our motivation, aphorism 197, The Mechanics of Virtue, Matt Berry
197
What we claim to be our motivation is often incompatible with our motivation as we observe it. For example, sweetness and high ideals in the journalist do not sell newspapers. He might however claim them on the page ... and certainly most readers will attest to their interest in, and motivation by, “decency and high ideals.” However, under observation, decency and ideals are only the shiny plumbing through which something fluid might pass ... something unintentionally vague – unintentional, for if it should harden into a shape that we might identify, we would then have to confess to it as intentional and this would interfere with the easy flow of this substance which must be discharged: our aggression.
Just as a plumbing system serves the greater hygiene of a city, so might our high ideals serve the greater hygiene of consciousness. We appear to be especially interested in those high ideals which permit us to look down upon dominating behavior. And in fact, if there were no outside aggression upon which we might look down, there would remain very little motive for claiming and living up to our highest ideals.