Some Regression Quotes

It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, "Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He didn't love me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll---then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.

Some day perhaps our time will be known as the age of irony. Not the witty irony of the eighteenth century, but the stupid or malignant irony of a crude age of technological progress and cultural regression.

There is an invitation beyond the wall of knowledge, which is not to some regressive state before the mind can operate, but a transcendent state that’s beyond where the mind can go. That’s what spirituality is. It’s going where the mind cannot go.

If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.

There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in his name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion, and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions…I'm for decency—period. I'm for anything and everything that bodes love and consideration for my fellow man. But when lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday—count me out.

I have always tried... to counter the forces of deeply embedded systemic power structures, the ruthless abuse of that power, and the pull to regression to the benefit of some at the expense of others. Those forces are strong. We are stronger. Never forget that.

He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There's even something -sub-human -something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something - ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I've seen in - anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is - Stanley Kowalski - survivor of the Stone Age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you - you here - waiting for him! Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet! Night falls and the other apes gather! There in the front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking! His poker night! - you call it - this party of apes! Somebody growls - some creature snatches at something - the fight is on! God! Maybe we are a long way from beng made in God's image, but Stella - my sister - there has been some progress since then! Such things as art - as poetry and music - such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! In some kinds of people some tendered feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag! In this dark march towards what-ever it is we're approaching . . . Don't - don't hang back with the brutes!

…Obviously, I have always wished I could remember what happened in that wood. The very few people who know about the whole Knocknaree thing invariably suggest, sooner or later, that I should try hypnotic regression, but for some reason I find the idea distasteful. I’m deeply suspicious of anything with a whiff of the New Age about it—not because of the practices themselves, which as far as I can tell from a safe distance may well have a lot to them, but because of the people who get involved who always seem to be the kind who corner you at parties to explain how they discovered that they are survivors and deserve to be happy. I worry that I might come out of hypnosis with that sugar-high glaze of self-satisfied enlightenment, like a seventeen-year-old who’s just discovered Kerouak, and start proselytizing strangers in pubs…

Talking is just recording what you’re thinking. It’s not the thing itself. When I’m talking to you some separate part of my mind is composing what I’m about to say. But it’s not yet in the form of words. So what is it in the form of? There’s certainly no sense of some homunculus whispering to us the words we’re about to say. Aside from raising the spectre of an infinite regress—as in who is whispering to the whisperer—it raises the question of a language of thought. Part of the general puzzle of how we get from the mind to the world. A hundred billion synaptic events clicking away in the dark like blind ladies

Of course, we all go through our own experiences. If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.

Some foolish men declare that a Creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill-advised, and should be rejected. If God created the world, where was He before creation?… How could God have made the world without any raw material? If you say He made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression … Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end. And it is based on the principles … —The Mahapurana (The Great Legend),    Jinasena (India, ninth century)

It is lonely behind these boundaries. Some people-particularly those whom psychiatrists call schizoid-because of unpleasant, traumatizing experiences in childhood, perceive the world outside of themselves as unredeemably dangerous, hostile, confusing and unnurturing. Such people feel their boundaries to be protecting and comforting and find a sense of safety in their loneliness. But most of us feel our loneliness to be painful and yearn to escape from behind the walls of our individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside of ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us this escapetemporarily. The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual's ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity with that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, and the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved are one! Loneliness is no more! In some respects (but certainly not in all) the act of falling in love is an act of regression. The experience of merging with the loved one has in it echoes from the time when we were merged with our mothers in infancy. Along with the merging we also reexperience the sense of omnipotence which we had to give up in our journey out of childhood. All things seem possible! United with our beloved we feel we can conquer all obstacles. We believe that the strength of our love will cause the forces of opposition to bow down in submission and melt away into the darkness. All problems will be overcome. The future will be all light. The unreality of these feelings when we have fallen in love is essentially the same as the unreality of the two-year-old who feels itself to be king of the family and the world with power unlimited. Just as reality intrudes upon the two-year-old's fantasy of omnipotence so does reality intrude upon the fantastic unity of the couple who have fallen in love. Sooner or later, in response to the problems of daily living, individual will reasserts itself. He wants to have sex; she doesn't. She wants to go to the movies; he doesn't. He wants to put money in the bank; she wants a dishwasher. She wants to talk about her job; he wants to talk about his. She doesn't like his friends; he doesn't like hers. So both of them, in the privacy of their hearts, begin to come to the sickening realization that they are not one with the beloved, that the beloved has and will continue to have his or her own desires, tastes, prejudices and timing different from the other's. One by one, gradually or suddenly, the ego boundaries snap back into place; gradually or suddenly, they fall out of love. Once again they are two separate individuals. At this point they begin either to dissolve the ties of their relationship or to initiate the work of real loving.

But I must think it is one or the other.' [Reason]: 'By my father's soul, you must not - until you have some evidence. Can you not remain in doubt?' [John]: 'I don't know that I have ever tried.' [Reason]: 'You must learn to, if you are to come far with me. It is not hard to do it. In Eschropolis, indeed, it is impossible, for the people who live there have to give an opinion once a week or once a day, or else Mr. Mammon would soon cut off their food. But out here in the country you can walk all day and all the next day with an unanswered question in your head: you need never speak until you have made up your mind.

That’s why male adults, and some females too, experience the presence of a strong woman as a dangerous regression to a time of their own vulnerability and dependence.

The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what. I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together…. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers.

Primum non nocere, 'First, don't make things worse,' was an essential principle of Hippocrates' medicine. Nowadays, unfortunately, it seems to have been forgotten. Conventional modern medicine aims at getting rid of patients' symptoms. Little, if any consideration is given to the fact that some of these symptoms may actually be used by the body in an attempt to correct deeper disorders. When this is the case, suppressing the symptom does not necessarily help the patient.

I'm a staunch monogamist. In practice, if not in theory. I can't help it. Do I acknowledge the oppressive, regressive nature of sexual exclusivity? Yes. Do I want that exclusivity very badly for myself? Also yes. There's probably some sort of way in which that's not a paradox. Maybe I believe in love.

Dawes observed that the complex statistical algorithm adds little or no value. One can do just as well by selecting a set of scores that have some validity for predicting the outcome and adjusting the values to make them comparable (by using standard scores or ranks). A formula that combines these predictors with equal weights is likely to be just as accurate in predicting new cases as the multiple-regression formula that was optimal in the original sample. More recent research went further: formulas that assign equal weights to all the predictors are often superior, because they are not affected by accidents of sampling.

If there are no self-evident first principles, as a foundation for reasoning to conclusions that are not immediately apparent, how can you construct any kind of a philosophy? If you have to prove even the basic axioms of your metaphysics, you will never have a metaphysics, because you will never have any strict proof of anything, for your first proof will involve you in an infinite regress, proving that you are proving what you are proving and so on, into the exterior darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. If Descartes thought it was necessary to prove his own existence by the fact that he was thinking, and that his though therefore existed in some subject, how did he prove that he was thinking in the first place? But as to the second step, that God must exist because Descartes had a clear idea of him – that never convinced me, then or at any other time, or now either. There are much better proofs for the existence of God than that one.

It takes time. There are milestones, but so many people are traveling along that road at their own pace, and some come along later, and others are trying to stop everyone who's moving forward, and a few are marching backward or are confused about what direction they should go in. Even in our own lives we regress, fail, continue, try again, get lost, and sometimes make a great leap, find what we didn't know we were looking for, and yet continue to contain contradictions for generations. (Pandora's Box and the Volunteer Police Force)

Some people would much prefer the infinite regress of mysteries, apparently, but in this day and age the cost is prohibitive: you have to get yourself deceived. You can either deceive yourself or let others do the dirty work, but there is no intellectually defensible way of rebuilding the mighty barriers to comprehension that Darwin smashed. (p.25)

What I have to face is that 'Barb,' the name on my ID tag, is not exactly the same person as Barbara. 'Barb' is what I was called as a child, and still am by my siblings, and I sense that at some level I'm regressing. Take away the career and the higher education, and maybe what you're left with is this original Barb, the one who might have ended up working at Wal-Mart for real if her father hadn't managed to climb out of the mines. So it's interesting, and more than a little disturbing, to see how Barb turned out — that she's meaner and slyer than I am, more cherishing of grudges, and not quite as smart as I'd hoped.

Here is one of the most important things to remember when doing research that involves regression analysis: Try not to kill anyone. You can even put a little Post-it note on your computer monitor: “Do not kill people with your research.” Because some very smart people have inadvertently violated that rule.

Some foolish men declare that creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill advised and should be rejected. If God created the world, where was he before the creation? If you say he was transcendent then and needed no support, where is he now? How could God have made this world without any raw material? If you say that he made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression. If you declare that this raw material arose naturally you fall into another fallacy, For the whole universe might thus have been its own creator, and have arisen quite naturally. If God created the world by an act of his own will, without any raw material, then it is just his will and nothing else — and who will believe this silly nonsense? If he is ever perfect and complete, how could the will to create have arisen in him? If, on the other hand, he is not perfect, he could no more create the universe than a potter could. If he is form-less, action-less and all-embracing, how could he have created the world? Such a soul, devoid of all morality, would have no desire to create anything. If he is perfect, he does not strive for the three aims of man, so what advantage would he gain by creating the universe? If you say that he created to no purpose because it was his nature to do so, then God is pointless. If he created in some kind of sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble. If he created because of the karma of embodied beings [acquired in a previous creation] He is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to something else. If out of love for living beings and need of them he made the world, why did he not take creation wholly blissful free from misfortune? If he were transcendent he would not create, for he would be free: Nor if involved in transmigration, for then he would not be almighty. Thus the doctrine that the world was created by God makes no sense at all, And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself created. If you say that he slays only to destroy evil beings, why did he create such beings in the first place? Good men should combat the believer in divine creation, maddened by an evil doctrine. Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning or end, and is based on the principles, life and rest. Uncreated and indestructible, it endures under the compulsion of its own nature. [By 9th century Jain (the religion of Jainism) Acharya, Jinasena, in his work, Mahapurana, a major Jain text. The Jains have never believed in any gods as creators of the universe, unlike most other religions, and have focused on acting morally on Earth rather than wasting time supplicating the supernatural.]

Stories of prediction are often those of long-term progress but short-term regress

This book is an essay in what is derogatorily called "literary economics," as opposed to mathematical economics, econometrics, or (embracing them both) the "new economic history." A man does what he can, and in the more elegant - one is tempted to say "fancier" - techniques I am, as one who received his formation in the 1930s, untutored. A colleague has offered to provide a mathematical model to decorate the work. It might be useful to some readers, but not to me. Catastrophe mathematics, dealing with such events as falling off a height, is a new branch of the discipline, I am told, which has yet to demonstrate its rigor or usefulness. I had better wait. Econometricians among my friends tell me that rare events such as panics cannot be dealt with by the normal techniques of regression, but have to be introduced exogenously as "dummy variables." The real choice open to me was whether to follow relatively simple statistical procedures, with an abundance of charts and tables, or not. In the event, I decided against it. For those who yearn for numbers, standard series on bank reserves, foreign trade, commodity prices, money supply, security prices, rate of interest, and the like are fairly readily available in the historical statistics.

The tail is the time period from “code slush” (true code freezes are rare) or “feature freeze” to actual deployment. This is the time period when companies do some or all of the following: beta testing, regression testing, product integration, integration testing, documentation, defect fixing. The worst “tail” I’ve encountered was 18 months—18 months from feature freeze to product release, and most of that time was spent in QA. I’ve

Is not winning the war more important than truth? This maxim, I knew, was also subscribed to by some on the left, the regressive left. For them, winning against capitalism was far more important than it was to their allies. I watched as our ideology gained acceptance and we were granted airtime as Muslim political commentators. I watched as we were ignorantly pandered to by well-meaning liberals and ideologically driven leftists. How we Islamists laughed at their naïveté.

These changes, I believe, can be the basis of a true Islamic Reformation, one that progresses to the twenty-first century rather than regresses to the seventh. Some of these changes may strike readers as too fundamental to Islamic belief to be feasible. But like the partition walls or superfluous stairways that a successful renovation removes, they can in fact be modified without causing the entire structure to collapse. Indeed, I believe these modifications will actually strengthen Islam by making it easier for Muslims to live in harmony with the modern world. It is those hell-bent on restoring it to its original state who are much more likely to lead Islam to destruction. Here again are my five theses, nailed to a virtual door: 1. Ensure that Muhammad and the Qur’an are open to interpretation and criticism. 2. Give priority to this life, not the afterlife. 3. Shackle sharia and end its supremacy over secular law. 4. End the practice of “commanding right, forbidding wrong.” 5. Abandon the call to jihad. In the chapters that follow, I will explore the source of the ideas and doctrines in question and evaluate the prospects for reforming them. For now, we may simply note that they are closely interrelated.

There's folly in her stride that's the rumor justified by lies I've seen her up close beneath the sheets and sometime during the summer she was mine for a few sweet months in the fall and parts of December ((( To get to the heart of this unsolvable equation, one must first become familiar with the physical, emotional, and immaterial makeup as to what constitutes both war and peace. ))) I found her looking through a window the same window I'd been looking through She smiled and her eyes never faltered this folly was a crime ((( The very essence of war is destructive, though throughout the years utilized as a means of creating peace, such an equation might seem paradoxical to the untrained eye. Some might say using evil to defeat evil is counterproductive, and gives more meaning to the word “futile”. Others, like Edmund Burke, would argue that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing.” ))) She had an identity I could identify with something my fingertips could caress in the night ((( There is such a limitless landscape within the mind, no two minds are alike. And this is why as a race we will forever be at war with each other. What constitutes peace is in the mind of the beholder. ))) Have you heard the argument? This displacement of men and women and women and men the minds we all have the beliefs we all share Slipping inside of us thoughts and religions and bodies all bare ((( “Without darkness, there can be no light,” he once said. To demonstrate this theory, during one of his seminars he held a piece of white chalk and drew a line down the center of a blackboard. Explaining that without the blackness of the board, the white line would be invisible. ))) When she left she kissed with eyes open I knew this because I'd done the same Sometimes we saw eye to eye like that Very briefly, she considered an apotheosis a synthesis a rendering of her folly into solidarity ((( To believe that a world-wide lay down of arms is possible, however, is the delusion of the pacifist; the dream of the optimist; and the joke of the realist. Diplomacy only goes so far, and in spite of our efforts to fight with words- there are times when drawing swords of a very different nature are surely called for. ))) Experiencing the subsequent sunrise inhaling and drinking breaking mirrors and regurgitating just to start again all in all I was just another gash in the bark ((( Plato once said: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Perhaps the death of us all is called for in this time of emotional desperation. War is a product of the mind; only with the death of such will come the end of the bloodshed. Though this may be a fairly realistic view of such an issue, perhaps there is an optimistic outlook on the horizon. Not every sword is double edged, but every coin is double sided. ))) Leaving town and throwing shit out the window drinking boroughs and borrowing spare change I glimpsed the rear view mirror stole a glimpse really I've believed in looking back for a while it helps to have one last view a reminder in case one ever decides to rebel in the event the self regresses and makes the declaration of devastation once more ((( Thus, if we wish to eliminate the threat of war today- complete human annihilation may be called for. )))

Some of the regressive customs found in Muslim-majority countries, such as female genital mutilation and “honor killings” of unchaste sisters and daughters, are ancient African or West Asian tribal practices and are misattributed by their perpetrators to Islamic law. Some

It isn't the sort of argument Pointsman relishes either. But he glances sharply at this young anarchist in his red scarf. "Pavlov believed that the ideal, the end we all struggle toward in science, is the true mechanical explanation. He was realistic enough not to expect it in his lifetime. Or in several lifetimes more. But his hope was for a long chain of better and better approximations. His faith ultimately lay in a pure physiological basis for the life of the psyche. No effect without cause, and a clear train of linkages. "It's not my forte, of course," Mexico honestly wishing not to offend the man, but really, "but there's a feeling about that cause-and-effect may have been taken as far as it will go. That for science to carry on at all, it must look for a less narrow, a less . . . sterile set of assumptions. The next great breakthrough may come when we have the courage to junk cause-and-effect entirely, and strike off at some other angle." "No - not 'strike off.' Regress. You're 30 years old, man. There are no 'other angles.' There is only forward - into it – or backward.

To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a ‘big bang singularity’, or some other physical concept as yet unknown. Calling it God is at best unhelpful and at worst perniciously misleading.

But whenever I tried to pin down this idea of self-esteem, the specific qualities we hoped to inculcate, the specific means by which we might feel good about ourselves, the conversation always seemed to follow a path of infinite regress. Did you dislike yourself because of your color or because you couldn’t read and couldn’t get a job? Or perhaps it was because you were unloved as a child—only, were you unloved because you were too dark? Or too light? Or because your mother shot heroin into her veins … and why did she do that anyway? Was the sense of emptiness you felt a consequence of kinky hair or the fact that your apartment had no heat and no decent furniture? Or was it because deep down you imagined a godless universe? Maybe one couldn’t avoid such questions on the road to personal salvation. What I doubted was that all the talk about self-esteem could serve as the centerpiece of an effective black politics. It demanded too much honest self-reckoning from people; without such honesty, it easily degenerated into vague exhortation. Perhaps with more self-esteem fewer blacks would be poor, I thought to myself, but I had no doubt that poverty did nothing for our self-esteem. Better to concentrate on the things we might all agree on. Give that black man some tangible skills and a job. Teach that black child reading and arithmetic in a safe, well-funded school. With the basics taken care of, each of us could search for our own sense of self-worth.

Miss Wooding turned the nervous shade of pink that Rosaline found people often turned when her sexuality went from an idea they could support to a reality they had to confront. “I appreciate this is a sensitive topic and one that different people have different beliefs about. Which is why I have to be guided by the policies of our academy trust, and they make it quite clear that learners shouldn’t be taught about LGBTQ until year six.” “Oh do they?” asked Rosaline, doing her best to remember that Miss Wooding was probably a very nice person and not just a fuzzy cardigan draped over some regressive social values. “Because Amelie’s in year four and she manages to cope with my existence nearly every day.” Having concluded this was going to be one of those long grown-up conversations, Amelie had taken her Panda pencil case out of her bag and was diligently rearranging the contents. “I do,” she said. “I’m very good.” Miss Wooding actually wrung her hands. “Yes, but the other children—” “Are allowed to talk about their families as much as they like.” “Yes, but—” “Which,” Rosaline went on mercilessly, “when you think about it, is the definition of discrimination.” Amelie looked up again. “Discrimination is bad. We learned that in year three.” The d-word made Miss Wooding visibly flinch. “Now Mrs. Palmer—” “Ms. Palmer.” “I’m sure this is a misunderstanding.” “I’m sure it is.” Taking advantage of the fact that Miss Wooding had been temporarily pacified by the spectre of the Equality Act, Rosaline tried to strike a balance between defending her identity and catching her train. “I get that you have a weird professional duty to respect the wishes of people who want their kids to stay homophobic for as long as possible. But hopefully you get why that isn’t my problem. And if you ever try to make it Amelie’s problem again, I will lodge a formal complaint with the governors.” Miss Wooding de-flinched slightly. “As long as she doesn’t—” “No ‘as long as she doesn’t.’ You’re not teaching my daughter to be ashamed of me.” There was a long pause. Then Miss Wooding sighed. “Perhaps it’s best that we draw a line under this and say no more about it.” In Rosaline’s experience this was what victory over institutional prejudice looked like: nobody actually apologising or admitting they’d done anything wrong, but the institution in question generously offering to pretend that nothing had happened. So—win?

It is ironic that some left intellectuals should deem class struggle to be largely irrelevant at the very time class power is becoming increasingly transparent, at the very time corporate concentration and profit accumulation is more rapacious than ever, and the tax system has become more regressive and oppressive, the upward transfer of income and wealth has accelerated, public sector assets are being privatized, corporate money exercises an increasing control over the political process, people at home and abroad are working harder for less, and throughout the world poverty is growing at a faster rate than overall population.

We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision, and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if decision itself were voluntary, every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to decide–an infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough, if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide. We are free to decide because decision “happens.” We just decide without having the faintest understanding of how we do it. In fact, it is neither voluntary nor involuntary. To “get the feel” of this relativity is to find another extraordinary transformation of our experience as a whole, which may be described in either of two ways. I feel that I am deciding everything that happens, or, I feel that everything, including my decisions, is just happening spontaneously. For a decision–the freest of my actions-just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me. Such a way of seeing things is vividly described by a modern Zen master, the late Sokei-an Sasaki: One day I wiped out all the notions from my mind. I gave up all desire. I discarded all the words with which I thought and stayed in quietude. I felt a little queer–as if I were being carried into something, or as if I were touching some power unknown to me … and Ztt! I entered. I lost the boundary of my physical body. I had my skin, of course, but I felt I was standing in the center of the cosmos. I spoke, but my words had lost their meaning. I saw people coming towards me, but all were the same man. All were myself! I had never known this world. I had believed that I was created, but now I must change my opinion: I was never created; I was the cosmos; no individual Mr. Sasaki existed.7 It would seem, then, that to get rid of the subjective distinction between “me” and “my experience”–through seeing that my idea of myself is not myself–is to discover the actual relationship between myself and the “outside” world. The individual, on the one hand, and the world, on the other, are simply the abstract limits or terms of a concrete reality which is “between” them, as the concrete coin is “between” the abstract, Euclidean surfaces of its two sides. Similarly, the reality of all “inseparable opposites”–life and death, good and evil, pleasure and pain, gain and loss–is that “between” for which we have no words.

You chide yourself for walking too far ahead, for regressing into 80s song lyrics territory so soon. But then he says, "The supermassive black hole at the center of the milky way recently sparked 75 times brighter over the course of a 2 hour period, and twice as bright as it's ever been in the 20 years astronomers have been monitoring it." By now you're used to him talking Science, but you're not sure where he's going with this. "One theory," he continues "is that the event was caused by a star about 15 times bigger than the sun getting close to the edge of the black hole disturbing some gasses, heating things up, increasing the infrared radiation from the edge. But get this, we observed that star getting close to the black hole about a year before we observed the affects on the black hole." "That just shows how vast the universe is, how enormous the distance," you say. "Exactly! Distances, plural. The distance between the star and the edge of the black hole, and the distance between the black hole and Earth. So, I say all of this to say that sometimes wheels are set in motion long before the spark is manifest. Is that the same thing as fate? I don't know but...I do know that rare brilliant events take time.

When porn stars call it a day and head home with bruised and bloodied bodies, some of us attempt to have normal healthy relationships but our suitcase pimp boyfriends become jealous and physically abuse us. So instead we marry our porn directors or regress back to childhood and freeload off of 60 year old sugar daddies. I preferred sugar daddies because I desperately wanted the love and attention of my father.

Chomsky’s description of the neoliberal/corporate hold over our economy, polity, journalism, and culture is so powerful and overwhelming that for some readers it can produce a sense of resignation. In our demoralized political times, a few may go a step further and conclude that we are enmeshed in this regressive system because, alas, humanity is simply incapable of creating a more humane, egalitarian, and democratic social order.

If the random-walk view is correct, today's stock prices embody all relevant information. The only thing that would make them change is the availability of new information. Since we have no way of knowing what that new information might be, there is no mean for stock prices to regress to. In other words, there is no such thing as a temporary stock price-that is, a price that sits in limbo before moving to some other point. That is also why changes are unpredictable.

Book Ten; Chapter Six; Ignorantia "There must be a good side somewhere to this revolution," said Vertue. "It is too solid--it looks too lasting--to be a mere evil. I cannot believe that the Landlord would otherwise allow the whole face of nature and the whole structure of life to be so permanently and radically changed." The Guide laughed. "You are falling into their own error," he said, "the change is not radical, nor will it be permanent. That idea depends on a curious disease which they have all caught--an inability to disbelieve advertisements. To be sure, if the machines did what they promised, the change would be very deep indeed. Their next war, for example, would change the state of their country from disease to death. They are afraid of this themselves--though most of them are old enough to know by experience that a gun is no more likely than a toothpaste or a cosmetic to do the things its makers say it will do. It is the same with all their machines. Their labour-saving devices multiply drudgery; their aphrodisiacs make them impotent: their amusements bore them: their rapid production of food leaves half of them starving, and their devices for saving time have banished leisure from their country. There will be no radical change. And as for permanence--consider how quickly all machines are broken and obliterated. The black solitudes will some day be green again, and of all cities that I have seen these iron cities will break most suddenly.

Progression is part regression. Moving forward sometimes involves taking a few steps back during the process. Nothing has gone wrong. This is how we all move forward. Every project has setbacks. Every plan runs into a wall every once in a while. Every relationship has miscommunications and conflicts. Some days you will wake up feeling good; other days you will feel off. You will lose some money; you will gain some money. You will lose some weight; you will gain some weight. All of life is a process of expansion and contraction. This is how life breathes.

The laws of physics were the OS of some inconceivable supercomputer called reality. At least that explained why reality had a resolution limit; Planck length and Planck time had always looked a bit too much like pixel dimensions for comfort. Past that, though, it had always seemed like angels dancing on the head of a pin. None of it changed anything way up here where life happened, and besides, positing universe as program didn’t seem to answer the Big Questions so much as kick them down the road another order of magnitude. Might as well just say that God did it after all, head off the infinite regress before it drove you crazy.

We also have knowledge of another superstition from that period: be­lief in what was termed the Book-Man. On some shelf in some hexagon, it was argued, there must exist a book that is the cipher and perfect com­pendium of all other books, and some librarian must have examined that book; this librarian is analogous to a god. In the language of this zone there are still vestiges of the sect that worshiped that distant librarian. Many have gone in search of Him. For a hundred years, men beat every possible path­ and every path in vain. How was one to locate the idolized secret hexagon that sheltered Him? Someone proposed searching by regression: To locate book A, first consult book B, which tells where book A can be found; to lo­ cate book B, first consult book C, and so on, to infinity....It is in ventures such as these that I have squandered and spent my years. I cannot think it unlikely that there is such a total book on some shelf in the universe. I pray to the unknown gods that some man-even a single man, tens of centuries ago-has perused and read that book. If the honor and wisdom and joy of such a reading are not to be my own, then let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my own place be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enor­mous Library may find its 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 earlier psychic state may not have manifested itself for years but nevertheless continues to exist to the extent that it may some day again become the form in which psychic forces express themselves, in fact the only form, as though all subsequent developments had been annulled and made regressive. This extraordinary plasticity of psychic development is not without limits as to its direction; one can describe it as a special capacity for retrograde action or regression, for it sometimes happens that a later and higher stage of development that has been abandoned cannot be attained again. But the primitive conditions can always be reconstructed; the primitive psyche is in the strictest sense indestructible.

I knew the way these guys operated; I'd seen it over and over again. They had a need to manipulate and dominate their prey. They wanted to be able to decide whether or not their victim should live or die, or how the victim should die. They'd keep me alive as long as my body would hold out, reviving me when I passed out or was close to death, always inflicting as much pain and suffering as possible. Some of them could go on for days like that. They wanted to show me they were in total control, that I was completely at their mercy. The more I cried out, the more I begged for relief, the more I would fuel and energize their dark fantasies. If I would plead for my life or regress or call out for my mommy or daddy, that would really get them off.

We are in the habit of visualizing .. the history of science as a steady, cumulative process,.. where each epoch adds some new item of knowledge to the legacy of the past, making the temple of science grow brick by brick to ever greater height.. In fact, .. the philosophy of nature evolved by occasional leaps and bounds alternating with delusional pursuits, culs-de-sac, regressions, periods of blindness and amnesia. The great discoveries .. were sometimes the unexpected by-products of a chase after quite different hares. At other times, the process of discovery consisted merely in the cleaning away of the rubbish that blocked the path, or in the rearranging of existing items of knowledge in a different pattern.. Europe knew less geometry in the fifteenth century than in Archimedes' time.

most of us feel our loneliness to be painful and yearn to escape from behind the walls of our individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside of ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us this escape – temporarily. The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual’s ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity with that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, and the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved are one! Loneliness is no more! In some respects (but certainly not in all) the act of falling in love is an act of regression.

Obviously, I have always wished I could remember what happened in that wood. The very few people who know about the whole Knocknaree thing invariably suggest, sooner or later, that I should try hypnotic regression, but for some reason I find the idea distasteful. I’m deeply suspicious of anything with a whiff of the New Age about it—not because of the practices themselves, which as far as I can tell from a safe distance may well have a lot to them, but because of the people who get involved, who always seem to be the kind who corner you at parties to explain how they discovered that they are survivors and deserve to be happy. I worry that I might come out of hypnosis with that sugar-high glaze of self-satisfied enlightenment, like a seventeen-year-old who’s just discovered Kerouac, and start proselytizing strangers in pubs.

The choice today is revolt. Igor Stravinsky wrote, “The old original sin was one of knowledge, the new original sin is one of non-acknowledgment.” It is the refusal to acknowledge anything outside the operation of the human will—most especially the good toward which the soul is ordered. The good is what must ultimately inform human justice. Therefore, moral relativism is inimical to justice, as it removes the epistemological ground for knowing the good. As Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory, wrote, “Everything that is relative presupposes the existence of something that is absolute, and is meaningful only when juxtaposed to something absolute.”4 What happens if the absolute is absent? If what is good is relative to something other than itself, then it is not the good but the expression of some other interest that only claims to be the good. Claims of “good” then become transparent masks for self-interest. This is the surest path back to barbarism and the brutal doctrine of “right is the rule of the stronger”. The regression is not accidental. Relativism inevitably concludes in nihilism, and the ultimate expression of nihilism is the supremacy of the will.

[W]ar cannot be abolished; as long as the conditions of existence among races are so varied and the repulsions between them are so vehement, there will have to be wars. The question then arises whether we shall be the ones to yield and adapt ourselves to it. Shall we not admit that in our civilized attitude towards death we have again lived psychologically beyond our means? Shall we not turn around and avow the truth? Were it not better to give death the place to which it is entitled both in reality and in our thoughts and to reveal a little more of our unconscious attitude towards death which up to now we have so carefully suppressed? This may not appear a very high achievement and in some respects rather a step backwards, a kind of regression, but at least it has the advantage of taking the truth into account a little more and of making life more bearable again. To bear life remains, after all, the first duty of the living. The illusion becomes worthless if it disturbs us in this. We remember the old saying: Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you wish peace, prepare for war. The times call for a paraphrase: Si vis vitam, para mortem. If you wish life, prepare for death.

You can stop talking to yourself... But you can only do so by talking to yourself. Counting your breaths or reciting a mantra. ... Talking is just recording what you are thinking. It's not the thing itself. When I'm talking to you some separate part of my mind is composing what I'm about to say. But it's not yet in the form of words. So what is it in the form of?... Aside from raising the spectre of an infinite regress--as in who is whispering to the whisperer--it raises the question of a language of thought. Part of the general puzzle of how we get from the mind to the world. A hundred billion synaptic events clicking away in the dark like blind ladies at their knitting. Mental illness differs from physical illness in that the subject of mental illness is always and solely information. Information. Yes. We're here on a need-to-know basis. There is no machinery in evolution for informing us of the existence of phenomena that do not affect our survival. What is here that we dont know we dont know about. Would that be the supernatural? I think it would just be the whereof. The whereof. The whereof one cannot speak. Wittgenstein. Very good. You're going to run out of breadcrumbs.

The idea that modern civilization started practically from scratch, from a single source of ape-men several millennia ago, has distorted, or caused to be ignored, information that has reached us just as much by tradition as through archaeological finds. We are so fascinated by the technological advances of the last centuries of modern civilization that we simply forget the periods of obscurantism that preceded them and the differences in the level of development of the various peoples of the world. We tend to consider "progress" a continuous and general phenomenon stretching from the apes to Einstein. Yet the history of man is not one of regular development. It is characterized by a succession of developments and regressions related to astrological and climatic cycles. Barbaric races, still in their infancy, destroy civilizations that had been developed by older, more evolved populations, doing away with the sciences and arts, yet allowing some scraps of knowledge to survive which serve as the basis of the development of new cultures. On all continents we can find traces of outstanding cultures and advanced technologies belonging to bygone ages, followed by periods of barbarism and ignorance.

But in point of fact the ego very seldom succeeds in doing this: it cannot undo its repressions. It is possible that the way the struggle will go depends upon quantitative relations. In some cases one has the impression that the outcome is an enforced one: the regressive attraction exerted by the repressed impulse and the strength of the repression are so great that the new impulse has no choice but to obey the compulsion to repeat. In other cases we perceive a contribution from another play of forces: the attraction exerted by the repressed prototype is reinforced by a repulsion coming from the direction of difficulties in real life which stand in the way of any different course that might be taken by the new instinctual impulse.impression that the outcome is an enforced one: the regressive attraction exerted by the repressed impulse and the strength of the repression are so great that the new impulse has no choice but to obey the compulsion to repeat. In other cases we perceive a contribution from another play of forces: the attraction exerted by the repressed prototype is reinforced by a repulsion coming from the direction of difficulties in real life which stand in the way of any different course that might be taken by the new instinctual impulse.

Also, I say that although things other than God are actually contingent as regards their actual existence, this is not true with regard to potential existence. Wherefore, those things which are said to be contingent with reference to actual existence are necessary with respect to potential existence. Thus, though "Man exists" is contingent, "It is possible for man to exist" is necessary, because it does not include a contradiction as regards existence. For, for something other than God to be possible, then, is necessary. Being is divided into what must exist and what can but need not be. And just as necessity is of the very essence or constitution of what must be, so possibility is of the very essence of what can but need not be. Therefore, let the former argument be couched in terms of possible being and the propositions will become necessary. Thus: It is possible that something other than God exist which neither exists of itself (for then it would not be possible being) nor exists by reason of nothing. Therefore, it can exist by reason of another. Either this other can both exist and act in virtue of itself and not in virtue of another, or it cannot do so. If it can, then it can be the first cause, and if it can exist, it does exist—as was proved above. If it cannot [both be and act independently of every other thing] and there is no infinite regress, then at some point we end up [with a first cause].

I left Brookstone and went to the Pottery Barn. When I was a kid and everything inside our house was familiar, cheap, and ruined, walking into the Pottery Barn was like entering heaven. If they really wanted people to enjoy church, I thought back then, they should make everything in church look and smell like the Pottery Barn. My dream was to surround myself one day with everything in the store, with the wicker baskets and scented candles, the brushed-silver picture frames. But that was a long time ago. I had already gone through a period of buying everything there was to buy at the Pottery Barn and decorating my apartment like a Pottery Barn outlet, and then getting rid of it all during a massive upgrade. Now everything at the Pottery Barn looked ersatz and mass-produced. To buy any of it now would be to regress in aspiration and selfhood. I didn’t want to buy anything at the Pottery Barn so much as I wanted to recapture the feeling of wanting to buy everything from the Pottery Barn. Something similar happened at the music store. I should try to find some new music, I thought, because there was a time when new music could lift me out of a funk like nothing else. But I wasn’t past the Bs when I saw the only thing I really cared to buy. It was the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, which had been released in 1965. I already owned Rubber Soul. I had owned Rubber Soul on vinyl, then on cassette, and now on CD, and of course on my iPod, iPod mini, and iPhone. If I wanted to, I could have pulled out my iPhone and played Rubber Soul from start to finish right there, on speaker, for the sake of the whole store. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to buy Rubber Soul for the first time all over again. I wanted to return the needle from the run-out groove to the opening chords of “Drive My Car” and make everything new again. That wasn’t going to happen. But, I thought, I could buy it for somebody else. I could buy somebody else the new experience of listening to Rubber Soul for the first time. So I took the CD up to the register and paid for it and, walking out, felt renewed and excited. But the first kid I offered it to, a rotund teenager in a wheelchair looking longingly into a GameStop window, declined on the principle that he would rather have cash. A couple of other kids didn’t have CD players. I ended up leaving Rubber Soul on a bench beside a decommissioned ashtray where someone had discarded an unhealthy gob of human hair. I wandered, as everyone in the mall sooner or later does, into the Best Friends Pet Store. Many best friends—impossibly small beagles and corgis and German shepherds—were locked away for display in white cages where they spent their days dozing with depression, stirring only long enough to ponder the psychic hurdles of licking their paws. Could there be anything better to lift your spirits than a new puppy?

Still, the appeal of regressive ideas is perennial, and the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress always has to be made. When we fail to acknowledge our hard-won progress, we may come to believe that perfect order and universal prosperity are the natural state of affairs, and that every problem is an outrage that calls for blaming evildoers, wrecking institutions, and empowering a leader who will restore the country to its rightful greatness. I have made my own best case for progress and the ideals that made it possible, and have dropped hints on how journalists, intellectuals, and other thoughtful people (including the readers of this book) might avoid contributing to the widespread heedlessness of the gifts of the Enlightenment. Remember your math: an anecdote is not a trend. Remember your history: the fact that something is bad today doesn’t mean it was better in the past. Remember your philosophy: one cannot reason that there’s no such thing as reason, or that something is true or good because God said it is. And remember your psychology: much of what we know isn’t so, especially when our comrades know it too. Keep some perspective. Not every problem is a Crisis, Plague, Epidemic, or Existential Threat, and not every change is the End of This, the Death of That, or the Dawn of a Post-Something Era. Don’t confuse pessimism with profundity: problems are inevitable, but problems are solvable, and diagnosing every setback as a symptom of a sick society is a cheap grab for gravitas. Finally, drop the Nietzsche. His ideas may seem edgy, authentic, baaad, while humanism seems sappy, unhip, uncool. But what’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

Should you operate upon your clients as objects, you risk reducing them to less than human. Following the culture of appropriation and mastery your clients become a kind of extension of yourself, of your ego. In the appropriation and objectification mode, your clients’ well-being and success in treatment reflect well upon you. You “did” something to them, you made them well. You acted upon them and can take the credit for successful therapy or treatment. Conversely, if your clients flounder or regress, that reflects poorly on you. On this side of things the culture of appropriation and mastery says that you are not doing enough. You are not exerting enough influence, technique or therapeutic force. What anxiety this can breed for some clinicians! DBT offers a framework and tools for a treatment that allows clients to retain their full humanity. Through the practice of mindfulness, you can learn to cultivate a fuller presence to the moments of your life, and even with your clients and your work with them. This presence potentiates an encounter between two irreducible human beings, meeting professionally, of course, and meeting humanly. The dialectical framework, which embraces contradictions and gives you a way of seeing that life is pregnant with creative tensions, allows for your discovery of your limits and possibilities, gives you a way of seeing the dynamic nature of reality that is anything but sitting still; shows you that your identity grows from relationship with others, including those you help, that you are an irreducible human being encountering other irreducible human beings who exert influence upon you, even as you exert your own upon them. Even without clinical contrivance.

Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvellous error!— that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white cones and sweet honey from my old failures. Antonio Machado, “Last Night” (translated by Robert Bly) I once heard someone ask for the definition of adult. I can’t remember where I was, or who the speaker was who answered the question, but I’ll never forget the answer: “Adult means choice.” As children, most of us had little or no say in most matters. My generation was taught that children should be seen and not heard. We were told to “do as I say, not as I do.” We didn’t have a “vote” in family matters because we were “just children.” Picture this scenario if you will. Five-year-old Jerry has just received his umpteenth whipping or scolding. He turns to his parents and says, “You know, Mom and Dad, I choose not to be abused anymore. I’ll be taking the car keys, withdrawing some money from our joint account, and moving to Florida to live with Grandma and Grandpa. When you both start acting like adults, give me a call, and we’ll discuss the conditions of my return. We’ll see if we can settle on a mutual arrangement where you two stay adult as much of the time as possible, and I’ll be a kid who learns how to make healthy choices by being disciplined instead of punished. We’ll negotiate how you will set healthy boundaries so I can learn to do the same. For now, I’ll be seeing you. Don’t forget to write. And don’t forget to read John Lee’s book on regression. I’m too young, but you’re not.” As children, we did not have the choice of laying down the law for our frequently regressing parents. But as adults we can certainly choose to draw our boundaries and express our needs in all of our relationships as adults—not only with our parents, but also with our spouses, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.

Environmental pollution is a regressive phenomenon, since the rich can find ways of insulating themselves from bad air, dirty water, loss of green spaces and so on. Moreover, much pollution results from production and activities that benefit the more affluent – air transport, car ownership, air conditioning, consumer goods of all kinds, to take some obvious examples. A basic income could be construed, in part, as partial compensation for pollution costs imposed on us, as a matter of social justice. Conversely, a basic income could be seen as compensation for those adversely affected by environmental protection measures. A basic income would make it easier for governments to impose taxes on polluting activities that might affect livelihoods or have a regressive impact by raising prices for goods bought by low-income households. For instance, hefty carbon taxes would deter fossil fuel use and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change as well as reduce air pollution. Introducing a carbon tax would surely be easier politically if the tax take went towards providing a basic income that would compensate those on low incomes, miners and others who would lose income-earning opportunities. The basic income case is especially strong in relation to the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. Across the world, in rich countries and in poor, governments have long used subsidies as a way of reducing poverty, by keeping down the price of fuel. This has encouraged more consumption, and more wasteful use, of fossil fuels. Moreover, fuel subsidies are regressive, since the rich consume more and thus gain more from the subsidies. But governments have been reluctant to reduce or eliminate the subsidies for fear of alienating voters. Indeed, a number of countries that have tried to reduce fuel subsidies have backed down in the face of angry popular demonstrations.

The wonder of evolution is that it works at all. I mean that literally: If you want to marvel at evolution, that’s what’s marvel-worthy. How does optimization first arise in the universe? If an intelligent agent designed Nature, who designed the intelligent agent? Where is the first design that has no designer? The puzzle is not how the first stage of the bootstrap can be super-clever and super-efficient; the puzzle is how it can happen at all. Evolution resolves the infinite regression, not by being super-clever and super-efficient, but by being stupid and inefficient and working anyway. This is the marvel. For professional reasons, I often have to discuss the slowness, randomness, and blindness of evolution. Afterward someone says: “You just said that evolution can’t plan simultaneous changes, and that evolution is very inefficient because mutations are random. Isn’t that what the creationists say? That you couldn’t assemble a watch by randomly shaking the parts in a box?” But the reply to creationists is not that you can assemble a watch by shaking the parts in a box. The reply is that this is not how evolution works. If you think that evolution does work by whirlwinds assembling 747s, then the creationists have successfully misrepresented biology to you; they’ve sold the strawman. The real answer is that complex machinery evolves either incrementally, or by adapting previous complex machinery used for a new purpose. Squirrels jump from treetop to treetop using just their muscles, but the length they can jump depends to some extent on the aerodynamics of their bodies. So now there are flying squirrels, so aerodynamic they can glide short distances. If birds were wiped out, the descendants of flying squirrels might reoccupy that ecological niche in ten million years, gliding membranes transformed into wings. And the creationists would say, “What good is half a wing? You’d just fall down and splat. How could squirrelbirds possibly have evolved incrementally?

We have learned in the course of this investigation that the libido which builds up religious structures regresses in the last analysis to the mother, and thus represents the real bond through which we are connected with our origins. When the Church Fathers derive the word religio from religare (to reconnect, link back), they could at least have appealed to this psychological fact in support of their view.71 As we have seen, this regressive libido conceals itself in countless symbols of the most heterogeneous nature, some masculine and some feminine—differences of sex are at bottom secondary and not nearly so important psychologically as would appear at first sight. The essence and motive force of the sacrificial drama consist in an unconscious transformation of energy, of which the ego becomes aware in much the same way as sailors are made aware of a volcanic upheaval under the sea. Of course, when we consider the beauty and sublimity of the whole conception of sacrifice and its solemn ritual, it must be admitted that a psychological formulation has a shockingly sobering effect. The dramatic concreteness of the sacrificial act is reduced to a barren abstraction, and the flourishing life of the figures is flattened into two-dimensionality. Scientific understanding is bound, unfortunately, to have regrettable effects—on one side; on the other side abstraction makes for a deepened understanding of the phenomena in question. Thus we come to realize that the figures in the mythical drama possess qualities that are interchangeable, because they do not have the same “existential” meaning as the concrete figures of the physical world. The latter suffer tragedy, perhaps, in the real sense, whereas the others merely enact it against the subjective backcloth of introspective consciousness. The boldest speculations of the human mind concerning the nature of the phenomenal world, namely that the wheeling stars and the whole course of human history are but the phantasmagoria of a divine dream, become, when applied to the inner drama, a scientific probability. The essential thing in the mythical drama is not the concreteness of the figures, nor is it important what sort of an animal is sacrificed or what sort of god it represents; what alone is important is that an act of sacrifice takes place, that a process of transformation is going on in the unconscious whose dynamism, whose contents and whose subject are themselves unknown but become visible indirectly to the conscious mind by stimulating the imaginative material at its disposal, clothing themselves in it like the dancers who clothe themselves in the skins of animals or the priests in the skins of their human victims.

Given that at all times, so long as there have been human beings, there have also been herds of human beings (racial groups, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches) and always a great many followers in relation to the small number of those issuing orders―and taking into consideration also that so far nothing has been better and longer practised and cultivated among human beings than obedience, we can reasonably assume that typically now the need for obedience is inborn in each individual, as a sort of formal conscience which states "You are to do something or other without conditions, and leave aside something else without conditions," in short, "Thou shalt." This need seeks to satisfy itself and to fill its form with some content. Depending on its strength, impatience, and tension, it seizes on something, without being very particular, like a coarse appetite, and accepts what someone or other issuing commands―parents, teachers, laws, class biases, public opinion―shouts in people's ears. The curiously limitation of human development―the way it hesitates, takes so long, often regresses, and turns around on itself―is based on the fact that the herd instinct of obedience is passed on best and at the expense of the art of commanding. If we imagine this instinct at some point striding right to its ultimate excess, then there would finally be a total lack of commanders and independent people, or they would suffer inside from a bad conscience and find it necessary first to prepare a deception for themselves in order to be able to command, as if they, too, were only obeying orders. This condition is what, in fact, exists nowadays in Europe: I call it the moral hypocrisy of those in command. They don't know how to protect themselves from their bad conscience except by behaving as if they were carrying out older or higher orders (from ancestors, the constitution, rights, law, or even God), or they even borrow herd maxims from the herd way of thinking, for example, as "the first servant of their people" or as "tools of the common good." On the other hand, the herd man in Europe today makes himself appear as if he is the single kind of human being allowed, and he glorifies those characteristics of his thanks to which he is tame, good natured, and useful to the herd, as the really human virtues, that is, public spiritedness, wishing everyone well, consideration, diligence, moderation, modesty, forbearance, and pity. For those cases, however, where people believe they cannot do without a leader and bell wether, they make attempt after attempt to replace the commander by adding together collections of clever herd people All the representative constitutional assemblies, for example, have this origin. But for all that, what a blissful relief, what a release from a pressure which is growing unbearable is the appearance of an absolute commander for these European herd animals. The effect which the appearance of Napoleon made was the most recent major evidence for that:―the history of the effect of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher happiness which this entire century derived from its most valuable men and moments.

Given that at all times, so long as there have been human beings, there have also been herds of human beings (racial groups, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches) and always a great many followers in relation to the small number of those issuing orders - and taking into consideration also that so far nothing has been better and longer practised and cultivated among human beings than obedience, we can reasonably assume that typically now the need for obedience is inborn in each individual, as a sort of formal conscience which states "You are to do something or other without conditions, and leave aside something else without conditions," in short, "Thou shalt." This need seeks to satisfy itself and to fill its form with some content. Depending on its strength, impatience, and tension, it seizes on something, without being very particular, like a coarse appetite, and accepts what someone or other issuing commands - parents, teachers, laws, class biases, public opinion - shouts in people's ears. The curiously limitation of human development - the way it hesitates, takes so long, often regresses, and turns around on itself - is based on the fact that the herd instinct of obedience is passed on best and at the expense of the art of commanding. If we imagine this instinct at some point striding right to its ultimate excess, then there would finally be a total lack of commanders and independent people, or they would suffer inside from a bad conscience and find it necessary first to prepare a deception for themselves in order to be able to command, as if they, too, were only obeying orders. This condition is what, in fact, exists nowadays in Europe: I call it the moral hypocrisy of those in command. They don't know how to protect themselves from their bad conscience except by behaving as if they were carrying out older or higher orders (from ancestors, the constitution, rights, law, or even God), or they even borrow herd maxims from the herd way of thinking, for example, as "the first servant of their people" or as "tools of the common good." On the other hand, the herd man in Europe today makes himself appear as if he is the single kind of human being allowed, and he glorifies those characteristics of his thanks to which he is tame, good natured, and useful to the herd, as the really human virtues, that is, public spiritedness, wishing everyone well, consideration, diligence, moderation, modesty, forbearance, and pity. For those cases, however, where people believe they cannot do without a leader and bell wether, they make attempt after attempt to replace the commander by adding together collections of clever herd people All the representative constitutional assemblies, for example, have this origin. But for all that, what a blissful relief, what a release from a pressure which is growing unbearable is the appearance of an absolute commander for these European herd animals. The effect which the appearance of Napoleon made was the most recent major evidence for that: - the history of the effect of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher happiness which this entire century derived from its most valuable men and moments.

Simple Regression   CHAPTER OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to Use simple regression to test the statistical significance of a bivariate relationship involving one dependent and one independent variable Use Pearson’s correlation coefficient as a measure of association between two continuous variables Interpret statistics associated with regression analysis Write up the model of simple regression Assess assumptions of simple regression This chapter completes our discussion of statistical techniques for studying relationships between two variables by focusing on those that are continuous. Several approaches are examined: simple regression; the Pearson’s correlation coefficient; and a nonparametric alterative, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Although all three techniques can be used, we focus particularly on simple regression. Regression allows us to predict outcomes based on knowledge of an independent variable. It is also the foundation for studying relationships among three or more variables, including control variables mentioned in Chapter 2 on research design (and also in Appendix 10.1). Regression can also be used in time series analysis, discussed in Chapter 17. We begin with simple regression. SIMPLE REGRESSION Let’s first look at an example. Say that you are a manager or analyst involved with a regional consortium of 15 local public agencies (in cities and counties) that provide low-income adults with health education about cardiovascular diseases, in an effort to reduce such diseases. The funding for this health education comes from a federal grant that requires annual analysis and performance outcome reporting. In Chapter 4, we used a logic model to specify that a performance outcome is the result of inputs, activities, and outputs. Following the development of such a model, you decide to conduct a survey among participants who attend such training events to collect data about the number of events they attended, their knowledge of cardiovascular disease, and a variety of habits such as smoking that are linked to cardiovascular disease. Some things that you might want to know are whether attending workshops increases

(e). Hence the expressions are equivalent, as is y = ŷ + e. Certain assumptions about e are important, such as that it is normally distributed. When error term assumptions are violated, incorrect conclusions may be made about the statistical significance of relationships. This important issue is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 15 and, for time series data, in Chapter 17. Hence, the above is a pertinent but incomplete list of assumptions. Getting Started Conduct a simple regression, and practice writing up your results. PEARSON’S CORRELATION COEFFICIENT Pearson’s correlation coefficient, r, measures the association (significance, direction, and strength) between two continuous variables; it is a measure of association for two continuous variables. Also called the Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient, it does not assume a causal relationship, as does simple regression. The correlation coefficient indicates the extent to which the observations lie closely or loosely clustered around the regression line. The coefficient r ranges from –1 to +1. The sign indicates the direction of the relationship, which, in simple regression, is always the same as the slope coefficient. A “–1” indicates a perfect negative relationship, that is, that all observations lie exactly on a downward-sloping regression line; a “+1” indicates a perfect positive relationship, whereby all observations lie exactly on an upward-sloping regression line. Of course, such values are rarely obtained in practice because observations seldom lie exactly on a line. An r value of zero indicates that observations are so widely scattered that it is impossible to draw any well-fitting line. Figure 14.2 illustrates some values of r. Key Point Pearson’s correlation coefficient, r, ranges from –1 to +1. It is important to avoid confusion between Pearson’s correlation coefficient and the coefficient of determination. For the two-variable, simple regression model, r2 = R2, but whereas 0 ≤ R ≤ 1, r ranges from –1 to +1. Hence, the sign of r tells us whether a relationship is positive or negative, but the sign of R, in regression output tables such as Table 14.1, is always positive and cannot inform us about the direction of the relationship. In simple regression, the regression coefficient, b, informs us about the direction of the relationship. Statistical software programs usually show r rather than r2. Note also that the Pearson’s correlation coefficient can be used only to assess the association between two continuous variables, whereas regression can be extended to deal with more than two variables, as discussed in Chapter 15. Pearson’s correlation coefficient assumes that both variables are normally distributed. When Pearson’s correlation coefficients are calculated, a standard error of r can be determined, which then allows us to test the statistical significance of the bivariate correlation. For bivariate relationships, this is the same level of significance as shown for the slope of the regression coefficient. For the variables given earlier in this chapter, the value of r is .272 and the statistical significance of r is p ≤ .01. Use of the Pearson’s correlation coefficient assumes that the variables are normally distributed and that there are no significant departures from linearity.7 It is important not to confuse the correlation coefficient, r, with the regression coefficient, b. Comparing the measures r and b (the slope) sometimes causes confusion. The key point is that r does not indicate the regression slope but rather the extent to which observations lie close to it. A steep regression line (large b) can have observations scattered loosely or closely around it, as can a shallow (more horizontal) regression line. The purposes of these two statistics are very different.8 SPEARMAN’S RANK CORRELATION

COEFFICIENT The nonparametric alternative, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (r, or “rho”), looks at correlation among the ranks of the data rather than among the values. The ranks of data are determined as shown in Table 14.2 (adapted from Table 11.8): Table 14.2 Ranks of Two Variables In Greater Depth … Box 14.1 Crime and Poverty An analyst wants to examine empirically the relationship between crime and income in cities across the United States. The CD that accompanies the workbook Exercising Essential Statistics includes a Community Indicators dataset with assorted indicators of conditions in 98 cities such as Akron, Ohio; Phoenix, Arizona; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Seattle, Washington. The measures include median household income, total population (both from the 2000 U.S. Census), and total violent crimes (FBI, Uniform Crime Reporting, 2004). In the sample, household income ranges from $26,309 (Newark, New Jersey) to $71,765 (San Jose, California), and the median household income is $42,316. Per-capita violent crime ranges from 0.15 percent (Glendale, California) to 2.04 percent (Las Vegas, Nevada), and the median violent crime rate per capita is 0.78 percent. There are four types of violent crimes: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. A measure of total violent crime per capita is calculated because larger cities are apt to have more crime. The analyst wants to examine whether income is associated with per-capita violent crime. The scatterplot of these two continuous variables shows that a negative relationship appears to be present: The Pearson’s correlation coefficient is –.532 (p < .01), and the Spearman’s correlation coefficient is –.552 (p < .01). The simple regression model shows R2 = .283. The regression model is as follows (t-test statistic in parentheses): The regression line is shown on the scatterplot. Interpreting these results, we see that the R-square value of .283 indicates a moderate relationship between these two variables. Clearly, some cities with modest median household incomes have a high crime rate. However, removing these cities does not greatly alter the findings. Also, an assumption of regression is that the error term is normally distributed, and further examination of the error shows that it is somewhat skewed. The techniques for examining the distribution of the error term are discussed in Chapter 15, but again, addressing this problem does not significantly alter the finding that the two variables are significantly related to each other, and that the relationship is of moderate strength. With this result in hand, further analysis shows, for example, by how much violent crime decreases for each increase in household income. For each increase of $10,000 in average household income, the violent crime rate drops 0.25 percent. For a city experiencing the median 0.78 percent crime rate, this would be a considerable improvement, indeed. Note also that the scatterplot shows considerable variation in the crime rate for cities at or below the median household income, in contrast to those well above it. Policy analysts may well wish to examine conditions that give rise to variation in crime rates among cities with lower incomes. Because Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient examines correlation among the ranks of variables, it can also be used with ordinal-level data.9 For the data in Table 14.2, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient is .900 (p = .035).10 Spearman’s p-squared coefficient has a “percent variation explained” interpretation, similar

single or index variables. As an example, consider the dependent variable “high school violence,” discussed in Chapter 2. We ask: “What are the most important, distinct factors affecting or causing high school violence?” Some plausible factors are (1) student access to weapons, (2) student isolation from others, (3) peer groups that are prone to violence, (4) lack of enforcement of school nonviolence policies, (5) participation in anger management programs, and (6) familiarity with warning signals (among teachers and staff). Perhaps you can think of other factors. Then, following the strategies discussed in Chapter 3—conceptualization, operationalization, and index variable construction—we use either single variables or index measures as independent variables to measure each of these factors. This approach provides for the inclusion of programs or policies as independent variables, as well as variables that measure salient rival hypotheses. The strategy of full model specification requires that analysts not overlook important factors. Thus, analysts do well to carefully justify their model and to consult past studies and interview those who have direct experience with, or other opinions about, the research subject. Doing so might lead analysts to include additional variables, such as the socioeconomic status of students’ parents. Then, after a fully specified model has been identified, analysts often include additional variables of interest. These may be variables of lesser relevance, speculative consequences, or variables that analysts want to test for their lack of impact, such as rival hypotheses. Demographic variables, such as the age of students, might be added. When additional variables are included, analysts should identify which independent variables constitute the nomothetic explanation, and which serve some other purpose. Remember, all variables included in models must be theoretically justified. Analysts must argue how each variable could plausibly affect their dependent variable. The second part of “all of the variables that affect the dependent variable” acknowledges all of the other variables that are not identified (or included) in the model. They are omitted; these variables are not among “the most important factors” that affect the dependent variable. The cumulative effect of these other variables is, by definition, contained in the error term, described later in this chapter. The assumption of full model specification is that these other variables are justifiably omitted only when their cumulative effect on the dependent variable is zero. This approach is plausible because each of these many unknown variables may have a different magnitude, thus making it possible that their effects cancel each other out. The argument, quite clearly, is not that each of these other factors has no impact on the dependent variable—but only that their cumulative effect is zero. The validity of multiple regression models centers on examining the behavior of the error term in this regard. If the cumulative effect of all the other variables is not zero, then additional independent variables may have to be considered. The specification of the multiple regression model is as follows:

violations of regression assumptions, and strategies for examining and remedying such assumptions. Then we extend the preceding discussion and will be able to conclude whether the above results are valid. Again, this model is not the only model that can be constructed but rather is one among a family of plausible models. Indeed, from a theoretical perspective, other variables might have been included, too. From an empirical perspective, perhaps other variables might explain more variance. Model specification is a judicious effort, requiring a balance between theoretical and statistical integrity. Statistical software programs can also automatically select independent variables based on their statistical significance, hence, adding to R-square.2 However, models with high R-square values are not necessarily better; theoretical reasons must exist for selecting independent variables, explaining why and how they might be related to the dependent variable. Knowing which variables are related empirically to the dependent variable can help narrow the selection, but such knowledge should not wholly determine it. We now turn to a discussion of the other statistics shown in Table 15.1. Getting Started Find examples of multiple regression in the research literature. Figure 15.1 Dependent Variable: Productivity FURTHER STATISTICS Goodness of Fit for Multiple Regression The model R-square in Table 15.1 is greatly increased over that shown in Table 14.1: R-square has gone from 0.074 in the simple regression model to 0.274. However, R-square has the undesirable mathematical property of increasing with the number of independent variables in the model. R-square increases regardless of whether an additional independent variable adds further explanation of the dependent variable. The adjusted R-square (or ) controls for the number of independent variables. is always equal to or less than R2. The above increase in explanation of the dependent variable is due to variables identified as statistically significant in Table 15.1. Key Point R-square is the variation in the dependent variable that is explained by all the independent variables. Adjusted R-square is often used to evaluate model explanation (or fit). Analogous with simple regression, values of below 0.20 are considered to suggest weak model fit, those between 0.20 and 0.40 indicate moderate fit, those above 0.40 indicate strong fit, and those above 0.65 indicate very strong model fit. Analysts should remember that choices of model specification are driven foremost by theory, not statistical model fit; strong model fit is desirable only when the variables, and their relationships, are meaningful in some real-life sense. Adjusted R-square can assist in the variable selection process. Low values of adjusted R-square prompt analysts to ask whether they inadvertently excluded important variables from their models; if included, these variables might affect the statistical significance of those already in a model.3 Adjusted R-square also helps analysts to choose among alternative variable specifications (for example, different measures of student isolation), when such choices are no longer meaningfully informed by theory. Empirical issues of model fit then usefully guide the selection process further. Researchers typically report adjusted R-square with their

Assume that a welfare manager in our earlier example (see discussion of path analysis) takes a snapshot of the status of the welfare clients. Some clients may have obtained employment and others not yet. Clients will also vary as to the amount of time that they have been receiving welfare. Examine the data in Table 18.2. It shows that neither of the two clients, who have yet to complete their first week on welfare, has found employment; one of the three clients who have completed one week of welfare has found employment. Censored observations are observations for which the specified outcome has yet to occur. It is assumed that all clients who have not yet found employment are still waiting for this event to occur. Thus, the sample should not include clients who are not seeking employment. Note, however, that a censored observation is very different from one that has missing data, which might occur because the manager does not know whether the client has found employment. As with regression, records with missing data are excluded from analysis. A censored

others seek to create and predict classifications through independent variables. Table 18.4 Factor Analysis Note: Factor analysis with Varimax rotation. Source: E. Berman and J. West. (2003). “What Is Managerial Mediocrity? Definition, Prevalence and Negative Impact (Part 1).” Public Performance & Management Review, 27 (December): 7–27. Multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis aim to identify key dimensions along which observations (rather than variables) differ. These techniques differ from factor analysis in that they allow for a hierarchy of classification dimensions. Some also use graphics to aid in visualizing the extent of differences and to help in identifying the similarity or dissimilarity of observations. Network analysis is a descriptive technique used to portray relationships among actors. A graphic representation can be made of the frequency with which actors interact with each other, distinguishing frequent interactions from those that are infrequent. Discriminant analysis is used when the dependent variable is nominal with two or more categories. For example, we might want to know how parents choose among three types of school vouchers. Discriminant analysis calculates regression lines that distinguish (discriminate) among the nominal groups (the categories of the dependent variable), as well as other

SUMMARY A vast array of additional statistical methods exists. In this concluding chapter, we summarized some of these methods (path analysis, survival analysis, and factor analysis) and briefly mentioned other related techniques. This chapter can help managers and analysts become familiar with these additional techniques and increase their access to research literature in which these techniques are used. Managers and analysts who would like more information about these techniques will likely consult other texts or on-line sources. In many instances, managers will need only simple approaches to calculate the means of their variables, produce a few good graphs that tell the story, make simple forecasts, and test for significant differences among a few groups. Why, then, bother with these more advanced techniques? They are part of the analytical world in which managers operate. Through research and consulting, managers cannot help but come in contact with them. It is hoped that this chapter whets the appetite and provides a useful reference for managers and students alike. KEY TERMS   Endogenous variables Exogenous variables Factor analysis Indirect effects Loading Path analysis Recursive models Survival analysis Notes 1. Two types of feedback loops are illustrated as follows: 2. When feedback loops are present, error terms for the different models will be correlated with exogenous variables, violating an error term assumption for such models. Then, alternative estimation methodologies are necessary, such as two-stage least squares and others discussed later in this chapter. 3. Some models may show double-headed arrows among error terms. These show the correlation between error terms, which is of no importance in estimating the beta coefficients. 4. In SPSS, survival analysis is available through the add-on module in SPSS Advanced Models. 5. The functions used to estimate probabilities are rather complex. They are so-called Weibull distributions, which are defined as h(t) = αλ(λt)a–1, where a and 1 are chosen to best fit the data. 6. Hence, the SSL is greater than the squared loadings reported. For example, because the loadings of variables in groups B and C are not shown for factor 1, the SSL of shown loadings is 3.27 rather than the reported 4.084. If one assumes the other loadings are each .25, then the SSL of the not reported loadings is [12*.252 =] .75, bringing the SSL of factor 1 to [3.27 + .75 =] 4.02, which is very close to the 4.084 value reported in the table. 7. Readers who are interested in multinomial logistic regression can consult on-line sources or the SPSS manual, Regression Models 10.0 or higher. The statistics of discriminant analysis are very dissimilar from those of logistic regression, and readers are advised to consult a separate text on that topic. Discriminant analysis is not often used in public

If you use plain text to create synthetic data to drive system tests, then it is a simple matter to add, update, or modify the test data without having to create any special tools to do so. Similarly, plain text output from regression tests can be trivially analyzed (with diff, for instance) or subjected to more thorough scrutiny with Perl, Python, or some other scripting tool.

preached in meat and potatoes style, or fire and brimstone to some, which is to say that he preached to a lot of older in spirit Christians who didn’t need all that pap about their best life or whatever that some mega-church pastors preached. When he was in the Air Force, Brian had attended those kinds of churches, but never felt like he grew as a Christian while attending. In fact, he felt like he’d regressed. In Omaha, Brian and his family attended a church that was the combination of the two. The first service was for traditional folks who wanted their spirits refreshed and the other service is for the people who need their fleshly tastes, mostly in music, satisfied. Brian’s mom used to say that their family probably could’ve fit right in at churches run by Jonathan Edwards, Cotton Mather, or even the Amish and Mennonites.

Some children benefit from an extra hour of sleep when they are going through regressions. Often they need more rest time to help them to cope better. After finding that an earlier bedtime works over a few cycles, children will often volunteer that they need an earlier bedtime when they are going through hard times.

Occasionally, I give kids days off. If a child seems to be losing ground at school, return him home for a few days or even a week or two to recoup. He rests from so much outside contact, and gets recharged to cope with the world in a constructive way again. Parents usually only use a few days a year, so school progress is not much affected. For the occasional child who is out ten days in a year, the problems are serious enough that school achievement is secondary to health. In these cases the school is the communication loop with parents and therapist. Working parents have used sick days to stay out with their child. Some parents have asked a grandparent or relative to come in while they work. Often the regression has so worn the parent down, that a two-day break is a welcome respite for both of them to sleep in and recharge. Using these breaks has helped keep kids from ruining the gains that they have made in the school and community over a series of months. While these breaks need to be used judiciously, they have helped children to keep friendships and reputations that would otherwise be at risk.

The exhaustion and pollution of earth's resource is, above all, the result of man's self-image, of a regression in his consciousness. Some would like to speak about a mutation of collective consciousness which leads to a conception of a man as an organism dependent not on nature and individuals, but rather on institutions. This institutionalization of substantive values, this belief that a planned process of treatment ultimately gives results desired by the recipient, this consumer ethos, is at the heart of the Promethean fallacy. Efforts to find a new balance in the global milieu depend on the deinstitutionalization of values.

Buchanan tried to whip the devil out of me. “Find your tongue, lad!” Forgive this regression, but the man hated English. He may have hated everything by then, including me, but he was uncommon prickly when it came to English. You could tell by the way he bullied it. “The bastarde English,” the old man roared. “The verie whoore of a tongue.” We did our best to mimic him note for note, gesture for gesture. He hated that, too. The verie whoore. Old Greek before Breakfast Latin by Noon himself. The point is, what English I had was beaten or twisted into me. We were orphaned and crowned before we could speak or take our first step. No father. No mother. Too many uncles. Hounds for baying. Buchanan was the most religious of my keepers, and the unkindest of spirits among them. We have been told the young queen of Scots was once his student, and that he loved her. Just before giving her over to wreckage, methinks. Pious frauds. Their wicked Jesus. Then occasion smil’d. We were thirteen. The affection of Esme Stuart was one thing, lavished, as it was, so liberally upon us, but the music of his voice was another. We empowered our cousin, gave him name, station, a new sense of gravity, height, and reach, all the toys of privilege. We were told he spoke our mother’s French, the way it flutters about your neck like a small bird. But it was his English that moved us. For the first time, there was kindness in it, charity, heat and light. We didn’t know language could do such things, that could charm with such violence, make such a disturbance in us. Our cousin was our excess, our vice, our great transgression according to some, treason according to others. They came one night and stole him from us, that is, from me. They tore me out of his arms, called me wanton. Better that bairns should weepe, they said. Barking curs. We never saw our cousin again and were never the same after. But the charm was wound up. If we say we can taste words, we are not trying to be clever. And we are an insatiable king. Try now, if you can, to understand the nature of our thoughts touching the translation, its want of a poet. We will consult with Sir Francis. He is closer to the man, some say, than a brother. English is mistress between them. There, Bacon says, is empire. There, a great Britain. Where it is dull, where the glow . . . gleam . . . where the gleam of Majestie is absent or mute . . . When occasion smiles again, we will send for the man, Shakespere. Majestie has left its print on his art. After that hideous Scottish play, his best, darkest, and most complicated characters are . . . us. Lear. Antony. Othello. Fools all. All. The English language must be the best that is in us . . . We are but names, titles, antiquities, forgotten speeches, an accident of blood and historical memory. Aye . . . but this marvelously unexceptional little man. No more of this. By the unfortunate title of this history we must, it seems, prepare ourselves for a tragedy. Some will escape. Some will not. For bully Ben can never suffer a true rival. He killed an actor once for botching his lines. Actors. Southampton waits in our chambers. We will let him. First, to our thoughts. Only then to our Lord of Southampton.

Unlearned language?” “There’s a technical term for it,” she said. “Xenoglossy. It’s the ability to speak a language you’ve never learned. Some people appear to do so under hypnosis; they’re put into a trance and they start talking as another personality. It’s regression.

Postmodernism didn’t invent skepticism: it perverted it into a corrosive cynicism. Although postmodern Theorists frequently tell us that liberals and humanists are regressive and want to take us backwards, it is they who advocate returning to satisfying local narratives, revelation, and the “ecstatic glow of subjective certainty,” rather than pursuing progress in the way that has worked so well. Some might argue that an appreciation of the Enlightenment and of the advance of science and reason implies support for atrocities like slavery, genocide, and colonialism, which accompanied our “progress.” This might seem like a good argument if it weren’t for the fact that slavery, invasions, and brutal occupations have happened throughout history. What was special about the modern period is that emerging liberalism showed that those activities were wrong. Others might say that progress is a myth because Nazism, the Holocaust, and genocidal communism all occurred less than a century ago—and after the Enlightenment. This would be reasonable if the argument were that everything that came after the Enlightenment was liberal. In fact, these phenomena show what happens when totalitarianism is allowed to dominate over liberalism. Liberalism has not always been victorious, nor will it always prevail. But life is much better when it does and we should take steps to ensure that.

If only,” he said. “If only there was some way to feel that way all the time.” “You couldn’t,” I said, without thinking. “Regression to the mean. The extraordinary always ends up feeling ordinary. Do it for long enough and it’d just be noise.” “You may be right. But I hope you’re not. Somewhere out there, there’s a thing so amazing that you can devote your life to it and never forget how special it is.

In this connection, unlike their Christian counterparts, Hindus are not disturbed with anavasthā (infinite regresses). The necessity to posit a “first cause” that had no previous cause, as the Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas suggested, does not appear on the Hindu radar. So there are some metaphysical questions that are neither asked nor answered by Hindus.

More to Technology (The Sonnet) Some prototypes must never be commercialized, Not till we learn to look beyond monetary value. Write some fiction instead without revealing schematics, If you want the possibility to survive through. Technology is a stupidly predictable phenomenon, What one person can imagine another can rig together. All it takes is an infinite supply of persistence, Voila - fiction of today turns reality centuries later! So I say again, ask the question of "should" not "could", If you want some tech to bring light not silent regress. Because once you put the schematics out into the world, All your brilliance will fall short to undo the damage. There's more to technology than startups 'n entrepreneurship. Power without responsibility causes disparity not uplift.

People argue. People fight. You this. I that. My goodness. What's going on here! Snap out of it already. So here's the deal. There's nothing to argue about. There's nothing to fight over. Why? Better sit down for some serious infinite regress . Ready? Here we go. Every action creates a reaction. This much is true. The goal here for conflict resolution and peacemaking purposes is thus to understand what caused the first action; it is Self* which then discovers that there is nothing to argue about nor that there is anything to fight over for the first action was caused by Self* not wanting to be by itself. In other words. All this is Self and the purpose of Self, why Self perceives itself as diverse, is Love so Love simply Love. (* Initial Singularity in scientific terminology).

here are some steps to identify and track code that should be reviewed carefully: Tagging user stories for security features or business workflows which handle money or sensitive data. Grepping source code for calls to dangerous function calls like crypto functions. Scanning code review comments (if you are using a collaborative code review tool like Gerrit). Tracking code check-in to identify code that is changed often: code with a high rate of churn tends to have more defects. Reviewing bug reports and static analysis to identify problem areas in code: code with a history of bugs, or code that has high complexity and low automated test coverage. Looking out for code that has recently undergone large-scale “root canal” refactoring. While day-to-day, in-phase refactoring can do a lot to simplify code and make it easier to understand and safer to change, major refactoring or redesign work can accidentally change the trust model of an application and introduce regressions.

This antagonism between modern industry and science on the one hand, modern misery and dissolution on the other hand; this antagonism between the productive powers and the social relations of our epoch is a fact, palpable, overwhelming, and not to be controverted. Some parties may wail over it; others may wish to get rid of modern arts, in order to get rid of modern conflicts. Or they may imagine that so signal a progress in industry wants to be completed by as signal a regress in politics. On our part, we do not mistake the shape of the shrewd spirit that continues to mark all these contradictions." - Speech at anniversary of the People’s Paper, April 1856

No believer, no matter how sincere, could possibly write the Divine Comedy today, even if he possessed a talent equal to Dante’s. Visions and symbols do not have the immediate and overwhelming reality for us that they had for the medieval poet. In the Divine Comedy the whole of nature is merely a canvas upon which the religious symbol and image are painted. Western man has spent more than five hundred years – half a millennium – in stripping nature of these projections and turning it into a realm of neutral objects which his science may control. Thus it could hardly be expected that the religious image would have the same force for us as it did for Dante. This is simply a psychic fact within human history; psychic facts have just as much historical validity as the facts that we now, unlike the man of Dante's time, travel in airplanes and work in factories regulated by computing machines. A great work of art can never be repeated – the history of art shows us time and again that literal imitation leads to pastiche – because it springs from the human soul, which evolves like everything else in nature. This point must be insisted upon, contrary to the view of some of our more enthusiastic medievalists who picture the psychic containment of medieval man as a situation of human completeness to which we must return. History has never allowed man to return to the past in any total sense. And our psychological problems cannot be solved by a regression to a past state in which they had not yet been brought into being.

We know that everything that is anything is made from matter and energy being interrelated aspects of the same thing. The First Law of Thermodynamics tells us that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. However, if this is true, the obvious question is: what created it in the first place? It appears that either something had to have come from nothing, or something has always been. In the case that something has always been, if time can be in fact nonlinear and can infinitely regress in a loop, going backward on itself at the end of itself, it would be possible that there is no beginning or end of the universe at all, but a continuation of the same thing, as if the universe were breathing in and out, filling up its lungs with everything, and then emptying them back out, over and over. Or similarly, everything is, was, and will always be across space-time for all eternity. Every moment in time and location in space has a coordinate on the map of space-time and the map exists at all times at the same time, forever. However in both cases, if something has always been something where did that something come from. Who or what made it? How can anything be anything without having been made by something else? If the universe is entirely based on cause and effect, which appears to be, how could there be no first cause for there to be an effect. Alternatively, in what is known as quantum field theory, physicists have also found that particles known as virtual particles can come into existence from apparent nothingness. Which is to say, it is perhaps possible that a feature of nothing is to create something. However, if a feature of nothing is to create something, how can it be nothing? And if nothing isn’t nothing, what is it, and what made it? Even if one subscribes to the notion of a god, that’s fine, but that doesn’t resolve the question of where a god would have come from. Everything ultimately brings us back to the same question: How can anything come from nothing? Or something be infinite? And neither concept seem to concur with any human sensibilities, meaning there is some mystery of everything that our brains can’t seem to comprehend, as if the rules of the game were made of logic, but the reason for the game was made of something else. The only truth is, of course, no matter what anyone says or how they say it, nobody has any idea what’s going on beneath their feet, inside their brain, or above their head. Maybe at some point in the future, we, or some iteration of us, will know precisely how everything works and why with one little equation. Maybe Newton will be wrong and Einstein will be wrong and thousands of other Einsteins of the future will be wrong until someone somehow isn’t.

Identify some of the actual individuals who are your best customers. Evaluate those with the highest customer lifetime value (CLV) and develop hypotheses about their shared traits. Although demographics and psychographics might be the most obvious, you’ll find additional insights if you examine their behavior. What channels did they come through? What messages resonated? How did they onboard? How recently, frequently, and deeply have they engaged? Compare best customers and worst customers—those you acquired who weren’t ultimately profitable or who weren’t satisfied with your offering. Notice people who exhaust your free trial but don’t convert to paid, or who join but cancel within the first few months. The best customers have the greatest customer lifetime value (CLV); they will spend more with you over time than anyone else. Produce either a qualitative write-up of your best customer or use regression analysis to prioritize characteristics. Share these conclusions with your frontline team—retail workers, customer support, sales—to accrue early insights. With a concrete conception of your best customer, you can discern if the customer segment is sufficiently large to justify addressing. Test and adjust as needed. Then make these best customers and their forever promise as “real” as possible to the team. If you have actual customers who fit the profile, talk about them, invite them in, or have their pictures on your wall. You’re going to feel their pain, share their objectives, and design experiences for them. It’s important to know them well.

Having got rid of Jefferson—at least in name—Turing next addresses a whole class of objections that he calls “Arguments from Various Disabilities,” and which he defines as taking the form “I grant you that you can make machines do all the things you have mentioned but you will never be able to make one to do X.” He then offers a rather tongue-in-cheek “selection”: Be kind, resourceful, beautiful, friendly; have initiative, have a sense of humour, tell right from wrong, make mistakes; fall in love, enjoy strawberries and cream; make some one fall in love with it, learn from experience; use words properly, be the subject of its own thought; have as much diversity of behaviour as a man, do something really new. As Turing notes, “no support is usually offered for these statements,” most of which are founded on the principle of scientific induction. . . . The works and customs of mankind do not seem to be very suitable material to which to apply scientific induction. A very large part of space-time must be investigated, if reliable results are to be obtained. Otherwise we may (as most English children do) decide that everybody speaks English, and that it is silly to learn French. Turing’s repudiation of scientific induction, however, is more than just a dig at the insularity and closed-mindedness of England. His purpose is actually much larger: to call attention to the infinite regress into which we are likely to fall if we attempt to use disabilities (such as, say, the inability, on the part of a man, to feel attraction to a woman) as determining factors in defining intelligence. Nor is the question of homosexuality far from Turing’s mind, as the refinement that he offers in the next paragraph attests: There are, however, special remarks to be made about many of the disabilities that have been mentioned. The inability to enjoy strawberries and cream may have struck the reader as frivolous. Possibly a machine might be made to enjoy this delicious dish, but any attempt to make one do so would be idiotic. What is important about this disability is that it contributes to some of the other disabilities, e.g. to the difficulty of the same kind of friendliness occurring between man and machine as between white man and white man, or between black man and black man. To the brew of gender and sexuality, then, race is added, as “strawberries and cream” (earlier bookended between the ability to fall in love and the ability to make someone fall in love) becomes a code word for tastes that Turing prefers not to name.

It is certainly true that in his later writings, published and unpublished, Nietzsche speculates on what look like metaphysical or ontological questions. At the risk of some (but not much) oversimplification, we could say that his main thesis with respect to these questions is as follows: Heraclitus was correct and Parmenides incorrect: Being is Becoming, everything is in motion, stability is a ratio of changes, ratios are changing perspectives, changes emerge from chaos and not in accord with a plan or fundamental order. Note what follows from this “ontological” thesis: there is no ego, no subject, and hence no will. The will to power is in fact an infinite regression of points of force. This is what Nietzsche means when he refers to the will as an exoteric concept. No apparent cohesions, or what one might call fields of force, have a unifying identity. Hence personal identity is an illusion. It follows further that there can be no explanation of illusion itself, of why we experience ourselves as finite personalities, why we perceive things or objects, why our experience is organized as if it were a coherent whole. This is what Nietzsche means by his acceptance of Heraclitus’s reference to Zeus as a “playing boy” (pais paizon). The cosmos, or what we take to be order, is just the purposeless play of chaos. Nietzsche’s enthusiastic adoption of Spinoza’s amor fati comes to the same thing. Nietzsche is not a genuine Spinozist except for one point: he denies teleology, or divine purpose.

The social and economic structure of any given society can be seen as an ocean in which people are like so many fish who have to learn how to survive in that ocean or die. The ocean itself can be health-giving, fostering life for all the fish in it; or it can be a polluted ocean in which only the bigger and more powerful fish thrive, though there is always the risk that if it becomes too polluted even the big fish will perish. All social and economic systems in the world are somewhere on a continuum between those two extremes, though the current U.S. system, and the system in many developing and all undeveloping or regressing nations, approaches the most polluted extreme. In fact, the world system as a whole, with its division into a tiny minority of staggeringly wealthy nations and a great majority of increasingly poverty-stricken ones, can be considered extremely polluted. It is futile to blame individual big fish for surviving, or for wanting to survive. So if we want to prevent violence, we will need to clean up this "ocean." We will need a system that as far as possible provides for an equal sharing of the collective wealth of the world among all individuals and all nations, while providing free education and healthcare for everyone. When the sharing comes close to being absolutely equal, as we have seen from examples at all stages of economic and cultural development, violence almost disappears. Conversely, the more unequal the social and economic environment, the more frequent and severe is the violence. If we are to succeed, the political Orwellian Newspeak that surrounds us will have to be translated into plain English. Violence serves some very powerful interests Those interests will continue to exist, and will continue to stimulate violence, until we eliminate the conflict of interest by eliminating the hierarchies and gender asymmetries.

Furthermore, in some of my cases (see, for example, Ed and Sheila in chapters 3 and 4) the material recalled during the regression seemed more likely to be accurate than that reported in face-to-face interviews because 1) the information was less self-serving or compatible with positive self-esteem, or, conversely, more disturbing to self-regard, and, in some instances, even humiliating; 2) the material that emerged in the regressions was more believable in the sense that it was consistent with accounts provided by other experiencers – it lacked the gloss and ordering of recollections in conformity with conventional reality that tends to occur with conscious reporting; and 3) although emotional involvement is no guarantee of the accuracy of memory with or without hypnosis, the intensity of affect and expressed bodily feeling that occurs during the regression sessions of abduction experiencers is so powerful that even the most determined skeptic would be hard-pressed to conclude that something quite extraordinary and reality-shattering did not occur. Sheila’s psychiatrist, for example, who had worked with her for seven years, came away from the two Regressions he observed convinced that if not actual alien abductions, something very much like them had occurred.

There are some of us who have grown weary of talk of reconciliation. This is probably because it comes to us on the tongues of men who have paid no time to the process of true repair. It is both ego and shame concealed in shallow unity-speak that regresses any progress that has been made. And you'd of course be right to ask the question: Can we be reconciled if there was no harmony to begin with? I suppose it is my faith that allows me, despite all the lack I see, to trace the plumb line back to an origin story of harmony—a shalom that can be repaired, however slowly and painfully. But language of unity has functioned as a locution more of restraint than of liberation. Those who are too insecure to practice an ethic of true repair attempt to accelerate resolution for the sake of their own protection. They are umprepared to fully face the chasm they have created, the blood on their hands, the sight of their own face, so they rush to an assurance that the sight isn't as ugly as it seems. Reconciliation cannot be forced if it is to last. And unity should not come at the expense of the vulnerable. Its integrity depends upon its ability to make the union safe and honourable. How can you become one with a person or system who will not acknowledge or relent in their torment of you? This is not unity; it's annihilation.

Never confuse culture with state. Some of the richest cultures of the world often end up with some of the most regressive states in the world - Türkiye, Azerbaijan, India, Italy to name a few, in the context of 2023. So I repeat, never let your disapproval of a government make you bitter towards a culture. Government never reflects culture - if it did, I would not have penned a single Turkish word in my works - as opposed to the fact that, the Turkish culture is an intrinsic element of Naskarean literature.

The drama of age regression and incest recapitulation (or, for that matter, any therapeutic cathartic or intellectual project) is healing only because it provides therapist and patient with some interesting shared activity while the real therapeutic force—the relationship—is ripening on the tree.

Once we get the regression results, we would calculate a t-statistic, which is the ratio of the observed coefficient to the standard error for that coefficient.* This t-statistic is then evaluated against whatever t-distribution is appropriate for the size of the data sample (since this is largely what determines the number of degrees of freedom). When the t-statistic is sufficiently large, meaning that our observed coefficient is far from what the null hypothesis would predict, we can reject the null hypothesis at some level of statistical significance. Again, this is the same basic process of statistical inference that we have been employing throughout the book. The fewer the degrees of freedom (and therefore the “fatter” the tails of the relevant t-distribution), the higher the t-statistic will have to be in order for us to reject the null hypothesis at some given level of significance. In the hypothetical regression example described above, if we had four degrees of freedom, we would need a t-statistic of at least 2.13 to reject the null hypothesis at the .05 level (in a one-tailed test). However, if we have 20,000 degrees of freedom (which essentially allows us to use the normal distribution), we would need only a t-statistic of 1.65 to reject the null hypothesis at the .05 level in the same one-tailed test.

To make this point, I often do the same coin flipping exercise that I explained during the probability discussion. In a class of forty students or so, I’ll have each student flip a coin. Any student who flips tails is eliminated; the rest flip again. In the second round, those who flip tails are once again eliminated. I continue the rounds of flipping until one student has flipped five or six heads in a row. You may recall some of the silly follow-up questions: “What’s your secret? Is it in the wrist? Can you teach us to flip heads all the time? Maybe it’s that Harvard sweatshirt you’re wearing.” Obviously the string of heads is just luck; the students have all watched it happen. However, that is not necessarily how the result could or would be interpreted in a scientific context. The probability of flipping five heads in a row is 1/32, or .03. This is comfortably below the .05 threshold we typically use to reject a null hypothesis. Our null hypothesis in this case is that the student has no special talent for flipping heads; the lucky string of heads (which is bound to happen for at least one student when I start with a large group) allows us to reject the null hypothesis and adopt the alternative hypothesis: This student has a special ability to flip heads. After he has achieved this impressive feat, we can study him for clues about his flipping success—his flipping form, his athletic training, his extraordinary concentration while the coin is in the air, and so on. And it is all nonsense. This phenomenon can plague even legitimate research. The accepted convention is to reject a null hypothesis when we observe something that would happen by chance only 1 in 20 times or less if the null hypothesis were true. Of course, if we conduct 20 studies, or if we include 20 junk variables in a single regression equation, then on average we will get 1 bogus statistically significant finding.