Justification For Block Quotes

The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God.

People open shops in order to sell things, they hope to become busy so that they will have to enlarge the shop, then to sell more things, and grow rich, and eventually not have to come into the shop at all. Isn't that true? But are there other people who open a shop with the hope of being sheltered there, among such things as they most value - the yarn or the teacups or the books - and with the idea only of making a comfortable assertion? They will become a part of the block, a part of the street, part of everybody's map of the town, and eventually of everybody's memories. They will sit and drink coffee in the middle of the morning, they will get out the familiar bits of tinsel at Christmas, they will wash the windows in spring before spreading out the new stock. Shops, to these people, are what a cabin in the woods might be to somebody else - a refuge and a justification.

Thought Control * Require members to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth * Adopt the group’s “map of reality” as reality * Instill black and white thinking * Decide between good versus evil * Organize people into us versus them (insiders versus outsiders) * Change a person’s name and identity * Use loaded language and clichés to constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts, and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzzwords * Encourage only “good and proper” thoughts * Use hypnotic techniques to alter mental states, undermine critical thinking, and even to age-regress the member to childhood states * Manipulate memories to create false ones * Teach thought stopping techniques that shut down reality testing by stopping negative thoughts and allowing only positive thoughts. These techniques include: * Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking * Chanting * Meditating * Praying * Speaking in tongues * Singing or humming * Reject rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism * Forbid critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy * Label alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil, or not useful * Instill new “map of reality” Emotional Control * Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings—some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong, or selfish * Teach emotion stopping techniques to block feelings of hopelessness, anger, or doubt * Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault * Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as: * Identity guilt * You are not living up to your potential * Your family is deficient * Your past is suspect * Your affiliations are unwise * Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish * Social guilt * Historical guilt * Instill fear, such as fear of: * Thinking independently * The outside world * Enemies * Losing one’s salvation * Leaving * Orchestrate emotional highs and lows through love bombing and by offering praise one moment, and then declaring a person is a horrible sinner * Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins * Phobia indoctrination: inculcate irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority * No happiness or fulfillment possible outside the group * Terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity, 10,000 reincarnations, etc. * Shun those who leave and inspire fear of being rejected by friends and family * Never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, unspiritual, worldly, brainwashed by family or counselor, or seduced by money, sex, or rock and roll * Threaten harm to ex-member and family (threats of cutting off friends/family)

The life of man is a story; an adventure story; and in our vision the same is true even of the story of God. The Catholic faith is the reconciliation because it is the realisation both of mythology and philosophy. It is a story and in that sense one of a hundred stories; only it is a true story. It is a philosophy and in that sense one of a hundred philosophies; only it is a philosophy that is like life. But above all, it is a reconciliation because it is something that can only be called the philosophy of stories. That normal narrative instinct which produced all the fairy tales is something that is neglected by all the philosophies—except one. The Faith is the justification of that popular instinct; the finding of a philosophy for it or the analysis of the philosophy in it. Exactly as a man in an adventure story has to pass various tests to save his life, so the man in this philosophy has to pass several tests and save his soul. In both there is an idea of free will operating under conditions of design; in other words, there is an aim and it is the business of a man to aim at it; we therefore watch to see whether he will hit it. Now this deep and democratic and dramatic instinct is derided and dismissed in all the other philosophies. For all the other philosophies avowedly end where they begin; and it is the definition of a story that it ends differently; that it begins in one place and ends in another. From Buddha and his wheel to Akhen Aten and his disc, from Pythagoras with his abstraction of number to Confucius with his religion of routine, there is not one of them that does not in some way sin against the soul of a story. There is none of them that really grasps this human notion of the tale, the test, the adventure; the ordeal of the free man. Each of them starves the story-telling instinct, so to speak, and does something to spoil human life considered as a romance; either by fatalism (pessimist or optimist) and that destiny that is the death of adventure; or by indifference and that detachment that is the death of drama; or by a fundamental scepticism that dissolves the actors into atoms; or by a materialistic limitation blocking the vista of moral consequences; or a mechanical recurrence making even moral tests monotonous; or a bottomless relativity making even practical tests insecure. There is such a thing as a human story; and there is such a thing as the divine story which is also a human story; but there is no such thing as a Hegelian story or a Monist story or a relativist story or a determinist story; for every story, yes, even a penny dreadful or a cheap novelette, has something in it that belongs to our universe and not theirs. Every short story does truly begin with creation and end with a last judgement.

The two young boys raced along the sidewalk, twisting their way between passers-by, their eyes frantically glancing behind them at the large pursuing policeman. Suddenly Mr. Thorn, a large, burley man dressed in black blocked their way and took them both by the collars. “So there you are!” He snatched the apple quickly from James’ hand. “What have we here?” He was about to take a bite of it, when he saw the officer racing towards them. “It’s all right officer. I have the young scoundrels and I’ll make full restitutions for their thievery.” He quickly fished coins from his pocket and with a conning smile, put them in the hand of the frowning Policeman. “And a little extra for your trouble, my good man. It’s such a small crime and the criminals so . . . minor.” The burly policeman rocked back and forth considering and then grunted, after all it was Christmas. “Very well sir. I’ll give these to the Vendor but I catch either of you snatching again, it’s behind bars with you and a good strong workhouse. You got me!” Jonas glanced down at his worn out boots, his face red with shame. “Oh yes sir.” James followed suit and then glanced up into the gruff face of the law. “Sorry, we were just hungry!” Mr. Thorn smiled and tipped his hat to the Policeman, who shaking his head, sauntered away. Immediately Mr. Thorn slapped Jonas hard across the face, drawing blood from his nose and then smacked James on the head, crushing his cap. He snatched the apple from James’ hand and pocketed them both. “So here you two no-accounts are? I’ve been searching high and wide for the lot of you. I left you at this corner and I expected to find you right where I left ya!” He then snatched the cup from Jonas’ hand with a scowl. He poured the coins into his hand and his greedy eyes took in the meager profits. Jonas immediately stammered justification for their absence. “We-we found a better corner to beg at, Mr. Thorn. I think we done all right.” Mr. Thorn cleared his throat considering and then his boisterous laughter echoed. He put his big arms around the two young lads. “Well, you done fine for us boys! We needs the money! We’ll have to have you two young Sirs representing our fine establishment again tomorrow, I do believe.” He chuckled cruelly. “We’ve great charity in our hearts for you kiddies but a soulful heart won’t put bread and molasses on the table.” He greedily poured the coins into his coat pocket. Both lads coughed mischievously at mention of such charitable actions. Thorn eyed them both to see if they are making fun of him, which they were. Jonas cleared his throat. “A bit of a tickle.” Thorn growled and gruffly took hold of the boy’s arm. “I’d tickle you both with a whip if I thought you was funning with me! Now boys, you’ve roughed my gentle nature. You know that I has nothing but love for the lot of you. My big heart swells at the sight of each and every one of you little bastards . . . I mean kiddies. Shall we on home?” “Here Jamey lad, you hold the cup. Give us a song the two of you, to beg alms by. I think I’m in the mood for “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, but make it sweet or there’s a lashing for the both of ya!” Jonas and James exchanged tortured looks. Together the young Nicholas boys sweetly began to sing the song, as they moved through the crowd. The Tall Toymaker followed them down the sidewalk, trying not to be observed by Thorn. ”And a villain enters the scene, an ugly villain at that!

Self-justification is blocking each partner from asking: Could I be wrong? Could I be making a mistake? Could I change?

Specific Architectural Topics Is the overall organization of the program clear, including a good architectural overview and justification? Are major building blocks well defined, including their areas of responsibility and their interfaces to other building blocks? Are all the functions listed in the requirements covered sensibly, by neither too many nor too few building blocks? Are the most critical classes described and justified? Is the data design described and justified? Is the database organization and content specified? Are all key business rules identified and their impact on the system described? Is a strategy for the user interface design described? Is the user interface modularized so that changes in it won’t affect the rest of the program? Is a strategy for handling I/O described and justified? Are resource-use estimates and a strategy for resource management described and justified for scarce resources like threads, database connections, handles, network bandwidth, and so on? Are the architecture’s security requirements described? Does the architecture set space and speed budgets for each class, subsystem, or functionality area? Does the architecture describe how scalability will be achieved? Does the architecture address interoperability? Is a strategy for internationalization/localization described? Is a coherent error-handling strategy provided? Is the approach to fault tolerance defined (if any is needed)? Has technical feasibility of all parts of the system been established? Is an approach to overengineering specified? Are necessary buy-vs.-build decisions included? Does the architecture describe how reused code will be made to conform to other architectural objectives? Is the architecture designed to accommodate likely changes? General Architectural Quality Does the architecture account for all the requirements? Is any part overarchitected or underarchitected? Are expectations in this area set out explicitly? Does the whole architecture hang together conceptually? Is the top-level design independent of the machine and language that will be used to implement it? Are the motivations for all major decisions provided? Are you, as a programmer who will implement the system, comfortable with the architecture?