Unmerited humiliation, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 242

242

“Unmerited humiliation” often accompanies self-righteous behavior, and the lines of reasoning can be so convincing and correct that the “unmerited humiliation” can appear to be the means to the goal of “righteousness.” 

However, in the first place, one only labels the humiliation, “unmerited,” if one finds this assignment to be a means of pride.  Second, one is only motivated to display an injury in public if by doing so it is a means of self-promotion.  

An act of civil disobedience which provokes an injury, and thus condemns the offender for his vulgarity and incapacity to restrain himself, is an advanced sort of victory. One might now find strength in provoking and enduring unjustifiable offenses – all injuries from which must be displayed shamelessly in public and whose successful effect serves in turn to correct the behavior of the dominant class.


But if one believes in the doctrine, what sort of morality will it be?  As a civil tool, it constitutes an advance for civilization: a weakness turned into a strength.  As an individual's doctrine, it constitutes a regression ... a glorification of a weakness whose harm is doubled by the fact that one fails to see it as weakness.

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