CIRCULATION OF THOUGHT - 1954 |
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| Lectures 1-26 Feringer notes Notes started: Sept-'96 - Jan-'97 Last edited: 8-98 |
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Lecture - 1
1.There has been a fiction in this country that we must be dominated by logic. ERH believes logic is an inadequate method for social analysis. The truth is just the opposite, if we are to understand our experience more clearly and find a direction that will ameliorate destructive divisions between peoples,wemust dominate logic, rise above it.THE TOPIC OF THIS COURSE IS TO EXPLAIN WHY AND HOW WE ARE TO MASTER "MERE" LOGIC.
2.At different periods of our lives there is a different intensity of thought; the variations in life reflect cycles ofintensity. For instance, in the timespan between the ages of 16-25 years one exaggerates the importance of philosophy, of logic, of language stud, etc. If we do not do it during this time, we will probably do very little during the rest of our lives.
3.The point is 1) thought is both our own doing, and2) it comes to us at certain times with greater demand. Thus, 3) when, why, what for?(1 & 2) are contradictory,of course,just as life is filled with contradictions (i.e. we are masters of our homes, but with guests, we wait on them and provide what they want).
4.In order to really stay alive, vital and aware that is, we must bow to certain rules for the development of our thinking. Most people are seldom aware of different types of experience and what it means day-to-day.ONLY THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT, WHICH IS TO SAY CIRCULATION OF THOUGHT DO, WE COME FULLY ALIVE."...thought is only our temporary guest, ...every one of us at times must sleep, and God has obviously ordained sleep to warn us that we are not thinking machines." (p.4/1)
5.We can go through life without being "spiritually" or "thoughtfully" alive. Thought at times meets no resistance, and at other times considerable resistance. What blocks and opens circulation will be addressed. Narrow, unchanging attitudes would be an example of a blocked "canal" of thought, i.e. people who, for the best reasons, claim to stand for "morals," but seem to have a narrow interpretation of some concept. What is moral, for instance, is a subtle notion; in one instance some act, say punishment, may be moral, and in another context a punishment may be inhumane. Killing is recognized as acceptable in self-defense, for instance.
6.Thought is frail and easily breaks down, as for instance the ease in which misunderstanding occurs. Propaganda, false advertising, political rhetoric are examples of where gross mistrust occurs, and thus channels of communication are cut off.Connecting an abstraction like trust and love and honesty with specific situations can be difficult, often vague, and perhaps only very indirectly conveying meaning.
...thought is so much alive that it comes and goes as life does. (p.9/1)
7.The library is a graveyard of past events, of abstractions (principles), of stories that must be related to our present and future actions (i.e. these ideas have no meaning until brought to life by our actions).
8.Thought untempered by our own evaluation means the thought of others is the real governor of our thinking. Thought proscribed by the F.B.I., or a religious group, or any profession, is the same.We are free to borrow it, of course, but if we are not to be tyrannized by it we must be conscious of its possible value and proclaim it accordingly - either rejecting or accepting its validity.BUT WE ALSO HAVE A RIGHT TO LAY CLAIM TO OUR OWN ORIGINAL THINKING.
Most people are, probablyunconscious of the fact that they live off borrowed thought, thought never made their own by being annealed by their own careful testing and judgment.
9.It is this process of personal evaluation that allows us to participate in the circulation of thought and therefore in our own "coming to life."
Today the mass media dominates or manipulates our thinking. Media has blocked many channels of thinking, or has presented barriers to one's ability to think for one's self. Half truths, false or wrong assumptions, speculation, introverted logicwith little if any supporting evidence, dominate all advertising, bureaucratic pronouncements, and political dialogue, resulting in corrupting or degenerating all circulation of thought. We are deluged by the media with subjects not worth thinking about.
10.What are the consequences of all of this? Is our future to be one of manipulation, of control by demagogues?Is our inability to understand our experience resulting in more and more individuals with fruitless or ruined lives?There is abundant evidence that the divorce rate, the crime rate, the drug addiction, bigotry, war, degeneration, can be attributed to a depressed ability to understand our experience.
"THOUGHTS ARE NOT UNDER OUR CONTROL IF WE DON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THEM. ANY THOUGHT MUST BE PUT THROUGH THE STRAINER OF REALIZATION."(p. 21/1)
11.One of the primary problems reflecting fruitless thought is the speaking in generalizations, a habit rife today. Political speeches and religious sermons are excellent examples.Not that generalizing is wrong, but when it is detached from specifics it loses its meaning.What does love mean?Shakespeare's love of England makes the term movingly profound and directional.
...God became one man, (Jesus) in order to show that a real thought is something utterly specific.It's a mysterious way of proving to you the point of the circulation of thought, that Christianity had to take God out of the realm of your universal, abstract thinking...this one child in the cradle gives you a better idea of what thought has to become - flesh, you see - than all your wonderful generalities...(p.22)
12.Circulation of thought does not occur by our playing with ideas and never putting them to the test, or by endless dialogue.It is too abstract, nothing is tested, and ideas fail to come alive, to become manifest in concreteness.They merely float around inside our heads.LIVING IS CONCRETE.Thought, in order to have meaning, must have a counterpart in concrete events.
For instance, the idea that all people are, or should be, born free and equal is an idea that should be acted on, that should become true - where the "word should be made flesh."At first maybe one person believed it, then a few more, and eventually it must become commonplace in all people's behavior.
13.To get an idea to come true may require wars, certainly sacrifice, frustration, or debate, and certainly the path will have many barriers; some progress, then retrogression. Prejudices must be set aside, minds changed.It takes time, perhaps a thousand years.The path from idea to reality may be mysterious, but the channels of thought must be kept open in order for it to happen.Only then can progress occur.
No idea is worth anything if it cannot become true.
14.Logic is only one form, one system of thought.But our most important, meaningful decisions are not based on logic:whom we choose for friends, whomwe marry, what profession we enter, etc.
Lecture 2
1/2Three aspects of thought: 1) what an individual thinks, 2) what the world thinks of that thought at that moment, and3) what the world may think about it at some time in the future. All people who speak, participate one way or another in this process of circulation.
2/2There are two ways in which people speak of others - what is said in one's presence, and what is said in one's absence. Some are praised more in their absence than in their presence, and more commonly praised in their presence, and criticized in their absence. Our thoughts are judged to be wise or foolish, flippant or serious, reliable or imaginative..THE BIBLE says, "Judge not..." because this type of judgment is dangerous; we are very likely to misunderstand.To judge tends to mean we don't think about the other's speech any more.
Another dimension of circulation is not to reveal our true thoughts to others, so we either refrain from speaking or mislead.
3.Still another dimension of communication is when people value politeness over truth, which of course becomes a barrier to communication. To speak the truth in spite of consequences should not be interpreted as giving a person license to be nasty, but simply that one way or another, communication is enhanced by truth.
4.The conclusion here is that what we think about ourselves andothers and what they think of us, is always interdependent.That is, we gain self-knowledge by listening to what others say about us;we can never be indifferent because their behavior toward us affects us.Here ERH quotes Goethe, "If you want to have joy in yourself, you must attribute value to the world outside." (p.8/2)What we think of the world "recoils in us."
5.PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND RELIGION: Our own inner thoughts represent our philosophy. What others say about us is politics.When people speak truthfully to each other about their inner, deeply held thoughts that is religion. To be merely kind reflects no passionate thought.To speak the truth oftenraises passions, but in the long run truth leads to "heaven," to more peace.
6.Four points about circulation relating to philosophy, art, politics, and religion: 1) the thought inside us, 2) the expression of that thought (which ERH calls art), 3) the judgment of your thought from others (politics), and finally 4) what we owe our community, to be truthful and thoughtful in our response to others (education and religion).To be "secular" doesn't require truthfulness in our response to others.To be honest can be dangerous to us, and this is why it must be called "religious."
...in every thought, there is an element of philosophy, an element of religion, an element of politics, and an element of art. (p.11)
7.Obviously, this is why we desperately need a few friends so that we can find the truth about ourselves as the world sees us.
8.THE POINT OF ALL THIS IS THAT IF COMMUNICATION IS TO OCCUR, the quality of thinking must attain a common standard within the community. OTHERWISE THERE CAN BE NO PEACE.This is why philosophy was opposed by Christianity, because philosophy is narrow, limited, it cannot be the standard for peace.Muslims cannot convert the world, nor can Platonists or Buddhists or Jews, or Communism or Capitalism.As long as there is no universal religion (as is Christianity which advocates "all of the above"), there can be no peace. And no peace means no progress because all dialogue degenerates into defensiveness.
9.This is why teaching is so important, so that there can be agreement on some common standard.THE IDEAL AT THE END OF ONE'S LIFE, IF ONE HAS LIVED "WELL," IS TO HAVE ONE'S SELF-OPINION, THE RECOGNITION ONE RECEIVES FROM THE COMMUNITY, AND WHAT OTHERS WILL THINK OF ONE AFTER DEATH ALL IN CONJUNCTION. (p.15)
By the end of one's life of having lived well, one has proved this principle (demonstrated by living out one's beliefs) and thus deserves recognition and a memory of having been true to his ideals. Also, we assume that the person has contributed what he/she could to the community.THIS IS, OF COURSE, RARE; MOST DIE WITH UNFULFILLED EXPECTATIONS.
10.When a person stops learning and developing, one dies spiritually.For the remainder of life one is then simply filling space with no purpose. [RF, is it not a common source of regret whenreflecting on some event that we failed to speak truthfully?]
11.Martyrs have and deserve such approbation for their beliefs because they were willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for them. Martyrdom unifies people's opinions, while teaching cannot achieve this. p. 23The wayof one's death has deep meaning, determining the way others are likely to evaluateone.
12.Mental commandments, thought, have a spiritual life.Physical life begins and immediately sets on a course of degeneration.Spiritual life is the opposite - it begins as zero and evolves - and spiritual life begins with death in the sense that through education the child inherits from the past and is thus potentially capable of moving toward humanness. A good life means that one leaves a "good" name (reputation) behind.Most don't wish to leave a "stinking" name at their death.
13.The essence of teaching is that one makes a distinction between what is the rule and what the exception; to learn what has been accidental in the teacher's life, and what one believes is true as a rule of life. (p.26)
To teach is to make one feel old (regardless of one's physical age) and the student feel young (a novice in the subject, regardless of age).
One cannot only teach by example, therefore one must state one's thought, one's intent, reveal one's inner and very personal view of the subject. [RF - conditioning psychologists seem to have forgotten this necessity of making the inner life concrete through speech.This also helps students separate accident from intention. Such separation is also a subtle but important element of teaching, whereby new questions can arise about the subject.]
To teach therefore means that one must, as far as possible, understand the meaning of one's experience, articulating that meaning in the process.
Teaching therefore is not merely drill, teaching involves, dissatisfaction with one's fulfillment (perfection). TEACHING THEREFORE SHOULD RECEIVE THE HIGHEST RANK IN THE COMMUNITY.
Teaching is not merely quoting the thoughts of others.This practice cannot reach a student's spiritor impassion him/her unless the student has the ability to judge experience in the light of the subject matter.ERH believed that there was little teaching in the America, it was mostly quotation and drill.
To teach, one must have become a master at some activity in life, as a motor mechanic, as a doctor, as a poet, etc.(p.30)
14.Philosophy is the beginning.Politics, and religion, and art are the results of living. (p.32)
This statement seems to summarize the essence of real teaching, as distinct from merely quoting others and eliciting memorization from students.And it is essential for the circulation of thought.
Lecture - 3
1/3The safest way to think of some individual is to ascertain what others have thought of them. ERHidentifies several stages of our lives, correlating personal development,"soul" and age - age being defined in terms of social role (types of authority), not by physiological measures.
ALL THOUGHT PROCESSESDIVIDE ONEINTO WHAT YOU THINK OF YOURSELF AND WHAT OTHERS THINK OF YOU. (p.6/3)What others think of us is important because that, also, is how we gauge ourselves for the most part.Ideally we should be able to separate our perception of what others think of us from our personal thoughts about ourself. Of course, what we think of ourselves is important and affects the opinions of others about ourselves, but probably the primary influence on our self-concept we derive from others' opinions of us.
2.One of ERH's primary points is that public opinion represents a unanimity, a uniting that makes for peace and is thusvery important.IT IS NOT THE INDIVIDUAL OPINION, BUT THE COMMON OPINION that is crucial to social developmentto the maintenance of language, to peace, etc.True revolution, for instance, is created when many people discover their common beliefs and act on them against the oppressive institution.
STILL ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT IS THAT THE OPINION OF OTHERS CAN REINFORCE OUR OWN OPINIONS, which may be very tentative, but when we are reinforced by others we have confidence there is truth in our thoughts. EVERYONE WANTS - NEEDS - TO BE RECOGNIZED, AFFIRMED, AND RECEIVE AUTHORIZATION.ERH points out how elevating it is for us to unexpectedly discover someone loves us.
3.We never feel superior to thosewe truly love."...love means to despair of oneself, and to need somebody else to restore one's own self-confidence." (p.11/3)
ERH points out that true despair occurs when our self-confidence runs out and when we are unaware of how others value us. Suicide is forbidden precisely because we never know ourselves who we really are. NO DOUBT THIS IS THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION FOR THE NOTION THAT ULTIMATELY "Jesus loves us."
(RF - IN SHORT, KNOWLEDGE IS CREATED BY VOTE, AND IS THEREFORERESULTS FROMPOLITICS.)
4.Knowledge is affirmed when validated in a particular situation."...virtue isnice at the right time, and a vice is a virtue at the wrong time." (pp.14,15)
5.More definitions or dimensions of knowledge,a distinction between the importance of the thought and its content.If we believe in an idea and tell the world,are uninfluenced by what others think, and are willing to take the consequences of our utterances, then that is important thought - it should be listened to.(p.18,19)People recognize and are influenced by persons who "stick their neck out" for what they believe.
A speaker's influence is based in part on his/her reputation; is he thinking his own thoughts or reflecting those of others, is he thought to be insightful or a fool, what is his thought relevant to?
6.Science - logic - does not rule our thinking about social event, because to be scientific means we believe in the rule of law (laws of nature - which are absolute).However, no society would ever hang together if we did not allow for exceptions, for forgiveness, for acceptance of breaking a rule. This is because we all make stupid mistakes, or misjudgments through lack of awareness, or insensitivity and THEREFORE MUST BE FORGIVEN.And to be forgiven means that we need the opinions of others regardless of some rule of law.Thus, many who proclaim a belief in science actually deny its validity every day in their social life. (p.21)
7.Religion consists of three elements: what I think, what the world thinks of my thoughts, and what my neighbors think.And some people tend to have three religions (rules for behavior), a different one for each of these three elements. In other words, we have faith that we deserve to be forgiven, faith that we can will justice for ourselves, and faith that there is lawfulness in a "dead universe," (that is, order in natural science).How often do we believe in one form of justice for ourselves (where others should forgive us for our transgressions), and another justice for others who should be judged strictly by a rule of law.
...religion is an attempt to make the three into one.That's why I believe in the Trinity.The father, who is the world; Christ, who is we ourselves; and the Holy Spirit, who are our neighbors.And that in these three forms, everybody has religion. (p.24/3)
8.To repeat, circulation of thought has the four elements, what one individual thinks, (philosophy), what others think of these thoughts (politics), how well (effectively) one speaks one's thoughts (art), and the social significance in terms of an expectation for being acted upon - a faith that a true (worthy) thought will bear fruit one day (religion).
9.In some ways any one of these four elements could dominate in a specific situation.To have a philosophy is to sit in judgment. To bend to politics is to respond to popular demand, to have religion is to put truth and significance in the driver's seat.The priest has his arts ( ceremony, candles, incense, architecture).
10.His point is that everyone participates in these four roles throughout life; everyone must rule themselves and perhaps others at some time, must have a point of view (philosophy), be concerned with what others think, etc., and therefore these four elements for the circulation of thought are universal throughout humankind.
Another way of expressing these ideas is that we serve four basic roles, as governor (at least of ourselves and families), teachers (of ourselves, families, neighbors) , upholders of laws and speakers truth (priests).And finally, that these rules apply to groups as well as to individuals - there is no distinction between the individual and the group in this latter aspect. The same for great and famous teachers and rulers as for the lowest citizen.
11. Thinking is that power in the universe which overcomes gravity.And that's why it is right to put this in form of a tree.Just as the sap rises in a tree, in the same way human thought rises.And we call this therefore "the spirit."The spirit is always the combination of more than one form of thinking.Philosophy alone, that's not spirit.Ruling alone, policeman -- no spirit, you see. That's just the law.Teaching, I'm afraid no spirit.But when you all (have) ritual, just pomp and forms; no spirit.But the combination of these three faculties, they make an inspired being...Lincoln, in the Second Inaugural, or the Gettysburg Address, you know that he is inspired, don't you?
Why? Because he oversteps the bounds of one form of thought...There is something more than thinking.That's the integration of thinking.(pp.31,32)
Lecture - 4
1/4We must learn to speak for ourselves, express important occasions for ourselves.
...the more central a truth is, the greater is the variety of ways in which it must be expressed by everybody in his own terms. (p.1/4)
A proposal of marriage, expression of one's honest opinion, one's philosophy, one's insights, a response, an expression of friendship are examples. Ultimately, "all truths must be personalized."
The highest moments of life are the most personal moments.And the greater your power to live is, the more untranslatable will be what you have to say...I call it `a journey into one's own speech'." (p.2)
2.To describe events is to make them a part of our inner world, to remember them and consider their importance. The corollary is, that is to also turn the "inside out."That is, to act on an idea that is likely to improve (create a future for) the community.
...you can only have a divine spirit in you if the Word takes a special form inside of you. (p.3)
[RF - I believe the best comment to interpret this quote is to add another one, that "spirit" refers to our inner strength, the root of our being, our aliveness. In another text ERH defines God as, "The power within us which makes us speak the truth." (See PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOUL, Argo Press)All of these expressions reflect the crucial role of language in our becoming alive to our potential.]
3.ERH despairs of the degeneration of language, and therefore of the culture.This is use of language to mask, to distort, to lie, or not to use it at all.THE WHOLE THRUST OF THIS LECTURE SERIES IS TO MAKE THE POINT THAT FOR LANGUAGE TO BE VITAL TO US, IT MUST BE USED, IT MUST CIRCULATE!
4.To expand the idea of the vitality of language ERH uses the metaphor of water welling up from a spring and how it must take on some soil and minerals if it is to nourish us.Just so, language takes on vitality when it is recreated by us in our personal speech. Knowledge is rendered truer by this process. "In social science something is truer in the more various ways it is expressed." p.5Contrary to science (mathematics in particular).
5.ERH gets into a long discussion of government and power, the sum of which seems to be that the "church" and government are different,separate entities, and that government cannot be controlled by the church.This is because religion is an inner spirit of people, and government is an entity that must be based on fear of losing its power.The more people instilled with true religion, the less government is needed because government is for those who conduct themselves in a way that destroys the community, i.e. murder, theft, assault.THIS IS WHY THE ULTIMATE MEANING OF RELIGION IS TO MOTIVATE THE NECESSITIES TO CREATING A TRUE COMMUNITY.
6.The Communion in church, the service, illuminates or is intended to illuminate, the meaning of our acts. And forgiveness for our transgressions is a necessity, freeing us to "...start life again." It is a gateway to revelation of life to ourselves.
Supplication breeds more government, faith breeds peace.Nothing is more expensive than war, nor as cheap as peace. "War is normal when we don't behave as human beings." (p.18)It is when we expect to get something for nothing that we germinate wars.
America (and most other countries?) ERH claims is based on cheating, on selling people things they don't need, or misrepresenting (Let the buyer beware) and all that!This is why we need so many laws, so much government. We act this way because we lack real religion.
7.This section essentially describes the "12 tones of the spirit,"the commands for learning, for coming alive, for fulfilling life;
1) Listen, accept one's name, learn from the past, receive first commands from parents. 2) Read, expand beyond one's own family into society and history. 3) Playwith the ideas, early on when one is learning (when one has no social burden to perform), test, experiment,suspend judgment,wait to be called. "The playing is only important if you have something to live for which is serious." (p.23)4) Doubt, to raise the question, "Does the present situation call for applying the rule, or an exception?"At one time or another almost everything must be open to doubt.Life is not nice, war the rule, peacethe exception.
8.Perhaps our most fundamental doubt isasking ourselves, "Are we loved?"By our family, our friends.We have reasons to be happy when people love us; then we are reverential, worshipful, poetical, lyrical and peaceful.Doubt is always this side of fulfillment, or certainty.Ideally, what we think of ourselves should coincide with what others think of us (and vice versa one might say; what others think of us is largely influenced by their perception of how we think of ourselves). Cynical doubt, especially of how others love us, leads to jealousy.Thus, we need friends, family, colleagues. We must always be joining up with something for a sane and fulfilling life. To be isolated because of individualism is a terrible fate.
Lecture - 5
1/5The holy days in Christianity - Christmas commemorates the creation of the world, Easter commemorates a revelation of the world (social world?),and Whitsunday (fiftieth day after Easter) that the world is redeemed.Here again lies an example of a secular foundation of religious holidays. In the end, religions seem to point to the creation of communities voluntarily at peace.
The implication is profound, that genetics is an inadequate explanation for the creation of human social life; all of which leads to the conclusion that some accommodation needs to be found in our thinking for the spiritual foundations of creation. This is to say, the spirit of creativity. What we need is to overcome the dominant physical science orientation of present thinkers. Without knowledge of our spiritual ancestors our lives are non-creative and certainly non-regenerative.
2/5The memory of saints from history is crucial to this reconsideration.They were dropped from religious recognition with the advent of Puritans. The saints represented those who lived the Christian way, (i.e. in a way to create peace in the world).Without this memory of what has to be paid to live in a better world we are very likely to degenerate, a common condition of our day.
ERH asserts that we must therefore choose which heroes from the past to give recognition, as reminders of how we must live, of the "...people who lived before us who are still ahead of us." (p.4)
3/5Another message is here - that those who live only in their own generation, who do not recognize necessities for survival from past experience, are bound to perish.Physical life goes from birth to death, spiritual life goes from death to birth (from inherited knowledge), and it is the spiritual life that raises us above animals.
ERH estimates that 80% of the people are spiritually dead, unable to grow because of this deficit, and that the meaning of religion has to do with our daily secular life.
...our strange Protestant refrigerator called the "Protestant Church"...these Sunday services to think that it has to do with "religion".It (religion) has to do with fact, with truth, with our secular life.It has absolutely nothing to do with something separate from our daily existence. p.5
4.First seven commandments for knowledge circulation:
1) listen2)read3)learn4)play5)doubt6)protest7)win (rule?) - (in IMPURE THINKER, he defines #6 as analysis & criticize , and #7 as protest, see p. 73)
Intellectual steps are the first 3.
Persons who are to rule or be in politics cannot have done much in their lives in the first 7 steps.This is becauseif they are too well known they become and are seen as prisoners of their own ideas - their ways are set, they are known as "experts."Scholars do not make good rulers for this reason, nor is it easy for them to become elected. The president should be one who finally develops during and after an 8th stage (to legislate). (p.7)
5.The essence of "listening"is that one is brought into the real world, one is called by his/her name. By contrast, with reading and learning one is addressed "in general."To speak only in generalizations is boring and unreal.To be spoken to and to listen to another calling your name makes one unique, and the world in this process becomes personal. THIS IS WHY CARING PARENTS ARE SO CRUCIAL. Parents are there to govern their children!(Contrary to what happens in the USA,where the prevailing attitude is to give children freedom too soon).
Children obeying andlistening to parents is not to be understood as enslavement, but rather as preparation for the carrying out of thinking of others so that they learn first to begin to participate in the community. Thinking for one's self, doubting, comes later, only after this preparation. IN THE USA WE ALLOW CHILDREN TOO MUCH LICENSE, OR BURDEN THEM WITH DECISION MAKING TOO SOON.
Therefore this first step is crucial therefore.The child should be made to understand that it is a privilege to be a member of the family, and to be allowed to do dishes, or rake leaves. (see anecdote p.19 bottom)
6.Cultures are held together by understanding the important acts in life. To be introduced into the basic practices for survival is to learn what life is about. Household chores are the child's first introduction into this fact, and he should be helped to experience this. Doing something for the first time, i.e. preparing a meal, making a box to hold tomatoes, cleaning one's house,makes one a member.Celebrations of holidays are a recognition of an event that should be re-experienced so that the culture is reminded of what is important. It is a memory ofthe first time it happened. Thus, to celebrate a hero who sacrificed, to celebrate a revolution, a harvest,mothers' and fathers' days are vital.(See pp.20-22,3 for details about the origin of culture (secular) as it is derived from cult (religious).THE POINT IS THAT THE CHILD MUST BE MADE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENS IF THE JOB IS NOT DONE.
The first stage of the circulation of thought is not intellectual, but of emotion, of awe for these reasons.
7.The sequence is important; listening begets reading, which begets learning, etc.As a parent, all of this is difficult; a child is emotional, illogical, self-centered, impatient. The parent must be patient, severely sticking to discipline with love, by commanding.But this will not work unless the child knows that the parents look up to an authority above them as well.
8.These stages remain with us all our lives, although the process of maturing means that one gradually takes over command of one's self. At any age, for instance, one must listen to doctors or others who are authorities on some needed information. Obviously, to listen and follow is much easier thanhaving to decide.
9.Reading, on the other hand, is the discovery of the world on one's own. It is an amplification, or correction, of what has been learned by listening. Our great intellectual insights come from experiencing and learning from our own mistakes.
10.Listening to commands from authority (parents first) helps us learn what is worth doing, what is necessary. THIS IS WHY ERH IS AGAINST PROGRESSIVE SCHOOLS, "DISCOVERY" ETC. All that has its place, but for the most part in the USA we err in the direction of burdening children with decision making too soon. Thus, listening, we learn values.
11.One learns from listening when one understands that there are things in life that must be done, and this is why the child must discern as part of their experience that the authority practices what he/she preaches!
Lecture - 6
1/6Our behavior must be governed one way or another by "authority,"either our own or someone else's, or the "Holy Spirit."We should decide which is which, but any novice, including the child, must be under someone else's command, or be doomed to failure, reinventing reality for him/herself.ANOTHER VALUE of being put under the authority of another engenders the feeling of being wanted. It is crucial for a child to feel it was expected.
In a very different context, expectation is also important for one coming to a new job.If the manager is wise, he/she acts accordingly, as treating subordinates humanely will evoke their creativity to the job.
2.The ten commandments of the circulation of thought meets resistance in an environment where "Greek thinking" (the mind) dominates,where one's will reigns supreme.To "obey" another seems to gall the humanist,who believes one must obey one's own mind.
To beget children, to expect them and have expectations for them,is the same for parents as for teachers,and for all good managers as well, teachingas a basic process of administering.
3.Our mind is not our own to be cavalier about.We should have been taught by parents to reflect the highest norms and expectations of our culture. We have obligations.To listen and obey means that a leadership aspect of authority is lending some of that "higher" authority.
Aculture with expectations of us for citizenship means that THERE IS UNITY(A CENTER TO OUR THINKING), which is to say, a foundation for mental health.Otherwise one becomes schizophrenic.
Our mind does not begin with us, it has been put into us by our parents, and in time by others in the community.To teach and manage is seeingone's students as future replacements as future parents, governors, managers, artists.THIS IS THE PROCESS IN WHICH ONE IS CALLED (BY NAME) TO INHERIT SOME SOCIAL ROLE. And this is a great honor, giving meaning to one'slife,bringing us to life.
4.Reading is self-exploration.One can read under orders or read under one's own motivation.The former is obeying, the latter is in the spirit of reading.By the time one reaches high school and certainly college, one should not have to be told to read.IN MY OWN UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE MOST STUDENTS DO NOT READ, THEY WISH TO BE TOLD, which is not reading.And they will never come to much.
To be in command, to be an authority, should mean to engender spontaneity.No one can command or authorize arbitrarily IF THE COMMUNITY IS TO BE SERVED.True authority, the right to command, can only be motivated by necessity.Perhaps most of all, real teaching does not create an automaton. To teach requires love of students (not liking necessarily), and this in turn means spontaneity.
5.The dialectics of listening and reading and the other eightcommandments must be in balance.As suggested above, each stage begets the next, but one always practices the previous commands to some extent in each act.To command, or listen, or obey, or doubt,once one reaches maturity, will depend on what the situation may require of you at that point in time. IF one has not first learned to listen, one is stifled in any attempt to read.
6.One cannot know what freedom is if one has not had to obey first.We are not born free, our thoughts are put into us in the beginning; thinking for one's self begins slowly after a time, and only slowly increases with time.Most people believe they respond to their own thinking when actually they are "using" the thoughts of others without knowing it. Those who have not learned to obey in youth usually end up being blind followers later in life.
"..if you do not listen from the first to the seventh year, then you will have to listen from the 20th to the 70th year." (p.7)
7.To learn anything, one must begin with a reference point which is specific, meaning unique, coming from one's own experience.One cannot learn in general.One can memorize generalizations, but that is not learning in a sense of being able to apply the information.Only specific situations give one reference points.
Lord Charnwood:"Every religious experience begins with a command. Now a command is always specific." (p.10)
8."In the mental process harkening comes first, thinking comes second, speaking comes third."Most believe that thinking comes first and speaking second.
9.Play is an important interval in our lives.In a subtle way it follows a command, "There is time, rest, relax, play."It is like silence in music, a rest in music.
Memory is a promise, a waiting for when something is needed, to be fulfilled. An anticipation of something needed in the future.
On happiness - not very important.What we look for is meaning and fulfillment; only then will we find some modicum of inner peace.And all achievement must be paid for, sacrificed one way or another for.What happens one day is unimportant, because happy or not, it will pass.Life is one whole fabric.Things that should be remembered are things we should do something about at some time in our lives.
If we remember what we wish to do, where we want (or must) go in life,then when opportunity presents itself we will be able to respond.
Learning is necessary to prepare ourselves to become elders eventually; this is an example of the end determining the beginning.By contrast, listening and reading relate for the most part to our present states. Always, of course, with implications for the future.
10.To a great extent we do not know the meaning of what we do in the present.We cannot be sure of what our actions will lead to.We can know each other. We can't know ourselves. (p.23)
(p.24) -ERH launches into the issue of the depths of one's soul, admonishing us that we are much deeper than we believe, that we usually want to be superficial, but really are not.We should, but usually do not think of long years ahead for which we must also prepare, and be patient for.
(RF - I present the following extensive quotes because they seem to summarize the points he makes most succinctly.)
11. It is utterly indifferent what is in front of your consciousness at this moment.I don't care what dirty, or what clear, or what clean, or what nice ideas you haveof the world in general. I'm terribly concerned with that which is planted into you as going to come true in 50 years.It's the only part of you that's interesting to me.What do I care what you think of me?You may think I'm a fool.Please.Go ahead, do this.
As long as you listen to what I say, this will have been forgotten in 50 years that you were down on me.But what I have said, if I had said it with conviction and with truthfulness, it will come home.It will come back...That's the great power of truth, you see, that always first he who says the truth has to be despised and ridiculed, but the thing that is true comes back on you, and tells you once more that you knew this, and you should have known, and you should have remembered it.
The relation -- between the person who tells you the truth, that is, your teacher, and the truth is, that the teacher may get the beating, but don't beat down the truth.And the truth of the matter is without cultivating your memory, you cannot connect your childishness with your memory. p.25
12.The important things of life are important for three generations of your own being.And you discover by learning that you are expected not to be a child, but that you are expected to be at the same time always a child, a man and an authority, if you'd prefer that word. Every one of us is asked to be all three....You will not believe a man who cannot show proof that he meant business in the three different ages of his life. (p.27)
13. Most people live on borrowed convictions.A conviction is that which develops by learning in your youth, by verifying in your middle age, and by teaching in your old age the same truth.Otherwise there is no conviction, if you don't do all three things.The rest is opinion. The rest is just ideas.Who cares for ideas or opinions?...I don't.I want to see people who embody the truth, because it has stayed with them in three forms of life.
...only those mental things are really essential which reappear in your youth, in your own mature life, and in your own old age. (p.28)
14. The mind is given us for conviction.But only very few thoughts, and very few contents reach this degree of density...
...typical is a poor, poor second, because to be typical means not to live, but to be lived by other people's minds.
The decision in your own lifetime at this moment is: whether you will live by other people's minds or whether you will really have a mind of your own. And you don't have a mind of your own by having ideas.You have a mind of your own if that which you now learn will appear so real that you will do something about it in your manhood, and you will make other people do something about it in your old age.These are three phases of the mind, and that it means to have one's own mind. (p.29)
15. approval.That's why I cannot hamper your life...We are not a state of which contents where I have the right to judge your future, but you have not the right to judge t he whole human past which I represent here to you.I must give you 10, 20, 30 years to do something, to find out if what I say is true.That's why I need the authority of this college to be appointed.They find out who has something to say that is worthwhile listening to...Authorities of the college must know this.You cannot know. (p.31)
Lecture 7
1/7One must, today, bring together the beginning and the end of the mental life.The middle section is unseen and invisible from the beginning as well as from the end.
To analyze a thing is fine, but that does not mean to know it,and to analyze means to "kill" it, to draw a conclusion about it.To analyze means to doubt.(p.2)
2/7To doubt means to have divine power, to kill, and to have divine power means also the power to bring back to life, i.e. when we validate, practice, and teach ideas.
3.Children(and perhaps adults) need to be turned in the right direction, otherwise they become delinquent.
One must become absorbed by the first 4 commandments (for circulation of thought), so that in taking the next step (doubt) one understands that this must be done seriously, as a sacred event. Mental processes reflect our spiritual movement toward our destiny. p.6Those people who deserve admiration are those who change the direction of humanity.
4.To take the trodden path (in difficult decisions), to apply common sense thoughtlessly, is cheap and lazy.TO THINK FOR ONE'S SELF IS HARD WORK, TO ACT ON THOSE THOUGHTS IS ALWAYS RISKY. Most of life is living the thoughts of others. (RF - this is not bad because we don't have time to reinvent reality when this is unnecessary.)
5.Infollowing the thoughts of others, one aspect of our lazy thinking is to oversimplify ideas, to take them out of context and disconnect them from their author. Out-of-context ideas are worthless distortions. ERH cites the example of USA in the thirties, where the bankers had no idea what to do. This was when many of FDR's welfare programs were instigated and strongly criticized by these same. Not to see these New Deal measures in this context, as we tend to do today, completely distorts their meaning and usefulness.
6.Divine power is not only represented by the ability to doubt; to decide when to kill and when to give life is reflective of what we do every day.We raise animals, then kill and eat them. TO KNOW WHEN TO CONTRADICT ONE'S SELF is also part of divine doubting.
God is the unity of our contradictions.And you cannot live with any man unless you and he can agree that you are free to contradict what you said yesterday, and to do it peacefully and honorably. (p.17)
7.We must not have too much faith in ourselves.To do so means we don't need God. To have faith in one's self (i.e. self reliance) "...lasts until the next bankruptcy." p.18
To doubt, to really doubt, seriously, is to rise to the level of the person whose thoughts one is doubting, to wrestle with angels so to speak. To doubt seriously is the only route to developing one's individuality.
8.The next two commands for mental development are protest and wait.Doubt precedes protest.Doubt is either of one's self or of the world, or obviously some combination of the two. And our doubts are constantly changing because the world (social) is changing. To wholly doubtone's self is to go into deep despair of one's courage.To doubt the world is to go into deep arrogance.
The highest doubt is of the existence of the God, the power that makes the world and us one. Doubt of God is comprehensive; to think of a new hypothesis of your own that would underlie a creative act, or certainly to doubt our ability to be creative, to doubt our ability to keep peace with our neighbor and doubtthe good will of the other fellow to keep peace with us - all of this is to doubt God.
9.In sum, doubt has the purpose of settling the issues you lovedAre you in love (either with another, or with some cause), and can you make others love you?
People always think as though their thought rules the world.It doesn't. It always is mediated through this very great filter; (doubt).(p.25)
10.Constant doubters are just as extreme as the worst tyrants.Scientists who cannot relate to people, who treat everything and everyone as a "thing" are anexample.
Love is a compound of total doubt and total bliss, of the agreeable and disagreeable, of slavery and freedom.Love is the sum of all emotions. To be so split in mind and body, temporarily, is normal. Doubt and to analysis are permissible intermediaries, temporary suspensions of one's unity.
We must doubt as part of the process of growing from one stage to another in our lives. To do this is against the grain of our lives; it reconciles our present or former beliefs with what we must (or are about) to become.
...when you are really desperate.When your doubt hits you hard, then you must know that this is nothing but life itself appearing to you from its two aspects of life lived and life to come.And both have to find their lawyer inside of you, their advocate.
As long as you know it, then you can doubt anything.Something is right formerly, and something has to be right tomorrow.That's your real question. (p.28,29)
11.Thus, fruitful doubting is the process of change, at that crucial time of before and after, when our sense of identity disappears in the sense of a realization that we can no longer be what we were, but are not yet what we must become. It is the eternal process in all lives of new beginnings, which bring on new endings, of the Phoenix rising from the ashes, of resurrection and death, of our lives beginning all over again.
Lecture - 8
Doubt - the beginning of maturity and the 5th commandment for thought:
1/8The doubter is always a protester and a sufferer. To doubt means to stick one's neck out, and this is especially difficult when one doubts commonly held values.To doubt is to take exception to some rule. To rule means to put the rule before the exception. Thus, to teach is both to doubt and to rule at different times.
2.The doubter can never succeed unless he/she learns to stand alone, to become an exception to the rule.
The doubter can never succeed in disabusing another of his strongly held ideas. For example, one could prove logically that a person (say a humanist) never practices humanism, but rather, lives by faith, love, and hope- but he will never admit this.
The humanist believes he is an "independent" thinker, self-made, and that dialogue benefits (circulates) for others, but not himself. (p.4) He tends to claim that all people are "good," that criminal acts are accidents of a situation; he denies evil in the world."We are all very evil...It's better to admit it." (p.7)
3.Persons who do not doubt their own thoughts at times, do not really wish to know the truth. ERH claims that most people hate the truth because it is often too painful. Likewise, the humanist also does not really seek the truth; no one does who is not a doubter of his own most coveted values.
We all carry doubts about ourselves inside us, if we will only admit it.We suffer shame, bashfulness, hypocrisy, fear, and vanity inside ourselves.THE ONLY TIME WE ACT TRULY AS INDIVIDUALS IS WHEN WE OVERTHROW THE RULES AROUND US AND RISK STANDING UP TO TRADITION. p.9In this instance, one declines to repeat what others do.
We do not exist (mentally) when we are born, we only become individuals in our own right when we begin to doubt conventions.
4.To doubt truth, then, is also to possibly learn by experience that our doubts were wrong, reinforcing a traditional truth.This step is necessary for true learning, of course. For example,one may practice monogamy out of habit, but only when one will stand up and declare, from practice, that it better fulfills life, will the practice be reinstituted every generation. To doubt truth in this way is not a negative, but rather a positive.One has demonstrated ability to learn and change with experience.
5.The doubter, by taking upon himself the risk of sinning, also acquires the first capacity for becoming a saint. How to transform sin into sanctityis your and my problem. (p.11,12)
For instance, to elope and live together without legal recognition may break the law; but then, if the marriage lasts 40 or 50 years a law has been reestablished. In this instance the man may say to the girl's parents, "I eloped with your girl because you are just excessively strict, and we have to start a new life." He may not be believed today, but will be tomorrow.
6. I believe so that I may understand. (Anselm)
All great advances in life originate with doubters who are willing to live by their doubts, to say "I believe."And this is to risk being a sinner. THIS IS WHY CHRISTIANITY ALLOWS REDEMPTION.To be redeemed is to doubtthe reason of advancing our knowledge and our models for behavior. To realize guilt.
To live this way is to become a person, an individual, to achieve a step in developing one's soul, to acquire personal power in the process of renewing our life. This type of action renews the community as well, in the long run.
7.We are given life by our community.We first take orders from our parents, and our older brothers and sisters, and from authorities in the community.To be told is not acting in the first person singular, it is the second person singular.Only when we begin to doubt do we act in the first person.
We are, in this sense, acting as stages of grammar; to accept a command, "you" or "thee," is second person. To doubt is first person, we say then "I", believe.
8.Physical pain is abnormal and we avoid it, but mental suffering is a basic part of life that must be tolerated.All great inventors and thinkers have suffered the lag between the advancement of their new beliefs and the acceptance thereof. This is a gestation period for the community, as necessary as the wintering seed in the ground before spring flowering.ALL TRUE ADVANCES IN THOUGHT REQUIRE THIS TYPE OF SACRIFICE.
9.Time-span!There is a long time between being a "you" and acquiring the power to say "I."There is a long time between being a student and a teacher, between listening to authority and being an authority.In mental life, the future always imposes itself on the present, driving the present in a basic way. We will not always (or should not always) be what we are at this moment.We should strive to become a future better person. The present and future are thus always in tension. If one lives one's life only following the thinking of others,never doubting, one does not create a real future for himself. One remains spiritually stagnant.
Lecture-9
1/9People, with rare exceptions, don't want to see or tell the truth for whatever the reason, weakness, or unwillingness to face the pain. We often know, down deep what is wrong with ourselves, but we don't face up to it. No longer does the confessional seem to serve the purpose of having us face up to it. THE POINT IS THAT IT TAKES GREAT MORAL COURAGE TO SEEK AND FACE THE TRUTH AND ACT ON IT WHEN APPROPRIATE.
There are many "enablers" to our blindness, psychoanalysts, palmists, graphologists, ministers, bar-tenders all help us avoid the truth, or make money off our willingness avoid it.
2.What is the sequence of public acceptance and why is doubtingso painful?1) The doubter is usually thought a fool, 2) others may say, "He didn't discover it, someone else did" (reminds us of the adage, "No one is a prophet in his own land," and 3) eventually others believe: "I knew it all along, there's nothing new in that idea." In other words, one is not taken seriously, or one is plagiarized, or denied originality.One only rarely gets credit for one'soriginality.
3.One must not mistake "newness" for significance.It is important to say something that is true, that is important in some context, and to say it for the first time.It may be important to tell one's best friend, even, that he has bad breath.But one must do it correctly, in the right context and at the right time (when he is willing to listen).It is the same in proposing to a girl, or seeking a job, or attempting to influence the group.
4.Once one gains a reputation as a listener, as a thinker, and as a speaker of the truth, one begins to mature and become influential.One gains the reputation of rising above mere opinion.And one must also be willing to be quoted. "The whole difference between the devil and God is only this: that when you speak divinely, you are ready to be quoted." (p.5)
5.Other facets of promulgating circulation of useful thought: OF RULING AND TEACHING.Veracity and verification.Veracity means one is willing to be quoted, willing to stand behind one's statements. Verification comes with experience, with applying and testing the usefulness of an idea. Both are necessary in order to earn the right to be listened to and taken seriously.
Thus, truth splits into an subjective element (veracity), and an objective one (verification).
At times, one may come to believe something perhaps intuitively or believe that something must become truth, such as honesty. One may be willing to live the idea, and stand behind his words, but not have time to verify, leaving that to others.THE POINT IS, TO ESTABLISH TRUTH AND PROGRESS IN THE COMMUNITY ALL THREE STEPS MUST BE TAKEN, to speak out and have others to listen, to stand behind one's speech, and finally to subject it to verification.
6.IT IS CRUCIAL TO UNDERSTAND THAT ALL TRUTHS FROM THE PAST MUST BE REINVENTED BY US ALL IN THE COURSE OF OUR MATURING.Thus, one must doubt the old truths, to re-establish them, or to prove them inoperable at some given point in time.Also, in the process of renewing old truths,meaning is given to them throughliving them out, being skeptical, and re-establishing their validity.One may believe one has discovered a new truth, only later to discover it is out of the past. This is often the process of renewal.
7.One must not refrain from speaking out something that is perhaps not understandable to the listener, if it is the truth.The listener must receive the truth, then learn its meaning.
We are all children throughout our lives, in the sense of having to constantly learn something new that we had not known before.One cannot begin this learning process by only dwelling on what the "child" or novice might understand.It is essential in the learning process to initially take new information on faith, follow it (assuming the speaker is valid or authoritative), and then verify it when possible.
And no member of any one age can afford to mask his own style, his own way of thinking by hiding it from the others.It is impossible to let the child believe that the parents just believe like the child.And it is impossible for the parents to let the child know that it is not allowed to think like a child. (p.13)
8.The child is not prepared to doubt, and must not be led to believe doubting acceptable.Only upon maturity does one become capable of doubting usefully. Anyone might doubt arbitrarily, stupidly, or destructively.That is not real doubting, it is mere ego operating.
Emotional states, such as doubt, or cynicism, or obedience or loyalty should not be exaggerated.They are passing moods and only partly related to finding truth.
You begin to be a person when you admit inside yourself this great ambition to understand what you have been told, which is very difficult; to speak up when it doesn't seem to be true; and to verify the two things - that which you have kept, and that which you have found, in your own application to your own business...p.15
9.Education and language - carriers of the spirit
Education is enormously expensive in any context, at any age.The community cannot afford to educate us for our own personal use per se. It is assumed therefore that we are thus obligated to receive and circulate our thought for the benefit of the community.
It is important to distinguish between "speaking" and "talk."We talk all throughout the day, about weather, about chores, etc. To speak is to need to influence others on some significant issue, to commit one's self on some issue (i.e. marriage, or in giving evidence.)Only much more occasionally do we truly speak by this definition, as compared to mere talking. Talk is less than speech!
"When the president of the United States says to Russia, `We'll go to Berlin,' he speaks.In the mean time, we all have talked about the possibilities about the encounter with the Russians. (p.22)
"As long as you think that your thought is just your private business, you don't see this wonderful universe of the mind in which at every moment there is either right teaching or wrong teaching.Right ruling, or wrong ruling.And your talk is the premeditation to replace anything wrong in the teaching and ruling of the world by the right.That's why it is so important that you should see that your preparation for the mind -- mental life at this moment leads into some stream that is streaming all the time, because all the time the world is ruled and taught.There's no cessation. You are the contributory stream, but you are brought up to this terrible fiction that what you think is your private business, and that it has no consequences." (p.23)
10. "Whether you decide you are (in a) blind alley (in your thoughts), or whether you decide that the world is waiting to be refreshed by your more correct and more recent, more vigorous speech makes all the difference for the treatment --for the way you will treat your own mind.If it is all just within this skull of yours, immured, then you have no reason to make any effort...If it is only your private property, then the children only must be kept happy.But if learning, as I told you, is the promise of your one day teaching, then you have to learn something. (p.23)
11.Just as our umbilical cord at pre-birth connects us with our physical heritage, our mind is an umbilical cord to the mental life of the community. Ultimately, we should strive to become a teacher and ruler in the most general sense (even of a small group, or of our household), and this "umbilical cord" to the community spirit is maintained. Thought is circulated to preserve the vital spirit of the community, just as our blood circulated to vitalize our physical bodies.
12.We believe that to have a mind and use it is a natural phenomenon.IT ISN'T. WE DON'T NEED LANGUAGE IN THE COMPLEX SENSE TO SURVIVE PHYSICALLY AS ANIMALS DO. WE COULD GET ALONG WITH GRUNTS AND PURRING.BUT FOR HUMANKIND TO PROGRESS MEANS THAT IT BECOMES SUPER-NATURAL, BEYOND NATURE, LEARNING FROM PAST GENERATIONS AND PASSING ON OUR KNOWLEDGE.THAT CAN ONLY BE DONE THROUGH THE SPIRIT AND THOUGHT, THROUGH SPEECH AND ITS CIRCULATION, IS THE ONLY METHOD BY WHICH WE BECOME HUMAN, "SUPERNATURAL."
13.Referring to the difference between speech and talk, we can only truly speak and expect to be listened to when the spirit moves us, which is to say, not all the time.
14.Different divisions of labor means different roles in the community.The artist is the eternal child,describing his/her emotional response to experience of the world as he finds it. He functions in the present always, but not in the future. Artists are thus untiringly plastic. They are impressed by the miraculousness of the world, accepting it as is.
The soldier is untiringly protesting, resisting, contradicting and thus untiringly hard in his attempt to change the world. The priest attempts to overcome prejudices (inflexible attitudes), the plastic nature of artists,or the hard boiled rigidity of the soldier. He cares not whether what he uses is old or new. Old or new makes no difference. Prejudice is the opposite; it takes the same approach constantly. In the circulation of thought, one must see the appropriate method at the appropriate time.
15.(RF - This notion of the priest, the soldier, and artist represents condensations of not ten but what he later expanded into twelve "commandments" or "tones of the spirit" by 1961. What he called the artist represented the four qualities descriptive of both childhood and one's behavior when entering a new field. In both instances one is the novice, where the role is to listen, read, learn, and play (experiment). Then in the next stage where "idea" is merged with action; this then is what he calls the role of the soldier here, the fighter. This role combines the actions of doubter, critic, protester, and sufferer.
Finally he defines the role of "priest," to combine the roles of leader or legislator, teacher, prophet, and bestower.The three primary roles then represent the main functions in the circulation of thought and spirit. Of course, any thinking person at one time or another participates in all 12 functions, but the primary roles are the most emphasized by these persons.That is, the beginning stage of new thought (represented by the image of the child), the active stage of putting into practice in the community (the adult stage) and the final stage of "elder.")
...everybody who wants to obey God's will must find out what in his own good time is needed most.At this moment I think in this country teaching is needed, and saintliness is needed, much more than politicians. (p.31)
16.Finally ERH points out that, at every moment of life there is some activity that requires mentality and action. At each time when a decision needs to be made, someone's idea must be used, someone must lead, must speak out, must educate, must fight. In the right sequence of actions, the 10 commandments are to be employed. THERE IS NEVER A VACUUM.
Lecture - 10
1/10The meaning of significant acts is not visible or apparent except in retrospect. This is one reason why most TV and especially sensationalism is so devoid of meaning, so inconsequential. Important decisions are identified by being followed up through sustained actions that demonstrate that meaning.Thought by itself is impotent.
"Jesus was invisible before he was resurrected."
2.In a like way, differences in Christian sects are inconsequential, what is important is, "does humankind have a future."Catholic, Protestant, Fundamentalist notwithstanding. The seed of potential is sown in the dark inside of the spirit, and only becomes known (outside) in time.
Here again he supports the notion that there is no heaven separate from earth. "God created one world only."
Values can only be represented by those who have gone before us; only looking back can we discern their meaning. TRUTH AND OTHER ABSTRACTIONS MUST BE EMBODIED IN CONCRETE EXPERIENCE - OTHERWISE THERE IS NO UNDERSTANDING.
Goodness is the quality of a man, or of a woman, or of a human being.Truthfulness, the same. Otherwise we don't know what it is...Whenever you use an adjective, it has to be derived from a noun.And the noun is a living (character). And we have nothing else to go by. (p.7)
3.The history of our schools, colleges and universities is based on the idea of regenerating the 10 commandments of learning, on the notion that teachers must beget students and all values must have forbearers. [Dartmouth is "Greek" in spirit because students live together, their associations based on an unintellectual communion. The University of Paris and others where students do not live in have communionbased only on the intellectual.
Doubt, the 5th commandment, is the basis for all higher learning. Thus, the 10 commandments (later to be called "the 12 tones of the spirit" are the basis for educating the population. (pp.8-10)
4.The evolution of new thought goes through three stages.Stage 1 of cycle: the promulgator of a new idea stands alone, nobody to back him up. Socrates is put to death, Nietzsche goes insane because nobody understood their new thought. This is the plight of all original thinkers. Stage 2, a small group makes a science of the idea (organizes it). Stage 3, the idea becomes commonplace, the science is accepted and finds its way into examinations. (p.13)
So the cycle of new ideas, first, one, next a few, next many, and finally commonplace (all).This cycle ERH asserts is universal for all new thought. For example, the Reformation was the point when theology became commonplace, the Bible was translated into the vernacular."To have, to begin a new cycle takes the whole life of a person..." (p.17)
5.In the next few pages ERH shows how different stages of the cycle are emphasized by the culture of four countries. In France the individual (expert) is venerated, in Germany the small group of experts (scholars). In England learning (for the elite) is venerated, and in America, the single genius, the few scholars, and education is assumed to be within reach of everyone (and therefore none are venerated. In each of these countries, the (select) cannot sin.(Except in America, where only the athletic hero,or man-in-the-street cannot sin.) These values reflect to a great extent the mental life in each of these four cultures.
6.The so called "Western" countries are defined less by geographic boundaries, but rather a spiritual life - which incidentally is in danger of extinction. This is because no one country embraces the whole cycle. p.24All cultures attempt to achieve life everlasting, but the vital circulation of thought in Western Society is in danger because each of the four countries specializes and therefore isolates itself from the complete process of the regeneration of thought.
Lecture - 11
1/11These stages must be carried out in sequence to define a completeness by which the progress of thinking can be achieved.Any break in the chain precludes growth.The danger in these countries is that they tend to venerate only one part of the chain. In America little is venerated but the common man, and this results in little respect for genius, scholarship, or education. Observe, for instance, the lack of respect teachers receive and how poorly public schools are funded.
2.We are called to action either by someone else, or by self-determination. By listening to and obeying either commands from others, or commands from inside us.Both are valid, but we must be sensitive to which we are doing and which the community needs.
The phrase "thank you" means someone else has done something for me, something I need and cannot do without. This illustrates our own thinking comes from outside us at times, producing "electricity in the brain."Our independence is not an independence from others, but an independence to think, to be creative.
3.The point being that there are higher powers which may determine what we do, as opposed to our own will, higher powers being a calling, an authority, leadership, inspiration, intuition.
4.During the next several pages ERH provides numerous examples of the cultural traits of French, German, English, and Americans trapped in their narrow view of their culture as described above.
He applauds these differences, BUT WARNS, no one stage is complete in itself, and the fullness of life can only be realized where there exists an opportunity to realize the power of all. Example, physicists in Europe theorized about automobiles, while Ford made cars for "everyman."No one in Europe thought of that!It is only the sum of the creativity--
The connection of the four countries that have produced what you call "Western Civilization." (p.16)
And each country seems blind to the fact that its view of life is not universal, but only a part of the larger system. (p.18)
5.There is a time factor crucial to understanding the stages.It takes time for each stage to unfold. The more people to be influenced for change, the longer the time needed."It takes 30 years to change a college,"or perhaps a lifetime of one person.
Lecture - 12
1/12To illustrate the "insane veneration" of individualism in America, of everybody for himself, and few ever acting for the community ERH cites the phenomenon of McCarthyism. Example, the Republican party in Wisconsin could not do anything about McCarthy (during the l950's), although everyone thought he was a scoundrel. In England, the elite would never have allowed such individualism.
MAJORITY RULE, as in America (if and when practiced) is open to gross errors
because the majority is fickle and can change from one week to the next. Majority rule is impossible.
2.The basic principle working for minority rule is that only a minority of some type is willing to sacrifice, and the spirit of sacrifice is necessary to solve the difficult problems of society and social change. .
3.HOW DO WE LEARN TO APPRECIATE THE POSITIVE VALUE OF IDEAS OF OTHER GROUPS AND THEREFORE LEARN BY SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US? Obviously this is a significant need for all cultures.
One must live under the influence of another point of view for some time in order to get a feel for its advantages and disadvantages.Then and only then can one devise a system that includes the strengths of all.
4.ERH likens a decline in thought to "soil erosion" in wasteful farming.He calls it "soul erosion," or mind erosion.To live only for one's self would orient us to attend to our momentary passions, an attitude which is not only selfish, but destroys the future.Any future must rise with a community spirit, otherwise there is anarchy. Thus, the attitude venerating the"commonness" of the common thinker only is bound to destroy the community.
5.The phrase "thank you" means someone else has done something for me that I need and that cannot do without.What illuminates our own thinking comes from outside us, producing the "electricity of the brain" (inspiration).Our independence is not an independence from others, but an independence to think, to be creative.
6.Education, language, and a community at peace:
Education is a public activity, to prepare students to participate in the community, which is to say, to sacrifice for the community!The community does not exist to make people independent or happy, it is the other way around. And happiness, or a sense of fulfillment, comes as a side effect.
Community peace is brought about by a cooperative spirit.Cooperation and participation in the community in turn is brought about by a mutual respect for the integrity (sacredness) of language.
7.Aware, intelligent, sensitive people can see that the common occurrence in the community is that most of the time its condition goes from better to worse. It is the great thinkers, the prophets who are willing to act on their knowledge and who to sacrifice, who to endow future communities with a regenerative spirit,who are able to turn this situation around.
Lecture - 13
1/13The idea goal for Dartmouth College, after four years, is to know what to do, how to act, and what to read, "...and how to keep going with your reading, because it's a long life." (p.7)Reading cannot be accidental (this is the fourth level or commandment).
2.It is too easy to allow ourselves to drift in some backwater of life, spiritually undeveloped.Sin is embedded in an unwillingness to participate in the community. One must learn to identify the "type of waters they swim in."Swimming (living) in brackish, shallow, or putrid or stagnant water suffocates; one is cut from the stream of vital life.
ERH claims we are the best informed people in the world, but we lack wisdom about the meaning of that information. We lack basic knowledge, and most of all, have not been taught the 10 COMMANDMENTS OF THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT.
3.Movements rise and fall. We must be aware of these pulses of human endeavor.
The same fact can strike us in four ways, as a curiosity, as presenting hard work for us, as a need for education, or as a new enthusiasm and inspiration.
"What I owe you, is to tell you that your own life must bestride all four of these dimensions." (p.18)
4.Primary Dimensions of Thought
The life in the community involves three basic dimensions: theology (unifying our thought), philosophy (ordering our thought), and sociology (acting on our thought). These questions in antiquity were represented by plurality, many gods, many worlds, and many peoples.TODAY (and since 1100) we accept the notion that there is one god (or none), one world (that is, one science for describing it) and one humankind. (p.18,19)
The latter (one mankind) is not commonly resolved yet, but we in this country tend to believe that the characteristics of all people are the same.
The "believer" says there is one God and he looks down on me, the Atheist says, "I look down on god, I create god from my rationalism."
WE WILL NEVER HAVE A SCIENCE OF SOCIETY UNLESS WE CAN SAY ONE GOD, ONE WORLD, ONE HUMANKIND. p.20
5.Anselm founded the science of theology, reached, not by faith alone, but also by logic. (p.22,23) Abelard wrote the first book on theology.The revolutionary idea was that knowledge of God could be achieved outside the "faith."
The ancient gods of humanity were inventions of mankind.
Anselm started the new theology by saying that one living God of Christianity was so much alive that He always was greater than any concept of God developed by any of the believers so far; that the first statement of God, or about God in theology therefore had to be: God is greater than your concept of God. (p.25)
He concluded this because all people who came to confessionwere sinners and needed absolution in order to remain functional in the community.The argument is:
that if a man has the courage to be -- that is, to accept his own follies and weaknesses -- he will find that he can be forgiven, but he has to accept them.He cannot say, "I am faultless." And he cannot say, "God is narrow."He has to admit the two paradoxes of the Anselmian theology: that your sins are as scarlet red, and that God is greater than all mind can register about His judicial, so to speak, capacity, and His mercy." (p.26)
6.In other words, the beginning point of this logic is that God is a dynamic being which is always greater than your ability to understand experience.
The difference between theology and religion can be described this way: Anyone who has lived 20 years, who has been cared for, loved, taught language, passed examinations, been spoken to (given orders), has believed (in the existence of the world, of society, and of love).He has believed for 20 years. THAT'S RELIGION.
"It's your religion that a teacher in Dartmouth College is not going to cheat you, or to do you special harm, or disqualify you for the future.That's all faith." (p.28,29)
Theology then is the science of those values we are willing to sacrifice for. There are many religions, some weak, some incomplete, some non-regenerative. Science is a religion to many, as are love, lust, money, or power.
Lecture - 14
Principles of Science and Christian Theology
1/14Anselm, Abelard, and Thomas Aquinas heraldeda new age, they changed the meaning of theology from a science of the gods, to a knowledge of one living God. The difference is fundamental because it meant a change from the gods as abstractions, to a God which was manifest through human behavior; this in turn meant that the state of society was to be controlled by humans. This knowledge was brought about by analyzing our doubts about ourselves.Doubt, despair, despondency has enlarged our vision of God. p.2
2.It is not possible to love all people, as we are admonished to do in a democracy.Many people have closed themselves to listening and learning how to be humane contributors to the community.
...the males in this country have lost the integrity of their minds.The women have lost the integrity of their bodies, and they (both men and women) go fumbling on.They seemingly are alive, but they aren't alive, because the greatest powers that bind them into the process of the human spirit is already killed, already dead.Absolutely dead.They seem to live, but they live like weeds.They live from birth to death, but who cares?They are burdens on the community. (p.3)
They all have a religion (one's religion is whatever one will sacrifice for), but these chosen religions are "second rate,"weak, inadequate, or the religions of the devil. They destroy the regenerative spirit of the community). IN SHORT, THEY ARE RELIGIONS THAT PUT THE CREATIVE PART OF ONE'S SPIRIT FOR SALE.Note how, for instance, the values of commerce determine so many major decisions, especially political decisions.
Examples: resistance to raising the minimum wage because it "costs too much," we can't afford clean air, or water because it costs too much; destroying the living environment for wild animals is justified because it creates jobs; we will not tax ourselves to repair schools, roads, bridges, or to enforce laws, or protect our national parks.We are the richest country in the world, but we make many judgements on the basis of dollar value RATHER THAN WHAT WILL CREATE A BETTER FUTURE FOR THE COMMUNITY.
The religion of commerce seems to dominate in this and other countries.It is this type of religion to which ERH refers.
As soon as he (any man) begins to think that the creative part of you and me, is for sale, and he treats me as somebody who can be bribed...anybody who declines to call a spade a "spade" and says all men are venial, all men are for sale, everybody can be talked into anything -- he is the devil. (p.4)
3.Our Will to Power
ERH goes on to suggest that the plumber needs power to fashion a steel pipe, or the leader to govern needs power, but the power of the spirit required to lead any group into the future comes from other things.Any elected official who wants to be elected to acquire power should be voted out of office.
Power without function and accountability always leads to monopolies and dictatorships.
The religious experience begins with the prayer, "Thy will be done" and not "My will be done."The prayer of the man who seeks power is, "Give me that, so that I can do my will." (p.7)
4.You are your mother's son.You are your father's son. You are your children's future father and begetter....These are the things that mold your will.You must learn what to will. (p.7)
Power varies. In one situation you will and should have power, in another, not. Power can disappear at a moment's notice . Danger increases power, and dictators are necessary in emergencies. No rule follows in all situations.
5.Other aspects of our experience: at times we are right and our will should be done, we are in tune with the "divine," and superior to a situation.At others we are wrong and need to be opposed as inferior to a situation.
Religion is the way in which you split yourself into service, or obedience, or suffering, or passivity, and acceptance of what comes to you, and obstinacy, and upheaval, and rebellion.This religion every man has...Where is God? Partly He's in us, partly He's against us.
Some experience is not what it seems to be; natural science centers around this type of experience, that nothing is what it seems in the world of things. All natural science looks behind appearances.
6.The point ERHis driving at is that when any action functions properly we need no theories, we just accept it for what it produces.But the moment things go wrong, we need theories to help us take action to correct (as far as possible) phenomena, or at least understand them better.The weather, for instance."Science is always the answer to an experience of incompetency. Religion, as long as it functions, doesn't need theology." (p.11)
7.Science begins with prophets of doom. Marx predicted the end of free enterprize. And Republicans, terrified, especially after the 1929 crash, have made the state of the economy in the US into a collective enterprise.Therefore we no longer have free, private enterprize in this country, we have collective enterprize. Economics is a questionable science!
Prophets of doom serve the purpose of warning society, of rendering it capable of inoculating itself against the danger.This is why we control inflation so closely.THERE CAN BE NO SCIENCE OF SOCIETY THAT CAN'T PREDICT ITS OWN.In Biblical terms:
What the Bible always says: they have ears and can't hear; they have eyes and can't see.All Americans have eyes and can't see at this moment....You boast of its statistics, of its productivity, of its wealth, of its standard of living. Don't you see its weaknesses? (p.18)
ERH asserts in many essays that at present there is no "recognized" science of society. Science in any field demonstrates its viability when it shows it can cope with any crisis. (p.12)
You may have a science of politics when the first sentence of this politics book will read, "All societies come to the end of their rope.There is no state that will not be superseded by another state."(p.14)
When we foresee downfalls of societies it means we might prevent it from happening. So science is a vaccination against defeat.
8.It was the breakdown of the church, a realization of its weaknesses that created a science of theology.What was the doubt in the year 1100 which motivated the creation of theology?A realization that man was so weak that no God would tolerate him.Therefore the existence of God was thrown into doubt. Theology is useful only as long as mankind despairs of itself.Psychoanalysis has been a substitute for theology only for the last 60 years."...psychoanalysis is the negative aspect of theology with the answer, "There is no answer; there is no God."(p.21)
9.Any science always needs three persons, or stages to be created: 1) the person who cries out passionately, "THERE IS A PROBLEM, I AM IN DESPAIR, I CAN'T STAND IT ANY LONGER." 2) The person who hears the cry and comforts him, and cries out in turn for help. "Where is the expert?"3) Then comes that endeavor of the human spirit to inform the comforter and give him the competent answer for the special despair.These stages apply to all sciences;"...the growing forest, the forester on the spot, and the science of forestry." (p.23)or in medicine, thepatient, the doctor, and the medical researcher for the disease.
And in church, the minister does not have to know theology as long as he/she is successful in helping members of the congregation. But when things break down, the theologian (theoretician) is to be called in.
The church lived happily without theology for 900 years, then its load of contradictions began to break it down, causing doubts.The whole history of Christianity, ERH asserts, is rife with contradictions. There are four Gospels and they all contradict each other.ONLY CHRISTIANITY ADMITS TO THIS CONDITION. No other religion has more than one Gospel, not Chinese, not Japanese, or Islam.
10.Thus, from the Bible, "the letter killeth." (Our spoken contradictions). And therefore we must find the common spirit among these contradictions. (p.27,8)
ERH eloquently describes how this "Christian religion of despair" is a religion of progress, of creating a future by way of understanding the common denominators of the exceptions to the rules. For instance, one cannot protect one's children at the expense of other children in the community. One must find balance. As situations change, rules change. Scientific principles change as new evidence requires. But this does not destroy science, because it is the spirit of the scientists that persists.In a like way, principles of a social order will change; what was right yesterday is not right today or will not be tomorrow.It is the love of people, a faith in their spirit that will build on changes.Thus, science and faith are not contradictory, they require each other; the scientists has faith in his method even though he knows that today's theories will be disproven tomorrow.
11.Abelard was the first to apply this concept in Christianity; he discovered the principle of scientific progress.One makes progress by forgetting (setting aside) what has been learned,that is no longer relevant.
In this sense, any scientist must be willing to dismiss the theories of his own time if evidence and his logic indicates this must be done to understand some new event.
LECTURE - 15
1/15The many contradictions between different groups in the Catholic church at the turn of the first millennium motivated Abelard and Anselm (of Canterbury) to organize the many "ideas" about Catholicism in these groups into some unity. In other words, create a scienceor theology to unify church doctrine. WHAT CAME OUT OF THIS WAS THE UNIVERSITIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
2.Whenever there exists contradictions between different units of any practice, or generally speaking, whenever contradictory data appears in any field, it means that present theories are inadequate to explain those contradictions.THIS MEANS THAT A NEW, MORE BROAD FRAMEWORK OR THEORY NEEDS TO BE DEVELOPED TO UNIFY AND THEREFORE EXPLAIN THOSE CONTRADICTIONS - rendering them compatible. Such a new framework exceeds the previous conceptions.A classic example of this in modern science would be Einstein's new theory of relativity, which assumed a new conception of the universe.
The primary effect of such new thinking is to indicate what, of the old theories, explains only unique events, and what is to be retained as generalized knowledge.
3.This is precisely what happened in the Catholic church.That which was previously "known" had to be replaced by what was presently unknown.
Obviously, the pioneers in this process are always thought to be crazy or heretics, regardless of the field of study.
The man who's not polite, who is tough, and gruesome, and quarrelsome, is probably the man who has the real ideas. (p.3)
The first principle of new thinking is:
Progress is done at the risk of abandonment, abandon the old securities.You cannot have progress without sacrificing safety. (p.5)
The second is the principle of higher logic. Relativity and calculus in mathematics represent such jumps in logic.
4.Such a jump in the Catholic church at this time (1100) began with an attack on the logic of the Aristotelian syllogism: all men are mortals, and Socrates is mortal; therefore he must die.THE NEW TWIST WAS TO RAISE THE QUESTION, "What about the fact that Socrates' spirit didn't die?"But physically he is dead!
THIS IS THE MEAT OF PARADOX, AND WHEN THIS OCCURS THE CONTRADICTION BECOMES IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND.Socrates is both dead and alive.Reconciling such a paradox creates new and important insight into our understanding of experience.Both statements are true, but seem to contradict. We both love mankind and hate mankind. The soldier must kill the enemy, and also be compassionate toward him. (International code speaks against shooting prisoners of war.) In this example, the solder is asked also act like a civilian at the same time. Individually, we are sinners and saints at the same time.
5.ERH points out that we can grow only if we can understand such paradox in social science. "This is Abelard's discovery, that the same thing may be true and not true at the same time....A university,...is a place where at the same time opposite truths are taught on the same subject." (p.10)
6.Any action that is to be fruitful can only function when one point of view as to method is employed.One point of view at a time.As is indicated above, life is never so simple that one rule will apply at any given situation. Therefore, when several methods or points of view prevail, only one can be used at a time.
We can conclude also that any single point of view is enriched (rendered more understandable) when one is conscious of an opposing view. Plato calls for Aristotle, conservatism calls for liberalism (no change calls for change). THIS, ERH CALLS HIGHER LOGIC. p.11
We know that it is the heart of life, that our minds are so tyrannical, so absolutist, that the mind must be opposed by mind.
It is no merit to have unanimity in mental cases.The hearts must be united, and the minds must oppose each other...Your heart must be united, but not your mind.
You remember...that soul and mind are totally different. Here you discover the practical need for dialectics,...One person saying, "This illness comes from this reason," and the other saying the very opposite.And they must not stone each other, but they must invite opposition in the mind.As long as their souls remain united...The soul is one, the heart one.The hearts of man must remain one. (p.12)
Lecture - 16
1.To become human, to rise above the purely animal state, we must attempt to find a true conception of the world, and of our experience.One early step in this process is distinguishing the characteristics of phenomena so that we can find some modicum of order to understand our experience.Otherwise we end up with any number of mental complexes and frustrations that create barriers to any fulfilling life.
Classification is fundamental to the process of "ordering." The most fundamental events in our lives are our own nature, the nature of things, and the nature of the powers that control nature. Another way of putting these questions would be, the nature of humankind, of things, and of God.The second step is to identify not only general characteristics but also uniqueness of events, and to ascertain the meaning of each as related to our daily decision making. For instance, what are the universal qualities of all humans, and what is unique about Abraham Lincoln, orJimmy Smith; what do we carry into the future and how do we interpret events in the present?
To classify "rightly" is always controversial, but controversy, when entered into in the spirit of finding truth, is the essential key to growth and change. All important issues are controversial by definition until some modicum of agreement settles the issue (at least for a time).
2.The true university must bring out the opposing (controversial) logic to any problem.We progress only when, confronted with powerful, convincing logic and evidence against our own beliefs, we are willing to renounce those principleswe hold to be most obvious. This is accomplished in a spirit of acceding to a "voluntary ignorance." Willingness to doubt is crucial for finding truth.
For example, when Max Planck in 1900 said there was no gradual increase in quantity, he opposed common logic. His opposing view had never been investigated before,but "quanta" bunches are now commonly accepted as true. He developed a higher logic to explain both apparent gradual increase and quantum increases in energy.
3.We must constantly remind ourselves that growth comes only with our capability to change, to become free of our own out-dated dogmatism and prejudices. A celebration of Easter is the celebration of the notion of the ability to change, to be reborn.
Those who do not dare to disagree with the opinions of the majority have no hope in achieving progress..."The higher logic consists of a higher step than that of the syllogism. In a true university, paradoxical truth must be taught, for it is only by this method that progress can take place."(pp. 5,6)
"...By abandoning the old securities and sacrificing safety, the new principles can be brought forth...Each side (in a debate) is convinced that it is wholly right and denies the existence of a grain of truth in the opposing argument.The result is a distortion of truth by each side....Disagreement is the heart of university life...Abelard discovered the same thing can be true and not true at the same time. (p.6)
The essence of this insight is thatevents may possess two apparently opposing qualities, the general and the particular.
4.Accurate classification is necessary in order to determine cause and effect. For instance, the French revolution represented the secularization of the University of Paris, which had begun as a Christian institution. The revolution was a "religious event, more than a political event." (p.11-16)This secularization indicated a major shift in thinking in France at the time.
5.We often go astray in our thinking by over-generalizing which leaves us at best with only half-truths. Paradox occurs when we find contradictions in our explanations of events. Paradox then signals the need for some higher truth that will render opposing theories compatible.For instance, before 1950 the properties of light were seen to have two distinct properties, with no single theory rendering one compatible with the other.Eventually the broader theory evolved, integrating the two.
The Trinity is another paradox of two opposing, simultaneous truths so that at each moment we must think and act with three time-frames in mind -past, present, and future.
The Romans fought for their civil peace.And Christ fought for the future...the Jews represented the holy past...The university is an image of Christianity, of this paradox that the Father is right, and the Son is right, and the Holy Spirit is right, although we think they speak different truths. (p.7)
The Jews were with the Father, and therefore the Son is blasphemous.The Christians said they were with both Father and Son. And the Romans wanted civil peace in the present. "Not the Holy Spirit, but the good spirit of the Rotary Club" (i.e. some agreement that would maintain civil peace). All sides are right. That we must attempt to consider all three time frames in making significant decisions is the lesson. In practice, one or another may need to be emphasized, depending upon the situation. But establishing a unity (peace) across time is essential to progress.
Antigone's situation is the same, i.e. both Antigone and Creon are right. ERH goes on to describe how the University of Paris was begun by Abelard in 1170 and incorporated in 1180. This institutionalization cast it into the political arena, and this in turn created a bureaucrat to whom Abelard must report. Abelard however, represented another school of thought opposing the government authority (Bishop of Paris). The paradox is, of course, that we must have stability in our thinking, yet be willing to doubt and change. In each of these cases, higher principles are to be found that unified the opposing authorities.
THIS WAS THE MAJOR CONTRIBUTION OF THE MEDIEVAL PRINCIPLE, that progress is established by allowing for opposing points of view. The University of Paris was the first formal manifestation of this new idea in the church.
6.The principle was not to allow anyone to hold a vested interest in his own view to the exclusion of other views. Thus, at the University of Paris, the archbishop was a life-time appointment, but the influence of Abelard (his first student became Pope Alexander III), eventuated in faculty being elected that the Bishop could not overrule.To this day the administration represents one point of view, usually opposed by faculty.Democracy lives by election, monarchy lives by inheritance.
7.It is a truism that any government or point of view BECOMES DISTORTED WHEN LEFT BY ITSELF, UNOPPOSED.Thus, everything needs to be open to doubt at some time.Government always becomes oppressive, and can only function humanely when checked.
8.The new Christian dogma, discovered at the time of the formation of the medieval university, was that evolution and growth occurs when apparent opposing truths are reconciled with the discovery of higher principles.
"...that new truth has to be discovered every moment...that although God created the world, man became free in the middle of time."(at the birth of Jesus)(p.16-16)
Free, that is, by being allowed to correct error in thinking. By doubting. This principle is inherent to Christianity.
(RF -This phrase, "...became free in the middle of time,"in essence refers to the integrating characteristic of Christianity. That is, the recognition that the truths of opposing religions from the past were partial truths.And to invoke the powers of all of these truths freed humankind from the bondage of narrower points of view. ERH expands on this idea in another essay.)
9.Evidence and logic can establish laws of nature, but can never anticipate human actions because humankind is capable of change.
"...we are not to be deduced by logical reasons in our best quality of being new, of being somebody for the first time...In as far as you are capable of a new thought, you are a new creature."Growth usually comes from the unexpected. (p.17)
We are thus not slaves of stimulus response (except at the lowest automatic elements of our nervous system)- our freedom is proven by new thought.
10.The second dogma of Christianity is the separation of mind and soul.Mind, the logical part of our thinking, is different from soul (that part of our psyche that motivates a decision and prompts action on that decision. This is because new thought conflicts, by definition, with our "old" common sense, from our old logic.IN OTHER WORDS, NEW LOGIC, A HIGHER, MORE COMPREHENSIVE LOGIC, IS AT WAR WITH OUR OLD HABITS OF THOUGHT, and therefore cannot derive from the same source as the old "mind."One part of our being must overcome another part.It is natural for us to wish to agree with others, and at times difficult and even dangerous to disagree.To what extent would you avoid disagreeing with some authority with the power to destroy you? This (second dogma) implies the higher power or strength or courage it takes at times to change! (p.18)
11.The Augustinian definition of this principle runs:
In necessaries, unity; in doubtful, freedom -- liberty; in all, charity." (p.19)
In a school of higher learning this dictum must be the guide. In elementary school learning is largely by rote.The essence of the life of themind is contradiction and freedom, while still living together in peace.
The peace of mankind depends on chaotic and explosive power of diversification AND on the peace-making power of the human heart.Mind in conflict with love, an integration of both mind (your logic at war with the logic of another) and soul.
12.The social qualities necessary to carry out this principle are faith, hope and charity. These cannot be willed by us directly:
They either surround us, like the atmosphere, or like the water in which we swim, or they don't...(p.22/16)
This is why, to become truly human, one must participate in society; one cannot learn to swim by standing on land.
13.Necessity, doubt, and faith (charity) become manifest in three ages of living: 1) the elder represents authority, necessity, determination of what must be learned, 2) middle age represents doubt, when "authority," the old ways no longer work, and finally 3) the child symbolizes the acceptance of authority, and love, unifying both authority and doubt.These three elements - the child, the adult and the elder - establish the power of the whole human race to progress. Here is yet another dimension of the Trinity.
14.The Trinity is manifest in our levels of education.In the university is represented the three profiles (generations) necessary for the circulation of thought in the direction of human progress: authority, the fighter (of authority), and love; or the elder, the adult, and the child. These principles, in terms of professional roles carried on past formal schooling, are the priest, the soldier, and the artist. The priest represents the ultimate moral authority, the soldier (meaning the fighter for new ideas) is the doubter.The artist (ERH asserts) is child-like in his drive to express his emotional response to events, unconcerned with past or future.
In contrast to higher education, in the elementary school only two generations are represented; there is no distinction between authority and doubt, as the child has no logical basis to doubt.
15.Another Christian discovery was that, since humankind begins as an animal with only the CAPABILITY for rising above a purely animal state, new-borns must change not only physically and mentally, but spiritually as well. This capability for change occurs only through language, and when it occurs we say one begins the journey to "human." In Christian terms this means capable of being creative (thinking for one's self) and acting on one's thought to participate in improving the community. Clearly, such evolution requires freedom to seek truth and act on it.
16.To acquire these "human traits" allows one to rise above "natural" pettiness, jealousy, greed, and cowardice, while engendering a potential for creativity, courage, willingness to sacrifice for the community.A community voluntarily at peace is evidence that these principles are being practiced that "...the word becomes flesh."
...when the whole man -- child, adult, and elder in you and me come to life together, the world is as new as on the first day of creation.Something tremendous happens. Cathedrals are built.Cities are built. Kingdoms -- nations are rising. (p.30)
LECTURE - 17
1.The problem with education inAmerica today is that it is directionless; a common dogma is that education is good for its own sake. But the question arises, "What is to be its direction?" It concentrates on facts, on data, and even some analysis, but when there is analysis it is arbitrary.(RF - ala Whitehead, THE AIMS OF EDUCATION, 1923, p.18)In all levels of education there must be three elements:
1) Necessity and therefore authority, 2) Freedom to doubt andfight for new insights when the old ones no longer seem to explain our experience. 3) Faith - a willingness to obey, to accept authority (until the stage of doubt sets in.) These levels are representative of social roles - the elder, the adult, and the child - and also reflective of three time-spans - past, present, and future.
God is the power that makes us speak at this moment, andHe commands us to listen as well; and that gives us common understanding with each other.The goal of education must be to create students who will listen to necessity, who will doubt and fight for truth, and who will respond (obey) commands towardcreating a future.Of course there are trade schools for working skills. BUT HOW DO WE MAKE A COMMUNITY? That must be the integrating goal of education, and trade schools, language, the classics, science and math are a subordinate part.
2.Knowledge is not education, because knowledge cannot decide what is necessary, what is dubious, and what is the charity between (us)... (p.5)
Why charity?Because, to create a community one must conquer jealousy, greed, and avarice, and know what friendship is. Otherwise, in our differences,we kill each other!
We must have unity between generations as to what is necessary. Community-building takes generations, and societies go in circles and tear themselves apart by disciplines going in different directions.There must be some stability in basic values.And of course we must doubt, in order to correct error. This trinity of purpose must unite all traditional subject matter.
3.The educated person rises above his own time, and his own animal instincts; the uneducated person is the slave of present demands and emotions. Only with such unity and sustaining of curriculum can education create the power to raise one above the temperament of the chimpanzee.
The educated person translates his own time in the context of history; in the context of past and future generations. One's own "time" is always corrupting!
It's the essence of religion to do this....to get man outside his own mere time...That's why education without religion and religion without education is impossible. (p.16)
The jump in terminology from community building to religion is an accurate
description of the purpose of both religion and education. Our only indicator of a religious accomplishment is a community in which people live together voluntarily, and in peace.Our present communities are full of violence between warring social groups, within and without. That is why religion is inconceivable without education and action.
4.Democratic government is insufficient as a goal for education. The minimum requirement for government (secular law) is to organize people to get along with a minimum of agreement (to have a modicum of social unity and live in peace.)It deals with crime, inheritance, taxes, regardless of existing religions.
The purpose of Canon law assumes the necessity of finding the maximum of agreement between people, between the parts of their lives, because living is more than mere government.It deals with our attitude, our willingness to act, to support causes, to rise above our animal nature for survival. Only participation and sacrifice builds humane communities. Mere government does not motivate for such sacrifice.There is no possibility of progress without religion.
5.Even churches must compromise (sacrifice). In Bologna the medieval church compromised with the emperor regarding the division between secular and divine authority - the government having authority over physical property and the church determining who could marry. The Renaissance mentality was a secular shift in the medieval attitude, making no distinction between Canon law and imperial law, thus representing a strong Protestant influence.
LECTURE - 18
1.Compromise is essential between institutions because, as stated above, any idea or institution left by itself will eventually get out of hand. THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY IS A BALANCE OF FORCES. At this time in America there is no higher education in law; there is only a discussion of cases - as in the journals.This is to say, there is no discussion of the merits of cases, no discussion of justice - it is all politics sans the balance of direction (religion). Observe in any daily paper the absurd judgments laid down by the courts at times.
ERH gives a vivid example of how a superb medical institution was created in Medieval times through doubting and compromise between medical theories and practices. Norm