enlightenment, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 283
283
The submissive gesture submits to a new valuation: Rank by gesture is a projection and therefore an illusion. Nonetheless, there is a projector of rank and according to which I cannot help but gauge my value.
My value is determined by a fundamental choice between two perspectives: 1) Do I deny the projector and thus hold to the illusion? If “yes,” then the submissive gesture determines my low value, and even resisting presupposes the dominant's authority over the standard for my value: I am subordinate or insubordinate ... but either way I am not dominant. Or, 2) Do I believe in the projector and thus hold to the disillusionment of foisted values? If “Yes,” then I hold the awareness of the projector and the strategy outlined therefrom to be the standard by which I evaluate my rank. My solution to the problem of gestures is slaved to this more fundamental standard.
If I accept the projector, I operate on the principle that to believe in the projection is to be deluded, and that to understand the process is to be disillusioned, and this latter enlightenment is of greater value than that of being duped.
There is a point in a dominance gesture where it becomes humiliation again, just as there is a point where, like the wave of the sea, we submit to the shore of our reality, and flow back into a swelling pride.
The submissive gesture submits to a new valuation: Rank by gesture is a projection and therefore an illusion. Nonetheless, there is a projector of rank and according to which I cannot help but gauge my value.
My value is determined by a fundamental choice between two perspectives: 1) Do I deny the projector and thus hold to the illusion? If “yes,” then the submissive gesture determines my low value, and even resisting presupposes the dominant's authority over the standard for my value: I am subordinate or insubordinate ... but either way I am not dominant. Or, 2) Do I believe in the projector and thus hold to the disillusionment of foisted values? If “Yes,” then I hold the awareness of the projector and the strategy outlined therefrom to be the standard by which I evaluate my rank. My solution to the problem of gestures is slaved to this more fundamental standard.
If I accept the projector, I operate on the principle that to believe in the projection is to be deluded, and that to understand the process is to be disillusioned, and this latter enlightenment is of greater value than that of being duped.
There is a point in a dominance gesture where it becomes humiliation again, just as there is a point where, like the wave of the sea, we submit to the shore of our reality, and flow back into a swelling pride.