Authenticity through the Dominance Mechanism
from the book, Post-Atheism
I am not primarily a materialist then - not that I am now ready to donate my house and car to science. The point here is my tendency to behave as though a possession were of greater human significance than recognizing the mechanisms by which I imagine I actually possess something.
Would a bigger house make me happier? Probably ... for a while at least, and especially if it were bigger than my rival's house. Evidently, bundled up with my territorial craving is a dominance craving. Would making a great scientific discovery make me happier? Probably ... for a while at least. However, would any superior thing or display be more significant than the view that the "superiority" was only a projection? How could I ever hold the secondary at highest value while conscious of the primary machinery? How could any illusion be superior to the mechanical reality which projected it? Would I rather be conscious of the reflex by which the hammer sent up the foot, or be no better than the big toe which now claims to be ahead of all the others?
If I could not avoid being the function of the dominance mechanism - euphemistically described today as "the pursuit of excellence" - why would I not then hold to the admitted superiority of the primary view? A view where Epictetus and his impressions are of higher rank than Caesar and the entire world.
Ignorance of the dominance mechanism has bent me into a moral pretzel. For not identifying the primary mechanism by which I claim superiority, I display my sense of inferiority. With my appeals to authorities, badges and credentials, I find myself in the ludicrous position of asking for permission to be superior. Confused by the numerous competitors, I beg for the recognition of a unique identity that can only be validated by a crowd I simultaneously believe is beneath me. I want a bigger house, faster car, larger income. I want longer hair, shorter hair, spiked hair ... no hair. I wear gang colors, a police uniform, a surgeon's smock, combat fatigues.
We cannot let go of our things, because we cannot let go of our illusion of rank ... reputation. And most difficult of all are those things we believe are the tie to family and community. One's absolute morality is another's accidental inheritance. Attending this particular church service, paying tithes, saying the right combination of words, wearing the designated clothing - all create an underlying tension as easily demonstrated as it is denied. In a Mormon community in the seventies, a dispute could break out over the refusal to wear a necktie, on the one side a red-faced idiot who believed it was indispensable to holiness and on the other, another red-faced idiot who believed that actual independence was somehow at stake. The tension is as evident on the face as its cause is not at all evident to consciousness.
I want to escape this prison but am not quite sure which side of the door is in and which is out. I muster up the ambition to be the explorer and discoverer - the scientist - the poet - but then curse my fate that no one is here to point out the handrail. And then turn around and curse my fate again because there is a handrail ... complete with a new authority demanding that I use it. Once I have it, precisely this convenience constitutes my obstacle. Repetition blindness, memes, complacency, orthodox science, obedience, - what could be more convenient than these handrails?
The fear of letting go is great ... to such a degree that I sometimes wonder if I am not also afraid of becoming authentic. Why should I have to muster up the courage to let go of the bricks, the gestures, the pulp upon which my science finds itself inked ... to vibrating air most of all?! Once I believed in the Bible as if the words constituted magical incantations capable of changing history, tantamount to moving objects in the real world with words. Then I laughed at myself. Now, devoutly serious, I read concepts and conclusions from the world's greatest scientist and believe that I am now closer to my reality than before. Still believing in words as if they were magical incantations. ... as if I have now been moved closer to my reality. What border do I cross when vibrating air becomes a concept which in turn becomes "my reality"?
Why do I compete with Caesar, taking it for granted that territory and rank are significant, ... and not compete with Epictetus, asserting that my organs receive impressions, foisting significance back upon my world ... creating fictions like territorial possession or social hierarchy? Does my atheism now transcend Christian materialism and become more Christ-like? The kingdom of God is within me, and therefore I must learn how to rule it. Why insist upon external authorities and not accept that even this insistence is the consequence of the authority of my own cerebral function? ... a capitulation I have authorized with my own negligence. Why is the speaker's authenticity a more important issue than my own? Why do I consider precisely my own immediate reality to be insignificant and worthless when it is the strongest fact of all that I have no other conduit to reality?
I calculate ... I orient myself by my experience with material - especially with an eye on my own machinery. If this indefinable but necessary materialism does continue ... must continue ... if materialism is a fait accompli ... whose cerebral consequences are as inexorable and unavoidable as gravity, can I at least take this primary machinery as the more valuable study? ... as the territory I conquer? ... as the means for finding a society to rival in a display of supreme authenticity? ... as a means of, if not the elimination of the material view, then at least, the steering of my life toward a higher valuation?
Next Page: Books by Matt Berry
Truth does not begin with an answer on behalf of which all questions must constantly rearrange themselves. Truth begins with fearless questions; answers arrive accordingly.
There is more ape in man to deny the relation than there is more than ape with which to accept it.