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UllrsIshtar -> RE: Respect (6/7/2013 10:44:54 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: JeffBC
I understand Nueva. I just don't think that person exists as a literal statement. That is not a functioning human being... not even minimally functioning. In my head I can only come to "vegetable" when I play that out.
So when this theoretical person breaths it's "for the master"?
When they <insert ANYTHING here> it is "for the master"?
I'm not buying it. That's a theoretical model not an actual human. How the heck did such a person even grow up enough to find or be handed a master? When that baby with no sense of self at all came out of the womb, why did it breath? What did it do next? Why was it's brain not operating as every single other brain in all of nature does and start acquiring data, forming strategies, etc.
I mean seriously, given the nature of Carol's and my relationship we think pretty much along those lines but we are nowhere even close to what Ishtar talks about.
I don't think it's theoretical at all, I just don't think it's absolute in the way you always think about absolutes.
My dog is an example of such a creature. It does what I want, when I want, how I want, because I want. It will not leave my side unless I order it to. When with me, it won't do anything without permission, and there is a whole hoist of things it's trained not to do without permission in my absences either.
That doesn't mean it's a vegetable. It doesn't mean that it's not longer a dog, or no longer thinks dog-thoughts. It doesn't mean that when I drop it off at the kennel, it can no longer autonomously get along with other dogs in a group or play setting. It doesn't meant that it's incapable of reacting to unexpected situations that come up in my absences.
It can do all those things. It's still a dog. But at the same time, it's completely under my control. I am the center of its existence. The choices it is mentally capable of making are there because of the way I have it trained. It's bound by those choices that I've made available to it whether I am there or not, because even if I'm absent it's trained to think of the world in a certain way.
If tomorrow I decide I want a different dog, I can retrain it completely, and end up with it having completely different patterns it follows than it does now.
I love that dog... deeply... and I appreciate it in all it's "dogness" who what it is, and for it's individual qualities. I may go so far to say that I "respect" its nature and the individual attributes unique to it, but respect really would be a poor choice of words in that context.
What I do not do is respect the dog for displaying exactly the behavior I've trained it to display. That behavior is on me, not on it.
I don't respect it for not barking at the mailman, despite it really wanting to do so. Nor would I respect it for barking at the mailman where I to let it have free reign and allow it to do so.
It may be capable, still, of behavior that is autonomous enough to display its mind as a free creature that the day may come that it does something that I'll respect if for. But right now, that sort of behavior is never displayed, so I have no grounds to start building respect for it on.
The same with a slave. I don't exclude the possibility that a slave may be capable of displaying behavior I may come to respect it for. But such an act I wouldn't consider an act of slavery, or slavish behavior. It would be the act of a free person.
If such acts never occur, I simple have no basis to respect a slave.
Somebody who behaves honestly out of self-motivation is somebody I may respect for instance. Somebody who behaves honestly because they fear being punished if they're caught lying, not so much.
With a slave, you wouldn't be able to tell which is what, especially when they have already shown you that there is part of their behavior that is not their own.
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