1 10 6 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/23033c350897727be867de37157bb376.pdf f29f6d2fa6450418910b244000880609 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-046_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University I'm responsible for my reactions to the events of my life. What they say to me, what I do with them, this is a part of my initiative that I hold against all of life and all the powers of light. So freedom, then, is the sense of options, the sense of alternative, the feel for option. It may not be the ability at any moment in time to opt the option. It is to take responsibility for my own actions and to take responsibility for [AUDIO OUT] alternative, the feel for option. It may not be the ability at any moment in time to opt the option. It is to take responsibility for my own actions and to take responsibility for my reactions to the events of my life. Give me the strength to be free and to endure the burden of freedom and the loneliness of those without chains, without chains, without chains. [APPLAUSE] 1 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change Series (1969, California State College, Long Beach, CA) Description An account of the resource In the three lectures comprising this series, Thurman discusses the effects of personal experience on social change. He illuminates points regarding individual freedom, the expression of togetherness in community, and nonviolence as the individual’s attempt to broaden one’s circle of concern. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dr. Tim Rainey AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-046_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon California State College, Long Beach, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Man and Social Change (I): Man and the Experience of Freedom [Side B], 1969 Mar 19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-046_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969-03-19 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13148225.246838 3999563.3243138)) Description An account of the resource Freedom is the will and ability to act at any moment, Thurman says, “as to influence” or “determine the future.” For him, the experience of freedom relies on one’s ability to create options. Without options, there can be no sense of self. To keep the possibility of choice alive, a person must take responsibility for her life so that one resist becoming a prisoner to the will of others and life events. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change, Part 1: Man and the Experience of Freedom (continued), 1969 March 19 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dr. Tim Rainey action freedom inward journey liberty option reaction responsibility https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/35ffd2950b4ee9cde256730ddf6236f8.pdf 5232f90e2f0f70048e2468860cbd5afd PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-046_A.mp3 I was thinking about man and the experience of freedom. I want to read two paragraphs from The Inward Journey. Pitts Theology Library Emory University "It is a strange freedom to be adrift in the world of men without a sense of anchor anywhere. Always there is the need of mooring, the need for the firm grip on something that is rooted and will not give. The urge to be accountable to someone, to know that beyond the individual himself there is an answer that must be given, cannot be denied. The very spirit of a man tends to panic from the desolation of going nameless up and down the streets of other minds, where no salutation greets and no friendly recognition makes secure. It is a strange freedom to be adrift in the world of men. Always a way must be found for bringing in to one solitary place the settled look from another's face. For getting the quiet sanction of another's grace to undergird the meaning of the self. To be ignored, to be passed over as of no account and of no meaning is to be made into a faceless thing, not a man. It is better to be the complete victim of an anger unrestrained and a wrath which knows no bounds, to be torn asunder without mercy, or battered to a pulp by angry violence, than to be passed over as if one were not. Here, at least, one is dealt with, encountered, vanquished, or overwhelmed, but not ignored. It is a strange freedom to go nameless up and down the streets of other minds where no salutation greets and no sign is given to mark the place one calls one's own. The name marks the claim a man stakes against the world. It is a private banner under which he moves which is his right, whatever else betides. The name is a man to watermark, above which the tides can never rise. It is the thing he holds that keeps him in the way when every light has failed and every marker has been destroyed. To be made anonymous, and to give to it the acquiescence of the heart, is to live without life. And for such a one, even death is no dying. It is a strange freedom to be adrift in the world of men, to act with no accounting, to go nameless up and down the streets of other minds, where no salutation greets, and no sign is given to mark the place one calls one's own." Man and the experience of freedom as a phrase under the banner of which I want to do our thinking about this subject is this-- 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Give me the strength to be free and to endure the burden of freedom and the loneliness of those without change. This is the subject. Give me the strength to be free and to endure the burden of freedom and the loneliness of those without change. Pitts Theology Library Emory University In my thought, there is a fundamental difference between liberty and freedom. Liberty, in my thought, has to do with those prerogatives, privileges, grants, that a particular social arrangement, social contract, makes possible for the individuals who live within the context of that contract. Its locus is outside of the individual. And it can be given or withheld in accordance to the judgment and the will of the behavior of those external to oneself who grant it. Liberty, in one important sense, is external. It is located in the arrangement, in the external arrangement, in the social climate, in which one lives and functions and behaves. Whereas, it would seem to me that freedom is a quality of being. It is a quality of spirit. It is what the individual is aware of, if I may put it that way, when he is searching out, trying to discover what it is at last that, ultimately, he amounts to in his own sight. Therefore, it is never completely contingent upon the external context, even though its meaning may be defined somewhat by the external context. When a man is asking himself, what is it really stripped to whatever there is in me that is literal and irreducible-- what is it that, ultimately, I amount to? Within the tight circle of my own self-awareness, it is in that area of the mind and the spirit that I think the issue of freedom rests. So I would like to begin, then, by providing my first little working definition, working formula, in the light of this background. Freedom, in the first instance, is the will and the ability so to act at any moment in time as to influence, determine, the future. So to act at any moment in time so as to determine and, or, influence the future. It is in this sense that freedom establishes for the individual its own grounds of integrity. It is true, you see, that at any given moment in time I am a victim of my own story. As my story fulfills itself from the beginning to the present-- the meaning of this I should get to before I finish, but I had to say it at that moment so as to remind myself that later on I must say it-- the freedom does not have to do with a man's fate, in the light of this first working definition. Bear in mind what the working definition is, you see, that a man can act in the present so as to influence the future. The time and the place of a man's life is the time and place of his body. But the meaning and the significance of his life is as creative, as vast, as meaningful as the powers of his mind and his spirit and his commitment can make it. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So that a man at any given moment, then, is the victim, in a sense, of his fate, which is the logic of his story. But he can act in that moment of time in a manner that can be fundamentally decisive. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And this is the area in which it seems to me the margin and the reality and the integrity of the experience of freedom first registers itself. So the function, then, of the first working definition is merely to establish what seems to me to be the grounds of the fundamental autonomy of the human spirit in the midst of the social and physical and natural forces by which that human spirit is surrounded. And I move, then, to the second working definition, which is the one with which my mind wants to wrestle or play, depending upon the point of view. Freedom is the sense of, the feel for, the awareness of alternatives. Alternatives. It is the sense of option. At any given moment, with reference to any set of circumstances by which the life at that given moment may be surrounded, held in closed bounds-- whatever word you want to use to describe the condition; and mark you, I do not say that freedom is the opting of the option-- it is the sense of option. The sense of option. It is entirely possible that at any given moment the individual may be surrounded by forces over which he is unable to exercise any control whatsoever. There is a radical sense in which every man's life is victimized by impersonal forces, be they social with the human content, or be they natural forces on which his mind cannot make an impact. They don't know he's there. I remember when I was a student in upstate New York many years ago, I got off the interurban at the wrong spot in a blizzard. And when I stepped off, I was in snow up to my waist and there wasn't anybody in sight. And I knew that this interurban must stop at a cross street, so I went about five or 10 feet, and then decided I would turn left rather than right and wandered down this country road. And I could hardly see my hand in front of my face, even though it was a moonlight night, because the snow was so thick. And after going indefinitely-- I don't want to tell all the story-but after ignoring what seemed to be 1,000 years, quietly I discovered that I had been panicking for some time, but I didn't know it. [LAUGHTER] And I said I am too young to freeze to death. [LAUGHTER] 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu My life is just beginning. And I have all these dreams. This is my first year in graduate theological school. And everything is before me. And I began addressing the blizzard. But the blizzard did not even know I was there. Yeah, it just kept on blizzarding. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, this is what I mean. Our lives are surrounded by these forces in which it seems at any given moment that at that moment all options are frozen so that freedom is not contingent upon the opting of the option. Freedom is contingent upon keeping alive in the individual the sense of option. The sense of option. When I was a boy living in my hometown in Florida, a traveling Evangelist came through our community. And he had a wonderful service one night, and my mother permitted me to go with her. And I remember-- I remember something he said. I must have been nine years old, something like that. He was given a personally conducted tour through hell. And he described how it went. And he came to-- first place to which this guy took him was a huge auditorium in which there were card tables. And four people, two couples, at every table. Millions of people. And they were playing cards, which at that time the card game that kept you out of heaven was five up. [LAUGHTER] That was the name of the game. [LAUGHTER] So think of it-- millions and millions of couples sitting at card tables playing five up forever and ever and ever. And the thing that made it hell was not fire and brimstone. No. No options. No options. No options. Now, this is what I'm getting at. Now, to be sure that you understand, because it's critical to my thought, let me restate it one other very simple way. I had two sisters as I grew up. And one was older and one was younger. My older sister made it very difficult for my life because she wanted me to stay her little brother. And I was determined that that was running out. And so we were going huckleberry picking one afternoon. And as we walked along going out to the woods where the huckleberries were to be found, I noticed a tiny baby snake, oh about a little longer than a healthy kitchen match. And I knew that she was afraid of any kind of crawling anything, so I called her attention to this little baby snake. And she reacted according to definition. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And then I said, aw no, there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm not making the case for my recognition. There's nothing to be afraid of. See, I'm not afraid. I'll just stand on it. [LAUGHTER] Pitts Theology Library Emory University So I put one of my bare feet on this little creature and the weight of my body completely immobilized him physically, so he couldn't do this. But they came up my leg, faint rhythmic shutters. He couldn't move, but he could do this-- Now, that is what I mean. Keeping alive a sense of option. And making it hold day in and day out, month after weary month against that time when the option can begin to move. And when a man lets that die, I don't care what he has, he's a slave. Now, this carries with it certain interesting dimensions. Of course, I don't think that there can be this sense of option where the sense of self has disintegrated. [INAUDIBLE] Well, I guess that's the best way to say that. For where there is no sense of self, there can be no sense of option. And one of the tragedies of any society, one of the tragedies in the life of any individual, is if in the living of the life, the private life, or the collective life, the individual becomes anonymous. Anonymous-- so that he has no private inner sense of authenticity. He is in his own inner feel a nobody, so that there can be no sense of self in that kind of vacuum. So that perhaps, one, then, of the first tremendous creative push-- thrust, I guess, is a better word- of this whole concept is rooted in the necessity for having a sense of one's own persona, a sense of-Doctor, well, somebody-- I don't think of his name, but he's a psychiatrist, anyway, in New York. And he teaches at Union Theological Seminary. That's as close as I can get to him. He wrote a book some years ago on-- well, I don't remember the title of the book-[LAUGHTER] --but the story that he tells I do remember. It is of a man, a mother, and two children who went into a restaurant to get lunch. And the waitress came over to take the order. And the mother gave her order. And the daughter, who was older, gave her-- older than the brother-- gave her order. And then the waitress turned to the little boy and said, what will you have? And before he could make a sound, his mother said, oh, I will order for him. I know what he wants. But the waitress was very perceptive. She insisted. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And she even called him young man. Young man, what will you have? And the daughter said, I will order for him if mother won't, because if mother were not here and we were together in the restaurant, I would order for him. Pitts Theology Library Emory University But the waitress insisted. What will you have? And with a kind of muted utterance he said, a hamburger. And she said, with ketchup and mustard and relish and onions? The works? And then, like a soft echo, he said, ketchup and relish and onions and ketchup, et cetera, and the works. She went away. She gave the mother's order and the daughter's order. And then, with full voice so the boy could hear it-- one hamburger! The works! And the boy, in utter amazement, turned to his mother and said, Mother, she thinks I'm real. She thinks I'm real. Now, this is what I'm talking about. Now, there can be no involvement in freedom if my own sense of reality is zero. I can have liberty, but no freedom. No freedom. Now, let's move to the next step. This means this meaning's sense of-- the definition; the working definition of freedom that I've been amplifying-- this means that the individual, then, cannot escape the necessity for accepting responsibility for his own actions private and public. And this is rough. The great insight that comes into American society from the George Washington myth of the cherry tree is relevant here. Who cut down the cherry tree, the myth has father Washington asking his son George. And George said, I did it with my little hatchet. [LAUGHTER] I will let nobody take responsibility for my actions. I will undergird the integrity of my act with my own guts. My own guts. I will not let anyone rob me of the right to be me. Now, of course this is not easy. This is not easy because there's something so wonderful about being able to make somebody else responsible. One of the great contributions that the science of psychiatry and clinical psychology and all of these other very wonderful disciplines of healing for the human spirit, one of the interesting sidelights of that is that unless it's very sensitively dealt with, they somehow tend to paralyze the nerve center of the individual who-- and to keep him from taking responsibility for his own actions. I am as I am because my grandmother was prematurely gray. And I'm allergic to gray hair on young faces. And it made a cripple out of me. Therefore, I'm hostile, not because I am, but because of my grandmother. Now, this is wonderful and convenient, but one has to be very careful, it seems to me, because no one must usurp my right to say I did it. I did it. I did it. 6 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, this is one of the first important and radical implications of human freedom, if I let anyone take responsibility for my own actions, then I give to them the power of veto and certification over my own life. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And no man is worth that, however good or holy, or un-good and unholy he may be. So that's the first. I must take responsibility for my own actions. This is the corollary that falls from this concept of freedom. Because in assuming responsibility for my own actions, I confine the grounds of my own self. My own self. My own authenticity. My own and, well, whatever it is-- my own, that. Now, the second kind of responsibility, it is a little more difficult. It is responsibility for my reactions-- now, this is rough; and this is what freedom means, I think-- responsibility for my reactions to the events of my life. As I suggested way back at the beginning, when I took the little detour-- we are back there now-we are surrounded by these things that make of us victims. And we've got to deal with them. Many years ago when we lived in Oberlin, Ohio-- Oberlin was a convenient stopping place between Chicago and New York for people who were driving-- so we discovered that we had so many friends who suddenly discovered that they were our friends. And about 11 o'clock at night, the phone would ring and they'd say, you know we were just passing through, and we remembered that the Thurmans lived here. And so we just thought we'd give you a ring and see whether you were home. And then, being a gentleman, you'd say, well, where are you? Oh, we are at a fueling station four blocks away. And say, well, what are your plans for the rest of the night? I mean, you know. And they just said, well, oh, we don't want to bother you. But they came. And so this particular night we had only eggs and bacon, which is, I mean, they're all right, unless you're fighting cholesterol, or something like that. [LAUGHTER] So I bought a dozen eggs that afternoon from Billy Wright's store. And all the eggs were eaten that night. And someone had an idea about making an experimental cake that involved using about nine eggs. So the next day around 11 o'clock, I went over to Billy Wright's store to get a dozen eggs, and they cost me $0.04 more a dozen! Now, from yesterday afternoon until 11 o'clock the next day, I'd been as kind to my family as I knew how. I'd been as self-respecting, as decent as any other sort of somebody who's trying to make it. But that had nothing to do with it. I had to pay $0.04 more for a dozen eggs. This is the human predicament. 7 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, given this predicament, how does the free spirit work it over, knead it, and extract from it that which will nourish the integrity of his own sense of being and meaning and freedom? It takes responsibility for his reaction to the events of his life. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, it is true that we cannot control them. This is a part of the given. But because we are thus victimized, does it rob us of the sense of responsibility? You remember in Oedipus Rex, after he'd been victimized by the fates, or however you say it, and he had married his mother. And he had these children. And life was just going on. And then the oracle got to him. And he found what he had done. And the oracle said that he had to be banished and be a wanderer. What did he do with this? He had to go, but he had to retain some margin of his own clear sense of responsibility. So what did he do? With his own hands he dug his eyes out. I will not let the events of my life take the initiative out of my hands. Even though I can't change them, I will hold the initiative and, thus, establish in my own spirit the beachhead of my own freedom. So just a little more, please. So that I must take responsibility for my reactions because this is an area in which I do not ever have to say yes. The vote, the vote, my vote, for the things for which I will stand with my life and the things against which I will stand is a vote that only I can make. And if I don't do it because of the external condition that has me gripped, then I give up my right to be a man, a free man. The mind is its own place. And in itself can make a hell of heaven, or a heaven of hell. He's not pipe dreaming. This is one of the elemental and basic facts that's a part of the ingredient in the human enterprise. I am responsible for my reactions to the events of my life. Even though I did not create the events, even though I may not be able to control the events, even though I may not at any given moment in time be able to change the events, I hold the right to determine how I will deal with them. And I shall not become, therefore, the prisoner of the events of my life. I am responsible for my actions. How many other people contribute to how I am acting? Ultimately, the Lazy Susan stops at my chair. 8 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change Series (1969, California State College, Long Beach, CA) Description An account of the resource In the three lectures comprising this series, Thurman discusses the effects of personal experience on social change. He illuminates points regarding individual freedom, the expression of togetherness in community, and nonviolence as the individual’s attempt to broaden one’s circle of concern. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dr. Tim Rainey AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-046_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon California State College, Long Beach, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Man and Social Change (I): Man and the Experience of Freedom [Side A], 1969 Mar 19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-046_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969-03-19 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13148225.246838 3999563.3243138)) Description An account of the resource Freedom is the will and ability to act at any moment, Thurman says, “as to influence” or “determine the future.” For him, the experience of freedom relies on one’s ability to create options. Without options, there can be no sense of self. To keep the possibility of choice alive, a person must take responsibility for her life so that one resist becoming a prisoner to the will of others and life events. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change, Part 1: Man and the Experience of Freedom, 1969 March 19 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dr. Tim Rainey action freedom inward journey liberty option reaction responsibility https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/183600bd89ea873d54ac0de73649cd08.pdf 91313ea93466683ac0847f9273ff3521 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-047_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University I'd finish my education and I would get-- I'd become self-supporting. I'd get a job. And then I would be able to write a famous letter to my mother. And tell her now as of this day, it is unnecessary for you to work anymore. You can come home and take your ease and have your own garden and do all the things for the sick, and all the things you want to do. So when I was-- I got my first position, I wrote her the letter. She went home. At the end of the year, I came down to Florida just to visit and to participate in normal felicitations for being such a wonderful son. I said this first afternoon, Mama, how does it feel just to get up in the morning when you're ready to get up and not have to work over a hot stove eight, nine hours a day and then not quite be able to do the simplest things for your children that you want to do? And then I told her something that I'd never told her before. That I remember a little boy seeing I come in to our little room with her lantern. In those days, everybody rode bicycles, and she had a lantern because she came home from her work at night. And she'd come in our room and take the lamp and hold it over us and look at us. And I remember one night I pretended to be asleep. I wasn't asleep for some reason. And I watched her. And I watched the tears come and drop as she looked at us, because the only time that she could see us was when we were asleep. Because she went to work before we were up and came home after we were in bed. Her answer was, well, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. But the most important thing that has happened is this. So many things in my life are now for the first time falling into place. All of my life until last year I had to work so that when I slept I slept in a hurry to get enough energy to take me through the next long day. But now things are sorting themselves out, because all of me is not caught in this surviving process. And one of the things that I discovered is that all these years I've told you the wrong birthday. That you were not born so and so and so and so. But you were born so and so and so and so. Because this was happening and this was happening. But all these years there's been none of me available to sort these things out. Now, I think in some such situation as that, the mind was able to lift itself up from being body bound. But it had inherent in its-- if I may think of the mind as having structure for a moment-there's inherent in the mind order, harmony so that the mind always raises a question. This has to make sense. It's always trying to harmonize, to integrate, to structure, to give ordered meaning so that man's experience as a human animal is an experience of harmony and order even in terms of the way he fits into the ecology of the world. Sometimes I think-- and this is an aside-- sometimes I think that one of the reasons why we have such radical and increasingly disastrous mental aberrations in our society is not merely because of increase in pressure and all the things that go with modern life, these elements. But I think it is because man has ruptured the harmony which he as a human creature has with his total environment. I just don't think that you can pollute the streams and poison the atmosphere and denude the hills without the psyche feeling itself ravaged, ravaged. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And it has no way to express its agony except in aberrations in the mind. Because all life is one, one. Now, just a little more, and I'll put it and I'll stop. Pitts Theology Library Emory University First you see the racial memory-- now bear in mind, I don't want to seem to be pedantic all together, but just to keep you up to date with the process-- community means for any expression of life the actualizing of its potential. It is the way life realizes itself in an expression of life, This harmony, this internal order is implicit in the racial memory as manifests in the creation myths around the world. Second, in man's experience as a creature among other creatures on the planet-- first, within his own organism and in turn for the way in which that organism corresponds externally with his environment and his flow, his flow, his flow. Now, the third. Community is implicit in all the dreams of the prophets and the seers as manifested in utopias. It's interesting, isn't it, that every utopia projects into a future that is not yet the same kind of harmony that is present in the racial memory. And the unique thing about any utopia-- Moore's, Plato's, the biblical ones, any of that you name and there are hundreds of them-- the unique thing about them is within the utopian community they are every word is important it's critical with the utopian community, within that, there is harmony. Now, outside of it, of course, is outside of it. But within the utopia itself there is harmony, there is a structure of moral and often physical dependability. And that's interesting. In the book the prophet talks of a time when the lion and the lamb will lie down together. And a little child may put his hand over the hole of an asp and the asp will relax his self-regarding impulse and not sting the child. And when this happens what will happen to man? Man will beat his swords into plowshares, his spears into pruning hooks. Why? Because the knowledge, says the prophet, the knowledge of the Lord will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea. That the correspondence in the deliberate self-consious activity of the human spirit will be one with the wholeness and the order and the balance that is inherent in the natural world. Now, there are a lot of problems in this. The main thesis that I'm developing as far as I've gone in my thinking about it is as I've outlined. Now, one of the functions then a person who worked for a community in society is to make this kind of discovery. Namely, that experiences of unity between peoples are more compelling than all the concepts, ideologies, creeds, fears, anxieties, hatred that divide. Let me say it again. Experiences of unity among peoples are more compelling than all these things that divide. Now, if I can multiply these experiences of unity between peoples over a time interval of sufficient duration, I can undermine any barrier that separates one man from another. This is the heart of it. And I don't need the voice of Yahweh thundering from a desert [INAUDIBLE], as wonderful as it. Is if I can hear Him say the right things, I don't need any-- to read any law in any book. Community is built into the bias of mind. Now, finally-- and I hope I mean it-- finally, pragmatically this means that the problem in human relations as far as community's concerned is 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu constantly to widen the magnetic field of my relations, so that they would include more and more and more people. And let me illustrate [INAUDIBLE] Pitts Theology Library Emory University During war-- during any time a nation is at war-- one of the first things that the nation has to do if it is going to wage war effectively-- and this is one of the reasons why we have so much trouble waging the war in Vietnam-- because the first thing that has to be done, the enemy has to be so defined that he is no longer a member of the human race. He becomes the Hun. He becomes the Jap. Now one I redefine him so that he is no longer a member of community, then it's open season. I can do anything I want to do without undermining my own sense of community. It's the sort of thing that happens when you have a friend who can't tell you what he thinks of you until he gets mad. Now, once he gets mad then you are bound. And then he can say all the things he wants to say to you and keep your self-respect. But once you get within is magnetic field you've become a part of his experience of community, so that people that I want to hate I can't do it until I read them out. It confined it to human life. She said, if my concept of reverence for life is not widened and widened and widened, if I want to destroy you, all I need to do-- if I want to destroy you with a clear conscious is all I need to do is to have you outside of the circle. If I kill a rattlesnake because the rattlesnake threatens my life or the rattlesnake is a menace, all I need to do is to redefine a human being as a menace and kill him. It's as simple as that-- without any guilt, without any moral responsibility, once he is out of bounds. So that the genius of community then is to widen the magnetic field so that what I experience as harmony and order in terms of the structure of my relationships with those people who are within the circle cannot apply to people as they go of until I widen the circle. And if I don't widen the circle I will bare nonexistence. I will bare nonexistence. I saw a man pursuing the horizon round and round they sped. I accosted the man. It is futile, said I. You can't. You lie, he cried and ran on for better or for worse. All life is one and I can never be what is my potential to be as long as you are not what your potential is to be so that I'm tied to you. And even when I kill you it's my way of affirming that you and I cannot be separated. Cannot be separated, cannot be separated. Well, thank you. You're very kind. [APPLAUSE] 3 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change Series (1969, California State College, Long Beach, CA) Description An account of the resource In the three lectures comprising this series, Thurman discusses the effects of personal experience on social change. He illuminates points regarding individual freedom, the expression of togetherness in community, and nonviolence as the individual’s attempt to broaden one’s circle of concern. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dr. Tim Rainey AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-047_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon California State College, Long Beach, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Man and Social Change (II): Man and the Experience of Community [Side B], 1969 Mar 20 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-047_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969-03-20 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13148225.246838 3999563.3243138)) Description An account of the resource Community is evinced when any form of life identifies with another. For Thurman, humans experience wholeness when individual existence recognizes itself within the fullness of all existence. Community is an expression of life because its manifestation follows the “harmony,” “order,” and “inner togetherness” consistent with a person’s inner order. In this way, Thurman notes, community makes sense to the mind. Recognizing this profound continuity, persons in community must widen the “magnetic field” of their relationships and pursue experiences of harmony that compel the spirit more than ideologies, creeds, or, fears that divide. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change, Part 2: Man and the Experience of Community (continued), 1969 March 20 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dr. Tim Rainey community disharmony harmony innocence life organism racial memory of the human https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/41537218b1ed651b2bd65c730af3aee0.pdf 7b32c728f20209449117aae49cf487e8 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-047_A.mp3 My reading-- two things as a background for our thinking. Pitts Theology Library Emory University "I like to feel strange life beating up against my own life. I like to realize forms of life utterly unlike my own. When my own life feels small, and I am oppressed with it, I like to crush together and see it in a picture, in an instant, a multitude of disconnected, unlike phases of human life-- a medieval monk with his string of beads pacing the quiet orchard and looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy fruit trees, little Malay boys playing naked on a shining sea beach, a Hindu philosopher alone under his banyan tree, thinking, thinking, thinking, so that in the thought of God, he may lose himself-- a troop of Bacchanalians dressed in white, with crowns of vine leaves, dancing along the Roman streets, a martyr on the night of his death looking through the narrow window to the sky and feeling that already he has the wings that shall bear him up, an epicurean discoursing at a Roman bath to a knot of his disciples on the nature of happiness, a Kaffir witch doctor seeking for herbs by moonlight, while from the huts on the hillside comes the sound of children playing and dogs barking and the voices of women and children, a mother giving bread and milk to her children in little wooden basins and singing the evening's song. I like to see it all. I feel it run through me, that life belongs to me. It makes my little life larger. It breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in." And now one other, and then we will be ready to work. "Now we are ready to look at something pretty special. It's a duck riding the ocean 100 feet beyond the turf. No, it isn't a gull. A gull always has a raucous touch about him. This is some sort of duck. And he cuddles in the swells. He isn't cold, and he is thinking things over. There's a big heaving in the Atlantic, and he is a part of it. He looks a bit like a mandarin or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bo tree. But he has hardly enough above the eyes to be a philosopher. He has poise, however, which is what philosophers must have. He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic. Probably he doesn't know how large the ocean is. Neither do you. But he realizes the ocean. And what does he do, I ask you? He sits down in it. He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity, which it is." That's religion. And the duck has it. "He has made himself part of the boundless by easing himself into the boundless just where all the boundless touches him." The people of the Middle Ages were more like this duck than we are. They took life as it presented itself and ran it up in spires of Gothic. They crossed few oceans, but they floated on the sea of time. And the cat is more like this duck than we are. We can radio to the moon and get back a pic for an answer. But a cat can make a hearth rug a haven in the infinite or launch four kittens into life in a cracker-box by the furnace, purring with pride, because he has tuned in on cosmic waves. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Man and the meaning of community-- for some time, I have been seeking to find a way of thinking about the experience of harmony and order and community in human life. And the thing that has puzzled me has been the fact that persons who concern themselves about community, who work for community, again and again and again seem to be driven establish some transcendent point of reference to which they relate in order to give to them courage and a sense not only of continuity but heart. And where there is lacking this transcendent point of reference, then it is very difficult for the individual human spirit who is concerned about community to keep from growing weary, getting tired, and often, finally giving it up as something that is not essential to man's life on the planet. Now, I don't believe this, you see, so that I have driven my mind to see if they cannot be within the context of man's living experience, the ground and the rational, for his concern about and his experience of community. This is the essence of my search, and I want to talk about how my mind works with reference to trying to find a clue to this issue, which for me, is a very, very important and very crucial issue. Because as long as I live my life, I discover over and over again that I'm surrounded by so much that casts down so much that makes for despair of heart and often so little that uplifts and inspires. And yet, it would seem to me that the thing that uplifts and inspires should be inherent in man's experience of life itself. So it does not have to be appeal to a dogma beyond us, as wonderful as any dogma that can lift the spirit may be. But there ought be, in man's experience of living his life and reflecting upon the journey of man on the planet, that will give him heart. And it is not, therefore, contingent upon the vicissitude of his fortune or by the experiences that may contradict his search. Now, I begin with one or two propositions, naturally. And the first is that, in our thought about life, one of the simplest, and for me, the most profound observation, is that life itself is alive. That's the first, that this is a living, pulsing, breathing dimension of experience. Well, you know that you are alive, and you know that your cat and your dog or your pet snake that these are alive. And the person next to you may be alive. And the mind, you see, is so overwhelmed by all of these-- how do I say this-- the mass attack of all of these particular expressions of vitality by which we are surrounded that the simplest thing about life is overlooked-- that it is life itself that is alive, that this is, in essence, a dynamic universe. And wherever there is life, there is some kind of structure of dependability, some inner logic that gives meaning and structure and viability and purpose. Not in a metaphysical sense, but purpose in the sense that is expressed when you notice that a house plant that you have finds a way to turn towards the sun without any guidance from you. I remember going out in front of our home once and seeing some men digging away at the place where the sewer, the sewer pipes. And of course, they're always doing this in cities. And then the two-- I think there's something demonic about it. But there is. And there's never any end to it. So I went out to see what was going on. And they had-- there was a ditch, and I noticed that two sections of sewer pipe had been exposed. And around these sections of pipe, there was a network of roots just encased so that you could not see the pipe. And then where the joints were I noticed that it seemed that the roots turned inward in a unique way. Being curious, I waited until they began to move these around, and I discovered that, sure enough, some little eager rootlets had found a way to penetrate the joints and get inside the sewage pipe. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And when the man took his sledge business and cracked the thing open, the inside of that section of the sewer was one massive root. And they came from a tree 300 yards away on the back of the lot. The roots had smelled this water and had gone under the basement of the house and found it. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, purpose in that sense is what I'm talking about. This seems to be characteristic of the way life behaves. So life is alive. That's the first proposition. And wherever you see it, it's on the hunt for that which will nourish it, sustain it, and hold it. Now, with that general statement about life, I would like to begin the heart of my idea. And it is here a working definition, because I think this is important. Community is an expression of life when the potential of that life fulfills itself. Now, let me say it again. It's almost 8 o'clock at night, and you've had dinner. And we've been moving quietly into zero hour, and you have had a long day. And you would be forgiven if you find that you're just having a difficult time to sort of wander along with me. But you have my permission to take a nap. [LAUGHTER] But do it quietly. [LAUGHTER] This is all that I ask. And when you wake up, we will be sort of wandering along, working at this idea. So don't be embarrassed, because I'm not going anywhere till I'm through. I'll be right here working. Now, community, then, in it's simplest and most elemental form, is what happens when any form of life actualizes its potential, when within that tight cycle that that expression of life represents it fulfills itself. Or that's the building block. Now, the more complex the form of life may be, the more involved is the process by which that form of life actualizes its potential. And with the complex forms of life, such as man, even the notion of potential is itself dynamic so that I'm never sure at any given moment in time when I have actualized my potential, because I am always moving, growing, getting insight so that it's almost like a mirage. But when I get there, I say yes. If I do that, then I have, as a living thing, experienced inner harmony. But when I get there, I find that this experience simply opens up areas that still must be actualized before I can say that I have it. Now, with this notion, then, of community, this working definition, it would seem to follow that harmony, that inner togetherness, inner order, that seems to be built into the process of individual expressions of life, is the way life itself functions, the way it is structured. Now, to jump to my conclusion, when I am working for harmony, when I'm working for community, I am not going against the grain of existence. But I am supported by this. Whether I bow my knee before an altar or recognize any object of transcendent devotion, I am supported in the quest for community by my experience as a living creature in a living universe. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, if this is the case, and in addition, I happen to be religious, then all the gross is net. But the religious dimension in this sense is not necessitous to the experience. This is what I am saying. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, we discover, then, that this notion of community is very present in the memory of the race, as manifested, for instance, in the creation stories and the creation myths. It doesn't matter what culture, what tradition, where in time you come upon them. Essentially, when man raised the question, how did we get here, how did this human show get on the road, the answer, in the race, has always the same basic elements in it. Let us begin then to illustrate it, the first proposition, with our own creation accounts as found in the Bible. At that far off time, says the racial memory, that was a period when harmony existed between all living things, between man and the animals. All manifestations of life were harmonious. This is what Genesis is, and this is what the Babylonian myths, the American Indian myths, any of them, they all say the same thing. Now, what happened? It was community, community in the sense of inner harmony, but community in which the predominant element was innocence, innocence. And as soon as knowledge was introduced, and man lost his innocence, he was involved in guilt. So that one of the critical problems of education is, how can young people move from innocence to knowledge without guilt? And can guilt be stripped, drained, of all of its dismal moral dimensions so that it becomes, in the quest for knowledge, an incentive? This is one of the critical problems of education. Now, when knowledge came, innocence was lost. And the order, the harmony between Adam in our account and all the other animals and creatures, this harmony was broken. But in the racial memory, wherever we touch it, it is an echo of a time when community was pervasive. When I was a boy, I ran across the meadow to visit one of my chums-- well, as a matter of fact, my only chum, but for very good reasons. And when I started around the house-- because, always, I met him in the back yard, where we could shoot marbles. And as I came around the house, I heard [KNOCKING] a rap on the window pane. And I looked up, and his father was standing at the window. And he urged me to come around and come in the house through the front door. I did. And when I walked into the room where he was, he pointed out into the back yard. And here in the sand was my chum's baby sister, all three months, four months, five months, crawling stage, sitting in the sand playing with this rattlesnake. Now, they were having a very happy time. The snake would try to crawl away. She'd pull him back by his tail. She turned him over on his back, and he would get back, and then he'd tried to get away. And they were just delighting themselves in each other. And my friend was out on the side where the path was standing guard, and his father sent me out to stand on the other side. For what purpose? So that no one would come around and do what? Introduce into this harmony fear, divisiveness, so that the harmony would be broken. And as soon as the harmony was broken, then these two living things that were harmonious became enemies, enemies, enemies. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University But implicit in the racial memory is the notion of order, of structured community, but community of innocence. And the ethical problem that community creates in the light of that kind of racial memory is, can you move from a community of innocence to a community of responsibility and survive? And survive, so bearing in mind the working definition-- community is the experience of any form of life when it realizes itself. And it may be stated in another way that when life realizes itself in any expression of life, that expression of life experiences wholeness. And wholeness is community. All right. So what I despair in the midst of the disharmonies of contemporary life, I feel that life is on the side of harmony, and life is against disharmony. Not as a religious judgment, but as a judgment the content of which is the derivative from the structure of your life itself. This is what I'm saying. Now, you take it another step. I think the experience of community is not only present in the racial memory, but the experience of community is inherent in man's experience as a creature on this planet, as a creature. For many years, the thing that has comforted me most in trying to work for and to live experientially into the meaning of community has been the contemplation of my own organism, my own organism. This is curious, isn't it? It seems as if my body committed harmony to memory. My organism committed, so that I become aware of some part of my organism when it is out of harmony. And the whole philosophy of therapy is the restoration to the organism of an original harmony, an original harmony. Now, only when my little finger can't little finger do I become aware that my little finger is out of harmony, out of community? And I do everything I can to restore it so that it becomes a part of this. Now, man's body then is a manifestation of a built in, organistic harmony with a kind of implicit- as we've discovered in later times-- a kind of implicit command in the coding in the cell. Out of some 10 million cells in the body of a becoming baby, some cells become fingernails. Some become eyebrows. Each cell working on the basis of that which is inherent in the coding that's in the cell itself, and one of the problems of modern medicine is right here. We have built up defenses and therapies and cures, et cetera. Now, knowledge concerning these things sufficient so as to manage most of the disorders, you see, or disorders that we call sicknesses, from things that invade the body from the outside. If doctors really wanted to, I'm sure they could cure the common cold but it isn't worth curing. But they could. They know now enough so they can deal with those things that invade so that for the next 50 years, the whole problem of medicine and its relation to human sickness will be how to deal with those disorders, those unregulations within the community of the human organism. For instance, a friend of mine who's a surgeon tells me that if you have just a fraction of a liver left that the body can build another liver. And when it gets to the right size, there's a cut off, and it stops making liver cells. And because we don't know what the mechanism of the cut off is, we can't stop the body from making cancer cells. But if we knew what the human mechanism was of the cut off-- this is what I'm talking about. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So that there is, as a creature, as a human creature, I experience community in my body. There is a built in harmony physiologically in my organism. Now, when I get ready to think in terms of the bearing that this has on my self conscious activity, then I notice something very interesting. And that is that it seems to be the nature of the mind to think always in terms of an inner order. We say it in this way, that things must make sense to the mind. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And it may be, if I may just let my mind play around with the notion just a little, that it just maybe, you see, that for a long time, as we were developing through these millions of years on this planet, that the mind could not be separated from the body, that we had body-mind but not mind as a separate entity. And perhaps the mind became separated from the body in a very interesting way. And let's let our imagination play with it. Suppose-- you see, there was a time when our forebears had to spend all of their energy just trying to stay alive. They didn't have any built in external things to keep them from being attacked by these various creatures. So they had to live in trees, so the rumor goes, because this was safe, and it gave them a view all the way around, a view from Hadrian's bridge. And suppose, one day, one of our ancestors decided he wanted to give his little boy a birthday present. And he knew that the most delectable present he could get was a certain kind of dinosaur egg that could only be found about 20 miles over on the other side of the prairie or the valley. So early in the morning, he goes out to find this thing. And he finds it, and he starts back home. And he's tired now, so he sits down to rest under the shade of a rock. And after he settled in, the rock began to move, because it was one of these monsters having a siesta. So he was chased all the way across the prairie, and the trees seemed to be farther and farther away rather than closer and closer. And he noticed something that he'd never seen before. There was an opening in the side of the hill. He'd been over that way 1,000 times, but he'd never seen it. And he dotted into that opening, and the opening was small enough for him to get in and too small for his pursuer. And when he got in there, he said, my, this is pretty good. Now, if I can manage some way to seal it up so the things that are small enough to get in here can't get in here without my seeing them first, then this is the new home. So he left to his tree and brought his family down and put them in there. And the word went from treetop to treetop, you don't have to live in trees anymore if you can find your opening in the hills. Now, think of it. Think of what happened. Think of it. All the energy of the organism was spent in just staying alive. Now with a cave, it was no longer to spend all this energy in the business of staying alive. This energy became surplus energy. And thus, imagination was born, and the mind now could begin to float up and detachment from the organism. I had a dream when I was a boy, and that was that I would-- 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change Series (1969, California State College, Long Beach, CA) Description An account of the resource In the three lectures comprising this series, Thurman discusses the effects of personal experience on social change. He illuminates points regarding individual freedom, the expression of togetherness in community, and nonviolence as the individual’s attempt to broaden one’s circle of concern. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dr. Tim Rainey AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-047_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon California State College, Long Beach, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Man and Social Change (II): Man and the Experience of Community [Side A], 1969 Mar 20 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-047_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969-03-20 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13148225.246838 3999563.3243138)) Description An account of the resource Community is evinced when any form of life identifies with another. For Thurman, humans experience wholeness when individual existence recognizes itself within the fullness of all existence. Community is an expression of life because its manifestation follows the “harmony,” “order,” and “inner togetherness” consistent with a person’s inner order. In this way, Thurman notes, community makes sense to the mind. Recognizing this profound continuity, persons in community must widen the “magnetic field” of their relationships and pursue experiences of harmony that compel the spirit more than ideologies, creeds, or, fears that divide. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change, Part 2: Man and the Experience of Community, 1969 March 20 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dr. Tim Rainey community disharmony harmony innocence life organism racial memory of the human https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/edbe2cbf5c02e8df6b8046d19db6c450.pdf e3b062e6e27a38aeed6e6c0ff5f06f2f PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-048_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University And the self, the sense of self, that the personality has. So I began to look around to see. And when he said loss of self-respect, I smiled. And he said, oh, no. It's not what you're thinking. I said, how do you know what I'm thinking? Oh, he said, you're thinking that we suffered the loss of self-respect because of the presence of the conqueror in our own land. I said, yes. He said, oh, no. That maybe there, but that's minimal. He said, the loss of self-respect is due to untouchability and Hinduism, a part of the Hindu family saying to another part of the Hindu family that it is of no account, and no meaning, and no meaning. This rejection undermine the sense of self respect, both for the caste Hindu, and for the outcast Hindu. So I began attacking that. And the first thing I did was to adopt, in my own family-- as I'm a caste Hindu-- to adopt in my own family an outcast girl. And this announced to all of the caste Hindus, this is the road back. And the second thing I did was to change their name from Sudras, or outcasts, to harijan. And harijan is a combination Hindi word that means child of God. Boy, he said, if I can make every caste Hindu, any time he refers to an outcast, call him a child of God, I will create in that caste Hindu the kind of moral congestion that cannot be believed until he changes his attitude towards them. This is very interesting. Now the significance of his contribution to the modern feeling and interpretation of nonviolence is at one point, he give, he rested the dogma, the ethic of nonviolence, into the hands of the masses, the least privileged of the Indians. And this said to them that even though we are this, or that, or the other in terms of no meaning and significance, Gandhiji feels that we are worthy to be the custodians of this ethical insight, the implementation of which will bring about a different kind of social climate for us and for all of India. And he thinks we can do it. And he placed a crown over our heads that we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. And I have an idea about what that means. When I was a little boy-- to give you a little rest-- but when I was a little boy, my older sister had a boyfriend. Oh, it is natural. And he was a big boy in comparison to me. And they were playing what we call hard ball up on one end of the playground and the little boys were playing another kind of ball made out of tightly bound rags and tied that we call a softball. So I said to my chum, I will bet you a cartwheel, a cartwheel is a big ginger cookie that sold for a penny, six for a nickel, I said I'll bet you a cartwheel that when Willy Thomas's turn comes to bat, he will let me bat in his place. So the bet was on. We stopped playing, ran up there. And I went to Willy, I said, Willy, when your turn comes, will you let me bat in your place? Oh, sure, Harlan. Of course, you know why he wanted me on his side. So I wouldn't talk. And then his turn came, I went to the bat. And the bat was so heavy that I could hardly handle it. And I stood at the bat and the miracle happened. The big boy threw the ball as hard to me as he threw to the big boys. I was this little boy, could hardly hold the bat, scared to death. But what he did for me in that moment created a new dimension of my own persona. Now this is what happened to the masses of Indians when Gandhi assumed that the one thing that was available to them was also the most creative, and dynamic, and redemptive thing that could 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University be done, not only to change the society and make life uncomfortable for the British, but to put at their disposal a new, and fresh, and significant way of living. Now the thing that followed from that is that-- oh, boy, well, I can't stop it, the watch I mean-- the thing that follows from that is this, that the effect on the life of the people, namely giving them a new sense of self, now given this fact, they are much more conscious of all of the injustices that were placed upon them than they ever were before. And this is the dilemma of nonviolence. For when you become the custodian of that kind of created increment, it enlarges the sense of the dignity of the individual who is the receptacle of this credential. And with this new sense of self, you become aware of things that have been happening to you all your life, but you had absorbed them and paid very little attention to them. Now the whole area of your being becomes sensitized. And this is the danger moment for the dogma of nonviolence. For when I become aware of my predicament in a way of which I have not been aware before, now I see the anatomy of injustice in a brand new way. And my first response to that is to renounce the thing that made it possible for me to become aware of it in the first place. And this is why men like Gandhi, and then another entirely different dimension in King, Martin King on the American scene-- I have time to go into that just a little-- when these men began to work in somewhat the fashion as I have hastily outlined, so that as a result of what was transpiring in them, they became aware of pain, of misery, of injustice, of discrimination. And the awareness has a sense of immediacy about it. And the nature of their hate and their hostility now becomes articulate in them. Now this is a very important, very subtle point, because it is happening all around us now. Now hate becomes active in the lives of people who are developing flattery a sense of self. Hate becomes activated [INAUDIBLE]. But hate is not created by a fresh, a new awareness of the self. It merely becomes activated. Now, if I may illustrate it. Whether in the life of the masses of one country or another, the masses are the people who have been systematically outside of this meaningful stream of the contemporary society, and hate in them, very often, is unactivated, if I may make a word I guess is such a word. It is hate that is hydrated. It's like a sludge. Do you know what a sludge is? Well, I'll have to use the words, it's a sludge. All the liquid is out of it and it's a sort of gooey stuff down in the bottom of the psyche, sealed off by the encrustation of the ancient iniquity in the environment. Now the thing that happens is sometimes, as a result of the kind of change that has taken place in the life of the people precipitated by the sort of thing that Gandhi or Martin did here, and sometimes, as a result of changes in the society that may not be related to them as themselves, but whatever happens, however it happens, once these shifts take place, a little air gets down into the psyche. And the air activates the sludge. We are the custodian of an instrument of social change that we can use and no one can prevent us. In that moment of awareness, ancient fears disintegrated and a whole new people emerged. Now in that emergence, was a new sense of self, new awareness of the extent of their misery 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu became articulate. This is the point that I'm making. And with this articulation violence, remember, quick, tends to be efficient, became the immediate handle. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And I will stop because I've got get a train. But so let me put it together, you can't ever quit this because your minds-- now what I've said is this, that given the necessity for social change, violence is the most obvious, the most available instrument, not only because of what it is, but because it is the instrument for social change that's a part of national policy. It's a part of the etiquette of the state of government. It is quick, it is all these things. It does not touch the will. Why always, it is always possible for the individual under the attack of violence to establish psychological distance between himself and the violence and thereby, work out private and personal immunity from its effect. Nonviolence insinuates itself into the will. It often is slow. Its most creative dimension is the way in which it activates the imagination of the individual, or individuals, so that it becomes possible for them to project themselves into the other man's situation, place and thereby, open a way for him to do the same thing to them. There is no guarantee that nonviolent direct action or nonviolent indirect action, will make for social change. The possibilities are that social change that is instrumented-- if I may make a verb there-- social change that is instrumented by nonviolence has the chance of involving protectedness into a single commitment, whereas violence guarantees that no such involvement will take place. For in the last analysis-- and this really is the last sentence-- there is but one place of refuge for any man on this planet and that is in another man's heart. And what the nonviolent man does, he makes of his heart a swinging door. And the violent man seals his door against intrusion and thereby, becomes a prisoner in his own house. [APPLAUSE] 3 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change Series (1969, California State College, Long Beach, CA) Description An account of the resource In the three lectures comprising this series, Thurman discusses the effects of personal experience on social change. He illuminates points regarding individual freedom, the expression of togetherness in community, and nonviolence as the individual’s attempt to broaden one’s circle of concern. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dr. Tim Rainey AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-048_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon California State College, Long Beach, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Man and Social Change (III): Violence and Non- [Side B], 1969 Mar 21 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-048_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969-03-21 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13148225.246838 3999563.3243138)) Description An account of the resource Throughout history, physical violence has been used to bring about immediate social change. However, it is unable to rob a person of the “final vote” – the option to give up one’s life. Non-physical violence is a more devastating reality for Thurman because when it is effective, the person surrenders the will and is robbed of the option. Willingness to die, to escape the forced option, is “the organic basis for freedom in human life.” The force of violence does not enter the will but “Nonviolence insinuates itself into the will,” creates a new sense of self and freedom, and enables the person to become an unbounded instrument of social change. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change, Part 3: Violence and Nonviolence (continued), 1969 March 21 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dr. Tim Rainey Ghandi non-physical violence nonviolence option physical violence social change violence will World War I World War II https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/4c7b2f8958c2c1430cc45371d7afd319.pdf bcf73b76c66fba92b69337756bc13a9e PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-048_A.mp3 I have two things that I want to read as a background for our discussion. The first is from the introduction-- the prologue, really-- to Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The captain says to Lavinia, what you are facing is certain death. You have nothing left now but your faith and this craze of yours-- this Christianity. Are your Christian fairy stories any truer than our stories about Jupiter and Diana? Lavinia, a man cannot die for a story and a dream. None believe the dreams and stories more devoutly than Spintho. But he could not face the great reality of the pain. What he would have called my faith has been oozing away minute by minute whilst I have been sitting here with reality becoming more and more real with stories and dreams fading away into nothing. Captain, are you then going to die for nothing? Lavinia, yes. That is the wonderful thing. It is since all the stories and dreams have gone that I have now no doubt at all, no doubt that all that I must die for is something greater than dreams and greater than stories. But for what? I don't know. If it were for anything small enough to know, it would be too small to die for. I think I'm going to die for God. Nothing else is really enough to die for. What is God, said the captain. When we know that, Captain, we shall be gods ourselves. And then this from an earlier period in the creative unfolding of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall. I hear the clutter on the barn floor. Death is in haste. He has business in Cuba, business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning. But I will not hold the bridle while he cinches the girth. And he may mount by himself. I will not give him a leg up. Though he flicks my shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran. With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp. I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death. I am not on death's payroll. I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends, nor of my enemies either. Though he promise me much, I will not map him the route to any man's door. Am I a spy in the land of the living that I should deliver men to death? Brother, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me. Never through me shall you be overcome. I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Social change, violence and nonviolence-- it is a matter of very great significance to me that we are at a moment in human history in which great shifts in the meaning of society and the meaning of the individual seem to be in balance. Pitts Theology Library Emory University As a man who has devoted most of his maturity-- that is, most of what he calls his maturity-- to questions which have to do with the meaning of religion and, particularly, the meaning of the religion which is a part of my own history and culture, I have been profoundly puzzled by two tremendous events. The first is that-- there are really three. Two we have here, and then one along here. The first is that in 1917, when there was the great upheaval in the empire of the Tsar, when the stage was set for the turning of the tide, and those persons who were most responsible as the living instruments for social change-- those hard-nosed individuals who were the spearhead of the revolution-- when they were casting about for the kind of dynamic way of viewing the world that would bring about social change, which from their point of view would be redemptive and full of health and will for the common life, the great ethical religion, Christianity, was rejected-rejected. That, for which it seemed to have come into the world, was denied. And the Russian Revolution went its way using another kind of ground for its meaning, for its motivation, for its dynamic. When, many years after, there was a complete break down in another society, and a whole nation was wrestling with the question of moral guilt precipitated by a responsibility that was placed upon it for bringing about a World War-- namely the German people-- and what was needed was something that would give a sense of worth, and significance, and health to the guilt-ridden populace, and the man arose who became the redeemer of the society, and once again, a whole nation under the aegis of a very, very charismatic leader rejected this great religion and found by an appeal to another aspect of life the energy, the strength, the dynamism to purge the German soul of guilt of one kind and send it on its way with the dream in the mind and the heart to create the new order and give to that order a new and radical definition. Now this is interesting. Twice now, this great ethical religion, which is my own, was rejected. Back in the '30s, by 19-- I will get to the point by and by. Just don't worry. I've zeroed in on the point, but I have to do it this way. About 1934, '35, the new act of India was developed by the British government and passed on to the Indian people to establish some order of life for the Indians that would not disturb the balance of their colonial status. And one of the political provisions in this act was to give political representation in the Indian parliament or whatever the body was called on the basis of religious population. So that since the Hindus about 60% of the total population, it meant that they would have a larger representation in the assembly. And the Muslims were next, and then on down to the almost microscopic percentage of Christians. There were 25 million untouchables in Hinduism. And they became a choice prize because, for instance, if the Muslims could get this bulk of 25 million, it would at once increase their numerical representation in the parliament and give them more of a concrete and definitive bargaining power. If the Christians that were less than 5% could get the 25 million untouchables, 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu this then would at least give them a position of some sort of political prestige that would make it possible for them to exercise and influence that was far greater than anything they had ever dreamed of. Pitts Theology Library Emory University So the Dr. Ambedkar, who was the head of the untouchables in India, became the centerpiece. If you can get Ambedkar, then the 25 million untouchables will follow him. So it was quite a time. So all of the groups made their pitch. E. Stanley Jones spent many, many hours wrestling and agonizing with Ambedkar, hoping to win him to Christianity, and through him, 25 million untouchables. And he made all the claims how Christianity really is addressed to the underprivileged, that it gives a sense of persona and meaning to those people who are anonymous in the society and so forth. You know all of the things that would be said, as only he could say them. And once again, a great world figure, in the sense that he represented a vast, vast-- millions of human beings, turned Christianity down. And the simple answer was I lived five years in the United States. That's all he had to say. Now with this in the background, let us go to work then on the issue. Violence, as an instrument of social change. We are familiar with this because it is a part of national policy. Violence is the act by which one man or one nation seeks to impose its will upon another man or another nation. It is very appealing as an instrument of social change because it tends, up to a very significant point, to be efficient. It's efficient. It's quick. It saves a lot of time proing and coning. You simply bash the heads together, and by the time they recover, they are committed. When our younger daughter was five and we were on sabbatical living on a campus, I was working away in my room with a big book I was reading. And she came in. And she said, Daddy, I want you to help me do something in my room. I said, Anne, don't you see that I'm busy? I'm trying to read this book. And I must finish reading it before the taxi comes because the book is too heavy for me to carry in my bag. Well, that just went over, making no contact at any point. Then she said, but Daddy, this is important. And I want you to help me now because later will be too late. And I said, I can't do it. And she stood there. And I didn't use any violence. But I put a new depth in my voice and surrounded her with an atmosphere of violence. And she bristled. But being her mother's daughter, she stood her ground. [LAUGHTER] And finally, she went out, slamming the door behind her. Now, I went on with my work. But something was always nagging at my mind. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, I could taken her by the hand, figuratively, led her gently into my meaning, my necessity, my urgency. And then I could have let her take me by the hand and do the same thing for her. So in this kind of interchange of projection, she would have looked out on my problem through my eyes. And I would have looked out on her problem through her eyes. And it is conceivable that not only would she not have disturbed me, but she would have stood guard at the door to keep her mother from disturbing me so that I could finish reading the book and be ready when the taxi came. But that would have taken about two hours. And I had only about 25 minutes. There is something about violence as an instrument of social change that gets-- within a limited time interval-- gets the job done so that the next move may be made. Gasset-- Ortega Gasset, in his book The Revolt of the Masses, discusses the meaning of violence in a very interesting way. And I suggest to you to read it sometimes if you're interested in pursuing this, at least his kind of argument, because it's an interesting one. He says that violence does not ever disappear from the horizon of the human adventure or the human enterprise. But it operates on what he calls an ascending and descending scale in human life. The barbarian, according to Gasset, is a man who, when his will is frustrated so that it is impossible, for he is blocked in his effort to impose his will upon another, as soon as that happens, says Gasset, the barbarian resorts to violence. Now, Gasset says, the civilized man postpones the use of violence until he has exhausted all other measures. But that violence, as an aspect-- a functioning aspect of personality, is always present. Now, violence may be physical force. And usually, the definition of violence is the use of physical force. That's the definition that the dictionaries give is the use of physical force as an extension of an individual's will as it seeks to impose itself on another without the other's consent or assent. But perhaps, perhaps physical violence or violence as a physical force does not exhaust the possibilities of the meaning of violence in human experience. For non-physical violence is far more devastating than physical violence. A man can accommodate himself to the fact that in this adventure through which he is going, he may lose his life. He may make an immediate and radical accommodation to the fact of his death. So that in one creative sweep of his mind, he can accept the acceptance of death, which is far more important than merely accepting death. He can accept the acceptance of death. For every thoughtful man, some time in his life, arrives at a decision. And that decision has to do with how crucial to him is the continuity of his physical existence. This is what Jesus means, I suppose, when he says, what would a man give in exchange for his life? Now, dictators, in a society that has become totalitarian, understand this subtle thing in personality. So that they surround the atmosphere in which their subjects live with a subtle rumor. The result of which causes the individual citizen to over-emphasize the significance of his physical existence. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, how do they do this? You go to bed at night and everybody is at home. You wake up in the morning, the father is missing. The mysterious knock during the night, and the father disappears. A neighbor that you saw this morning working in his yard, this afternoon he's gone. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And after a while, to continue to live and not be pulled away unannounced and unnoticed causes the priority of physical existence to mount and mount until it becomes a top priority. Now, once the dictator guarantees-- sees that in the populace the average man places a maximum premium upon his physical existence, then the society is ready for any kind of change that the dictator determines. For all he need to do is to threaten to kill you. And you will do whatever he says to so that sooner or later, every man-- and by man, I mean man the generic-- every man has to decide for himself how important is his own physical continuity and under what circumstances will he gladly give up his life. Give up his life. Now, violence, then, is maybe the least reflective way by which social change may take place. Or it may be the most cunning, the most subtle means for bringing about social change. It is comparatively easy to say that one option, one alternative in this picture a man always has-and that is that he can always die, you see? And of course, I think this is the organic basis for freedom in human life. But that's another story. There's one option that nobody can take from me. I can always die so that whatever the other thing is that I'm being required to do, I don't have to do that. I can die. But one of the things that we've learned from the terror and the madness of the Third Reich was the fact that there are refinements in physical violence that may systematically rob a man from exercising his final vote to give up his life. I was talking with an ophthalmologist down in Stanford, who had come through one of the camps. I preached a sermon talking about this. And the idea seemed sound and solid and worthy. So he asked after the meeting-- he asked if he could come by to see me that night. When he's through with his rounds at the hospital, he came by about 10 o'clock. And we talked from 10 o'clock at night to 5 o'clock in the morning-- all night long. And nobody got sleepy. And what were we talking about? He was saying that it is possible-- the thing that happened to me was I was taken right up to the point of death, right, and then snatched back. Until finally, he said, my very self was splintered and shattered. And I had no will left and no sense of my own personal private autonomy. Now, violence does this. Let me put that aspect up together and talk about nonviolence and be through. Violence tends to be efficient. It tends to be quick. It's a time saver. It inspires a certain kind of panic in the human spirit so that it makes capitulation possible without moral compromise. This is very interesting. But it does not change the will. It tends to drive the will underground and let it lurk there until a more propitious and promising moment for its emergence to come to pass. But it is simple. And it can be exercised without discipline because the history of violence in the life of the human animal is a very long one. Now, I will leave violence. I'm not through, but I'll leave it and move to non-violence [INAUDIBLE]. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, non-violence in our time has been associated, of course, as an instrument of social change and associated with Mahatma Gandhi. When I was in India, I did have a wonderful five hours with Mr. Gandhi. And a part of the time, we were discussing this question of the dynamics of non-violent direct action. And one aspect of our conversation I want to use as the [INAUDIBLE], and I know what I want to say. Pitts Theology Library Emory University I asked him near the end, why was it that his campaign of non-violent direct action expressing itself and non-cooperation with the British, why did it fail of its objective? And the objective being, of course, to get rid of the British. But they were still there. And the campaign had bogged down apparently from the march to the sea and the making of the salt, and so forth, and so on. And he said that non-violent direct action is an ethical activity that is derived from the Hindu doctrine of Ahimsa, no killing. It is, what he called, not only immoral idea or ideal, but it is a spiritual one. And he said that it involves complete involvement on the part of all of the masses of the people who are caught up in the process of social change. It cannot be, said he, the activity of a leader separated from an activity in which the masses of the people participate. This is the first point. So, he said, at first, based upon our tradition, it was possible for the masses of the Indians to respond to this doctrine. But under the pressure of the organized political power of the country in the hands of the British, the non-violent non-cooperation ideal bogged down and degenerated into violence. These were his words. And he said, this at first raised the question in my mind about the validity of the non-violent ethic as an instrument in social change. And once I was satisfied that the concept itself was valid based upon my experience, my interpretation of my own devotion to truth, I began to look somewhere else for the cause of the breakdown. And this is very astute. He said, I found, based upon my own experience, something I'd forgotten, said he. That it takes an enormous amount of energy, physical energy, to sustain an ethical ideal such as non-violence over a time interval of sufficient duration to make it effective. And the masses of the Indians were unable to do this because they didn't have enough food to eat. So he said I withdrew from the political campaign and began working on the question of rebuilding the-- well, whatever you do when you feed people-- to do this. So that's why I reactivated the old spinning wheel and the cottage and village industries, so as to put at the disposal of the masses of Indians that which at one time was a part of their technique of survival but had been taken away from them when the conqueror came. And by reactivating this, they could get more food and build up their vitality to the point that, in terms of physical energy, it would be possible to sustain this ethical ideal over the time interval that would make it effective. And the second thing I observed was that they lack vitality because they had lost their selfrespect. And he said, we don't begin to understand the relationship between our energy and dynamism in the personality. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change Series (1969, California State College, Long Beach, CA) Description An account of the resource In the three lectures comprising this series, Thurman discusses the effects of personal experience on social change. He illuminates points regarding individual freedom, the expression of togetherness in community, and nonviolence as the individual’s attempt to broaden one’s circle of concern. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dr. Tim Rainey AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-048_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon California State College, Long Beach, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Man and Social Change (III): Violence and Nonviolence [Side A], 1969 Mar 21 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-048_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969-03-21 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13148225.246838 3999563.3243138)) Description An account of the resource Throughout history, physical violence has been used to bring about immediate social change. However, it is unable to rob a person of the “final vote” – the option to give up one’s life. Non-physical violence is a more devastating reality for Thurman because when it is effective, the person surrenders the will and is robbed of the option. Willingness to die, to escape the forced option, is “the organic basis for freedom in human life.” The force of violence does not enter the will but “Nonviolence insinuates itself into the will,” creates a new sense of self and freedom, and enables the person to become an unbounded instrument of social change. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource Man and Social Change, Part 3: Violence and Nonviolence, 1969 March 21 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dr. Tim Rainey Ghandi non-physical violence nonviolence option physical violence social change violence will World War I World War II