the power that humiliates, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 291

291

We often give another the power that humiliates us when we resist his attempt to humiliate us.  In most cases, we unconsciously accept a presupposed value standard by which he dominates.  For example, when he demands that we step out of his path, we then refuse stoutly – as a “matter of honor and dignity”– but we have still accepted his sovereignty in determining our value standard.  Although both parties usually remain unconscious of the actual struggle, in effect he decrees our lower value, not necessarily by our performance of the submissive gesture, but quite often by our showing the other’s standard to be worthy of our reaction.  That is, not only does he presume a superiority with which to decree our value standard, but we then validate his authority to do so by taking his standard seriously.


In the mechanist’s view, we humiliate ourselves only because we bow to his authority over our value standard and not because we bow to him.  We could even step aside and bow to prove to ourselves that we really do reject his standard and find it valueless.  We bow and let the lower standard pass.  

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