The Experience of Clarity

378 How can I feel myself threatened again with a choice I have already made?  In reality, and very often, I have not chosen until I carry along something new or leave behind something old for a sufficient length of time ... and this something is not one half of the “choice,” but the physical object that stimulates the old “choice” back into existence. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

211 Dominance is now Evil, and thus dominance cannot be the motive of alpha-minus without his finding this spiritual means to dominance short-circuited into hypocrisy.  There must be no filament within his moral circuitry which connects his humility with is dominance thereby.  He is thus motivated by dominance to deny dominance and propose in its stead a righteous humility as both his motive and his goal. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

212 If one cannot compete with Alpha on mechanical terms, one can be more beautiful and if one cannot be more beautiful, one can be more humble .  Righteous behavior is almost a confession to either an inherited political weakness or a lack of artistic ability.  One can even habituate and come to depend upon righteousness to such a degree that one is ashamed of occasional lapses ... of falling into strong behavior or beautiful display. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

379 Once things begin to redeem themselves I have to be careful.  Euphoria refuses to distinguish between the grand and the mediocre. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

 213 The mechanically dominant – the alpha – constitutes the condition from which alpha-minus can only maintain esteem through a redirection of the dominance drive.  Equality is a convenient standard because demotion of the Alpha is a positive outlet for the dominance mechanism of the alpha-minus .  Demotion of a superior is the next best thing to his overthrow and is certainly superior to enduring an awareness of one's own subordination.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

380 If I have not removed myself from the stimulus in question, I am opposed or compliant.  Either way I am beyond help.  My proposed destination is point A , but the immediate stimulus only provides the choice between destinations B and C .  Every morning I grit my teeth and pull down my brow before the problem and every day my jaw falls as I watch myself pass by my higher destination ... and all because I still respect the primacy of thought. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

214 The righteous man finds himself in a narrow corridor: he constructs the wall on the left by resisting the humiliation of being subordinate, and on the right, he forbids himself on principle the Evil practice of dominance.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

381 We declare war by our response to the most recent stimuli, recruited for or against , but surrender to our oldest habits. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

215 Eventually a culture emerges where Alpha’s dominance is threatened to such a degree that he too exists within the conditions by which a superior intellect is required.   In the balance of power, he has become a sort of alpha-minus himself.  To maintain his rank, he must take the subtle and clever position of supporting the spiritual hierarchy, and he may even ostensibly subordinate himself to this alternate order of rank.  If he is clever enough, he may even see this as a means of misdirecting the aim or dividing the force of this rival group.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

382 Managing life by way of stimulus and response can look so much like superstition as to confuse even the manager — if, for example, he sees only a limited portion of the vast number of influences or if he confuses a minor influence with a major.  He has to remind himself constantly of the legitimacy of the effort ... but in pragmatic implication he is something like the man who walks through a graveyard under a full moon, alone and repeating to himself, “I don’t believe in ghosts.  I don’t believe in ghosts.” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

216 By Power, I mean dominance over a herd by the manipulation of mechanical forces. By Righteousness, I mean the overthrow of this power by identifying oneself and one's herd with “higher” icons or standards, the justification of which either constitute a reversal in rank or a demotion of the powerful to an equal status. Power, when overthrown ... stampeded in this manner, still seeks to preserve a degree of mechanical force, and so power itself must now work with these very cattle-prods ... these icons, symbols, arguments, and standards. When righteousness and power equilibrate, we find two compatible dominance hierarchies ... and where each believes it is incompatible precisely where its existence is dependent.  It is as if a bucket were swung around by a rope and the opposing centripetal and centrifugal forces were said to be incompatible with the aim of a stable cycle. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

383 An Attempt: To strike this vague, blunt end such that I force my point forward and part the two sides of error, the two extremes of the matter, to send them flying off beyond my periphery and out of view ... proud in what remains: the sharp, and recently burnished, point. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

218 In a cage of ten hamsters and nine wheels there will always be one thinker. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

384 I cannot both agree to change and to remain myself.  One of us must die. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

219 As a cultural event, those who readily appeal to the supremacy of reason are rarely severe with the issue of where to ground that reason. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

385 We are built with the countless atoms of our petty moments.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

220 In reverse: When Occam’s Razor is our weapon for dominance, it simplifies; when it dominates us, we complicate. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism