaction between the churches and other groups in society. The relating function operates in a threefold way: the way of the silent interpenetration, the way of critical judgment, and the way of political establishment. By silent interpretation the churches radiate the Spirital Presence into the social units which they are contiguous. One could call it the pouring of priestly substance into the social structure of which the churches are a part. The rapid spread of secularism obscures this influence, but if the churches disappeared overnight, society would be impoverished. Interpenetration also means that the current of influence flows from society toward the churches via the cultural forms develop in society. The most obvious of these influences is felt in the continuous transformation of the ways of understanding and expressing experiences in a living culture. To put it another way, the churches’ creative function of Theoria and praxis draws upon society for the forms in which its substance is preserved and conveyed. You shall deal your bread to the hungry, and bring the poor that are cast out to your house. When you see the naked, cover him or her, and hide not yourself from your own flesh. Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your healing shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of God shall be your protection. 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. And please open your hearts and be kind enough to donate to the Sacramento Fire Depart for they are not receiving all of their vital resources. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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