The Experience of Clarity

234 How cheaply we could purchase another’s heart: a few puffs of breath!  ... but we would rather sell our grand idea of ourselves, which is to say, we are purchased by another’s breath. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

235 What am I if I am a serf who refuses to obey?  And then discover after my banishment that I have no instinct for command?  The king will not take me back, and I fear the next leg of my journey ... for all roads end here.  I wander through the wilderness, taken aback with my new fear of freedom, whimpering and crying out for a new master to serve ... and finding none better than the one I had before.  I know, I know ... I have heard it all before, but how?  ... and with what?  How does second nature command first nature without finding itself suddenly dispatched on yet another errand? A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

236 Thus far I have found myself rooted in middle-class soil and have dutifully and passionately continued the battle for the leveling of all classes and cultures.  However, lately I have had a thousand modern conveniences as my servants, too much time for thinking, and much too much time for leisure.  I have become bored and even begin to take on, comically enough, aristocratic airs ... and with this first step back in time, toward this banished morality, the comedy plays itself out: “The king is dead ... the throne is vacant ... can I do this without hurting anybody?”  All in my audience split their sides with laughter as I apologize for each harmless step forward ... like a peasant of the lowest order, who still believes he must be granted the right to self-possession before he can claim it. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

238 To stop behaving as a slave it is just as important to stop obeying as it is to demand the master to stop commanding.  We understand this in word, but cannot leave “our debt” to the master unpaid, not a single order unfulfilled.  We can imagine ourselves as free spirits, but not as deadbeats. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

237 We are not freemen.  We are not even serfs, but the shadows of serfdom.  We search in vain ... carry our torches and find nothing that will burn hot and bright enough to light up our faces.  And what exasperates us most is that we find no one to blame for our anger ... and we have searched everywhere.  But it is here, as our flame dims for a lack of oil, that we come upon a leaf cool and beaded with morning dew ... something that we consume in a forgotten manner ... something we can finally keep down and digest ... we, the middle class with our public education ... we, the cows of social science, have at last found something pleasant to ruminate:  There is no blame in a world already condemned to function at the animal level.  There is no demand for merit where there is no merit.  There is no duty where there is no misunderstanding.  There is no value or meaning, only the momentary relief of scratching the itch of an insufficient rank...

239 Only “hard workers” have a real chance for an authentic existence and high fate.  Unfortunately, it is almost always the master-servant morality which produces these hard workers.  When the servant finally breaks with the master, the language appropriate to their former ranks still persists within society.  For the master, the moral predicament remains unchanged.  This free man has become “lazy” ... “a quitter” ... “a threat to society” ... and all of this while the free man endures the roughest labor ... struggling to stand alone ... and on the other side of that unbridgeable gulf between the old rank and the new. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

240 We cannot both befriend our master and gain self-mastery, since our approach to his rank is the insult of all insults.  Moreover, his rebuke will always sound off with a ring of legitimacy, while our condemnation of “power” does not defeat power, but promotes its dissipation among those of us who would otherwise be his equals.  We must therefore acquire equal force before we proclaim equal status.  Until then, we conspire with necessity. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

67 When tolerance is a condescending pity, it is so easy that it cannot honestly accept the title.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

241 How do we serve?  We, the many, without resources to command, and who condemn ourselves for our fate ... it would do us well to remember that all humans serve.  If nothing else, they serve nature.  Here, even a king can overstep his authority.  The real question is: Do we have a perfect strategy for the next conquest?  That is, have we applied what little resources we have in order to accumulate more resources ... and at an optimum rate? A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

68 There is no such thing as forced tolerance.  It would be more honest if it went by the name of resentment ... or perhaps by, patient revenge. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

242 A multiple choice test: Who mediates our genius? A) The greats of history are our mediators: genius is an external authority to which I must appeal.  A personal conclusion must first receive authorization from these mediators before it can be considered true or false.  And this is of course all in order since anyone who is anybody knows that one has no right to one’s own reality.  To claim the contrary is to overstep my bounds, is a symptom of megalomania, and remains contrary to what I need most, humility ... also known as, low self-esteem.   B) Those with the greatest number of stored facts are our mediators: A genius is a type of filing cabinet, the recognition of which is quite simple: if we meet another who has been nominated for the office of genius, we must immediately request a file and test whether the nominee can produce that file without hesitation and without any sign of concern on his brow.  The file itself is of no importance....

69 If one has not found oneself in a superior position, one cannot grant freedom, one can only fight for it.  From the inferior position, tolerance is demanded from the superior... and in a way that resembles intolerance.  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

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

240 We cannot both befriend our master and gain self-mastery, since our approach to his rank is the insult of all insults.  Moreover, his rebuke will always sound off with a ring of legitimacy, while our condemnation of “power” does not defeat power, but promotes its dissipation among those of us who would otherwise be his equals.  We must therefore acquire equal force before we proclaim equal status.  Until then, we conspire with necessity. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism