PSYCHOMETR!X: Sacred PR!DE.

What psychometrics do NOT teach you:

D!LEMMA ONE: Objective self-worth.

The Scottish Doctor of Ethics Alasdair MacIntyre recounts several traditional models for virtue, according to which he defines moral valuation. Here are just a few which we inherited from Antiquity:

1.             Virtue is defined as what is owed to a (hu)man. Coupled with self-knowledge, it requires individuals to objectively decide what others owe to them and what they owe to others.

2.             Virtue is defined as the teleological need to produce a Better World. (This is classified by Jungians as the Archetype of the Seeker, and according to the Enneagram this correlates to the Reformer.)

3.             Virtue is defined as the external imperative to actualize internal potentialities. In recognizing that people are born with different gifts, precluding the pretension that “everyone is gifted”, the ancient Greeks hosted competitions by which to decide who was the Best in a given field. The purpose of these competitions was not egocentric but social, since success was considered to be both a right and a responsibility, and talent was thus both a blessing and a curse. Quite literally, one’s life was a constant process of pursuing the actualization of one’s inner strengths, and failure was not an option.

MacIntyre argues, almost irrefutably, (by his own admission,) that the traditional meaning of moral utterance was revocably lost. For instance, (though this is my own observation,) “humility” ought to be distinguished from “humbleness”, as Krishnamurti indicated. Being too lazy to achieve ought to be distinguished from being open to experience, to new information, and to reform. Yet reform itself must be founded upon an even deeper orthodoxy. Entrepreneurs who echo MacBeth in saying that “fair is foul” ascribe arrogance to people who feel a drive to be “right”, yet Righteousness may not be so radically subjective. Lawrence Kohlberg demonstrated that most people plateau at a very low level of Moral Development; does this not imply that empathy can be a weakness? The sheer paradox of moral life corroborates MacIntyre’s thesis: what once was clear is obscured. Is this no different from that process which therapists refer to as “gaslighting”? Who are they to consider themselves innocent?

Allow me, therefore, to express the previous models of morality within the vernacular of behaviourism:

4.             Virtue is defined as what is owed to a (hu)man. Coupled with self-knowledge, it requires individuals to objectively decide what others owe to them and what they owe to others.

-      This is referred to as “self-entitlement”. Shrinks will often abbreviate this to say “entitlement”, summarizing their emotivistic* presupposition that entitlement is NOT a function of social virtue but rather of psychological pathology. In this manner, among many others, they demoralize.

Being “virtuous” in this sense is identified with narcissism. This is why some of the less conscientious fans of the television programs Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul tend to deplore Skyler White and Charles McGill, projecting their own shortcomings.

*Despite having been a topic of discussion for over a century, this term is yet unrecognized by Microsoft Word 16.

5.             Virtue is defined as the teleological need to produce a Better World. (This is classified by Jungians as the Archetype of the Seeker, and according to the Enneagram this correlates to the Reformer.)

-      The Shrinks call this “grandiosity”. It is not uncommon, therefore, for psychopaths and manipulators working within the psychiatric industry to describe moral imperatives and social obligations as expressions, again, of “arrogance”, irrespective of the actual benefits, while all the while they are content to live parasitically off of others. Even trying to create a Better World is psychoanalytically evil.

6.             Virtue is defined as the external imperative to actualize internal potentialities. In recognizing that people are born with different gifts, precluding the pretension that “everyone is gifted”, the ancient Greeks hosted competitions by which to decide who was the Best in a given field. The purpose of these competitions was not egocentric but social, since success was considered to be both a right and a responsibility, and talent was thus both a blessing and a curse. Quite literally, one’s life was a constant process of pursuing the actualization of one’s inner strengths, and failure was not an option.

-      It’s not uncommon for psychometrics to ask a prospective employee, REPEATEDLY, to confess to feelings of impending greatness. Yet was this not also how the Renaissance Man Mirandola** (whose full name in itself is grandiose, legally) defined human potential? To his mind, Humanism lay in the actualization of God’s gifts:

“A sacred pride should grip us of not being satisfied with the mediocre but to strive (for we can do it, if we want to) with the exertion of all our strength to attain the highest. Let us scorn what is of this earth, let us ignore what is of heaven, let us leave absolutely everything worldly behind us in order to hasten to the abode out of this world, in the proximity of the sublime deity. We do not need to think of stepping back. Of being satisfied with second rank, let us strive for dignity and glory. To attain the highest.”

**Note: MS Word does not even recognize HIM.

What has become of the Beautiful, Human Soul? Even Martin Seligman argues that we must move away from the Disease Model and supplement it with a Positive Clinical Model which seeks to empower genius instead of punishing it.

So: what is the dilemma? It really amounts to a paradox:

If I take a psychometric test, I only require the most cursory knowledge of popular psychology in order to “hack” it. Any psychopath can score as a saint if (s)he simply knows what a humble person is SUPPOSED to say, and the truly delusional narcissist will make claims to these virtues without warrant. Behavioural shrinks tend to presume that we are stupid so as not to appear to be condescending. The Just World fallacy has possessed them, apparently and transparently, to believe that members of the Dark Triad will slip up, exposing their own narcissistic evil.

While this might work for creating good television, it is seldom truly the case. Villains know how heroes think, and even though the historical meaning of “virtue” has become buried under the neglect of philosophy in a scientific age, most people are at least smart enough to guess at what answers seem more virtuous. If I wish to appear humble, all I have to do is click “Strongly Agree” when asked if I am. One can hardly disguise the essence of the question by asking me if I “know that I am great because people tell me that all the time”. In fact, all that this attempt at concealment does, manipulatively, is that it reflects the cynicism of the writer, who PRECLUDES the possibility that “people” are objective in judging the worth of the individual, who is then objective in recounting this worth, positively. This is precisely what MacIntyre characterizes as the modern crisis: that under the influence of emotivism morality has become subjectified***.

***Jung Himself used this term, and yet MS Word doesn’t!!

What psychometric examinations do, therefore, is that they reverse roles. Humble people, knowing humility to be a virtue, admit to their vices, confessing to egoism which the “impartial judge” then uses against them, describing them as narcissists. The judge does this subtly; instead of saying, “you have a problem,” the conclusion is that “you are more narcissistic than the average person, simply because you believe yourself to be better than the average person.” Yet this “belief” emanated from one of two places: either the aforementioned humility, an excessive admission to sins which the doctor believed himself to have subtly disguised, or an honest evaluation of one’s own value to society. The narcissist can look like a saint, while the saint will confess to the sins of the narcissist. It’s up to the Doctor to determine whether the confession expresses an external fact or an internal delusion. The nature of the clinical mind game is in the arbitration of the therapist. In other words, I might ask you: “Are you humble?” If you answer “yes”, I might choose to take your word for it, OR I MIGHT NOT, arguing that the very fact you believe your humility to be sufficient evidences your inflated self-conception. Had you answered “no”, the power would still remain with me, UNLESS YOU HAD SUCCESSFULLY MANIPULATED ME.

For a class of specialists who appear to love good television, they certainly lack the subtlety of the shows’ writers.

Presuming that I CAN fill out an examination HONESTLY and OBJECTIVELY, my answers must at once serve two functions for the clinician:

1.             Those Truths which I am honest enough to reveal, though I am too stupid to fathom their significance, must remain apparent, and

2.             Those Truths which I am dishonest enough to conceal, owing to the same stupidity, must bubble up somehow in such a manner that exposes ME for the fraud I am.

Yet if I truly possess the Objectivity to answer these questions Truthfully, presuming I intend to do so Honestly, then how am I at fault for assessing my own self-worth? Why would you disbelieve me if I claimed that “most people praise me constantly”? Is that not the case for many exceptional people? Is that not an OBJECTIVE, SOCIAL danger of which they must be made aware, instead of simply an INTERNAL problem that THREATENS those same admirers they represent? Who are YOU, if not a gaslighter****, to invalidate my friends, fans, and family? If I stood on the precipice, ready to jump, would they not beg me to remain among the Living? Would YOU urge me to forget them THEN?!?

****This MUST be common usage, by this point.

Often, the paradox is intrinsic to the text itself. Here are but a few examples:

1.             “Modesty doesn’t become me.”

“I am essentially a modest person.”

[These stereotypes don’t become you, though you certainly become them.]

2.             “I am no better or worse than most¹ people.”

“I think I am a special person”.

3.             “I will be a success.”

“I am not too concerned about success.”

[Precluding the possibility that effortless action produces the surest results. See Taoism, Zen Buddhism.]

4.             “I just want to be reasonably happy.”

“I want to amount to something in the eyes of the world.”

[Ask the Ancient Greeks for the difference. Oh, wait. There is none.]

5.             “When people compliment me I sometimes get embarrassed.”

“I know that I am good because everybody keeps telling me so.”

[Presuming I can trust most people, isn’t the latter a GOOD thing? Perhaps I’m only “embarrassed” by the former because I am a cynical sociopath who frowns upon those who admire me, which is precisely how narcissism is defined.]

6.             “I am assertive.”

“I wish I were more assertive.”

[I have working muscles. I wish I were more muscular.]

7.             “I like to have authority over other people.”

“I don’t mind following orders.”

[Ever heard of “rank”? Or maybe just the egalitarian concept of eating what you dish out.]

The paradox is not in the contradiction but the LACK of contradiction. Since none of these pairings are mutually exclusive, the answers are arbitrary, and since they are arbitrary expressions of the emotivist self, the conscientious individual can decide just as ARBITRARILY how to answer. So can the narcissist.

¹ Here, the only contradiction lies in what Kierkegaard calls “Leveling”: the process by which egalitarian institutions inhibit Individuality. It’s most transparent in the expression “most people”, implying it to be “healthy” to be well-adjusted to a confessedly sick society, so long as one realizes that MOST people are one’s equals. Who, then, are the inferior FEW, and why do we presume that there are not also the few who are Superior, such as da Vinci and Einstein? Simply put: it’s a witch-hunt. We like to feel that the Greats speak for us, but we do not allow them to speak for themselves.

Since the whole matter is an exercise in emotivism instead of ethics, the results you get reflect only one thing: your mood.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

PSYCHMMXX:

Categories

1.     Agreeableness83.33%

2.     Conscientiousness80%

3.     Extraversion70%

4.     Neuroticism73.33%

5.     Openness93.33%

·         The Big 5 Personality Traits analyze the individual traits of your psyche across five different dimensions.  These dimensions are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

The above results provide you with a percentage of how you measure across these five unique personality traits.

In each one of the five dimensions there are also several sub-dimensions known as “facets”.  For example, the Extraversion dimension is composed of Friendliness, Gregariousness, Assertiveness, Activity Level, Excitement Seeking, and Cheerfulness.

Below is a brief description of each one of these dimensions:

Openness

This dimension is known as openness to experiences.  People at the high end of the scale enjoy questioning norms and conventions; they like to play with ideas and they have vivid imaginations.  In contrast, the relatively conventional people at the other end of the scale prefer the concrete to the abstract and the known to the unknown.

Icon:  Leonardo da Vinci (the Italian painter, draftsman, scientist, engineer, architect, sculptor, musician, mathematician, anatomist, astronomer, geologist, biologist, and philosopher.)

People that score high on openness are: Creative, imaginative, abstract, curious, deep thinkers, inventive, and value arts as well as aesthetic experiences.

People that score low on openness are: Conventional, concrete, traditional, preferring the known to the unknown.

Openness Facets

o    Imagination:  High scorers tend to engage in fantasy to create a more interesting world.

o    Artistic Interests:  High scorers appreciate beauty in art and nature and are involved and absorbed in aesthetics.

o    Emotionality: High scorers tend to have good access to, and awareness of, their feelings.

o    Adventurousness:  High scorers are eager to try new activities, travel to foreign lands, and have different experiences.

o    Intellect:  High scorers love to play with ideas; they are open-minded to new and unusual ideas, and they enjoy debating intellectual issues.

o    Psychological Liberalism:  High scorers are ready to challenge authority, convention, and traditional values.

You might find them:  Browsing the new age section of a bookstore.

What they might do:  Finding a new route to go to work.

Conscientiousness

People high on the trait of conscientiousness, plan ahead.  They like order.  Although a sense of duty is part of this construct, the dimension is not as dominated by conscience as the label of ‘conscientiousness’ might suggest.  Conscientious people tend to not become distracted, and they are not reckless.

Icon:  Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory – TV Show)

People that score high on conscientiousness are:  Thorough, dependable, reliable, hardworking, task-focused, efficient, good planners.

People that score low on conscientiousness are:  Disorganized, late, careless, impulsive.

Conscientiousness Facets

o    Self-Efficacy:  High scorers believe they have the intelligence, drive, and self-control necessary for achieving success.

o    Orderliness:  High scorers are well-organized people who like to live according to routines and schedules; they keep lists and make plans.

o    Dutifulness:  High scorers tend to have a strong sense of moral obligation.

o    Achievement-Striving:  High scorers strive hard to achieve excellence; they often have a strong sense of direction.

o    Self-Discipline:  High scorers have the ability to persist at difficult or unpleasant tasks until they are completed.  They are able to overcome reluctance to begin tasks and they stay on track despite distractions.

o    Cautiousness:  High scorers take their time when making decisions.

You might find them:  Buying a label maker at Office Depot.

What they might do:  Alphabetically organize their bookshelf.

Extraversion

Extroverted people are talkative, enthusiastic, cheerful, energetic, and gregarious.  Extraversion also includes some traits you might not expect to be associated with this dimension.  For example, although you might expect that extraverts would be higher than introverts on friendliness and gregariousness, most people would not expect assertiveness to be part of Extraversion (it is easy to imagine that assertiveness would instead be associated with low agreeableness or low neuroticism, but it’s not).

Icon:  Tony Robbins

People that score high on extraversion are:  Talkative, energetic, enthusiastic, assertive, outgoing, sociable.

People that score low on extraversion are:  Reserved, quiet, shy.

Extraversion Facets

o    Friendliness:  High scorers genuinely like other people and openly demonstrate positive feelings toward others; they make friends quickly and it’s easy for them to form close, intimate relationships.

o    Gregariousness:  High scorers find the company of others pleasantly stimulating and rewarding; they enjoy the excitement of crowds.

o    Assertiveness:  High scorers like to speak out, take charge, and direct the activities of others.

o    Activity Level:  High scorers lead fast-paced, busy lives; they move about quickly, energetically, and vigorously, and they are involved in many activities.

o    Excitement-Seeking:  High scorers are easily bored without high levels of stimulation.  They love bright lights and hustle and bustle and like to take risks and seek thrills.

o    Cheerfulness:  High scorers typically experience a range of positive feelings on a regular basis, including happiness, enthusiasm, optimism, and joy.

You might find them:  Giving a toast at a party.

What they might do:  Run out of space on their smartphones for new contacts.

Agreeableness

Agreeable people are generous, compassionate, warm, and kind.  Despite the name, agreeableness does not really refer to people who are pushovers.  It’s more about interpersonal warmth.  People low on this trait are frank in their opinions, and blunt, and not particularly concerned with protecting other’s feelings.

Icon:  Ellen Degeneres

People that score high on agreeableness are:  Helpful, selfless, sympathetic, kind, forgiving, trusting, considerate, cooperative.

People that score low on agreeableness are:  Fault finding, quarrelsome, critical, harsh, aloof, blunt.

Agreeableness Facets

o    Trust:  High scorers assume that most people are fair, honest, and have good intentions.

o    Morality:  High scorers see no need for pretense or manipulation when dealing with others; they are candid, frank, and sincere.

o    Altruism:  High scorers find that doing things for others is a form of self-fulfillment rather than self-sacrifice.

o    Cooperation:  High scorers dislike confrontations; to get along with others, they are willing to compromise or to deny their own needs.

o    Modesty:  High scorers do not like to claim that they are better than other people.

o    Sympathy:  High scorers are tenderhearted and compassionate.  They feel the pain of others vicariously and are easily moved to pity.

You might find them:  Saving the baby dolphins.

What they might do:  Consoling a stranger at the bus stop.

Neuroticism

The Big Five brand is far broader than our use of the term in everyday speech (i.e. a person who worries a lot).  Neuroticism refers to people who are easily stressed and find it hard to remain calm in tense situations, neurotic people get ruffled and anxious easily, worrying a lot and often ruminating about what lies ahead or what has just happened.  They are the opposite of someone who is laid-back and nonchalant.

Icon:  Woody Allen

People that score high on neuroticism are:  Anxious, easily ruffled or upset, worried, moody.

People that score low on neuroticism are:  Calm, relaxed, able to handle stress well, emotionally stable.

Neuroticism Facets

o    Anxiety:  High scorers often feel as if something dangerous were about to happen; they tend to feel tense, jittery, and nervous.

o    Anger:  High scorers are inclined to feel angry; they are sensitive about being treated fairly and feel resentful and bitter when they feel they are being cheated.

o    Depression:  High scorers tend to feel sad, dejected, and discouraged; they lack energy and have difficulty initiating activities.

o    Self-Consciousness:  High scorers are sensitive about what others think of them; they are easily embarrassed and often feel ashamed.

o    Immoderation:  High scorers have difficulty resisting strong cravings and urges and tend to be oriented toward short-term pleasures and rewards rather than long-term consequences.

o    Vulnerability:  High scorers experience panic, confusion, and helplessness when under pressure or stress.

You might find them:  Awake, tossing and turning in bed the night before a big event the next day.

What they might do:  Obsess over something “stupid” they said in front of other people.

THE SEEKER (OR EXPLORER)

The Seeker leaves the known to discover and explore the unknown. This inner-rugged individual braves loneliness and isolation to seek out new paths. Often oppositional, this iconoclastic archetype helps us discover our uniqueness, our perspectives and our callings. Seekers are looking for something that will improve their life in some way, but in doing so they may not realize that they have a lot already inside of themselves. They embrace learning and are ambitious, and often tend to avoid the encumbrance of support from others. Needing to “do it themselves,” they keep moving until they find their goal (and usually their true self too).

Shadow Side: The perfectionist. This will manifest itself in your life as the tendency to always strive to measure up to an impossible goal or to find the “right” solution. We see this shadow element in people whose main life activity is self-improvement: going from health club to health club, traveling the world, bouncing back and forth through self-improvement seminars and workshops, etc. If this sounds like you, you might wind up feeling as though you haven’t really accomplished anything through a lack of commitment.

Life Goal: Search for a better way (better life)
Fear: Conformity, entrapment
Response to Problem: Leave it, escape it, take off
Life Task: Be true to a Higher Self
Personal Gifts: Autonomy, ambition, identity, expanded possibilities
Personal Pitfalls: Inability to commit, chronic disappointment, alienation and loneliness

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

Why Good People Don’t Get Laid.

Why Good People Don’t Get Laid. (if They are Smart.)

One of the more disturbing discussions that I had with Joseph was, of course, upon the topic of Involuntary Celibacy. This is a mounting health concern which affects me personally as well as it affects me intellectually, and I have spent considerable time exploring it, both consciously and unconsciously, if only to atone for time which might otherwise have been spent practicing sex.

The contention made, by someone using an online forum, was that there is no such thing as a suicide by an involuntary celibate, since those who kill themselves for lack of consensual sex are murdered by society.

The counterargument, which infuriated me as much as I hope it will infuriate my readers, was expressed in the following ejaculation: How great it must be to be so ENTITLED that the World should literally OWE you happiness!!

Of course, my instinct was to scream at the respondent. Despite the terrifying conditions which involuntary celibates report, by no means short of social anomie, the condition remains a rare affliction, aggravated in its psychosocial impact by its very rarity. It would appear to be nothing short of savagery to accuse the ordinary person of willfully perpetuating it; ordinarily, I content myself in the thought that, were it better known, then it would abate, for the cure is so readily available that one might laugh until one cries. The sheer thought that a human life would be wasted for lack of intimacy would have appeared tragic to me at any age, in any age, even the most stringently religious and repressive one. One can only hope, for those in whom the erotic instinct is sublimated as self-murder, that they are truly not missed, as many of the conscientious ones expect. As it stands, however, a frequent jibe on the part of neoconservatives, directed at involuntary celibates, is that they initially imagine themselves to be attractive by the authority of their parents, who, after all, are seldom celibate and far more seldom virginal. The very fact that this relationship arises, presuming that the neocons retain at least SOME relevance, would seem to indicate that the death of the involuntary celibate, resultant from the nature of this depraving condition, is more tragic than simply the Death of One Man, which appears tragic by itself only insofar as men (in the generic sense, referring to people of either gender) value themselves as ends in themselves. Furthermore, if any of the pressure to procreate or die originates within the family of the sufferer, it does imply as well two salient points: one is that there is, in fact, a social objectivity to claims made by the parents on behalf of the sufferer’s redeeming and even distinguishing qualities, for those moments wherein the parents are relatively miserly with praise substantiate the conditional nature of the praise itself, though that might hardly satiate the deeper longing for unconditionality. The other point is that the parents themselves take part in what the primary writer referred to as “social murder”, implying that not only the society but the very privilege of procreation retains a hypocrisy which can prove clinically fatal. Yet, as I maintain, it would be far too barbaric to accuse any ordinary person of perpetuating the process consciously.

If I had, therefore, not to scream but to calmly instruct, hoping to suppress, with some futility, my passive aggression, I would respond thus: “I do not NEED to imagine being entitled to happiness. The World DOES owe me that, and you do It a disservice by suggesting a Life outside of this conviction.”

In doing so, I defend everyone.

Instead of putting my efforts towards the future, I should like to suspend Utopian goals in favour of social obligations as they are understood in the Present, informed by History.

The ethic of the contemporary age is an ethic of weakness, rightfully so, for its hidden strength is not only in power but in the capacity to use power in the service of the powerless. Neoconservatism, conversely, might be the perfect character foil for modern ethics, for it is an orchestrated (but nonetheless unrehearsed and poorly composed) attempt to sabotage modern morality and to restore society to the Old Ways.

The old ethic is, in summary, an ethic of strength, but more specifically it is an ethic BY the STRONG, FOR the Strong. Man emerged from the Jungle by the primal force of will, as dictated by a chaotic Nature. He formed societies as a playful expression of this same will (to) power, an enterprise made serious only to the extent of the leader’s anger, which had to be made the object of a fear; hence “seriousness” emerged out of the synthesis of the tyrant’s unrest and the subject’s terror. When a “person of authority” (literally: the “mask of creation”, in which case an “author” is tantamount to a policeman or the leader of a gang) impresses upon a subordinate the “seriousness of a matter”, (as it ought to be remembered, in the terms of Watts, the seriousness of an “illusion”, which in itself implies “playfulness”) he means for the recipient of this information to sympathize with the officer’s wishes; it follows logically, therefore, that the emotional content of the wish in question must at once include the fear (or desire) of the recipient and the desperation of the authority. What we describe, therefore, as “seriousness” is essentially a synthetic compound of phobia and neurosis, though the nature of the synthesis is such that it disguises the components; were the leader to TRULY appear “desperate”, or were it confessed that the subordinate were genuinely fearful, the matter would appear comical.

Anxious to control their populations, the tyrants of old joined forces and established various paradigms of seriousness, which were internalized by their subjects as ethical obligations. One of the functions of these systems was to eliminate weakness in the population, specifically by eliminating weak people. Jordan Peterson’s theory that the most “conscientious” and “hard-working” members of a society eliminated all the “slackers” long ago confesses to my own theory herein. While Peterson embarrasses himself as a Nietzschean by equating strength in “sharing labour” with moral clarity, (as opposed to sharing resources, just as he prefers “equal opportunity” piously and deontologically to “equal outcome”) he does illustrate the nature of tyranny in a society ruled by serious meritocrats. What Peterson omits, presuming upon the prejudices of his audience, (who must have a lot of willpower and nerve to even attend him,) is that it was not that being immoral made you weak; being weak made you immoral, and the nature of this was again obscured, referred to as the vice of “sloth” (laziness). The Old Morality was designed entirely to oppress and to suppress human weakness, and even at its most pious and religious it envisioned a God who was far more terrifying than any tyrant, to whom laziness was sin. In the West, Sensitivity only truly became a virtue in men (here, I refer specifically to males) in the nineteenth century, and it was promptly swallowed up by Nationalism. It took a century of atrocity and upheaval thereafter to teach Humanity a lesson about the consequences of rule by the use of unregulated force. If you encounter anyone nowadays who professes a nostalgia for the Old Morality, that person has probably at some point sympathized with Nazism, unconsciously or outspokenly.

Is it not most authoritarian, though, to imply that women ought to be FORCED to sleep with men to whom they are not otherwise attracted? Let it be made unequivocally clear that this was NEVER the proffered solution. What was called into question was not the means by which an involuntary celibate attempts to “ascend” to sexual activity, but rather his* right to do so.

*Here, I use the generic “he” again to refer to sufferers of both genders, though I confine gender to two.

Traditionally, virtue was defined, under numerous paradigms, as “that which is owed to a man”. In this case, “man” again functions as a root word to represent all human beings; if “Superman” must be made “Superperson” because the instance of the suffix “man” implies “man” to be the category, then a “woman”, by the same token, is a “man”, generically. More importantly, the passive term “is owed to” implies a debtor, yet who “owes” anything “to” the man of virtue? In this instance, “Society” is both the authority and the debtor; in the absence of a target of the man’s own arbitration, the debt is sublimated by the general public. The Old Society supervised the payment of debts by holding the weak accountable to the strong; the New Society not only supervises the payment of debts to the weak, but it in itself promises them, for it is the Society Itself which must ultimately pay. Social Welfare Programs epitomize this.

When the involuntary celibate contends that his brethren are “killed by Society”, he alludes to this New Morality. He contends that, whether by birth, good works, or faith alone, there are those among us who suffer a form of social exclusion which is intolerable to them, and they deserve better. His interlocutor then mocks him by prompting us to “imagine” a World wherein some principle of Justice recognized this entitlement. Yet an entitlement remains an external, objective factor. Even if only the entitled party recognizes its value, the very nature of moral language implies that some people are truly worthy. Ordinarily, one would look to people of authority to determine personal worth. Yet as the result of what Kierkegaard calls “leveling”, democratic societies increasingly and exceedingly, perhaps even excessively, have moved away from traditional models of authority in favour of egalitarian, individualistic ones. When I say “individualistic” herein, I do NOT refer to a social order which EMPOWERS the Individual as an end in and of himself, but rather I refer to a sort of mob rule which is motivated by the coagulation of self-interest. Furthermore, the work of Kohlberg indicates that MOST individuals never mature past conventional moral reasoning. The function of an egalitarian mob is to suppress Individuality and to fetishize various aesthetic trends in its wake; the function of the Judge, therefore, is not to impose the Law upon the People, but rather to adapt it TO them, effectively yielding to the mob at the expense of the Individual, both as an imminence and as a possibility. This condition accounts for the Absurd nature of the Kangaroo Court as it has been caricatured by Franz Kafka, etc. It also accounts for the deep-seated distrust that modern people have towards the Law, reflected in contempt for law enforcement. Left to his own devices, betrayed by the very System of which he is a Juror, and surrounded by self-seeking egomaniacs, the modern man finds no recourse but to judge his own worth. Hence the valuation of “entitlement” is internalized, and one always runs the risk of falling into “self-entitlement”, the overvaluation of one’s own social value.

Yet the most dangerous evil remains a collective one, and it rests in the abbreviation of “self-entitlement” as “entitlement”. This absurd reduction implies that ALL feelings of personal value, expressed as social debt, can amount to nothing more than personal pretensions and projections. In summary: you can deal with involuntary celibacy by retaining the internal conviction that you deserve better. What kills people is the felt sense of worthlessness, the tendency for self-pity, a response to social injustice, to become redirected as self-loathing, consenting to the suggestion that the injustice was the fault of the victim. That people should force themselves to love anyone or anything is not reasonable; that they should never blame the other for loving THEM is an absolute imperative. One can content one’s self with celibacy by knowing one’s self to be entitled; what is impermissible is to challenge this feeling of entitlement, for by so doing one upsets every attempt at moral order.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]