Pragmatists and Deontologists. Part two and end.

What adds dimension to this conflict is the relationship betwixt the pragmatist AND the deontologist.

If the particular pragmatist happens all so to be a manipulator, a seasoned deontologist will re

cognise her instantly. He will know that he is being abused because no deontologist would need to FORCE  an other deontologist to alter his behavior. Such a conflict can only arise betwixt a deontologist and a prag-

matist. The prag-

matist will need the other to conform to a pre-

conceived end, however super-ficial and un-

stable. Yet the deon-

tologist has little reason to do so. If he happens to please her, that is fine.

If she is hurt or up-

set, it may be regretable, but that’s fine, too. This angers the pragmatist, especially if the signals are in-consistent.

Consistency of dis-appointment is tolerable to the prag-

matist; she can adapt to stable ground and even terra-form it, using consistency to mani-

pulate the other. Yet in-

consistency is the most maddening. She has yet to realize that the other’s role is not to satiate her expectations.

Turning to bitterness, she pro-

 jects her own sense of en-

titlement upon the Deontologist.

Surely it is *He* that has un-

attainable standards for *Me*!

Were that not so, why should he be-have so strangely and erratically? He MUST be possessed of some delusion if he thinks that I ENJOY this.

Yet in fact the Deontolo-

gist is plotting neither for her enjoyment NOR for his own. His only interest is in doing what is right. Up on close examination, she sees that he holds the world not merely to ‘his’ standards, but to hers as well. He has subtly internalised them. Yet this was not done manipulatively;

naturally, he pre-

sumed that she would have expected no-

thing less. Yet HE appears to her to be the manipulator. He is merely a mirror for both her values and her own mani-

pulative tendencies.

What he seems to share in common with the manipulators that she most fears is that he seems totally content to hurt her. Yet that is never his In-tent. It is merely the end. The means is what matters.

The torture, un-witting, consists in this:

She must now own up to a set of ideals that she had long ago abandoned like children in pursuit of the per-

petuation of her pragmatism. They became the means towards ‘greater’ ends, or per haps they were never ends in their selves but all ways means, and now they serve no purpose to her. Re-

volted by the desicatting flesh of her old snake’s skin, she is disappointed again by the other’s failure to satisfy her pro-

ject. And here the story ends abruptly.

Dm.A.A.