the appeal to Reason, aphorism 195 , The Mechanics of Virtue, Matt Berry

195


When the distance is great, the higher needs the lower – and this soon shortens that distance: The superior finds himself in a sudden and desperate danger or is gripped by an ambition too great for himself to achieve alone.  He promises much.  He might even initiate a new familiarity ... a suggestion, if not the promise, of an approach toward equal status.  The danger passes or the ambitious aim fails or succeeds; the superior recants, but the promise remains as a vacuum for the victims to fill with indignant lines of reasoning.  Thus begins an “insubordination” whose result can be the appeal to Reason – for Reason aids the struggle for the past agreement and for that equality proposed by the superior.  


A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism



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